Books and Reading

Mark: This may sound like a goofy

Mark:

This may sound like a goofy question, but how do you select your books? Do you have a screening process or recommendation list that you work off of? I also love to read, but I find that I keep adding and adding and adding.......

Keith Spoelker

Keith- I havent put much thought into

Keith- I havent put much thought into it, that's for sure. I think the reason is that there are far more books that I want to read than I actually can read, and I have so many possible ways to consider a book, I'm comfortable covering the waterfront.
Here are the ways a book makes it to my attention:
Periodical mention- HBR, Fortune, WSJ, NYT, etc. writes up a book and it appeals.
Writer of interest-if a writer I like publishes, I'll generallly get it.
Topic of interest-I'm talking about subsets of management and leadership, since titles that address that broadly are usually not very good.
Book store browsing- usually at airports, but sometimes not. If it passes my idea test (below), I buy it.
Idea Test- when browsing, are there three ideas that appeal? I used to look for 3 actionable ideas, but that eliminated nearly everything. Now I'm willing to buy something that sounds smart that I'll have to test in the field.
Recommendations- I try to listen to everyone who seems sane and knows me, but most people assume I will like what they like, and that's less true than not.
Popular- maybe not mentioned in the business press.
Good writers. Period. Any genre. There aren't many.

All that said, perhaps the most important thing is that I buy regularly, in part for fear that I will be somewhere without a book. I generally fear false negatives more than false positives.

And, I do have a backlog. Have had for years...doesnt bother me. The top of the funnel has no connnection to the bottom in my mind.

Hope this helps!

(written on my treo on the Hertz rental bus at O'Hare)

Mark

Oops - one more thing, very

Oops - one more thing, very important:
Client problem driven research-if I haven't studied current literture on a topic that presents with a client, I'll go get everything on the subject to see if I can tighten up my offered solution.
Sorry!

I always take a "business" book with me

I always take a "business" book with me when flying to meetings. On my return flight, I take a "fun" book, either fiction or history (I'm a history geek). About 3 times a week I set aside 30 minutes a day and read at my office. In about five minutes I"m going to start "Getting Things Done" by David Allen (recommended on an earlier podcast). You say, "Glenn, I don't have time to read at the office." I reply, I do, because I consider learning to be a priority of mine. (I don't believe in "time" management, I believe in "priority" management.)

Mark and Michael also have a great reading list. It was there I recalled I hadn't yet read Drucker's "The Effective Manager.

Can't wait to download the next podcast on Monday.-)

Regards,

Glenn

Glenn et al- Can't NOT reply, even

Glenn et al-

Can't NOT reply, even though I am in the O'Hare Admiral's Club and kind of swamped.

JUST TO BE CLEAR announcement: Drucker's book is The Effective EXECUTIVE. My book, yet to be published, is the The Effective Manager.

Thanks, but those shoes are already bronzed. ;-)

Mark

Mark, I quite agree about the

Mark,

I quite agree about the television, it's amazing how much reading you can get done without being zoned out by the television. However, in my case I find BOT to be very helpful when driving, I just don't use it as the only source of reading. That would certainly be WAY too slow.

I travel a great deal for my job and it's always car travel rather than airplane. BOT are a great way to get a little extra "reading" done when you cannot pull out a good book.

Also, afternoon phone calls work pretty well, but I find few people enjoy being called at 6:30 am when on a morning commute.

hi Mark, I have been 'using' your

hi Mark,

I have been 'using' your site for the last couple of months and the day i stumbled into it all i remember is kicking myself for not finding you earlier on the net. i just read that line and it sounds close to finding LOVE :) so be it....I love manager-tools.com!!

youe site is tactical in nature and most others are strategic meant for planet Uthopia where exection is magical and by extension a breeze. But back on earth, ALL good and great managers know 'Strategy' only gets you into the game. The real test is execution and if only i had a penny everytime i hear management wax eloquent about their grand strategy and nay a clue about how to translate that into reality.

just wanted to let you know how much i appreciate what you are doing. If you ever land in this side of town (Delhi,India) I'll be glad to help put any way i can. Just as a thank you for what you guys are doin. Believe me, an MBA here costs a bomb and many many have 1/200th the value a Joe can get just by listenin to all your casts. I am not kiddin!

