The Mind of the CEO

Rating:
Summary: The Mind of the CEO
Review: Nothing new here. The book was moderately interesting. As CEO of a company company based in the midwest, I was looking for real insight. This book offered nothing new and frankly ended on a sour note for me. Clearly, Jeffrey Garten is without any serious and current operational experience or he would understand how his liberal, government centric views don't work in today's business environment. Had Mr. Garten operated his own business for any period of time, he would know that it is more than a full-time job to satisfy investors/shareholders, staff, boards, customers and other interested parties - not to mention directing trade policy for the federal government. If private business spends more time leading public policy and less time in business, what would that do for shareholders, domestic and global economy? I especially enjoyed the part towards the end of the book where Garten, as "part of the first Clinton Administration", take credit for the end of the Cold War with Russia and tearing down the Berlin Wall - sorry attempt to take credit for something he nothing to do with as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. This book is weak and I am sorry I took time out of my busy schedule to read about Garten's view of the world.

Rating:
Summary: Worth Reading
Review: The CEO has, for me at least, always been something of a celebrity. I have always wondered what life is like for a person who is responsible for 1000's of jobs and millions of dollars. When we see CEO's on the news, they are a lot like politicians - providing neutral answers to probing questions. This book does what the media fails to do, which is getting this business mavens to talk about real issues concerning their business and society in general. The responses are less formal, more relaxed and appear to be honest. Suprisingly, this book make CEO's appear to be servants of a complex circle of Customers, Employees and Shareholders. Which, I suppose, in the grander scheme of things that is what they are.

The only dissapointment of this book is that 85% of it is the author filling in his own interpretation and editorial comments between actual quotes from the CEO's. It would have been nice if the book was a series of interviews. This would have given readers more objective content and allowed us to decipher the language for ourselves. With only 15% of the reading being actual pull quotes from several CEO's, I would have to say that we only get a small glimpse of the CEO's mind.

But all in all, the author does a great job of posing the right questions to the right people. He certainly has a moral agenda that most of the consumer population would side with. It was nice to know that someone is willing to hold up the mirror of social responsibilty to the business world.

Rating:
Summary: Worth the read
Review: This book provides another perspective on the mind of the CEO. Worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Don't buy PDF format. Buy the book!
Review: This pdf version misses a lot of pages. Not worth getting it.