Top Shelf Reading Picks:

I wasn’t a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s second effort, Blink, because I didn’t think that Gladwell really explained what he set out to do.  However, in Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell gives us some concrete ideas and examples that are relevant in a society that worships superstars or, as Gladwell calls them, outliers.

Before we get to the interesting concepts, I will say that my big criticism of the book is that it’s another one of these “single concept” books that you can read in a morning (as I did . . . stuck at an indoor waterpark with three 8-year-old boys).  Will it change your business plan?  No.  Will you become an outlier? Unfortunately, it may be too late for that.

Nevertheless, you will find some “aha” moments that might explain a lot.  For example, while I knew intuitively that birth order had a bit to do with sports success, it was shocking to see how most pro hockey players were born in January/February/March.  Why?  Because many junior hockey leagues have cutoff dates of Jan. 1. This means that players born at the beginning of the year are competing against less “mature” kids.  They are bigger, stronger, get picked for the elite leagues and benefit from better coaching, more training and competitive opportunities for the next few years.

But it doesn’t stop there.  To be a true outlier, Gladwell found that individuals didn’t just have to make the “team.” They had to put in 10,000 hours of practice.  Of course, making the elite team helps put a child on the path to that 10,000 hours.

The sports focus is what stuck with me the most, having just lived through a child not making an elite team.  Watching the tryouts, I could see how having a basketball court at your house is part of what makes the difference at this young an age–it allows kids to put in that 10,000 hours.  It also made me reflect on how the 10,000 hours I put in on the soccer fields and tennis courts is what propelled me–a somewhat coordinated but not very fast, not very agressive or very strong athlete–to more than my share of championships.

But the 10,000 hours isn’t just relevant in the sports arena.  It turns out that the Beatles, Bill Gates and countless other superstars have put in their own 10,000 hours before they hit it big in their industries.  For example, Joe Flom, the only living original-name partner of the firm Skadden Arps toiled over 10,000 hours in obscurity doing what was then the “distasteful” work of hostile takeovers before the white-collar firms realized the profits in it.

This is perhaps the main lesson entrepreneurs can take away from the book:  There are no overnight sensations.  Many of us are putting in the time now to catch a wave that will hit sometime in the future.

There are a few other interesting ideas in the book, such as how when you were born (meaning the year, as well as the month) can also affect your ability to succeed, and how cultural influences can lead to plane crashes.

Top Shelf Bottom Line:  For those of us who are trying new things and waiting for the world to catch up, it’s enlightening.  And for those of us wiping away children’s tears when they don’t make the cut, it’s validation for when we tell them that they need to practice more than the others if they want to make it the next time.  For everyone else, it’s an interesting and fun read. Good for cocktail party banter; but it’s not likely to affect your bottom line, at least not in the near future.  Yet you might want to check back after 10,000 hours.

This week, I had an opportunity to read an advance copy of Dan Schawbel’s Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (April 2009).  The focus of the book is on personal branding. However, the emphasis is on how Web 2.0 tools play an integral role in building your personal brand.  While Schawbel is targeting younger audiences, if you’re looking for a job or worried that you may be looking for a job in the near future, this is a must read–no matter what your age.

Times have changed.

As Schawbel points out “Back then [Diane's note:  I’m assuming by "back then"  he means the dark ages when I was typing up resumes on my Selectric IBM typewriter], a resume and a cover letter were the sole criteria for the job application screening process. . . . Candidates who appeared qualified on paper were granted standard interviews; hiring managers had only a resume, cover letter and a standard interview at their disposal.  It was challenging for candidates to express themselves freely, showcase their full range of talents and stand out from the crowd.”

That statement captures the heart of this book.  Readers of Me 2.0 shouldn’t be thinking of “social networking is something I HAVE to do,” but really, it should be something I “want” to do because it’s a way to distinguish myself from the rest of the pack.

Over at the Downtown Women’s Club, we survey businesswomen about online networking.  What struck me while reading Schawbel’s book is that each year, four of the top five reasons women choose not to network online are always “it’s too impersonal,” “I can’t leverage my personality,” “I’m better on the phone or in person” or some variation of the same.  Yet, Web 2.0 is all about letting your personality shine through, even when focusing on your career.

As Schawbel puts it: “Social media will put the personality into resumes.”

Throughout the book, Schawbel explains exactly how to build an online personal brand.  Along the way, he has some terrific quotes from people that really emphasize the main point of Me 2.0: How we go about managing our own careers has changed.

“In a world where there are no more corporate ladders to land on, your brand is the platform your career will stand on.”
- Penelope Trunk, career columnist

“Until roughly five years ago, finding great talent was like finding a needle in a haystack.  Today it’s like finding a needle in a stack of needles.”
- Harry Joiner, executive recruiter

“I believe the effect will be less ‘applying’ for jobs, more of employers finding you.”
- Libby Sartain, chief people officer, Yahoo!

“For those that embrace these new personal branding tools, ‘Google me’ is the new business card, and thus, the blog and social network profile [are] the new resume.”
- Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst, Forrester Research

So, enough about why you should build a personal brand with social media. Here are some of Shawbel’s tips on how to do it:

Step 1: Discover your brand.

He starts this section by focusing on the three key elements of effective personal branding:

1. A strong personal value statement
2. A plan to differentiate your brand
3. A powerful marketing strategy

This is followed by a number of tips on everything from appearance to communicating in person as well as online.  He also talks about how to make a personal marketing plan, conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), and create budget and action plans.

Step 2: Create your brand.

In this section he looks at the different things you’ll need to enhance your resume:

1. Resume (traditional, LinkedIn and video)
2. Portfolio (CD/print/website)
3. Interviewing skills
4. Blogs
5. Online social networking sites

Of note in this section was the statement that by 2011, 50 percent of online adults will be active in social networking platforms.  “Before long, when meeting others, fewer people will ask you for your phone number or e-mail address; more frequently they will either Google your name or add you as a friend in a social network.  If you aren’t actively involved in social networks, you will be at a competitive disadvantage in both being recruited professionally and interfacing with your friends, family, fellow employees and potential key contacts.”

I liked how he closed the section with an emphasis that your online and offline brand presence must be consistent.  As anyone who has ever dabbled in online dating would know, “[D]on’t create a false expectation for those who get to know your e-brand who’ll be disappointed when they meet you offline.”

Step 3 & 4: Communicate your brand/maintain your brand.

In these next two sections there were lots of tips for using social networks, personal press releases, blogs, etc., to further your brand.  I appreciated the big emphasis on “search.”  It seems that in today’s society, it’s less and less who you know, but who can find you.

