Smith, Steven 1964–

PERSONAL:

Born November 14, 1964. Education: University of Utah, bachelor's degree.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—info@marcumsmith.com.

CAREER:

Consultant and writer. MarcumSmith, LC (business consulting firm), cofounder, 2002—. Previously worked for FranklinCovey and had own consulting firm.

WRITINGS:

(With David Marcum and Mahan Khalsa) BusinessThink: Rules for Getting It Right—Now, and No Matter What!, Wiley (New York, NY), 2002.

(With David Marcum) Egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Steven Smith works in management training and consulting and is the founder, with David Marcum, of the consulting firm MarcumSmith, LC. Their firm focuses on teaching people, especially those in business, how to create a balance between ego and humility in order to reach the next level of leadership. They have worked with a variety of industries and companies, including insurance, service, finance utilities, telecommunications, healthcare, medial, and government organizations.

Smith and Marcum are also the authors of BusinessThink: Rules for Getting It Right—Now, and No Matter What!, and Egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability). In their first book, BusinessThink, which was also written with Mahan Khalsa, the authors present a business-training book that focuses on business leaders and on creative solutions to business problems and issues while operating at optimum performance. In the process they present challenging new rules for accelerating work while revitalizing the business. Through a variety of rules, from "Check Your Ego at the Door" to "Create Curiosity," the author present a program designed to significantly increase results via hard-core business thinking coupled with business leaders and employers using their intuition and emotional intelligence to open up new avenues toward critical thinking and collaboration.

In a review of BusinessThink in the M2 Presswire, a contributor wrote that the authors "offer all generations of leaders a provocative, practical process for transforming the way people think about business and address readers with a refreshing, straightforward voice that calls for a realistic, thoughtful exploration of one's own thoughts, behaviours and influence within the business world."

Egonomics, written by Smith and his partner Marcum, focuses on the dual traits of a good business leader: a strong ego counterbalanced by humility. Exploring the research findings that many great business leaders who have transformed companies from to good to great have exhibited great humility, the authors also point out that a strong ego is also necessary to become a great business leader. "On the profit side, ego sparks the drive to invent and achieve, the nerve to try something new, and the tenacity to conquer setbacks that inevitably come," the authors write in their book as they introduce their principles of egonomics. The authors go on to write later in the book: "Humility is the first principle of egonomics because of its unique ability to open minds. Until we're ready to listen and learn, curiosity and veracity are never invited on stage. But as crucial as an open mind is, that might not even be the most essential characteristic of humility. Humility is a means to an end, and that end is the progress of the business."

In their book, the authors discuss how to strike a balance between ego and humility in order to reach the next level of leadership. They include case studies showing how ego can interfere with success but also how it can spark the drive to achieve and the tenacity to conquer adversity. They also include four early warning signs to look for to see if ego is becoming a liability and three key principles to keep ego healthy, which are, in addition to humility, curiosity and veracity.

"Of course, what Smith and Marcum have written is a serious primer on what it means to be a decent, successful human being," wrote Stefan Stern in Management Today. "It's not so much about ego, it's about a balanced and constructive approach to life." A Publishers Weekly contributor referred to Egonomics as a "mix of business analysis and psychological study." and went on to write in the same review that the authors "effectively demonstrate the benefits of successful ego management in [various] situations."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Marcum, David, Steve Smith, and Mahan Khalsa, BusinessThink: Rules for Getting It Right—Now, and No Matter What!, foreword by Stephen R. Covey, Wiley (New York, NY), 2002.

Marcum, David, and Steven Smith, Egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2007.

PERIODICALS

Management Today, January 1, 2008, Stefan Stern, "Books: How to Be a Decent, Successful Human," review of Egonomics, p. 33.

M2 Presswire, May 9, 2002, review of BusinessThink.

PR Newswire, May 21, 2003, "If You Think Ego and Politics Hurt Government, You Should See What They Do to Your Company."

Publishers Weekly, July 9, 2007, review of Egonomics, p. 46.

Reference & Research Book News, August 1, 2003, review of BusinessThink, p. 112.

ONLINE

Egonomics Home Page,http://www.egonomicslive.com (April 19, 2008), brief profile of author.

Marcum & Smith Web site,http://www.marcumsmith.com/ (April 19, 2008), profile of author.

Readegonomics.com,http://www.readegonomics.com (April 22, 2008).