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.

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.