I had this professor once in macroeconomics who owns this beautiful house inside an exclusive subdivision. And in a corner of his living room is a chair surrounded by two sides with books. The two walls are filled with something like 500 to 1000 books and none of them are textbooks. I was there during our class Christmas party. Now, when I try to remember the event, I can’t help it but laugh at myself. This is because instead of mingling with my classmates or even just simply admiring my professor’s lovely daughter. I was busy reading the autobiography of the legendary Lee Iococa (I know I sounded like a stupid nerd). Not only that, I was also like drooling over at his collection and in fact, I would admit to being envious of his library. Honestly, I would like to have something of a semblance of his library. Maybe I should transform my bedroom into a library and sleep with my books. Anyway, it was here that I met the legendary Lee Iococa. I only manage to read a few pages of his autobiography but it was enough to convince me that he is a great CEO worthy of my adulation. The story of Lee Iococa was about how he manages to turnaround the bankrupt Chrysler in 3 years and transforms it into America’s third largest auto company. So good was that book that I finally bought it early this year during a book sale (I go bargain hunting for good books). My other books on biographies of legendary CEOs included “Jack, Straight From the Gut”, which was easily one of my favorite books and one that I actually finished reading. I consider Jack Welch as my idol. Who could actually beat a guy like Jack? Jack manages to post double - digit growth every year in his stint as the CEO of GE and manages to grow the company from a revenue base of $13 billion to $130 billion in 10 years (?). He also made GE into the world’s most valuable company with market value of over $400 billion. I wish I could do that or better, beat his record. Then there is the book, “Who Say Elephants Can’t Dance”, a Louis Gestner biography on his stint as CEO of IBM. I didn’t finish the book but I read 75% of it. What can I say? Louis knows his industry pretty well. He is also a great turnaround leader and a great change manager who transform the slow foot goliath that is IBM into what it is right now, a menacing behemoth. Well, rounding up my collection of business biographies are books written by Peter Lynch, “One Up on Wall street”, and “Beating the Street”. Peter Lynch is one of the world’s greatest investor, next to Warren Buffet and ranks alongside with George Soros. His books read like an autobiography of his stint as the Managing Director of Fidelity Magellan Investment but it is in reality a very practical investment guide on picking the next hottest stocks in the market. I only manage to read the first half of one of the books and indeed, it did gave me a practical insight on stock picking. Related to business, I also kept a number of economics books in my library. There is nothing much to say about it except that most of them are my textbooks in my economics class in MBA except for one particular book, “The Philippine Economy: Alternative for the 21st Century”. This book is special to me because it was my companion during my brief confinement in the hospital some 2 or 3 years ago during Valentines week. I read the book for 4 days out of the week of my confinement and it was a very insightful book on Philippine economy. A must read for Philippine businessmen. Situated next to my economics books are my statistic textbooks and management science and research textbooks followed by general management books. Ahhhhhh…. General management books, they are comparatively simplistic by my standard now but I used to gobble up books like that in my pre – MBA years. Then there is the accounting textbooks followed by change management books, “Transforming the Organization” and “Harvard Business Review on Change”, both of which I haven’t touched. I also have the book, “In Search of Excellence”, by Tom Peters. An excellent book except that I couldn’t remember much of the detail. Organizational behavior textbooks are also in my collections. I don’t have much to say about those books except that it wasn’t one of my favorite subjects in MBA. I consider my leadership book collections, “Leadership is an Art”, “The Grand Strategist”, and “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader” by Maxwell a waste of my money and my bookshelf space. They are the worst book purchases I made. I manage to read those books within two days after purchase and they suck. What makes it worst is that I paid a proportionately huge sum for something not of great value. I learn a valuable lesson from purchasing those books. Don’t buy a book the first time you see it. Instead, let the initial euphoria die down awhile and if possible, read a few pages of the book or get a book review before you actually purchase it. If my leadership books are a disappointment then my marketing books are something I’m really proud of. Aside from the marketing textbook, I had 2 books on branding and brand management, a book on global marketing, a book on export marketing, a series of marketing books written by the marketing guru Josiah Go, a book by Ned Roberto on marketing research, and last but definitely the best book I had on marketing, “Strategic Marketing Segmentation”, by Ned Roberto. The book profiles the typical Filipino consumer based on their income. This is a very informative book and a must read for marketers. I just got to read this book again sometime. I had another disappointing book purchase and that is “Price Wars”. The book is not a bad reading per se but I bought the book in hopes of finding a new way to compete in a price war. However, I should have known better. There is no magical way to come over the top at a price war. You either differentiate and command a better price and thus be immune from price competition or you drastically cut your cost in order to sustain your price offensive. I had known that fact from my studies in MBA yet I still bought the book in hopes of finding a better way. What a shame for me. Compared to my other book collections, my strategy management books are more up to date and they are the focus of my acquisitions for the past 3 years. I had the bibles of Strategic Management, “Competitive Strategy”, and “Competitive Advantage” of Michael Porter. I also own books on the latest “in thing” of strategic management, “ Strategy Maps” and “Balanced Scorecard” by Kaplan and Norton. Superb concept and yet simple, which makes you wonder why one hasn’t think about it before. I read those books and I’m applying it now. I also have another Harvard business review books on advance business strategy. One of the topics expounded in the book is financial engineering and risk management as a tool for strategic management, which is one of the hottest topics in management right now. I also bought the “in” books of the late 80s and early 90s like Michael Hammer’s “Reengineering the Corporation” and “Reengineering Management” and his latest book, “The Agenda”. Another popular book of the 90s is the “Synergy Trap”. The recent addition of the books in this category includes “Customer Oriented Growth” and “ Branded Customer Service”. I bought the latter book because I was curious on how they brand customer service in light of the popularity of business process outsourcing and the dominance of service in major economies. I mean how would one brand a smile, a courteous attitude, an extra effort service and many other little things that are generic and could be easily copied by everyone. How could one corporation own it and make people remember them when they saw somebody smiled at them? Aside from strategy management books, I also have books on family corporations. “Family Corporation in Transition”, written by an AIM faculty, deals with business family issues using Philippine business families as study subjects. Insightful book. Apparently, for family businesses, raising a family and running a business is an inseparable and closely intertwine endeavor, which makes me wonder how am I going to raise my kid so they could run the business after me. That is of course, if I ever got married and have kids. Another related book, “Asian Management System” introduces me to the various business management styles of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese businesses. They are quite the same actually but with subtle differences. I had another book related to that, “Running Board”. It is a book on how to manage boardroom meetings as much as a book on boardroom etiquette. Again, I haven’t read the book. Well, it’s getting really depressing, when I realize that I had so many good books waiting for me to peel through their pages and unravel the mystery behind their cover of the book. Sigh……… (to be continued….)
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