Bullish On Books

GUEST BLOG: Overheard in the Greene Room by Kerima V. Greene

Call him a shoe CEO with a sole. And a soul.

Blake Mycoskie is the brains behind TOMS, a for-profit company with a feel-good twist, that aims to make philanthropy fashionable, while growing a global brand.

Before launching TOMS Shoes, thirty-four year old Mycoskie already had five other startups under his belt, including a laundry and dry cleaning service, an outdoor billboard company, a 24/7 cable TV network and an online drivers education firm.

Fun fact: Between business ventures, Mycoskie competed in the CBS primetime show, "The Amazing Race" with his sister, and came within four minutes of winning the $1M grand prize.

It was during his globe trekking adventures, in Argentina, that he first stumbled across the idea for his next venture, a farmers shoe called the alpargata. He figured the American fashion market would clamor for this sturdy, yet simple shoe.

While developing the brand and securing his manufacturing partners he had the revelation of a business concept he calls "One for One" - for every pair of shoes purchased, a new pair would be donated to a child in need around the world.

And so with less than $5,000 startup money, and a small Venice, California apartment turned office, he sourced and sold 10,000 pair of shoes, and gave away an equal amount, over the course of just one summer.

Fast forward to the present, TOMS has over 185 fulltime employees and sells shoes in more than 20 countries worldwide, through retail channels including Nordstrom's

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[JWN  Loading...      ()   ], Neiman Marcus, Whole Foods

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[WFM  Loading...      ()   ] and Urban Outfitters

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[URBN  Loading...      ()   ]. To date, he's given away two million pairs of shoes, and sold countless millions more. TOMS recently expanded into eyewear, sold under the same One For One principle, and Mycoskie tells CNBC he plans to branch out into other products as well.

His new book "Start Something That Matters" (Spiegel & Grau, September 6, 2011) says "Conscious Capitalism" is not just good for society, its good for business, good for customers.

"Giving builds loyal customers and turns those customers into supporters...You can find passion and profit and meaning all at once, right now. " Most people yearn to contribute, make the world a better place and have success....all at the same time...Make sure to give your business a background, a mission and a story. That might be the most important step part of any venture. And remember, giving may be the best investment you ever make."

"Conscious Capitalism is about more than simply making money. Although it is about that, too. Mycoskie adds that, "Supporters, more than customers, have bought into your story because it taps into something real, and they want to be part of that."

“At TOMS, I truly believe we’ve started something that matters.”

Another key to a successful startup is think local but act global. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Start your idea small scale, make sure it works in your local community, then take it to the next level. Not only does it take away some of the anxiety and fear of going too big, too soon, it also allows you to test the waters and try your product or idea out on a manageable community. If it doesn't take off down your block, it will never work in 20 countries either.

What about plans to go public? “One thing I’m so grateful for is sidestepping the usual venture capital, private equity route. My friends who have gone that way are many times beholden to their boards of directors, to ‘sell’ ideas to a team.” So far, we are much more flexible and free to do what we want to do, and give where we want to give.” That said, Mycoskie adds, the more successful your company, the easier it is sometimes to give back and be a change agent for good.”

“My goal is to grow my brand globally. This is a new model for success, to share with your children, students, coworkers, and members of your community.”

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GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: Finding Your Story by Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS and author of the new book "Start Something That Matters."

When I give talks to groups of college students and business leaders, one of the first questions that I'm almost always asked is, "What's the secret behind TOMS?"

The truth behind this question is that there is no secret.

When I first started TOMS, I had no experience in footwear, fashion or apparel. I never wrote a formal business plan; there were no consultants or focus groups telling me that the idea would succeed; and there definitely wasn't much cash to go around.

The real story behind TOMS' success is just that, a story.

Back in 2006, when I returned home from Argentina, I told all of my friends and family, and pretty much anyone who would listen, about my trip: how I went to Buenos Aires to relax and learn to play polo; how I discovered the alpargata, a shoe that had been worn by Argentine farmers and polo players for more than 100 years; how I went on a volunteer "shoe drive" where used shoes were being collected from wealthy families and given to children in the surrounding villages; and how my goal was to create a for-profit business, not a charity, that would give 250 pairs of new shoes to the children that I had met.

What I didn't know at the time is just how powerful stories are.

