The Business of Reading

I've read my fair share of business books, and have found that they often don't fit the bill.  How many times have I been lost in a sea of lingo, adrift in weird sayings that fit into the author's philosophy but have no meaning in the real world?  Or what about authors who spend pages and pages and pages explaining something to the reader without ever telling them how they can apply the information to their lives?  This is why, whenever I find a business book that is well-written and practical and good, I make a point of sharing them with others.  

One book that I found extremely helpful was I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know by Cosmopolitan Editor Kate White.  Although the subtitle posits the advice as being specifically for "gutsy girls," I think that readers of both genders can benefit from most of the tips within.  White has led a very interesting life, and she's not afraid to share both her mistakes and her successes in the book.  Unlike a lot of other books, the advice wasn't applicable only to people with high-level CEO-type jobs.

Masters of Disaster: The Ten Commandments of Damage Control by Christopher Lehane, Mark Fabiani, and Bill Guttentag took me a ridiculously long time to read, but this is not because I didn't like it or find it helpful.  I think that there was just so much information to absorb and so many things for me to ponder.  The great thing about this book is that the authors have come up with their ten commandments and have found a very effective way to share them.  For each commandment, they come up with famous examples of people who followed them, people who didn't, and ways that everyday people applied them to a crisis.  They also break each commandment down into a few simple statements that they reiterate often and list at the end of the chapter.  The information is easy to understand and easy to digest.  I may not have faced a gigantic crisis yet, but if one should ever arise, this book has given me the tools I need to rise above it.

And, for the women out there who feel like they just can't get ahead in their jobs and just can't figure out why, there's Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers by Lois P. Frankel, PhD.  The advice in this book is applicable to both work and private life, and it's arranged in such a way as to make this book very easy to use.  Each mistake that women tend to make--like couching opinions in the form of a question, or not taking the head seat at the table when going to a meeting--is explained, along with the negative things that can come from it.  Then, Frankel gives a short checklist of things you can do to counteract the behavior in question.  It's so useful!!  This book made me question things about myself that I'd never really thought of as liabilities in the workplace, and then gave me advice on how to overcome them.