Ford Library

Zweig, David.  Invisibles : the power of anonymous work in an age of relentless self-promotion. Portfolio/ Penguin, 2014. also available as an online audiobook

During my 33 years at Duke, I often hear faculty members say how much they love the Ford Library.  They cite deep collections, seamless data, and beautiful buildings, but it is rare for anyone to acknowledge the people who make this all possible.  To faculty members, the librarians who select materials in anticipation of their needs, the catalogers who make them “discoverable” online, and the IT managers who license and provide data at their fingertips, are almost invisible.  Even reference librarians, once the public face of the library, are now anonymous, as research assistance takes place through email and IM.

Journalist David Zweig explains why.  In his book, Invisibles, Zweig shows that for professionals with key technical skills, the better they perform, the more they disappear.  It is only when mistakes happen that these specialists are noticed at all.

While Zweig does not analyze libraries per se, he uses many other examples of complicated work.  He begins at the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta, where he interviews the man responsible for designing the cues (maps, signage, lighting, color) that direct millions of confused and disoriented passengers to their next destinations.  He then moves on to the world of perfume, where a “Nose” follows a meticulous process to create new fragrances for clients.  While Invisibles are found in all walks of life, many Zweig’s examples are from the arts, including architecture and music.

The people that Zweig calls the “Invisibles” are happy in their anonymity.  Invisibles develop an expertise within a field and find meaning in the challenges that the work presents.  As masters of their craft, they enjoy taking on more responsibility and working collectively with others.  Invisibles are deeply respected for their skills by co-workers but do not seek rewards or recognition from those outside their professional group.  For Invisibles, excellence is its own reward.

This book is recommended for all, but most especially for the Invisibles at Fuqua, as well as readers who enjoyed the best seller, Quiet by Susan Cain.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Winter is prime time for business journalists to announce the best books of the year.  Forbes, Inc., Business Insider, Amazon, Goodreads – and now a new journal in the Ford Library, strategy+business by PwC – all publish lists of the best books for business people.

The books cited in this post are from PwC’s strategy+business list.  Readers who want to read complete reviews by business writers (editors, authors, columnists) in print can find them in strategy+business in the Leadership & Management journal section of the Ford Library.   The books below are available in various formats (ebooks, audiobooks, print) through the Duke libraries online catalog. Click the the title to see the available formats.

Topic: Strategy

Business strategy: managing uncertainty, opportunity, and enterprise by J.C. Spender

Fewer, bigger, bolder: from mindless expansion to focused growth by Sanjay Khosla and Mohanbir Sawhney

Accelerate: building strategic agility for a faster-moving world by John P. Kotter

Topic: Marketing

Tilt: shifting your strategy from products to customers by Niraj Dawar

Connected by design: 7 principles for business transformation through functional integration by Barry Wacksman and Chris Stutzman

Romancing the brand: how brands create strong, intimate relationships with consumers by Tim Halloran

Topic: Self-Improvement

Left brain, right stuff: how leaders make winning decisions by Phil Rosenzweig

Moment of clarity: using the human sciences to solve your toughest business problems by Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel B. Rasmussen

It’s not the how or the what but the who: succeed by surrounding yourself with the best by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz

Topic: Organizational Culture

Joy, inc.: how we built a workplace people love by Richard Sheridan

The moment you can’t ignore: when big trouble leads to a great future by Malachi O’Connor and Barry Dornfeld

The circle by Dave Eggers

Topic: Innovation

The second machine age: work, progress and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

Social physics: how good ideas spread – the lessons from a new science by Alex “Sandy” Pentland

How Google works by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg

Topic: Sustainability

Responsible leadership: lessons from the front line of sustainability and ethics by Mark Moody-Stuart

How the poor can save capitalism: rebuilding the path to the middle class by John Hope Bryant

The big pivot: radically practical strategies for a hotter, scarcer, and more open world by Andrew S. Winston

Topic: Economics

Capital in the 21st century by Thomas Piketty

Age of ambition: chasing fortune, truth and faith in the new China by Evan Osnos

Stress test:  reflections on financial crises by Tim Geithner

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Schmidt, Eric and Jonathan Rosenberg. How Google Works. Grand Central Publishing, 2014.

In 2014 Google captured the #3 spot on Fortune’s list of most admired companies worldwide. The previous year, Google was ranked #2 but somehow the company dropped a position, overtaken by Amazon.com, a company despised for its shabby treatment of employees and predatory business practices. How this happened to a company with a “Don’t be evil” mantra is a mystery.

