A Couple of Excellent Books

Two books I'd like to recommend:

Leadership by Rudy Giuliani

Mind Set! Reset Your Thinking and See the Future by John Naisbett

Rudy Giuliani of course was the Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2002. And John Naisbett, you may recall, authored the bestselling "Megatrends" back in 1988.

There is a very interesting similarity in both of these books. In "Leadership", Giuliani details out how he accomplished significant positive change in New York City during his eight years as Mayor. Giuliani considers his implementation of an 'accountability system' an essential element in this positive change. To break this down to a very simple statement: virtually every department of city government was given a set of statistics. These stats were then plotted, analyzed and important management decisions were based on these stats.

When you make business decisions using statistics, you push aside rumor and opinion, both potential business destroyers.

John Naisbett's new book lays out eleven different "mindsets" that he believes give you the best chance of understanding current events and predicting what will happen in the future. Fascinating stuff. One of these mindsets he simply calls "Focus on the score of the game." And what he means by this is KNOW what the actual facts are in any given situation. Don't be swayed by hype or rumor and opinion. He gives a number of examples of how important events in our lives can (and have been) distorted and how this leads to making very bad decisions.

I heartily recommend both books. They both provide intriguing new perspectives on running a business of any size.

Comments

[Dave Tidman]

I'd like to see the US Gov't do likewise.
Maybe a constitutional amendment mandating the right of the American people to a full honest and truthful anual audit of ALL monies taken IN and spent by the US Gov't.

Watch 'em scatter like cocroaches when the subject comes up.