Executive Times

Volume 4, Issue 12

December, 2002

ã 2002 Hopkins and Company, LLC

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Gratitude

The business press delivered scores of stories about individual and corporate philanthropy in recent weeks, presenting a variety of perspectives about giving. Business Week’s 12/2 cover story (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_48/b3810001.htm) focused on the increased involvement of individual executive givers in the causes and organizations supported. BW ranked wealthy donors by an estimated percentage of net worth given, and added a list of laggards. Do the editors expect that this comparative approach will lead to more giving? We’ll see. Robbie Shell, editor of Knowledge@Wharton, proposes a corporate challenge in The Wall Street Journal (11/26/02) (http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1038252499367398428.djm,00.html) that would pit hard-driving executives against each other in producing results by personal involvement in measurable community service projects. The topic of corporate philanthropy is raised in the 12/9 issue of Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/home/2002/11/21/cx_aw_1121give.html) that lists companies by both percentage of operating income donated and cash amounts given. This is a great time of year to think about your personal and corporate giving, and plan for 2003 donations.

Thanks to revenue from Executive Times subscribers, buyers of books through our amazon.com links, and clients of Hopkins & Company, we’ve continued our annual practice of making a donation to a non-profit organization as a special holiday thanks to our clients and friends. This year’s donation was 18% higher than last year’s, and was made to the House of the Good Shepherd, which helps women and children break the cycle of domestic violence through participation in an intensive three-month residential program. The House produced an 88% success rate during 2002. If you’d like to join us in supporting this fine organization, you can send your contribution to:

House of the Good Shepherd

P.O. Box 13453

Chicago, IL 60613

This month we present our annual book issue. Sixteen new books are rated in this issue, beginning on page 2. We read, reviewed and listed 179 books in Executive Times during 2002. We recap the best and worst books we read this year. We also include a section listing some of the books we look forward to reading in 2003. This is also the time of year when we update our Shelf of Reproach: the books we started to read this year, but set aside for one reason or another. For space reasons, pictures of book jackets are eliminated from the print version of Executive Times. To follow all links, and see the version with jacket pictures, visit www.hopkinsandcompany.com/archive/archive1202.htm.

You can also visit our 2002 bookshelf at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/bookshelf.html and see the rating table explained as well as explore links to all 2002 book reviews.