When you have a memorable story about who you are and what you're doing, your success depends less on how experienced you are or how many degrees you have or who you know. A good story transcends boundaries, breaks barriers, and opens doors. It is a key not only to starting a business but also to clarifying your own personal identity and choices.

In my new book, "Start Something That Matters," I describe the importance of storytelling and the other counterintuitive principles that have helped TOMS grow from an interesting idea to a company that in five years has been fortunate enough to have given more than a million pairs of new shoes to children in need. I really believe that you, too, can create something that will make a difference, whether it's a nonprofit organization, your own social enterprise, a new business you create on the side while still working in the mainstream, or perhaps even a new division of your current company.

If this sounds like the way you want to do business and live your life, I hope that even in some small way my book might get you started…

Carpe Diem,
Blake

Blake Mycoskie is the Founder and Chief Shoe Giver of  TOMS, and the man behind the growing One for One movement. As of April 2010, TOMS has given over 600,000 pairs of new shoes to children in need through giving partners around the world. Mycoskie is also the author of the new book "Start Something That Matters."

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GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: The Fourth Amendment is good for business and essential for democracy by Susan Herman, ACLU President and author of, "Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy."

Post-9/11 surveillance measures have made it far too easy for the government to review our personal and business records, telephone and e-mail conversations, and virtually all aspects of our lives.

For example,

• Under the so-called “library provision” of the USA PATRIOT Act, the government can demand that custodians of records – including librarians, schools, social work institutions, and internet service providers (who, in these days of cloud computing, have access to a mind-boggling array of information about us) – turn over those records without having to explain to a court why they want those records, or whether the person who is the subject of the records has done anything suspicious.
• Under the expanded “National Security Letter,” the FBI and other agencies can demand some records from telecommunications and financial services providers without any court order at all and then gag the recipients.
• Patriot Act amendments let the government spy on Americans using a Cold War era statute designed for tracking the covert activities of Soviet agents.

Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy

The Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, our principal protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, generally requires government agents to convince a neutral and detached magistrate that they have “probable cause” before conducting an arrest, or searching or seizing property.

But the very goal of these provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and other post-9/11 surveillance measures is to let the government avoid this protective protocol.

The role of the courts in reviewing applications for eavesdropping or other types of searches and seizures is reduced; the power to spy on innocent Americans expanded.

What’s wrong with giving the government this broad power just in case, some people ask?

Why should I care whether the government knows what I am doing if I am not doing anything wrong?

But diluting Fourth Amendment protection is dangerous.

As Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson once warned, “Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.”

Our ancestors who wrote the Fourth Amendment feared the potential for political repression, selective use of power, and, ultimately, a police state. In fact, their insistence on having their “persons, houses, papers, and effects” (in the words of the Fourth Amendment) protected against government agents searching for seditious literature or for untaxed tea or rum was one of the principal causes of the American Revolution.

Uncontrolled search and seizure is also bad for business.

When customers/clients/patrons know that any information they share with their bank, school, or social work agency is only one easy step away from government eyes, they may be reluctant to create those records by sharing information in the first place.

And it is not only surveillance authority that has been expanded post-9/11. One Patriot Act provision allowed seizure of the assets of an American charity, KindHearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development, with no warning and no hearing, even though the charity was not on any blacklist. And the government opportunistically employed a statute designed for detention of material witnesses to arrest an American citizen, Abdullah al-Kidd, despite the fact that they lacked probable cause to believe he had done anything wrong. He was never called to testify at any proceeding.

Some belittle Fourth Amendment principles as “technicalities.”

But as scholar Elaine Scarry noted, the post-9/11 powers distort the Constitution’s vision of the relationship between the individual and the state. “The Patriot Act inverts the constitutional requirement that people’s lives be private and the work of government officials be public.”

The Fourth Amendment protects more than just our “persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

It protects our democracy.

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GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: Tips For Managing Your Career in the Changing World of Work by Cathy Benko, Vice Chairman Deloitte LLP and Co-author of, "The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance In the Changing World of Work."

There’s nothing like relaxing on a Sunday morning with a cup of joe and the crossword. A few weeks ago, while leisurely making my way through the Sunday puzzle, I came across the clue “lifetime job.” They were looking for a six-letter word beginning with C and ending with the letters E and R. “Career” was the right answer, but it gave me pause: is a career still synonymous with a “lifetime job”? I think not.

