Succession: Are You Ready?
Marshall Goldsmith
Harvard Business Press
We've said it before: little books can deliver powerful ideas. As
part of its Memo to the CEO series, this book from Harvard Business
Press compresses some of Goldsmith's most important thoughts about
succession planning from the point of view of the departing
executive. "My goal for you," writes Goldsmith, "is to get you
through the transition process in the most positive manner
possible. I would like you to maintain your dignity (many don't),
enjoy your final year or so in office, and put your successor in a
position where he or she will have a great chance of winning."
Perhaps the best moments of this small book deal with the issues of
looking outside versus inside for the next leaders. This is a
neverending debate in organizations, and Goldsmith lays out the
pros and cons quite well.
House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on
Wall Street
William D. Cohan
Doubleday
You know, if these crooks hadn't cheated us all out of billions of
dollars in stock losses and brought about the general collapse of
the U.S. economy, this ongoing story would almost be funny. No,
come to think of it, it wouldn't. Cohan "gives us in these pages a
chilling, almost minute-byminute account of the 10,
vertigo-inducing days that one year ago revealed Bear Stearns to be
a flimsy house of cards in a perfect storm," writes Michiko
Kakutani in a review in The New York Times. "He does a deft job of
explicating the underlying reasons that put Bear Stearns in peril
in the first place.... [and] turns complex Wall Street maneuverings
into high drama that is gripping - and almost immediately
comprehensible - to the lay reader....riveting, edgeof- the-seat
reading."
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of
2008
Paul Krugman
W.W. Norton
It isn't punishment to read the Nobel Prize winner for economics.
Really. Ten years ago, Krugman took a look at the economic tsunami
that struck Asia and warned the rest the world to get ready for its
share of the pain. He suggested that all the conditions existed for
an occurrence of a 1929-style Great Depression. Guess what? He was
right. A lot of this stuff will be familiar to anyone who reads a
newspaper or watches CNBC, but having it explained to you by a
Nobel laureate makes it easier to understand. It doesn't make it
any easier to swallow, however. The press materials for this book
describe his Krugman's style as "lucid, lively, and supremely
informed." We agree.
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of
Work
Matthew B. Crawford
Penguin Press
"It's appropriate that [this book] arrives in May, the month when
college seniors commence real life," notes a review in Slate
magazine. "It's not an insult to say that Shop Class is the best
self-help book that I've ever read." A reviewer in The Library
Journal was a bit more specific: "Crawford presents a fascinating,
important analysis of the value of hard work and manufacturing. He
reminds readers that in the 1990s vocational education (shop class)
started to become a thing of the past as U.S. educators prepared
students for the 'knowledge revolution.' Thus, an entire generation
of American 'thinkers' cannot, he says, do anything, and this is a
threat to manufacturing, the fundamental backbone of economic
development."