Just so I am a fan, two request : 1# pls do not break a pod cast into 2 or 3....loses momentum and 'signal strength' so to speak. 2# some link where one can download ALL your casts.

and i am a bibliophile too but 200 books....wow!

can we guys have a list of your TOP 20....would be great....

pls keep up the good work....scratch that.....GREAT work guys.....

thank you!

rgds
Shiva

Shiva- Thanks for the great note!

Shiva-

Thanks for the great note! We're glad you love the site. I just had a similar experience stumbling upon a site about MS Outlook - it's a blog written by a guy who just left the role as Outlook Product Manager for all of UK... for Microsoft. I thought I had hit the mother lode of great stuff to help me be more effective in Outlook.

I love your comment about "Utopia"... that's always how I've felt about management advice in general: "what do you want me to DO??"

Regarding your requests:

1. Sorry, but some topics require more than one cast. We're time constrained no matter what we do, and we feel that 20-30 minutes is a good target. Once we commit to that, there are some topics that in order to be tactical, and allow you to USE what we're suggesting, it takes more than that target to get it said. It's not perfect, but it's how we're approaching this for now.

That said, Mike and I understand your comment about momentum.

2. You can download all our casts in Itunes (and I think other clients) just by going into properties and telling the client not just to download the latest, but to download all. It will go and get them. (And you better do this fast, because we're going to start archiving soon.

Glad you're a member, and getting value from our work. it's a privilege to do it for you.

Mark

2.

I attended a meeting last night of

I attended a meeting last night of managers in my organization who will be "facilitating" the managers of other departments around the org who had particulary poor employee satisfaction results from our annual survey. As part of the process, the facilitators are asked to develop an action plan, along with the facilitated department director to improve scores for the coming year. An example of an action plan created for a previously facilitated department included reading assignments that the facilitator had recommended for the failing manager. One of the other managers in the room made the comment "I don't read enough myself to go around making assignments for other people!" Wow!

Wow is RIGHT! That's a scary

Wow is RIGHT! That's a scary thought.

Of course, the dark Mark will say, "boy he'd be easy to compete for a promotion against!"

Mark

Hi Mark, First: I just started to

Hi Mark,

First: I just started to listen to your podcasts and I love them. I am a business professional in a Fortune 500 company and working hard to take the next step, which is management. I consider your podcasts great information and know that they will give me that extra edge.

Second: I reviewed your list of books and was kind of surprised to NOT see Good to Great by Jim Collins. I read that book and it truly opened my eyes. Next to The World is Flat, it was one of the most eye opening books I've ever read.

Keep up the great work and I look forward to more great podcasts...

Hi JasonO, We are lucky to be alive

Hi JasonO,

We are lucky to be alive right now. Not only have we a new information medium in Podcasts but we have Mark and Mike blasting the medium into the stratosphere.

I'm pretty sure "Good to great" got a guernsey in the November members only cast about reading habits and recommendations.

Cheers,

Dean

Jason- Many thanks for the kind

Jason-

Many thanks for the kind words. As Dean says, we did give it a guernsey in a podcast. (See my next post for what that means).

I am going to re-read Good to Great. There was much I liked, but I REALLY struggled with the idea that a humble CEO made much of a difference. I've just not found individuals to be a good basis for large organizational success FROM A STATISTICAL PERSPECTIVE. That soured me to the rest of the book.

But I'll look again. Long weekend coming up... extra time to read.

Glad you like the shows. Thanks for taking the time to write - nice post.

Mark

Dean- Thanks for the kind wishes.

Dean-

Thanks for the kind wishes. We're thrilled to be here serving you. This is what I was meant to do professionally.

In the interest of bridging cultural barriers for the many members who may not understand your colloquialism, here's a poor man's etymology.

"Got a guernsey":

Guernsey and Jersey are islands off the coast of England. Both are known for their knitting - particularly sweaters. The islands' names have been given to their styles of sweaters, and sweaters were what became sports "jerseys" years ago.

Anyway, for a while, there were sports tops that were jerseys, and there were sports tops that were guernseys. The appellation jersey stuck most places.

But in Oz, it's a guernsey.

And in rugby (and as you have seen in soccer, surely) after big matches, "blouses" (not an island, folks) are exchanged as an honorific.

Therefore...

"Got a Guernsey" means to have been given an honor, a recognition, a tip of the hat. It seems in modern usage, it is generally referring to someone getting mentioned in a positive light, often as an aside. For instance, if you were to be given an award at a dinner thrown for you, your recognition would not NORMALLY (though technically it's accurate) be referred to as getting a guernsey. Now "if you mentioned your mum in your acceptance speech, she WOULD be getting a guernsey."