Google itself has been somewhat of a mystery, but in recent years, several books have been published that illuminate the practices of the company and the principles of its founders. A new book by former CEO Eric Schmidt and former VP for products Jonathan Rosenberg, How Google Works, provides a guarded look at the company as they dispense Google-style ideas and tools to managers on how to create a company where revenues grow exponentially and a work environment where employees thrive.

Schmidt and Rosenberg both began at Google in 2001-2002 when the start-up was three years old. Their book covers the early years at Google and discusses the launch of many of its popular products. Today both authors remain connected with the company. Eric Schmidt is executive chairman and Jonathan Rosenberg is an advisor to Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page.

Many stories in How Google Works are engaging, especially those about the authors’ personal experiences with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and other industry icons like Steve Jobs. Also interesting are discussions of Google’s operating principles and corporate culture, especially ideas that run contrary to accepted business thinking. For example, the chapter on strategy introduces the concept of “technical insights,” the standard for Google’s most successful products. The authors advise managers to create product plans with technical insights rather than to analyze the company’s competitive advantage as taught in MBA Strategy courses.

Yet the writing in this 250+ page book is uneven and could have been improved by more careful editing. Some the topics are obvious, “Firing sucks,” for example; Be clear in your email; Say “yes” to employees. The list of Google’s Hiring Dos and Don’ts includes this advice: “Hire people who get things done” and “Don’t hire people who are political or manipulative.” With tighter editing, readers would not miss the weakest 50 pages and the book would be better overall. Despite its faults, this book is recommended for anyone interested in working at Google or reading about technology companies.

Also available in Kindle, Overdrive eBook, Overdrive Audiobook, and Audio CD formats.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Heath, Chip. Decisive : how to make better choices in life and work. Crown Business, 2013.

Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the new book, Decisive, have long been associated with Fuqua.  Dan lives in Raleigh and is currently a fellow at CASE, the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship.  Chip was once a faculty member at Fuqua, in the management area, before he defected in 2000 to become a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford.

Chip and Dan are also the authors of two best selling books, Made to Stick (2007) –  a guide to creating ideas that thrive — and Switch (2010) – a guide to implementing transformative change.  These thought-provoking books present academic research illustrated with anecdotes from corporate and everyday life. The authors break down complicated ideas into simple parts and show how to apply them to real world situations, both at work and at home.  Sprinkled with humor throughout, these books present strategies and practical tools.  Their new book, Decisive, follows the same formula and is already on its way to becoming their third best seller.

At Fuqua, Decisive won the vote among Fuqua staff as the featured text for the Ford Library discussion group, which gathered last week to share ideas about the book.  Participants considered the decisions that they were making in real time and how they were applying the principles that they learned in Decisive, including widening their options and testing their assumptions.  Concepts considered especially valuable were “opportunity cost” and the  10/10/10 principle developed by business journalist Suzy Welch – what impact will a particular decision have 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now and 10 years from now.

Fuqua staff members who would like to be included in future emailings for the next book discussion should contact me at mtrauner@duke.edu

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

This review of two new books on China is dedicated to our DKU MMS students:

Dear DKU MMS students:  As you prepare to travel to the other side of the globe in these coming weeks, know that you go with our best wishes for continued success and much happiness in your adventure ahead.

In The Contest of the Century, Geoff Dyer, a journalist for the Financial Times, argues that China is abandoning its geopolitical strategy of self-restraint and is pursuing an ambitious new agenda to shape the world according to its own interests.  The emerging struggle for influence and power between the two dominant nations in the world, China and the United States, is based on balance of power issues, such as military dominance in Asia, as well as practical tactics that promote Chinese economic growth, such as replacing the U.S. dollar as the global currency.

Dyer explains that the U.S. followed the same steps more than a century ago at a similar stage in its economic development.  America developed naval power to strengthen its own security and to protect its overseas interests;  At the same time, the nation created the financial infrastructure needed to replace the British pound as the international currency.  But the outcome of today’s rivalry is not inevitable.  The U.S. is still strong and predictions of its demise are premature — provided the nation gets its deficits under control.

In another new and remarkable book, Can China Lead?, faculty members from Harvard (Kirby and McFarlan) and Wharton (Abrami) discuss the economic competition between the two superpowers, China and the United States.  The authors describe China as a nation whose economic miracle has been powered by state infrastructure projects, but whose private sector has been constrained by poor governance.  China is controlled by an elite group of Chinese Communist Party members who obstruct the changes necessary to transform the country into a sustainable economic powerhouse.