The final section: entrepreneurs

At first I felt this section was just tacked on here, but in retrospect, a lot of the book focused on getting a job and a traditional career, so it was a nice addition to apply the Me 2.0 philosophies directly to entrepreneurship (although clearly almost everything else in the book applied).  Yet, there is one difference in personal branding when it comes to entrepreneurs–in many cases, much of an entrepreneur’s personal brand is wrapped up in his or her company brand.

Top Shelf Bottom Line:  If you have been avoiding the social media phenomena, this book does a good job of pointing out that you do so at your own career peril.  If you are just getting out of college and have made social use of online networks, it can also serve as a guide for how social media should be used in a positive manner to help (not hinder) your career prospects.  Finally, for entrepreneurs, it’s a primer for how you should be marketing yourself and your services/products.  Me 2.0 is an easy, thought-provoking read and recommended for anyone who may find themselves back on the job market with only a paper resume as a calling card.

I requested a review copy of Executive Warfare: 10 Rules of Engagement for Winning your War for Success by David F. D’Alessandro because I recalled finding his earlier book, Brand Warfare, insightful. Also, in a former life as VP of marketing for a commercial real estate company, I spent a whole lot of time  constantly trying to “save” the John Hancock account, so D’Alessandro was a name with which I had become quite familiar.

Despite the fact that the focus of the book is about working within a large company, I found it relevant to entrepreneurs as well. Why? First, D’Alessandro is more of an “intrapreneur” than a corporate, by-the-book guy, and for those of us who have ever tried to be entrepreneurial in large, decades-old institutions, there’s no good handbook. This one is perhaps the closest I’ve seen. Second, human relations is human relations. Whether you are competing for the top spot in an established company, managing employees in your own company, merging with a larger company or trying to forge partnerships with other entrepreneurs, the human drama and motivations are basically the same when it comes to office politics.

One caveat–if you are happy in your position at your company and are not looking to make it to the top or if you are satisfied running a small business, then this book is not for you. Executive Warfare lives up to its name. So those of you who didn’t like my review or the concept behind What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook by Christopher Flett, you’re probably not going to like this one either.

I agree that it can be a turnoff to read about all the high-stakes politicking and gameplaying (aka “warfare”) going on at the office when you really just want to do your work and be rewarded for it. However, even for those who don’t want to play the game, I strongly believe it will help your career in the long run if you at least know the rules the others are playing by.

A note about style
When it comes to style, I have to admit that I wish D’Alessandro had taken the Jack Welch Straight from the Gut approach and made it more biographical. Since he’s weaving in stories of his own experience, I would have learned just as much from a book like that and probably found it even more interesting. Instead, this reads like a bunch of blog posts put together. However, they are well-organized, which makes the book easier to read than most compendiums of essays or blog posts.

My only other stylistic comments have to do with visuals. Word of warning, masculine metaphors run amuck on almost every page. First we’re legion commanders; next we’re courting consiglieres and hunting carcasses. One would expect this based on the title, and I found the metaphors both amusing and helpful in illustrating his points. The last stylistic note I’ll make had to do with his using pop references throughout the book. I’m a huge fan of that in any business book. Why? Because of all the things throughout the book, those references gave me the most insight into D’Alessandro the individual. He watches what I watch, he reads what I read . . . Admittedly, I am “pop culture” gal, but it meant to me that this guy is not out of touch with what’s happening in the real world.

So “Where’s the beef?” Sorry, the masculine metaphors are contagious. This is one of those books where I had way too many Post-its marking thought-provoking ideas, so here are just a few that I particularly liked because they turn traditional career advice on its head and made me consider how they fit in a bigger picture.

Command and Control /Gen Y clash
Conformity is not a prerequisite for power. This goes against most career advice. Yet his point is that you risk things by going along just as much as you do by being yourself.

• Problem bosses are not rare. “Anybody who assumes that the King knows what he’s doing just because he’s the king really needs to go buy the movie ‘The Madness of King George.’ “
• Don’t hitch yourself just to your own boss. Bosses can have surprisingly short life spans. He has a good section about why your boss should not be your mentor (something I learned early on).
• It’s not important to be the solitary genius who dreamed up, financed and implemented a great plan all by yourself. What’s really valuable is showing that you are the kind of person other powerful people want to work with.

While this is a book clearly written for those who want to thrive in a traditional command-and-control hierarchy, as I put this review together I began noticing that these tips (and others) had some very Gen Y/Millennial traits: Be yourself, participate as a team, be loyal to self vs. company. This got me thinking that perhaps there is some middle ground between “command and control” and “free form” (for lack of a better term). Just as we’re seeing the need for a middle ground in politics as well as our economy–somewhere between overregulation and deregulation–this may not have to be an all-or-nothing question. Hmmmm. Now that’s a business book I’d like to read.

Office politics exist, now deal with it
The most dangerous enemies for you in the office (and yes, there will always be enemies) are not the ones who would prefer somebody else be their boss, but the ones who just don’t want you.

• When it comes to rivals (and rivals can be different from enemies although not mutually exclusive), your objective is not to exploit their weaknesses, but demonstrate that you don’t have those weaknesses.
• If you must take on a rival, don’t shoot to wound. Finish off the person as a rival.

There was a whole lot more in the book about office politics (in fact that really is what the entire book is about), so I couldn’t put it all in here. This is because politics is defined as: any activity concerned with the acquisition of power. What this means is that if you are trying to get a promotion, switch departments or capture more market share from your competitors, there will be politicking. What I picked up most from D’Alessandro’s take on office politics was how to participate while staying aboveboard and on the up and up.

Know your office persona, and those of all major players
I particularly liked his chapter on “Position: Get into Place– Whether You Are a Hunter, Skinner or Diner.” According to D’Alessandro, there are three types of people in any organization.

1. Hunters: Go out with their spears and bring home the meat that feeds the entire tribe (fundraisers, salespeople).
2. Skinners: Take the meat, weigh it, dole it out, store it and trade it (financial types)
3. Diners: Eat the hunters’ meat because they perform some other useful function for the tribe (PR, lawyers, HR).

Of these three groups, the hunters are always given the greatest respect and the widest berth along with the most promotions and authority, even if they are not smart or politically astute. It’s much harder to rise to the top if you are a skinner or diner. Although he notes that skinners are getting a bit more respect at the top as companies become more complex financial entities. Diners, on the other hand, are those who spend the company’s money on marketing, IT, etc., so they’re rarely going to make it to the top without breaking out of that mold by getting a revenue-generating job on their resume.

From an entrepreneurial standpoint, I would recommend that you figure out which one you are and, since you need all three types to succeed, find others who can fill in the rest of the skills.

For the entrepreneurs
If you really believe that you’re meant to run something, go run something. Even if it’s a small startup, a smaller division, because if you want be in charge, you should be in charge and it will be better for your career in the long run.

