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"WE DESPERATELY NEED IMAGINATION TO TRANSFORM HOW WE DO BUSINESS." —Gerald Zaltman, How Customers Think tions or because they phrase those questions in a way that guarantees they'll elicit the respons- es they desire. So says Gerald Zaltman in How Customers Think, a book that examines the mind of the customer and how it is affected by emotions, myths, moods, memories, and metaphors. "We desperately need imagination to transform how we do business," Zaltman writes, and his book provides a stepping-off point for that commodity. (Harvard Business School Press, $29.95) Most investment books focus on explaining ways to get rich quick. In Thou Shalt Not Invest Foolishly, subtitled Confessions of a Business Professor, University of Notre Dame professor Khalil F. Matta takes an entirely dif- ferent approach. In it, he details all the mis- takes he has made and what he has learned from his flawed approach to investing. Chapter Five technology stocks, biotech stocks, foreign markets, and leveraged investments. It's the rare caution- ary tale that is actually enjoyable to read. (1st Books Library, $13.95) leads off with the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Fall in Love" and contains this helpful observation: "It is only natural for investors to invest in companies they like. … However, problems arrive when they get infat- uated by what the company has to offer and ignore other equally important criteria for making the investment decision." Matta carefully details his own experiences with to make the change a little less painful in Working Identity: Unconven tional Strat egies for Reinventing Your Career. She tells stories of people who radically alter their lives—the Spanish literature professor who becomes a stockbro- ker, the psy- chiatrist who becomes a Buddhist monk—and describes the small steps they take and the experi- ments they make before they find themselves firmly on the right paths in their new careers. Anyone who reads it will begin to wonder how he might incorporate new directions into his own life. (Harvard Business School Press, $26.95) If you're like most peo- ple, at some point in your life you will stop and ask yourself: Is this the right job for me? Is this really what I want to be doing for the rest of my life? Changing jobs—even more agonizingly, changing careers—comes with such risk and upheaval that many people are para- lyzed by the number of decisions they will have to make. Herminia Ibarra investigates ways An international assemblage of experts has contributed essays to the book Decision Making Support Systems: Achievements and Challenges for the New Decade. Lead authors Manuel Mora, Guisseppi Forgionne, and Jatinder N.D. Gupta hope to dissi- pate some of the confusion "about the theoretical basis, architectural form, support mechanisms, design and development strategies, evaluation approaches, and managerial and organizational aspects of decision making support systems." The detailed and complex essays are not for beginners in the field, but the breadth of information offered is impressive. (Idea Group Publishing, $79.95) Book News Harvard Business School Press and The Conference Board have announced that they will publish a co-branded series of professional handbooks for senior executives. The series is tentatively titled Benchmark Books. Titles will be based on research and analysis con- ducted by The Conference Board, a New York-based not-for-profit organization that focuses on business and economic research. The series will launch in early 2004 with two titles: The New Consumer Guidebook by Gail Fosler, Chief Economist of The Conference Board; and The Business Ethics Guidebook by Ronald E. Berenbeim, Director of The Conference Board's Working Group on Global Business Ethics. Other subjects in the series may include corporate governance, managing customer relationships, and execu- tive compensation. ■ z BizEd MAY/JUNE 2003 57