Branson’s Shenanigans to a Disney Critique: What We’re Reading Now

Need a late-inning gift for that hard-to-please corporate executive or MBA student in your life? Here are some of the year’s big sellers in the world of business books.

Semper Fi: Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way, by Dan Carrison and Rod Walsh (Amacom, 1998, $22.95). Written by two former Marines who are now successful businessmen (both from Sherman Oaks), this book holds lessons for anyone interested in high performance in an organization. An example of a Marine Corps technique: Continuously develop your people.

Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, by Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian (Harvard Business School Press, 1998, $29.95). Shapiro is a professor of business strategy at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Varian is the dean of the School of Information Management and Systems at Berkeley. They tell how companies can use all the information they amass to excel in the network economy.

Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches From the Dismal Science, by Paul R. Krugman (W.W. Norton & Co., 1998, $25). This celebrated economist has debunked trendy ideas such as supply-side economics and the evils of globalization. This book is a collection of his essays, covering topics from the Asian financial crisis to inflation in America. His style, according to Amazon.com business and investing editor Harry C. Edwards, unravels and simplifies without dumbing down.

Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way, by Richard Branson (Times Books, 1998, $27.50). In this clever autobiography, Virgin Group founder Branson says he is an executive who wants to have fun. As a dyslexic 16-year-old, he dropped out of school in 1968 to found the British magazine Student. In addition to describing his outrageous corporate exploits, the book includes tales of rocker Keith Richards fleeing naked from Branson’s studio--at gunpoint.

Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World, by Carl Hiaasen (Ballantine Books, 1998, paperback, $8.95). A Florida native who has written thrillers and is a journalist with the Miami Herald, Hiaasen unleashes all his loathing for Walt Disney in this compact (96 pages) tome. He portrays an entertainment machine that gets away with controlling the press and manipulating government.

Competing on Internet Time: Lessons From Netscape and Its Battle With Microsoft, by Michael A. Cusumano and David Yoffie (Free Press, 1998, $26). Billed as the blow-by-blow analysis of Netscape’s battle with Microsoft, this book could very well be overtaken by events. It starts with the founding of Netscape in 1994 and runs through last summer, just as Microsoft was facing antitrust charges brought by the Justice Department. The authors did more than 50 in-depth interviews at Netscape and other companies. The book offers lessons on competing in unpredictable industries.

The Leadership Wisdom of Jesus: Practical Lessons of Today, by Charles C. Manz (Berrett-Koehler, 1998, $20). Manz gets at the practical wisdom of Jesus’ teachings, focusing on such themes as the advantages of forgiveness over judgment, the importance of love and service and the wisdom of lifting people’s spirits. The lessons could help leaders and followers alike reach professional and personal goals.

The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick M. Lencioni (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998, $20). Designed to be read in a single sitting, this fictional tale describes the unexpected meeting between a troubled high-tech honcho and a mysterious old man named Charlie. Among the common faults of executives enumerated by screenwriter and CEO coach Lencioni in this fable is a desire to jealously guard career status.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr., by Ron Chernow (Random House, 1998, $30). Biographer Chernow takes on the life of the Rockefeller dynasty patriarch, history’s first recorded billionaire and a controversial executive whose Standard Oil at its peak controlled nearly 90% of the U.S. oil industry. The book documents his business misdeeds as well as his monumental philanthropy.

Adventures of a Bystander, by Peter F. Drucker (John Wiley & Sons, 1998, $27.95). This is a reissue of management guru Drucker’s autobiographical classic, considered the best of his 29 books by both readers and Drucker himself. The book recounts the author’s relationships with people famous (Sigmund Freud, Henry Luce, Buckminster Fuller) and otherwise throughout his life, from his childhood in Vienna to the New Deal years and post-World War II America.

Cigars, Whiskey & Winning: Leadership Lessons From Ulysses S. Grant, by Al Kaltman (Prentice Hall Trade, 1998, $22). Back before cigars and the presidency took on new meaning, stogie-chomping U.S. Grant vaulted into the nation’s chief executive post on the strength of his military career. It’s too bad that as president he didn’t follow the pragmatic leadership lessons from his battlefield experience. Though the book reaches occasionally, it does offer an entertaining glimpse at how Grant adapted to circumstances and emerged one of history’s strongest leaders.

A stocking stuffer bonus: The Buzzword Bingo Book: The Complete, Definitive Guide to the Underground Workplace Game of Corporate Jargon and Doublespeak, by Lara Stein and Benjamin Yoskovitz (Villard Books, 1998, paperback, $13.95). ‘Nuff said.

Has a culture conflict prompted your company to undo a merger? Tell us about it. Write to Martha Groves, Corporate Currents, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. Or e-mail martha.groves@latimes.com.