• As you begin to manage more senior people, one of the things you have to accept is that you won’t spend most of your day having fun conversations. The people working for you now are experienced and capable. They’re not going to ask your advice unless there is something wrong.
• Luck favors those who have already begun maneuvering themselves into the positions they want.

These three tips hit home the most for entrepreneurs. If you are a born entrepreneur–then go do it. You’ll be happier even if making less money for a time. But also expect that if you grow your company, you’ll probably think wistfully back to the good old days when you had fun. And while there are instances of pure luck occurring (both good and bad), those who are ready for it can make the most of it when it happens.

Top Shelf bottom line: Great book for intrapreneurs (entrepreneurial types within an established company), as well as managers trying to manage their own career as well as others. But I would also say it might be helpful for an entrepreneur who might be trying to land a larger company as a client. It’s great insight into what might be going on in the executive suite and how it might ultimately affect you.

The wonderful thing about tiggers
Is tiggers are wonderful things!
Their tops are made out of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
They’re bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy
Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!

I think we all need a little more bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy fun these days, and here are a couple of books that might help.

First, my fellow Entrepreneur blogging pal, Lena West, sent me a book she highly recommended from Barry J. Moltz, appropriately called, Bounce!: Failure, Resiliency, and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success. I have to confess, one thing that kept going through my mind while reading the book is that the author is a slightly handsomer version of Henry Winkler. Now I mention this because it was a good thing, as reading the book I was hearing Winkler’s distinctive voice in my head, and there’s just something nice about listening to the Fonz give you advice. So what sort of advice did we get here? No, it’s wasn’t to date the Polaskey twins, but looking at business failures in a whole new way.

Here are some excerpts that stood out:
1. Don’t hide mistakes. When pilots make mistakes, the FAA encourages them to report it. This is a much better business model than what happens in the real world, where people feel they need to hide and cover up mistakes.

2. Humility vs. ego. “Why do we repeat some mistakes over and over, while others we figure out the first time? Humility allows us to see our mistakes, learn from them and not repeat them. Ego, by contrast, hides mistakes and, in a way, dooms us to repeat them until we screw up so badly our mistakes can’t be hidden anymore.”

3. Humility balances ego. “Humility leads to a balanced ego and an acceptance that many business results are beyond our control. Humility is not the absence of pride, but freedom from the burden of personal arrogance that tells us that we can and will, individually, determine our own futures.”

Now that last one is ringing true these days for many of us–our best client goes bankrupt, our supplier raises prices or, in my own case with DowntownWomensClub.com, a HUGE source of site traffic for us made some improvements to itsr own site, which resulted in our link being buried with the rest of the pack. We’ve been scrambling to recover the lost site traffic. But maybe it was reading these books or just a maturity that comes with living through a few down business cycles; I chalked it up as a setback, not a failure, even though it may prove to be too difficult a setback to overcome.

Here are a few other ways to think about failure:

1. Change the vocabulary. Use a more neutral word. You notice I used “setback” above. Other suggestions: “decision point,” “outcome” or “result.” Even “disappointment” sounds better than failure. Moltz includes a quote from Anna Belyaev, CEO of TypeA, a training agency, who takes a long-term view. “I try to stick to the very objective definition of failure. At the end of the day what I usually say is, you don’t know whether you fail until you’re dead.”

2. Fear of failure can motivate. Moltz says, “Many times in business, the only thing that made me move was the greater fear that staying exactly where I was would never lead to success or, worse, would hasten my failure.” Definitely shades of Seth Godin’s The Dip.

The next book in this group is The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change (and Loving Your Life More) by Ariane de Bonvoison. The first 30 days is not focused on business like Bounce!, so I found it to be a bit more in the “self-help” category, but it has a different bent in that it looks more at “change” than at failure. Personally, I’m someone who loves change. In fact, I thrive on it, but only when it’s good change or change that I initiate. It’s the other changes, those beyond our control, that aren’t so easy for any of us to deal with appropriately. Here are some of the good points about change that I picked up:

· Make the change your own. “During change I’ve found that a lot of people have a tendency to hold on to other people’s patter. People need to look at themselves and ask, ‘who am I as an individual?’ not ‘who am I as the daughter of my mother of rather, the wife of my husband or the mother to my kids?’ ”

· It’s our desire for total certainty that causes us to feel paralyzed when faced with change. Loved the quote she included here from Gloria Steinem: “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” Hmmm. Maybe that explains a lot about people’s fears in this election . . .

· When she asked people what is the best change you’ve ever made or had to face, they tended to answer with the most difficult or hardest changes, such as divorce, receiving a cancer diagnosis, going bankrupt. It seems that the toughest changes reap the most rewards.

· The six primary emotions or change demons: fear, doubt, impatience, blame, guilt and shame. [Note that Moltz also had an interesting section on shame, too.] But these demons aren’t all bad. They exist to help you recognize how you don’t want to feel and get you back into alignment with the calmer, wiser version of yourself.

· She includes a great quote about the change demon, guilt, from Peter McWilliams “Guilt is anger directed at ourselves.” This introduced the section about how to conquer guilt.

Finally, the last book in this category is The Bounce Back Book: How to Thrive in the Face of Adversity, Setbacks, and Losses by Karen Salmansohn. This one is also not about bouncing back specifically from business, but it’s great advice delivered in Salmansohn’s usual fun, quirky style. Her book includes a lot of happiness research and theory, which is another way to look at bouncing back–making yourself happy. If you like your self-help in bullet points, this book contains 75 tips to help you bounce back in style. Like the other authors, Salmansohn is living proof that someone can overcome adversity. To hear more from Salmansohn, you can tune into my blogtalkradio show, Smash the Ladder with Anita & Diane, where she was my guest.

The Top Shelf Bottom Line: If you’re feeling like you’re in the bottom of a down cycle, it would be well worth it to pick up one of these books. Moltz’s is more business-oriented, de Bonvoisin’s focuses on change, and Salmansohn looks more at how to be happy. So grab one if you need some help getting in touch with your own inner Tigger, because . . .

The wonderful thing about tiggers
Is tiggers are marvelous claps!
They’re loaded with vim and vigor
They love to leap in your laps!
They’re jumpy, bumpy, clumpy, thumpy
Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!
But the most wonderful thing about tiggers is
I’m the only one

Setting partisan politics aside, one has to acknowledge that Colin Powell made a profound and memorable statement Sunday. What struck me as I listened to it was that he followed the SUCCES(s) principles set forth by authors Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (one of my all-time favorite business books). I review a ton of business books, and sometimes it’s hard to see their relevance. That’s why I decided to revisit the book and demonstrate how it applied in Powell’s talk.

Powell’s statement last week was political and had nothing to do with business. I highlight it, however, because if I were going to give a speech that was intended to sway people who were undecided or even adamantly against a proposition I was making, I would model it after Powell’s statement.