I vote that Dean and Jason get guernseys.

Mark

hi Mark, thanks for sharing your tips

hi Mark,
thanks for sharing your tips on reading. I would like to know if you have a particular way to take notes about what you are reading, or if you just underline the more important passages (I dont think so if you are borrowing form library).
If you are taking notes how are they archived? with the book or in an elecronic form for quick reference? others?

Thank you

Vadim

Vadim- First of all, I don't use the

Vadim-

First of all, I don't use the library, for three reasons. One, I live in a small town, and my library has nothing of interest for me. Second, I DO take notes in books. And third, books are the only things I can think of that have any notable value to me. I am not much of a consumer...but I really like books. I refer to them every day.

I highlight, circle, dog-ear, and scribble furiously in the margins. I regularly fill up all the blank pages in the front or back of a book (great trivia: do you know why some books have more or less than others?) I often shove other blank papers in the book with notes on them.

I don't archive them in any way. I rely on my memory (got lucky there), and am regularly pleasantly surprised (at least at this stage in my life) how often my mind makes connections that are helpful/instructive/illuminating. I believe this comes from the act of writing down my thoughts.

I am not a Luddite, but generally find far too many people - yes, particularly techies - spend a lot of time using technology on stuff like this, and it's actually less EFFICIENT and not distinctly value-creating. (But that's just me!)

Hope this helps.

Mark

Hi Mark and Mike, I have only

Hi Mark and Mike,

I have only recently started with podcasts and found manager tools early on - via podcasts.yahoo.com of all places. The quality, consistency, quantity and usability of the information and audio is above and beyond anything I have found in the podcast world and from many other sources as well - as has been highlighted above.

The value of your information makes this one podcast feed I pass on to others - with CD copy of what I have already downloaded to save your bandwidth costs and start their "library".

On the topic of how much reading I don’t do enough and nowhere near what you do and I love reading. I usually spend a minimum of 1 hour per day reading news and information online with useful articles being printed to PDF - only 750 useful articles so far this year. This amount of reading alone amazes most people I meet and excluded the magazines, books and depending on how many phone calls I have to make up to 500Mb of podcasts per week on my commute. Where possible I find magazine articles online and print them to my library rather trying keep and find articles in a pile of magazines.

It would be fair to say that many sources could have the important information contained condensed into 10 or 20 pages rather than 200 to 300 - if printed at all.

With this in mind I have grabbed your book list to leverage your knowledge and have tarted to chase down the books locally - not as easy as it first appeared which is concerning as people who may try to change their reading habits may find many readily available books providing a negative return.

I would also like to take the opportunity to provide some feedback in regards to Books on Tape comment. Whilst I agree on the speed issue I would like to highlight a number of technology solutions that can overcome the alignment issues between the standard delivery and that desired by the recipient – some only accelerate playback whilst others can also slow down playback. I first started with some monthly audio CD updates - which were slow and painful. However instead of distributing CD's these have now moved to MP3 (either directly or converted internally within the company). I quickly discovered that Windows Media Player can play back at 1.5 or 2 times normal speed – the final speed depends on how much else you are doing whilst "reading" and how people around you react to a 60 minute audio update played back in 30 minutes. Whilst computer playback is good the MP3 format sparked the desire to become more mobile and I have purchased various MP3 solutions for my car, my son and wife. Interestingly some MP3 players have settings to speed up/slow down play back, some with highly granular options, moving playback comfort speed from the presenter to the recipient.

Having caught up on 11 back episodes in the car to/from a meeting yesterday (in addition to phone calls) I would like to say that I find the presentation speed and quality of manager tools great and don’t change it. For the record my car radio solution is battery-less allowing unlimited hours of playback, however using a USB key fob and no batteries means no playback speed control.

Keep up the great work.

Regards
Bernie
Australia

Bernie- Brilliant! Thanks for the

Bernie-

Brilliant! Thanks for the kind words and the advice/recommendations on audio books. I am trying to get that technique into my routine, and am glad you shared the speed recommendation.

It's a privilege to serve you,

Mark

Discovering a Key Strategy for Personal

Discovering a Key Strategy for Personal & Career D...

