Rather than reviewing one book this week, I thought I would share my favorite business books. I get asked this question regularly, most recently when I was lecturing at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Business School earlier this week.

I have blogged on this topic previously. However, it has been almost two years. Since that time, my list has changed. Only four of the previous ones are on the new list. However, all twenty (the previous list and this one) are excellent.

If you want more bad news, then don’t read this post. But if you are tired of reading about bailouts, bankruptcies, and poor earnings, keep reading.

I’m no Pollyanna. I have blogged previously about embracing the most brutal facts of your current reality. I know people are suffering, and I hate that.

On Saturday, I posted Four Surpising Conclusions About Author Websites. Yesterday, I posted on Why Every Author Needs a Powerful Online Presence. Today I want to address the how of building your author brand online.

Let me begin with a disclaimer. I am not a web guru. I am not a professional. I am simply a guy who has been blogging since 1998 (before they called it blogging). I have some degree of success, but mostly I have just tried to be a student of what works and what doesn’t work. And, I have made a lot of mistakes along the way.

Yesterday, I posted Four Surprising Conclusions About Author Websites. In case you missed it, I concluded that, for authors, building a powerful online presence doesn’t appear to have much to do with having (1) slick graphics or state-of-the-art technology, (2) a large media platform, (3) a large organization behind you, or (4) a young, hip image.

Joe Sheehan commented on the post and said,

A few weeks ago, in preparation for a meeting with one of my biggest authors, I visited his website. I was reminded again how many authors think that by just hanging a website in cyberspace they are somehow building their brand. As it turns out, not so much.

The site looked great. Nice graphics. Cool use of flash. Lots of razzle-dazzle. So I decided to run his site through WebsiteGrader.com. This simple tool is like a CAT-scan for websites. I was surprised at the poor results.

Seth Godin is one of my very favorite business authors. His first book, Permission Marketing (1999), helped me understand the importance of crafting messages that are anticipated, personal, and relevant. It shaped the way I think about the Internet as a communications medium.

Since that time, Seth has written many bestselling books on marketing, including The Purple Cow, Word of Mouth Marketing, and, his newest, Tribes. Each time he has challenged the status quo and turned conventional thinking on its head.

Thankfully, the election is over. We now have clarity about who is going to lead our country for the next four years. I have never personally witnessed such excitement and hopefulness following an election (though I acknowledge that not everyone shared that sentiment).

However, the problems still remain. The stock market fell precipitously yesterday. In fact, it was the biggest post-election decline in history. I am not sure that this is so much a response to President-Elect Obama as it is a reflection of the fact that the economic environment is still enormously turbulent.

The long, seemingly endless election is finally over. Barack Obama is our new President. His victory was clear and decisive.

I have personally never witnessed a more bitter election. My own household was sharply divided.

Leading people and conducting meetings go hand-in-hand. Yes, you can use email, blogs, Twitter, Basecamp, or any number of additional tools. But at the end of the day, you will still need to schedule and lead meetings.

As long as you have to have meetings, you might as well do them well. Before you plan another meeting (and suffer the rest of us to sit through them), make a commitment to do the following:

As a leader, it seems that no matter what you do, a few people will find fault. Even if you were standing on a corner, handing out free money, someone would complain.

The list goes on.

Often, decision-making in corporations crawls along at a snail’s pace. Or so it seems. But occasionally, when the right idea surfaces at the right time, things can move quickly.

On Thursday, October 16, at 4:30 p.m. Gabe Wicks, the VP in charge of our Design and Multimedia Group, sent me an email. He challenged our dress code policy, saying

The old model of leadership is all about having the answers. According to the theory, you get to the top by being able to answer the tough questions and come up with compelling answers—usually on your feet.

But I am noticing that that a new model of leadership is taking root in many organizations, including our own here at Thomas Nelson. In this model, the leader’s primary role is to initiate conversations that bring out the best thinking of the tribe and direct those conversations toward a positive outcome.