The Made to Stick authors focus on six key principles that make an idea “sticky”:

• Simple: Make your message basic and profound.
• Unexpected: Capture your audience’s attention by doing something unexpected.
• Concrete: Avoid abstract ideas.
• Credible: Make sure you have support and data so that people will trust your authority.
• Emotional: Get your audience to care.
• Stories: Tell the right stories so that your ideas sink in.

Powell nailed them all–and gets a 10.0 for sticking the landing.  To view his speech, you can click here.

• Simple: “I’m supporting Sen. Obama.”
• Unexpected: He stepped across party lines to do so.
• Concrete: He stated several clear, easy-to-grasp reasons for making his statement. Some were extremely simple and completely unexpected, like the following. “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?”  Well, now that you put it that way . . . of course not.
• Credible: He’s Colin Powell. Whether you disagreed with his support of the war or other positions in the past, or you now disagree with his endorsement of Obama, we can all agree that he earned our respect long before he went on camera Sunday.  Had he been a Hollywood actor or a local politician, that same statement would not have held as much weight.
• Emotional: I shed a tear when he spoke about Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan’s mother grieving at his grave.  He struck my mom chord and got my full attention.
• Stories: He explained his change of heart by not only telling Khan’s mother’s story.  He also gave us a visual reference by describing the photograph that moved him to support Obama.

It’s not likely we will ever be giving our own statements of national importance, but these are all factors we can try to emulate in our everyday attempts to get our ideas to “stick.”

Top Shelf Bottom Line:  If you haven’t read Made to Stick, I highly recommend it, as being an entrepreneur means you are in the business of peddling ideas.  This means we have to sell them. And it’s easier to do that when we can make them stick.

This week I perused an advanced copy of Closing the Engagement Gap: How Great Companies Unlock Employee Potential for Superior Results by Julie Gebauer and Don Lowman with Joanne Gordon. I’m sure in these crazy times, the last thing management at any size company is doing is focusing on employee engagement, but that could be a huge mistake. The companies that are going to make it through this crisis (or should I make that crises?) are going to need engaged employees.

First off, I’ll be honest–I was expecting a bit of a dry textbook. But since my pal Joanne Gordon (Roadtrip Nation, Be Happy at Work) was involved, my gut said it would be worth the read. True to form, it was a bit lighter than expected and included lots of lists (excellent to use as HR checklists), as well as colorful anecdotes.

The book starts off with an interesting global work force study by Towers Perrin (Gebauer and Lowman are from Towers Perrin), which examined and categorized the top 10 items that drive employees and even broke those items up by different countries. The rest of the book is written in five sections that encapsulate how to engage employees.

1. Know them
2. Grow them
3. Inspire them
4. Involve them
5. Reward them

Throughout the book, the authors incorporate the stories and experiences of eight companies that they call “the Engaging Eight.” These are: Campbell Soup Co. (hey, this week’s big stock market winner, so it must be doing something right), EMC corp., Honeywell, McKesson, MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, Novartis AG and REI. Despite huge variations between the companies, there were clear similarities when it came to employee engagement.

Know Them–highlights:

• A checklist of “Ten things every organization’s senior leaders should know about the work force.”
• Interesting anecdotes from EMC about how it attracts self-starters, which instills some peer pressure to excel.
• The Campbell Soup stories were nice, about a divorced dad wanting a flex schedule to be with his kids, and another about a gentlemen who wanted to take a month off to sail with his father. Of course, right after I did the “awwwww” thing, my radar went up as I wondered whether a woman needing to deal with a deported nanny or ill children would’ve received the same treatment. (I know, in theory, yes; but let’s be real, they’d likely be labeled “not dedicated to the company.”)
• I liked the part about measuring company practices in comparison with employee expectations.

Grow Them–highlights:

• “Most employers can’t guarantee job security, but they can deliver career security as a byproduct of a learning culture, and in turn produce more skilled and engaged employees.”
• Create a safe place to fail and learn. “Given that failure is inevitable in life, in school and in sports, should it be less tolerated in the workplace? To be sure, failure’s consequences can be far-reaching in business, but its learning potential must be leveraged.”
• “From an employee’s perspective, career growth is not always equivalent to moving ‘up’ the career ladder.” (Cool. I didn’t even pay them to plug the underlying theme behind my blogtalkradio show, Smash the Ladder)

Inspire Them–highlights:

• There were some good stories about the engaging eight companies, especially those that focused on supporting people from the top down.

Involve Them–highlights:

• “To ensure their genuine involvement, employees must be knowledgable participants, treated as valued contributors and have the freedome to act in ways that they believe will enhance the performance of colleagues and the organization.”
• Create a business-literate work force. Help all your employees understand how your business works. This will help them see how they all play a role in its success.
• Gather employeee input to leverage experience and foster creative problem-solving. I was pleased to see that EMC was featured in this section for its use of social media via an internal, online tool it calls EMC.ONE that lets employees at all levels of the organization, located anywhere in the world, share ideas.

Reward Them–highlights:

• The four items that make up a good Rewards program: pay, benefits, development and environment.
• They also put it as “ABC’s” of rewards–appreciation, benefits and compensation.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: If you’re looking to ensure that your employees stick with you through the bad times, then you should definitely take a peek at this book and see how your company measures up to the engaging eight. At the very least, the checklist at the end is a must-have for your HR department to ensure that you engage your employees and obtain the results everyone wants.

This week I read Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman. While I can’t say I liked it as much as their first book, The Starfish and The Spider, it did have some good points for marketers. The premise of the book is that humans don’t always make the most rational decisions. Well, that’s for sure because if we did, divorce lawyers, overpriced fashion designers and the entire city of Las Vegas would be out of business.

Sway is not a “business” book, in the sense that it doesn’t give instructions as to how to sway people to buy your services or products. But it does explain what can happen to cloud people’s rationality. It’s an intriguing read, and I thought it explained much more about gut instincts than Malcom Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking did. Unfortunately, there were no major aha moments. However, there were a few, “hmmm, now that makes sense” ones.

In fact, as I was reading the book, there were a couple of instances where I did a double take because I thought I had read the section before. It turns out that Sway was covering territory touched on by The Breakthrough Company and Predictably Irrational. I didn’t see this as a bad thing. It reminded me of doing research as an attorney: When all the cases started quoting each other, you knew you had that brief down solid.

