Maybe the name John Boyd does not ring a bell, but perhaps the OODA Loop will, the mental model created by one of the most gifted military strategists since Sun Tzu. I was so mesmerized by Robert Coram’s biography on John Boyd, I reached out to the author to talk about his book, a project that took him more than three years to write.
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Dave Kellogg on SaaS Metrics
Dave Kellogg is the former CEO of Host Analytics now called Planful. Dave is a brilliant writer on his blog called Kellblog and he’s outstanding behind a mic too. Since leaving his CEO post, Dave has been consulting SaaS-based businesses in Silicon Valley, and we hit on many of the topics that are near and dear to him.
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Strategy for Real Estate Companies
Strategic planning and real estate companies are not word pairings we are used to hearing. Charlie Hewlett is changing that mindset. He is the managing director at RCLCO, a company based in the Washington, D.C., metro area. He co-authored Strategy for Real Estate Companies. Our topics include the definition of a real estate company, a short definition of strategic planning, what strategic planning is not, SWOT, POVs, plan lengths, and who should work on the strategy process.
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A Wonderful Career in Crime
How did Charles Cowlam resort to a lifelong career in crime during the Gilded Age? During this fascinating interview, the author of A Wonderful Career Crime stumbles upon several nuggets of U.S. history that would otherwise remain undetected by well-known historians. Frank Garmon shares his favorite stories of Cowlam’s life as a fraudster, bigamist, and swindler. He takes us to the origin of how this micro-history came to be in book form.
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Paul Downs Doesn’t Need to be a Superstar CEO
Periodically, I stumble across a book where I don’t want it to end. I found Boss Life by Paul Downs so absorbing, so real, and so transparent that I felt compelled to reach out to him for an interview. Not only did he agree to do so, but he also said, “Let’s take all the time you need to answer these questions.”
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Former CFO Aaron Beam Revisits the HealthSouth Accounting Fraud
If you were asked to cook the books, would you? You may think, “Of course not.” Yet, why do CFOs do it? Aaron Beam was a co-founder of HealthSouth and their first CFO when his boss, Richard Scrushy, told him to fix the numbers so that the share price would not drop. Aaron faced an ethical dilemma.
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OKRs with Ben Lamorte
OKRs is the abbreviation for Objectives and Key Results. If you know nothing about OKRs and want to learn more, I can easily point you to one person – Ben Lamorte, a business author and the President of OKRs.com. I could listen to Ben all day, but at least we got to hear him for about an hour on implementing OKRs in your business.
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Liz Wiseman and Rookie Smarts
You may know her as the best-selling author of Multipliers. She’s also written a book that’s become one of CFO Bookshelf’s favorites on the mindset of an A-player. The title is Rookie Smarts, a book I believe is underrated. Liz joined our show to discuss the difference between rookies and veterans in the workplace.
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Amy Bruske Discusses Conative Instincts and Family Business
A year before I started the CFO Bookshelf Podcast, I wanted Amy Bruske to be one of the first 10 people that I interviewed, and I’m very thankful that she accepted the invitation. Amy is the President of Kolbe Corp. and the co-author of Business is Business.
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Is There a Thief in Your Company?
My second-favorite accountant in the movies is Oscar Wallace in The Untouchables. While Tiffany Couch probably hasn’t ever had to deal with someone like Al Capone, she has something in common with Oscar – they both use the science of numbers accounting to detect fraudulent schemes. Tiffany is a long-time forensic account and the author of, The Thief In Your Company. Tiffany teaches us that thieves are not the only ones who rationalize. So do their victims.
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