David Noonan: Aesop and the CEO: Powerful business Insights from Aesop ’s Ancient Fables

Aesop was a slave in the sixth century, having a hunchback and suffering from a speech impediment, however quickly gaining his freedom through his unique intelligence, bright talent, and tactfulness.

From that time on he could freely travel, increasingly spreading (even with eminent minds of those times) his wisdom with others.

As the Ambassador of the King Croesus at that time was often dedicated to complicated diplomatic missions, indeed resolving frequent conflicts, he did regularly turn to his didactic stories, which in those days were cascaded by word of mouth, even after several hundreds of years of his death, until an Athenian politician finally started to collect them. It may come as a surprise to think that a collection of ancient didactic fables written by a slave, could be such a refreshing and useful read even in today’s business life!

The short booklet of these one-minute stories presents number of leadership challenges; about negotiation, workforce recruitment and dismissal, purchasing, marketing, company management and controlling. What is in this collection of stories so nicely linked from the ancient world to today’s modern days’ challenges? From everpresent human dilemmas, from the battle between good and bad to undeniable moral teachings – in other words an emphasis on the crucial ethical considerations ofbusiness life!

This book is even more interesting, including the commentaries of successful businessmen and public figures as a supplement to the teachings; for example written by Bill Gates, Colin Powell and Oprah Winfrey.

Hundreds of years of wisdom – in an easy to digest form. An entertaining travel mate on a flight trip, an anecdote based, stimulating collection of stories, an essential aid to starting up brainstorming when preparing a business case presentation!

Eric Abrahamson and David Freedmann: A Perfect Mess: the Hidden Benefits of Disorder

We’ve been told in our childhood that „Tidiness is the essence of harmony”, yet we may often conclude that we do indeed pay a heavy price for the relative order that is maintained around us.

This book calls our attention to the fact that in many cases one can save high cost by keeping mess to a certain degree, particularly in the area of creativity, which begins when order ends!

As an example they mention the discovery of penicillin, which was due to the analysis of a patch of mould that was found by Alexander Fleming in a messy Saint Mary’s hospital laboratory.

A paradigm shift is about the importance of certain mess, saying „early planning means double planning” in other words it’s not worth thinking too far ahead, rather better to adapt to the problems when facing.

The same adaptiveness and flexibility is adviced, saying if not sticking to pre-planned time schedules, but allowing actions to take on the spur of the moment can lead to results far beyond our expectations. The writers warn us of the unblessed consequences of an overly clean household, since maintaining such cleanliness requires continuous effort, and demands energy from each family members, while maniac attitude towards tidiness detracts the atmosphere of happiness in a home, furthermore the frequent use of detergents simply stimulate the emergence of bacterial strains.

The cleaning sector is a naturally big business, apart from the sales of detergents and cleaning agents, the use of wardrobes, filing systems, shelves, bins, compartments, and classifiers on offer, all suggest that without such stuff, the ever increasing number of items in use wouldn’t even be found, facing the chaos around.

If we do not keep around a certain degree of healthy mess, then our growing standards of spotlessness will leave us no choice, but to adapt to such standards, and devote even more unnecessary resources to the omnipotence of tidiness.

However the greatest advantage of a healthy degree of mess is that it reduces stress which is caused by the continuous requirement of order!

Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller: The Secret

Ken Blanchard – „the third tenor” has been researching the secret of efficient leadership for several decades. He has published numerous successful books, about the one minute manager, situational leadership, time management and empowerment. What I recommend here is a light 150 paged book, in which the writer follows an imaginary mentoring process, which is quite an easy read. I myself red it once during a sleepless night, picked it up and didn’t put it down until I had finished the whole book in a matter of few hours.

Ken Blanchard highlights in the preface, he believes that performance is dependent on the leaders!

In his story Debbie, a newly appointed leader is terribly disappointed. Nothing seems to be going as smoothly in her department as year earlier, whe she was appointed, enthusiastically acquiring her new position. She registers to the company based mentor programme, so her development is taken over by the president of the company.

