Podcast

I became enamored with the retail industry early in my financial career. While serving in a controllership position, I first heard T. Scott Gross speak on his views and methods of delivering positively outrageous customer service. I was hooked forever on his message. Move over Scott, I now have a favorite book that goes far beyond service–Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. Will’s message is not just for restauranteurs, it’s for all of us.

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The one topic in business that I could talk for hours about is financial transparency for any organization of any size. And that’s because there are so many layers and potential outcomes when such transparency is valued by the owners or directors in the organization. I’ve been teaching the principles of financial transparency for years, and one CEO has become my favorite for the embodiment of everything this concept represents. But what is it?

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I’ve read numerous books on financial fraud and business failure over the years. Oddly, such books can serve as great primers on the recipe for ‘legitimate’ business success. However, I’m not sure I’ve ever read a story where the owners were as brazen in their financial improprieties as the family members and managers of the consumer electronics store chain, Crazy Eddie. No, Retail Gangster by Gary Weiss is not dark comedy or satire, but it seemed like it.

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“The emergence of interest to incentivize lending is the most significant of all innovations in the history of finance,” according to the financial historian William Goetzmann. Edward Chancellor is also a financial historian who included that quote in his captivating book, The Price of Time. Chancellor reveals the origin story of interest, how rates were set in different civilizations, and the negative consequences of ultra-low interest rates for extended periods of time.

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Sophie Theen is the author of The Soul of Startups. Sophie reveals the misconception that a company’s people make its culture. Instead, that culture starts at the top and works its way down into other teams which is consistently changing. That can lead to unplanned and unforeseen consequences for the staff working in these startups. In the chaotic world of startups, we learn how founders can overcome the lack of emotional maturity in building teams.

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Why did the statistician who couldn’t swim drown as he attempted to cross the river? He had been told that the average depth of the river was just three feet. Yet, he perished. That’s because the middle part of the river was nine feet deep. Dr. Sam Savage reminds us of that humorous story in his books and online tutorials. Nevertheless, many of us still succumb to the flaw of averages in our personal and professional lives. Sam teaches us a new skill — the arithmetic of uncertainty.

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Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson could possibly be the simplest book I’ve read on the simplification of four basic personality types that we can all understand. Thomas is an expert in the DISC profile systems, but he’s converted the assessment results into a digestible four-color system along a two-by-two matrix. In this conversation, we will gain an understanding of the purpose of such assessments. We also learn what can cause decision inertia in any senior leadership team.

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When I think of books geared toward professional services firms, only one author comes to mind. His name is David Maister and some of his titles include Managing the Professional Services Firm, The Trusted Advisor, and Strategy and the Fat Smoker (my favorite). The newest title in this genre is now my favorite, and it’s entitled The Boutique: How to Start, Scale, and Sell a Professional Services Firm by Greg Alexander.

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If you think the fall of BlackBerry could have been prevented because it failed to act quickly on new technologies and fend off Apple’s, iPhone, it’s time to turn back the clock and look closer at its fast rise to $20 billion in annual revenues along with the issues the two brilliant founders of RIM faced as its business model started showing cracks in its foundation. The best place to start is the book, Losing The Signal.

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When I read a biography of someone I have not heard of, I want the words to jump out and grab me with the impact they had on others and the world they lived in. I want to learn from them and I especially want to be inspired. Harry Guggenheim is a larger-than-life historical figure who checks all of those boxes, and he’s far more than the godfather of flight, a publisher accolade given to this extraordinary visionary.

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