Okay. I'll grant you that giving a business book as a holiday present is not the traditional thing to do. And I'll also grant you that giving someone a book instead of a fruitcake or something else they were expecting can have negative consequences. (Editor's note: Brown knows of where he speaks. He gave his wife a copy of "Cronkite" last Christmas. Not only did she not finish the biography of "America's most trusted anchorman," she served him with divorce papers two weeks later. Honest.) Still, for a book reader -- and according to the latest Gallup poll there are at least two or three of you out there -- books make wonderful presents. One of the reasons I like hinting around that I want a book for the holidays is that it is my chance to own all those $30, $40 and $50 tomes that I really want but am too cheap to buy myself. With these thoughts in mind, here -- in no particular order -- are some books you might want to give business book readers for the holidays. (No, I didn't include the $30, $40, or $50 books. I may want to get 'em, but I am too cheap to give 'em.)
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For perspective of a different sort you may want to turn to -- or give -- "Winnie-the-Pooh on Success: In Which You, Pooh, and Friends Learn About the Most Important Subject of All." It is the third in a series of books by consultants Stephen D. Allen and Roger E. Allen. As in the previous two, by creating mythical dialogues with A.A. Milne's characters -- Tigger, Rabbit, and of course, Pooh -- the Allens try to demystify complicated issues. In the past it was management and problem solving. This time it is nothing less than how to achieve a more satisfying life. Early on the Allens, who collectively refer to themselves as "The Stranger" when "talking" to Pooh and his friends, spell out for the residents of the Hundred Acre Wood one possible formula for achieving fulfillment:
It spells "Suchness!" shouted Piglet, who looked at everything The Stranger wrote now to see what it spelled, because it usually spelled something, and Piglet liked being the one who noticed first."Close Piglet," said The Stranger. "It spells 'Success.' "
"That's what I meant," said Piglet.
"And it is one of those acro-whatevers," said Pooh.
"Yes," said The Stranger. "It is another acronym. It is intended to help remember the different steps that you take when you want to accomplish something."
The nice thing about the conceit of talking to the characters is that it allows the authors to go back periodically and explain things. This gives the Allens their chance to underscore their points in a clever way that is not repetitious.
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The approach works, as does the one taken by the authors of "The Ultimate Business Library: 50 Books That Shaped Management Thinking" by Stuart Crainer with a foreword and commentary by Gary Hamel. The book is not 20,000 pages long, as the title might make you believe. Rather what we have here are synopses of 50 pivotal business books -- everything from "The Art of War" and "The Prince" to Dale Carnegie and Peter Drucker -- as selected by Crainer, who frequently writes for "The Financial Times."
You can quibble with what has been selected and what has been left out (to his credit, Crainer gives a second list of 50 books in the Appendix) but what you have here are fair summaries of some great books with comments by Crainer, and especially Hamel, a visiting professor at the London Business School, that put these books in context. What is striking is how the books that have made the list don't have any truly revolutionary ideas. Just simple commonsense approaches to the knottiest issues. Let's see. All this is nothing more than common sense. Maybe getting more of it should be my New Year's resolution.
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Paul B. Brown is the author of many business books. He can be reached at PaulBBrown@aol.com.
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