CFO Bookshelf

Of the many books that leadership authors have written about how to lead others and one's self, Mark believes Eric Alexander's book may be the first to pair stewardship and leadership together. His new book is entitled Stewardship Leadership for Stinkin' Accountants: Serving as the CFO.
Eric was a longtime CFO for Happy State Bank, and after his tenure, he veered into packaging the many concepts he learned into workshops, coaching, and mentoring those in financial leadership positions and beyond.
Some of the interesting and unique topics covered in the interview include hiring for character, the link between trust and verification, the crux of developing others, prescripting, 720 thinking, and the humor behind geewhiz data.

Running Against the Herd is not only a new book title in the investment genre, but its content is also for any leader, CEO, or manager who makes decisions for a living.
While much of the literature in behavioral economics and finance is academic in nature, Eddie uses his background as a long-time chief investment officer to offer practical solutions to addressing the biases that thwart our decisions the most.
He does this through stories and examples from his work and adds humor to make key ideas stick.
While this is a topic that has not been broached the way the author has done so, anyone outside the investment community will learn much from this hard-to-put-down book.

Is it possible to read a fascinating true story about a professional roulette player where gambling is not placed on a pedestal nor glamorized?
I believe the answer is yes if you listen to or read The Gambler's Game by James Darnborough, who is the grandson writing about a legendary professional gambler who was known for breaking the bank at Monte Carlo at the turn of the 20th century.
This story is broken into three simple timelines that show how to achieve goals, build resilience, and know when relationships become your number one priority in life.

I enjoyed reading Lencioni's The Ideal Team Player even though it was a bit too simplistic with a focus on just three labels to describe a person you want on your team.
After reading Molly Tschang's new book, Say It Skillfully, I thought this was the book that Lencioni should have written.
Molly states, "Every word out of your mouth, what you say and how you say it, signals more to the team and leadership than your credentials. Your words determine how people think about and experience you."
She clarifies this through her me-you-we mental model, which helps us to handle the toughest conversations with more confidence and ease.
Molly is a long-time coach and consultant and has worked with high-performance teams at Cisco, Deloitte, and IBM. She's also a member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches.

Richard Rumelt is a legendary strategy pioneer and author of The Crux and Good Strategy Bad Strategy. In this episode, Rumelt dismantles traditional "strategic planning," arguing it is often merely a financial budget masquerading as actual business strategy. 
He emphasizes that true strategy is problem-solving rooted in rigorous diagnosis. Discover how to identify the crux while breaking through unconscious constraints to achieve coherent, highly impactful, and addressable strategic organizational action.