A Tested Options Strategy Designed to Never* Lose Money (and Just Might Make 36%)
PART I: THE STOCK MARKET WORLD
WHITHER GOETH THE MARKET?
The large number of stocks they cover means that random errors in individual stocks become insignificant. Analyst errors on individual stocks tend to cancel each other out.
BUYING STOCKS AND MUTUAL FUNDS
An analyst down-grades the stock.
The company fails to meet expected quarterly earnings.
The company meets “whisper” earnings number but falls short of sales expectations.
The company meets the “whisper” numbers but issues a gloomy outlook for the future.
Cooking the books
Back-dating management stock options grants
The company loses a big contract to a competitor.
The market as a whole falls, taking down most stocks with it.
If you still insist on buying individual stocks regardless of the miserable odds of being successful, there is an options strategy that works better than the outright purchase of the stock. If the stock goes up, the strategy will result in far greater percentage gains than if you had bought the stock instead. And if the stock stays flat, you will make a small profit – something you wouldn’t make if you just owned the stock.
On the other hand, in terms of mutual funds, year after year millions of investors pay mutual fund managers billions of dollars to underperform the market. “Most of my investments are in equity stock funds.” Even a famous stock broker agrees that “Most of the mutual fund investments I have are approximately 95% index funds.”
Pity Your Broker. Your broker will most certainly never tell you about trading options.
Commission rates of full-service brokers are too high for you to make money trading options especially the kind of spreads the author recommends
Everyone ‘knows’ that options are extremely risky. Most options expire worthless thus; option traders must be losing their shirts if he recommends options to you because, you may sue him if you lose your money.
The Analysts. If brokers really don’t know which are the best stocks to buy, what about the analysts?
PART II: THE WORLD OF OPTIONS
STOCK INVESTING VS. OPTIONS INVESTING
The biggest differences between the world of stocks (or mutual funds) and the world of options can be explained in mathematical terms. Stocks change arithmetically and options change geometrically.
Comparing the arithmetic changes in the stock portfolio with the expected geometric changes in a Mighty Mesa portfolio, these things are true:
If the underlying stock stays flat or goes up by 1%, 2%, 3%, or 4% during one expiration month, the portfolio value will increase by an average 4%-10% after commissions.
If the underlying stock stays flat or goes down by 1%, 2%, 3%, or 4% during one expiration month, the portfolio value will increase by an average 4%-10% after commissions.
If the underlying stock goes up or down by 5% during one expiration month, the portfolio value will most likely break even (on average).
If the underlying stock goes up or down by 6% or more during one expiration month, unless adjustments are made, the options portfolio will lose money. That loss could be doubled or more of the percentage loss in the underlying stock.
If the underlying stock falls by 15% in one expiration month, unless adjustments are made, the options portfolio could lose 40%.
PUTS AND CALLS 101
Basic Call Option Definition. Buying a call option gives you the right (but not the obligation) to purchase 100 shares of a company’s stock at a certain price (called the strike price) from the date you buy the call until the third Friday of a specific month (called the expiration date).
People buy calls because they hope the stock will go up and they will make a profit, either by selling the calls at a higher price, or by exercising their option.
Basic Put Option Definition. Buying a put option gives you the right (but not the obligation to sell 100 shares of a company’s stock at a certain price (called the strike price) from the date of purchase until the third Friday of a specific month (called the expiration date).
LEAPS are long term stock options.
CALENDAR SPREADS AND BUTTERFLY SPREADS
Calendar spreads are the basic foundation of the Mighty Mesa Strategy. They involve buying an option that has several months of remaining life and simultaneously selling another option in the current month with both the long and short option having the same strike price. Since the longer-term option will always be more valuable than the short-term one, buying the spread will involve the outlay of some money (when you place the order, it is called a debit).
A butterfly spread is an interesting options tactic if you think you know where a stock will end up at expiration.
PART III: PUTTING THE MIGHTY MESA STRATEGY TO WORK
SETTING UP A MIGHTY MESA:
Calculate the desired break-even range of possible stock prices (for SPY, it is recommended about 8% in either direction from the stock price).
Place a small number of calendar spreads (2-5 months of remaining life for the long side, one month of remaining life for the short side) at strikes just below and above of the starting stock price. Use puts for the calendar spreads below the stock price and calls for calendar spreads at strikes above the stock price unless, there is a price advantage for those closest to the stock price.
In other words, if the call calendar spreads are less expensive, they can be used for strikes slightly below the stock price.
Place a larger number of calendar spreads at a strike approximately half-way between the stock price and the lowest strike in the break-even range that you have previously selected.
The number or spreads should be at least double or triple the average number of calendar spreads that are placed at the various higher strikes.
For the most conservative portfolio, set aside 10% of portfolio value for possible adjustments.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Crash-Tested Investment Strategies that Beat the Market
The Big IdeaIt worked once again during the market decline that began in 2008. In The Seven Rules of Wall Street, Sam Stovall, master investment strategist and expert on stock market history, presents seven familiar sayings that not only convey enduring truths but also serve as superb investment strategies.
In this engaging guide, Stovall subjects his chosen sayings to the facts of history and to his own personal experience. When it comes to building a portfolio, for instance, should you “let your winners ride, but cut your losers short”? Absolutely. “On average,” Stovall writes, “the 'winners' beat the market by a near two-to-one margin.
Why You Need This Book
This fun and lively book provides an abundance of wisdom in remarkably few words – proving that investing books can be as entertaining as they are educating. To support his conclusions, Stovall complements his sharp insight with the results of detailed back-testing, as well as tables and charts drawing on decades of stock market data.
Rule 1 – Let Your Winners Ride, But Cut Your Losers Short
Contrary to popular opinion, it’s been more rewarding to invest in those industries that recorded the best price performances over the past year, while avoiding those with the worst. In this case, “Buy Low, Sell High” doesn’t typically work in the short run!
No investment technique works all of the time. The Let Your Winners Ride, but Cut Your Losers Short rule underperformed the broader market three years in a row, from 1987 to 1989, yet it beat the market 10 years straight from 1971 to 1980, including the mega-meltdown years of 1973 and 1974.
Investors typically fail before rules do. In other words, investors tend to give up on a rule after one or two years of underperformance – just when the rule is likely to work again. And to compound matters, they switch into another rule that just has a lengthy hot streak.
As luck would have it, that rule would then likely hit a cold streak.
So either embrace a single rule that you favor most and stick with it, or embrace two rules, directing half of your money toward one rule and the other half toward the second rule.
Rule 2 – As Goes January, So Goes the Year
The first month of the year has been very accurate in forecasting the coming year’s performance for equity markets, sectors, and industries. Developing a January Barometer portfolio for either sectors or industries is amazingly simple – just select the three S&P 500 sectors, or 10 industries, that posted the best performances during January and hold them for a year.
You may also be surprised to find out that the January Barometer portfolios frequently beat the market whether the S&P rose or fell in January.
You even find out which sectors or industries to avoid. Just as with the Let Your Winners Ride portfolio, the performances of the industries and sectors in the January Barometer portfolio show that investors can save themselves a lot of heartache by avoiding the three sectors and 10 industries that posted the weakest performances during this opening month of the year.
Rule 3 – Sell in May and Then Go Away
The market and most sectors typically take a “price-appreciation vacation” during the summer months.
From April 30, 1990, through October 31, 2008, they could have turned a 5.8% return into a 10.0% annual compound rate of return. Sweet!
In 2008, while the S&P 500 fell by more than 30% from May through October, the S&P Consumer Staples and Health Care sectors fell by about half that amount, improving not only on their frequency of beating the S&P 500, but also the margin by which their average compound return beat the market.
Rule 4 – There’s No Free Lunch on Wall Street (Oh Yeah, Who Says?)
By diversifying among sectors that zig when others zag, some investors have historically been able to get both a higher return as well as lower risk. If Sir Isaac Newton had a law of motion related to the stock market, it probably would have sounded like “for every level of return, there’s an equivalent level of risk,” meaning that the higher the returns you hope to achieve, the greater the amount of risk you should be willing to accept.
If you expect a high-price return, then you have to expect to experience an elevated level of risk, either in the form of price volatility or the potential loss of your original investment.
Sometimes, however, one can find an investment strategy that delivers a free lunch: an investment that offers an improved return with lower risk. Investing in sectors with low correlations to one another has actually provided investors with above-average returns – even when factoring in risk or volatility.
Over the long term, sectors with low correlations have recorded advances and declines at a different rate of pace, as if they each marched to the beat of a different drummer. Highly correlated sectors, on the other hand, ascended the staircase of price changes as if marching to the same beat.
Rule 5 – There’s Always a Bull Market Someplace
Not all investors are Fred Astaire on the dance floor. This rear-view mirror approach to investing has a time-tested track record for picking near-term winners. The intent is to maintain an ownership of all industries that have had the highest trailing 12-month price performance.
Your goal is to buy high but sell higher. In addition, the number of holdings never changes. This makes the management of the portfolio fairly straightforward. A drawback to this rule for industries is turnover. The portfolio requires monthly fine-tuning.
What this rule endorses is that instead of picking sectors, industries, or stocks by trying to forecast where we are in the economic cycle, projecting which company will win a government contract, or guessing which way the dollar will fluctuate, let the market tell you where to invest your money.
With Rule 5, There’s Always a Bull Market Someplace, you can let the market tell you which areas to buy into and when to sell out.
Rule 6 – Don’t Get Mad – Get Even!
How could you have invested in the S&P 500, yet avoided such long-lasting portfolio carnage? Get small-cap performance with large-cap stability.
What should an investor take away from this rule?
First, if you are a buy-and-hold investor who is looking to neutralize the influence of cap size in your portfolio, and take advantage of the historical outperformance of smaller-cap stocks over larger-cap ones, then you should invest in the equally weighted S&P 500 ETF.
Second, you might want to rotate between the equally weighted and market-cap-weighted S&P 500 indexes. The equally weighted S&P 500, like the small-cap indexes, will likely outperform the cap-weighted index periodically. As a result, you may choose to gravitate toward the equally weighted S&P 500 when you believe smaller-cap stocks are likely to outperform other stocks.
