With the hope of languid hours at the beach, a cool drink, and good book in hand, we’ve solicited opinions from some of our favorite readers, publications, and publishers to assemble what we think of as a thinking person’s guide to evocative summer reading.
The latest in the book series titled “Memo to the CEO” from Harvard Business School Press is High Performance with High Integrity by Ben W. Heineman, Jr. Not as high profile as his bosses Jeff Immelt or Jack Welch, Heineman nonetheless learned his lessons well during the 18 years he worked as general counsel at General Electric for both CEOs. He writes that pay for performance is likely to be replaced with “pay for performance with integrity.”
Compensation is the sweet spot for Steven E. Hall, the founder of an eponymous compensation consulting practice, and co-author of Executive Compensation: Best Practices (John Wiley & Sons, 2008). Co-written with Frederick D. Lipman, a senior partner at Blank Rome, the tome reveals instructional lessons and best practices from numerous comp committees. One of many best-practice tips advises comp committees to “avoid the Lake Wobegon effect.” Not all executives, the authors note, are above average so not all deserve to be paid above the 50th percentile.
No proxy season would be complete without thoughtful insight gleaned from shareholder actions. Check out The Board Book: An Insider’s Guide for Directors and Trustees by William G. Bowen (Norton 2008). The former president of Princeton University and the Mellon Foundation sees the role of director from a multitude of richly informed perspectives.
Lively examples of Procter & Gamble’s product innovation provide the bounce in The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation co-written by A.G. Lafley and management consultant Ram Charan. Lafley has the credibility to take on the expansive topic of innovation. When he was promoted eight years ago to chairman and CEO, he mandated that P&G seek at least 50 percent of its new ideas externally, a revolutionary change for a company long known for it’s “must-be invented” here culture.
Beyond the boardroom: The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008), describes the current rise of China, India, Brazil, Russia, and others as a tectonic shift on par with the rise of the Western world and the emergence of the United States as a global superpower. Zakaria argues that America’s central role in world politics will inevitably shrink and offers a proactive prescription that includes new rules for a new age.
While Zakaria’s observations skew to the future, long-time Asia watcher Bill Emmott retraces the histories of the vast continent’s three ascending powers. Emmott writes in Rivals (Harcourt, 2008) that while China’s remarkable rise will continue, a “modernizing” India and a “resurgent” Japan could wind up jockeying for supremacy. The shift in power could resemble 19th-century Europe.
For a change of pace, Sports Illustrated writer Leigh Montville recounts the outlandish tale of 1930s amateur golf legend and Hollywood prankster John Montague. The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery is based on the antics of one man who never played the game professionally but could drive a ball into a bird on a wire 170 feet away or chip it into a glass across the room.
Golf not your game? How about a sail down the French Mediterranean coast? A new translation of Afloat by Guy De Maupassant provides “spontaneity, gaiety, and freshness,” perhaps the best antidote to the heaviness of board books and the brevity of summer.
