Leadership Revised

Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 – John C. Maxwell – (Harper Collins Leadership)

Twenty-five years ago, John C. Maxwell first released the leadership development book Developing the Leader Within You, one of the truly classic texts that offered his early insight into how individuals could develop a leadership vision and values and put them to work influencing their teams and others around them.

Now, Maxwell has revisited and revised this classic to account for the trends and influences that have impacted on his process over the course of the past two and half decades, in Developing the Leader Within You 2.0. Reading through the revised text offers you a real insight into how prescient Maxwell’s original work truly was.

Current business and leadership buzzwords like influencer and change agent were part and parcel of what Maxwell did and continues to impart on his readers. For so many, developing influence and then knowing how to wield it is one of the most challenging aspects of being a leader. Maxwell offers a grand primer of how you can not only become influential, but the proper use and maintenance of it once it is in place.  

One thing I always like about Maxwell’s books is that they offer guidance and insight based on experience, but they never fall into the realm of snake oil by promising the magic elixir of leadership. Let’s face it, there is a lot of hard work and heavy lifting that goes into becoming a leader and while Maxwell is a master at offering tools and resources you can utilize to become a leader or a better leader, he also maintains a level of realism that is refreshing in a world filled with folks huckstering a new program to solve all of your leadership problems for a price.

Advertising as Social Incubator

Ogilvy on Advertising in the Digital Age – Miles Young – (Bloomsbury)

Those who don’t either work in the business of advertising or who don’t follow the business may not be aware of the name David Ogilvy. Mr. Ogilvy was one of the preeminent practitioners of the form; his name, written in his distinctive script, still adorns the fronts of the offices of his worldwide agency, Ogilvy & Mather.

Ogilvy is the author of what is widely proclaimed to be the go to treatise on the subject of advertising and how it is supposed to done, Ogilvy on Advertising, in which he offers a primer on all facets of advertising. Since its publication nearly 35 years ago the world and in particular the world of advertising has evolved at an astonishing pace.

Given that evolution it seems only fitting that this classic text would be updated and enhanced for the digital age in the form of Ogilvy on Advertising in the Digital Age. Equally fitting is the choice of who would be tasked with that update; Miles Young, joined Ogilvy & Mather in 1983 and rose through the ranks to become the worldwide chairman of the agency in 2009. In September of 2016 he became the dean of New College, Oxford and he remains the non-executive chairman of Ogilvy & Mather.

Delving into this densely written and researched volume is a time consuming and at times difficult task. Given its seemingly microscopic text and literally thousands of miniaturized graphic examples of you will find yourself having to reexamine passages and the visuals multiple times to take in their full meaning.

While the concepts Young/Ogilvy describe in the course of the book are certainly of interest to me, since I make my living working in advertising/marketing, I found myself wondering at times what Mr. Ogilvy’s take on this update might be. At times Young seems to suggest, and certainly there are a multitude of examples of the business drifting in this direction, that advertising has moved away from trying to influence the buying behaviors of customers and into the realm of social incubator; more focused on shifting social mores than selling products and services.

Influence has become a massive commodity in this day and age of social and digital media, not always for the better. Businesses, often enabled by advertising and social agencies, no longer seem to concern themselves with the possibility that they may piss off half of their potential consumers by staking out a position on a social issue. What used to be focused on moving products and selling services has become more of a social dance of political correctness.

Young seems to champion this direction to distraction. He posits that there is a need to change the perception of advertising and how women are perceived by upping the influence of women in the leadership roles of ad agencies. While that is certainly laudable, has Mr. Young taken a look at an average hour of network television and the overwhelming legion of stereotypically stupid men who populate ads ranging from household cleaning supplies and car ads to latest fixes from the pharmaceutical industry?

While Ogilvy on Advertising in the Digital Age, certainly offers some keen insight into the current state of advertising, it left me reaching for a well-thumbed copy of the original.

The Push You Need to Succeed

The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business: Make Great Money. Work The Way You Like. Have the Life You Want. – Elaine Pofeldt – (Lorena Jones Books)

You’ve thought about it…maybe for a long time. You really want to give it a whirl, but the thought of hitting up your obnoxious brother-in-law or rich cousin for some start up funding is enough to have you avoid pulling the trigger on your great idea. Or maybe you hold off because you think you don’t know what it takes to run a business, hire and deal with employees and everything involved with that.