Third is the extra octane an investor receives when substituting equally weighted sectors for market-cap-weighted sectors in the portfolios. The Summary, Ranking the Rules, summarizes the performances, volatility, and frequencies of outperformance for each of the Seven Rules of Wall Street, using market-cap-weighted and equally weighted sector indexes.
How you implement the rule Don’t Get Mad – Get Even is just as simple as the ways you implement the other rules.
Rule 7 – Don’t Fight the Fed
The Federal Reserve controls the cost of cash. During periods of rising interest rates, there has traditionally been almost no place to hide. Yet when the Fed has begun cutting interest rates, the equity markets have usually soared. Will your portfolio be ready for the ride?
Learn to identify which sectors are traditional leaders and laggards during these periods of interest-rate adjustments.
What is the one thing an investor should monitor in order to gauge the health of the economy and the direction of the stock market? Interest rates.
The mandate of the Federal Reserve is twofold: to promote economic growth and to keep inflation under control. In other words, make capital (money) abundant enough so that consumers and companies will be willing to borrow money in order to expand and improve their overall quality of life.
If the economy were a car, the Fed’s responsibility as a driver would be to maintain a safe speed. If the Fed wanted to speed things up, then they would step down on the gas by lowering interest rates. To slow things down, however, the Fed would need to tap or even slam on the brakes by raising interest rates and reducing the availability of capital.
The biggest challenge for the Fed is that our economy isn’t a little red sports car that reacts nimbly to the application of the gas pedal or the brakes. Instead, the economy is more like a supertanker whose response time is remarkably slow. It also takes quite some time for the economy to slow down as a result of higher rates.
And the Winner Is…
Of all the portfolios, the one favored the most is There’s Always a Bull Market Someplace, which uses equally weighted S&P 500 sectors. Even more encouraging is that this portfolio allows an investor to evaluate and adjust his or her portfolio every month.
Good luck!
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com.
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Truth About Trust in Business
Can you be trusted?
Trust is the cornerstone of your business and personal life, but do you clearly understand what trust is? Do you know how to develop trust in all areas of your life? Can you determine if others view you and your organization as trustworthy?
By examining the role of trust in sales, management, branding and marketing, customer service, and leadership, author Vanessa Hall gives you the tools you need to earn trust, reap the rewards, and stand apart from the competition. The Truth about Trust in Business will help you strengthen all your relationships and allow you to build a business and personal life anchored to a rock-solid foundation based on the assessment of expectations, needs, and promises.
With a practical model, compelling insights, real case studies, and easy-to-implement tips, Hall offers you knowledge of how to ensure that trust, once established, is not broken; guidance on how to become more trustworthy, as a person or an organization; advice about how to build trustworthy brands and businesses; and assessment tools for determining how trustworthy you are in each area of business.
A lot of people talk about trust, particularly in the current economic climate, but few comprehend the dynamics of trust. With insight gained from years of experience and a deep commitment to strengthening society’s core values, Hall delivers an effective and critical tool for building trust.
The full summary of The Truth About Trust in Business is available on BusinessSummaries.com.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
"The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable"
Check out our new business book summary for this week!
"The Black Swan: The Impact of the
Highly Improbable", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three
principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries
a massive impact; and, afterwards, we concoct an
explanation that makes the event appear less random
and more predictable than it was. The astonishing success
of Google was a black swan and so was 9/11.
For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost
everything about our world - from the rise of religions
to events in our personal lives. But because humans are
hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused
on generalities, we are unable to truly estimate opportunities
and are not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine
the “impossible.”
Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black
Swan is a landmark book that will change the way you look
at the world.
The revelations in this book explain everything you know
about what you don’t know. It offers surprisingly simple
tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.
Go to BusinessSummaries.com to access this book summary!
"The Black Swan: The Impact of the
Highly Improbable", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three
principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries
a massive impact; and, afterwards, we concoct an
explanation that makes the event appear less random
and more predictable than it was. The astonishing success
of Google was a black swan and so was 9/11.
For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost
everything about our world - from the rise of religions
to events in our personal lives. But because humans are
hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused
on generalities, we are unable to truly estimate opportunities
and are not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine
the “impossible.”
Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black
Swan is a landmark book that will change the way you look
at the world.
The revelations in this book explain everything you know
about what you don’t know. It offers surprisingly simple
tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.
Go to BusinessSummaries.com to access this book summary!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Attitudes That Attract Success
The Big Idea
We give leis to say “Thank you” and we give leis to say “Goodbye.”
Our attitude is like a lei. If you string together a collection of dried fish, everything starts smelling fishy! If you string together old socks, the whole world has this funny odor to it.
Your attitude is like a fragrance you carry around with you. The difference is that skunks carry a bad odor while a beautiful Hawaiian plumeria blossom carries a fragrance.
Why You Need This Book
This book gives practical steps to building internal values and perspectives that will change your life!
Make Your Choice
So far too often we see the consequences of making a bad choice or walking through life with a bad attitude, and yet we choose that attitude anyway. Then when relationships fail, when we lose friends or forfeit a great opportunity, it really should be no surprise.
Deposit into your heart the necessary ingredients to develop a life-changing attitude. Make that choice right now. The new attitude may feel awkward at first, but practice until it becomes natural.
You are only one attitude away from a great life, a successful marriage and a promising future!
Your attitude is the set of your sail. You must choose the direction you want your life to travel and set your heart accordingly.
There will be storms, but it will be your attitude toward those storms that drives you in one direction or another, not the storm itself.
A poor attitude in the midst of the storm can cause the storm to rage inside for a lifetime.
You will see problems everywhere, but don’t allow your eyes to remain focused on them. Develop a new perspective – a fresh view of your problems.
Don’t hang around the swamps of despair. They will only skew your attitude and impede your resilience. Learn to bounce back quickly.
Don’t miss the ride! Don’t forget to laugh. There is plenty to laugh about in life, and we need to laugh.
Whatever it is, take time to enjoy life in its simplest form.
Make a new friend today. A great place to start is with your family.
Life is too short for that. By establishing deep friendships with your family, you’ll begin to reap one of life’s greatest promises and rewards.
Pause long enough to enjoy the ride. You will be pleasantly surprised how a new perspective will help you to develop an attitude that attracts friends, laughter, joy and success!
Raise the Bar of Excellence
We need to practice having an excellent attitude in each and every endeavor, for it will always be true that we can improve the way we see problems, people and life.
Even if it’s only 1 percent each day, improve something about yourself. If you can improve just 1 percent a day, that means over one year you will have improved more than 300 percent for your life.
Raise the bar!
Play the Right Background Music
As you dwell on these memories, experiences and thoughts, they are recorded on the soundtrack of your mind and play continuously all day long.
Whatever you play on this internal sound system affects everything about you – your attitude, your self-image, your confidence level, your relationships, the way you communicate with others and even your faith. Memories hang on for a long time if you let them.
What is your play list? You get to make the selections, so choose wisely!
Practice, Practice, Practice!
Love
Am I consistently committed to helping others develop and discover the very best in their lives?
Peace
Do I bring a calming effect to every situation, or do I stir up people’s feathers? Do I tend to fix the blame or fix the problem?
Patience
Do I give people room to fail, and then help them look for the lessons of life that can be extracted from that failure?
Kindness
When working with people under my supervision or care, do I appeal to them kindly?
Gentleness
How do I deal with others’ failures, especially if it affects me?
Self-control
The more you practice these things, the more fruitful you’ll be in your attitude, business, and family. So practice, practice, practice!
Finish Well
Each of us can live an extraordinary life with an attitude of excellence, but it must be diligently cultivated. Let’s take a look at four keys to living an extraordinary life.
Aim for the Right Target.
An attitude that attracts success begins with knowing which opportunities to accept and which to reject. This way you will begin to develop not just an existence but a LIFE.
Remember, first aim for the right target.
Run the Right Race.
You cannot run someone else’s race; you can only run your own. If you run the wrong race, you’ll end up at the wrong finish line.
Understand What Satisfies Your Soul.
Contentment cannot be acquired directly. Truly content people are those whose aim in life is something much bigger than attaining mere contentment alone.
Learn to understand what truly satisfies you – what satisfies your soul. Otherwise, you will never develop an attitude of true contentment.
Make Contentment an Inside Job.
Contentment is vital in developing an extraordinary attitude and, as discussed in the previous point, must be aimed for instead of instant and all too temporary gratification. The prisoner on the top bunk was staring out the window of his cell into the night sky.
The stars were spread out in a splendid array, with an occasional shooting star making the evening sky a spectacular display of fireworks.
Calling to his cell mate in the bunk below, the man said, “Hey, wake up! Look at the stars! “Aw, leave me alone,” his cell mate grunted.
The stars tonight are the brightest I’ve ever seen!”
One prisoner saw the stars; the other saw the bars. It all depends on your attitude, doesn’t it?
Contentment is an inside job. Choose a good attitude that you might experience life the way it was meant to be lived!
But it takes training, discipline and desire to develop your perspective to see what’s good. Choose, because both will be present – the stars and the bars. Look for the stars.
You’re only one attitude away from a fantastic life!
We give leis to say “Thank you” and we give leis to say “Goodbye.”
Our attitude is like a lei. If you string together a collection of dried fish, everything starts smelling fishy! If you string together old socks, the whole world has this funny odor to it.
Your attitude is like a fragrance you carry around with you. The difference is that skunks carry a bad odor while a beautiful Hawaiian plumeria blossom carries a fragrance.
Why You Need This Book
This book gives practical steps to building internal values and perspectives that will change your life!
Make Your Choice
So far too often we see the consequences of making a bad choice or walking through life with a bad attitude, and yet we choose that attitude anyway. Then when relationships fail, when we lose friends or forfeit a great opportunity, it really should be no surprise.
Deposit into your heart the necessary ingredients to develop a life-changing attitude. Make that choice right now. The new attitude may feel awkward at first, but practice until it becomes natural.
You are only one attitude away from a great life, a successful marriage and a promising future!
Your attitude is the set of your sail. You must choose the direction you want your life to travel and set your heart accordingly.
There will be storms, but it will be your attitude toward those storms that drives you in one direction or another, not the storm itself.
