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ã 2001 Hopkins and Company, LLC
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Closing the Year
Many executives and
organizations look forward to closing the books for 2001 and starting fresh
for 2002. For some, this may have been their worst year ever; for others,
their success has been overshadowed by terror and war. What do you want to
leave behind as 2001 ends? How do you plan to do things differently in 2002?
Do you and your organization want to maintain or change your identity?
Many Executive Times readers look forward to our
December issue that contains our expanded book list, including highlights
from 2001 reading and a look into 2002.
Readers of the print issue can go to http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/et1201sub.html
to access the links in the web version. Five full pages of this issue are
devoted to books that you might enjoy yourself, or will want to order for
someone on your holiday gift list. Information about gift subscriptions to Executive Times appears on the last page.
Who Are We? Who Will We Be?
Name changes, mergers and
new CEOs can all cause an organization to pause and reflect on its culture,
values and operating methods. Philip Morris Corporation announced in
mid-November (http://www.philipmorris.com/pressroom/press_releases/pmcosincannouncment.asp)
that it wants to change its name to Altria Group to distinguish the
parent company from its tobacco company. The parent owns a variety of
companies, and shareholders will vote on the name change in April. “Altria”
comes from the Latin “altus,” meaning “higher,” which may be well received by
customers of the Miller Beer subsidiary. ServiceMaster may
de-emphasize its fundamentalist Christian culture as new CEO Jonathan Ward
tries to increase shareholder value. (The New York Times 11/21/01 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/21/business/21MAST.html).
Hewlett-Packard and Compaq continue
to promote the benefits of their planned merger, while founder family members
announce their intentions to vote against the merger. The positive H-P CEO Carly
Fiorina stories took one more negative slant in a Jim Collins op-ed in The
Wall Street Journal (11/26/01) (http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1006731723317077840.djm)
calling attention to Carly’s unseemly self-promotion efforts. Your guess is
as good as ours about how many of these changes will actually take place.
How many of these changes do you forecast will occur in
2002? How clear is your organization’s identity? How valuable is it? What
would cause that value to change? Does the name of your organization add or
detract value? Who will you and your organization be in 2002?
Reading
(Note: readers of the web version of Executive Times can click on the
book covers or titles to order copies directly from amazon.com. When you order through these links,
Hopkins & Company receives a small payment from amazon.com. Subscribers to the print version of Executive Times
can receive the web version at no additional cost. Send e-mail to hopkinsandcompany@att.net with a
request to be placed on the web version distribution list. Also, not all books we read make it to the
pages of Executive
Times. Check out other
book selections on our bookshelf at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/bookshelf.html).
This year’s expanded book
section highlights the best and worst books read during 2001, as well as some
additions to our “Shelf of Reproach”, the books we haven’t read or finished.
There’s also a list of books we’re looking forward to reading in 2002.
The Top 10 Recommended Books from Executive
Times 2001:
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Title
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Author
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Issue Date
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Executive Times Advice
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Purchase
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World
War 3.0: Microsoft And Its Enemies
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Auletta, Ken
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04/01
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Comprehensive story of the Microsoft antitrust trial based on
insider interviews. Fascinating to read about Microsoft’s arrogance. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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Now,
Discover Your Strengths
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Buckingham, Marcus
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02/01
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Gallup research says we should be developing our strengths and
talents instead of focusing on our weaknesses. StrengthFinder profile
selects five top themes out of 34 to help focus. Read
longer review. Recommendation: •••••
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Abolishing
Performance Appraisals: Why They Backfire and What to Do Instead
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Coens, Tom and Mary Jenkins
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05/01
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Great book that replaces current assumptions about performance appraisals
with new ones and proposes alternatives. Read
longer review. Recommendation: •••••
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Nickel
and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
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Ehrenreich, Barbara
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06/01
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Read this to glimpse on the life of minimum wage workers and the
dependency of the rest of us on them and their sacrifices. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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Peace Like a River
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Enger, Leif
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10/01
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Enger captures human nature, family relationships, love and
compassion. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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Creative
Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market –
and How to Successfully Transform Them
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Foster, Richard and Sarah Kaplan
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08/01
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Based on 38 years of McKinsey data, companies need to be redesigned
from top to bottom on the basis of discontinuity. Well worth reading. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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The
Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in
the New Business Environment
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Kaplan, Robert S.
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10/01
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Best articulation of the Balanced Scorecard so far. Replete with
clear examples. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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The
Art of Innovation
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Kelley, Tom
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04/01
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You, too, can learn how to innovate by reading this interesting book
by a managing director of the award winning design firm, IDEO. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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Jack:
Straight From the Gut
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Welch, Jack
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11/01
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Jack sums up his GE career: “Almost everything should and could have
been done faster.” Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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The
New Market Leaders: Who’s Winning and How in the Battle for Customers
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Wiersema, Fred
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10/01
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Quantitative ways to measure market leadership and case studies of
what successful companies are doing.
Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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Worst 5 Books Read in 2001:
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Title
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Author
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Brief Review
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Purchase
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Making
Change Happen One Person at a Time
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Bishop, Charles
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Had this been intended as a parody, it would be enjoyable to read.
Unfortunately, the author is serious. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ---
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High
Five: The Magic of Working Together
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Blanchard, Ken
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Junk food fable. Simplistic. Not worth reading. Read longer
review. Recommendation: ---
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The
108 Skills of Natural Born Leaders
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Blank, Warren
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Conflicting and confusing recommendations. This book is for the
self-improvement addict, but no one else.
