What a treat! The “Five Best” of The McKinsey Quarterly’s articles published in 2011

For more than half a century, The McKinsey Quarterly has shaped and informed the top management agenda.

According to the Quarterly‘s readers, these are the five best articles published in 2011.

We’re all marketers now
Engaging customers today requires commitment from the entire company—and a redefined marketing organization.more

Global cities of the future
An interactive map: Explore the cities and emerging urban clusters that will drive dramatic growth and demographic changes over the next generation.more

Have you tested your strategy lately?
Ten timeless tests can help you kick the tires on your strategy, and kick up the level of strategic dialogue throughout your company.more

The rise of the networked enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday
McKinsey’s new survey research finds that companies using the Web intensively gain greater market share and higher margins. more

Recovering from information overload
Always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy.more

To read all five, please click here.

To register to gain access to a wealth of free resources, obtain subscription information, and learn more about McKinsey & Company, please click here.

For those who are looking for the New York Times Business Best Seller List – There hasn’t been one lately

For a few years, I have listed the titles and linked to the New York Times list of Business Hardcover Best Sellers.  I prefer this list.  Amazon updates its list hourly; other sources (e.g., the Wall Street Journal) publish a weekly list.  But I know enough to know that an hourly, or even a weekly list, can be very misleading.  One radio or tv interview can spike the hourly list.  A speaker who buys a few thousand copies of his own book to distribute can spike the weekly list (and, even, a monthly list).  But I have always sensed that the once-a-month New York Times list was most representative of books that have some level of “staying power.”

Our blogging colleague, Bob Morris, reminds us that Best Sellers are not necessarily good and valuable books.  He is right about that.  And, conversely, some really good and valuable books never make the Best Sellers list.  For example, if you make me choose the first book I would recommend as we constantly wrestle with innovation, it would probably be Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present by Bob Johansen.  It is a really good book, and is the book that introduced me to the “VUCA” world we live in.    I don’t think it ever hit the New York Times list.  At this hour, it is # #350,322 on the hourly updated list for Amazon, far from being a best seller.

{But, Amazon, finds a way to create many “additional “ best seller lists.  At this hour, Get There Early in its Kindle version, after factoring in 4 categories and sub-categories is #42:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,952 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#42 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Planning & Forecasting}

On this thought, I recently read a terrific essay on this year’s Pulitzer controversy:  A Passion for Immortality: On the Missing Pulitzer and the Problem with Prizes by Benjamin Hale.  Here’s an insightful excerpt:

As the Pulitzer is awarded to a work of fiction published in the previous year, all it can take stock of is a book’s vertical life, which sometimes can be deceiving. I’m sure this helps explain some of the more embarrassing retrospective head-slaps in the Pulitzer’s history, such as when, in 1930, it awarded the prize to Oliver La Farge’s Laughing Boy — a second-rate and now utterly forgotten book by an utterly forgotten writer — for the year in which both Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury were published. It’s perfectly natural they would make that mistake; back then, Faulkner and Hemingway were not yet Faulkner and Hemingway, they were just a couple of young writers who happened to be named Faulkner and Hemingway. The Pulitzer Board would try to atone for their sin years later by awarding them both (Faulkner twice) prizes for far lesser works after their reputations were already secure. The hype of the moment does not necessarily translate into lasting luminance. Just scroll down the list of all the past winners of the prize, and count how many you’ve ever heard of. Start at the bottom and move upward chronologically, and you’ll find the occurrence of familiar names increases as we move closer to the present. This is not because the Pulitzer Board has gradually been growing wiser — it’s because we’re living now, not a hundred years in the future. Then we’ll see. We can’t help it — we’re blinded by our own times; all prizes are like that, and that is why, as a measure of what is good and what is not in art, they are not exactly the trustworthiest oracles.

But, back to the issue before me now. I think we need some place to go to ask something like this:  “What books in business are generating the most conversation right now?”  I prefer the New York Times monthly list for this purpose.  There have been a few months here and there when they apparently just “skipped” the business list entirely.  And right now, they have not had a Business Hardcover Best Seller list since March, 2012.  I don’t know why.