After a long conversation, she gets an insight into the meaning of „servicing leadership”, an atmosphere of empowerment where actually a hyerarchical pyramid is turned upside down, in which the customer is „the boss”, and all other functions are held by the subordinated „servants”.

Indeed she becomes aware of the power of both listening and being heard, she learns why leaders’ tasks are crucial in forming the image of positive future prospects, and why recruiting new employees is such a tough, multi-staged selection process which demands great attention.

Regarding selection, Ken Blanhard states that people will have to pay a very high price for making a bad decision. Correcting a bad decision requires time, and demands both mental and emotional energy, not to mention other incremental costs, declining perfomance, the price of missed opportunities, in addition to the fact that in such situations leaders find it hard to face the responsibility for bad decisions, regarding a misjudgment of bad recruitment. Nevertheless if they do not face it, they may lose their credibility, which indeed may have a demoralising impact on performance. He is highlighting that recruitment is a double sided process, as it also gives the candidate the opportunity to ensure that the right decision is made if joining the company.

People follow leaders whom they can trust and respect, they must interpret consistently the company values, in other words they have to represent these values in a congruent, credible way.

Rarely do companies have the necessary, substantial internal resources of the executive leaders’ surplus capacities to support talented, yet in certain circumstances helplessly struggling, sometimes underperforming middles, to develop their leadership skills.

This is when business coaches may step in, bringing the external resources, when because of other business priorities, such resources are not at available within the company.

Jim Collins: Good to Great

Just like the three tenors of the opera: Domingo, Carreras and Pavarotti did form a perfect triad, so do Jim Collins, Ken Blanchard és Steven Covey in business literature!

While Jim Collins is dedicated to find the secrets of organisational efficiency, Ken Blanchard is the founder of leadership models and Steven Covey focuses on personal efficiency.

In 2001 Jim Collins summarized the results of his research, published in a fascinating and exceptionally evocative book. With his 20-members research group, he gained an insight in more than 1435 companies over a period of five years. His objective was to find the secret of the success of the 11 great companies far surpassing all others, achieving outstanding results, breaking through from their former pitiful status, out of the blue like a phoenix flying out of the crowd.

The chosen and analysed companies were not randomly selected; the book explains the reader the a systematic approach, which resulted in certain findings.

He states that mediocre is the enemy of the great – if something is good, and „just about fair enough” , it is one of the main reasons why so few things become exceptional – in education, government and also in business.

He analysed the company management styles in a particularly comprehensive manner, investigating the type of people who were at the helm of these 11 outstanding companies. There is a surprising conclusion; those leaders at the forefront of these successful companies, contrary to popular belief were not the ones heading the front pages of glossy magazines, they were not at all prestige-oriented people! They were rather hubmle leaders who tended to avoid splendid image, but having strong internal power were able to move the entire organisation forward with their incredible performance-result oriented approach.

How do employees of exceptionally successful companies look like? They are liberated, open minded and creative without artistic allures; they are indeed serious, trustworthy, reliable individuals carrying out tasks in a disciplined manner. Being great according to Jim Collins is the result of a unique combination of high level innovativeness mixed with the culture of discipline that makes the paradox but successful essence.

What do great company’s strategy look like? Jim Collins uses an interesting analogy, the hedgehog concept, to express the essence of the great strategy. While the fox dashes away from danger, randomly altering its tactics, the hedgehog is simply rolling up into a perfect ball the first sign of danger, in other words it focuses internally. But what’s inside? Great companies have both clear and fixed guiding principles, which are made up of three common factors that form one foundation of their stategy. First of all, they are aware of the activities they are the best, what they are the best of the world.

Secondly, they enjoy the activity they are specialised in, hence perform with passion and are committed to their job („organisational flow” re-calls once again, the must for happiness and also the secret of success) Last but not least, these organisations are able to find financial interests in these activities, since great companies must generate outstanding profits!