A poor attitude in the midst of the storm can cause the storm to rage inside for a lifetime.
You will see problems everywhere, but don’t allow your eyes to remain focused on them. Develop a new perspective – a fresh view of your problems.
Don’t hang around the swamps of despair. They will only skew your attitude and impede your resilience. Learn to bounce back quickly.
Don’t miss the ride! Don’t forget to laugh. There is plenty to laugh about in life, and we need to laugh.
Whatever it is, take time to enjoy life in its simplest form.
Make a new friend today. A great place to start is with your family.
Life is too short for that. By establishing deep friendships with your family, you’ll begin to reap one of life’s greatest promises and rewards.
Pause long enough to enjoy the ride. You will be pleasantly surprised how a new perspective will help you to develop an attitude that attracts friends, laughter, joy and success!
Raise the Bar of Excellence
We need to practice having an excellent attitude in each and every endeavor, for it will always be true that we can improve the way we see problems, people and life.
Even if it’s only 1 percent each day, improve something about yourself. If you can improve just 1 percent a day, that means over one year you will have improved more than 300 percent for your life.
Raise the bar!
Play the Right Background Music
As you dwell on these memories, experiences and thoughts, they are recorded on the soundtrack of your mind and play continuously all day long.
Whatever you play on this internal sound system affects everything about you – your attitude, your self-image, your confidence level, your relationships, the way you communicate with others and even your faith. Memories hang on for a long time if you let them.
What is your play list? You get to make the selections, so choose wisely!
Practice, Practice, Practice!
Love
Am I consistently committed to helping others develop and discover the very best in their lives?
Peace
Do I bring a calming effect to every situation, or do I stir up people’s feathers? Do I tend to fix the blame or fix the problem?
Patience
Do I give people room to fail, and then help them look for the lessons of life that can be extracted from that failure?
Kindness
When working with people under my supervision or care, do I appeal to them kindly?
Gentleness
How do I deal with others’ failures, especially if it affects me?
Self-control
The more you practice these things, the more fruitful you’ll be in your attitude, business, and family. So practice, practice, practice!
Finish Well
Each of us can live an extraordinary life with an attitude of excellence, but it must be diligently cultivated. Let’s take a look at four keys to living an extraordinary life.
Aim for the Right Target.
An attitude that attracts success begins with knowing which opportunities to accept and which to reject. This way you will begin to develop not just an existence but a LIFE.
Remember, first aim for the right target.
Run the Right Race.
You cannot run someone else’s race; you can only run your own. If you run the wrong race, you’ll end up at the wrong finish line.
Understand What Satisfies Your Soul.
Contentment cannot be acquired directly. Truly content people are those whose aim in life is something much bigger than attaining mere contentment alone.
Learn to understand what truly satisfies you – what satisfies your soul. Otherwise, you will never develop an attitude of true contentment.
Make Contentment an Inside Job.
Contentment is vital in developing an extraordinary attitude and, as discussed in the previous point, must be aimed for instead of instant and all too temporary gratification. The prisoner on the top bunk was staring out the window of his cell into the night sky.
The stars were spread out in a splendid array, with an occasional shooting star making the evening sky a spectacular display of fireworks.
Calling to his cell mate in the bunk below, the man said, “Hey, wake up! Look at the stars! “Aw, leave me alone,” his cell mate grunted.
The stars tonight are the brightest I’ve ever seen!”
One prisoner saw the stars; the other saw the bars. It all depends on your attitude, doesn’t it?
Contentment is an inside job. Choose a good attitude that you might experience life the way it was meant to be lived!
But it takes training, discipline and desire to develop your perspective to see what’s good. Choose, because both will be present – the stars and the bars. Look for the stars.
You’re only one attitude away from a fantastic life!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Business Book Summary Provider Launches a Business Book Discussion Forum
Miami, Florida, May 28, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com releases its brand new business book discussion forum, where book readers can chat, share news, and discuss ideas on favourite business book titles.
BusinessSummaries.com launched an important new feature to its website – a business book discussion forum. It provides a neutral venue for business book readers to freely discuss their favourite business book titles, authors and concepts.
Areas covered in the discussion forum include a general discussion on any topic of interest, authors, business book titles, business ideas, trends and concepts.
The team members of BusinessSummaries.com hope that this discussion forum will be a place to share information, express opinions, develop ideas, ask questions and make recommendations to other business book readers.
The business book discussion forum is found on http://www.bizsum.com/forum/.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summary service. Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.
BusinessSummaries.com launched an important new feature to its website – a business book discussion forum. It provides a neutral venue for business book readers to freely discuss their favourite business book titles, authors and concepts.
Areas covered in the discussion forum include a general discussion on any topic of interest, authors, business book titles, business ideas, trends and concepts.
The team members of BusinessSummaries.com hope that this discussion forum will be a place to share information, express opinions, develop ideas, ask questions and make recommendations to other business book readers.
The business book discussion forum is found on http://www.bizsum.com/forum/.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summary service. Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office
Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office uncovers the secrets behind the success of the great CEOs through their lives and personal stories.Why did Ray Kroc's plan for McDonald's thrive when all the other burger joints failed? How can we apply his lessons to Krispy Kreme? How did Walt Disney's most dismal day as a young cartoonist radically change his career direction?
We learn about their biggest challenges and failures, and how they successfully rode the waves of demographic and technological change. When Estée Lauder was a child in Queens, New York, the average American spent $8 a year on toiletries.
How did she spot an opportunity in high-priced cosmetics? Why did she pound on the doors of Saks? How did Thomas Watson, Jr., decide to roll the dice and put all of IBM's chips on computing, when his father thought it could be a losing idea?
Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office not only fascinates with the personal lives of these CEOs, it shows how we can transfer their ideas today to the triumphs and struggles of Sony, Dell, Costco, Carnival Cruises, Time Warner, and numerous other companies trying to figure out how to stay on top, or climb back up. The featured CEOs in this book were not candidates for sainthood. Many of them knew "God" only as a prefix to "damn it." But they were devoted to their businesses, not just to their egos, personal bank accounts, and yachts.
Extraordinarily fresh and deeply thoughtful, Todd G. Buchholz's Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office is a truly enjoyable and fun—yet serious and realistic—look at what we still have to learn and absorb from these former CEOs.
This book blends the lives and the business challenges of the featured CEOs in order to expose their strengths and the circumstances they had to overcome. This book features CEOs who relied on more dependable, more human drives. Drives that took them on fascinating rides.
Come find out.
The Seven Rules Of Wall Street
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The Seven Rules Of Wall Street
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Pilgrimage To Warren Buffets Omaha
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Pilgrimage To Warren Buffets Omaha
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Pilgrimage to Warren Buffet’s Omaha
Pilgrimage to Warren Buffet’s Omaha A Hedge Fund Manager’s Dispatches from Inside the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting By Jeff MatthewsThe Big Idea
They come to Omaha by the tens of thousands, flocking to an annual meeting that has become legendary for investors, businesspeople, and fans of one of the savviest capitalists on the planet. They come to eat steak, buy furniture at a discount, and bask in the brilliance of value investor extraordinaire Warren Buffet.
Hedge fund founder, financial blogger, and professional skeptic Jeff Matthews got his own highly-coveted ticket to the 2007 and 2008 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meetings that covered the 2006 and 2007 fiscal years and held only for shareholders and their guests, and proceeded to post reports on his blog, offering tempting glimpses into the much-discussed meeting. This well-written, easy-to-read book is an expanded version of Jeff Matthews’ original essay.
Why You Need This Book
Matthews delivers a full-length account of his adventures at this infamous financial hoedown, and answers many questions, including:
Does Buffett's famed penny-pinching cripple his companies?
Why does Buffet – a bridge partner and best friend of Bill Gates – not own any technology stocks?
How does the extremely rational Buffett square his well-known social progressiveness with his lily-white audience of investors?
Is Buffet really an "Oracle"?
What information, insights, and ideas do the meeting's attendees pick up, and how do they put this information to use in their own investments?
Will Berkshire-Hathaway survive his death?
Matthews also applies his financial acumen to harvesting potent lessons from his experiences that you can use as you survey the investment field, from finding how the world’s greatest investor evaluates not only businesses but the people who run them, to the importance of “just reading and thinking” and the value of having a smart, cynical partner.
Why Omaha?
As great as his track record is, and as wise as his pearls of wisdom are, Warren Buffett’s investment philosophy does seem narrow-minded and old-fashioned. He focuses on a handful of industries he knows well – insurance, home furnishings, business services, and anything else that fits within his famed “circle of competence.”
And the rest he leaves alone.
Like pay phones in a wireless world, Buffett seems increasingly antiquated – even irrelevant – to more flexible, wide-ranging investors who have grown up in a highly connected, technologically independent world.
Of course, neither Buffett nor his “quality shareholders” express any remorse over missing Google or Apple or even Microsoft, outside his circle of competence as those investments are. After all, while many investors have had better years than Warren Buffett, and some may have had better decades, Buffett’s track record over the long haul is, quite literally, unsurpassed.
The Newspaper Generation
Almost every person sitting around, waiting for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting to begin, is reading a newspaper. It is an open, relaxed, inviting, approachable kind of posture.
Blackberry readers, on the other hand, tend to be hunched over, head bowed, reading the text. It is a closed, tense, uninviting, not-very-approachable posture.
It’s no wonder that Warren Buffett reportedly makes it a point never to trade stocks when he’s in New York City.
The Oracle of Omaha
If there is one word that describes Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” it is not oracular. Nor is it prophetic, divinatory, clairvoyant, extrasensory, or telepathic. While he may be known as “the Oracle of Omaha,” there is in truth absolutely nothing oracular about him.
Yet it is true that in May 1969, near the peak of that era’s bull market, he wrote to the investors in his partnership that “opportunities for investment… have virtually disappeared,” closed his partnership, and kept only two stocks: a retailer that he later sold, and an old-line textile company named Berkshire Hathaway, which he decided to keep.
And it is true that in October 1974, after the Dow Jones Industrial Average had collapsed and with the American economy mired in gasoline shortages and price controls, Buffett made perhaps the most unequivocally bullish – and correct – utterance on the subject of investing ever recorded by any business publication when he told Forbes magazine: “Now is the time to invest and get rich.”
