I haven’t read it, but the book Jesus, CEO invariably gets nominated to this sort of a list–no doubt because of the giggle-inducing title.
Now I’m imagining The Apprentice: Heaven Can’t Wait. Line of the season: “You’re damned.”
I worked for a place that looooved Fish. Fortunately, it was replaced by a new book of wisdom. Sadly, that book was The Secret. :rolleyes:
Oh, great…from “Choose your attitude” to “Choose your reality”. Let’s spiral even DEEPER into delusion, kids!
Look, there are two rules for success in business.
Rule #1: Never tell everything you know.
Porter-the supposed marketing guru! Everything he taught me turned out to be dead wrong!
Porter’s a *strategy *guru - not marketing. And his book Competitive Strategy lays out a previously-known-but-not-used-much framework for assessing the competitive landscape of a given industry segment - that basic framework has become THE way that industry analysis is typically done.
I’d be interested in finding out what you think is dead wrong.
As for those “self-help” management books - 99% of them are crap and the other 1% are, as **RickJay ** pointed out, overly-packaged common sense. Sometimes it can be very good to review common sense, but not at $20 bucks a pop, let alone the supplemental courses.
There are a number of quality business books out there - but it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. As a strategist, I come across maybe one new book every 1 - 2 years worth reading with any focus…but they are really not about moving cheese or anything like that… 
Outstanding post, RickJay. I was going to say pretty much what you did but not with the same depth or eloquence.
Sold you his book, didn’t he?
The place I work has recently climbed on the ITIL bandwagon. While it is actually a functional and useful design, they’re trying to impliment it without decapitating the good-old-boy structure that’s always been in place.
Umm. Hello? Guys? These are mutually exclusive. Guess which one is going to win out. And why are you wasting our time. Oh yeah, so you’ll have some bullet points at the annual meeting.
I dunno. I agree with ultrafilter. Rich Dad, Poor Dad was one of those books that actually made me angry reading it. I can see, perhaps, how some people might get something out of it, but to me, Rich Dad, Poor Dad felt like the kind of business book Kevin Trudeau would write. The tone of the book, the whiff of hucksterism, and the dangerously bordering-on-illegal “advice” about tax write-offs and insider trading, among other things, really turned me off to the book. I would never recommend this book to anyone.
Two items:
- the “World” product, you know, the toothpaste that you can sell to Indians, Brits, and Frenchmen…good idea–except it NEVER worked!
- Pricing agreements-discuss pricing, but don’t put in writing till you have agreement: WRONG!-the first price the buyer hears IS the price!
Not a book, but a video called, “The Road to Abilene”. I don’t recall much about it, except that I realized where the narrator was going within the first 5 minutes. (I couldn’t tell you the point he was trying to make after all this time… It’s been about 6 months since I saw this video). Basically, IMS, he was saying that communication was key.
No shit, Sherlock. --and I’m no longer listening to YOU.
Anyway, the video did nothing to change my day to day workload or communication techniques with my coworkers. I’ve seen the Fish video as well–all I can say is that they sure seem happy to throw fish around. I’ve often wondered if the Board of Health had something to say about their habit.
I have to agree with those upthread who say that if you need a book like this to tell you how to manage your department/company, you’re in deep shit. I can see checking one out to see if there are any new ideas on how to motivate people, but I wouldn’t rely on any book to change the workings of my staff (if I had any, that is).
To people who scrutinize like true CSI folks, I can see how RDPD is seen as trite but perhaps you are not in the tarket demographic, sort of like me not being in the smutty Fabio novel demographic.
I nominate “Best Practices-Building Your Business with Customer-Focused Solutions” by Robert Hiebeler, Thomas B. Kelly, and Charles Ketteman of Arthur Andersen, New York, 1998, Simon & Schuster
Published just before the 2001 collapse of their client, ENRON, and their demise and the consolidation of the former “Big 8” U.S. accounting firms* from the “Big 5” to the now “Big 4”**.
http://www.big4.com/bigfour.aspx
*Arthur Andersen & Co.
Coopers & Lybrand
Deloitte Haskins & Sells
Ernst & Whitney
Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co-partners
Price Waterhouse
Touche Ross
**Deloitte Touche Tomatsu
Ernst Young
KPMG (nee Kates Peat Marwick Group)
Pricewaterhouse Coopers
Eh, I wouldn’t say it was any “CSI” scrutiny. The first chapter ticked me off, and I gave the book a fair chance, reading it all the way through. The author’s tone and writing style, as much as his advice, is what got to me. My girlfriend ended up taking the book back to exchange for a more sensible book. But, like you said, I’m sure I’m not the target demographic.
I’ve seen it three times, at three different workplaces.
The last video they showed us was a video about how Southwest Airlines is a wonderful company where everyone loves their job. It was two days later that the story broke that one of the things they love most about their job is not doing federally required safety stuff on the goddamned airplanes.
I bet we don’t get a video at the next conference.
Who Cut My Cheese?
This book is worth a pitting.
Someone pointed that the the 7 High Priesthood Habits or whatever is too long. Most how-to or self-help books are. ESPECIALLY in the education world. Someone gets a decent idea, but apparently there isn’t enough money in publishing pamphlets, so they pad. And pad. And repeat things. And say nothing for three or four pages a stretch. They tell long, boring shaggy dog stories. And then repeat themselves some more.
The Cheese book…yikes. This is a book management gives when they are about to implement radical changes. Of course, I say, I’m not against change. But if a change makes things worse (or, bad when they were good), and I resist, I get, “SEE??? YOU HATE CHANGE.”
I could go on but I’ve grown weary of this.
Hey, we like Fish. It gave us an excuse to go out and buy a stuffed fish toy which gets thrown from cube to cube about a dozen times a day! 