Skip content
The Obvious by James Dale
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Make the switch
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

The Obvious

All You Need to Know in Business. Period.

$12.59

Narrator Alan Sklar

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 3 hours 30 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

The secrets to success in business aren't secrets at all. They're obvious, so obvious that they've mostly been taken for granted or ignored—until now.



We've all read the business allegories, the "how I did it" success stories, and yes, there's good advice to be found in their pages. But nowhere is the advice as pure, as simple, as elegant, as it is in The Obvious. Former CEO James Dale has compiled ingenious words to live by, lucid truths as likely to be found in a fortune cookie as an MBA textbook. And the beauty of it is, regardless of the job—from sales rep to department head to CEO—the same principles yield the same results, and they're always effective. While all of Dale's advice is, well, obvious, it's implementation isn't. In The Obvious, Dale shares ways in which any businessperson can carry out these simple lessons and achieve success.



—Show up.



—Don't be a jerk.



—Simple is better than complicated.



—Tell the truth. (It's so rarely used, it's like a secret weapon.)



—Bosses are not all idiots.



—Don't look backward. There's nothing there.



—Forgive and forget (or at least one out of two).



—Trust someone besides yourself.



—Start over tomorrow, but don't do it the same way.



Entertaining, compelling, and commonsensical, The Obvious is all you need to know. Period.

James Dale is former president and CEO of advertising agency W. B. Doner & Co., whose clients included British Petroleum, Chiquita, Arby's Restaurants, Klondike Ice Cream, CBS Sports, Johns Hopkins University, and Verizon Wireless. Coauthor of Bullies, Tyrants, and Impossible People, among other books, Dale is cofounder of the business consulting firm Richlin/Dale LLC. He lives in Baltimore.

Winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards and a multiple finalist for the APA's prestigious Audie Award, Alan Sklar has narrated nearly two hundred audiobooks, including Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings by Thomas Maier, and The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. Named a Best Voice of 2009 by AudioFile magazine, his work has earned him a Booklist Editors' Choice Award (twice), a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and Audiobook of the Year by ForeWord magazine. The Dartmouth graduate's theatre credits include Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Seagull, and many modern roles. Alan has also narrated thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA, Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, Dannon, Pfizer, AT&T, and SONY. For several years, he has been the spokesman for TracFone Wireless Co. and can often be seen and heard on TracFone radio and TV spots and infomercials. "I am so pleased, as is my husband, to have found a narrator that holds our attention so well that we have come to compare every other narrator to him (you). So far we have found none with such a talent as yours. We very much plan to listen to as many of your works as we can find." -Sandi King, a letter to Mr. Sklar

Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Make the switch
Libro.fm app with gift bow

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Reviews

"Alan Sklar's vocal wit and flawless cadences imbue power and majesty to this little work.... This is a book for everyone." ---AudioFile Expand reviews