Budding Buffetts: Where to Begin
The question is, “What should I do to become a great investor?”, and it is asked for the first time by an earnest 17-year old from San Francisco who says he is attending his tenth consecutive meeting.
Buffett’s emphatic answer is simple and straightforward: “Read everything you can,” he says with finality.
Buffett’s reading habits did not stop when he was 10. He still reads literally thousands of financial statements and annual reports each year – as he has done for each of the last 50 or more years that he’s been investing.
Of course there is more to what has made Buffett a great investor than this. But it all began by reading.
Each time the question is asked, Buffett makes it clear he is not sure where the world is going and what will happen now, but things are about as good as they’ll ever get. “Corporate profits as a percent of gross domestic product have increased from 4 to 6 percent to 8 percent.”
“You have lots of businesses earning 20 percent on tangible equity in a world where corporate bonds are yielding 4 to 5 percent. That’s astonishing. If you read a book, it would say it’s not possible.” Buffett holds his palms wide apart to illustrate the high level of profits. “Namely labor.”
Buffett also discusses the “extraordinary” profits now prevailing in the banks and the financial sector. “We’ve invested in and owned banks. If 20 years ago you’d asked me whether it was possible, in a world of 4.75 percent bonds, that countless banks would earn 20 percent-plus returns on tangible equity, I’d have said no.
Munger, Buffett’s business partner and friend, follows with his own observation, one that will prove, in retrospect, at one unremarkable yet quite profound. “A lot of profits are not in manufacturing or retailing,” he says somberly,” but in financial sectors.
There’s been a huge flow of profits to banks and investment banks. Buffett finishes with a coda for the times: “Corporate America is living in the best of all worlds – and history has shown this is not sustainable.
Secrets in Plain Sight
The “secrets” to Warren Buffet’s success are hidden in plain sight. He talks about his methods freely with anybody who asks. Buffett gives perhaps his best advice to a teacher at an Orlando community college who asks what she should be teaching her students about financial matters.
“How would you treat it?” Buffett asks rhetorically. “You’d read the owner’s manual five times; you’d change the oil twice as often as you do now… Buffett’s own most noteworthy habits – frugality and rationality – have certainly followed him throughout his life. And they have made him, for the moment, the richest human being in the world.
The “Yes” Won’t Change
Buffett stripped down concepts ranging from investing for beginners to nuclear proliferation to their bare essence:
WHAT IT MEANS TO INVEST. “What we’re doing in an investment is we’re laying out money now to get more money back in the future.”
“We want a business with a durable competitive advantage, management we trust, at a price that we understand.”
WHY HE DOESN’T HIRE AUDITORS WHEN HE BUYS A BUSINESS. “If you think the auditors know more about making an acquisition than you do, you ought to take up accounting and let the auditors run the business.”
ON EGREGIOUS CORPORATE COMPENSATION. “The idea that you have to pay some guy a $10 million retention bonus to keep him around – I don’t know of a CEO in America that wouldn’t gladly do the job at half the price or a quarter of the price.”
HOW TO CHANGE EGREGIOUS CORPORATE COMPENSATION. “If the half dozen largest institutions would simply withhold their votes and issue a short statement why they’re doing it, it would work. Big shots don’t like to get embarrassed.”
WHAT A SMALL INVESTOR SHOULD DO TO START INVESTING. “Put it all in a low-cost index fund, like Vanguard.”
I can tell people ‘yes,’ and that won’t change. The $6.5 billion will be available whether a nuclear bomb goes off in New York City, or whether Ben Bernanke runs off with Paris Hilton.”
WHY THE DERIVATIVES MARKET GOT OUT OF HAND. “You had to read 750,000 pages to evaluate one security, and that was madness.”
WHEN REGULATION FAILED. “We had this organization called OFHEO [Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight] whose sole purpose was to oversee two companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac… They had 200 people going to work at nine every morning, whose sole job was to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they had two of the biggest financial scams ever, so they were two for two.”
WHY MASS TRANSIT ISN’T USED. “The American public doesn’t like mass transit. I used to be involved in bus companies, and you can make all kinds of rational arguments to people about mass transit. But one person per car seems to be an enormously popular method of moving around.”
WHY THE CHINA OLYMPICS SHOULDN’T BE BOYCOTTED. WHY NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IS STILL A THREAT. You’ve got 6.5 billion people in the world, so there are close to twice as many people that wish ill on other people as you had when the population was 3 million.”
THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN LIFE. You provide warmth and food, and they’re learning about the world… and you don’t get any rewind button.”
The Berkshire shareholder meeting is more than a pilgrimage for 31,000 investors: it’s big business here in Omaha.
Will the phone at Berkshire still ring when Warren Buffett is no longer there to pick it up?
A lot of other people around Omaha certainly hope so.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Free Book Summary : Negotiate Like the Pros
Free Book Summary : Negotiate Like the Pros A Top Sports Negotiator’s Lessons for Making Deals, Building Relationships, and Getting What You Want
Author: Kenneth L. Shropshire
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Books, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-07-154831-1
208 pages
The Big Idea
Do you want to be a better negotiator? Do you want to negotiate with the same success and confidence that you see among the professionals who handle teams, leagues, athletes – the sort of people you see in the sports pages and on ESPN – on a daily basis? In Negotiate Like the Pros, author Kenneth L. Shropshire explores powerful negotiating strategies, and teaches you how to use them to score big in any negotiation.
Prepare With Passion
To begin, you’ll have to understand both how to prepare and why taking the time to do so can be the most valuable transformation you can make in your negotiating life. That viewpoint dominates in sports, and it should be just as prevalent in business dealings.
Establish the road map to get from the beginning of the negotiation to the end result that you desire. Your counterpart will of course want to establish an agenda that will drive the conversation in a direction most favorable to him or her.
Begin with the basics - preparation puts you in the best possible position to win, whatever winning might be in a given setting.
Be prepared for negative circumstances as well as for positive ones. Your counterpart may know that single piece of information you thought he lacked. He may actually have another option that you did not foresee.
Stick with Your Style
Understand your most comfortable bargaining style as well as how to use it to your advantage rather than fretting about a style that does not come easily to you. In sports, we most often express this as “playing within yourself.”
It is vital to know who you are and who your opponent is in terms of style and, maybe more importantly, not to try to be someone you are not. Discover your strengths and base your preparation strategy on them. Be honest with yourself about what kind of negotiator you are, what you’re good at, and what you are not so good at.
Make the negotiation environment as favorable as possible to your style and your comfort level. Once you have a grasp of your style, you want to set the stage for the negotiation so that it is advantageous to you and detrimental to your counterpart.
Set Goals and Aim High
It is important to establish goals and make them a regular part of your preparation process. It is not unusual for sports teams to begin a season aiming for an event or for the Olympics by setting goals for the number and types of medals they will win. It is clear that the higher your goals are and the more support you have for them, the more successful you are likely to be.
Know your walk-away point. What is the minimum you will accept? Be as firm as you can about your walk-away point as you enter the negotiation. The best way to determine your walk-away point is to focus on your options.
What is the number, quantity, price, or whatever the metric is that you think, given the full impact of all of the information available, will close the deal fairly? This is the target, the bull’s-eye.
How should you establish goals? You do so with reference points, indicators that point you in the direction you want to go.
Seek Leverage
When establishing leverage, honesty is essential. Anyone can have success with a single deceitful act – maybe even several successes. But once your credibility is damaged, it is nearly impossible to get it back.
Leverage is fleeting. Circumstances can change, and you can lose it. How the parties view the future value of a deal is a fleeting concept too, but it comes up frequently in sports when the endorsement value of an unproven athlete needs to be determined.
Leverage is often supported, too, by the element of consistency. People want the same standard applied to them that was applied to others. People want to be perceived as being reasonable and want to act consistently for that reason.
Focus on Relationships and Interests
Go beyond the monetary side of deals and focus your attention on the other benefits that flow from them. For an athlete, such a side benefit may be a supportive relationship with the hometown crowd, as opposed to moving to a new city as a free agent for more money. In business, this benefit may be likened to a long-term relationship with a vendor or boss.
Those most successful in courting relationships take the time and make the effort to understand the interests of their clients. In most deals, this means that you need to comprehend what there is in a relationship with a counterpart that is important beyond the dollars and cents of the deal.
In creating your game plan, leave adequate time for thinking about relationships. The value of those relationships will be individual as well as cultural. If you are negotiating in another country, or with someone from a different country, be aware of the special issues that might be presented by virtue of this diversity.
Often those interests, the real reasons why someone wants to get a deal done, are non-monetary. The two are intertwined, as you cannot always get to a party’s interests unless you extend the effort to develop a relationship.
Fully contemplate the importance of current and future negotiations. Make sure, too, that you understand your counterpart’s true interest in closing the deal.
Negotiate Like a Pro
Winning certainly has a different meaning in every negotiation. Achieving that desired outcome is most likely to occur when we use all of the skills that we possess in a carefully prepared manner. Be prepared.
The magic of success really comes when you are able to practice with the same intensity that you use when you play, but are also able to play the game with the same relatively relaxed frame of mind that you have in practice. That is the challenge.
So where do we end up? With the lesson so many of us heard from our parents: do the best you can. You will know you are doing that when you combine all of the elements laid out in this book. Your bets get even better if your preparation is done at the highest level. You are not doing the best you can if you have not fully prepared.
To read the full 12-page summary of the book, please visit BusinessSummaries.com.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Top Ten Reasons Why Coaches Need Book Summaries
1. You don't have time to read 4 books a month
You sell your services. You coach your customers. You even have your own blogs. And you have time to read books?
No need to do critical reading of an entire book. We take out the effort of weeding through the 300 or so pages getting the key concepts by doing it for you. We then email to you the book summary in an easy-to-read format.
You save more than 1,200 hours of reading per year. With only 30 minutes of reading per book summary, you spend the time applying new ideas rather than spending time reading them. People will envy your knowledge while wondering where you find the time to read all the books you can discuss.
2. Focus only on winning ideas
In the U.S. alone, more than 2,000 new business books are released every year. There might be just one winning idea or two among the thousands - your key to getting your customers (or YOU!) ahead of the competition, to make more profit, or generate more sales. How do you look for that gold nugget of wisdom?
