Business Book Discussion discussion

do you like to read? Is there a specific type, such as innovation, motivation, sales, etc? What draws you to a business book?

right now, no. because i'm still in school(i'm only 13 years old so i'm not exactly into business yet). I love to read though. right now i'm not so interested in business books.

What?!? Not interested yet? Sheesh when I was 13...wait I wasn't interested in it either. Hmmm...enjoy your teen years, there will be plenty of time in the future to dive into this stuff. Actually, I wish there was more time to dive into other stuff too!

you made me burst into laughter. Ha, i can't stop laughing. sorry, not trying to be mean. yea, I don't think any teen enjoys reading business books then. sorry, i'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings(if i hurt your feelings).

Nah...I have three teenage sons so it'd take a lot to hurt my feelings!

hm....... i'm still laughing. sorry. The way you said, " What?? Not interested yet? Sheesh when i was 13... wait i wasn't interested in it either," That made me crack up. sorry.

Relizing it I think i'm around all adults here.

Hi Tab and Blooming. Hi everyone.

About being 13 - from Wikipedia:

At thirteen, he (Bill Gates) enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school. When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students. Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly. When he reflected back on that moment, he commented on it and said, "There was just something neat about the machine."

After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.

At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when it went out of business.

The following year, Information Sciences Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success."

At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.

*
From: "The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators" by Edwin A. Locke

Bill Gates' idea of a vacation is to study physics, history, literature, biology, and biotechnology.

Posted in the "To the Glory of Man" group:

The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators
by Edwin A. Locke (published in 2000)

Excerpts:

Even though the categories (and traits) are not, in reality, independent since each reinforces the others, I have grouped these traits into four categories:

1. Thinking

----- Independent vision
----- Active mind
----- Competence and confidence

2. Motivation
----- Drive to action
----- Egoistic passion

3. Attitude Towards Employees
----- Love of ability in others

4. Character
----- Virtue

In summary, here are seven points:

1. Know and use your ability
2. Follow your passion
3. Keep an active mind
4. Develop an independent vision
5. Take tenacious action
6. Hire great people
7. Practice virtue as a means of success

Other traits

- Competitiveness
- Charisma
- Communication
- Frugality
- Patience

Key business strategies that are timeless and universal

- Quality
- Innovation (new products, services, and technologies)
- Customer service
- Speed
- Cost (Low)

*
Foreword by John Allison, CEO, BB&T, Inc.

Over the last 250 years, the quality of life throughout the world has been transformed. Life expectancy has increased from nineteen years in 1750 to seventy years today, and practically everyone today lives better than a king in the 1700s. There has been more progress during this period than in the preceding 25,000 years.

What kind of environment has made this incredible progress possible? Dr. Edwin A. Locke’s answer is one based on reason, individual rights, and free markets.

Who made this great leap in productivity possible? Dr. Locke is unequivocally clear that productive geniuses from Thomas Edison to Bill Gates are the Prime Movers of human progress. While these men amassed great fortunes, they raised the standard of living for all of us. Tragically, despite their enormous contributions to human well being, they have been unjustly branded as “robber barons” and “greedy capitalists”.

What characteristics enabled these men to make such a significant contribution? These great creators have the capacity to see the big picture trends others cannot foresee: vision. They have active and independent minds with an undying commitment to action, the capacity to make rational decisions based on the facts, the ability to judge ability in others, and the willingness to reward superior contributions by others. These attributes produce a level of confidence and competence that leads to success.

Dr. Locke’s view is radically different from the common belief that progress more or less happens automatically or is the result of some undefined collective effort. Dr. Locke sees a relatively small number of outstanding individuals who make a disproportionate contribution to human well-being.

My experience as a banker and CEO of a successful S & P 500 company supports this conclusion. Over the years, I have learned from making loans to many types of businesses that when a company fails, it is practically never true that the average employee of the failed company is intrinsically less competent than the average employees of a successful company. It is almost always true that the reason for failure is poor leadership at the top of organization. Sometimes, unknowable and uncontrollable economic factors cause companies to fail, but 90% of the time, the failure is the result of irrational decisions made by the leaders. Success is the flipside of failure in this context. Occasionally, people get lucky, but 90% of the time, successful companies are created by powerful leaders.

I have often seen mediocre-performing operations transformed into high-performing units by changing leadership. While it is true that to be successful in the long term, a business must have excellent performance from all of its employees, exceptional leaders have the capacity to enable others to achieve more. Oftentimes, this change in performance is created simply (but profoundly) by being sure that everyone is headed in the right direction.

It is interesting to reflect on the implications of Dr. Locke’s thesis. If Dr. Locke is correct, we owe a huge debt to these Prime Movers, and we have a moral obligation to recognize that debt. The term “robber barons” should be driven from our vocabulary.

If the characteristics that Dr. Locke discusses have contributed to these individuals’ success, we should teach these attributes to our children. Clearly, the foundation attribute is an unwavering commitment to make independent, rational decisions based on the facts – which is the ultimate form of honesty.

