When I began studying the root causes of business failure early in my career, I believed that faulty cognitive limitations and weaknesses were the primary drivers of poor decisions, ultimately leading to business failure. Taras Wayner is the producer and host of a new podcast called A Case Study in Corporate Fear, where he addresses one of the central emotions in the affective mindset: fear. During this conversation, we learned how fear impacted the decision makers at Yahoo!, Atari, and...

I'm calling Ken Iverson the Alan Mulally of CEOs in the 1980s and 1990s. "Plain Talk" by Ken Iverson is one of my favorite business books, despite its lack of self-congratulation and the absence of so-called transformational management concepts. Instead, this is a book about how people were treated, the concept of decentralization, bonus structures, and using instincts to make business decisions. Plain Talk will also undergo a revival period, as the Audible version was released this month. In...

Can you name a work of fiction that centered around a stock picker? Alternatively, can you provide three fictional titles related to personal finance? If both answers are no, this episode provides a brief synopsis of four works of fiction revolving around personal finance and investing. One of the titles is new. Three have been written in the past twenty years, and one is a classic you might want on your bookshelf (the numbers do not add up because we've added a bonus title at the end).

Many in the magazine industry will tell you on the mountaintops that print is not dead. Try telling that to the writers who used to produce those beautiful glossy annual reports that are now published in the form of PDF documents. Robert Roth is making his first-ever appearance on a podcast to discuss how an annual report writer secures gigs, the time commitment required, and other fascinating insights into the behind-the-scenes process of conceptualizing and creating annual reports. Robert i...

Every financial executive should either have the book Valuation or have it on their physical or digital bookshelf in their antilibrary. CFO Bookshelf is thrilled and honored to have the lead author of all eight editions of this foundational book on valuation, which is used in many financial curricula around the nation on college campuses. In this conversation, we hit on ROIC, growth, economic profit, long-term thinking, and the best way to read this book.

In CFO Bookshelf's 250th episode, we feature a book that embodies the heart and soul of what this show stands for. The book is Lead by Greatness by our guest, David Lapin. During this conversation, David addresses eight vital leadership traits, defining a spiritual fingerprint and why it matters, the reason the Siberian prisoner perished and what it means for both leaders and staff, and the reason behind burnout and fatigue. David also recommends that we read more fiction and novels, sharing ...

Why has Taylor Swift trademarked her and her cats' names? And how does she protect the approximately three hundred trademarks she owns? As Kary Oberbrunner tells us, we're just like Taylor in that we're all IP companies. In this engaging conversation about IP, we learn about Instant IPᴵᴾ, the role blockchain plays in IP, the reason good fences make good neighbors, and why you should consider an IP holding company. The book title we're discussing is Kary's, You Are an IP Company, which was kic...

We have read many stories about the magical growth of Starbucks. However, did you know that one of its first presidents had a background in furniture sales and did not hold a college degree? Our guest is the author of It's Not About the Coffee, and Howard Behar saw store units grow from a small handful to more than 15,000 during his two stints as one of its presidents. In this conversation, we'll learn why Mark's favorite line is, "If you grow people, the people grow the business. That’s it. ...

As my consulting practice started taking off about twenty years ago, I started reading everything I could by Fred Nickols, who blogged regularly for the software vendor, SmartDraw. Fred's articles were short, to the point, and always included a simple visual framework that was easy to comprehend. I ultimately read every post on that blog. Fred is a long-time consultant who calls himself a solutions engineer. In this conversation, we talk about his favorite frameworks and the origins of those ...

We live in a small business world where the Chief Fractional Officer is becoming indispensable. Before even considering hiring the Fractional Sales Manager, the Fractional Marketing Officer, or even the Fractional CFO, I'd start one hundred percent of the time with the Fractional Chief People Officer. Susannah Robinson has worked in big-company HR for more than twenty years. Now, as the head of a fractional people agency called Partnership for Talent, she has written a simple and pragmatic gu...

