Weighty gifts for business readers

REVIEWS BY STEPHANIE SWILLEY

Weighing in at almost eight pounds, Business: The Ultimate Resource is the champion business book of the season. Among its pages, you'll find a dictionary, an almanac, profiles of business leaders, practical checklists and information resources on hundreds of subjects. Before you scoff at the idea of giving a hefty resource volume as a gift, consider this: Where else can you find one source for all the expertise and ideas that comprise "business intelligence"? You can buy an entire library or just one book. Sounds like a value even Scrooge would love.

A collection of 150 original essays from today's innovation leaders capture the "best practice" ideas on everything from people and culture to renewal and growth. The entries are blissfully brief (two to three pages) and come complete with a Make It Happen action plan to help you implement the ideas. The Viewpoints from scholars and bestsellers such as Philip Kotler and Jim Collins present intriguing ideas on moving companies into the future of good business practices.

Whether you're in human resources or e-commerce, Business has a management checklist or actionlist to guide you step-by-step through nasty assignments like performing a SWOT analysis or creating a 360 degree feedback review. When you get the impossible task of implementing Kaizen or have to deal with a computer virus, the comprehensive but easy to use table of contents makes it simple to navigate to the right resource.

Business book lovers will love the Management Library, a section that summarizes the 70 most influential business books of all time into one page. Learn The Art of War, understand Megatrends and get cynical with The Peter Principle. Then you'll want to dive into the lively profiles of more than 100 business thinkers and management giants. Business covers everyone from Dale Carnegie to Oprah Winfrey and shares their backgrounds and key contributions.

This resource is a must have for any business library. Managers, marketers, MBA students and everyone in between will drool over the giant book's depth of knowledge on every conceivable topic.


60 seconds to riches

Authors Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and Robert Allen, author of bestsellers such as Nothing Down, want to create a million millionaires. Every 60 seconds, someone becomes a millionaire, and their goal is to help people one minute at a time. Their first tool is The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth, a unique book that uses both fiction and nonfiction to explain their ideas. Left-hand pages provide summaries of their nuts and bolts information in short lessons called Millionaire Minutes, which cover topics like leverage, real estate and marketing. Right-hand pages tell the fictional story of Michelle, a waitress and mother of two who has just 100 days to come up with $1 million dollars to save her family.

With ethics in business in seemingly short supply, Hansen and Allen's goal of finding win/win solutions is refreshing. Their motto: Do no harm, do much good and operate out of stewardship. Both men contribute 10 percent of their earnings to their communities and want to inspire the same spirit in future millionaires. "Enlightened millionaires" not only build wealth but also make the world a better place.

If you want specific, concrete steps to lead you to your first million, Hansen and Allen's plan for earning fast cash might be disappointing. Their road to riches takes you up a "millionaire mountain" and into the stock market, real estate or the Internet. But their advice is often generalities like "tap into your genius" and "you are your wealth" that don't yield practical, money in your pocket results.

More valuable are their insights into our own sabotaging behavior. They describe the voice in all of us that wreaks havoc by "leaving landmines, setting ambushes, [or] blowing up your own bridges" and give advice on building congruence between your beliefs, your desires and your self-esteem. When those three elements are working toward the same goals, nothing can hold you back, the authors say. Leverage relationships with mentors, teams and networks are also important because "the person with the largest network of Rolodexes wins." They suggest you start building that network by taking a millionaire to lunch each month and asking how they found success.


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