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By Lara Hertel
Investment Executive
Mid-February 2005 Issue
Investment Executive asked advisors across the country to recommend books that have improved their outlook on life and work.
Adrian Mastracci, investment counsel at Vancouver’s ‘fee-only’ KCM Wealth Management, says, "Alfred Sloan was someone who was looking to assist rather than dictate.”
Books can be an escape from everyday life or a tool that guides readers toward new ideas and outlooks. Investment Executive asked five advisors to share the books that changed the way they think and feel about the world.
Adrian Mastracci, president of KCM Wealth Management Inc. in Vancouver, praises My Years with General Motors by Alfred P. Sloan (Random House, 1990).
Mastracci was an undergrad at the General Motors Institute in Michigan when he happened upon the autobiography at the university bookstore. The then-22-year-old was taking a double major in engineering and business, and felt compelled to learn more about Alfred Sloan, the man responsible for leading GM through a critical period of growth and development in the automotive industry. The book wasn’t required reading, but Mastracci thought it looked interesting enough to buy. Five dollars later, he owned his own copy.
Mastracci, now 57, didn’t know it then, but the book was a major investment in his future as the president of a financial planning firm. He still credits the book with helping him form his own ideas about strong leadership. “There I was, just an undergrad in university, and it gave me perspective about what I could do in the business as a leader,” Mastracci says.
Sloan was CEO of GM from 1923 to 1946, during which time he was widely hailed for the systematic organization he brought to the company. But for Mastracci, the most notable aspect of Sloan’s leadership was that he remained very much a team player.
“Alfred Sloan was someone who was looking to assist rather than dictate,” Mastracci says. “He actually went out and met with people at the car dealerships, which was unheard of for a chief executive in the car industry,” he says. “He gave people at the local level the idea that he cared. He was well liked among his employees, too. That gave me some ideas about how to treat people if you want to be seen as a leader.”
Sloan was the type of businessman Mastracci hopes to be, and Mastracci applies Sloan’s philosophy to his own practice, albeit on a smaller scale. “Whenever I can go out and meet with someone and get out of the office, I try to do that,” he says. Mastracci wants to be seen as a hands-on advisor, not someone sitting in his ivory tower, completely out of touch with what’s going on with his clients and the rest of the world. “I try to accommodate people whenever I can,” he says. “I want to be out there with them.”
Wayne Taylor, vice president of the Canadian Association of Pre-retirement Planners (CAPP) and president of Taylor Financial Group Ltd. in Edmonton, chose The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economics, societies and nations, by James Surowiecki (Doubleday, 2004).
Crowds are often viewed as oppressive throngs of people slowing traffic, lengthening lineups and impeding our personal space. Not to Surowiecki. In his book, the magazine columnist explores a simple idea: what if large groups of people are actually smarter than the elite few who make the majority of the world’s decisions in politics and business?
Taylor picked up the book after hearing a discussion about it on a CBC Radio program, and he took its message to heart.
“We, as crowds in the world, have great wisdom. And we shouldn’t let the select few make decisions that have a profound impact on us,” he says. “If they had consulted us, the outcome would have been different.”
Stock market scandals are a prime example of a problem that could have been avoided had corporate decisions not rested with just a handful of people at the top, he says.
He has introduced that philosophy in his own practice, in which he takes a team approach to decision-making. “We make common sense, gut decisions all the time and, as a rule, we’re right,” he says.
Taylor admits that the masses aren’t always to be trusted but, he believes, they consistently provide better answers than a single individual can. Too often, he says, politicians are so eager to please a handful of higher-ups that they forget whom they’re in office to serve: the average citizens that make up the majority of the country.
Taylor feels so strongly about the idea that he has compiled a list of highlights from The Wisdom of Crowds and gives it to clients. The world stands to benefit from collective decision-making and cooperation, he says: “We as crowds are a powerful force. There is wisdom everywhere if you know how to tap into it.”
Ryan Beebe, partner at Caplan Beebe & Associates in Edmonton, recommends Downsize This! Random threats from an unarmed America, by Michael Moore (Perennial, 1997).
As with most people, Beebe’s introduction to left-wing muckraker Moore came with the release of his critically acclaimed 2002 film Bowling for Columbine. After watching the documentary on DVD last summer, he discovered the outspoken director wrote books as well.