Here are some of the interesting points I found to ponder:

1. We overreact to perceived losses. Humans have loss aversion. See also the section in Breakthrough Company about the psychology of betting. Why do we buy an unlimited plan when we have never gone over 400 minutes on our cell phones? Because we fear that one day we might. Thus, we fear a loss and perhaps overkill on the precautions. Loss aversion hit home with me because I realized that I was paying my tech support team on a monthly basis and incurring monthly wire transfer fees that could definitely be saved if I paid every other month or even quarterly. What prevented me from doing that? My fear that my tech team (in India) might disappear on me. Yet I’ve been working with these guys forever and they even traveled to Boston to meet me. The chance of them disappearing after I paid them my monthly retainer is probably less than a wire transfer getting lost.

2. First impressions mean a lot. For example, NBA players are stuck performing at the level at which they were drafted, regardless of whether they deliver. Studies have found that when a team drafts a player in the first round the team will play that player consistently more than a third round or lower pick regardless of whether the player’s stats are better or not. So we shouldn’t be surprised that once you are labeled a lower pick, you are forever deemed to be on that level. (Interesting outtake for this would be re: salary negotiations: Come in at a low value, and you’ll remain there!) This example reminded me of my own college tennis experience. I was a doubles specialist on a Division 1 team. I was number nine on the bottom of the ladder right next to our number 10, who was also a doubles specialist. Together we could beat any of the better players at doubles. Yet, the coach insisted on playing our number one and two singles players at the top doubles position (they didn’t even like each other); three and four at the number two position, etc. It didn’t matter that we could beat most of the combinations of players. I never understand this before now. The coach had worked hard to get nationally ranked players on his team: He had a much bigger investment in them than his number nine and 10, who got in on grades, not athletics!

3. Interviewers are not well-served by interviews where they hit it off with the interviewee. They can be swayed into thinking the candidate is more qualified than he or she may actually be. Also, read the book to find out why the best question to ask in an interview is: “What do you know about our company?”

4. In advertising, people will often focus on the wrong data points. For example, a pretty woman in an ad might sway a man to ignore the minor details. Attractive woman = attractive offer.

5. When we label people, they start to take on those characteristics. First, because it’s that old parenting “no-no”–tell a kid he’s a failure, and he will live up to your statements; and second, because we want to be right about people, so we focus on things that make our original characteristics accurate.

6. Different cultures can act differently in similar situations. The Who Wants to be a Millionaire example was really interesting. When someone needs a lifeline (i.e. the audience) to help him or her answer a question, audiences in Russia were almost all likely to give the contestants the wrong answer. The authors tie this back to a Russian cultural belief that “why should anyone be better or richer than the rest?” In the US, on the other hand, we worship those who make money, even if it’s handed to them, so American audiences were more than likely to provide the right answer. I’m assuming this is similar to Australia’s Tall Poppy syndrome (rise too far above the crowd and someone will come along and lop you off!)

7. Monetary incentives do not work. This was also covered in Predictably Irrational. Ask a friend to move some furniture, and he probably will. Offer to pay him to do so, and he won’t find the time.

8. The sway of the group mentality is a powerful force. Call it peer pressure or whatever. When we have to stand alone, we tend to question ourselves. The authors have an interesting Supreme Court solution. The lone dissenter states “I disagree, but not enough to write an official dissent.” This gives room for another justice to jump in on the disagreement, which might help sway the court in a different direction, while it allows the lone voice to speak up and fish for other supporters.

9. When we find ourselves unsure about whether to continue a particular approach, it’s useful to ask, “If I were just arriving on the scene and were given the choice to either jump into this project as it stands now or pass on it, would I choose to jump in?”

10. They also discuss in the epilogue how the price of an object can affect how we feel about it. That $600 purse has to look so much better to us than the $60 alternative; otherwise, why would it be that expensive? I see this all the time in fashion. I block out the designer influence by figuring out in advance the item I might need (i.e. a gray cashmere blend V-neck sweater). Then if I find it in TJ Maxx or at a French flea market, great–why pay more if I’ve met my need? This way the item doesn’t become any less attractive to me (or others) just because it only cost me $20, not $2,000.

The book concludes with the obvious finding that people do not behave rationally. How you put this into action is up to you.

Top Shelf Bottom Line – This was a good read for someone who’s adept at picking up on theory and running with it. As mentioned, this is a book about people’s behavior, not an instruction manual as to how to manipulate them to buy your product or service. Yet it covers relevant material for any marketer trying to sway an audience with some really interesting anecdotes, much like their first book. I found it a good complement to Predictably Irrational, which had more studies and data incorporated but some of the same results. In retrospect, Sway would probably be a great audiobook.

**A couple of other books besides those mentioned above that touch on this and related topics are:

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious – click here for my review.

The Paradox of Choice: Why Less Means More

I couldn’t help but hear riffs of Doors songs in my head . . . Break on through to the other side … as I was reading The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers by Keith R. McFarland. The “other side” in this case is one where your basement startup is no longer a small company.

I liked McFarland’s book because, despite talking about companies bigger than my own small startup, the companies he focused on were not the classic behemoths. In fact, there were a few I knew quite well (The Staubach Company, for one). While the book is based on survey data of 7,000 companies, it didn’t read like a business school textbook. Instead, it focuses on only nine companies and included some firsthand stories and experiences. (Note to future business book writers–putting bits of yourself into the book is one way to keep it from reading like a dry textbook.)

I’ll cut to the chase because I know you’re all reading this book to find out what elements make a breakthrough company. According to McFarland, they are:

Throwing the dyno: In other words, taking that huge risk/leap of faith at the right time and in the right direction.

Crowning the company: Breakthrough companies do not have a coronation for the founder, but for the entire company–empower the masses, and growth should follow. One reason to do this is that sometimes the very strengths that make a great entrepreneur in the building stages–snap decision-making, stick-to-it stubbornness–can be liabilities as the company grows.

Upping the ante: Similar to throwing the dyno, it’s sort of a “go big or go home” strategy. The example McFarland gives is of Intuit co-founder Scott Cook, who had $100,000 in the bank and could either milk it for a few more months or go big with a huge ad campaign and spend it all in one swoop. Intuit went for it (all or nothing), and it worked!

Building company character: I loved McFarland’s emphasis on first impressions. What do people see when they go to your office? That all the execs have the front parking spaces? Or are they free for “expectant mothers only”? This reminded me of my old days in commercial real estate, when live people actually answered the company phone. Interviewing for a receptionist was crucial. At one high-end firm I worked for, they spent money to get qualified, friendly people who usually had an accent (English accents probably got a premium). At a less prestigious company where I also worked, they strove for the same thing, and I remember how much we loved the extremely capable and well-dressed woman with the impossible-to-understand East Boston accent, but went with the slightly younger gal with the Southern drawl and the questionable taste in dressing (we figured she was mostly on the phone or hidden behind the desk, so we could work on the dressing taste more easily than change a Boston accent).

While I run a virtual company, one thing I do is to have my staff and colleagues start every e-mail response, with “Thank you for writing,” no matter what the e-mail is about. I’ve found that this can defuse even an irate customer.