Latest Books Read and Reviewed

Title (Link to Review)	Author	Rating	Review Summary	Purchase
Tricky Business	Barry, Dave	•	Treading Water. 12 funny pages out of 300, the best of which are sidebars to the plot. Barry does better when brief. Eclectic cast of South Florida weirdos.
P.G. County	Briscoe, Connie	••	Appearances. Briscoe uses all the demographics of the real D.C. suburb, Princes Georges County, Maryland, to portray characters who fit the locale and for whom appearances make all the difference.
No Way to Treat a First Lady	Buckley, Christopher	•••	Chuckles. Laugh out loud as Buckley returns to DC and the trial of Lady Bethmac, who’s on trial for the murder of her husband, a philandering U.S. President. Sex, lawyers, media, and the Lincoln bedroom.
Summerland	Chabon, Michael	•••	Take Me Out. Master writer Chabon tries a children’s book, fails to reach the heights of E.B. White or J.R.R. Tolkien, but delivers a enjoyable, magical story of baseball, good and evil, and coming of age. Great to read aloud to kids over many weeks.
Unnatural Leadership: Going Against Instinct and Experience to Develop Ten New Leadership Instincts	Dotlich, David L. and Peter C. Cairo	••	Buzz. Long on the what, short on the how, but some solid concepts and thought-stimulating ideas. Up to you to figure out how to accomplish what they suggest, and what doesn’t come naturally.
Showdown	Elder, Larry	••	Jeffersonian. If you’re looking to read an articulate, clear and direct presentation of Libertarian ideas on race, education, welfare and politics, this is the book for you.
Agap Agape	Gaddis, William	•	Last Words. Stream of consciousness and multi-page run-on sentences by late author who saw player piano as harmful to artists.
In America’s Court	Geoghegan, Thomas	•••	Quirky. Civil lawyer Geoghegan agrees to help a criminal attorney with a case. Despite a writing style that’s often distracting, Geoghegan’s observations and reflections leaves readers thinking about society.
Q is for Quarry	Grafton, Sue	•••	Junk Food. Detective Kinsey Millhone returns to eat loads of junk food and solve an old murder that leads her to connections with her own family.
Hesselbein on Leadership	Hesselbein, Frances	•••	Few and Powerful Words. Collection of essays full of thoughtful and provoking, clear-headed thinking, well-grounded in values.
Extravagance	Krist, Gary	•••	To Market, To Market. Masterful story of the market and players in 1690s London and 1990s New York. Clever, timely, witty presentation of character and moral behavior.
The Miracle	L’Heureux, John	•••	Journeys. Superb writing with multiple levels of meaning, rich cadences of language and clear images. Readers looking for a story of life and death, redemption and transformation will enjoy every page.
July, July	O’Brien, Tim	•••	Now, and Then. Rich portraits of a dozen characters who gather in Minnesota for their 30^th college reunion, and how events from 1969 formed their characters. Realistic dialogue and poignant revelation of real people.
Shrink Rap	Parker, Robert B.	••	Therapeutic. Sunny Randall returns to protect a writer from the stalking of her ex-husband and psychiatrist. If you can overlook Parker’s male clumsiness in writing as a female narrator, give this some attention.
Toward Commitment: A Dialogue About Marriage	Rehm, Diane and John Rehm	•	Eavesdropping. Listen in on reflections and dialogue about marriage from radio talk show host and retired lawyer. Unless your own relationship is in deep trouble, or unless your morbid sense of curiosity about someone else’s marital reality is strong, take a pass.
December 6	Smith, Martin Cruz	•••	Loyalty. Fine writing revealing human nature from characters steeped in different cultures. Life in Japan prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, mostly through the eyes of the black sheep son of American missionaries.

Best Books of 2002

Title (Link to Review)	Author	Rating	Issue	Review Summary	Purchase
Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence	Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee	•••••	Jun 02	Outstanding presentation of the effective use of leadership styles. Authors present a strong case for why organizations need resonant leaders, and provide practical, usable information to help one become a better leader.
Leading Quietly: An Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing	Badaracco, Jr., Joseph L.	••••	Apr 02	Lots of leadership books focus on heroes. Badaracco presents those everyday challenges that ordinary people face with all life’s ambiguity. Useful and realistic.
Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School	Burkett, Elinor	••••	Feb 02	Well-written chronology of Burkett’s participant-observation at Prior Lake H.S. outside Minneapolis from 9/99 through 6/00. Breaks stereotypes and helps readers think.
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate	Caro, Robert A.	••••	Oct 02	Hands On. At 4 pounds and 1,040 pages of text, there are ample stories and examples in this well written presentation of how Lyndon Johnson transformed the use of power in the United States Senate.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t	Collins, Jim	••••	Mar 02	“Much of what we’re doing is at best a waste of time.” Read Good to Great and find out from this well-researched book what works and what’s a waste of energy.
20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World	Courtney, Hugh	••••	Jan 02	McKinsey and Company consultant Hugh Courtney proposes ways to develop strategy within a context of four levels of uncertainty. He presents approaches to answering five key questions.
When I Was a Young Man: A Memoir	Kerrey, Bob	••••	Jul 02	When you read this book, you’ll understand why and how a patriotic, loyal Republican, became a Democrat, and how a war changed the attitudes of a generation about their government and its policies.
The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations	Kotter, John P. and Dan S. Cohen	••••	Oct 02	Pumping. Kotter proposes more feeling and less thinking to accomplish large-scale change. Lots of brief and memorable stories from real workers and managers to show how each proposed step can be carried out.
dot.bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath	Kuo, J. David	••••	Feb 02	Entertaining tale of how Craig Winn led Value America toward success and failure, with Kuo trying to help.