Bullish On Books

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG by Michael S. Barr, a CNBC contributor, and author of "No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-income Americans.".

Source: Amazon.com

These are tough times for most American households.

The financial crisis wiped out savings and home equity, cut millions of jobs, and shuttered businesses. And the financial system often seems to benefit the wealthy while providing little solace to the broad middle of our country.

For those further down the income scale, the financial system often does even worse—with banks often shunning low-income clientele or charging high overdraft and other fees, and prepaid debit cards, a potential alternative to bank accounts for some individuals, often loaded up with hidden and high cost fees themselves.  » Read More

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: From Tweaks to Transformation by Saul Kaplan author of, "The Business Model Innovation Factory: How to Stay Relevant When The World is Changing."

Source: Amazon.com

Sometimes tweaks aren’t enough.

Sometimes nothing short of reinventing yourself, your organization, or your community is called for.

The start of the 21st century is one of those times. If anything is certain about the new millennium it’s the pace of change. New technology relentlessly hurdles into our lives. Ideas and practices travel around the world at Internet speed. Social media enables individuals to self organize and reorganize in ways unimaginable in the 20th century. We also live in anxious times marked by economic uncertainty but one thing is clear, relevancy is more fleeting than ever.

How to stay relevant in a changing and uncertain world is one of the most important questions of our time.  » Read More

Adapted from “How Will You Measure Your Life?” by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon, published May, 2012 by Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Source: Amazon

I’m always struck by how many of my students and the other young people I’ve worked with think they’re supposed to have their careers planned out, step by step, for the next five years.

High-achievers, and aspiring high-achievers, too often put pressure on themselves to do exactly this. Starting as early as high school, they think that to be successful they need to have a concrete vision of exactly what it is they want to do with their lives.

Underlying this belief is the implicit assumption that they should risk deviating from their vision only if things go horribly wrong.

But having such a focused plan really only makes sense in certain circumstances.

In our lives and in our careers, whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly navigating a path by deciding between our deliberate strategies and the unanticipated alternatives that emerge. Each approach is vying for our minds and our hearts, making its best case to become our actual strategy. Neither is inherently better or worse; rather, which you should choose depends on where you are on the journey.

Companies experience this tension all the time.  » Read More

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: "How Likeability Can Restore Trust In Business" by Rohit Bhargava author of "Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action."

Source: Amazon

What if the first thing any business did was tell you exactly why you shouldn’t buy from them?

We don’t generally expect this kind of honesty from business.

And there are plenty of reasons why most companies wouldn’t even consider it.

Of course, no one wants to turn down a sale. After all, customers are customers and revenue is revenue.

But what if the real secret to selling more and being more profitable had everything to do with an unexpected and human honesty instead of focusing just on perception at all costs?  » Read More

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG by Jon Gordon, author of "The Positive Dog: A Story About the Power of Positivity."

Source: Amazon.com

There’s a bubble that surrounds Silicon Valley.

It’s not the kind of the bubble that is about to burst and cause markets to crash and people to lose fortunes.

Rather it’s a bubble of optimism that drives innovation, creates jobs and represents everything that is right and great about America.

While the rest of the country was going through the great recession the people who lead and work for the companies in Silicon Valley refused to participate in the recession.

They were too busy trying to change the world.  » Read More

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: When Dreams Defy Reality by Beverly Schwartz author of, “Rippling: How Social Entrepreneurs Spread Innovation Throughout the World.”

Ever wonder why some people can turn what if and what is into what can be?

Enter the world of social entrepreneurs, social change and “Rippling: How Social Entrepreneurs Spread Innovation Throughout the World.”

Somewhere in the middle of analyzing the interviews I had gathered as part of my book research, it became clear to me that social entrepreneurs are a special breed of instigators –   instigators of capacity - who liberate untapped potential and help people find their way into new possibilities.

At a minimum they all possess four inherent qualities:  » Read More

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: Why You Should Care about the Rich by Ziad Abdelnour author of "Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics."

Source: Amazon.com

It is an oft-repeated axiom that a person can learn a whole lot about a society by how it treats its poor; but just as much may be learned by looking at how that same society treats its rich.

Indeed, the economic future of the poor—and our nation—will be determined in the coming decades by how we treat the people in this country who create great wealth. It will be determined by our understanding of the so-called rich and by our need to foster and protect this minority of true wealth creators.

It is an unpopular thing to say...Rich people need help?

Rich people need to be protected?

Rich people a minority?

“Give me a break,” people say. “They just seem to keep getting richer!”  » Read More

GUEST AUTHOR BLOG "The Myth of the Super-Manager" by Cynthia Montgomery, author of "The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs."

Source: Harvard Business School

Bold, confident, visionary leaders who take their businesses in new directions are widely admired and sought after.

Isn’t that a key part of strategy and leadership?

Yes, but: when confidence balloons into the belief that a good manager can win in any situation, the business is headed for trouble.  » Read More