W.Chan Kim- Renée Mauborgne: Blue Ocean Strategy

This title, „Blue Ocean Strategy” is based on an analogy of a market without competition – in other words, the symbol of limitless market opportunities. The ocean is bloody red where the sharks all attack each other, however there are still other, unthouched, blue areas of the ocean which can be found. Decisiveness, inovativeness and courage are needed to recognise the untouched areas where new markets may be discovered, where the water has not yet been blooded.

The book has been a bestseller since its first publication in 2005, expressing a significant market paradigm breakthrough, compared to earlier business and market building principles.

What’s the essence of this new strategic approach? Use of the „STOP, START, CONTINUE”, principle of change management, define what is to be radically finished, what is to begin, and what is to maintain from the traditional ways of doing business and its consistent realisation.

The book demonstrates this with examples, like the famous Cirque de Soleil – a show that shockingly broke away from the traditional circus principle „there is no circus without animal shows”, conflicting with contemporary animal protection principles. Instead of animal shows and clowns Cirque de Soleil created an amazing acrobatic and theatrical show gaining global fame. The captivating world of the, „New Circus” – a new market, targetting an audience who does not any more require and enjoy the unnatural animal-shows.

There is also a wine market example particularly interesting from Hungarian perspective, analising he global success of the Australian, „Kangoroo” labeled Chardonnay. This is a light, almost soft drink, a stardardized, mass produced white wine produced in stable quality at a low cost in large volume, and sold all over the world. To achieve this, they had to drastically break with manual labour, with the mystic traditions of wine making, with elitism and myths associated with this business, with the dependence on annual grape harvest, as well as targeting and broadening the consumers of the the soft drinks market(!) creating a totally new segment on wine market. Understanding the blue ocean strategy we might be able to gain an insight into the mistaken price strategy of the unique and outstanding Hungarian wine Tokaji aszú, and its misleading market positioning, competing on supermarket shelves in dump pricing with theAustralian, „Kangoroo” labeled Chardonnay.

Recent Hungarian example could be also the emergence of the BioHair Hairdressing chain in shopping malls. They also broke away from the necessity of personal trust that epitomised the area of hairdessing and its mystification. However these chains are predictable both in terms of prices and quality, they are fashionable, with a standardized catalogue of hair styles, in addition to being attractive with theirprefixed price ranges and with the consistent use of natural materials and green image, encapsulating a message of the future, and encouraging those who seldom went to the hairdressers in the past, to return them to this market.

I mention this book, because it has an inspiring effect on my future. It’s still too early to share my „blue ocean strategy”, my breakthrough ideas on business coaching that will once navigate me to the undiscovered, blue part of the market ocean!

Imre Lövey and Manohar Nadkarni: How Healthy is Your Organisation

This book published in 2007 discusses the way how joyful, healthy organisations work. Using purposefully the analogy of healthy and ill human organisms, it states that organisations, companies suffer similar effects as a result of illnesses much the same as the human body. When writing about a happy and joyful organisation he describes a healthy organisation, similar to a healthy human body, while listing the possible symptoms for illnesses, he also suggests methods of organisational treatment.

Dedicating a separate chapter on organisational paranoia (lack of trust and fear), its symptoms and its consequence, it explains the essence of workaholism in an organisation, where over-time is classed as something heroic, another example he mentions is an organisational short-sightedness, occuring when for the sake of quick, immediate results long-term planning and stategic thinking disappears.

The book continually seeks how the experience at a workplace may contribute to the creative joy (which is actually the organisational "flow"), listing the typical traps that can hamper this process.

Its main message is if people feel being part of bigger picture, they will generously devote their knowledge and abilities, and engross themselves selflessly in the given activity, and enjoy the joy of self-actualisation.

