New Business Ideas 4 U

Archive for the ‘Book of the Month’ Category

CEO Material

DA Benton, McGraw-Hill,  2009

Debra Benton is a successful consultant and author, with a long list of top drawer clients. She has previously written best-selling books including Executive Charisma, and How to Act like a CEO.

This book is sub-titled ‘How to be a Leader in any Organization‘ but could almost be sub-titled ‘Debra’s Book of Lists,’ because each chapter contains lists of characteristics and is filled with exhortations of what you should do if you want to to be regarded as a potential CEO. In her Conclusion chapter she actually lists 365 things you should do – one for each day of the year – to get yourself regarded as potential CEO material.

The author follows the same approach in each chapter. First, she gives a short bulleted list of key elements in the chapter topic. This bulleted list generally contains three points, each of which becomes a section heading a little later on. A couple of these lists are slightly longer. Then she lists the behaviors that a budding CEO should exhibit to demonstrate competence in the topic area. The list for Chapter 1 Have a Good Track Record, for example identifies 20 such behaviors, though this is the longest list in the book. Read the rest of this entry »

The Socialized Mind – an Example

In the last posting I talked of the way children are socialized when  they are young. This also happens in business, with even more pernicious results. Let me share a story with you.

Many years ago, I was consulting to a large Asian conglomerate – name withheld to protect the guilty. One of the responsibility areas of my specific client contact was international recruitment. My client contact spent a lot of time – and company money – traveling the world talking to young nationals who were on the verge of graduating. His purpose was to entice these national graduates – from the best business schools in Europe and America – to return to their homeland and work for this company.

That is fair and fine.

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The second part of the book, The Confident Leader by Larina Kase comprises 10 chapters under the heading of How Confident Leaders Turn Problems into Dynamic Opportunities. Since it is likely that you have your fair share – or even more than your fair share – of problems, being able to turn a (significant) portion of them into opportunities seems a great thing to be able to do.

Let’s look at the first couple.

Focus on what’s Important

The first step in getting focused is to find what Kase calls your “Big It”, or what’s most important. This may seem obvious, but it’s not always apparent. An important – and seemingly silly – question is for whom is it important. Kase introduces the idea of the “Inner Committee’, which probably comprises all the people who have ever had an influence on your life. She asks: Do you want to do it, or is someone inside your head saying you ought to do it.

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The Confident Leader

How the most Successful People go from Effective to Exceptional

Larina Kase, McGraw Hill, 2009

Larina Kase has already co-authored a business best-seller called The Confident Speaker, (with Harrison Monarch, in 2007), which I must confess I haven’t read.

This book is very practical, In fact it has very little theory in it, and is based on her experiences as a psychologist and a business coach. Thus it is not like some other books on leadership which are heavily based on research studies – and which, because of this, can sometimes be heavy reading.

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