3. Reinforce your image as a subject matter expert
Like it or not, your readers and customers set high expectations on you. You are their coach, right?
How can you help them make more profits? Increase their revenues? You need to be constantly exposed to new business ideas, concepts and strategies. You have to be up to date with the latest in business thinking -- and be aware of and anticipate changes in the competitive business environment.
Business in today's world is constantly evolving. A buzzword, new trend or idea emerges as soon as another one fades. You don't want to be left behind. With globalization, and the Internet, our world is getting smaller. Events are moving faster.
4. You need fresh content for your blogs
You need to constantly research on the net for fresh ideas. You are on the lookout for interesting articles for your readers. You subscribe to a lot of industry news sites and ezines just to be up to date. The search to keep your reader's attention focused on your blog never ends.
And this is one of the best reasons for subscribing to us: book summaries provide one of the best sources of fresh content and one of the best triggers for reader feedback.
5. Focus on learning - in minutes
Knowledge is power and you need the essential knowledge from BusinessSummaries to make a big difference in your professional and yes, even your personal life.
Take advantage of change. Anticipate and prepare for it. Take on new opportunities.
Studies have shown that by reading your book summary you remember better. Why? We place the key points and concepts in an easy-to-remember format. Your comprehension and retention of the key ideas and concepts will increase. No need to read those irrelevant fillers.
The fast pace of change in business today -- and tomorrow -- demands that you systematically acquire new knowledge and skills. Executives and Entrepreneurs who recognize the need for "lifelong learning" will grow, advance, and achieve success -- despite downsizing and economic turmoil. Those who don't keep up will fail! It's as simple as that.
6. Sharpen your skills
Business gurus and their books provide us with timely advice and guidelines. They help your business move in the right direction.
Since the ideas are presented to you in summary format, it is easier to implement ASAP! Spend more time putting them into action rather than sitting down reading on them.
7. You get a second set of book summaries
As part of your normal subscription of BusinessSummaries Pro, you also receive for free a second series of book summaries called "Inside The Guru Mind".
The summaries you receive form BusinessSummaries Pro are normally from books that discuss business, economics, leadership, human resource and many other topics written by a lot of business gurus like Tom Peters and Peter Drucker.
However, "Inside The Guru Mind" focus on these authors or business masterminds, themselves. It's the author's mind's turn to be analyzed and summarized by us. The business gurus we are presenting, mostly authors themselves, are some of most influential thinkers or players of our time.
Are these biographies? Certainly not. We summarize what's on their minds not their life stories.
8. Book summaries are one of the best business resources
We surveyed over 5,000 individual users of book summaries (either as individual subscribers or as users of corporate licenses). The survey results showed that:
If at any time you are not completely satisfied, you may cancel and receive a FULL refund. And you get to keep the “Inside The Guru Mind” bonus subscription. Since the bonus is worth $49.95, that’s like getting a 225% refund. You can’t lose!
10. And finally, don't even take our word for it
You don’t even have to rely on our word that our service is great. For a lot of people, they rely on their peer’s recommendations. So I am listing below just some of the testimonials that we have been getting from some coaches:
"As a total book addict and perpetual student (years of studying at night for an MBA, a CFP designation, and hundreds of hours of coaching classes), there is never enough time for all that I want to read. Book summaries enables me to gain exposure to books that have relevant information for both my coaching clients and my business in an efficient way."
Helene Mazur
Business Coach and Team Facilitator
Princeton Performance Dynamics
http://www.ppdbusinesscoaching.com
"Inside the Guru Mind is reason enough to subscribe. The 15-page summary of Heller's Peter Drucker reads like an action plan for coaching executives. I can see a coaching program in the making!"
Hal Macomber
Reforming Project Management
http://weblog.halmacomber.com
"My company provides executive coaching, leadership development, and performance consulting to senior level executives and management teams who are committed to building organizational environments that promote a holistic, systemic approach to personal and professional development. I pride myself on being an ongoing resource for my clients. BusinessSummaries support my efforts at staying on top of my own game as a knowledge-based professional and enables me to keep my clients up to date on industry trends, leadership development and business management best practices. Business Summaries are a vital part of my client library."
Katherine Handin
Principal
Global Coaching Alliance, LLC
www.GlobalCoachingAlliance.com
For more information, please visit BusinessSummaries.com.
You sell your services. You coach your customers. You even have your own blogs. And you have time to read books?
No need to do critical reading of an entire book. We take out the effort of weeding through the 300 or so pages getting the key concepts by doing it for you. We then email to you the book summary in an easy-to-read format.
You save more than 1,200 hours of reading per year. With only 30 minutes of reading per book summary, you spend the time applying new ideas rather than spending time reading them. People will envy your knowledge while wondering where you find the time to read all the books you can discuss.
2. Focus only on winning ideas
In the U.S. alone, more than 2,000 new business books are released every year. There might be just one winning idea or two among the thousands - your key to getting your customers (or YOU!) ahead of the competition, to make more profit, or generate more sales. How do you look for that gold nugget of wisdom?
3. Reinforce your image as a subject matter expert
Like it or not, your readers and customers set high expectations on you. You are their coach, right?
How can you help them make more profits? Increase their revenues? You need to be constantly exposed to new business ideas, concepts and strategies. You have to be up to date with the latest in business thinking -- and be aware of and anticipate changes in the competitive business environment.
Business in today's world is constantly evolving. A buzzword, new trend or idea emerges as soon as another one fades. You don't want to be left behind. With globalization, and the Internet, our world is getting smaller. Events are moving faster.
4. You need fresh content for your blogs
You need to constantly research on the net for fresh ideas. You are on the lookout for interesting articles for your readers. You subscribe to a lot of industry news sites and ezines just to be up to date. The search to keep your reader's attention focused on your blog never ends.
And this is one of the best reasons for subscribing to us: book summaries provide one of the best sources of fresh content and one of the best triggers for reader feedback.
5. Focus on learning - in minutes
Knowledge is power and you need the essential knowledge from BusinessSummaries to make a big difference in your professional and yes, even your personal life.
Take advantage of change. Anticipate and prepare for it. Take on new opportunities.
Studies have shown that by reading your book summary you remember better. Why? We place the key points and concepts in an easy-to-remember format. Your comprehension and retention of the key ideas and concepts will increase. No need to read those irrelevant fillers.
The fast pace of change in business today -- and tomorrow -- demands that you systematically acquire new knowledge and skills. Executives and Entrepreneurs who recognize the need for "lifelong learning" will grow, advance, and achieve success -- despite downsizing and economic turmoil. Those who don't keep up will fail! It's as simple as that.
6. Sharpen your skills
Business gurus and their books provide us with timely advice and guidelines. They help your business move in the right direction.
Since the ideas are presented to you in summary format, it is easier to implement ASAP! Spend more time putting them into action rather than sitting down reading on them.
7. You get a second set of book summaries
As part of your normal subscription of BusinessSummaries Pro, you also receive for free a second series of book summaries called "Inside The Guru Mind".
The summaries you receive form BusinessSummaries Pro are normally from books that discuss business, economics, leadership, human resource and many other topics written by a lot of business gurus like Tom Peters and Peter Drucker.
However, "Inside The Guru Mind" focus on these authors or business masterminds, themselves. It's the author's mind's turn to be analyzed and summarized by us. The business gurus we are presenting, mostly authors themselves, are some of most influential thinkers or players of our time.
Are these biographies? Certainly not. We summarize what's on their minds not their life stories.
8. Book summaries are one of the best business resources
We surveyed over 5,000 individual users of book summaries (either as individual subscribers or as users of corporate licenses). The survey results showed that:
- 87% say book summaries work for them
- 8% say book summaries does not work for them
- 5% say they don't know
- 82% of the training directors and content librarians say book summaries enhance their programs. The results showed that:
- 82% say book summaries work for their training program or intranet resource
- 12% say book summaries does not work for them
- 6% say they don't know
If at any time you are not completely satisfied, you may cancel and receive a FULL refund. And you get to keep the “Inside The Guru Mind” bonus subscription. Since the bonus is worth $49.95, that’s like getting a 225% refund. You can’t lose!
10. And finally, don't even take our word for it
You don’t even have to rely on our word that our service is great. For a lot of people, they rely on their peer’s recommendations. So I am listing below just some of the testimonials that we have been getting from some coaches:
"As a total book addict and perpetual student (years of studying at night for an MBA, a CFP designation, and hundreds of hours of coaching classes), there is never enough time for all that I want to read. Book summaries enables me to gain exposure to books that have relevant information for both my coaching clients and my business in an efficient way."
Helene Mazur
Business Coach and Team Facilitator
Princeton Performance Dynamics
http://www.ppdbusinesscoaching.com
"Inside the Guru Mind is reason enough to subscribe. The 15-page summary of Heller's Peter Drucker reads like an action plan for coaching executives. I can see a coaching program in the making!"
Hal Macomber
Reforming Project Management
http://weblog.halmacomber.com
"My company provides executive coaching, leadership development, and performance consulting to senior level executives and management teams who are committed to building organizational environments that promote a holistic, systemic approach to personal and professional development. I pride myself on being an ongoing resource for my clients. BusinessSummaries support my efforts at staying on top of my own game as a knowledge-based professional and enables me to keep my clients up to date on industry trends, leadership development and business management best practices. Business Summaries are a vital part of my client library."
Katherine Handin
Principal
Global Coaching Alliance, LLC
www.GlobalCoachingAlliance.com
For more information, please visit BusinessSummaries.com.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Let Authors Owen and Brooks Teach You How Net Promoter Discipline Can Change Your Company for the Better!
Miami, Florida, March 9, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com releases its new business book "Answering the Ultimate Question: How Net Promoter Can Transform Your Business", by Richard Owen and Laura L. Brooks, Ph.D., Jossey-Bass Books, 2009. Subscribers may now access PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, Audio, Video and Mindmap formats of “Answering the Ultimate Question”, and enjoy the book summary anytime, anywhere.
