The Trusted Leader. Galford & Drapeau. 2002. ISBN 0743235398. Galford was a co-author with David Maister on The Trusted Advisor. This is a good book for CEOs and division leaders charged with change management. They look at three types of trust, strategic, organizational and personal trust. If your company is facing trust destroyers such as crises, restructuring, mergers, downturns, and executive departures, then the research and case studies in this book will be helpful. Not an easy read, it skirts being too dense at times. Get it from the library if you already have the Maister book, else its also in the bargain bin these days.

Inside Intuit. Suzanne Taylor, Kathy Schroeder. 2003. ISBN 1591391369. How nice to read a business book in our industry written by marketing types. who can write! This follows Intuit from Day One until late last year. I bought it because of the dramatic effect the present CEO Steven Bennet has had by instituting Six Sigma- Process Excellence in the company. The other7/8ths of the book is a delightful bonus. From early successes to picking the wrong channel, working six months with no one getting any salary, to those breakthrough deals to two big winning fights with Microsoft as well the DOJ, this is a definite , buy read and reread book. Its good for entrepreneurs, COOS and CEOs. Amazon has it.

The Great Game of Business. Jack Stack. 1992. ISBN 038547525X. The Power of Open Book Management. Their is something for all of us in the high tech field to learn from this book about taking a bankrupt heavy engine rebuilder from 10 cents to a $20 stock price and revenues from $16m to $83m , while setting the bar as to being competitive. If he can get all his employees to understand his profit and loss statements every week, so can we. A compelling argument for how to improve workers productivity by letting them see the Big Picture. This is no piece of cake as Stack lays out how to get to the metrics you need to make this work. You have to like the results though. One for your library shelf as it bears rereading.

Bang! Linda Thaler & Robin Koval. 2003. ISBN 0385508166. Subhead; Getting your message heard in a noisy world. These two gals really get this mass marketing stuff. Their firm KTG is responsible for the AFLACK duck, the “Kodak moment”, the Herbal Essenses orgasm ads and many others which grabbed attention without breaking the bank. What is most interesting is their descriptions on how much more work it is to get the idea out there, with specific examples of how their company and teams operate. If you are in marketing, this is a personal bookshelf book. Also an very easy read, hey they are in marketing!

Making Rain. Andrew Sobel. 2003. ISBN 0471264598. The author of Clients for Life has created the penultimate service business owners guide. Practical, innovative and pragmatic in an easy to read format, Sobel has raised the bar for client realtionship management. This is part of your business bookshelf. Take Maister’s views on creating trust, add value -creation, and go the extra mile and you have this book. Very enjoyable.

Guts! Kevin and Jackie Freiberg. 2004. ISBN 0385509618. These two wrote Nuts! the story of Southwest Airlines. This extends their work in looking at”Companies that blow the doors off business-as-usual.” “It reveals the secrets behind 15 companies known for unorthodox leadership, a blatant disregard for conventional wisdom – and record profits.” They interview the CEOs who make this happen plus the supporting staff, so the observations and conclusions are validated. Companies such as SAS, Medtronic, Fredic’s, Planet Honda, Quad/Graphics, Southwest Airlines, Stanlet Steemer, Synovus, AFLAC, USAA, Bon Marche’ all open their kimonas on how they really look after their employees which results in high margins and great strong ethical businesses. Probably one of the better useful books on leadership today. www.freibergs.com check out cool tools! Get the book from the library, buy it if you believe it, bookmark the site.

Cross Selling Success. Ford Harding.2002. ISBN 9781580627054. One of the hardest sales in a service business is to sell clients on related or alternative services that are different from what you were originally retained for. I have read many tracts on this subject, but until this book I had not found an author who understood the difficulty and could document successful approaches that still place the client first. This is not an easy read for some reason until you get well into it. However the suggestions and descriptions are real jewels and I am sure all of us can see ourselves in the mirror of reality in this book. It’s a keeper. I found it new from www.bookcloseouts.com.

Warfighting. The US Marine Corps Book of Strategy.1994. ISBN 0385478348. Sometimes life is war. Sometimes business is war. And sometimes you need to call in the Marines. A 100 pp primer on manoeuver warfare, what the Marines excel at. A deceptively easy read, with colossal depth and centuries of understanding behind it, that you will first read in an afternoon. Any executive in the technology industry is well advised to read and to study this book. In the past year I have encountered this book being referenced by half a dozen other business writers. Consider that combat = competition, officer = manager, soldier = front line worker, enemy = rival, commander = CEO and this is a modern management handbook. Another keeper.

A Stake in the Outcome. Jack Stack.2003. ISBN 0385505094. The sequel to The Great Game of Business. More stories about the benefits of open book management and what has to be done for employee owned businesses to become something greater than just a good job. This has been going successfully at Stack’s Co. SRC for twenty years. He has simple four elements for a creating successful business. You need a cash flow generator (customer with needs), an overhead absorber (profitable product) , guaranteed cash flow (first two together), and build value through diversification. There is much more to learn from this book including how to have a ferociously motivated workforce. This is a keeper. Very easy read.

Neuromancer. William Gibson. 1995. ISBN 0441569595. So what could happen to us if present trends by the North Koreans to become the very best crackers and invaders of cyberspace, in order to be the best warriors, able to shut down any enemies’ cybernets? Read this book, as he brings the black future to now. Its dark and dismal and a good guide to being aware. Gibson wrote many more, which I tried, that never came close to his first award winner. From the publisher Welcome to the world to cyberspace–and science fiction has never been the same. The hero (?) was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway–jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way–and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance–and a cure–for a price….