Author: Editors of Fortune Magazine

Publisher: Time Inc Home Entertainment

Pub. in: October, 2006

ISBN: 1933405902

Pages: 240

Measurements: 7.1 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA01165

Other information: ISBN-13: 978-1933405902

Compiled by Fortune magazine editors.

As Eric Pooley, managing editor of Fortune, explains in the Foreword, he once had an off-the-record, one-on-one dinner with the CEO of a major investment bank who "really came alive when I asked him the most basic question of the evening: "How do you work?'"As Pooley met with other business leaders in the months that followed, he asked the same question and their responses resulted in a special issue called "How I Work." Now, in a single volume, the editors of Fortune magazine have assembled a wealth of information from a series of individual issues which comprise the "Secrets of Greatness" series. The contributors offer what Pooley correctly characterizes as "great take-away... and I think you'll experience the same happy shock of recognition I did when sitting across from that master investment banker in the spring of 2005. Hey, his challenges are not so different from mine. I'm going to test drive some of his solutions."

(A personal aside: I use an optic yellow Sharpie ACCENT pen to highlight key passages in each book which I read and then review. I used up two as I worked my way through this one.)

The material is carefully organized within six sections:

I. Great Beginnings (e.g. "Visionary Chuck Williams on Williams-Sonoma")

II. Great Ways to Work (e.g. "How I work" by Bill Gates")

III. Great Decisions (e.g. "Jim Collins on Tough Calls")

IV. Great Role Models (e.g. "The Education of Andy Grove" by Richard S. Tedlow)

Note: Grove wrote the Introduction and is as candid and insightful in it as he is in Swimming Across and Only the Paranoid Survive. Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction: "I learned from many small knocks on the head that there is a very simple tool to move faster, to increase productivity. It has to do with the things you decide not to do. The most important two letters that increase your productivity as well as the productivity of the people you work with are N-O, said clearly, unequivocally and early - not after someone has decided to count on you."

V. Great Teams (e.g. "Why Dream Teams Fail" by Geoffrey Colvin)

V. Great Advice (e.g. "The Best Advice I Ever Got" by 28 business luminaries who include Warren Buffett, Jack Welch, Dick Parsons, Jim Collins, Peter Drucker, Ted Turner, Mickey Drexler, Herb Kelleher, and Clay Christensen)

I also appreciate the introductions to the six sections by Joshua Hyatt, Jerry Useem (II, III, and V), and Geoffrey Colvin. In Part III, the Fortune editors examine "Decisions That Made History" which range from Western Union's rejection of Alexander Graham Bell's "new invention" (1876) to Jerry Levin's determination to merge Time Warner with AOL (2000). Thanks to brilliant editing, the material in Secrets of Success offers both an extraordinary variety of points of view while remaining cohesive. Each contributor establishes and then sustains a direct rapport with the reader. The tone is informal, indeed conversational. Also remarkably candid. For example, Michael Dell confides: "We screwed up all kinds of things, but there was so much inherent value in what we were doing that it masked all the mistakes that we made." Grove confides, "I almost wrecked the company [Intel] because a new product seduced me." In this context, one of Peter Drucker's opinions seems especially relevant: "To demand only well-rounded people, people who have only strengths and no weaknesses, is to invite mediocrity - of which there is always an abundant supply."

Nearly all of those interviewed stated or at least implied that humility is among the "secrets" of achieving greatness in one form or another. There is also a near-unamimous concensus about the importance of teamwork, cooperation, and collaboration. Their emphasis on the importance of humility reminds me of this passage from Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, one which seems especially relevant:

Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.

After thinking about how to conclude my brief commentary on this entertaining as well as enlightening wealth of advice, I eventually decided to let Andy Grove provide it. "It's been a long walk through the forest of being a manager - 40 years long in fact. The trees continue to emerge from the dark. The good news is, my forehead is stronger than it was 40 years ago. Perhaps reading the stories that follow and applying them to your situation may save you a bump or two on the head."

(From quoting Robert Morris, USA)

Target readers: Executives, managers, entrepreneurs, management consultants, MBAs and all those interested in the topic of leadership and corporate success.