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Opportunism is a bad word in our culture, and an excellent book released earlier this year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
To get a popular definition of the word, let's turn to our society's new reference of choice—Wikipedia. The entry on opportunism begins by describing it as "the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles.
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The article below was printed in last year's In the Books—our annual review of the best in the business genre. It my (possibly ill-advised) attempt to look at how some of the books published in 2009 tackled the macroeconomic issues, with a (possibly ill-advised) splash of Candide thrown in awkwardly, for emphasis. If you don't feel like reading the entire essay on the topic, you can skip to the end of the post and see F.
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In another installment from the annual review of business books we produced last year, we have an article from friend and former president of the company, Todd Sattersten. In it, he discusses the meta-themes in business thought that he and Jack uncovered as they spent 18 months compiling, reading, choosing and writing The 100 Best Business Books of All Time.
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The Five Universal Themes in Business BY TODD SATTERSTEN
What happens when you spend 18 months reading the best in business literature?
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After an always busy year-end of hosting our Author Pow-Wow, reading and judging books for our 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards, producing our annual review of business books, planning our Book Awards Party in New York City, trying to keep up with our more mundane and unsung daily tasks, and working on our secret, obviously unannounced plans of world-domination, we're beginning to see the light here in the New Year. One big recent step was sending our annual review off to the printers*, and in a tradition I started last year to wrap up the project, I'd like to share with you here some of what we have written in previous issues. (I've also put links to previous entries in this series at the end of this post.
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Harvey Schachter of The Globe and Mail has listed what he believes are The top 10 Business Reads of 2010. With a bias toward practical and immediately applicable books over "big idea" titles, this is an especially great list for managers. He chose:
The Executive and the Elephant: A Leader's Guide for Building Inner Excellence by Richard Daft, Jossey-Bass
The Management Mythbuster by David Axson, John Wiley & Sons
Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give It Their All, and They'll Give You Even More by Mark Murphy, Jossey-Bass
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Broadway
Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, Riverhead
How To Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for Your Team- Even If You Don't Have a Recruiting Department by Eric Herrenkohl, John Wiley & Sons
Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It by Marshall Goldsmith, Hyperion
Get Rid of the Performance Review: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing—And Focus on What Really Matters by Samuel Culbert with Lawrence Rout, Business Plus
Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing the Risks of Growth by Edward Hess, Columbia Business School
Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best.
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