I have tweeted New York Times writers, I have called a finance writer at the New York Times, and he gave me the phone number for the books section to call.  But I have been unable, after a few phone calls, to reach a human being in the books section to ask the question.  The phone number that gets me to that section has no “voice mail” capability, so I cannot even leave a message.

Does anyone know what happened to the list?  I would love to know.  Does anyone have a better number for me to call?  I would love to try.  Help me if you can.  Just leave a comment below in the comments section.

In the meantime, I cannot post a current list.  Sorry about that.

Here’s the link to the last New York Times list I posted in March:  Here’s the New York Times Hardcover Business Best Sellers List for March, 2012.  Here’s the link to the current hourly Amazon “Best Sellers in Business and Investing.”  (As I write, Steve Jobs is back up at #1).  Does anyone know of a better list to suggest?  I’m open to your help.  Just let me know in the comments section below.

We All Need Some Finishable Tasks – Fighting Fatigue in a Not-quite-ever-finished Era

Jason Robards (Ben Bradlee)

Look, you’re both probably a little tired, right?

Speaking outside of his home, late at tight, to these two guys, Woodward and Bernstein (Hoffman and Redford)

(They nod)
You should be, you’ve been under a lot of pressure. So go home, have a nice hot bath, rest up fifteen minutes if you want before you get your asses back in gear–
(louder now)
–because we’re under a lot of pressure, too, and you put us there–not that I want it to worry you–nothing’s riding on you except the First Amendment of the Constitution plus the freedom of the press plus the reputation of a hundred-year-old paper plus the jobs of the two thousand people who work there–
(still building)
–but none of that counts as much as this: you _____ up again, I’m gonna lose my temper.
(pause; softer)
I promise you, you don’t want me to lose my temper.
Ben Bradlee, to Woodward and Bernstein, from the movie script for All the President’s Men

—————

(This is one of my Sunday posts.  A little longer than usual, maybe a little rambling, but an important point to make — I think/I hope).

My wife is now a full-time care-giver.  Her dad moved in to live with us about a year and a half ago, and he is her full-time job.  Because of his needs (related to diabetes, and his advanced age), she has his daily schedule, and thus her daily schedule, down to the minute and the calorie.  It is exhausting – and I know this because I watch her work, and because there are a few weekends (like this one) when she is away and I fill in.  Her dad is a fine man (he taught the classics in college; read nine languages; was a decorated decades-long Naval Reservist after his initial duty in World War II), but now needs a little help, and after a weekend, I feel pretty spent.

But…  one thing that makes this work different is that when I go to bed, I know that I “finished” the work I had to do. And it feels “finished.”  Jeannie is a great list maker, and she has created a checklist notebook with comprehensive details about everything from blood sugar and insulin to the right mix to stir into her dad’s oatmeal.  Some company should hire her to help them with their organization  I promise you, she leaves no detail neglected.  (But, she is not available).

When her mother was living, she would read the Sunday newspaper.  Look at the phrase again – “she would read the Sunday newspaper.” She would turn to every single page in every single section (she propably skipped the classifieds).  She would read at least a portion of every article. Section by section, cover to cover.  Most of those Sundays were spent with the Abilene Reporter-News.  A good local newspaper, but from a smaller “market.”  So, when we moved to Los Angeles, and she came to visit, she took one look at our Los Angeles Times, and grimaced.  And then she set to work.  Quite a long time later, she would put the last section face-down in its proper place (the Johnstons had a proper place for everything, including recently read newspapers), and say with a combination of accomplishment and disgust at the size of the task, “There!”  She had read the Sunday newspaper – finished!

I no longer read the Sunday newspaper.  I read my web sites.  News; business; sports; politics; technology; film; and so many more…  This morning, before and after the morning routine with Jeannie’s dad, I have read countless articles on my iPad, downloaded sample pages of about five books on my Kindle app (three of these titles Bob Morris reviewed on this blog), read many of these sample pages.    I have ordered used copies of three books, all out of print, I have come to my computer to write this blog post, and then, later today I will reopen my iPad and get back to the task of reading web pages and books.

