Common Sense Advice about Business Books that Supposedly Help Your Become More Successful

Today we offer some ideas to those of you looking to improve your lot in life. Indeed, we can all improve ourselves in some way, whether it's being a better - as in more charitable - person, sharpening our minds, building our bodies, expanding our skill set, etc. In that light, we look at suggestions to improve your work life.

Here's a who guy offers a common sense view of business books that supposedly help you become more successful. He helps direct your mind away from the often trivial, petty bromides offered in so much of the "business leadership," or "personal development" industry. If you're spending inordinate amounts of time reading business books - especially ones by so-called "successful" business people - and still believe there's "gold in them thar hills" here's a source that might help you screw your head on straight.

This fellow, writing in the Wall Street Journal, reviewed "The Virgin Way," by Richard Branson. Branson's that Brit entrepreneur who founded Virgin records, Virgin airlines, and a host of other Virgin companies. No doubt he makes lots of money, and no doubt he's considered quite successful in business. The question with Branson and so many other successful business people is whether their advice to the rest of us contains any sort of substantive meat we can digest and turn into ideas or actions that might help us mere workers improve our lives. The answer, according to the author of this review, is decidedly no. And I must agree.

But the review isn't all negative. Our author offers some good advice on where we might indeed find meaty sources - at least from a secular perspective - to help us in trying to improve our lot by advancing our careers.

Perhaps instead of reading books that purport to instruct on leadership—offering up more cliché than wisdom—would-be leaders would do better to delve into books about individuals who have grappled with the challenges and ordeals of guiding an army, a nation or a daring enterprise. Literature brims with such portraits. Think only of the "Odyssey" or Shakespeare's "Henry V." Tenacity is important in a leader, but what happens when tenacity becomes obsession? Herman Melville will tell you all about it in "Moby-Dick."

Pretty good resources, don't you think?

As for real individual leaders we might learn from the author provides these suggestions:

If you prefer to learn about leadership through the experiences of real people, how about Eliot Cohen's "Supreme Command" (2002), about four civilian leaders (Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill and Ben-Gurion) who steered their countries through wars far too important to leave to mere generals? For that matter, try any good book on Ernest Shackleton, who led his Antarctic team to rescue through almost unimaginable hardships. If you really must have the self-help version, forget business books and get yourself a copy of "The Prince." Machiavelli's advice to 16th-century Florentine heads of state may not seem suitable bedtime reading for modern "servant leaders," as exemplars of the contemporary ideal are piously known, but they ignore his cynical realpolitik at their peril.

So save yourself some time and expense and stick to these sorts of resources. Some good sources of understanding and wisdom, mixed in with a shot of commons sense, and you're good to go.