In the Western literary tradition, the silver bullet was the only weapon that could destroy certain types of monsters. As a result, it became a metaphor for a singular solution that solves a giant problem.

Many touted the Financial Stability Bill (a.k.a. the $700 billion bailout package) as a silver bullet for the economy. “If Congress will just pass this legislation,†the argument went, “everything will return to normal.†Not so much.

It takes years to build a brand. Unfortunately, there aren’t many shortcuts. You build a brand—like a reputation—one impression at a time. Every encounter with a customer results in either a “deposit†or a “withdrawal†in your “brand account.â€

Twenty years ago, if a customer had a bad experience with your company, it didn’t matter quite as much. Sure they could tell their friends, and if enough people had bad experiences, they could tell their friends. Eventually, it would catch up with you. But it didn’t happen overnight.

In many of his books, Andy Andrews talks about the butterfly effect, a theory put forward in a doctoral thesis by Edward Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist.

In short the butterfly effect states that a butterfly can flap its wings on one side of the world and set in motion molecules of air that in turn set in motion other molecules of air and eventually create a hurricane on the other side of the world.

The only problem was that we didn’t have much money. Our competitors had seemingly every advantage, including piles of working capital (or so we thought). All we had was a dream and our ability to respond quickly.

I have met very few people who have a plan for their lives. Most are passive spectators, watching their lives unfold a day at a time. They may plan their careers, the building of a new home, or even a vacation. But it never occurs to them to plan their life. As a result, many end up discouraged and disillusioned, wondering where they went wrong.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can live your life on purpose. It begins by creating a “Life Plan.†This won’t insulate you from life’s many adversities and unexpected twists and turns, but it will help you become an active participant in your life, intentionally shaping your own future.

When Apple introduced the original iPhone last summer, it was a complete WOW experience. People expected a new phone, but their expectations were shaped entirely by their previous experiences with cell phones. As a result, Apple exceeded the market’s expectations. The company reinvented the cell phone and WOWed the market.

Among other things, Apple redefined voice mail and Web browsing on a mobile device. The company married a phone to an iPod and threw in an amazing touch-screen interface to boot. The device has proven so popular that Apple has sold five million phones in the last year.

In 1991 I, along with my business partner, suffered a financial meltdown. We had built a successful publishing company, but our growth outstripped our working capital. We simply ran out of cash.

For a while our distributor funded us in the form of cash advances on our sales. But eventually, their parent company wanted those advances back. Although we didn’t officially go bankrupt, the distributor essentially foreclosed on us and took over all our assets.

Three years ago, I was in New York City on business. I was having a relaxing dinner with David Dunham, one of my colleagues and a dear friend. Suddenly, as we were finishing our meal, I started to have chest pains. Initially, I tried to ignore them. But then I began to quietly panic. I felt that the room was closing in on me.

Embarrassed, I blurted out, “I think I may be having a heart attack.â€

David immediately took control. He paid our bill, hailed a cab, and got me to St. Vincent’s Hospital, which happened to be the one closest to our restaurant.

I don’t watch much football. In fact, I don’t watch many sports other than an occasional golf tournament. But I watched the Super Bowl Sunday night and enjoyed every second of it. When Plaxico Burress caught the winning touchdown pass with 35 seconds remaining, I came out of my chair. It was a thrilling end to a tense battle.

As I was reflecting on the game Monday morning, I thought that the Giants, particularly Eli Manning, demonstrated four characteristics of all great leaders:

Everyone wants to be a leader. However, few are prepared to accept the accountability that goes with it. But you can't have one without the other. They are two sides of the same coin.

But what does accountability look like? First and foremost, it means that you accept responsibility for the outcomes expected of you—both good and bad. You don’t blame others. And you don’t blame the external environment. There are always things you could have done—or still can do—to change the outcome.

I was just browsing SlideShare.net and stumbled across an excellent set of slides called, “Death by PowerPoint†by Alexei Kapterev. (Click on the image below to watch it.) He talks about why so many PowerPoint presentations are so bad. More importantly, he teaches you what you can do to make your presentations stand out.

