Book it: best bets for board reading: from a roundup of new books, insights on conversation skills, situational awareness, CEO shareholder letters, creating greatness ... and doing your spring cleaning.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Blueprint for greatness

From What It Takes by Charles D. Ellis. Copyright [c] 2013 by the author. Published by John Wiley 6-Sons Inc. (www.wileyfinance.com).

WHAT IT TAKES is the story of what sets the great professional firms--the best firms, the acknowledged leaders in their industries--apart from all the rest. It is a blueprint for creating, building, and sustaining great organizations of all kinds.

To identify firms to include, I asked almost every firm leader I met three questions: At which firm in your industry would you most like to spend your career? Which firm would the most discerning clients like to use to handle their toughest challenges? And which firm's success is most durable, even as its leaders turn over or its environment changes?

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Remarkably, there was a clear consensus in each of five fields. The outstanding leaders are McKinsey in consulting, Cravath, Swaine & Moore in law, Capital Group in investment management, the Mayo Clinic in health care, and Goldman Sachs in investment banking.

At the outset, I expected to find major differences from one field to another. But surprisingly, the essential lessons those firms teach are few and nearly identical. Olympic athletes supply a good simile. While they see themselves as obviously separate--"he's a pole-vaulter; she's a swimmer; he's a downhill skier, and I run the 440"--the gold medalists are essentially the same: superb athletes with unusual heart and lung capacity, and in great physical condition. They are highly disciplined, voracious competitors willing to spend unconscionable hours mastering every technique of their event.

So it is with the great firms and the superior people who create and maintain them.

Charles D. Ellis was for three decades managing partner of Greenwich Associates, the international business strategy consulting firm that he founded in 1972.

'Poor Dave ... we had high hopes for him'

From Leadership Conversations by Alan S. Berson and Richard G Stieglitz. Copyright [c] 2013 by Leadership Conversations LLC. Published by Jossey-Bass (www.josseybass.com).

MOST HIGH POTENTIALS are derailed not by things they know they need to learn but rather by things they did not even realize had changed. What new challenges do you face when you climb the leadership ladder? How must you think differently? What new actions must you take? The answers to these questions are the difference between success and failure. What we want you to avoid hearing...