Well, maybe the answer isn’t going down the road of building a traditional business with an office or storefront or warehouse; it could be as simple as starting a one person business that you can develop, grow and scale all by yourself without all of the startup funding and hassles of hiring people.

Elaine Pofeldt has made a career out of profiling small businesses for Fortune, Inc, Forbes and Money, among others; and when I say small I mean the number of employees (or lack thereof) not the bottom line. In Pofeldt’s new book, The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business: Make Great Money. Work The Way You Like. Have the Life You Want, she profiles a wide array of businesses in equally wide range of fields, that all have one thing in common, they are all a part of the growing movement of one person shops or so-called solopreneurs.

While The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business gives you some tremendous insight into how to get rolling with a one person business, please don’t expect it to tell you what business to start or for it to hold your hand and lead you to a big payday. What Pofeldt does is give you the basic tools to take the plunge into following your dream, often by citing how the folks she profiles made that leap. 

She also helps you avoid some of the repetitive pitfalls and mistakes that folks starting out make; in a sense you can learn from the mistakes of others.

Pofeldt also points you to some tools that will help you build your “team”, those folks who will help support you in a range of areas from production and fulfillment to content and growth strategy. If you’ve had the thought of starting your own thing, pursuing a dream, and just needed a push to get you rolling, then The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, could be the push you need to succeed.

Strategic Collection

The Art of War: The Quintessential Collection of Military Strategy (Knickerbocker Classics) Sun Tzu, Nicolo Machiavelli, with An Introduction by Erik O. Ronningen - (Racepoint Publishing)

Over the course of time there have been shelves full of books written about strategic thinking and how to apply strategy to business. While many of these books have been touted as classics and have offered up nuggets of useful information most have not held up in the same fashion as the classic military strategy books that date back hundreds, if not thousands of years.

These military treatises have been interpreted and re-interpreted many times and have had variations that point to a way to utilize them in the world of business. Four of these truly classical takes on strategy are collected in a beautiful and extremely useful package dubbed, The Art of War: The Quintessential Collection of Military Strategy.

Housed in a sturdy slip cover, this well designed collection includes; Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Nicolo Machiavelli’s, The Prince, General Carl von Clausewitz’s, On War, and Fredrick the Great’s, Instructions to His Generals. Military veteran Erik O. Ronningen provides an introduction to the collection that not only informs, but adds historical context for each of the individual books.

While many renditions and interpretations of Sun Tzu have come before; I have muddle through any number of variations, the version included in this set tracks very well and is among the most relatible versions I have encountered. The von Clausewitz is a book that I have recommended many times after an instructor at West Point passed along his recommendation to me. There is something quintessential about each of these pieces that translates to even modern situations.

Perfect for fans of military history or business strategy, it has allowed me to jettison the individual, often dog eared copies of the four books. There is something substantial about the heft of this book/case that tells me it will stand the test of time, much like the texts it contains. While I have gifted my son with some of these books individually, I plan to purchase an additional copy to pass along to him this holiday season. 

Education vs. Learning

Don’t Pay for Your MBA- The Faster, Cheaper, Better Way to Get the Business Education You Need – Laurie Pickard (AMACOM)

This has been one of the seemingly endless, personal, debates that I have had over the course of my career; should I take the next educational step, bite the bullet and get an MBA. The debate is marked by any number of the familiar touch points that these kinds of debates usually have; the lack of time to commit to getting it done conflicting with work and family, the high cost, again conflicting with family and lifestyle and the invariable question, is it truly worth the investment of time ad treasure?

I will admit that most often the debate comes up when a colleague or manager has encouraged me down that road with talk of a higher level position or new management role. I have continued to nurture and invest my own personal learning, but without taking the step of enrolling in a formal educational program.

It is that at this point in the debate that Laurie Pickard’s new book, Don’t Pay for Your MBA- The Faster, Cheaper, Better Way to Get the Business Education You Need, has tossed gasoline on the fire of that debate. Pickard advocates persuasively for taking the route of taking MOOCs; Massive Open Online Courses. I encourage you to Google MOOCs and be astounded by the truly massive variety of low and no, cost courses that  are available and accessible to furthering your learning.

Pickard also goes as far as arming you with a road map and the tools to design the course of study you want to undertake; whether it’s sharpening your skillset, growing into new areas or setting yourself up to take the plunge into a full on MBA program, she helps you chart the course. This allows you to evaluate your personal progress, determine how much time you want to commit and design the best program to achieve your goals, not somebody else wants. It’s a safe bet the no high priced MBA program can offer you access to a personally designed core curriculum like the one you can build, especially at the comfortable price of a copy of Pickard’s book.