Challenges to transforming China from an infrastructure state to a consumer economy are significant.  The lack of transparency and accountability of the Communist Party and the absence of rule by law impedes risk taking by entrepreneurs.  Intellectual property theft limits research and development in the private sector.  While the standard of living in China has risen sharply in recent decades, the benefits have been uneven, resulting in a perilous level of income inequality.    Clean air and water are in short supply, leading to social tension.  Resolving these problems will require those in command, the Chinese Communist Party, to share power and to cede more control to market forces, something they are unlikely to do peacefully.

Both books are recommended for readers who want a deeper understanding of the world’s new dominant economy, as well as international managers developing a strategy for expanding into China.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Kay, Katty and Claire Shipman.  The confidence code : the science and art of self-assurance–what women should know. HarperBusiness, 2014.

Two national news journalists show that confidence is more important to success than competence.  Partly genetic, confidence is inborn and some people naturally have more of it than others.  But with effort, confidence can be learned and expanded, through habits such as doing more and thinking less. Also available as an online audiobook.

Mohr, Tara. Playing big : find your voice, your mission, your message. Gotham Books, 2014.

Leadership coach Tara Mohr offers her own leadership strategies for increasing confidence in women.  She recommends listening to one’s own inner mentor instead of her inner critic, interpreting feedback impersonally, and making experimental leaps into action. Also available as an audiobook on CD.

McGonigal, Kelly. The willpower instinct : how self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it. Avery, 2012.

Psychologist Kelly McGonigal, teaches a ten-week course at Stanford on willpower.  Students enroll in her class to get more control over their thoughts and emotions so they can achieve their professional goals and improve their relationships.  McGonigal presents strategies and exercises for developing self-control, training the brain for willpower.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

 Lusk, Jayson. The food police : a well-fed manifesto about the politics of your plate. Crown Forum, 2013.

James, Randy. Why cows need names : and more secrets of Amish farms. Kent State University Press, [2013].

Americans enjoy a food supply that is abundant and affordable, but whether our food supply is safe and nutritious is open to debate.  Also in dispute are common agricultural practices that involve animal cruelty and environmental harm.  In the U.S. food is produced by a diverse array of 2.2 million farms and ranches scattered throughout the country, including factory farms, corporate ranches, small family farms and urban lots.  Two new books by faculty members in the agriculture discipline examine our food and how it is produced.

On one side of the debate is agricultural economist Jayson Lusk, who has no patience for people whom he calls the food elite, like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters.  In The Food Police, Lusk casts a skeptical eye on the claims and distortions that influence public opinion and form the basis of government regulatory policy for food.   In Lusk’s eyes, food subsidies, taxes and mandates designed to promote local foods or to reduce obesity are threats to personal freedom.  With biting wit, Lusk presents the benefits of genetically modified foods, non-organic produce and chemical insecticides.  These benefits include higher productivity and expanded food choice.

A counterpoint in the debate is Randy James, an agronomist who spent his career as an agricultural agent in Ohio’s Amish country.  In Why Cows Need Names, James presents an alternative to large efficient agribusinesses by using the true story of a young Amish couple in northeastern Ohio who are establishing a profitable small family farm. Beginning with a basic business plan, the family focuses on living simply with a shared goal for their farm.  Animals are treated humanely as they substitute for farm equipment and provide food for the table.  This is a quiet book, gently written by someone who appreciates a simple life free of car payments and electric bills, with clean spacious homes full of home-grown food and well educated children.

Both of these books are recommended as engaging and informative works.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Horowitz, Ben. The hard thing about hard things : building a business when there are no easy answers. Harper Business, 2014.

In 2007 when Blair Sheppard was Dean, he asked me to make him a list each quarter — a list of 5 books that he could recommend to CEO’s.  This task turned out to be a hard thing to execute, more difficult than it seemed at first hearing.  To find the 5 best books, you must read a great many.

One book that would definitely be on the list is The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, the cofounder of an ongoing Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz and cofounder/former CEO of the software company, Opsware.  Horowitz draws on his experience as software engineer, entrepreneur, CEO  and venture capitalist to offer advice to technology entrepreneurs on hiring and managing talent, programming company culture, taking a company public and more.