Miami, Florida, March 9, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com, one of the leading e-commerce sites for business book summaries, today releases the abridged version of one of the business bestsellers "Answering the Ultimate Question: How Net Promoter Can Transform Your Business", by Richard Owen and Laura L. Brooks, Ph.D., Jossey-Bass Books, 2009. This executive book summary is now accessible to subscribers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and Mindmap formats.
In this book, authors Richard Owen and Laura Brooks discuss how — based on a variety of real case studies — Net Promoter discipline can be embedded in organizations of all types and industries. The Net Promoter Score is a fast, accurate, quantitative measure whose purpose is to gauge customers' real loyalty to a company, establish a baseline and effectively track changes going forward. This discipline was co-developed by Owen, Brooks and fellow author Fred Reichheld, and was first introduced and elaborated on in Reichheld’s 2006 book The Ultimate Question.
Answering the Ultimate Question takes the topic a few steps further by re-introducing the topic and building on the link between Net Promoter Scores and business growth and profitability. When combined with an operational discipline, Net Promoter represents a potential win-win for businesses and their customers. The Net Promoter Score offers a near-real-time metric that is closely coupled and correlated with precipitating actions. Instead of looking in the rear view mirror of customer satisfaction surveys, Net Promoter will help effect real, positive change every day in and for those organizations in which it is applied correctly.
Drawing on illustrative case-study findings from the more companies for which the authors have helped to put Customer Experience Management and Net Promoter disciplines in place, this book is designed to help apply Net Promoter correctly, and foster growth and profitability in any organization.
Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.
Miami, Florida, March 9, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com, one of the leading e-commerce sites for business book summaries, today releases the abridged version of one of the business bestsellers "Answering the Ultimate Question: How Net Promoter Can Transform Your Business", by Richard Owen and Laura L. Brooks, Ph.D., Jossey-Bass Books, 2009. This executive book summary is now accessible to subscribers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and Mindmap formats.
In this book, authors Richard Owen and Laura Brooks discuss how — based on a variety of real case studies — Net Promoter discipline can be embedded in organizations of all types and industries. The Net Promoter Score is a fast, accurate, quantitative measure whose purpose is to gauge customers' real loyalty to a company, establish a baseline and effectively track changes going forward. This discipline was co-developed by Owen, Brooks and fellow author Fred Reichheld, and was first introduced and elaborated on in Reichheld’s 2006 book The Ultimate Question.
Answering the Ultimate Question takes the topic a few steps further by re-introducing the topic and building on the link between Net Promoter Scores and business growth and profitability. When combined with an operational discipline, Net Promoter represents a potential win-win for businesses and their customers. The Net Promoter Score offers a near-real-time metric that is closely coupled and correlated with precipitating actions. Instead of looking in the rear view mirror of customer satisfaction surveys, Net Promoter will help effect real, positive change every day in and for those organizations in which it is applied correctly.
Drawing on illustrative case-study findings from the more companies for which the authors have helped to put Customer Experience Management and Net Promoter disciplines in place, this book is designed to help apply Net Promoter correctly, and foster growth and profitability in any organization.
Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Satisfaction Versus Loyalty
Customer satisfaction scores for the majority of large corporations have not historically shown significant improvement. Although annual reports highlight the importance of customers (usually accompanied by glossy phoos and glowing tributes), many CEOs, when interviewed, have expressed a lack of confidence in their customer satisfaction efforts or a disregard for the programs that exist. Billions of dollars a year are spent on customer satisfaction surveys and market research, and outcomes seldom seem to result in any real changes to the business. Consider your own experiences as a consumer. When you fill in a customer satisfaction survey, do you believe that something will happen as a result?
Research can be valuable for the organization, but viewing your investment in customer loyalty as a research project is setting your efforts up for failure. We unfortunately continue to witness the stereotypical annual customer satisfaction report, presented to a suspicious executive team that invests just enough time to argue its validity before consigning it to the corporate bookshelf for another year. This is the classic outcome of a program that is driven from the needs of research rather than the needs of the business.
It’s worth clarifying the difference between satisfaction and loyalty. Simply put, satisfied customers still defect. The fact is that satisfaction is a standard that had great meaning in the postwar industrial growth of Europe and the United States but falls short against the standards of global hypercompetition today. Worse, it provides a false standard thatundermines the impact that leadership could obtain byapplying a higher standard to their businesses.
If you turn on your TV and see a company claiming to have 90 percent customer satisfaction, what does it tell you? It certainly indicates that the company’s basic products or services seem to work as advertised. It might also suggest the company is able to handle inevitable problems in a reasonable and timely fashion. You might even suppose that this business’ help desk phones are not clogged with customers calling in to complain about the company. But does any of this sound like a basis for competitive advantage or an engine for growth?
Net Promoter programs establish a higher standard than simple satisfaction, one worth holding your business to. There is no false sense of comfort, just a real focus on the drivers of growth and competitive advantage.
Dell, the world’s largest direct-sale computer manufacturer, runs a global customer experience program and understands the distinction between satisfaction and true loyalty. Dick Hunter, who heads the global consumer support program, told us:
The thing I was struck by is that we were all hung up about customer satisfaction, and I frankly didn’t think that was the right goal. It’s one thing to have a customer call us with a problem. We solve their problem, and they’re satisfied with the fact that we solved the problem. It’s an entirely different matter if, after a customer calls us, they’re much more loyal to us and say, “I’m going to buy from Dell forever because I really get great service and that’s part of the overall experience that is great and I couldn’t imagine buying from anybody else.” There’s a huge difference between those two. And my view was that we had to go toward loyalty and move away from satisfaction.
We couldn’t agree more.
To access the full book summary of "Answering the Ultimate Question," please visit BusinessSummaries.com.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Negotiate Like the Pros
A Top Sports Negotiator’s Lessons for Making Deals, Building Relationships, and Getting What You Want by Kenneth L. ShropshireThe Big Idea
Do you want to negotiate with the same success and confidence that you see among the professionals who handle teams, leagues, athletes – the sort of people you see in the sports pages and on ESPN – on a daily basis?
Negotiate Like the Pros tells the stories behind some of the most notable, complex, and lucrative sports deals of all time. A world-class negotiator in his own right, Kenneth L. Shropshire uses those stories to explore powerful negotiating strategies, and teaches you how to use them to score big in any negotiation.
Why You Need This Book
In Negotiate Like the Pros, Shropshire tells the stories behind some of the most sensational sports deals of all time and extracts powerful lessons on the skills you need to master to become a top-notch dealmaker.
This book offers an approach that challenges you to mentally analyze your own negotiating techniques, style, relationship-building strategies, and powers of persuasion. If you want to become stellar at deal making, building relationships, persuasion, and even leadership, then this book is for you – whether you are a sports fan or not.
Prepare With Passion
To begin, you’ll have to focus on the most important element in any negotiation: preparation. You’ll understand both how to prepare and why taking the time to do so can be the most valuable transformation you can make in your negotiating life.
That viewpoint dominates in sports, and it should be just as prevalent in business dealings. There are many coaching admonitions that dwell on the phrase “just do your job.”
CULTURAL, GENDER, AND RACIAL DIFFERENCES
In any global negotiation, you must take the time to learn and understand the negotiating style of the culture of your negotiating partner. Just as you wouldn’t like to be stereotyped as an “American-style” negotiator, those in other cultures also do not want to be stereotyped.
AGENDA SETTING
An important part of planning any detailed negotiation is to establish the road map to get from the beginning of the negotiation to the end result that you desire.
CONTEMPLATING THE APPROACH
Another key piece of the preparation phase is determining if there are any steps you can take to move your position forward that will be viewed positively by the decision maker on the other side.
According to successful coach John Wooden: “I believe there is nothing wrong with the other fellow being better than you are if you’ve prepared and are functioning in the way you’ve tried to prepare. Preparation puts you in the best possible position to win, whatever winning might be in a given setting.
ESTABLISHING CREDIBILITY
Credibility is important on two levels: your personal credibility and the credibility of the information you bring to the table. Even your counterpart will respect you more if you are credible.
WORST-CASE SCENARIO
You must be prepared for negative circumstances as well as for positive ones. Your counterpart may know that single piece of information you thought he lacked. Spend some time thinking about that worst-case scenario and how you will respond to it.
Stick with Your Style
This chapter guides you through both understanding your most comfortable bargaining style as well as how to use it to your advantage rather than fretting about a style that does not come easily to you. In sports, we most often express this as “playing within yourself.”
REVEL IN YOUR STYLE
Discover your strengths and base your preparation strategy on them. It is easy to be yourself for the long haul; imitating another style is a formula for potential failure. Be yourself, and assert that style to the fullest.
As much as you can control it, you want the negotiation environment to be as favorable as possible to your style and your comfort level. Once you have a grasp of your style, you want to set the stage for the negotiation so that it is advantageous to you and detrimental to your counterpart.
Set Goals and Aim High
This chapter relays the value of establishing goals and making them a regular part of your preparation process. It is not unusual for sports teams to begin a season aiming for an event or for the Olympics by setting goals for the number and types of medals they will win.
THE POWER OF GOALS
There is a psychology to getting successful negotiation results that is underused: visualizing the end result. The concept of visualization is valuable for everybody. You are more likely to accomplish goals if you actually have them and then picture them in your mind. You are certainly more likely to achieve success if you have goals than if you don’t have them.
GOALS, TARGETS, AND WALK-AWAY POINTS
If in the course of the negotiation you can deliver your plea and it passes the chuckle test (that is, no one laughs out loud at the suggestion), that is probably your goal position.
You should also know your walk-away point. Be as firm as you can about your walk-away point as you enter the negotiation. The target requires a high level of precision. What is the number, quantity, price, or whatever the metric is that you think, given the full impact of all of the information available, will close the deal fairly? This is the target, the bull’s-eye.
REFERENCE POINTS
Saying that you need to have a goal, target, and walk-away point is easy enough, but how should you establish goals? You do so with reference points, indicators that point you in the direction you want to go.
Seek Leverage
This chapter explores how lying and negotiating somehow seem to go hand in hand. It helps you push back against lying while focusing on the topic that is lied about most: tales told to create leverage. In sports and non-sports negotiations, the most prevalent lie is about how interested potential bidders really are in your goods or services.
