Jeff Stephens » Books I’m reading

ABA Banking Journal Publishes My Book Review of “Rework”

Jeff Stephens — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:29:03 +0000

As you may already know about me, there are a couple things I believe strongly:

Bankers need to think more like entrepreneurs and less like bankers
I love to help bankers identify business lessons learned from other non-banking industries, and apply them to banking

To help achieve these two things, I’ve long been planning to create a book club and/or reading group for entrepreneurial bankers. That’s why I’m excited to announce that the American Bankers Association’s ABA Banking Journal online has published a review I wrote of the business book, Rework, by Jason Fried and David Hansson of 37Signals.

Read my review of Rework for bankers here.

To whet your appetite for the review…

Rework is probably not a book that will be read proactively by many bankers…although I’m hoping to change that. Most bankers will say “this book is written for startups and new economy companies–this will never work in the banking world.” And they, of course, would be wrong. There is a lot of great content in Rework that bankers can apply to their businesses. With its concisely written chapters and simple-yet-profound and seemingly contrarian messages, the book reads very quickly in about three hours.

In the review, I explore three main concepts that emerge from the book:

Prioritize your work
Say no
Be real, and be yourself

Read the review of Rework now. And please email me to let me know if you’d be interested in being a member of my to-be-developed business book club for bankers.

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Create something that can get criticized

Jeff Stephens — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:41:34 +0000

I have long argued–to creatives, my clients and bankers and credit union folks at large–that it’s better to create something that some people will LOVE, others will HATE…than to create something that people are indifferent to. That stands true whether you are creating an ad for the local newspaper, a brand for a new financial institution, or a presentation you will give at a conference. You need to polarize people–if you leave anyone indifferent, you have wasted your time.

As I was reading Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin the other day (a book that’s been on my list forever, and I’ve finally gotten to), I realized Seth had given me a new way to phrase my message: create something that can get criticized. Our whole business culture is based on the idea of not getting criticized–the idea that criticism is a bad thing, to be avoided. The truth is that if you want to change the world (which I’m assuming you do–if not, you might want to unsubscribe from this blog), you WANT to get criticized. Because when you get criticized, it means you’ve created something WORTH reacting to. Most ideas and work is so boring that nobody reacts, because it’s not worthy of a reaction.

What can you create today that will get criticized…and therefore noticed?

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What are you reading?

Jeff Stephens — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:53:02 +0000

Besides the Twilight series, what are you reading right now? If you’re a banker, are you reading books about banking? Or are you reading books about business, entrepreneurship and social phenomena? I hope it’s the latter.

I’m a firm believer that real entrepreneurs learn what other industries are doing, and then ask one important question: “how can I apply this to my business?” I do that repeatedly, and it’s literally changed my life.

I plan to have “what are you reading” as a recurring feature of my blog. Why? Because the best new ideas come from places that have nothing to do with the business you’re in?

So let’s start now. Here’s what I’m reading today: Six Pixels of Separation, by Mitch Joel. I recently got done reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, Crush It!, and was inspired to keep reading more about social media and how people like, well, me, can really harness it.

I’ll let you know how it is. And most importantly, what I’m learning from it.

Last but not least, do you use GoodReads? Friend me up.

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