Review: The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company by Joseph A. Michelli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another excellent case study and analysis by Dr. Michelli of a high-service company. Here, the author documents the Ritz Carlton hotel chain. While listening to the audiobook, I did not remember the “5 leadership principles” mentioned in the title, but when I reviewed them on the Amazon “look inside” peek at the book’s contents, I can see why I didn’t remember them – they are pretty obvious. The 5 principles are define and refine, empower through trust, it’s not about you, deliver wow, and leave a lasting footprint. As I review this list, I can recall examples of all of these principals at work at the Ritz through Michelli’s descriptions. This book seemed a lot like the last Michelli book I read, about the Mercedes Benz US sales operations. Both of the subjects have a lot of employees and take the high end of their marketplaces. They both charge high prices and can afford to implement methods that may not be cost efficient, but that can increase goodwill of the customer, aiming for repeated sales. From these books you learn that both companies use relationship building as a key to their business. There are great anecdotes throughout this book, including stories about the creation of Ritz’s external training center and curriculum, employee empowerment to fix customer’s problems, and having all employees understand and live the company credo. There were many memorable examples, but the one I will likely remember most is a story about a Ritz restaurant being called out of the blue by a community member asking for recommendations for where they could buy an allergy-free cake. The Ritz employee made the cake himself.

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Review: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Great book on negotiations. I’ve read a lot of negotiating books. This books actually reviews many of the negotiation books of the past and describes how and why they were written and where they fail given current research and practice. The author is a hostage negotiator, and describes the book’s title as something that you tend to do with common business negotiations – splitting the difference – but that is something you can’t do when trying to free hostages – where “give me two and you keep two” is not a successful outcome. I really appreciated the way this book was written – going through the state of negotiation practice and theory during the author’s career. There were many changes in tactics, some quite drastic, and these are all explained. In a way, the reader grows in knowledge along with the author. In addition, the author provides long, detailed, and in some cases thrilling examples of his work with law enforcement, and mixes in examples from his students from the world of business, such as negotiating for salary. I listened to this on audio, but I will likely acquire a summarization of the book for reference. The concepts taught here would require practice to effectively use in your day-to-day negotiations, but they appear quite worthwhile.

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Review: 10-lb. Penalty

10-lb. Penalty by Dick Francis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another enjoyable Dick Francis story. Here, in addition to learning about horse ownership and amateur jockeying, readers learn about the election process for MPs in England in the 70s. This is the first really political story from Francis that I’ve read, and I liked the description of local campaigning and rising political fortune, including some descriptions of 10 Downing Street written by someone who must have visited. (view spoiler)[ In most all Francis books I’ve read (and I see I’ve now read more than half of his mysteries), the protagonist faces pain and torture as a major part of the narrative. Overcoming pain is a common feature of Francis heroes. I was pleasantly surprised to see the protagonist in this book, a college-aged son of an up-and-coming politician, to only be injured two or three times throughout the book, and only facing life-or-death injuries on the last two pages (shot). Beside that episode, the only other violence in this one is a fall and concussion, a lady punched and violently saved with a drastic tackle, and the only death in the book, a steeplechase horse injured and destroyed. There may have been a couple other tackles and punches and threatening machinery, but this is by far the least violent Francis book that I can remember! And only attempted murder and libel in this one, a minor set of indiscretions compared to the normal mystery. This one really focuses on a political campaign, and I enjoyed the change of pace. (hide spoiler)] A fun read, especially if you are interested in “retail politics” in England a half a century back. And occasional digressions into steeplechase.

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Review: Weird in a World That's Not: A Career Guide for Misfits, F*ckups, and Failures

Weird in a World That's Not: A Career Guide for Misfits, F*ckups, and Failures by Jennifer Romolini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am probably not the audience Romolini had in mind for her book. While I believe I would certainly fit the title and subtitle callouts, I am an older male. The author, and quite a few of her stories, are aimed at women at work, generally young women at work. How can I tell? The book includes advice and anecdotes on working while nursing and on when to wear a bra, among other things. But I still found this a fun-to-read book, filled with stories of a unique person as well as some advice on working and careers. I didn’t find the career advice sections all that earth shattering, but there were bits that were aimed at untraditional advice relating to career, such as sleeping with co-workers. These kinds of advice really just made me feel old, but helped me to understand the generational changes in the approach to work and careers. I most enjoyed the stories of Romolini’s life including her work history with a series of low paying jobs before she got serious on getting a career. There’s a definite turning point in her work life, and this could have been further analyzed. Quite interesting.

