The Clear Yet Tough Path to Success

What makes for business success?  What does a company do to become, and remain, successful?

This is the challenging question of our era.  And it is not as easy as it looks.  The very best business books seem to have great advice, but many of the companies they hold out as exemplars are having tough times.  In just the last few months, two such companies (highlighted in whopping business best sellers) have had significant failures:  Fannie Mae, and Circuit City (which announced bankruptcy just yesterday).  

One path taken by increasing numbers of business leaders is the path of seeking constant improvement.  From the book which I chose for the November First Friday Book Synopsis (Six Disciplines Execution Revolution:  Solving the One Business Problem that Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier by Gary Harpst), we learn that one way to stay on top is to keep current on the latest business thinking — to read books that will help you develop your strategy and focus on execution.  Here is a key quote from this useful book:  ”A final argument that execution is business’ biggest challenge is the growth of the business improvement industry itself.  As business leaders, we’re voracious seekers of business improvement ideas in the form of conferences, books, blogs, and training.  We want our performance to be better, and we know it should be better.”

At the First Friday Book Synopsis, Karl Krayer and I do our best to choose book titles that will help with this challenge.  But our part is simple.  We provide people with the best ideas from the best business books.  Whether you get your ideas from our presentations of the books, or you actually read the books yourself, the next step is completely in your hands:  you have to implement what you learn.  If you do, then you have actually learned.  If you don’t, then you have not yet learned.  To learn is to then do — and when there is no doing, there has been no learning.  

But, as the author states, no one step is enough.  Here is another key quote:  ”None of the components alone is sufficient.  Consulting by itself, coaching by itself, software by itself, books, frameworks, methodologies – none of them by themselves will produce a fraction of the potential.” 

Keep learning — and keep refining your strategy — and keep executing your strategy.!

Building the Habit: Read Business Books

As I write this, I am in my third week of teaching one of my MBA courses at the University of Dallas.  The class is entitled “Foundations of Management and Strategy,” and it is an entry-level course for students who did not earn a BBA, and which prepares them for their upper-level courses in our program.

Each term, I administer a student survey so that I can get to know the students and adapt some material to their interests and backgrounds.  The final question on the survey is “what is your all-time favorite business book?”

This class has 43 students.  Only 16 named such a book, many explicitly stating that they do not have one.  Last term, I taught 62 students.  Only about 20 provided a title.

What’s wrong?  Probably nothing that they cannot change.  The problem is very clear – they just do not have any history of reading business books.  Probably they have never had occasion or reason to do so.  They may read history, science, biographies, or novels, but they do not read business books.  As they enter this discipline, it is a great time for them to move forward and begin a lifetime habit of reading business books.

I try to excite them about this activity.  I share with them great stories from several of the books we have featured at the First Friday Book Synopsis.

I tell them to start with Good-to-Great by Jim Collins.   Why?  It is a discovery book.  It is fun to read, as it presents true excitement along with each finding.  There are other discovery books, where business authors did not start with a thesis and proved it, but rather, asked questions and searched for answers.

In many ways, reading business books is as entertaining as reading a novel.  The general perception that these books are static, lifeless, and boring is simply unfounded.   Maybe the academic business literature qualifies for those terms, but there is a lifetime of adventure ahead in the professional business literature.

Any habit, like this one, has to start somewhere.  One book can lead to another, to another, and so forth, until you build a passion for them.  If you have built the habit, ask yourself these questions:  what was your first business book?  What was your favorite?  Look back and see whence you came.  What a journey!

You don’t have to be in an MBA program to develop the habit of reading business books.  If you haven’t started, there is a lifetime of pleasure and learning ahead of you.  Start the journey!