Book review

Entrepreneurs and CEOs are the Navy SEALs of the business world. You can learn a lot from special forces (and top athletes). Discipline, leadership and dealing with uncertainty. Because uncertainty is the only certainty. SEALs are masters of uncertainty. While the SEALs’ ability to train and strategise is unparalleled, what sets them apart isn’t just […]

“You can’t bore them into buying.” A quote by David Ogilvy Dull 48% of B2C advertisements were dull—consumers registered no emotional response. The marketing world is noisy, competitive, and chaotic. Dull doesn’t cut. If there’s a demonstrably better ROI for weird and wonderful marketing, why is it so rare? In a niche of sameness, audacity

If I had read “The Innovation Edge: How Large Companies Lose It and How to Get It Back”, earlier, I would have included it in my “Building the in-company change muscle: intrapreneurship, innovation, transformation & strategy“—a book about books about innovation and transformation. The “Innovation edge” hits all the notes. The age of innovation At

“Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software” is an indictment of large industries taking shortcuts in software. Using examples from companies such as Boeing, Microsoft, Uber,  Facebook, and Enron. Making money as the main focus. At a huge cost to people. It is not a pretty picture. A book that is a

“Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire” reminds me of “10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less”  and “Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork“. Busy fools Stephen Covey once said, “The key is not spending time but

As I have written and spoken many times before, in the field of leadership, we can learn a lot from the military. They have been at it the longest, and it is leadership in extremely pressurised environments. It is life and death. My favourite is “The Navy Seals Art of War“. Another is “The habit

Every human being has one calling in life, and that is to be in a state of harmony. When we are in harmony, the world around us is in harmony. When we are in a state of harmony, our body, mind, and emotions feel relaxed, open, and free. When we live in harmony with our

A lot of books about sales do not seem to be about sales at all. I just finished reading “How to sell like a spy”. The “Sales perspective” by Jimmy Zugschwert has the same message. Win-win, reputation management, caring, customer focus, building partnerships, curiosity, knowing your customer, perspective, doing your research, asking questions, solving problems,

It is very hard to get a good sales book. I decided to try “Sell Like A Spy: The Art of Persuasion from the World of Espionage”. Spies are the ultimate salespeople. They must be believable, collect the necessary information, and recruit others to become spies. Their motto: spies convince, thugs coerce. The book does