True to Yourself: Leading a Values-Based Business

I know Mark Albion and admire what he has done. He was a professor at Harvard Business School and gave that up to devote himself to spreading the message that business is about more than financial metrics. He was instrumental in founding Net Impact and that organization has helped thousands of business school students recognize that there are businesses out there that are genuinely concerned with addressing societal concerns. He has been an entrepreneur and a cheer leader. He publishes a delightful newsletter called ML2 that is crammed full of absolutely delightful quotes. He has advised many very well known entrepreneurs and done a ton of other stuff besides. This book is easy reading and much of what he extolls seems common sense. Who needs to be told about the necessity for transparency, sustainability and responsibility? However, it never hurts to be reminded of these important concepts that we tend to forget so soon. The core of the book consists of five chapters where he talks about the important leadership practices of entrepreneurs who are doing things differently. And here is where his book suffers from a flaw that most books of this type share. For example, one of the practices is to "communicate with care". He gives you questions to ask yourself to figure out if you if you are a good communicator and to improve your communication skills. Questions such as "Do you know how your employees like to receive different types of messages?" and "Are you clear and consistent?" However, he does not tell you how to find out how your employees want to receive messages or how to figure out if employees think you are clear and consistent. So quite a bit of what he says seems important, but does not leave you better equipped to actually do it. Despite this, I have given the book five stars because it has one overwhelming virtue. There are dozens of examples of great companies and wonderful entrepreneurs who are making the world of business a better place. I fully expect that I will reach out to many of them and engage in multiple transactions with them. And that, by itself, makes this book a "must get".

I just read Mark Albion's True to Yourself. I started in Seatlle and by the time I landed in Chicago I had to keep reading on the train downtown. By the time I was at the hotel, I had finshed the book and committed myself to 3 actions. The next morning I called several colleagues to clarify that they were the leaders and that I was here to help but did not need to be involved in their projects, called my COO and asked him to make sure our next executive team meeting focused on responding to several employee committee reports and reminded myself that a busy travel schedule was not an excuse for not writing thank you notes to staff. Wow! That book kicked me into action. True to Yourself is full of great reminders and practical examples that CEOs need to have put in front of them. This is not a utopian book about a mythical land where businesses are all happy and don't care about profits. Rather, it is a book that reminds us all of the significant returns our businesses and our souls receive when we make choices that align with our values. Full disclosure /transparency-I read this book because I know and really respect Mark and because I am quoted in it. I expected to like the book but my expectation was not to have it spark me into action. It did. Every CEO, executive and manager (not just those that define themselves as socially responsible) should read this book. If you do, it will help you better support your team, beat projections and build a stronger company culture.

The strength of True to Yourself is that it gives specific advice, that it backs up the advice with interviews, and that it is readable. The advice makes sense and prods the reader into thinking about her/his own situation. The interviews explain, amplify, and substantiate the advice. They also give vignettes into how 75 social entrepreneurs started and manage their organizations. Albion's style is lively, friendly, and unpretentious--no jargon here. This can be a fast-read but take it slowly; the second time through I discovered much insight that I had missed. Both helpful and inspiring. For those who have asked, or are about to ask, "What have I been doing with my life?" GOOD TO GREAT for social ventures, edited down to the essentials.

Mark Albion writes with grace, passion, and purpose ... reminding us that we don't need to sell our souls for success nor abdicate our personal/spiritual values in order to make it in the harsh, competitive world of business. It really IS possible to do well by doing good ... and Mark's new book shows us how! As I was reading "True to Yourself," snippets from some of my favorite songs danced through my head ..... "I Gotta be Me" and "I Did it My Way," among others. In business I have often felt like a peacock in the land of penguins, so the messages of "True to Yourself" resonated deep within me -- reassuring me that not only can I survive as an entrepreneur, I can THRIVE by being authentically myself and holding fast to the values and principles that are important to me. Anyone who is feeling discouraged by the pressues of business and feeling like you're forced to compromise your ethics, values, and personal beliefs would find "True to Yourself" a breath of fresh air! It should be required reading for all students in Entrepreneur Programs in universities across the country -- beginning with Harvard. Perhaps the Devil does wear Prada (or Armani) but YOU don't need to -- you can wear your Birkenstocks and build a thriving, successful business! Mark Albion's new book builds on his previous best-seller and teaches us all how to make a living while building a wonder life!

True to Yourself: Leading a Values Based Business by Mark Albion (Berrett-Koehler Publishers-Social Venture Network Series) In a time when big business has shown its worst side and the general reputation of businessmen is on a par with lawyers in terms of mistrust, reading True to Yourself is like a fresh breeze blowing through a polluted fog. While its easy to point fingers and look at what's wrong which mainstream media does so well, its quite another thing to look at what's right with business and explore the leading edge of business practices based in the integration of head and heart. Mark Albion was the Marketing Professor at Harvard for fifteen years and was dubbed by Business Week with "the savior of b-school souls." Mark was profiled on 60 Minutes and praised by leaders as diverse as Ronald Reagan and Mother Theresa. He has played business roles including employee, serial entrepreneur, consultant and most recently, the best-selling author of Making a Life, Making a Living and its newsletter read by thousands of subscribers in 87 countries. So Mark knows wherof he speaks. He helped form Students for Social Responsibility which has morphed into Net Imapct a vibrant organization of 7000+ socially responsible MBA's with 120 national chapters. He is a member of the Social Venture Network (svn.org), an organization of socially responsible entrepreneurs and philanthropists. As Warren Buffet recently demonstrated, business is not all about greed. In fact, the tide is turning with the world's largest corporation, Wal-Mart recently hiring a CEO and empowering him to move the company as fast as possible towards becoming sustainable. Academic observers of the world of business have noted a strong correlation between financial performance and adoption of socially responsible business policies and practices. True to Yourself is a timely gift to executives and students looking for a business compass that can lead them directly to a clearing where they can grow into true servant leaders who embrace and enjoy the many challenges and rewards of running a triple bottom line business that integrates and harmonizes people, planet and profits. Mark worked with his dad in real estate for many years but knew he had to live his deeper values through business. After his 15 years at Harvard, he set out to become a values based entrepreneur who would use his life in service to social change through business. He moved towards being true to who he was and who he wanted to be and surrounded imself with other like minded entrepreneurs. In his book, Mark shares practical strategies, programs and policies that work for values based businesses. A key piece of advice is that the only way to get ahead and feel good about it is to insure others do the same through forming and maintaning great relationships. That may sound easy but it's anything but and Mark shares his insights about decision making that affects not just shareholders but all stakeholders. It takes incl