As mentioned previously, Bill Hybels recommends always having two leadership books that you are in the process of reading, and Mark Horstman of the top-rated podcast Manager Tools reads an amazing 200 books a year. These are just two examples of the .....

Mark, I appreciate the valuable

Mark,
I appreciate the valuable content that you and Mike offer in Manager Tools.

Audiobooks have been a great way for me to get a lot of 'reading' done. Using these books on my ipod allows me to keep my mind occupied while doing the dishes (I do them by hand), doing the laundry, weeding the garden, or commuting.
I find that there is a special bonus when the authoor is reading. It was a much more profound experience for me to have Stephen Covey's 7 habits in audio form than thethe book form. I have heard form many sources that communication is ~ 50% verbal, ~40% vocal, and ~10% contextual. Maybe there is more to the oral traditions of our ancestors than we realize?

PFrank

Mark, I am also an avid reader (and

Mark,

I am also an avid reader (and recently joined member to Manager-Tools). I have been reading about 100 books a year (your 200 is a good growth goal for me) and I'm running into a problem that you might be able to help me with--or at least comiserate with. :) I am running out of room to store my books.

Like you, books are one of the few physical resources I value highly. But I am just running out of shelf space--even wall space my wife is willing to give up for bookshelves. Do you simply have a large personal library at home? Or do you do what I have been reluctant to do and box some of them up and put them in the attic?

I love being a resource to my network. While I'm reading any book I'm thinking about who I can share the ideas with and who maybe even needs to read this book for themselves. So I'd rather have them all out and handy to refer to a friend. I suppose I could box up the ones that are less recommendable...but before I do so, I thought you might be able to add some insight.

Any thoughts on this that might help me?

Scott- 1. Do whatever your wife

Scott-

1. Do whatever your wife wants. Books aren't THAT important.

2. I do have an office with thousands of books in it, and books in the house too. But I wouldn't be against boxing them up and storing until I had a bigger place (which I don't want)... or, sometimes I throw out the older lousy ones.

In the end, love trumps books, because books are things. Sometimes nice shiny things, but still just...things. ;-)

Mark

Mark, Point well said and taken.

Mark,

Point well said and taken. The question isn't so much putting more books up in the house as much as rearranging my office (my space to play with at home). I think there is probably a good pile of books of lesser value that could be tossed--that's a good reminder for me. I guess I'll just have to look through my stacks and cull the herd, so to speak.

Ever on the search for good ideas,

Scott

Scott- Something I have learned from

Scott-

Something I have learned from designing my office and home: guys (sorry, but it's true) tend to create open spaces in rooms. Think about using bookshelves to separate a larger space (may not work, I know). It makes rooms feel better, in my experience..and secretly, I get more book space.

Mark

Mark, I hadn't thought about it, but

Mark,

I hadn't thought about it, but my experience supports that idea ("guys...tend to create open spaces"). It certainly is how my own office is arranged. I'll add that thought to my musings on the best layout for my office.

Scott

Mark, A great article on the

Mark,

A great article on the importance of reading. I have a four hour commute daily and I have read about two books per week for the past 1.5 years. I am better for it.

A question: is the quote “The man who can read and doesn’t is indistinguishable from the man who can’t," yours or who can it be atributed to. I want to put it on my blog and I want to give it the correct source.

Thanks again for what you do! David

David- No, that's TWAIN! And I

David-

No, that's TWAIN! And I don't have it exactly right, but the sentiment is unmistakable.

The reports of my plagiarism are not so great exaggerated, it seems.

Mark

If I can add an advice I find very

If I can add an advice I find very usefull.

Have no mercy if your book starts bad. Drop it now and get another one.

In the past, I would have read any book I bought from cover to cover even if on the first third, I felt it was not interesting ... Well I had paid for it, you understand?

No, your time is more important than the money you spent to get that book. And when a book is boring right from the beginning, chances are low that it will get better at the end. So just give it the "one third chance", no more.

If you are still thinking of an

If you are still thinking of an electronic reader, you mentioned the Sony, try a Kindle from Amazon. I love mine, free books aplenty for download, resonable price for new fiction downloads. Get MobiPocket software, free download, to convert .pdfs and other formats to use on the Kindle and there is a version for your Treo as well.

Books on tape, and the occasional podcast from other sources do move slowly. Executive Summaries reduces business books to an 8 page summary with subscriptions that have .pdf, ebook and podcast versions available.