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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
The quote from The Influentials:
“People are probably the most useful medium to Influentials. No
other source comes close to a telephone conversation or an in-
person, face to face interaction when it comes to communication.
Only a handful of sources are as good as or better than an in-person
setting for buying things, getting news, and information, or learning
something.”1

The message:

My action by when?

The Quote from Good to Great:

The Stockdale Paradox


“Retain faith that you will AND at the Confront the most brutal
prevail in the end, same time facts of your current
regardless of the reality, whatever they
difficulties might be”2

The message:

My action by when?

1
The Influentials, Ed Keller and Jon Berry, New York: The Free Press, 2003, p. 142.
2
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Other’s Don’t, James Collins, Harper
Collins Publishers, 2001, p.86.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
The quote from The Attention Economy:

“Factors Considered in Explaining Attention-Getting Messages


The message source was…
1. Trustworthy or respected.
2. influential or powerful (i.e., socially or politically or both).
3. charismatic or appealing.

The message context was…


4. personalized (i.e., directed to and about me.)
5. about a group I belong to or have interest in.
6. related to a question or an issue I was concerned about.

The message’s content was…


7. concise, direct, or story-like in structure.
8. engaging to me senses (i.e., eye, ear, touch).
9. new, unusual, or unique.

The recipient was…


10. emotional moved by the message (e.g., angry pleased).
11. able to consider the message’s implications or consequences.
12. convinced the message was important to my work or life.”3

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from NOW, Discover your strengths:

“Three Revolutionary Tools


1. The first revolutionary tool understands how to
distinguish your natural talents from things you can
learn.
2. The second revolutionary tool is a system to identify
your dominant talents.

3
The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business, Thomas H. Davenport and
John C. Beck, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 2001, p.185.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
3. The third revolutionary tool is a common language to
describe your talents.”4

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from It’s Not Business, It’s Personal:

“The relationships that you form outside of your current organization may turn
out to be the most important to ultimate success.”5

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from the Free Agent Nation:

“THE WORD: Lego careers. Instead of climbing a prefabricated ladder, rung by


rung, in a predetermined order, careers will have much greater variety. People will
assemble and reassemble them much as kids play with Legos. The pieces will be
contacts, skills, desires, and available opportunity—and people will build impermanent
structures with infinite, idiosyncratic variations.”6

4
NOW, Discover your strengths, Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton, The Free Press, New York,
2001, p. 28-32.
5
It’s Not Business It’s Personal: The 9 Relationship Principles That Power Your Career, Rona
Lichtenberg, Hyperion, New York, 2001, p. 29.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
The message:

My action by when?

The quote from The Art of Possibility:

“…is inventing oneself as a contribution and others as well. The steps to the practice
are these:
1. Declare yourself to be a contribution.
2. Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that
you may not understand how or why.”7

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from The Agenda:

“Make It Easy for Your Customers to Do Business with You


 Present a single face to your customers.
 Work in different ways for different classes of customers.
 Know what your customers will ask for before they do.
 Make your customer’s experience a seamless one.
 Let customers do more for themselves.

6
FREE AGENT NATION: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We
Live, Warner Books, New York, 2001, p. 312.
7
The Art of Possibility, Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, Harvard Business School Press,
Boston, 2000, p. 59.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
 Measure the things that customers really care about.”8

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from Whale Done!

 “ Build trust.

 Accentuate the positive.

 When mistakes occur, redirect the energy.”9

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from The War for Talent:

“A Winning EVP [employee value proposition] Beats the Competition

A company’s EVP is a holistic blend of many things—all the things, in


fact that make up the company. Each company’s EVP is different—as
distinctive as a fingerprint. Although some companies may try to
have a winning EVP on every dimension, few will achieve that. A

8
The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade, Michael Hammer, Crown
Business, New York, 2001, p. 35.
9
Whale Done! The Power of Positive Relationships, Ken Blanchard and others, The Free Press, New
York, 2002, p. 19.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
winning EVP will have some towering strengths and a few
weaknesses as well.”10

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from Getting Things Done:

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking
your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the
first one.” (Mark Twain)11

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from Whoosh:


“Creation Companies
…This is my term for companies that have the following
characteristics:
1. A leadership style that emphasizes freedom, not control.
2. An understanding that success means creating the new, not
replicating the old.
3. A work style that values individual expression and
collaborative work, rather than a work style that values
group conformity and individual work.

10
The War for Talent, Ed Michaels and others, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 2001, p. 61.
11
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, David Allen, Penguin Books, New York,
2001, p. 239.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
… Compliance Companies have traditional command-and-control
leadership styles, judge success by their ability to repeat past
successes, perhaps in different markets, and have the traditional
conformist corporate culture and individual performance values.”12

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from The Experience Economy:

“You really are what you charge for. So let’s be very clear about this as it applies to
each echelon of customer value:
 If you charge for stuff, then you are in the commodity business.
 If you charge for tangible things, then you are in the goods business.
 If you charge for the activities you execute, then you are in the service
business.
 If you charge for the time customers spend with you, then you are in the
experience business.
 If you charge for the demonstrated outcome the customer achieves, then
and only then are you in the transformation business.”13

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from Leading Up:

“Lesson in Leading Up
12
Whoosh: Business in the Fast Lane—Unleashing the Power of a Creation Company, Tom McGhee,
Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, 2001, p. 15-16.
13
The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage, B. Joseph Pine II and James H.
Gilmore, Harvard Business School, Boston, 1999, p. 194.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
A bias for action is what your superior wants. Show initiative, and
you’ll lay the foundation for confidence and support from above;
without it, your boss will soon search for others who are more willing
to take charge.”14

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from Whistle While You Work:

“…we limit ourselves by doing what we think we should do. But by


doing what we love to do, we expand our potential and increase the
likelihood that the work we do will be consistent with our gifts. We
maximize our chances for whistling while we work.”15

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from Crucial Conversations:

“The ONE THING


If you’ve seen the movie City Slickers, you may remember a scene where
the crusty character Curly explains that if you want to succeed in life
you have to do one thing. Then, in typical Hollywood fashion, he

14
LEADING UP: How to Lead Your Boss so you both win, Michael Useem, Crown Business, New
York, 2001, p. 31.
15
Whistle while you work: heeding your life’s calling, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, 2001, p. 22.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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01/29/2009

Read to Success:
Business Books to help you be famous for more than 15 minutes.
explains that he’s not about to tell you what that one thing is. You
have to figure it out yourself.
We won’t pull a Curly. We’ll reveal the one thing. When it comes to
risky, controversial, and emotional conversations, skilled people find a
way to get all relevant information (from themselves and others) out in
the open.”16

The message:

My action by when?

The quote from Bowling Alone:

“The key question to ask about generational differences is not how


old are people now, but when were they young.”17

The message:

My action by when?

16
Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high, Kerry Patterson and others, McGraw-
Hill, New York, 2002, p. 20.
17
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert D. Putnam, Simon &
Schuster, New York, 2000, p. 251.
Copy write Caldwell Consulting, FLP 2009. All rights reserved. 214-641-4084,
doug@dougcaldwell.net
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