Book Recommendations
I’m still flying around the country every other week or so. This gives me a chance to read, and read, and read. Albeit, with GoGo Inflight Internet I’m tempted to jump online. Most of what I read are articles in journals like Wall Street Journal or the local Orange County Business Journal, and business periodicals like Inc., Entrepreneur, or Bloomberg Businessweek, and a few other stragglers like Scientific American, or Computer.
Though I’m filing this under Book Recommendations, this post is just a few of my recent favorite business articles:
- The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value – WOW! That word sums it up. This is an article by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer. If you’re an executive or have your MBA, you know Michael Porter well enough. Likely you’ve read some of his writings from the Harvard Business Review. This article focuses on how capitalism can be saved from the mire of immoral and self-serving mess it’s in now by focusing on creating shared values not only for its supply chain vendors, but all relationships a company directly or indirectly affects.
This could mean not just searching for lowest price suppliers, but seeking reliable ones whom you’d help reduce their costs while maintaining a healthy bottom line, as well as insuring they practice environmentally practices. Then you take it a step further and help your suppliers’ suppliers and espouse they do the same!
I love this article and think every executive in large or small company should invest the time to read it at least once!
- How Great Entrepreneurs Think – This is an Inc. magazine article by Leigh Buchanan. For the most part, this article convinced me how my work in corporate America, as well as my education, has made me think like a corporate executive: risk-averse, unable to focus on the potential, and certainly expending too much effort planning and not enough time doing. You’ve got to read this article, given it was based on real life successful entrepreneurs who participated in the study leading to this article. You’ll be very surprised by some of the findings.
- In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism – In this Inc. magazine article by Max Chafkin, you begin to wonder how invalid are the arguments our politicians put forth that high taxes stifle entrepreneurship. The opposite is true in Norway where there are “more entrepreneurs per capita than the United States….” And that’s given that entrepreneurs have a tax rate close to 50%!!!
What Do You Think?
Feel free to comment on these articles or share your own below.