Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeir Hansson, Crown Business, 288 pages, $22.00, Hardcover, March 2010, ISBN 9780307463746

I’m usually the first responder to new books that come in the office, but this book created much internal excitement even before I got my hands on it. The galley that is currently on my desk is quite beat up already from use. My conclusion after reading it is: if you are an aspiring business book author and wonder what a good business book looks like, Rework is the example to study.

The book offers short, direct chapters written by two guys who have actually walked the walk. Fried and Hansson created and run a company called 37signals, supplier of Highrise, Basecamp and Backpack open source software that we at 800-CEO-READ use everyday. The products they created stemmed from their own company’s needs. By creating their own tools, they could then envision a company as they wanted it to be—with no constraints. 37Signals is not large; in fact, it is intentionally small. Small, comfortable, and profitable.

The insight Fried and Hansson share in Rework, written in contemporary language that is both accessible and exciting, is wisdom that took me forty years to learn. I cannot over-emphasize its value. Here is an example from the section on hiring.

Hire when it hurts

Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain. Always ask yourself, What if we don’t hire anyone? Is that extra work that’s burdening us really necessary? Can we solve the problem with a slice of software or a change of practice instead? What if we just don’t do it?

Similarly, if you lose someone, don’t replace him immediately. See how long you can get by without that person and that position. You’ll often discover you don’t need as many people as you think.

Many of us try to strategize far out into the future. And while there is a time for that, what I appreciate about Rework is its pragmatic nature, its emphasis on the problem at hand. This is an important book for businesspeople. Rework is practical, offering logical ideas that are instantly applicable to the solo entrepreneur, the team leader, or the company owner.

Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty by Pat Lencioni, Jossey-Bass, 220 pages, $24.95, Hardcover, February 2010, ISBN 9780787976392

For over ten years, Pat Lencioni has helped define the genre of the business fable. He is most famous for The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which I thought so highly of that I included it in our collection of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. When Lencioni’s newest book came across my desk I was curious about the title, but also cautious: the title is eye-catching and memorable, but how was Lencioni going to pull this one off?

I needn’t have worried. What makes Lencioni’s fables so compelling is his skill at creating a real world populated by characters you believe in. Then into that world, Lencioni presents a common problem that you can relate to and a series of problem-solving decisions that you can then apply to your own experience. Time and again, Lencioni succeeds at teaching through storytelling and Getting Naked is no different.

Getting Naked is about vulnerability and transparency. Nakedness in this case is a counterintuitive approach to presenting yourself to a client or customer. Instead of going into a sales call loaded for bear with a PowerPoint presentation and all sorts of hype about who you are, you should go into the meeting naked, asking questions, being open, and nearly giving your expertise away. Every meeting should be about the client, not about you.

Lencioni’s story is about a big consulting firm that buys a little, but very successful, boutique consulting company. The executive responsible for the incorporation of the merger discovers that the small consulting firm has little or no sales costs, because most of the small firms clients are referrals from existing clients. The reason? Outstanding service derived from shedding the three big fears that drive customers away: fear of losing the client, fear of being embarrassed, and fear of being inferior. The executive then brings all he has learned back to the big consulting firm—and to you.

Besides being an outstanding storyteller, Pat Lencioni speaks a language that works perfectly for training. In fact, Getting Naked will be read by my staff and will be the basis of a new training program—that’s how valuable I think this book is.

The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar, Twelve, 329 pages, $25.99, Hardcover, March 2010, ISBN 9780446504102

We make choices every day: small choices about what we will eat for breakfast, what clothes we’ll wear, how we react within our jobs; and big choices about relationships, purchases—real life-changing choices. But what is choice? What drives us to make one and, when we find ourselves faced with a choice, what determines how we respond? Dr. Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia Business School with a doctorate in social psychology, deconstructs the science and the emotion behind the choices we make in her new book, The Art of Choosing.

Iyengar begins by telling a selection of stories about survival, revealing the decisions people have made in dire situations. When the choice is between life and death, it seems the choice would be obvious, yes? But captivity, isolation, and control are issues that affect choices and decisions in profound ways. Iyengar sums up her examination of these survival situations with this positive truth:

For animals, the confinement of the body is the confinement of the whole being, but a person can choose freedom even when he has no physical autonomy. In order to do so, he must know what choice is, and he must believe that he deserves it.

This observation forms the crux of The Art of Choosing; that the mind is free to do as it wishes, regardless of external and physical limitations. Iyengar then proceeds to examine how this mental freedom plays a role in circumstances such as arranged marriages, communism, motivation, tolerance, consumerism and self-help. Through this exploration, we learn that choice has a lot to do with how we view ourselves, the situations we put ourselves in, and how we compare those choices to the ones we perceive others have made.

The Art of Choosing is a compelling book that helps us better understand, but not overanalyze, the decisions we make—and why we make them. Unafraid of discussing some of our most sensitive opportunities for choice, such as pregnancy and death, and how sometimes imbalances of power limit a person’s choices, Iyengar is also unafraid of allowing her own experiences and her personality to populate the page in a winsome combination of unbiased research and friendly reflection. Fans of Gladwell, Gawande and the Heath brothers have found their next must-read book.