If you use PowerPoint (or Apple Keynote) to make your presentations, this is well-worth a careful look. If you want even more help, I recommend two sites. The first is Presentation Zen. This is Garr Reynold’s site and one of my personal favorites. He doesn’t post that often, but it is always worth the wait. He also has a book by the same title coming out in January. I can’t wait to get my hands on it and have already pre-ordered it.

One of the greatest gifts any of us can ever receive is the gift of listening. It is also one of the greatest gifts we can ever give. Unfortunately, it appears to be a lost art.

We live in a world where everyone is talking but few are listening. What often passes for listening is simply one person pausing to collect their thoughts for their next soliloquy. Just turn on your favorite talk radio or television show to experience a vivid example of this. (My personal favorite is Hannity & Colmes, where no one appears to be listening to anyone!)

Every stream has a current. Throw a twig or a piece of paper into the water, and it will drift with the flow. This is natural. It is simply the way things work.

Organizations are similar to streams. They too have a flow. That flow is the organization’s culture. When people enter into that culture, they usually move along with the current. It is what my friends at Gap International call “the drift.â€

We’ve all heard it a thousand times before, “There are always two sides to every story.†For those of us in leadership we know that there are usually more than two sides.

The problem is that most of us (me included) forget this in actual practice. Someone comes into our office and shares their tale of woe. We listen carefully, nodding our head in sympathy. We are surprised by how our colleague was treated. We may even become angry. Their response to the situation appears perfectly reasonable. Then, without further reflection, we take some action that we later regret.

Over the course of my career, I have fired off my share of angry letters and e-mail. However, I cannot think of a single time when these communiques had a positive effect. Usually, they only served to escalate the conflict and alienate the recipient.

Several years ago, I wrote a fourteen-page diatribe to a business associate. I skewered him. I was right. He was wrong. And I had the proof.

Leadership is about influence not control. I am not the first person to make this observation, but it is worth repeating.

I often hear leaders, particularly younger ones, complaining about their lack of control in various situations. “If only the sales department reported to me, I could consistently hit my budget,†they lament. Or, “If the production department reported to me, I would not have run out of inventory!â€

Blame is the oldest game in town. It was invented by Adam who, after eating of the forbidden fruit, told God, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate†(Genesis 3:12). In other words, it’s Eve’s fault. (And, by extension, God’s fault.)

Not much has changed since Adam’s day. Ask almost anyone why something bad happened and they will point to someone or something else. In my experience, it is exceedingly rare for people to stand up and take responsibility.

Jane Friedman is the CEO of HarperCollins, America’s second largest book publishing company. In her ten years at the helm, Harper’s annual revenues have grown from $737 million to $1.3 billion—an impressive feat in any industry.

I have only met Jane once. I was privileged to have breakfast with her at Book Expo America. I found her to be warm, personable, and conversant on virtually every aspect of the publishing industry. I also found her energy and passion for books contagious.

Much has been written on the topic of coaching employees. (One of my favorites is a book we published a few months ago by Daniel Harkavy. It is called Becoming a Coaching Leader: The Proven System for Building Your Own Team of Champions.) But very little has been written on the topic of coaching your boss.

The truth is that most employees see things that their boss says or does that are ineffective or inefficient. Sometimes, they see these things more clearly than anyone else. The boss could profit greatly from the insight of his or her subordinates—if only they could get honest feedback.

There are probably as many different philosophies of creating an annual budget as there are companies. When I came to Thomas Nelson initially, the philosophy was the push-up, pull-down philosophy. Management would try to get the individual units to push up their revenues budget as high as they could and push down their expenses as low as they could go.

This inevitably became a sort of dance. The business unit leaders would propose a low revenue budget and a high expense budget, knowing that they would go through several rounds of negotiations with management. The biggest problem, though, was that once people agreed to a higher revenue budget, it would have the effect of pulling expenses up, too. Then, if the revenues didn’t materialize, the unit had already compromised its margins.