In this engaging book, Horowitz tells his personal story against the backdrop of technology history after 1990, distilling the business and life lessons that he learned along the way.  Early in his career, Horowitz is at Netscape in charge of their web server product line.  During his tenure there, Microsoft releases Internet Explorer, challenging Netscape in a war for survival.  After Netscape is sold to America Online in 1998, Horowitz starts another company, Loudcloud.  Following the 2000 dot-com implosion, the company is sold to EDS but Horowitz keeps the software, Opsware, which is eventually sold to Hewlett Packard in 2007 for $1.6 billion.

Not everything goes as planned.  As Horowitz takes his companies from founding to going public to sale, he experiences both great success and near bankruptcy.  He uses his struggles to advise readers on how to lay people off and how to tell the truth when things fall apart.  He also offers advice on leading during uncertain times and on scaling a company.  In the end, Horowitz begins a venture capital firm to help technology company founders run their own companies.  And he writes a very readable book for entrepreneurs.  Recommended.

Also available in Kindle e-reader and online audiobook format.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Congratulations, students!  You have survived the intensity of Fall Term 1.  Just polish off those final exams this week and you can bust out of town for Fall Break.  Whether you head for the snowy slopes of Squaw Valley or the showy shops in New York, you can travel with America’s best storyteller, Malcolm Gladwell.

In your car or on an airplane, listening to Gladwell makes the transit time melt away.  And you can hear Gladwell via a Ford Library audiobook by downloading one of his best sellers onto your own device — iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet. All his best books are available.

David and Goliath. Gladwell’s most recent book is about the powerful and considers the curious advantage of being the underdog.  Downloadable audio. Also in print, Audio CD and Business Bestseller Kindle.

Outliers. Gladwell examines successful people, who inhabit their world of advantages and inheritances, some that are earned through hard work and others that are simply good fortune. Downloadable audio. Also in print, Audio CD and Business Classics Kindle.

Blink. Humans use both conscious and unconscious modes of thinking and sometimes instant decisions can be as good as those made deliberately.  Downloadable audio. Also in print, Audio CD and Business Classics Kindle.

The Tipping Point.  Written years before social media, Gladwell’s first commercially successful book explores how ideas and trends suddenly go viral.  Downloadable audio.  Also in print, Audio CD and Business Classics Kindle.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

Schulman, Daniel. Sons of Wichita : how the Koch brothers became America’s most powerful and private dynasty. Grand Central Publishing, 2014.

The October 2014 issue of Harper’s magazine features an article, PBS Self-Destructs, that begins with a protest at WGBH in Boston, to force the station to dislodge David Koch from the station’s board of trustees. Protesters claim that the oil tycoon’s new strategy for PBS is to destroy it from within, and they condemn the business practices of Koch Industries in general.

The protest is given a short mention in the final pages of a remarkable new book, Sons of Wichita, by journalist Daniel Schulman.  This story about the Koch family’s power, wealth and abundant conflicts begins in Kansas where Fred Koch begins life in modest circumstances, starts a refinery business and celebrates his 30th birthday a wealthy man.  A zealous anticommunist, he helps found the John Birch Society.  He teaches his four sons to be tough and competitive, to work hard and to distrust government. Two of Fred’s sons, Charles and David, join the family business and under their leadership, Koch Industries grows into the second largest private corporation in the US.

Schulman paints a picture of Koch Industries as an unethical company with a profit obsessed corporate culture.  In a two year period in the late 90’s Koch Industries are taken to court four times– for duping family members on the sale of their company holdings; for pipeline violations that caused two teenagers to be burned to death; for fraud when taking oil from native American lands; and for covering up the environmental consequences of leaky pipelines and storage tanks.  Yet the book is more about the dysfunctional Koch family than about the company.  In two of the four lawsuits, the Koch brothers support the plaintiffs as well as the defense as the brothers battle bitterly over the empire their father left to them.

Co-founders of the libertarian CATO Institute and drivers of the Tea Party movement, the Koch brothers are sometimes accused of orchestrating a secretive campaign of self-interested political reforms.  But to Schulman, it is more creed than greed.  Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch believes that all functions of society should be privately funded and he donates heavily to causes that advance the doctrine of libertarianism.  To shape public opinion, Koch hopes to reach the intellectual class through educational institutions, research funding, and yes, even public television.

Readers of this book will find themselves both engaged and enraged about the Koch family.  The battles and feuds among the four brothers last 20 years, vicious attacks in courtrooms and boardrooms, over issues at the company as well as their inheritance. Shulman’s illuminating portraits of Koch family members bring a human dimension to the conflicts.  Recommended reading for anyone who enjoys business, politics or Game of Thrones.

© Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.