Author Archives: Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons

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BUSINESS BRILLIANT

SEVEN PRINCIPLES TO SHINE WITH BRILLIANCE

Personal finance guru Suze Orman advises millions of her fans on the importance of rigorous saving as the path to great wealth. The problem, according to Lewis Schiff, author of Business Brilliant, is that Orman didn’t become very wealthy by saving more; she became wealthy by making more. (For example, Schiff describes how Orman dipped into her retirement fund to buy a $7,500 Cartier watch.) Schiff insists that saving your way to wealth is a myth — one of many myths about becoming wealthy that he targets in his book. Schiff, author of two previous books on wealth creation, developed the seven principles in Business Brilliant from two national in-depth surveys he commissioned that looked at the habits and attitudes of two groups: middle-class respondents and self-made millionaires who rose from the ranks of the middle class — in other words, those who got very rich, and those who didn’t.

While there was an overlap in some of the responses, it is in those responses that didn’t overlap between the two groups that revealed the differences between those who aspire to be wealthy and those who actually achieve great wealth. In many cases, middle-class respondents were mistaken about the best path to financial success. On the issue of saving, for example, Schiff found that self-made millionaires placed more emphasis on income than on saving. Thus, one of Schiff’s principles for creating wealth is to save less and earn more.

Follow the Money

Another mistaken notion of those who haven’t become rich is the oft-repeated notion that “if you do what you love, the money will follow.” The self-made millionaires in Schiff’s surveys disagree. Yes, it’s important to do what you love; but it’s equally important to follow the money rather than waiting for the money to magically flow in. For example, Guy Laliberté, the visionary founder of Cirque du Soleil, never forgot that access to funding was the key to achieving his vision. Laliberté is quoted as saying, “I always said that if Cirque makes it big, it will be because it succeeds at marrying art and business.”

The remaining principles for creating great wealth are:

  • Imitate. Don’t Innovate. The true inventors aren’t the ones who make the big fortunes on their “big idea.” Just ask Gary Kildall, who invented the first operating software for personal computers.
  • Know-How Is Good. Know-Who Is Better. There’s a reason why the word entrepreneur is based on the French words, “between” and “to take.” Wealth comes from becoming the link between the right people.
  • Win-Win Is a Loser. For many of the wealthy, Win-Win is more Wimp-Win, with the win-win aficionado being the wimp.
  • Spread the Work, Spread the Wealth. Let others do the tasks they do better.
  • Nothing Succeeds Like Failure. Setbacks teach people what they do well.

Take the LEAP

In the last chapter of the book, Schiff addresses the question of whether successful entrepreneurship and wealth creation can be learned. This is a topic on which he has worked extensively, based on his research, and from which he developed four core action steps that those aspiring to be wealthy must take: Learning, Earning, Assistance and Persistence (LEAP).

The first step, learning, is to identify what you do best and focus on opportunities based on what you do best. The second step, earning, means that self-made millionaires “take on projects and make deals that maximize the dollar potential of those opportunities while limiting their downside risks.” Assistance is cultivating the right network of friends, associates and partners. Persistence involves learning from mistakes and trying again. But for Schiff, it also means never to procrastinate and making your own luck.

In the seven chapters that cover the seven principles, Schiff offers compelling evidence of why much of the common wisdom on creating wealth is mistaken. For these thoughts alone, the book is worth reading. In the final chapter of this insightful and inspiring book, Schiff helps his readers take their mindset on wealth and begin the journey toward their own goals.

How to Build a Culture for Market Dominance

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The Sony Walkman was a great innovation, and it allowed Sony to dominate the portable music market for several years. But then along came the Apple iPod. Apple quickly took over the market from Sony even though Sony had developed an MP3 player before Apple. What happened?

Gerard Tellis, author of Unrelenting Innovation, says that Sony’s innovation was stifled by what he calls the “incumbent’s curse.” The three traits of an incumbent that can slow down innovation are:

  1. Fear to cannibalize current products.
  2. An aversion to risk.
  3. A focus on the present.

Sony was concerned about their music royalties so their MP3 player included anti-piracy software that stifled its adoption by consumers, and Apple took over the market. Tellis believes that unrelenting innovation requires that a company must work at overcoming this incumbent’s curse by reversing the traits:

  1. Be prepared to cannibalize current products.
  2. Embrace risk.
  3. Focus on the future.

Tellis developed a list of practices by which any company can become unrelentingly innovative and continue to dominate their respective markets. If you would like to hear about these practices, join us on May 29th for our Soundview Live webinar with Gerard Tellis called How to Build a Culture for Market Dominance.

Invite your colleagues and fill a conference room for just $49 for this exciting opportunity. And if you subscribe to our Online Edition of Soundview Executive Book Summaries, all webinars are free – $99 for our book summaries plus weekly webinars – not a bad deal.

Three New Summaries to Advance Your Career

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The desire for continuous self-improvement is part of every executive’s professional DNA. The amount of time you spend shaping and improving your organization should never completely eclipse your efforts to improve yourself. Soundview is now featuring three new Soundview Executive Book Summaries that will help you improve three critical parts of your development: communication, change and boundary breakthroughs.

by Shari Harley

by Shari Harley

How to Say Anything to Anyone by Shari Harley: In How to Say Anything to Anyone, you’ll learn how to ask for what you want at work, improve all types of working relationships, reduce the gossip and drama in your office, tell people when you’re frustrated in a way that resonates, take action on your ideas and feelings, and get honest feedback on your performance. Author Shari Harley shares real-life stories of people who have struggled to get what they want at work. With her clear and specific roadmap in hand, Harley enables you to create the career and business relationships you really want.

