BusinessWeek magazine ranks the 15 best selling hardcover and paperback business books for July 2009 and gives a short summary.
1. Outliers: The Story of Success
by Malcolm Gladwell. As you’d expect with Gladwell, there are lots of surprises in his explanation of why some people succeed fantastically. Pluck and smarts get less play here than such matters as one’s birth month and access to the right resources at just the right time. There are many points worth pondering in this enjoyable volume.
2. Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success–and Won’t Let You Fail
by Keith Ferrazzi. The author of the bestselling Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
is back with a program for achieving success based on the methods in various 12-step programs. The main message here has two parts: You can’t achieve greatness without getting a boost, and, luckily, you’re surrounded by people who want to lend a helping hand.
3. Thank God It’s Monday!: How to Create a Workplace You and Your Customers Love
by Roxanne Emmerich. Consultant and public speaker Emmerich writes that passion and creativity are the keys to changing a dysfunctional company into one with happier and more productive workers, as well as happier and more loyal customers.
4. House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street
by William D. Cohan. Cohan’s hot-selling behind-the-scenes account of the financial recklessness at the heart of investment bank Bear Stearns’ collapse is a vividly told page-turner. It’s the definitive work, to date, on the events that signaled, and help set off, the financial crisis.
5. How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In
by Jim Collins. The author of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
has taken a look at the other side of the coin: What happens inside great companies that go bad. Collins found that the seeds of decline and decay are often sown—unnoticed—in companies at the top of their game. In this book, he explains how to spot the signs and stop decline before it goes too far.
6. Fool’s Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe
by Gillian Tett. The finance writer and editor for The Financial Times focuses on the creation, evolution, and spread of the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that spelled serious trouble for a number of banks and insurance companies. Tett’s book can be technical, but it goes to the heart of the financial crisis.
7. Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, the Toughest Firm on Wall Street
by Kate Kelly. Kelly, who covered Bear’s demise for The Wall Street Journal, has put together a vivid re-creation of the bank’s panicked struggle to retain its independence over the course of a weekend in March 2008. The you-are-there factor is high, with the characters and the urgent conversations brought to life.
8. How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life)
by Dov Seidman. Today’s world is growing more transparent and data-driven, which is why yielding to the age-old temptation to cut corners when it comes to ethics is now more dangerous than ever, Seidman says. He lays out a game plan intended to teach companies how to outbehave their competitors—and win.
9. The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide: Protect Your Savings, Boost Your Income, and Grow Wealthy Even in the Worst of Times
by Martin D. Weiss. Investor advocate Weiss has produced a guide to the safe havens for money available right now and, he claims, ways to turn the financial crisis into a wealth-building opportunity.
10. Strengths-Based Leadership
by Tom Rath. This is the latest of the “strengths movement” titles, all of which aim at helping readers recognize and polish their true talents. Here, the authors say they identify keys to leadership and help executives build effective teams.
11. Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism
by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller. Written by two of the top economists in the world, Animal Spirits is a bold and innovative work that tries to demonstrate how psychological factors led to the current mess. They started writing it together five years ago, which at times leads to it feeling like not all the parts fit together, but the main thesis is a vital one: People and businesses, long thought to act rationally, can wind up being anything but in times of boom or bust. And the ramifications can be sweeping.
12. Peaks and Valleys: Making Good And Bad Times Work For You–At Work And In Life
by Spencer Johnson. The author of the hypersuccessful Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
has delivered a quick and easy read in the form of a parable about a young man who lives in a valley learning wisdom from an old man dwelling on a nearby peak. The basic lesson: better decisions boost your odds of winding up on higher ground.
13. Think Like a Champion: An Informal Education In Business and Life
by Donald J. Trump with Meredith McIver. Built from essays with titles such as “The More You Learn, The More You Realize What You Don’t Know”, and “There Are Times When You Should Move On”, this latest book from Trump is, well, pure Trump. It’s corny, boastful, and relentlessly optimistic. Prepare to be educated.
14. Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
by Geoff Colvin.
Colvin asks a question: What if everything you know about raw talent, hard work, and great performance is wrong? Then he sets out to explain that hard work really does matter, as long as it’s a highly specific kind of effort he’s named “deliberate practice.”
15. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Entertaining and anecdote-packed, Made to Stick spells out six traits that can confer long life on an idea. In short, a good idea that is badly packaged might as well be a bad idea—so give your good ideas half a chance.
