Podcast

Al Dunlap didn’t just cut costs — he cut everything. When he took over Sunbeam in 1996, he slashed 6,000 jobs, closed factories, and sent the stock soaring. Wall Street loved him. But behind the numbers was a fraud: cooked books, phantom sales, and a company quietly dying. By 1998, he was fired, banned by the SEC, and Sunbeam was bankrupt. Was he a turnaround genius or a corporate psychopath? My friend Gordon Graham joins me to find out.

[Read more…] about Would You Work for Chainsaw Al Dunlap?

Kyle Hegarty is a gifted, story-driven writer, best known for his first book, The Accidental Business Nomad. His newest book, Sales Punks, tackles the sales recession facing B2B teams and offers remedies for an outdated playbook. Kyle breaks down the difference between the seller’s journey and the buyer’s journey—and why that mindset shift is critical. You don’t need to work in sales to enjoy this one. Plus, Mark shares his seven all-time favorite sales books.

[Read more…] about Sales Punks Who Bash Outdated Playbooks

One of the best business books I’ve read in the past five years is Railroader by Howard Green, and it’s easily in my Top 100 business reads of all time. Howard’s newest book is about another CEO who spent 43 years at Scotiabank, known as Canada’s most international financial institution. The CEO is Rick Waugh, and it is a perfect, very readable case study of leadership during a crisis and extreme economic challenges.

[Read more…] about Gimme a Crisis With Howard Green

James Beard Award-winning restaurateur Kevin Boehm has opened 40 restaurants in his 30-year career, collaborating with top chefs while earning Michelin stars. His Boka Group is now one of the world’s most successful restaurant companies. Boehm’s journey has been complex, shaped by a turbulent family life and a shocking revelation about his father that drove him in the restaurant industry. There, he discovered the magic of hospitality and the thrill of a chaotic dining room.

[Read more…] about The Bottomless Cup With Kevin Boehm

Hand me a book by a creative thinker with hands-on experience helping business leaders and organizations of varying sizes get unstuck, full of mental models and thought-provoking frameworks that can be mastered in no time, and I’m hooked. That was the case with George Pesansky’s new book, Superperformance, which helps individuals and organizations achieve their full potential. George is one of those authors who is interesting, compelling, and articulate, and that’s deeply rooted in a unique origin story.

[Read more…] about Superperformance with George Pesansky

Have you ever wanted to give a gift to someone in the office but had no idea what to buy? Last year, I found myself in that quandary until I discovered Bull Market Gifts, where I found several vintage annual reports. Their collection of New York Stock Exchange memorabilia is stunning, and I was intrigued by how this business was launched, what its best sellers are, and some of the stories behind the products they carry.

[Read more…] about A Deep Dive Into Stock Exchange Memorabilia

When I began studying the root causes of business failure early in my career, I believed that faulty cognitive limitations were the primary drivers of poor decisions, ultimately leading to business failure. Taras Wayner is the producer and host of a new podcast called A Case Study in Corporate Fear, where he addresses one of the central emotions in the affective mindset: fear. During this conversation, we learn how fear impacted decisions at Yahoo!, Atari, and Jaguar.

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I’m calling Ken Iverson the Alan Mulally of CEOs in the 1980s and 1990s. “Plain Talk” by Ken Iverson is one of my favorite business books, despite its lack of self-congratulation and the absence of so-called transformational management concepts. Instead, this is a book about how people were treated, the idea of decentralization, bonus structures, and using instincts to make business decisions. In this conversation, find out why we rate this a five-star book.

[Read more…] about Revisiting a Good to Great CEO: Nucor’s Ken Iverson

Name a work of fiction that centers around a stock picker. Alternatively, provide three fictional titles related to personal finance.. If you can’t, this episode offers a synopsis of five works of fiction that revolve around personal finance and investing. One of the titles is new. Three have been written in the past twenty years, and one is a classic you might want on your bookshelf. This promises to be a show where such lists don’t exist.

[Read more…] about A Short Booklist of Personal Finance Fiction

Many in the magazine industry will tell you that print is not dead. Try telling that to the writers who used to produce those beautiful glossy annual reports that are now published in the form of PDF documents. Robert Roth is making his first-ever appearance on a podcast to discuss how a report writer secures gigs, the time commitment required, and other fascinating insights into the behind-the-scenes process of conceptualizing and creating annual reports.

[Read more…] about The Making of Glossy Annual Reports