Our world, and by extension the world we work in, is quickly changing. “It’s almost like you have to embrace a lot of ambiguity and be adaptable and not get into the rigidness or expectation-setting that I think there used to be 10 years ago, when you could plot out where you were going to go,” said Anne Mulcahy, former chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation

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[XRX  Loading...      ()   ]. “It’s a lot more fluid right now. It has to be. The people who really do the best are those who actually sense, and enjoy almost, that lack of definition around their roles and what they can contribute.” These profound changes in the workforce and workplace require you to take charge and manage your career through its inevitable ebbs and flows in a way similar to how an effective CEO manages a business.

In short, you are CEO of your career. Don’t concede your responsibilities.

Being the CEO of your career requires changing your mindset. We’ve been drilled over the past century with the idea that success means climbing a ladder rung by rung toward a set career destination. But due to a host of demographic and marketplace trends, these long-held assumptions are simply no longer accurate. Continuing with a hard-coded corporate ladder blueprint is futile. Creating new roles for yourself in the corporate lattice is a more dynamic and useful strategy for building a rewarding 21st century career.

How can you begin assuming the duties of your career’s CEO? First, by understanding that today’s workplace looks very little like the one from the past. Fun fact: Today’s 45 year olds have already held as many jobs as retirees in the 1990s had their entire working life.

Maximize your options by actively seeking out opportunities across your organization—not just waiting for upward moves. Companies have fewer layers than before; they are 25 percent flatter on average, with commensurately fewer career levels and tiers. Also, consider lateral and diagonal moves that allow you to acquire additional skills and gain new experiences. Understanding how to navigate in today’s lattice-like environment will help you now and at every career step ahead.

Taking on opportunities across your organization will expand your networks in all directions, not just up/down but sideways too, opening multiple career path options. “In the new organization, with each new job, you want to build up a collection of deep capabilities so that…. you’re much better prepared,” Matthew Burkley, former CFO of Thomson Reuters’

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[TRI  Loading...      ()   ] Sales and Trading division, told me. Ask yourself: What actions can I take to create more alternative futures for me — and greater value for my organization? And remember that expanding the ways you provide value to your organization will offer you more options, both inside and outside its walls. And Burkley should know - he’s just taking over the CEO reins of a company that provides financial data for the energy industry.

Mark yourself to market. Another important career CEO consideration is to use your skills, experiences and capabilities as personal brand-building assets. Build a portfolio of career-enhancing competencies and experiences by regularly developing new skills that are transferrable from one role to another. Take calculated risks that get you out of your comfort zone, otherwise complacency is sure seep in—a career death knell in a marketplace where time-to-obsolescence is at an all-time low. If you’re hesitant to make such leaps, ask yourself how risky it is not to act at all.

Build Your Personal Brand. Lateral moves, special-project assignments, contributions to initiatives, leadership development programs, and outside-of-work experiences all can be helpful for building your brand. “Roles are simply more fungible than traditionally,” Robyn Denholm, CFO of Juniper Networks

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[JNPR  Loading...      ()   ], told me. “Relevance of skills, experiences, and competencies is what we look for most. We look at potential hires for what the individual can contribute. They each play a role in the organization, but the bounds of the roles are more opaque.” To succeed in today’s job world, you’ll need to ask yourself a tough question: How well am I doing at acquiring sought-after skills and competencies? If you don't like the answer, do something about it.

Optimize your career-life fit. Since you’re in charge of your career, it is your responsibility to do this. Start by thinking beyond the present and recognizing that your career circumstances—just like your life circumstances – will change. You might choose to dial up your schedule or work pace to take advantage of a stretch opportunity, and then at another point of your career, dial it down for a while due to a significant life event. Regimented one-size-fits-all careers are fitting fewer and fewer individuals—and organizations. The important thing is knowing that your career will ebb and flow, and making sure you and your employer maintain a spirit of collaboration and compromise throughout that benefits both of you.

I wonder how many years of Sunday crosswords it will take before there’s a clue for “lifetime job” with the answer “CEO of Me.”

Email me at — And follow me on Twitter @BullishonBooks

Special Guest Blog: "Overheard in the Greene Room" by Kerima V. Greene, Senior Talent Producer.

