Strategic planning and real estate companies are not word pairings we are used to hearing. However, Charlie Hewlett is changing that mindset.

Charlie is the managing director at RCLCO, a company based in the Washington, D.C., metro area. He co-authored Strategy for Real Estate Companies.

Our topics include the definition of a real estate company, a short definition of strategic planning, what strategic planning is not, SWOT, POVs, plan lengths, and who should work on the strategy process.

What do you know about Jay Gould's life, and how does he compare to the other robber barons of his day? More importantly, is his life worth examining?

Mark discusses Gould's upbringing in this book review, which influenced his desire to be rich. Learn about one of the most significant market corners on Wall Street and the man who helped to create America's economic expansion during the internet era of his day.

One of the best management books ever written is The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker, published in 1966. Managing For Results and The Practice of Management are other favorites of this show.

Randy Wooton joins us to discuss the big ideas in The Effective Executive. He's a three-time CEO and has held senior positions at Microsoft and Salesforce. He is also the host of The SaaS Expert Voices Podcast and serves as Maxio's chief executive.

In this conversation, we address why we study Drucker and his ideas on time management, effective decisions, knowledge workers, and setting priorities.

Who is Bill Gross?

Who is the guy who learned to take risks in college while scalping basketball tickets at Duke? Or who was the risk-taker who counted cards in Las Vegas?

Who exactly is the man once named the Morningstar Investment Manager of the Decade? And how was this lifelong investment professional able to see around corners during one of the country's greatest financial meltdowns during a time of bailouts and bank failures?

You may already know Mary Childs as a co-host at NPR's Planet Money, and she's also the author of The Bond King, the person answers each of these questions.

One of my favorite CFOs is Bob Lung. For the past 33 years, he's been chauffeuring players and dignitaries at the NFL's annual Hall of Fame weekend activities in Canton, Ohio.

In this fast-paced interview, we talk about Bob's favorite moments at the Hall of Fame ceremony, what it means to be a driver during this event, and a couple of special stories.

Should every business consider having its own hall of fame? We address that question along with the role of mentoring relationships in becoming a star in any field.

With the passing of the 20th anniversary of WorldCom filing bankruptcy in the aftermath of the whistle being blown on its reporting of fraudulent financial statements, I wanted to revisit Cynthia Cooper's page-turner, Extraordinary Circumstances.

Why was the fraud committed? How? What was internal audit's role in detecting the fraudulent entries created by the CFO and four members of his staff?

In this episode, Aaron Beam helps me to answer these questions as he draws on his experience in the financial statement fraud at HealthSouth. Aaron is an author and sought-after public speaker at major universities around the country.

What is the best book on negotiation you've ever read?

Many business readers who have read Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss would probably pick that title.

What if I said there is another title that's far more practical, ideas that you can put into practice right now? That book is Negotiation Simplified by Jim Reiman.
 
In this fast-paced conversation, we talk about the core four concepts of negotiating, the best discussion I've ever read about goals in the context of negotiating, and the 3 classes of people we have to consider in any negotiating process, Also, we hit on how to deal with bullies in the negotiating process.

The legendary Bill Campbell is called the trillion dollar coach by his biographers. Campbell coached and mentored larger-than-life business leaders Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, Marissa Mayer, and many others.

If Bill was the trillion dollar coach, then I'm not sure what to call Joe Ehrmann and his friend and fellow coach, Biff Poggi who are central pillars in the book Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx.

Little did Jeffrey Marx know that his life would be transformed forever once he stepped on a Baltimore Colts football field during training camp as an eleven-year-old. Years later, he would reconnect with Joe Ehrmann who took him under his wing during those earlier years. What was supposed to be a newspaper article about the demolition of a football field turned into a book about the building up of young men not just in football, but in the bigger game of life.

Season of Life is one of the best books I've read in years. Central themes include false masculinity, revolving integrity, the best definitions of coach and success, and a young football player's reflection on a huddle.

Can you name any recent descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt who didn't build one but two massive fortunes during the Gilded Age? After the third and fourth generations, the money started evaporating quickly, but why?