The task of a leader is not just setting priorities, and producing profits. In a healthy atmosphere, employees are adaptive, handle challenges well, carry out tasks with care, contributing to the success and results of the company, without suffering, or sacrificing their private lives.

This book gives valuable and detailed advice to achieve it. Work is to be a source of joy; experiencing joy while working will result in greater productivity, will provide a sense of freedom and self-actualisation; resulting always great achievements coming from full hearts and souls.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi: Flow

The study dedicated to the feeling of perfection, based on the psychology of the life’s joy was written in 1991, by the American writer with Hungarian origins. Csíkszentmihályi is a noble pursuer of the positive psychological school, founded by Hans Selye in the 1950’s.

What’s the secret of the book’s unrivalled success? It deals with the ancient dilemma of whether work activities can be really enjoyable, whether it’s possible for a person to enjoy duties, and lastly it explores whether this joy is dependent on other external circumstances such as material preconditions.

Since Aristotle human kind wants to define the secret of happiness, but the question has been left unanswered despite technological developments and increasing social prosperity.Csíkszentmihályi’s research that spanned a quarter of a century concluded that the joy of life, in other words, the root to happiness cannot be found externally, but must be sought inside, within ourselves. Those who are receptive to the ability of flow, who possess the power of concentration in their mind are capable of maintaining their mental self-control even in exceptional circumstances.

A wonderful example of mental survival is István Papp’s case, a civil employee of NATO, who was freed from Sudanese imprisonment in January. His secret must lie in his powers over his conscious, which enabled him to retain his internal poise and sanity, despite being kept hostage in poor undermining conditions, like „a chained dog”.

We tend to attribute and blame the external circumstances for our unhappiness and emptiness of our lives. But should we assign it to the unfriendliness of the world and helplessly suffer our destiny?

Nevertheless, unfriendliness in the world is not bound to this century only!

What can we do to ensure that our children are able to experience the joy of flow and face the challenges of life? Csíkszentmihályi suggests five base conditions, to ensure that our children will be happy and satisfied throughout their lives – and these have almost nothing to do with being wealthy!

If we bring our children up with clear expectations, let them bask in the light of our attention, assuring security, raising them in an atmosphere of acceptance, and we give them the power of choice, allowing them to explore their own path, then we have created ideal surroundings for the child to become a happy adult – as Csikszentmihályi says.

Dr. Terry Lyles: Good Stress

The famous American stress Doctor describes this phenomenon as the source of life’s energy and creativity, analyzing this area also from Selye’s positive approach, focusing on the inspiring effect of controlled and well tolerated stress.

The writer himself has his own demons to deal with, a crushing blow that defines his life – the raising of his handicapped child, Brendon for the past two decades. The sorrow, pain and hopelessness, as he descibes is a „grief”, but he considers it still cathartic - as he became a better man owing to this!

He emphasizes the fact that the fight against negative energies, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, are all of significance to live our lives in a fulfilling and happy way, when fighting with blows, scars and suffering.

Using an analogy that is understood well by everyone, he mentions an example like maintaining a car and filling its tank, demonstrating the importance of safeguarding our energy levels.

Being successful is not dependent on pure luck, it is about being prepared for the challenges life, as he says! He deems it significant in this chapter, to emphasize the parents’ responsibility for their children. A healthy, confident, child with a stable character, adaptible to all situations will develop into a healthy adult who performs well, if the child is brought up with consistent and loving discipline in addition to certain necessary rules and restrictions. The parent’s responsibility should not be to experience just power above the child, it should be about love and consistency, without resentment and temper.

In conclusion it is the richness and quality of the social relationships around, that turns stress into something inspiring, good stress. As he denotes, very similarly to Selye’s approach we have to return to the old truth „Love your neighbour as yourself”.

There is no doubt that the quality and depth of human relations contribute to the growth of our stress-tolerance!

Hans Selye: The Stress of Life

This book is also an almost timeless piece, still very valid even if it was first published in 1956, written by Hans Selye, a Biologist researcher from Montreal, with Hungarian origins.