 

by John C. Norcross, Ph.D.

by John C. Norcross, Ph.D.

Changeology by John C. Norcross, Ph.D.: Change is hard. But not if you know the 5-step formula that works whether you’re trying to stop smoking or start recycling. Dr. John C. Norcross, an internationally recognized expert, has studied how people make transformative, permanent changes in their lives. Now his cutting-edge, scientific approach to personal improvement is being made available in this indispensable guide. Unlike 95 percent of self-help books, the Changeology plan has a documented track record of success. In his book, Dr. Norcross gives you the tools you need to change what you want within a mere 90 days.

 

by Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason

by Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason

Boundary Spanning Leadership by Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason. We live in a world of vast collaborative potential. Yet all too often, powerful boundaries create barriers that can splinter groups. And this can lead to uninspiring results. To transform borders into frontiers in today’s global, multi-stakeholder organizations, you need Boundary Spanning Leadership. Powered by a decade of global research and practice by the top-ranked Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), this book takes you from rural towns in the United States to Hong Kong’s skyline and from a modernizing South Africa to the bustling streets of India, showing you how to build bridges across boundaries.

All three summaries are now available for download in multiple digital formats.

Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

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LEAN IN

A CLOSER LOOK AT A CONTROVERSIAL MUST-READ

In her controversial best-seller Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Facebook Chief Operations Officer Sheryl Sandberg suggests that many women react to the substantial challenges they face on their career paths by choosing to be self-limiting. When faced with pivotal turning points that could affect their ability to achieve the highest levels of leadership, a large percentage of women step back rather than take Sandberg’s suggestion to lean in.

Sandberg’s decision to focus on women’s internal struggles has drawn criticism that she does little to offer solutions for the institutional problems that present the most apparent barriers to the goal of creating more female leaders. A closer look at Lean In reveals that Sandberg is fully aware of the barriers women continue to face on the path to power. She simply prefers to attack them by helping women achieve leadership positions. This would enable women to have a more substantial stake in the decision-making processes that shape (and will ultimately smash) the current obstructions.

The Personal and the Professional

The self-help process provided by Lean In is contained in a series of chapters that interweave advice for a better career with relevant research and personal anecdotes from the author. Sandberg’s stories are likely the material that is doing the most to fuel the book’s fire as a topic of conversation.

Some tales, such as the story about Sandberg asking a private equity fund’s senior partner for directions to the women’s restroom, combine a pinch of humor with a strong dose of reality about the state of gender equality in the 21st century. Other incidents, such as Sandberg’s discovery that her daughter had lice while the pair were guests on the private plane owned by eBay, unintentionally provide more talking points about the growing concern over economic inequality in the United States.

Solid Advice for Everyone

Despite the protests, many of the core messages in Lean In have genuine merit for workers of both genders. She recommends that people have a short-term plan for career and personal advancement (Sandberg prefers an 18-month plan). She also addresses the importance of stretching one’s abilities by taking assignments that, while not directly labeled as a promotion, offer better opportunities to expand one’s skills.

Sandberg also deftly provides guidance from expert sources. One of the book’s best takeaways for readers is the advice Sandberg received from current Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. While Sandberg debated the merits of working for the nascent tech giant, Schmidt pointedly told her that the only deciding factor for choosing where to work is whether or not the company would rapidly expand. “When companies grow quickly,” Sandberg writes, “there are more things to do than there are people to do them.” Schmidt summarized the philosophy by saying, “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. You just get on.”

The problem, in Sandberg’s opinion, is that too many women either choose to get off the rocket just as its countdown nears launch or, worse yet, never get on at all. She spends a good portion of the book attempting to resolve the tug-of-war between career and family that she feels stops many future female leaders in their tracks. While her opinions in this area are left for readers to debate, there is enough good content in Lean In to make it a worthwhile read for men and women alike.

Balance and Innovation

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We have another two-webinar week coming to Soundview. Next week we will be hosting James Cusumano, author of Balance, and Stephen Shapiro, author of Best Practices Are Stupid. While these two topics are not related to one another, they are both important to every executive.

Balance: The Business-Life Connection by James Cusumano

In this Soundview Live webinar, Balance: Eight Steps for Success in Any Business, James Cusumano will provide a proven template for creating a successful business, and simultaneously, long-term balance and fulfillment in your personal life. Drawing from his just-released book Balance: The Business-Life Connection, the author brings three decades of diverse experience in technology and entertainment, which include Rock Star, Corporate Executive, Entrepreneur, Filmmaker, and Holistic Hotelier. He will show how to identify and unleash the power of life purpose and passion leading to long-term personal and professional fulfillment.

Best Practices Are Stupid by Stephen Shapiro

In This Soundview Live webinar, Why Best Practices Are Stupid, Stephen Shapiro will offer forty counterintuitive yet proven strategies for boosting innovation and making it a repeatable, sustainable, and profitable process at the heart of your company’s culture. Shapiro will show that nonstop innovation is attainable and vital to building a high-performing team, improving the bottom line, and staying ahead of the pack.

You’re invited to attend one or both of these important events. Each webinar will be entertaining in its own way, as Cusumano explains his unusual career path and Shapiro debunks business’s sacred best practices.

If you’re not a current Soundview subscriber, now is the time to join. Both events are free for subscribers, and it only takes three events to cover the full cost of a subscription. Check out the options and join us.