Katherine Howe is the co-author of Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty. During this conversation, we explore some of the fascinating stories she uncovered with her co-author, Anderson Cooper that spans six generations of the Vanderbilt family.

Rob Hart's book, The Warehouse, is a speculative dystopian thriller.

The central character is an online retailer called Cloud - think Amazon in the distant future dominating its rivals which has devastating effects on small retailers across the country.

Cloud's founder is dying of cancer, so he's on a farewell tour visiting all of the company's distribution centers. Is he a hero or is he delusional?

Two other characters find out how far Cloud will go to make the world a better place, but for whom? Paxton starts his employment at the very place that robbed him of everything. What's his story? And Zinnia seems like she's a better fit for a CIA operative, not a warehouse order picker. What's up her sleeve?

Rob is the first fiction writer to be interviewed on CFO Bookshelf.

We learn from Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view … until you climb into their skin and walk around in it."

Elvis Pressley used to sing, "Before you abuse, criticize and accuse, walk a mile in my shoes."

What may seem so apparent to many is not to others. In this conversation, we unpack the big ideas and linkages between business success and customer empathy with Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, the co-author of Empathy in Action.

Jeff Sands is the author of Corporate Turnaround Artistry. Before fixing and mending other companies' broken income statements and balance sheets, he had to fix his own.

During this conversation, we also learn about the debt stacks, myths of bankruptcies, the five stages of a turnaround, the three types of turnaround CEOs,  and what Jeff calls the salvation process. 

If you think Netflix was the cause of Blockbuster's failure, you'll change your mind after you hear Alan Payne explain the reasons for this company's demise.

Alan was a longtime owner of a chain of successful Blockbuster stores. He was also featured in the Netflix 2020 documentary, The Last Blockbuster.

Alan's new book is Built to Fail, and we learn four reasons for Blockbuster's eventual bankruptcy which started with poor leadership at the CEO level.

Consumers and anyone who studies business understand the subscription economy, but what about the usage economy? What is it? How does it differ from the subscription economy? Does it matter?

Adam Howatson is the CEO of LogiSense and the author of The Usage Economy. In this conversation, Adam will give examples of companies that got it right with their usage-based pricing models and those that made serious mistakes, such as Wink.

We'll also learn about telemetry, AI's fit, and the most important information metrics for transitioning into the usage economy.

If I could only pick one book for any financial leader to read about company culture, it would be Patty McCord's book, Powerful.

In this episode, two CFOs break down the big ideas in Patty's book which include the role of the culture-centric HR professional, making decisions on facts vs. data, annual performance reviews, variable pay, learning every aspect of a business, and teams vs. families.

Have you ever worked with a software vendor who said their solution would save you as much as $1 million annually?

Or how about the big data warehousing project where the lead consultant says this project could lead to significantly more revenues?

When you accept projects with these types of claims, have you gone back one year later to find out the actual cost savings you thought realized?

Our topic on this show is the book entitled, Project Profitability by our guest, Reginald Lee. We explore project salience, mental models for project prioritization, and informational and instructional-centric projects.

Glenn Hopper is the author of Deep Finance: Corporate Finance for the Information Age. 

Glenn is a likable expert who helps the rest of us better understand artificial intelligence, data science, and ERP solutions.  As a hands-on, self-taught digital expert, his writing is still easy to understand.

In this conversation, some of the big ideas we cover are the differences between machine and deep learning, practical applications of data science in smaller businesses, and comparing comprehensive ERP solutions with best-of-breed tools that are stacked together.

For too many years than I can count, I've been listening to the audio version of How to Become a CEO by Jeffrey Fox annually. The book is a simple, to-the-point book discussion that applies to any position, even an officer in the military.

In this conversation, we hear about admitting fault, damaging emails, mastering one big new thing every year, the power and impact of handwritten notes, and a few classic books.

Professor Jim Shein of the Kellogg School of Management is one of my favorite turnaround experts, and he's the author of my favorite book in this space, Reversing the Slide.