Nowadays tremendous literature is devoted to the topic of stress and plenty books may be found in abundance about stress. But still, Selye’s findings are of relevance even today. All theories as well as all schools of stress base their work on Selye’s earlier studies and definitions. His researches all equated to breakthroughs in an area, which had been in its infance those times. This early book is anyway still captivating, describing a scientific breakthrough discovery in style that even general public can follow. The author offers his study for those ones who, „do not fear sensing their entire life’s stresses, and who do not expect, that this can be carried out without the exertion of mental powers.”

As the founder of the „positive-stress school”, he says that, the very same stress that leads to illness in one person, may be an empowering force for someone „who moulds himself successfully to the continually changing life conditions of the Planet.”

He summarizes the essence of his theory in a wonderfully eloquent way, saying that „a person who does not adequately master the skills of adaptation, will pay the penalty with illness and unhappiness.” His scientific breakthrough, and exceptional discovery was the definition of the symptoms of stress, the so-called „general adaptation syndrome”, summarized in its Biological-Medical description. This was defined after focusing on the puzzling question, as to whether a live organism reacts exactly the same way, universally and generally to differing and specific adversities, so called stressors.

Stress is not perceived by him as a detriment to be avoided, he emphasizes that it is essential, it is „the pepper and salt of life”. He suggests that we should be well aware of the upper limits of our stress tolerance, and our adaptation energies must be used for important purposes.

„Keep on fighting, if there is a noble objective, but do not fight, if it has no worth” – this poetic piece of advice is repeated on numerous pages, highlighting the fact that our lives are in our hands, and we must take responibility for it. (Saying so, we should not try to change others, but alternatively change ourselves, if necessary.)

He had his research as a Biologist, however his findings surpassed the realms of the physical, and biological sphere, and contributed greatly to psychological, and sociological areas by calling our attention to the significance of self-realisation and human empathy.

The secret of stress handling is suggested by him referencing the main biblical thought, of „love your neighbour as yourself”, interpreted in his own words like: „Live your life in a way to earn other people’s love.”

It is indeed inspiring to read what he describes about the importance of self-esteem, about the crucial skill to cope with failure, about the threats of emotional hurt – and as a Biologist, as an expert of the material world how does he come to indisputable conclusions concerning areas that go far beyond the scope of material.

Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People

"How to win Friends and Influence People" is a best seller even today, a book that is timeless, and forever valid in nature. We may not have even considered that the first publication stretches back to even earlier roots: it was published in 1936.

When discussing success, it does not simply focus on the successes that can be achieved in the world of business, it interpretes success holistically, and as such success is seen as an entire life’s achievement.

The secret of this book lies in its deep and positive content, in addition to the almost tabloid-style provocative phrasing and message. Small examples and little tricks are listed as suggestions for the enrichment and enhancement of human relations. These are for example frequent breakfast in bed for married couples or the effect of letters that „work wonders” with the secret of a favour asked from the receiver, highlighting their importance, or emphasizing the importance of smile epitomizing the power of compliment. He also emphasizes the reflexive result of help offered to others, which has the power of influencing whole lives; and also advises always focusing on common interest and standpoints when dissolving a dispute.

Also shares important thoughts about realising mistakes, acknowledgement and also apologising for mistakes, emphasizing the use of a smile, attentive listening and the power of altruism. He writes about the distinction of compliments and acknowledgements from flattery.

What is flattery? As he defines, it is a selfish compliment that is empty, "cheap", often unfounded and never used without purpose. It is something that doesn’t come from the heart and that targets what the other wants to hear. It is manipulative in nature, as it is expected to be returned and compensated later.

Compliments in contrast are direct and honest, that stem from the heart. Acknowledgements are selfless, are well founded, sincere appreciations, which we always welcome, yet often accept too bashfully. Yes, we often tend to shy away from compliments, when we get them face to face.