Ann and David Le Breton preside over Edgartown Books, a thirty-year old shop in a restored whaling captain's home on Martha's Vineyard.

The pair have once again put together a summer reading for President Obama and the First Family to enjoy over the summer vacation. They then put together a gift basket of those selections and send it over to the Obama family's summer rental, the 28 acre Blue Heron Farm, an estate that costs an estimated $50,000 a week to rent.

And what books are in this highly anticipated, carefully curated basket?  Shop salesperson Arica Wolfe shared the list with us exclusively.

"The one we're really excited about is 'In the Garden of Beasts' By Erik Larson, which takes place in 1933 Berlin," Wolfe said.

"We also have some really exciting and varied list this year. President Obama has been known to stop by the store, but we always send something over to the farm early on, just in case he gets too busy. But his daughters are always here, each year, alone, most of the time, but sometimes with their parents."

Does he read any on the Nook, Kindle or iPad?

"No. These are all hard cover books, new releases" said Wolfe." "And we also included a few titles for Sasha and Malia, and even an old-fashioned tile board game, as well."

What? No downloadable gaming app? No Angry Birds or Fruit Ninjas?

"Summer is for lazy fun, not electronics. The tile game we picked is Appletters by Bananagrams," Wolfe said.

Appletters? We'll have to wait to see if that can compete with the President's favorite - his Ipad2

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President Obama's 2011 Reading List….(thanks to Edgartown Books)

• "Rules of Civility" by Arnor Towles
• "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson
• "In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" By Erik Larson
• "Caleb's Crossing" by Geraldine Brooks

For Sasha & Malia Obama…

• "Frindle" by Andrew Clements
• "A Royal Match" by Tyne O'Connell
• "Audrey Wait" by Robin Benway
• "Ten" (Winnie Years Series)  by Lauren Myracle

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GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: Deliberately Lucky by Dr. Michael E. Raynor, director, Deloitte Consulting and author of "The Innovator’s Manifesto: Deliberate Disruption for Transformational Growth"

Whether you’re an investor, an entrepreneur, or a manager, you live with the unavoidable paradox that although you believe passionately in whatever specific undertaking you are committed to today, you understand that across a portfolio of investments, most initiatives fail to be breakthrough winners.

In the absence of being able reliably to pick or create successful innovations, the state of the art in innovation management is the following three stage approach:

1) Variation: Start with lots of ideas

We see this in the form of innovation tournaments, X-prize-like competitions, and admonitions to give at least some people as possible at least some unstructured time to pursue projects of their choosing. In short, the implicit belief is that since one can’t know in advance what the characteristics of a successful idea are, we have to get as many ideas as we can from as many and diverse sources as we can.

2) Selection: Try out as many of them as you can in the market place to see what works

We need some way of sorting the wheat from the chaff, and since we can’t rely on our judgment we try out as many concepts as possible in the market. We create “lean start-ups” in hope of “failing fast” so we can “iterate” toward a winning formula. Those concepts that meet with early approval from the market are the ones we deem likeliest to succeed.

3) Retention: Stick with the successes and abandon the failures

In the hope that those products early adopters embrace have long run potential, we commit to those and abandon the rest. As we scale up, we must live with the uncertainty that as we cope with the demands of growth, we can adapt effectively.

Fortunately, the profligacy and waste of this approach to innovation need no longer be meekly accepted. New evidence shows that Disruption theory – created by Clayton Christensen and described in "The Innovator’s Dilemma" and "The Innovator’s Solution" (co-authored with Michael Raynor) – can materially and significantly improve predictive accuracy when creating or picking successful new businesses.

Over 500 MBA students from Harvard, MIT, and Ivey Business School in London, Canada analyzed a portfolio of 48 business proposals funded by Intel Corporation

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[INTC  Loading...      ()   ]. With as little as an hour of instruction in Disruption theory, these students were able to improve their predictive accuracy by up to 50%.

These results imply that it is possible to identify successful new businesses at the earliest stages of development. And the consequences for how we manage effective innovation programs can be profound. Instead of “variation-selection-retention” – a framework designed to compensate for our ignorance – we can now build upon our improved understanding with an entirely new paradigm.