LYING
When establishing leverage, honesty is essential. Anyone can have success with a single deceitful act – maybe even several successes. Caution: In your preparation, develop your game plan regarding competing offers carefully. But, of course, if you lie and get away with it, you may have substantially improved your position, unless your lie is uncovered.
LEVERAGE VIA TIMING
There are two issues related to timing and leverage that are important. The first is that leverage is fleeting. The other timing issue is how the parties view the future value of a deal.
LEVERAGE FROM CONSISTENCY
Leverage is often supported, too, by the element of consistency. People want the same standard applied to them that was applied to others. People want to be perceived as being reasonable and want to act consistently for that reason. This is especially the case where there is public information on similar previous deals.
Focus on Relationships and Interests
This chapter takes you beyond the monetary side of deals and focuses your attention on the other benefits that flow from them. For an athlete, such a side benefit may be a supportive relationship with the hometown crowd, as opposed to moving to a new city as a free agent for more money. In business, this benefit may be likened to a long-term relationship with a vendor or boss.
VALUING RELATIONSHIPS
The best negotiators incorporate a focus on relationships into their initial preparation as well as during the negotiation itself.
INTERESTS
Those most successful in courting relationships take the time and make the effort to understand the interests of their clients. In most deals, this means that you need to comprehend what there is in a relationship with a counterpart that is important beyond the dollars and cents of the deal.
ALIGNING INTERESTS
In creating your game plan, leave adequate time for thinking about relationships. The value of those relationships will be individual as well as cultural. If you are negotiating in another country, or with someone from a different country, be aware of the special issues that might be presented by virtue of this diversity.
Closely coupled with relationships is the importance of understanding the interests of the other side and those associated with them.
Often those interests, the real reasons why someone wants to get a deal done, are non-monetary. The two are intertwined, as you cannot always get to a party’s interests unless you extend the effort to develop a relationship.
RELATIONSHIPS IMPACTING FUTURE NEGOTIATIONS
Fully contemplate the importance of current and future negotiations. Make sure, too, that you understand your counterpart’s true interest in closing the deal. To be a successful negotiator, you must embrace the negotiating process and be fully engaged in seeking the best deal your circumstances allow.
Negotiate Like a Pro
Winning certainly has a different meaning in every negotiation. Achieving that desired outcome is most likely to occur when we use all of the skills that we possess in a carefully prepared manner.
The important point is that you must be prepared. Do the “practice” phase as thoroughly as possible.
Your bets get even better if your preparation is done at the highest level.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
PLAY YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS: THIS NEW BOOK SHOWS YOU HOW
Miami, Florida, February 16, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com releases its new business book "The Red Rubber Ball at Work: Elevate Your Game Through the Hidden Power of Play", by Kevin Carroll, McGraw-Hill Books, 2009. Subscribers may now access PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, Audio, Video and Mindmap formats of “The Red Rubber Ball at Work”, and enjoy the book summary anytime, anywhere.
Miami, Florida, February 16, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com, one of the leading e-commerce sites for business book summaries, today releases the abridged version of one of the business bestsellers "The Red Rubber Ball at Work: Elevate Your Game Through the Hidden Power of Play", by Kevin Carroll, McGraw-Hill Books, 2009. This executive book summary is now accessible to subscribers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and Mindmap formats.
Business success in any field whatsoever requires creativity, problem solving, and risk-taking. But many companies, despite all they try, fail to inspire their staff to be creative and take risks to solve the problems they face – and consequently also fail to succeed.
However, according to bestselling author Kevin Carroll, famous for his bestselling Rules of the Red Rubber Ball (2007), the solution is simple: it’s child’s play!
Former 76ers athletic trainer Kevin Carroll has transformed an enduring passion for playing ball into a bestselling franchise. In this fun and thoughtful follow-up to his first book, Carroll moves the playing field to the workplace, where innovation, motivation, engagement, and teamwork are the headline issues.
He draws on “play profiles” from luminaries such as thought leaders, change agents, and business leaders, and uses their specific cases to illustrate how to bring a sense of play into the workplace to stimulate creativity, encourage risk-taking, achieve goals – and have a great time doing so.
This is an entertaining, pocket-sized book that builds on Carroll's self-help series with profiles of 33 successful workers who illustrate the value of "productive play" (as opposed to "playful play," which is not serious enough for work). The book is inspiring and clever, with a lively layout and energetic writing.
The successful “players” featured include futurist and thinker Andrew Zolli, ESPN president George Bodenheimer, bestselling authors Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell and Paulo Coelho, Food Network host Duff Goldman, South Bronx activist Majora Carter, actor and former professional wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and many others.
Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Red Rubber Ball at Work
The Big Idea
According to bestselling author Kevin Carroll, it’s child’s play!
Former 76ers athletic trainer Kevin Carroll has turned his childhood passion for playing ball into a bestselling franchise. Drawing on “play profiles” from thought leaders, change agents, and business leaders, he explains how to bring a sense of play into the workplace to stimulate creativity, encourage risk-taking, achieve goals – and have a great time doing it.
Why You Need This Book
This entertaining, pocket-sized book builds on Carroll's self-help series with profiles of 33 successful workers who illustrate the value of "productive play" (as opposed to "playful play," which is not serious enough for work). The book is inspiring and clever, with a lively layout and energetic writing.
Successful “players” featured include ESPN president George Bodenheimer, bestselling authors Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell, Food Network host Duff Goldman, South Bronx activist Majora Carter, renowned author Paulo Coelho, and many others.
Innovation
It became apparent that the people interviewed in this section had been very playful in childhood where they were encouraged in their youthful creative pursuits by family, friends, and teachers. That encouragement had an impact on developing each person’s ability as an adult to take an idea, create multiple iterations of solutions, and ultimately deliver an idea that solved a business problem.
SETH GODIN (Author/Speaker/Entrepreneur)
Play: is scenario planning.
As a boy, Seth’s strategy was never to rely on one plan of attack.
At work:
At 44, now a father to his own sons, Seth Godin helps others conquer the business world. Fostering others’ ability to react to the unexpected is how Seth plays at work.
TOM KELLEY (General Manager, IDEO)
Play: is mobility and freedom.
In his boyhood, inventing, building, and taking things apart helped Tom and his brother understand their world. Riding bicycles allowed them to explore their world and broaden their horizons.
At work:
His brother David Kelley cofounded IDEO in 1991. Tom describes himself and David as “cross-pollinators”: people with great intellectual curiosity, people who are always taking in new information and are eager to share it with others.
MAJORA CARTER (Executive Director, Sustainable South Bronx)
Play: is being part of a community.
As young as six years old, she learned how to be a “team player,” sharing the rope her mom cut from an old clothesline.
At work:
For Majora, community is her play. She helped her community find its voice and develop a rallying cry for environmental justice.
JAMES McLURKIN (Robotics Engineer)
Play: is a passion for building things.
LEGO met her standards. LEGO dominated as a pivotal toy.
At work:
MIT graduate James McLurkin is still playing. He is one of the world’s leading designers of robot “swarms” – groups of robots that work together for a greater purpose. James says that robots are just part of his grand, lifelong procession of toys. A fun fact: James + androids = a very special opportunity to contribute to the hit movie I, Robot released in 2004.
CARLOS “MARE139” RODRIGUEZ (Sculptor/Graffiti Artist)
Play: is resourcefulness.
Many times, armed with stolen spray-paint cans, the young Carlos and his friends set out to paint the subway trains in 1970s New York City.
At work:
As a sculptor and Web designer, Carlos’ work is now seen by audiences worldwide.
Results
TINKER HATFIELD (Vice President of Design and Special Projects, NIKE)
Play: is problem solving.
Hide. Run. Shoot. Acting and reacting are all in a day’s play.
At work:
In his design studio on Nike’s sprawling corporate campus in Portland, Oregon, Tinker is surrounded by sneakers he helped design: Air Jordans. Cross trainers. Tinker’ favorite days? ASAP.
MARC HACKER (Designer and Architect, Rockwell Group)
Play: is tinkering.
At work:
With a background in product design and design education, Marc relishes his role as an advocate for Rockwell’s diverse designers.
IVY ROSS (Executive Vice President of Marketing, GAP Inc., North America)
Play: is visualization.
At work:
By fueling her active imagination with the season’s garments plus the retail space ideas her designers create, Ivy finds the common thread that ties seemingly disparate styles together in a unified, emotional message.
Teamwork
In these profiles, you will come to understand how hangin’ out with a select group of peers, mimicking adult social behavior at an early age, being a member of a sports team, and creating imaginary communities were all fantastic learning environments for the future endeavors and success of the men and women profiled.
DWAYNE “The Rock” JOHNSON (Actor/Former Professional Wrestler)
Play: is igniting the imagination of others.
Baseball, football, wrestling, army games, cops and robbers… The young Dwayne was always running, leaping, playing with other kids. No matter how many times his family moved house, this only child jumped right into his new community and made new friends immediately by playing sports and games with the other kids.
At work:
Be it the sports stage or the movie set, he has learned that a great performance depends upon the team’s willingness to strategize, practice, have a great sense of timing, and ability to always deliver moments of surprise together.
MEL YOUNG (Founder, Homeless World Cup)
Play: is bringing out the best in others.
At work:
As an adult, Mel’s belief in the importance of teams and community extends to the world around him. He dedicates himself to helping solve the problem of homelessness, first as an editor of a Scottish homeless newspaper, and then as a cofounder of an international soccer tournament for homeless people – the Homeless World Cup.
PREMAL SHAH (President, Kiva)
Play: is intellectual creativity.
During freezing cold winters in a suburb of Minneapolis, there was nothing the young Premal loved more than an unstructured weekend with his LEGO set.
At work:
As president of Kiva, a unique Web site that helps people make microloans to small business entrepreneurs in developing countries, Premal’s work is his play.
LARRY ROSENSTOCK (Founder and Chief Executive Officer, High Tech High)
Play: is creating imaginary worlds.
In college, Larry was drawn to film studies. He learned the art of filmmaking, a form of building imaginary worlds. He developed a lifelong fascination with creating environments for people and seeing what is possible when all the right elements are in place.
At work:
Larry Rosenstock never stopped building worlds. He has taught carpentry in urban high schools, served as staff attorney at the Harvard Center for Law and Education, and headed up the Rindge School for Technical Arts, among other noteworthy achievements.