We must avoid the temptation to use government to put “balls and chains” on great people. ”Balls and chains” are created by excessive taxation and mind-numbing government rules and regulations.

Every person alive today has a far better quality of life thanks to Thomas Edison. Edison’s list of life-enhancing inventions is incredible, including the invention of the research laboratory itself. When we put “balls and chains” on great people like Thomas Edison (or Bill Gates), we reduce the quality of life for the rest of us.

The same concept can be applied to industries. There have been gigantic leaps in productivity in the financial services, telecommunications, and transportation industries as these businesses have been deregulated. What industry is making the greatest progress? Technology. What industry is the least regulated? Technology. Government interference in free markets inevitably reduces productivity.

It is interesting that (so called) “intellectuals” on our college campuses still defend communism and socialism even after the unbelievable human misery created by the communist governments has been exposed. They use the “robber barons’ myth as an example of the evil of socialism’s alternative: capitalism. These “intellectuals” say that communism is good in principle, but difficult to practice because human nature is flawed. The “flaw” is that people tend to do what they are rewarded to do. They believe that people should be SELF-SACRIFICIAL. They must also believe that Mother Nature herself is flawed or they fail to recognize an immutable fact of nature, which is that everything that is alive must act in its self-interest or die. A lion must hunt or starve. A deer must run from the hunter or be eaten. Man must obtain food or perish. Our choice is to act in our self-interest or die (or barely survive in abject poverty, e.g., North Korea).

The underlining ethics of communism is: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. In other words, the more incompetent and less productive you are (i.e. the more needy), the more you receive. The more competent and productive you are, the harder you get to work. No wonder there are many needy people in such a system, and not many producers.

The morality of capitalism is exactly the opposite: From each according to his ability, to each according to his productivity. The more you produce, the more you receive. This is justice. No wonder there are many productive people in a capitalist system, and a higher standard of living for everybody.

Capitalism is the system that allows Prime Movers to make their MAXIMUM contribution. It provides the innovators and creators the freedom they need to use their independent judgment, often to do things that the crowd cannot see or understand. Prime Movers are the driving force of human progress, making our lives longer and happier.

* continued in the next post

Amazon.com review (The Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators):

Evidence that wealth-creation requires rational greed
by Richard M. Salsman

We've all heard about the alleged "robber barons." For decades the world's successful wealth creators - from Rockefeller to Gates - have been brushed with that smear. But Dr. Locke shows that the smear just can't stick. The wealth creators aren't the dishonest, short-range, conniving bullies we've long been told. Instead, they're both productive AND moral.

To his credit, Dr. Locke doesn't accept the prevailing view that rational self-interest is evil - or that humble self-sacrifice is noble. That's what makes this book special - in addition to Locke's ability to cut to the essential aspects of creativity in business.

I found Dr. Locke's survey of the great wealth-creators to be as unique as the subjects he studies. Guided by an objective standard for gauging productive prowess, Locke identifies a handful of the most crucial personality traits held in common by history's great business creators and leaders. One of my favorites is "love of ability in others." Successful employees at every level of business will be familiar with the envy and resentment they often get from their bosses. Locke shows that those aren't the successful bosses, that it takes an enormous ego (and self-confidence) to seek out and promote the best employees one can find.

In Dr. Locke's book we learn what's never yet been taught about the productive giants of yesterday and today. Better still, we're given a reality-based, time-tested, and objective yardstick for identifying the giants of tomorrow.

Want to make a bundle in business? Locke says you must develop an independent vision, an active mind, competence and confidence. You must be an activist (not a mere "idea man") and be passionate about your work. You must practice the virtues of rationality, honesty, integrity, independence, justice and self-interest (self-preservation). You must buck conventional opinion, which holds that rational greed is practical, but morally suspect. Locke shows us that rational greed is practical precisely because it's moral. Immoral approaches to business tend, in contrast, to dissipate wealth.

Locke doesn't just advise us. In bringing alive the achievements of the wealth creators, in citing their successes and quoting their own philosophies, he lets the creators speak to and inspire us. Here, Locke AND Rockefeller advise.

This book deserves the rapt attention of entrepreneurs, business leaders, board members, venture capital firms, executive recruiters and business students. It's not just a history lesson. It's a principled "how-to" book with a moral-philosophic base that permits the user to feel he can create ever more wealth and - equally important - feel proud of the wealth he's created.

I have enjoyed books lately that provide historical perspective on various financial crises. I particularly enjoyed Michael Lewis's Panic because it offers articles from the time of the Asian crisis, LTCM, the tech bubble burst, etc. It also provides later articles that try to explain how the crisis happened and what was required to heal the economy.

I also loved House of Cards about the last 10 days of Bear Sterns, the people (characters) who built Bear Sterns into a big firm, and the events that caused its collapse.

Excellent book for Stories, examples, real-life mistakes & makes great teaching tools.

i too like strategy books but there another field i.e Talent confusing me: any body got some comments or any Journal or any good link to let me know about it PLZ..................
I am a student just as not much knowledge as you peoples

What is Managers "rules of thumb"