Other ways McFarland talks about how to find your company’s character is in the equation: Company Character = Values Translated into Action. (i.e. walk the talk.)

I also liked this chapter because I agreed wholeheartedly with his discussion of Fastenol’s success, which the CEO described as, “We hired attitude and trained aptitude.” I’ve always believed that the best person for any job is not always the individual who has all the required skills coming in. Many of those skills can be taught. Unfortunately, poor attitudes are something not so easily overcome. Thank goodness others believe in this or I never would have gotten some of the jobs I did! Another standout statement in this chapter: “A company’s view of people is an unmistakable reflection of its organizational character. If it sees people as selfish, lazy and unmotivated–that’s the kind of people it will attract.”

Navigating the Business Bermuda Triangle: McFarland describes the Business Bermuda Triangle as having three points: 1) Giving customers what they want; 2) Reacting quickly; and 3) Keeping costs low. Companies that don’t break through can get lost in this triangle as they grow. How to avoid the triangle? Two strategies:

• “Don’t diversify before you own your existing market.”
• “When you do diversify, let your customers lead you.”

Erecting scaffolding: Very good chapter on networking, as it doesn’t look at it from the individual point of view, but rather from a company perspective. The best part of this chapter was the “surprising findings” for breakthrough companies:

1. Four of the nine profiled companies were founded or headed by people who belonged to the same organization–Young Professionals Organization (YPO).
2. Networking was not an “executive” trend but was encouraged and executed by all employees at all levels. I was recently asked by a company after a speech about online networking whether I approved of its policy of only allowing senior management to use LinkedIn and other social networks. I have to admit, I was a bit blunt and asked her why didn’t it focus more on making younger employees want to stay, rather than keeping them from being recruited. I’d be surprised if they’re still in business a couple of years from now.
3. Breakthrough companies use their network to build advisory boards that challenge them. No “yes” men and women.
4. Breakthrough companies considered their clients and customers part of their networks.

Enlisting insultants: No, not Adam Sandler, but instead, company insiders who question the way things are done. Hmmmm. I’ve been called a troublemaker in the past for wanting to change things, but never an insultant. Not sure which I like better. But I certainly would never again work for a company that did not value employees who questioned the way things are done. In fact, some top companies such as EMC are enlisting social media to help democratize the practice (For more on this, check out my Smash the Ladder interview with Polly Pearson, VP of employment, brand and strategy engagement). Best part of this section is the Insultant’s Style Guide, which includes six tips for being a good insultant.

Graduating from Tough Times U: Basically, this chapter gave some advice as well as some really scary examples of tough times from breakthrough companies. I felt for Roger Staubach early on as a 10 percent owner stuck holding  several million dollars in debt for everyone. But rather than fold, he turned things around with the help of many of the strategies discussed above.

Building the breakthrough company: McFarland ends with some steps to help you and your company break on through to the other side . . .

Top Shelf Bottom Line: This is a great book for startup companies to keep on their shelves as they grow. There are some good basic business 101 reminders but also some surprising insights. My favorite part of the book came at the end of each chapter where McFarland has a section of “Findings that surprised us.” These often surprised me, too.

While we’re on the topic of leadership, I thought I would share this Book Review by guest blogger Nancy Loderick, VP of Networks at the Downtown Women’s Club.

This week I read Marilyn Carlson Nelson’s book, “How We Lead Matters: Reflections on a Life of Leadership.” Marilyn Carlson Nelson is chairman and CEO of Carlson, a global group of companies for travel, hotel, cruise and restaurants. Forbes magazine regularly lists her as one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. This book tells her story, in her own words, on what makes her tick and how she leads.

It’s not your typical CEO autobiography, which usually relay the “rags to riches” story of how a poor boy/girl works hard and becomes very successful. This book is a collection of vignettes from Marilyn’s life that show her leadership philosophy and practice. It is a refreshing way to learn about a business icon.

Marilyn’s premise is that one’s legacy is built one day at a time, through everyday actions. Marilyn is a successful businesswoman; she is also a devoted family person and humanitarian. All these facets are shown in her stories. David Gergen, director of the Harvard Kennedy Center for Public Leadership, writes in the book’s foreword, “[Marilyn is] a passionate champion of people at all levels.”

I got the sense of Marilyn as a “real” person from reading her story. Her personality clearly showed in most of the vignettes. Some of the more poignant and telling ones:

• The Sunday School Lesson
  As a young student, Marilyn didn’t like the way the classes were run. So she presented her ideas to the Sunday school superintendent. She went on to say that, “together they fixed the school.”
• The Signature
  Marilyn got the call that every parent dreads, learning that her daughter Juliet, a freshman at Smith College, had been killed in a car accident. She grieved, went into a major depression and started to doubt her faith. She finally came to grips with this by devoting herself to “making every day count and to live the rich, full life that was denied [her daughter.]” She shows firsthand how to have courage and hope in the face of adversity.
• Gerbils for Sale
  This story was my favorite. Thanks to Marilyn’s youngest daughter, Wendy, her household “won” the privilege of taking care of the third grade’s gerbil family over the summer. Well, very soon a few gerbils became very many gerbils, and the household was overrun with gerbils! Marilyn wanted to deal with this humanely, so she offered the gerbils to the local pet store. She admits she was not as upfront as she could have been about their health, for fear the pet store owner wouldn’t take the gerbils. Marilyn also didn’t want to give the gerbils away for free. She admits that her actions were in a gray zone here and, to this day, she doesn’t feel good about it. She delivers this morality lesson with humor and honesty.

I wasn’t sure why some of the stories were included. I didn’t see any correlation between the stories and Marilyn’s leadership style. Here are some of those stories:

• Imagine
  Marilyn asks the reader to imagine what it would be like to be the first little African-American girl walking into a desegregated school among the armed marshals. Or being the woman who refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery. I’m not sure what this has to do with Marilyn; perhaps it is supposed to show her empathy with minorities?
• Security Alarm
  Marilyn talks about the tragedy of child slavery and how the World Childhood Foundation cares for the world’s street children. Marilyn is the co-founder of this foundation. This section read more like an advertisement than a personal story.
• Special Delivery
  Marilyn writes about the joy she felt each time she found out she was going to be a grandmother. Again, this is nice to hear, but I’m not sure how this relates to leadership.

My conclusion:
This book gives a good, accurate picture of what inspires and what drives Marilyn Carlson Nelson. Marilyn is a multifaceted person and is not afraid to show her human side, which–for her–is what makes a good leader.

This book also gave me pause to stop and think about my life, its everyday events and what I could learn from them. Any book that makes me think beyond the actual story is a worthwhile one for me.