TITO LLANTADA (Global Fellowship Team, Ashoka)
Play: is being resilient.
Playing catch in the backyard with his dad became a cherished activity for both son and father.
At work:
As a member of the Global Fellowship team of the social entrepreneur organization Ashoka, Tito utilizes his excellent team skills every day. His primary roles with the Global Fellowship team includes helping build and maintain the infrastructure behind a global network of more than 1,600 fellows.
Leadership
Leadership is part tactical, part analytical, part situational, and a BIG part understanding humanity. Great leaders understand the human dynamic/factors that can affect an organization.
DELANO LEWIS (Business Leader/Former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa)
Play: is being nimble on your feet.
At work:
Delano has always stayed close to the arts in order to feed that playful, dynamic part of himself his mother nurtured in his childhood.
GEORGE BODENHEIMER (President, ESPN)
Play: is a team of friends.
Each year he and his friends played on sports teams together: baseball, football, ice hockey. From Little League all the way through his high school playing days, this boy nurtured friendships through sports.
At work:
A much beloved leader, George has been president since 1998.
AWISTA AYUB (Founder and Director, Afghan Youth Sports Exchange)
Play: is sports.
At work:
That small beginning grew into the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, an internationally recognized and award winning nonprofit organization dedicated to preparing Afghanistan’s young girls with the leadership skills they need to promote athletics in their schools and communities. Her program has helped to empower the girls to break down gender barriers in their country.
DUFF GOLDMAN (Owner, Charm City Cakes)
Play: is challenging what’s possible.
From two common forms of concocting everyday creations – cooking and LEGO – he learned the fine arts of improvisation, problem solving and experimentation.
At work:
If you’ve ever tuned into the Food Channel and caught Duff Goldman and his Charm City Cakes team in action on Ace of Cakes, you know Duff is somebody who has made his work his play.
Curiosity
PAULO COELHO (Author/Alchemist)
Play: is skill and instinct.
The young Paolo found the repetition of shooting marbles into holes absorbing. At some point in a long-ago afternoon of playing, he became the marble, the target, the motion and sound of THWACK, flicking the marble with his thumb.
At work:
To write, he uses that same mix of instinct and discipline he learned from playing marbles.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com.
According to bestselling author Kevin Carroll, it’s child’s play!
Former 76ers athletic trainer Kevin Carroll has turned his childhood passion for playing ball into a bestselling franchise. Drawing on “play profiles” from thought leaders, change agents, and business leaders, he explains how to bring a sense of play into the workplace to stimulate creativity, encourage risk-taking, achieve goals – and have a great time doing it.
Why You Need This Book
This entertaining, pocket-sized book builds on Carroll's self-help series with profiles of 33 successful workers who illustrate the value of "productive play" (as opposed to "playful play," which is not serious enough for work). The book is inspiring and clever, with a lively layout and energetic writing.
Successful “players” featured include ESPN president George Bodenheimer, bestselling authors Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell, Food Network host Duff Goldman, South Bronx activist Majora Carter, renowned author Paulo Coelho, and many others.
Innovation
It became apparent that the people interviewed in this section had been very playful in childhood where they were encouraged in their youthful creative pursuits by family, friends, and teachers. That encouragement had an impact on developing each person’s ability as an adult to take an idea, create multiple iterations of solutions, and ultimately deliver an idea that solved a business problem.
SETH GODIN (Author/Speaker/Entrepreneur)
Play: is scenario planning.
As a boy, Seth’s strategy was never to rely on one plan of attack.
At work:
At 44, now a father to his own sons, Seth Godin helps others conquer the business world. Fostering others’ ability to react to the unexpected is how Seth plays at work.
TOM KELLEY (General Manager, IDEO)
Play: is mobility and freedom.
In his boyhood, inventing, building, and taking things apart helped Tom and his brother understand their world. Riding bicycles allowed them to explore their world and broaden their horizons.
At work:
His brother David Kelley cofounded IDEO in 1991. Tom describes himself and David as “cross-pollinators”: people with great intellectual curiosity, people who are always taking in new information and are eager to share it with others.
MAJORA CARTER (Executive Director, Sustainable South Bronx)
Play: is being part of a community.
As young as six years old, she learned how to be a “team player,” sharing the rope her mom cut from an old clothesline.
At work:
For Majora, community is her play. She helped her community find its voice and develop a rallying cry for environmental justice.
JAMES McLURKIN (Robotics Engineer)
Play: is a passion for building things.
LEGO met her standards. LEGO dominated as a pivotal toy.
At work:
MIT graduate James McLurkin is still playing. He is one of the world’s leading designers of robot “swarms” – groups of robots that work together for a greater purpose. James says that robots are just part of his grand, lifelong procession of toys. A fun fact: James + androids = a very special opportunity to contribute to the hit movie I, Robot released in 2004.
CARLOS “MARE139” RODRIGUEZ (Sculptor/Graffiti Artist)
Play: is resourcefulness.
Many times, armed with stolen spray-paint cans, the young Carlos and his friends set out to paint the subway trains in 1970s New York City.
At work:
As a sculptor and Web designer, Carlos’ work is now seen by audiences worldwide.
Results
TINKER HATFIELD (Vice President of Design and Special Projects, NIKE)
Play: is problem solving.
Hide. Run. Shoot. Acting and reacting are all in a day’s play.
At work:
In his design studio on Nike’s sprawling corporate campus in Portland, Oregon, Tinker is surrounded by sneakers he helped design: Air Jordans. Cross trainers. Tinker’ favorite days? ASAP.
MARC HACKER (Designer and Architect, Rockwell Group)
Play: is tinkering.
At work:
With a background in product design and design education, Marc relishes his role as an advocate for Rockwell’s diverse designers.
IVY ROSS (Executive Vice President of Marketing, GAP Inc., North America)
Play: is visualization.
At work:
By fueling her active imagination with the season’s garments plus the retail space ideas her designers create, Ivy finds the common thread that ties seemingly disparate styles together in a unified, emotional message.
Teamwork
In these profiles, you will come to understand how hangin’ out with a select group of peers, mimicking adult social behavior at an early age, being a member of a sports team, and creating imaginary communities were all fantastic learning environments for the future endeavors and success of the men and women profiled.
DWAYNE “The Rock” JOHNSON (Actor/Former Professional Wrestler)
Play: is igniting the imagination of others.
Baseball, football, wrestling, army games, cops and robbers… The young Dwayne was always running, leaping, playing with other kids. No matter how many times his family moved house, this only child jumped right into his new community and made new friends immediately by playing sports and games with the other kids.
At work:
Be it the sports stage or the movie set, he has learned that a great performance depends upon the team’s willingness to strategize, practice, have a great sense of timing, and ability to always deliver moments of surprise together.
MEL YOUNG (Founder, Homeless World Cup)
Play: is bringing out the best in others.
At work:
As an adult, Mel’s belief in the importance of teams and community extends to the world around him. He dedicates himself to helping solve the problem of homelessness, first as an editor of a Scottish homeless newspaper, and then as a cofounder of an international soccer tournament for homeless people – the Homeless World Cup.
PREMAL SHAH (President, Kiva)
Play: is intellectual creativity.
During freezing cold winters in a suburb of Minneapolis, there was nothing the young Premal loved more than an unstructured weekend with his LEGO set.
At work:
As president of Kiva, a unique Web site that helps people make microloans to small business entrepreneurs in developing countries, Premal’s work is his play.
LARRY ROSENSTOCK (Founder and Chief Executive Officer, High Tech High)
Play: is creating imaginary worlds.
In college, Larry was drawn to film studies. He learned the art of filmmaking, a form of building imaginary worlds. He developed a lifelong fascination with creating environments for people and seeing what is possible when all the right elements are in place.
At work:
Larry Rosenstock never stopped building worlds. He has taught carpentry in urban high schools, served as staff attorney at the Harvard Center for Law and Education, and headed up the Rindge School for Technical Arts, among other noteworthy achievements.
TITO LLANTADA (Global Fellowship Team, Ashoka)
Play: is being resilient.
Playing catch in the backyard with his dad became a cherished activity for both son and father.
At work:
As a member of the Global Fellowship team of the social entrepreneur organization Ashoka, Tito utilizes his excellent team skills every day. His primary roles with the Global Fellowship team includes helping build and maintain the infrastructure behind a global network of more than 1,600 fellows.
Leadership
Leadership is part tactical, part analytical, part situational, and a BIG part understanding humanity. Great leaders understand the human dynamic/factors that can affect an organization.
DELANO LEWIS (Business Leader/Former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa)
Play: is being nimble on your feet.
At work:
Delano has always stayed close to the arts in order to feed that playful, dynamic part of himself his mother nurtured in his childhood.
GEORGE BODENHEIMER (President, ESPN)
Play: is a team of friends.
Each year he and his friends played on sports teams together: baseball, football, ice hockey. From Little League all the way through his high school playing days, this boy nurtured friendships through sports.
At work:
A much beloved leader, George has been president since 1998.
AWISTA AYUB (Founder and Director, Afghan Youth Sports Exchange)
Play: is sports.
At work:
That small beginning grew into the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, an internationally recognized and award winning nonprofit organization dedicated to preparing Afghanistan’s young girls with the leadership skills they need to promote athletics in their schools and communities. Her program has helped to empower the girls to break down gender barriers in their country.
DUFF GOLDMAN (Owner, Charm City Cakes)
Play: is challenging what’s possible.
From two common forms of concocting everyday creations – cooking and LEGO – he learned the fine arts of improvisation, problem solving and experimentation.
At work:
If you’ve ever tuned into the Food Channel and caught Duff Goldman and his Charm City Cakes team in action on Ace of Cakes, you know Duff is somebody who has made his work his play.
Curiosity
PAULO COELHO (Author/Alchemist)
Play: is skill and instinct.
The young Paolo found the repetition of shooting marbles into holes absorbing. At some point in a long-ago afternoon of playing, he became the marble, the target, the motion and sound of THWACK, flicking the marble with his thumb.
At work:
To write, he uses that same mix of instinct and discipline he learned from playing marbles.
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