Read
longer review. Recommendation: •
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The Fed: The
Inside Story of How the World’s Most Powerful Financial Institution Drives
the Markets
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Mayer, Martin
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Annoying, irritating and sloppy bon mots. Take a pass. Read longer review.
Recommendation: ---
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The
No Spin Zone
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O’Reilly, Bill
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Unless
you really enjoy reading brief edited transcripts of old interviews
followed by lengthy sanctimonious and obnoxious comments by the author,
take a pass. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ---
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More Recommended Books Not Reviewed in Executive
Times 2001:
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Title
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Author
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Brief Review
|
Purchase
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Never
Change
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Berg, Elizabeth
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Protagonist
Myra Lipinsky is a caregiver, a single nurse, who at age 51 spends her time
with her patients and her dog. When her new patient turns out to be former
high school classmate Chip Reardon, her life takes some major changes,
which Berg presents with skill. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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Good Harbor
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Diamant, Anita
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Diamant
presents the depth of emotions within many characters, and explores how
family members and friends protect each other, for better or for worse,
when dealing with grief and loss. Read longer
review. Recommendation: ••••
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Look At Me
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Egan, Jennifer
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Look at
Me approaches identity, growth, change and trauma with cleverness and
perception, and Egan’s skills make reading this book a pleasure. Read
longer review. Recommendation: •••
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Washington
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Greenfield, Meg
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Wit,
insight, and sharp intelligence shine through this fine book. Describes the
way insiders like Greenfield walk fine lines in their relationships. Read longer
review. Recommendation: ••••
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The Agenda:
What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade
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Hammer, Michael
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Your
competitors are probably reading this, so you should too. Not as
revolutionary as Reengineering the Corporation. Read longer
review. Recommendation: •••
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Blue
Diary
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Hoffman, Alice
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Hoffman’s language evokes mood, time and place with precision and
care. Readers thrive inside the atmosphere she creates. Read longer
review. Recommendation: ••••
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The
Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World
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Pollan, Michael
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For an
explanation of what Johnny Appleseed did a long time ago, and what Monsanto
is doing today, enjoy reading The
Botany of Desire, and come away from it thinking about plants in a
whole new way. Read
longer review. Recommendation: •••
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The
Death of Vishnu
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Suri, Manil
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A complex
and clever story of life, death and forbidden love among residents of a
Bombay apartment building. Read
longer review. Recommendation: ••••
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How
I Play Golf
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Woods, Tiger
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Coffee-table
size and weight with lots of photos of Tiger showing the right and wrong
way to play golf. Read
longer review. Recommendation: •••
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Some additions to the Shelf of Reproach for
2001:
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Title
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Author
|
Brief Review
|
Purchase
|
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The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care
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Bernstein, Nina
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It was an
epic struggle to read each chapter of this award-winning, sad story of New
York’s foster-care system. Paused after about 100 pages.
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IBM and the Holocaust
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Black, Edwin
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Started
out with strong interest that waned after 100 pages.
|
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Constantine’s Sword
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Carroll, James
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Always enjoyed novelist Carroll’s work, but this heavy non-fiction lost
our attention after about 250 pages despite Carroll’s fine writing and the
interspersing of his own story with lots of history.
|
|
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John Adams
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McCullough,David
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Lost interest in the unalterably determined John Adams and David
McCullough around 300 pages into this book.
|
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Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage
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Persico, Joseph E.
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After learning that the long-standing story of Churchill knowing in
advance about the bombing of Coventry was not true, and that Roosevelt
didn’t know about the Pearl Harbor attack in advance, we stopped reading
around 200 pages into this pretty good book.
|
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The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
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Solomon, Andrew
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Intimidated by this comprehensive book around page 40 where we
stopped.
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Some Books We Look Forward to Reading in 2002:
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Title
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Author
|
Comments
|
Purchase
|
Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965 |
Beschloss, Michael
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We liked Beschloss’ first volume of Johnson’s tapes, Taking
Charge. Another year of tape transcripts with Beschloss’ light touch in
editing and framing appear in this new volume.
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Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Lap …
and Others Don’t
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Collins, Jim
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Author of Built to Last returns with more case
studies of successful companies, selected based on quantitative results.
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20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an
Uncertain World
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Courtney, Hugh
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McKinsey partner touches the nerve of how many
executives are thinking about what to do next.
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Vernon Can Read!
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Jordan, Jr., Vernon E.
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Memoir that the book jacket calls “emblematic of the
extraordinary journey of black Americans since World War II.”
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The Sigma Protocol
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Ludlum, Robert
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The author died, but three novels were in the
publisher’s pipeline, so we can continue to enjoy new Ludlum books for a
while longer.
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Winning Decisions
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Russo, J. Edward
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Author of Decision Traps (1989) offers more help
for executives on improving decision-making skills.
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Working with Intellectual Capital or A
Wealth of Knowledge: Putting Intellectual Capital to Work
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Stewart, Thomas A.
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Author of Intellectual Capital returns with a new
book to be released soon. Title on pre-publication draft dust jacket
doesn’t match publisher’s listing. ISBN: 0-3855-00718.
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ã 2001
Hopkins and Company, LLC. Executive
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