I am never finished.  I feel like I am never finished.  And that feeling can be exhausting.

And now I’m nearly to the point of this blog post.  There are more and more jobs that people work in which are never “finished.”  So much work in the past was work that you showed up to do, you did it, you finished it, and then you left work until the next day.  Yesterday, a Saturday, I had to deal with three pressing business issues – all of which came to me on Saturday.  Assembly line workers, bankers, and so many others used to work Monday—Friday.  They would leave work on Friday and forget about it until Monday.

Not anymore – for a lot of people.

And, I think, people need a little help here.  I think they need to feel like “there is at least a part of my work that I actually get to finish, and then leave behind.”  I think leaders and managers and supervisors need to find a way to say, “do this – it is a finishable task” and then when they finish it, they need to encourage and reward and acknowledge and praise and tell the stories of such successfully completed tasks.

I think we are a tired people living in a tiring era.  I think a part of what tires us so is the problem that so much of our work is always unfinished. At least, mine is.

But, when I finish a new handout on a book I have read, and then present it for the first time, I feel a momentary of “accomplishment.”  This is close to a “finished” feeling.  But then, the next time I present the same book, I struggle with “how to present this one better.”

Just this morning, one of the web sites I check frequently, Business Insider, had this article up under its Strategy tab:  13 Facts Every Presenter Should Know About People by Susan Weinschenk.  I make much of my living as a speaker (these days, I’m supposed to learn to use the word “presenter.”  I’m not yet sold on that).  This was a good article.  And then I downloaded the sample pages of the author’s book 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People.  I’ve already read the sample pages…  And now, I know that I need to learn 13 more facts, and 100 more things, and soon, there will be another list of things to learn.  In her book, Ms. Weinschenk says:  “Practically before the presentation is done, I’ve already identified what I need to change” before the next time.

In other words, she is, I am, we are, never quite fully finished. And so we strive for constant improvement.  As we should.  But striving for constant improvement really can put us in a sort of constantly exhausted state.

So – back to the point.  In our work, we need to feel like we have finished something, then we can feel a sense of accomplishment, we can be rewarded/reward ourselves, and then we can rest.  (Sunday used to be called the Christian Sabbath – a day of rest).  And after we rest, then we get back at it again.

So, find a way to identify a finishable task.  Do it, finish it, and then rest.  And if you are a leader/supervisor/manager, help your folks identify a finishable task, and then reward them, and let them rest a little.

Many of us could use a little rest right now, don’t you think?

Mike Sheehan (Hill Holliday) in “The Corner Office”

Photo: Earl Wilson/The New York Times

Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Mike Sheehan, chief executive of the ad agency Hill Holliday, with offices in Boston, New York and Greenville, S.C. He says he likes to hire people who turn observations into insights, or, in other words, “put a lot of topspin on the ball.”

To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

*     *     *

Bryant: When you were younger, were you in leadership roles?

Sheehan: I was the captain of a couple of teams in high school — basketball and track. It was a great experience. Then I had a short-lived but terrific management experience right out of high school, when I went to the Naval Academy. I stayed for a semester but I learned so much. During a plebe summer at a military academy, you learn more about yourself than probably four years of college anywhere else.

Bryant: What did you learn about yourself?

Sheehan: What you’re capable of, and how you don’t need sleep because you’re not going to get it. You also find out physically what you’re capable of.

I saw leaders who were good role models, too. I liked the leaders who pushed very hard, and they could get the best out of you without being overly tough. They corrected you, but there was just a positiveness to how they approached everything that attracted me to them as leaders.

I’ll never forget that. They’d be very tough on you, but they knew when to take a little bit of a break and maybe whisper something or just let you know that they were empathetic. They knew when they’d pushed too far and they knew how to pull back.

They were a great example of a saying that I use all the time: “You treat people well, they will return the favor. And if you treat them poorly, they will return the favor.”

*     *     *

Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times‘ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.