Some of the big ideas we address are how to get started in this field of work, the role of strategy in turnarounds, the 13-week cash flow forecast, and a handful of case studies.

We also learn who is best suited for this type of work, CEOs or CFOs.

Financial writers have been telling CFOs that they need to become storytellers in their businesses. How?

John Pollack is a former presidential speechwriter and he's an expert in analogies. He's delivered a popular TEDx presentation on the topic and this book Shortcut takes a deep dive into the anatomy of this powerful tool to sell our ideas.

In this interview, we hear examples of good analogies, how they shape the legal system, and how baseball impacted a California law leading to unintended consequences.

Accordingly, John's message becomes a solid bridge for financial leaders becoming better storytellers.

I'm going to make the bold statement that Roger Martin is this era's Peter Drucker as a prolific business writer.

Roger has co-authored my favorite book on strategy, Playing to Win which is simple, concise, pragmatic, and has plenty of sticky concepts.

Roger's newest book is A New Way to Think. If you like Adam Grant, Dan Pink, the Heath brothers, or Matthew May, this book belongs in your book queue, the topic in this conversation.

Finding, obtaining, and developing leadership talent is not easy, and there is plenty of data to support making decisions too fast or waiting too long in getting the right team in place.

Ram Charan is known for books like Execution, Boards That Deliver, and What the CEO Wants You to Know. He's also the co-author of Talent: The Market Cap Multiplier. 

In this conversation, we talk about the talent bank, the one-to-one conversations, cutting bait fast, and two of his favorite books. 

Ben Lamorte is making his third appearance on CFO Bookshelf. He certifies OKRs coaches on his platform, OKRs.com. His newest book is The OKRs Field Book.

In this conversation, we address outcomes vs outputs, setting meaningful objectives through a five-step process, and OKRs vs KPIs.

If you ask ten successful CEOs what they do, you'll probably hear many answers--all good, but vastly different from executive to executive.

A dream team of McKinsey partners decided to research the very question based on 200 in-depth interviews and surveys with successful CEOs.

Their findings are found in the new book, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest. 

In this conversation, we hear from one of the co-authors, Carolyn Dewar as she talks about s-curves, the kitchen cabinet, defining roles vs. the right people, the 40-30-20-10 Brad Smith rule, and much more. 

Have you ever left a movie theater where a film left you speechless and made you feel like you needed to rewatch parts of it to figure out what you were missing?

Jeff Hooke's book, The Myth of Private Equity, left me feeling that way after finishing each chapter of his tell-all book about the exaggerations and overstatements of the private equity marketing machine.

During this conversation, we learned much about the myths of PE funds focused on leveraged buyouts. Some of the big ideas in this conversation include the enormous fees fund managers are collecting, the poor fund performance these funds generate, and the lack of transparency in their reporting to institutional investors.

We'll also learn about one of Warren Buffett's worst investment decisions and his advice on where retail and institutional investors should invest their money. 

If you've been searching for the PayPal version of Brad Stone's, The Everything Store, then you can start with Jimmy Soni's new book, The Founders.

In this fast-paced interview with the author, we learn many smaller stories behind the bigger ones of PayPal's big obstacles it faced before its IPO:

• the lack of innovation at the big banks
• Reid Hoffman's role in what PayPal is today
• The combination of X.com and Confinity
• Peter Thiel, the reluctant CEO and the Elon Musk Palace Coupe
• Security - from innocence to frustration to superiority
• The love-hate relationship between PayPal and eBay

Finally, we hit the bookends hard--the three-hour conversation with Elon Musk and the moving and inspiring epilogue.

As we observe the DNA behind some of our favorite CEOs, patterns will start to surface. Some are natural at scaling companies to new levels. And then there are stories like those of Phil Knight, Jeff Bezos, Reid Hoffman, and Sara Blakely who started with a kernel of an idea and went on to launch brands that are household names.

Bob Jordan is the co-author of Right Leader, Right Time, a book that reveals a framework listing four natural instincts of impactful leaders - Fixers, Artists, Builders, and Strategists.

In this episode, we unpack the FABS framework and how to make the most of it.