I'm betting that over half the CFO Bookshelf listenership participate in an NCAA tournament basketball pool at the office. Accordingly, I thought I'd share a story from a basketball legend I don't think I've ever heard retold from a leadership expert during a speaking event. I end this special episode on my three favorite basketball movies. What are yours?

Before I start reading a book on Warren Buffett, and there are many, I want to know if this book has been written before—the ones where the narratives essentially state the same thing about Buffett's investing style. In the case of Brett Gardner's new book on Buffett, he checks all the boxes of a fascinating investment book. It's informative, inspiring, and even entertaining. More importantly, the book Buffett's Early Investments is not a rehash of Buffett material you've read before. Instead...

When I first experienced the Cynefin Framework in an HBR article many years ago, I never tried to adapt it to my work until I interviewed Bryce Hoffman, author of American Icon and Red Teaming, a few years ago. While Bryce made the Cynefin Framework seem more understandable and accessible, Kevin Eikenberry has gone further to show leaders how to act when surrounded by varying problems they are trying to navigate with this sensemaking framework. Kevin has written nearly 20 books, and his...

CFO Bookshelf had never heard of Ivar Kreuger until the former Managing Director of Industry Dive suggested we discuss the book, The Match King. Andy Burt joins Mark Gandy to explain why Ivar Kreuger is a financial mastermind worthy of studying and what led to his downfall. At one time, Kreuger was worth billions in today's dollars, but his empire, built on a house of debt, could not withstand the Great Depression or a subsequent audit when he tried to raise cash by liquidating a key asset. A...

I recently came across a book that's been out for over 10 years by an exceptional and tenacious researcher and an engaging writer, Lodewijk Petram. His book, The World's First Stock Exchange, might be the first to explore how early investors first bought and traded shares of the VOC of this next stock exchange. The founding of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602 marked the beginning of Amsterdam’s rise from a modest market town to a global financial powerhouse. The Company’s introducti...

When I think of the CFO's role, a few questions emerge: What will we invest in and reinvest in? How will we finance those investments? What about risk management? And what is the role of corporate governance in these activities? Not only does Don Chew answer those questions in his new book, but he also gives a name to all of his answers - corporate finance. In this conversation, Don Chew explains why he wrote The Making of Modern Corporate Finance and how it's different from old-fashioned cor...

A financial executive no longer loved Mondays until a health scare changed his mindset a few years ago. Ron Monteiro is a financial expert who coaches other leaders. His book is Love Mondays: A Proven Process to Bring Joy Back into Your Work Week and Life. Ron teaches us four simple steps to becoming Monday Mavericks. He then outlines seven clever tactical steps for leaders in developing Monday Mavericks. The book ends with a dozen stories about Monday Mavericks.

When John Rossman is not busy delivering keynote addresses to large audiences or consulting with brands we recognize, he still finds time to write. John is making his third appearance on the show after our conversations about two of his other books: The Amazon Way and Big Bet Leadership. John's newest project is a 54-page manifesto entitled The Pig, The Lipstick, and The Playbook of Champions. It shows organizations how to escape their self-created world of mediocrity.

One book critic has asked readers of The Money Trap to imagine Michael Lewis as the President of a multinational investment holding company. Instead, Alok Sama is that person after working for Morgan Stanley for sixteen years. In this sometimes lighthearted but philosophical tome, occasionally sprinkled with dark humor and cleverness, Alok shares his most interesting stories while working next to one of the wealthiest men in the world. It's a story that includes investing insights, a smear ca...

David is a dermatologist whose practice can't seemingly make the money it should be.David meets a great accountant named Graham. Graham is a TOC bottleneck specialist for all types of businesses, not just manufacturing. He speaks and teaches his clients in a way that is easy to understand and can quickly implement the ideas.That's the storyline of Practice Makes Profit by Graham Scott. This book answers four questions: 1) why the money we spend on improvements rarely improves operating cash f...