Even though, me must learn to distinguish acknowledgement from empty flattery, indeed we must learn to accept this with a simple „Thank you” as he says.

Mark H. McCormack: What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School

I would like to devote the next few blog entries to book recommendations that may be interesting in business context.

Once upon a time, at the dawn of the political and economic changes in Hungary, when even Corvinus was known as Karl Marx (just to clarify; the Budapest University was not yet named after the King Corvinus) and when the word „Burger King” was explained in footnotes (!) to the silly reader. It was during this time, that this book appeared, which was written in 1984 and could be found in Hungarian on bookshelves in 1988 – as the period’s best seller.

Looking carefully it from today’s perspective, the writer introduces an extremely arrogant, aggressive, competitive, offensive leadership negotiation strategy as a pledge for success, a form of, „dig dig and you will but find” message.

Some of his controversial suggestions listed for example: don’t make friendship with employees, sometimes arbitrary decisions must be made, everyone should always respect who’s the boss, positive motivation is never enough, a little fear factor is always necessary so as to prevent people from becoming lazy, strategic shifts and jumps as well as all other changes should be approached randomly, a public share company cannot be properly led, a boss is always right („least said soonest mended”) and in any case the existing company structure should be respected and never to be challenged – Today it tells of a static world we can be even envious of! In today’s dynamic business environment, innovative and successful companies have proven their successes without following such principles.

The book does not speak in any way about partnerships, win-win solutions, assertiveness, in fact no partners are mentioned, only rivals who need to be conquered. The writer forcibly rams the reader with suggestions as to how to make people become indebted to us with a series of presents and favours. This is all done for a certain interest, meaning when the time comes, we will be able to ask for favours that cannot be turned down, in other words to shamelessly get back the price of everything; so finally that is hand over the invoice. This seemingly successful approach, today appears to be quite repugnant, even so it is interesting to read.

It would be rather naive of us to think that those who represented this school have all passed away, or that this trend is absent of followers today. It’s enough to simply think of the attitude epitomized by some politicians and bussinesmen…

Something that we should all learn from this book is that „a free lunch does not exist”, in other words: a heavy price may later at any time be payed for a favour that is at first one sided, free, and unreturned.

Do read literature!

How literature finds its way in a blog based on leadership challenges and dilemmas may at first look strange. However, reading in addition to being a flow activity is also useful, as a reader may gain information, without actually having to ask anyone, and sharing their ignorance. They can in other words gain knowledge and become initiated, without being at anyone else’s disposal.

But why on earth is literature so helpful? We rarely hear that it results in and enhances some form of practical knowledge.

Literature does however give us the opportunity to obtain scores of a secret knowledge. Not only do we become initiated in issues governing the mind, but also in relation to „the heart”!

Good books are not simply made up of stories, interesting twists in the plot. Good books bring fascinating characters to life, with complicated dilemmas as well as ambivalent emotions – with people whom we may well encounter in our private lives, or as leaders, indeed our colleagues might experience such emotions on a daily basis.

Literature is categorically a joy of flow activity, it enhances our creativity in imagery, emotional intelligence, our abilities with regard to empathy, it helps us switch off, but is thought provoking at the same time.

Russian literature is a unique branch of literature, „the great Russian soul” with its grand dilemmas, vexing emotions, a good example of this is Dosztojevszkij’s (Crime and Punishment) Pasternak’s (Doktor Zhivago) or Tolsztoj’s (War and Peace).

If literature really doesn’t appeal to you, then you can always read biographies: a clever person learns from other peoples’ life experiences, not from his/her own mistakes…

A person who reads lot of quality books, whether that be literature, biographical books or non-fiction can understand people better and can see the correlations – moreover once a person masters the art of quick reading, they won’t be disheartened when having to make a decision or forming an opinion, on the spur of the moment after reading a seventy-hundred paged professional document in a matter of a hours…