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Review: The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users by Guy Kawasaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I thought I was pretty well rounded when it comes to the use of social media for my work, I realize after just a few minutes of listening to this audiobook that I’m just a layman. I learned a number of things, and only ran across a few things that were obvious. There’s a mix of content that is evergreen and content that might have a shorter shelf life, including lists of companies offering content. I will find value in both. I am torn over how I feel about the audio version. There is good list-based information and plentiful web site links, and I feel that having a paper or digital book for reference might be of more value, but the audio is a quick way to understand what you don’t know. Overall, I really enjoyed this and may be looking to get the paper version.

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Review: You Don't Have to Drive an Uber in Retirement: How to Maintain Your Lifestyle Without Getting a Job or Cutting Corners

You Don't Have to Drive an Uber in Retirement: How to Maintain Your Lifestyle Without Getting a Job or Cutting Corners by Marc Lichtenfeld
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m getting to the age and having the right mindset for this book to capture my attention. The author plays on the nagging suspicion that fully retiring from the workforce and living off of savings might be too risky, and alternative forms of income or cost savings might be useful. The author provides a number of ideas for income generation and cost savings that are relatively current. Topics covered by the author regarding income are: long-term dividend stock investing, covered calls and puts, personal and peer-to-peer lending, buying tax liens, working for Uber and the like as a contractor, optimizing social security, and funding health savings accounts. The cost saving ideas are: optimizing Medicare, medical tourism, pharmacy discount programs, rarely used tax deductions, using discount brokers, buying cheaper cars, and travel discounts and points programs. There’s also a chapter on small ideas for cost savings which includes discounted gift cards, rewards purchasing sites, and cheap or free classes. The author concludes with a few pages on why annuities and life insurance besides term tend to be bad ideas.

I really liked the mix of topics. But understand that this is a short book, and most ideas are discussed with only a few pages of text. This is more of a tickler – if you find good ideas look into them yourself. Also, although this is quite current, I noticed a few sections were not. Some of the points programs described rules that changed years ago, for instance. I also noticed that in the authors paring down of content, he often spent time talking about the pros of an idea and disregarded the cons. For instance, buying gift cards from third parties is rife with fraud, including at least one of the services he recommends. I suspect the author hasn’t actually tried every service he touts here. Again, caveat emptor. Another glossing over of cons was his discussion of reinvested dividends. His quick economic comparison to other savings options failed to take into account required taxes on dividends, but did take taxes into account in the alternatives. Taxes made appearances only when it furthered the basic tactics he was suggesting. Keep an open mind that additional research will be required.

Overall, I liked the mix of topics, hitting income and costs with many different ideas. You don’t often see, say, covered calls mentioned in the same book as buying discounted gift cards and peer-to-peer lending sites. The author hit on a good collection of what I’d call “retirement money hacks” that didn’t include some of the traditional ideas, like selling stuff on eBay. And I appreciated the understanding he provided about driving for Uber, despite the title. This is written in a conversational style, and is easy to read. But I would recommend if you find an idea you want to incorporate into your financial life that’s more involving than, say, signing up for MyPoints, do additional research.


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Review: World's Best Life Hacks: 200 Things That Make Your Life Easier

World's Best Life Hacks: 200 Things That Make Your Life Easier by Sara Devos
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you've been on Facebook at all over the past couple of years, you've probably seen a video showing you non-obvious uses of toilet paper rolls, or binder clips, or something else. This is a series of pages with 200 "life hacks", short write-ups with an illustrative, and often amateur, photograph to illustrate. I was able to go through this while sitting having lunch at McDonalds -- it's not a long nor an involving book. I'd say I have seen a majority of these suggestions previously, often on Facebook or other sources like the LifeHacker website. Most of the new-to-me suggestions were not of use to me, perhaps involving entertaining young children. You can tell this was written by mothers of youngsters. But the value here is if you find a handful of things you could immediately put to use. I did find a couple of suggestions that I might try. I'll give this 3 stars as I think it may be more useful to others with younger children, but for me it was probably more a 2 star read.

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