Joe Coulombe is one of the most intelligent, creative, and thoughtful CEOs I've read about in the past ten to twenty years. He grew Trader Joe's into one of the most successful and iconic brands in the grocery industry before he sold the business in 1979.

Patty Civalleri is the co-author of Becoming Trader Joe and was a dear friend of this gifted entrepreneur. In this episode, we touch on his compensation philosophy, creative marketing strategies, the books he read, product knowledge, and saying no to the big brands.

Dan Montgomery is the founder of Agile Strategies, a boutique OKRs firm, and the author of Start Less Finish More.

Dan states the old strategic planning model of predicting and then controlling needs to give way to sensing and responding, and he calls that agile strategy.

In this conversation, he hit on many fascinating concepts:

• limitations of The Balanced Scorecard
• executing vs formulating strategy
• the retreat to cozy mental models
• the fit between OKRs and agile strategy
•  multicausal systems
• minimal viable strategies
• STEEP framework
• Platonic values
• Cynefin framework

Good luck on finding a book about phantom stock plans that's simple to understand with practical examples. It does not exist.

However, Paolo Pasicolan has created nearly a hundred such plans with the law firm he works for, Miles and Stockbridge. Paulo's explanation of phantom stock plans is clear, concise, and complete.

I've always been intrigued about the roles of business psychologists and certified business coaches and their ability to elevate the performances of the people and businesses they work with.

In this show, I visited with Dr. Russell Thackeray, a business psychologist, certified coach, trainer, and renowned speaker. We addressed topics such as resistance, when to hire a business coach, the intentions and execution of tough love, psychological capacity, and much more.

I first heard Captain Charlie Plumb's POW story some twenty years ago, and I'm thrilled to share this conversation where we talk about Louis Zamperini, an unlikely parachute dialogue, culture, the leadership of Admiral James Stockdale, and some astounding research regarding PTSD of the men held at the Hanoi Hilton.

If you do an Amazon search on KPIs, the top result will be KPI Checklists by Bernie Smith. Bernie's newest book is entitled Gamed, our topic for this discussion.

We'll find out why so many smart and creative people have a hard time agreeing on KPIs, what black hat testing is for incentives, and the KPI framework named ROKET-DS.

One of the rock stars of financial modeling is one of the founders and the Executive Director of the Financial Modeling Institute, Ian Schnoor.

In this episode, we talk about the multi-disciplinary requirements of financial modeling, the planning process, component vs systems thinking, and other big ideas around this critical business skill.

My four favorite authors on performance measure with improvement as the primary aim is Don Wheeler, Stacey Barr, Dean Spitzer, and Mark Graban.

In this conversation, we find out three of the most important questions surrounding performance improvement the right. Our guest is Mark Graban, and he's the author of Measures of Success, our topic for this episode.

My favorite go-to person on all matters, Tableau and Dataviz, is Andy Kriebel.

Andy was the first person to create a YouTube channel on Tableau. His subscriber base has surpassed 61,000, and his 750+ videos have 7.5 million views and counting.

Andy is the co-author with Eva Murray of the book #Makeover Monday, and you can also follow his informative and insightful helpful hints each day on LinkedIn.

In this conversation, we find out why Andy has been publishing online for more than ten years, why asking for a dashboard is rarely the right starting point for Dataviz, and why his five daily habits, which I found to be pure gold.

Have you ever worked for a psychopathic CEO? If not, odds are that you will at least once in your career. That's according to the founder and president of the CFO Leadership Council, Jack McCullough.

Jack's newest book is, The Psychopathic CEO, and we'll hear more about who they are, how they make their way into a company, and what to do should you work for one.

Every current and past senior executive at Amazon will say their leadership principles are behind every groundbreaking innovation.

Every student of business knows about Amazon's obsession with its customers. But that's only one of the leadership principles. In this episode, John Rossman, the author of The Amazon Way delivers some of the big ideas and concepts baked into these inspiring, yet challenging leadership principles. 