1) Focus: Go where the money isn’t

Innovations consistent with the prescriptions of Disruption theory are systematically more successful than those that aren’t. Consequently, we can focus our efforts on those markets and technologies that target unserved or overserved segments with greater confidence than ever before.

2) Shape: Seek “creative creation”

Rather than trying to find out what works by seeking to minimize reducing the cost of failure, we can now build business models that conform to meaningful patterns of success. Specifically, by serving profitably segments that incumbents deem inconsequential, new businesses can create a valuable foothold. Then, by building their businesses around “enabling technologies” – elements of their business model that allow performance to improve over time – entrants can move from that foothold to positions of mainstream dominance.

3) Persist: Don’t fail fast, learn fast

Disruption improves predictive accuracy, but we’re still a long way from 100%. What this means is that although we can more confidently commit to specific markets, technologies, and strategies, there is still a lot to learn. Learning, however, demands persistence: the willingness to stick with something despite early setbacks. And that persistence need no longer be the product of blind faith, but can instead be based on solid empirical evidence.

Most theories of innovation base their prescriptions for action on explanations of the past. Disruption is perhaps the only theory of innovation to have been tested for predictive power using a portfolio of actual businesses. And the results suggest that a revolution in how innovation is managed is upon us.

It is our goal that "The Innovator’s Manifesto" will be your handbook for that revolution.

Michael Raynor is coauthor with Clayton Christensen of the bestseller The Innovator’s Solution and is author of the critically acclaimed management book The Strategy Paradox. He is a director at Deloitte Consulting LLP and consults to clients in virtually every industry all over the globe. He has appeared on Bloomberg TV, CBC-TV and has written for publications, including Harvard Business Review and Strategy & Leadership. He lives just outside of Toronto.

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GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: Thinking Over Your First Impressions by Samuel Barondes author of, "Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality."

When we meet someone new we immediately form a tentative picture of his or her personality. We create this first impression in a matter of seconds because we need it to guide to the way we engage the person. To assemble this impression so quickly we use the rapid integrative capacities of our unconscious mind.

Our amazing ability to rapidly size people up works so well that we continue to rely on it as we get to know the person better. In doing this we keep building a more elaborate intuitive impression—an impression of personality that we rarely bother to consciously examine. Although we may spend hours methodically assessing a new smartphone before deciding what we think of it, our assessment of a person keeps being made by the seat of our pants.

There are, of course, times when we try to consciously consider the personality of someone in our lives. In many such cases we are mainly interested in figuring out why we aren’t getting along, which we often talk over with our friends. But the problem with these conversations is that few of us have been taught a systematic way to assess personalities. Instead we may keep shifting between a contradictory mixture of religious, moral, literary and psychological ideas that are hard to apply in an orderly manner. This limits our ability to come up with a thoughtful appraisal, even with the assistance of those who are eager to help us.

In my new book, "Making Sense of People", I describe a system for examining intuitive impressions by consciously assessing the personality of anyone who interests you. With this system you and your friends can discuss the many observations you’ve made, and come up with a clearer and more useful picture. The system begins by helping you to thoughtfully assess basic traits such as sociability, warmth, competence, emotional stability and intellectual style. You will then be ready to look for signs of troublesome patterns such as compulsiveness, narcissism, sociopathy and paranoia, to see if the person expresses one or more of them, and to consider how this may be affecting you. Having clarified these matters will put you into a good position to make a moral appraisal of the person’s character, using both universally accepted standards as well as your own personal standards. You will also learn how to put this all together with what you know about the person’s view of who he or she really is, a sense of identity that includes personal goals and life plan.

Making sense of people in this systematic way will not only help you understand them better. It may also influence the way you choose to engage with them. Furthermore, this system will enhance your appreciation of everyone you meet in the same way that knowing a lot about wine, or music, or baseball, provides the added pleasure that comes from thoughtful attention to details. Showing you how to go beyond your first impressions of people, and augmenting your pleasure and effectiveness in dealing with them, is the main aim of this book.

Dr. Barondes is the author of "Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality." and a leading psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the University of California San Francisco’s School of Medicine. He was recently featured in the New York Times article,A Sexist Pig Myth. Dr. Barondes is an authority in understanding why people act the way they do, what their behavior really means, and how to interact positively with them.