I would have liked a bit more advice, particularly around fulfilling multiple roles. She says quite candidly that for CEOs there is no such thing as work-life balance. She likens being a CEO to being an Olympic athlete. She goes on to say that you have to be working constantly to stay on top of your game, but since you’re following your goal, you don’t mind it. Women today, particularly young women, are hungry for concrete advice on how to handle work and family. In any case, this book was inspiring.

This post is cross posted from The Women’s DISH blog.

I waited all summer for Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions to come to my library, but it didn’t happen and I ended up picking up a copy in the airport. Glad I did. While it didn’t totally grab me as I was reading it in a way that Freakonomics or The Tipping Point did, my husband and I keep referring to bits and pieces of it even a week or two after we both read it. Hence, I’m upgrading my initial reaction from interesting to somewhat significant.

The premise of the book is: We are all irrational beings. However, our irrationality happens again and again, thereby making us “predictably irrational.” So, I guess this is like me encouraging my friends to date against type because their type hasn’t ever seemed to work out. (On a side note–the hubby I mentioned? Definitely wasn’t my “type.” But he is now!) But let’s talk about how we all make irrational choices.

Ariely opens the book with a description of an online ad for The Economist magazine, which has tiered pricing:

1. $59.99 for a one-year subscription just to the website.
2. $125 for a one-year subscription to the print magazine.
3. $125 for a one-year subscription to the print magazine plus website.

Looking at this, it’s clear that option 2 is not that appealing–so, why put it in? Ariely’s theory is that people might have a hard time choosing between options 1 and 3 if there were no number 2. By including option 2, it’s clear that 3 is a much better deal because it gives potential subscribers a “relativity point.” Giving people a relativity point, regardless of its value, allows you to manipulate people to buy what you want them to.

Along this line was a later discussion where he talks about how people are swayed by getting something for ““free.” (Speaking of “swaying,” I have Sway on my library request list . . .  anyone read it yet?) But, back to Predictably Irrational and why we are suckers for “free.”

One example he uses is when Amazon began offering free shipping if you spend more than a certain dollar amount. I confess I’m always adding in something I didn’t necessarily need or want in order to get that free shipping. (Of course I try to find the item that is the closest to hitting the mark without going over–which generally means a children’s paperback book.) This was a great revenue generator for Amazon except in France, where it noticed no increase–because in France Amazon was offering shipping for one franc (rather than free), which is only about 20 cents (or probably less now). That’s not a huge difference from “free,” but when Amazon changed France to free shipping, revenue increased.

So what is the pull of the word “free”? It’s that we have nothing to lose. Even paying 20 cents is losing something, even if insignificant. I’ll be testing some of this out later this fall on www.DowntownWomensClub.com. It should be interesting.

Entrepreneurial lesson: Create relativity in your pricing to encourage people to purchase the one you want, and give away something for free.

I also found the discussion in Chapter 4 about the problems with mixing social norms and business norms interesting. Basically, it’s why you should never offer to pay your mother-in-law in cash for making Thanksgiving dinner. Making a nice dinner for the family is something people want to do within a social realm. To offer them money for it makes it like work and therefore a business transaction. He has some humorous dating examples. But generally, he found that people are more likely to work harder at smaller tasks when they think they are doing you a favor than if you pay them. Ask a friend to move a couch and he’ll be there. Offer to pay him to help you move your whole apartment, and he’ll probably claim to be doing laundry all day.

Other good sections include the discussion on procrastination and self-control. In the latter I found his anecdote about telling a credit card company how “self-control” credit cards (i.e., ones that have small caps on them to keep people from spending more than they have) would be a good investment. Even he laughs at himself, as only an optimistic academic wouldn’t realize that the whole goal of the credit card companies is to get us all to spend beyond our limits.

I thought his discussion on why we like to keep our options open reminiscent of Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. When given too many choices, it promotes inaction or dissatisfaction with your choice. I hear this is getting to be a problem with Match.com. People have too many choices to ever be entirely happy with anyone they date. But it’s not just dating where too much choice can become problematic.

I experienced this recently when I was trying to purchase a membership online to our local arts center. It had so many options/price points for memberships that I couldn’t figure out what was the best for me and my family. So I did nothing. Then when a friend called me to be on the advisory board for the center, I apologized for not joining yet, but said I didn’t know which to choose. She told me the level that would get what I wanted (discounted art lessons for the kids), and I did it ASAP. My first task on that advisory board? Fix the pricing. Will refer to the tiered-plus-free approach above.

Entrepreneurial lesson: Keep purchasing choices simple and straightforward: fewer choices = more purchases.

Admittedly I got a bit tired of the stats/tests by the end, but there is a lot of great information worth going back and looking at. But I’ll end on this one anecdote.

One of Ariely’s experiments involved him serving beer in a local brewpub. Just by chance, one of the patrons was a former colleague of Ariely’s. The colleague thought that Ariely was waiting tables for a living. What I liked was that the colleague went out of his way to tell Ariely how much he liked his last paper, clearly in an effort to make him feel better. Now, that’s the type of predictably irrational behavior I like in humans–random acts of kindness.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: Predictably Irrational is this year’s trend book and good fodder for cocktail banter. Not to mention there are some fun tests to try on your friends. But the bits on how people make choices when it comes to purchasing are really helpful for entrepreneurs trying to get people to click on that “buy now” button.

After watching Project Runway’s “green” episode (Tim Gunn still rocks), I was motivated to review a couple of eco-friendly books I read last month. First, Stirring it Up: How to Make Money and Save the World by Gary Hirshberg, CE-Yo of Stoneyfield Farm, the story of how Hirshberg built a successful $300 million dollar business by incorporating environmental principles and practices.

I found Stirring it Up to have a few really thought-provoking ideas, like these:

• “The root cause of all this seems to be that we humans consider our versions of efficiency superior to nature’s.” Well, seeing as how nature keeps kicking our butt with some wacky weather, we all need to think about this–because it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature!
• Exxon’s company mission in 1989: “To provide our shareholders with a superior return on investment.” Nothing else mattered. And Exxon’s reaction was true to that mission when its oil tanker Exxon Valdez went aground, spilling 11 million gallons of fuel oil in Alaska’s Prince Edward Sound. True to form, it refused to accept responsibility. In the long run, though, the accident ended up costing Exxon more than $2.5 billion.

But it’s not just about being green or organic: Here are some of the tools Hirshberg discusses in the book that helped him build Stoneyfield to what it is today:

1. Have a powerful yet simplistic mission statement.
2. Attract free press for doing outrageous things that amuse people without insulting them.
3. Organic costs more than conventional methods and involves more government regulations, but yields higher profits because customers are willing to pay more for quality products.
4. Looking under the hood for ways to reduce waste by reviewing packaging materials, we ended up not only reducing waste, but our packaging costs.
5. Working with suppliers instead of squeezing them brought more stability to our overall pricing.

