Dr. Rick Franza, Dean of the Hull College of Business, discusses a different, timely business topic each Monday in this column. This week, he talks about good business resources and how to get the most out of them. The interview has been edited for clarity and impact.
ABD: The start of a new year is a good time for business professionals to do a little self-education, either through books or other sources. What are some benefits of taking the time for self-education?
Rick: It widens your perspective. The people who write business books do a lot of research. Their works are based on research you might not have time to do and could be difficult for you to obtain.
A lot of books either confirm your understanding or contradict it. It allows you to see how your business is different. When you think about entrepreneurs, a lot of why they’re successful is because they’re instinctual. Collecting this information helps them be more conscious about it.
But I broaden this beyond reading to being a good information consumer.
Books are good but it doesn’t necessarily have to be books. The problem with books is that people often won’t take the time to read.
ABD: What are some of these other information sources?
Rick: I can tell you what I do. I start every morning with CNBC, but it could be Bloomberg or Fox Business. It gets me started on what’s going on in business news in general and the markets.
Then, I read the Wall Street Journal – I use it as a financial and business news source but also as a general news source. They call it fairly straight and make a distinction between news and opinion. I like to close my day by listening to Marketplace on NPR.
There are also business-type magazines, like Fortune, Forbes, and Barron’s that offer a good mix of business and financial.
ABD: What are some business books that you’d recommend?
Rick: You can learn more about business topics from books (than other news sources); they give good overall insights into good business. I’m big on individual authors. One is Jim Collins who wrote two classics that should be in any business library, Good to Great and Built to Last.
For subjects like leadership, I like Patrick Lencioni. He has a lot of good books on meetings and teams. He tends to write in fables.
Books are a great way to learn about strategy. One I like is called Blue Ocean Strategy by Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. It’s not the same old strategy book. It talks about uncontested market spaces.
Another area is sales – I’ll give you one classic and one contemporary. The classic author I like is Zig Ziglar. Probably his most famous book is Secrets of Closing the Sale. His lesson is that there are no shortcuts.
The more contemporary book is not really a sales book: To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink. It has broader applications than just business sales, so it’s different from a lot of sales books. I like his other books, too.
ABD: So, as we glean information from all these sources, how do we apply it?
Rick: It gives you a good base foundation of knowledge that will enable you to make better decisions. That’s the big benefit of all this information. It helps you identify what’s important to you and how to apply it appropriately.
It’s much more about learning from the principles. You can’t always broadly apply everything another company did, but you can take the principles and apply them to your business. Reading is a whole lot cheaper than hiring a consultant. Being more information savvy reduces your need to spend money on consultants.
