Because I work with entrepreneurs who own businesses, I have found Doug Tatum's No Man's Land to be a really helpful body of working knowledge. It's very applicable to most businesses that have the usual problems of growing businesses - managing people, capital, markets, etc.

That being said, everyone of us can move a big step farther towards determining the direction of our own lives. We can all break free from group think. Some more than others. Most don't. Finding out who is who is great fun.

The problem is not the sentiment, it's the execution. When a company makes a mistake, the individual benefits because they've learned how NOT to do something while the institution had to pay for the mistake.

I think small groups have more collective wisdom than an individual.

I don't know if you hear this often but I would say The Razor's Edge (loosely based on a great W. Somerset Maugham novel). This was Bill Murray's first dramatic role so everyone thought he stunk in this deep character but I thought he and the movie were great. The movie takes place over decades so you see Murray's character go from goofy playboy all the way to wiser, older person. It's basically a movie version of the journey I described.

CEOs are no different than the guy in the mailroom. They all have to learn how to manage better the risk created by our increasingly risk-shifting world.

I found that I loved producing that kind of propaganda and I loved the power that a few students with a Macintosh computer could wield. I was hooked on communications at that point.