In 2021, CFO Bookshelf published 51 episodes. In this show, we reveal the top ten that were the most downloaded across various podcast channels. We'll also share the producer's picks which comprise authors who are considered thought leaders in their fields across the globe.

CFO Bookshelf loves The Soul of Enterprise weekly podcast hosted by Ed Kless and Ron Baker.

In this conversation, we go behind the scenes with Ed Kless on how the show was created, how they prep for each weekly live show, and some of their favorite guests.

Oscar Wallace is my second-favorite accountant in the movies, and you may remember him from The Untouchables.

Tiffany Couch and Oscar share one thing in common--they both use the science of numbers to find theft and wrongdoing.

Tiffany is a long-time forensic accountant, and she's the author of, The Thief in Your Company.

We read 109 books in 2021, and in this episode, we'll share our Top 10 along with some bonus selections.

Find out three of the top CEOs ever in American business. Learn why start-up founders have lonely jobs. What is the best book ever written on finance? The answers are found in this very special episode.

While you may not recognize the name, Steve Bailey is one of three people I would enshrine immediately into a financial modeling hall of fame if one existed.

Steve is a long-time financial modeling expert and he's the founder of Model Metrix, a firm providing modeling-as-a-service and integrated business planning design work.

When you think of agile you probably think of software development. How about for M&A activities?

Kison Patel is the author of Agile M&A and M&A Tactics. He's also the founder and CEO of DealRoom. In this show, we talk about the mindset, methods, and technology of agile M&A.

Whether you love the Beatles, are a casual fan, or don't care for them, the first thought that probably pops from your mind when you hear this group's name is a famous band and one where you know all the members - Paul, John, George, and Ringo.

Here's assuming you never think of the terms economics, entrepreneurship, human capital, innovation, venture capital, and management.

In this show, we hear from Sam Staley as he talks about the big ideas from his book, The Beatles and Economics.

Bolanle (Bola) Williams-Olley took a circuitous route to her CFO position and also received much help along the way. Now she's doing what she can to help others in becoming the best version of themselves.

Bola is also the author of Build Boldy where she tells the story of starting her accounting career with a math background in the architectural industry.

Today, she is the CFO for the architectural design firm, Mancini Duffy where she is also a part-owner.

I have my theories on why W. Edwards Deming is not a household name in 'all' business circles. Many view him as the 'quality' guy who had an impact on Japanese manufacturing after the Second World War.

That view is limiting as Deming's management mindset was complete with four central tenets:

1. Pragmatism
2. The Law of Variation
3. Human psychology
4. Systems Thinking

I used to recommend Mary Walton's book to start learning about Deming. That book gave way to a new title by Edward Martin Baker. After meeting and interviewing Gene Kim a few months ago, I have a favorite book on Deming by John Willis. The title is Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge.

John was one of the earliest cloud evangelists and is considered one of the founders of the DevOps movement. John is the author of 7 IBM Redbooks. He is also the co-author of the “DevOps Handbook” and “Beyond the Phoenix Project,” along with author Gene Kim.

During this conversation, we discuss Deming's influences and how he became such a complete thinker about helping others improve.

There are millions of obscure names of the men and women behind every label of the food we buy at our local grocery stores. While some of these stories are sad and despairing, others are inspiring.

Benjamin Loor lifts humanity through this special book, The Secret Life of Groceries. In this episode, we hear about three of the people Ben wrote about in this book that's part entrepreneurialism and part social sciences.

My favorite books are narrative non-fiction which can inform, inspire, and entertain. When the book possesses all of these traits, we have a special book. And that's what we have with Mark Paul's book, The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told.

At times, the book reads like fiction, but it's not. The book includes an NFL owner who wanted to swap his Chargers for horses, a horse trainer who acted like a CFO, a horse racing track tied to a drug cartel, and a horse named, Winning Colors.

I've been a Patrick Lencioni fan for years. His last book is The Motive and it was released during COVID. Is it his best book? Why did he write it? Where does it fit with his other great books? Brian Jones is a friend of Lencioni and one of the consultants for the author's Table Group consulting arm. Brian provides a great perspective to these questions and more.