Here are a few of the companies Hirshberg highlights as environmentally conscious:

• Patagonia
• Whole Foods
• New Belgium
• Eileen Fisher
• Timberland
• Zipcar
• Clif-Bar

Funny, I get a good feeling when I hear the brands listed above. I guess I subconsciously knew they were green so it goes to show how working that in as part of a brand can yield good will and some actual “greenbacks.”

So that was my serious environmental book. At the same time on CD in my car, I listened to Doug Fine’s Farewell My Suburu: An Epic Adventure in Local Living, in which the author moved to a ranch in New Mexico in an attempt to live “off the grid.” His four goals were:

1. Use a lot less oil
2. Power my life by renewable energy
3. Eat as locally as possible
4. Don’t starve, electrocute myself, get eaten by the local mountain lions, get shot by my UN-fearing neighbors, or otherwise die in a way that would cause embarrassment if the obituary writer did his or her research.

I could really relate to Fine’s sometimes ill-fated attempts to be green (although my green intentions didn’t involve selling all my possessions and moving to a ranch). However, earlier this year I tried to adopt my own green practices and found out that Kermit the frog really wasn’t kidding, it’s not easy being green. As you can imagine, being completely green is nearly impossible.

Fine ran into some crazy adventures, interesting neighbors and unexpected challenges. Sure, you can get a car that runs on used vegetable oil, but sometimes you have to bring it home from the Chinese joint in town in a Styrofoam container. That one contraption you really need to rig up your energy-saving device? Well, it has to be purchased at Wal-Mart. And those goats . . . will destroy all your roses and keep you up all night, just like children.

The Top Shelf Bottom Line: Read Stirring it Up for your business and Farewell My Suburu for your life, and then take a shot at looking at the world through green-colored lenses.

Addendum: Just read a blip about a new book coming out called The Green Bible, with a cotton/linen cover, partly recycled paper and soy-based ink. Hmmmm. Interesting, but is it really the most green-conscious way of publishing? I had a friend suggest that print-on-demand publishing is much greener because you don’t print up more books than you sell. But that’s a subject for a whole different post.

I lifted my ban on leadership books when I received Robin Gerber’s Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way  as a thank you for giving a speech. I really knew nothing about ER and, since it was a paperback, I tossed it in my beach bag. I’m glad I did–ER had always intrigued me, and she doesn’t disappoint.

As one can imagine, ER can carry a book herself, leadership focused or not. Overall, I would have liked even more about ER and less of the “other businesswomen applying her rules” anecdotes. I found their insertion throughout the book jolting and disruptive. Oddly, I liked it whenever the author shared her own life stories, as that showed a personal connection with her heroine.

Here are some of the tidbits that stuck with me:

Gerber starts off with an excerpt from a book ER wrote in 1933 as advice for young women, which couldn’t be truer 75 years later:

“In a chapter called ‘The Problems of the Young Married,’ [ER] counseled couples to show ‘an immense amount of tolerance and of unselfishness’ toward each other. But being tolerant and unselfish didn’t mean women must forgo all personal goals and ambitions. Women should also feel free to marry and have careers, she argued in a later chapter. ‘Women’s lives must be adjusted and arranged for in just the same way that men’s lives are.’ ”

I couldn’t agree more.

ER had a rough childhood (alcoholic father, mother who didn’t like her because she wasn’t “pretty’). Gerber includes an interesting part about how she turned her childhood experiences into leadership learning moments. Then she asks readers to reflect on childhood experiences they had.

Lying on the beach, I closed my eyes and thought about whether some of my childhood memories had influenced my leadership style. One that stood out was that when it came to picking teams at recess for soccer or kickball, I was often picked before most of the boys. The team captains truly ranked me where I belonged when it came to certain sports and didn’t factor in my pigtails. Admittedly, sometimes they had to defend picking me before other boys (and they did, but only as long as I delivered). Seems a minor thing, but in my mind, I always thought I should be treated exactly like the boys treated each other, and I think that helped me a lot in business. Click here to read my thoughts on whether women should ask for special treatment in the office. Perhaps this explains my different point of view about Christopher Flett’s controversial book, What Men Don’t Tell Women, from my pal Yvonne DiVita over at Lip-sticking.com.

The part about mentors was also very good. Gerber suggests that if you are stuck and can’t find a mentor, ask yourself a few questions:

1. Who can help me with the decisions that will shape my life and leadership abilities today?
2. Who can help me learn what I need to move toward my goals?
3. Whom do I admire, and who’s doing what I’d like to be doing?

Another prescient piece of writing from ER that Gerber spotlights is her first piece for Redbook (yes, the magazine for happy housewives), which was called “Women Must Learn to Play the Game as Men Do.” In the article, she wrote “Our means is to elect, accept and back women political bosses. To organize as women, but within the parties, …Women are today ignored largely because they have no banded unity….”

I’m sure my readers are expecting me to write about how we should have all supported Hillary. But I didn’t and was actually dismayed at being called a traitor to my sex and an enemy to feminism for supporting another candidate. I would like to think that ER meant support our gender as a whole, not necessarily a single political candidate. I’m not sure what ER would say, but it seems that the behavior of the die-hard Hillary supporters actually alienated an entire generation of women. In my mind, that’s not “playing the game as men do.”

Another political thought: How far we have fallen from outspoken, action-oriented first ladies such as ER, who openly disagreed with her husband (when he was president), to the likes of Laura Bush. I can’t wait to read the new novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, American Wife, loosely based on our first lady.

There are a lot of good tidbits throughout about networking and sticking to your mission. One of my favorites was to always “compromise up.” ER had backed Adlai Stevenson as president for the Democratic ticket, and when Kennedy became the candidate, she would not lend her support until she had Kennedy’s assurance that Stevenson would have a role. Sure she compromised, but she compromised up.

Top Shelf Bottom Line: While I didn’t find any new revolutionary insights into leadership–other than the “compromise up” tip (the book simply took some basic leadership tips and interwove them into ER’s life), I enjoyed learning about ER. Of course, the caveat with that is that I’ve probably read more leadership books than most people do in their entire lifetime. Recommended for history buffs who want to be reminded of some good leadership principals, and for young women (and men) who want to learn about a real leadership role model for blazing a new and different path in the face of lots of opposition. I often find that entrepreneurs can learn a lot from both good and bad politicians–so go ahead, toss it in your beach bag and bring Eleanor along on vacation with you (she apparently loved to travel).

**ADDENDUM**

This week on Smash the Ladder, I hosted Robin Gerber author of Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way and the novel Eleanor v. Ike.  We spoke about the role of First “Spouses,”  and leadership lessons learned from one of America’s greatest First Ladies.