MC Blog: Five Great Reads

This year so far I've had the fortune of discovering and reading five good business booksgood that are both readable and thought-provoking. I'll give you a quick summary here.

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

Subtitled "The Story of Succcess" (which it isn't), this book is really about how chance circumstances change our lives. Being at the right place at the right time (even being born at the right time) has more to do with our success than anything else. Through a series of fascinating stories and cobbled together research, Gladwell ultimately makes one grateful for the cards one has been dealt in life. After reading it I felt a little more humble about my accomplishments.

We Are the New Radicals by Juila Moulden

This is a book for people who are breaking out of the "life as usual" work and business molds that are unfulfilling and unsatisfying. She talks about activists, entrepreneurs, and innovators who are carving new pathways that make a difference. Moulden says the New Radicals, "...are part of a growing movement based on a powerful idea: that doing good can mean more than volunteering and philanthropy, that how we earn our living can become the way we give back." A very inspiring read.

Buyology by Martin Lindstrom

This for the marketing geeks amongst us. Lindstorm, a world renown branding guru, embarked on a project to understand why people really buy. He hooked up his subjects to fMRI machines and watched their brains in action when exposed to marketing messages. One of his conclusions is that we have no idea why we really buy. That is, why we say we buy something is never the real reason. Get this book if you want to understand the hidden motivations for customers buying your products and services.

The Three Laws of Performance by Zteve Zaffron and Dave Logan

This is the best book about management ever written. There, I've said it. Well, how would I know? But I've never read a management book that so powerfully connects our inner workings to outer results. Zaffron and Logan share powerful stories of large organizational change (the most impressive is of a platinum mine in South Africa) that come about with the application of the three Laws of Performance. Read this and be ready to have your mind altered. This deserves to be the most successful business book of the year.

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

I've just started this one but it promises to be a good read with keen insights into the mind, success, the future, and business. Pink is adept at spotting not only underlying trends, but major shifts in how business will be done in the future. Tom Peters says, "Pink provides an original, profound and practical guidebook for survival-and joy-in this tops turvy environment."

Five very juicy, thought-provoking business books in about six weeks. That's more of this kind of reading than I did in all of 2008! Pick one or two (or all) of these up and shift your reality. Links in the title will lead you to Amazon.

Cheers,

Robert Middleton

Comments

[Vicki Butler-Hagen]

Outliers is definately a must read for me since, I woke up and logged on to facebook with you on top commenting about your backyard river. I had been dreaming of acting out a variety of outlandish schemes to escape my daily grind (New Radicals & 3 Laws of Performance)I am interested in reading A Whole New Mind and Buyology too!Thank you for sharing .......

[Christian]

I'll have to check these out. You might also get "Predictably Irrational". I think you'll like it.

[Mark A. Coudray]

Daniel Pink has amazing insight. He has correctly identified the key underlying drivers that will differentiate each of us from the things that can either replace us or outsource us. It's not longer good enough to be smart and educated, you need to understand how you relate to the your market, customers, environment and so forth. The more relevant we are, the better we will survive. Appropriate advice for someone so close to Google.

Mark A. Coudray
http://www.tshirtsuccess.com