How to Read a Business Book
"How to Read a Business Book" Simple - [put]..."as much effort into it as reading a love letter" [or sex novel] says Prof. Albert Madansky.
He goes on saying that... "All these books assert "truths" about different aspects of business. They are influential, particularly in times of great change. They introduce new buzzwords into the workplace and new attitudes into the boardroom, and often influence major management decisions." ... some with disastrous results.
His suggestions, along with Mortimer J. Adler, a philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, are to help us increase our critical levels of reading.
- Ascertain what the author is saying; what is the idea?
- Iis what the author is saying true?,
- Compare and contrast the author's ideas to those of all of the other authors who have addressed the same question.
In this abbreviated society of ours, who has the time to compare and contrast business books? Actually, it is much easier today with on-line book sellers. I'll show and tell you a cool trick in my next post.
Anyway, I came across this post State of the Business Book Market by Lisa Haneberg on Management Craft. " I know several of you, like me, are business book authors. I ran across this article in the Financial Times that talks about the state of the business book market and thought you might be interested. Our own Jack Covert was interviewed for the piece!".
She is an author of business books and was thinking out loud about ideas for a book. Nothing comes to mind for me right now, but the ideas she puts forth almost every day are a treat. BTW Ms. Haneberg, "The Art of Possibilities" is one of my faves and way better than most business books. Hey, why don't you try writing an open book and invite customers to participate? I can show you where and how to get open source software that is just as easy to use as typepad but with greater publishing capabilities. Good luck.