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GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: "How Napoleon Hill Changed the Way We Think about Wealth by Mitch Horowitz editor, Penguin’s reissue of 'Think Your Way to Wealth'."

Today, the name Napoleon Hill is synonymous with practical advice on how to get ahead. Yet when Hill’s writings on business success first appeared on the American scene in the late 1920s, they were considered mystical and even avant-garde. Form a definite mental picture of what you desire, Hill argued, and a wide array of forces, both psychological and spiritual, will rise to your aid.

Library of Congress Napoleon Hill's most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time.

Hill’s 1937 "Think and Grow Rich" proffered a detailed program for using the mind to attain one’s desires – and virtually laid the template for the modern field of business motivation. By the time Hill’s follow-up work "Think Your Way to Wealth" appeared a decade later, he was seen as the pioneer of the self-help genre.

Hill, who died in 1970, remains one of the leading voices in advice literature.

His books continue to sell worldwide and his 1948 "Think Your Way to Wealth" was recently reissued by Tarcher/Penguin. Yet the conservative, buttoned-up Hill bequeathed to modern business culture an unseen legacy: His widely adopted success principles rest on a foundation of radical metaphysical ideals. This fact resounds in "Think Your Way to Wealth," which recounts Hill’s surprisingly mystical dialogue with industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

Hill emerged from an early twentieth-century subculture of American spiritual experimenters who believed that thoughts literally shape outcomes. This was the type of mind-over-matter metaphysics that animated bestsellers like Norman Vincent Peale’s "The Power of Positive Thinking" and the recent New Age blockbuster "The Secret."

Hill’s passion for the mystical dimensions of success began in 1908, when he worked as a reporter for Bob Taylor’s Magazine, an inspirational journal founded by the ex-governor of Hill’s home state of Virginia. Through Taylor’s connections, Hill scored the ultimate “get”: an interview with the steel magnate Carnegie. In "Think Your Way to Wealth," Hill recalled gently prodding Carnegie for his success secrets.

To Hill’s surprise, Carnegie, rather than merely sing paeans to hard work and clean living, held forth on the hidden powers that determine fortunes. “Through telepathy,” the industrialist told Hill, “every mind communicates with other minds. Therefore, the person who wishes to have an attractive personality is under the constant necessity of watching not only his deeds, but also his thoughts.” Carnegie spoke of the magnetic energies of the mind, and of a “law of harmonious attraction,” activated by faith.

Penguin’s reissue of the classic, "Think Your Way to Wealth."

Carnegie urged the writer to consult other captains of commerce to determine whether a similar set of practices led to their accomplishments.

Hill spent the next twenty years studying and interviewing businessmen, diplomats, generals, inventors, and other notables in an effort to map out their principles. He finally distilled seventeen traits or habits that each high-achiever seemed to share – from the cultivation of intuition, or a sixth sense, to proper transmutation of “sex energy” in creative endeavors, to convening a “master mind” council of advisers, which could draw ideas from a higher intelligence.

By 1937, Hill’s "Think and Grow Rich" refined Carnegie’s principles – and eased off some their occult qualities. When revisiting the subject of the “master mind” groups, Hill emphasized the manner in which teams of properly motivated individuals could summon ever-greater energies for creative projects. This helped lay the basis for the modern practice of “teamwork.”

Hill’s program also featured sturdy, character-based ideas, such as doing more work than you are paid for, concentrating your energies on one “definite major aim,” and keeping a cap on stormy emotions. Indeed, part of Hill’s contribution to American working life was his insistence that people needed to learn how to get along inside the kinds of large corporations in which more and more Americans were employed.

Hill also had a less appealing side. In his work as a writer and consultant, he sometimes displayed the kind of “yes-man” toadyism and blindness to flaws in corporate leaders, like Carnegie, whom he had admired since his youth.

Yet Hill ultimately produced a large body of articles and books that are more detailed, shrewder, and reveal a better understanding of human nature than many critics suppose. His greatest and least-understood impact, however, was in moving a surprisingly mystical set of ideas into the mainstream of American business life.

Mitch Horowitz is the editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin and the author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation (Bantam). He is writing a history of the positive-thinking movement, to be published by Crown. Horowitz edited Penguin’s reissue of Think Your Way to Wealth and co-narrated the audio edition. He is online at: www.MitchHorowitz.com.