I think Fareed Zakaria’s The Post American World – release 2.0 is a good read. Zakaria is a journalist many people see each Sunday on CNN. In the Post-American World, he reflects on “the rise of the rest,” explaining that much of the world has done remarkably well in the last decade. Places that we still think of as “third world” have seen significant improvements in their standard of living.  He puts a special focus on China and India explaining their rise.

The book might initially be seen as a description of American decline, but it really is better than that. It gives histories of China, India, and England that will be new and interesting for most people, and while he does have some concerns for the U.S., he also is quick to explain where we still maintain competitive advantages.

For those interested in international business, it is worth the time. It is a relatively fast read and is interesting enough that you may find yourself quoting it to people.

Selling to Zebras is geared to sales people and to CEO’s / General Managers of sales driven companies. The book examines key sales related issues: knowing which customers to pursue, how to get appointments with decision makers, knowing what information to present to decision makers and how to create a business case to justify purchase.

The authors provide a scoring system for determining which customers should be pursued, and clarification of which issues to discuss with executive level buyers, versus issues to discuss with buyers at other levels.

The analogy motivating “zebras” is a young lion cub. This young cub is very excited, spends tons of energy chasing virtually any prey, and rarely catches anything. In contrast, more seasoned lions chase only good prospects (e.g., zebras). The seasoned lions have a better hunting process, and as a result their energy produces results.

The Zebras book is arranged in four sections: The Zebra Way, Zero In On Your Zebra, Partner With Your Zebra, and Catch Your Zebra. Zebras also has a background story peppered through the chapters. In this story, a company named C3 has a sales division that revamps its sales process. The story provides an example context, so across chapters readers can think about the issues, and then follow the story to get a sense of how the authors intend these issues to be applied.

Ori Brafman is a business expert, and his brother Rom Brafman is a psychologist.  Together they tell of research into the psychology of why business people are swayed into making certain decisions.  The book is a quick read and is not scientific, but rather food for thought – especially for managers.

The book gives examples of how we assign attribution; we are swayed to think a more expensive thing is necessarily better.  We assign value to a person or object based on its surroundings.  Translation, we cannot help but lower our impression of an employee or job candidate based upon either how they appear (sloppily dressed), or what prior information has been given to us.  Two studies noted are; 1) a military situation where random candidate records indicated the solider has leadership potential or was less motivated.  Those soldiers who were said to be leaders, came out as the top soldiers at the end of training.  Clearly the commanding officers treated them differently and turned people into the thing that managers thought they should be. Do we turn potentially good employees into less motivated ones by expecting little of them?  2) the second study demonstrated that men shown fake photos of women rated the more attractive ones as being more personable and outgoing based on a voice only call. Do we find ourselves liking better looking employees more than their work calls for?

A great lesson for managers about not surrounding themselves with yes-men was given in a study where multiple actors clearly agreed on the wrong answer leaving the one actual participant to change their mind 97% of the time. The study was matching line lengths where it was obvious which two matched, so it was a good example of someone with the right answer not feeling they should say anything. Is this good for business? An extension was that by having one other person in the group who said another wrong answer, but still differed from the majority, was enough to allow the actual participant to say their correct answer.  Having a “devil’s advocate” in meetings can often lead to superior outcomes.

The book covers medical diagnoses bias by doctors, airline pilot misjudgements and process adjustments, the Gators football team, and even presidential decisions that were swayed by different factors. This book is a quick and enlightening read. I hope I have “swayed” you to read it!

Recently Mark Manske put a book on my desk — the MBA Oath.  He said nothing, just set it down and walked away.  I finished some emails, then picked it up and could not put it down for several hours.  What’s the book?  In some ways it is an effort of some Harvard MBA students to determine how to respond to a business environment where too many business leaders turned out to be frauds and crooks.  It is their story of how they searched for answers.  It is personal in ways many other books are not.

The book describes how these MBA students finished their MBA program in the midst of the Great Recession, but it could also be a book of how people might begin an MBA program because it asks the fundamental questions that often get overlooked — such as, what is the fundamental responsibility of a business manager?  And, is the MBA a professional degree?  If so, should MBA graduates have a code of conduct?  Would violating that code cause a person to lose their professional standing — as it does for doctors or lawyers?

For a quick overview of what the book is about, you can go to their website — MBAOath.org, but I think it is worth the time to read the whole book.  Put it on your summer reading list.  It is a much more interesting read than the latest Tom Clancy novel.