Beebe went out and bought Downsize This!, Moore’s 1997 diatribe on the evildoings of corporate America. Reading it, Beebe was reminded of Taylor Caldwell’s 1972 book, Captains and Kings, which showed that politics and business are so closely intertwined that together they’re truly omnipotent. Moore’s book has a similar message, and it changed the way Beebe saw the corporate world.
“The whole planet is ruled by a strong society of business leaders. They literally control the world,” he says. “If they want a war, they’ll make sure it happens.”
While the book hasn’t turned him into an anti-corporate crusader, Beebe says, it has opened his mind to a whole new way of thinking. For one thing, he’s less quick to trust the word of the corporate elite. It’s not that Beebe has adopted a more pessimistic attitude, but he’s learned to examine the powers that be in his own life. “People often take leaders’ words for gospel, and they really can’t do that,” he says. Although Beebe doesn’t agree with all of Moore’s opinions, Beebe is a big advocate of ideas that promote debate.
“Anything that gives people a different opinion and broadens their minds is a great thing,” he says.
Carien Jutting, president of Fiscal Wellness Ltd. in Stratford, Ont.,
recommends The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield (Warner Books, 1994).
Jutting meets new people every day in her busy career at the company and as head of the CAPP, but the advisor never questioned their purpose in her life until a friend passed on The Celestine Prophecy.
Redfield’s book follows the pilgrimage of a nameless narrator to Peru to find an ancient manuscript said to contain nine insights that predict the future of New Age spiritualism.
Along the way, the pilgrim encounters a number of characters, both good and evil, and unwittingly experiences the nine insights first-hand.
The Celestine Prophecy became the No. 1 international best-seller in 1996, and has since won over thousands of fans worldwide, many of them crediting the book for their “spiritual awakening.”
Jutting’s initial reaction was a bit more muted. She admits she didn’t entirely understand the book on the first reading, so she read it again. The second time, it struck a chord.
“This book makes you aware that there are unknown reasons for why certain people come into your life,” Jutting says. “It’s about meeting new people and what purpose they serve — whether you know it or not.”
Jutting calls The Celestine Prophecy “a deep adventure book,” a good fit for a self-described “spiritual person” who’s constantly searching for higher awareness. She feels the book has made her take a closer look at the people — particularly her clients — who come to her for friendship, advice and guidance. What’s more, it has made her re-evaluate the role she plays in their lives. “We all serve a purpose in people’s lives; it’s just a matter of taking a closer look to find out what it is,” she says.
Jutting has since passed the book on to others to enjoy and hopes it serves a meaningful purpose in their lives as well. “When you get to my age, you’re looking for more than just a paycheque,” says Jutting, 54. “You’re looking to change your outlook.”
Randy Reynolds, chairman of Advocis’s board of directors and owner of Financial Advisors Brokerage Group Inc. in Vancouver, favours Living in the Light: A guide to personal and planetary transformation by Shakti Gawain (New World Library, 1986).
Reynolds was in his mid-40s and looking for a sense of direction in his life when he joined Pursuit of Excellence, a now-defunct Vancouver-based self-development program.
It was there that a group member recommended Gawain’s book, which hails the importance of trusting one’s own intuition and acting on it to make meaningful change. Reynolds bought the book immediately and discovered that breaking out of his rut would take nothing more than a little imagination — literally.
“What you do is close your eyes and visualize what it is you want to create and what you want to achieve,” explains Reynolds, now 58. “If you focus on that picture and make it a daily place in your mind, you’ll eventually achieve it.”
Living in the Light uses the more formal term “creative visualization” to describe the process of learning to trust the creative energies that flow through the universe in order to transform your life. Call it whatever you want, Reynolds says, it works.
“After I read this book, I sensed that I had this skill all along,” he says. “Everyone has an ability to stimulate their creativity and understand how to get what they want.” It helps that he had an open mind. “I was really optimistic when I was reading the book … I was seeking a positive and spiritual change,” he says.
Reynold’s copy of the book is buried away in a box now, but its lessons remain very much intact. He still uses the creative visualization technique to spur creativity in his business plans or in guiding his clients through their retirement planning.
“I tell them to close their eyes and imagine what their retirement looks like,” he says. “I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
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