This is the kind of investment parents should make for those perpetual students, who can’t quite manage to figure out what they want to do. A second copy may also help those parents figure out what direction they personally want to take. 

Go Your Own Way

Dot Journaling: The Set – Rachel Wilkerson Miller – (The Experiment)

As I have written on numerous prior occasions, I am more than a bit of an addict when it comes to journals, notebooks, organizers and pens. There is literally a pile of these books in various states of usage and size that litter my desk, my office and my home. My wife will attest to the fact that I NEVER leave home without some form of notebook and at least two pens…you never know when a brilliant idea might strike!

I am also a copious taker of notes and I have tried the full range of note taking implements; from legal pads and binders to bound notebooks all variety and size. My focus is to be as organized as possible within the parameters of a very busy work life. Once while interviewing potential ad agencies, I was gifted with a custom designed notepad that was designed for meeting note taking and I am not ashamed to admit that I went as far as re-creating the notes pages and I have continued to utilize the design many years later.

I am after all, an addict. Over the course of time I have sought and discarded countless organizational tools including more than a few high priced, “custom’ solutions, that I later found to be lacking in some way shape or form. Recently I toyed with investing in Michael Hyatt’s quarterly subscription organizer, but was concerned that it would end up on the stack, unused and couldn’t justify the price tag.

Then came the opportunity to review Rachel Wilkerson Miller’s  Dot Journaling: The Set, which includes Dot Journaling: A Practical Guide and a dot journal notebook. While it says so right there in the title, I did find Miller’s guide very practical. While some gurus of these kinds of organizational systems try to mold you to their way of thinking and organizing, the thing I liked immediately about Miller’s “system” is that the only real system there is, is the one you create. The dot journal lends itself to being everything you want it to be and nothing you don’t.

If you want a notebook, you’ve got one. If you want and organizer for your calendar, you can create it. Say you want something uniquely your own design, there is nothing about this approach that stops you from building it your way. The rules you work with, are the ones that you write, you can go your own way.

Miller does a wonderful job of offering up literally dozens of variations that you can build into your dot journal. She provides loads of useful solutions and techniques for making the system as useful to you as you want it to be. I often found other “systems” either too much or not quite enough. 

My only quibbles and they are minor, is that I found the journal included in the set to be a little smaller than I would like and a little girly, with the pale green cover, insert it into a leather cover and that problem is solved. The other is that the paper was a little light for my heavy hand and tended to bleed a bit. The solution is a quick fix and visit to Amazon for a larger format and heavy weight paper dot journal; the system can work anywhere.

Reality is a Dish Best Served Cold

On Power: My Journey Through the Corridors of Power and How You Can Get More Power – Gene Simmons (Dey Street)

Gene Simmons is not your ordinary rock star. He was and is not content to be caught up in the trappings that come with being a mega-millions earning rock star; instead he takes the attitude of a laborer into his approach to life and business, always willing to put in the hard work.

It may be hard to comprehend in this day and age of no real talent, do nothing celebrity millionaire that a guy who has piled up as much cash as Simmons from his multitude of business ventures would work as hard as he does every single day. The difference is Simmons knows that nothing he has was handed to him, he did it the old fashioned way, he earned it.

Because of his unique, entrepreneurial approach to rock stardom, Simmons has also become a bit of a business guru who is sought out for his comment and thought on a wide range of business and political topics. In that vein Simmons has cranked out some business philosophy books, the latest being, On Power: My Journey Through the Corridors of Power and How You Can Get More Power.

The old cliché that goes something to the effect of “revenge is a dish best served cold” should be retooled to “reality, is a dish best served cold” because Simmons serves up a cold, hard dish of reality in the pages of On Power. Along the way he provides not only his take on the reality of business, politics and power, but offers a depth of knowledge of philosophy and strategy that one would never expect from a guy made famous for his tongue waging onstage persona.

A copy of this book should be sent to every one of the 535 members of Congress from both parties, notably every one of the pantywaist liberals who ever uttered the stupid talking point about “tax cuts for the rich.” Simmons does a wonderful job of pointing out the fallacies of the cultural mindset that so many have gravitated towards that power and wealth somehow equate to evil. His line, “being afraid of power, shunning power, stunts your growth” belongs on a T-shirt. Moms and Dads need to pick up a copy of On Power, because this may be the best guide to proper parenting that I have ever read.