OK let's get it out there... people who have very little to live for read business books. 99% of the stuff written is of the most egregious quality known to mankind -- people with any sense avoid the business section in any bookstore. It is the special writer indeed that can make their experiences relevant to the rest of us, impart knowledge and wisdom, who goes beyond the pump-me-up-and-let's-all-feel-good-and-happy-clappy version of corporate America -- the kind commonly encouraged in some national sales conventions. You know! The type that tries to convince you they have secrets of business success by regaling you with stories on how important their "new" business discoveries really are, when really they are variations on the benefits such banal things as getting up early, not watching too much TV, changing your socks, and giving people hell the occassional time (preferably all of the above done based upon some abstruse mathematical formulation).
No... Lou Adler is the real thing. Not full of beans or full of himself most of the time. The advice he gives is practical, well organised and starts with the premise that, when you hire someone you should use the job as the screen for the candidate -- in order to draw those qualities out of the candidate and also to organise your presentation of the job. Adler says, "do not start with percieved requirements of the position" as these do not deliver the results needed.
There is a lot of technical detail and healthy, not corny or forced anecdotal evidence such as is legion in most of this genre.
I have seen Lou Adler on two occassions and can concur that he is one of the most down-to-earth people you can meet. In a world rife with industry setting unrealistic targets Lou is able to lay it on the line and tell you what you need to do and not what you want to do. There is no percieved, strained intellectualism or claims of revealed truth or knowledge that you get in other such reads as Zig Ziglar or Gerardi, or (horror or horrors, Wess Roberts -- author of the worst sales coaching book in history "The Leadership Secrets of Atilla the Hun).
I have recommended it for my corporate clients on occasion and can do so with a straight face and strong measure of encouragement. It actually reinforced those elements of hiring that we were doing right, and forced us to change those elements we were doing wrong - can there ever be a stronger recommendation for any book?