If you do a lot of speaking, you’re eventually going to experience a technological malfunction. Your computer will crash. The projector won’t work. Your clicker will stop responding. The sound system will short out. Something will go haywire. Count on it.

Yesterday, I felt like I watched a train wreck in slow motion. I was attending a trade association conference. One of the speakers had a technological meltdown. First, his lavaliere microphone wouldn’t work. So, the conference organizer gave him a hand-held mic. He briefly apologized and then launched into his introduction.

It was great. Except that the production guy, walked to the stage while the speaker was speaking and stood in front of him like a dog waiting for a biscuit. He wanted to change out the batteries in the lavaliere. Of course, this was incredibly distracting to the speaker and the audience. So, we waited for the batteries to be changed out. This didn’t fix the problem, so we went back to the handheld.

I’ve met numerous leaders in my career. Some did a better job than others at actually leading. But few were what I would call “inspirational leaders.â€

By inspirational, I simply that they had the ability to motivate others to accomplish something significant, perhaps even heroic. William Wallace was such a man.

Remember his speech in BraveHeart before the battle of Stirling Bridge. He said,

Trust is to an organization what oil is to a car engine. It keeps the moving parts from seizing up and stopping forward motion.

But trust is not something you can take for granted. It takes months—sometimes years—to build. Unfortunately, you can lose it overnight.

Some people seem to have a knack for building trust. When they speak, others take them at their word. When they are absent, people speak well of them. Even when they make a mistake, people give them the benefit of the doubt.

I hate cynicism. It is like cancer to the human soul. It is especially deadly when it infects an organization.

I thought we had pretty much eliminated it from Thomas Nelson. I was hoping the disease was in remission. But, this morning I discovered that it is still alive and well—at least in parts of our Company. (In order to protect the guilty, I won’t give any details.) The worst part is that a few of our leaders are manifesting symptoms of the disease.

Dictionary.com defines a cynic as

Usually, when people think about selling, they think of something that goes on outside the company. Sales reps call on external customers in an attempt to sell the company’s products or services. But what people often forget is the importance of selling people inside the company.

The truth is that internal selling is far more important than external selling. If you can’t sell the people inside your company on your product or service, you don’t have a chance of selling those outside the company.

Why? Because sooner or later you are dependent on other people inside your organization to get the message out. Before you can do that you have to get the message in. If they are not convinced, they can’t be convincing.

Many years ago, I had a boss that drove me crazy. He insisted on micro-managing me. He wanted to know every move I made. I had to furnish daily status reports with every call, every conversation, every project, etc. It really got to me. I tried to be patient, but I eventually quit. I just couldn’t succeed in that environment.

In this situation, I don’t think I gave him any reason to distrust me. This was just his management style. Everyone complained about it. He was simply a bad boss. Unfortunately, some are like that.

But even the best bosses exercise supervision. That’s their job. Frankly, I don’t mind accountability. You probably don’t either. I just don’t want it to turn into meddling. I don’t want to spend more time managing my boss than managing my work.

All of us blow it from time to time. But some mistakes are worse than others. Some are so grievous that they threaten to undo a career. Such was the case this week when Don Imus insulted the Rutgers women’s basketball team by using a degrading racial slur to describe them.

It’s hard to imagine the situation getting worse, but it did. Imus added insult to injury by completely botching his apology yesterday on Al Sharpton’s radio show. If there’s anything redemptive in this situation—and I admit there’s not much—it’s the fact that this situation can serve as a vivid example of how not to execute an apology.

I’ve had more than 20 bosses in my career. I worked well with nearly all of them. Most of them were surprisingly average—even forgettable.

One was brilliant and became a role model. He took responsibility when things went badly. He gave others credit when things went well. He exuded integrity and is still a dear friend. But he was the exception.

One boss was malignantly incompetent. He couldn’t do anything right. I dreaded every meeting I ever had with him. He was a nice guy but burned up and checked out. I think he retired mentally about two ye