A much more standard management book than Lencioni's "business fables", and the straightforward approach serves the subject matter well. The central tA much more standard management book than Lencioni's "business fables", and the straightforward approach serves the subject matter well. The central topic is communicating vision across an organization for execution. Lencioni takes a really nice note on whether to call this "strategy", effectively saying that neither he nor anyone else in business consulting has the slightest idea of what that word is supposed to mean, but that he's presented these ideas to people who wanted help with their strategy and it has been effective to their needs. He apologizes for repeatedly pointing out the obvious, but notes that business people regularly forget or ignore the most basic of principles. What results is a down to earth, highly practical guide to getting a bunch of people aligned to accomplish difficult goals....more
Lencioni generally provides his business insights in a YA novel format, which works fairly well since it makes the books short and uncluttered by focuLencioni generally provides his business insights in a YA novel format, which works fairly well since it makes the books short and uncluttered by focusing on one narrative. However, in this book the business insights and the narrative seem disjointed. The story of Will, a bright young man lacking clear direction, is only connected to the point of making meetings better in the most tangential of ways.
The model for meeting structure is good, but it only takes about 3 pages to cover it. The rest of this book is disposable....more
This is a pleasant, short business book that can easily be read in an hour and for which the entire message could be translated to a single slide. TheThis is a pleasant, short business book that can easily be read in an hour and for which the entire message could be translated to a single slide. The book is broken into two parts, a short story (the fable) which centers around an executive team struggling with his themes and a very short article describing those themes. It's innocuous, and could be useful if you want a focal object to use in spending an hour reflecting on how to manage an effective team. ...more
A two article book, meaning the meat could have been contained in two 20 page articles. That's pretty good, many of these books could be easily replacA two article book, meaning the meat could have been contained in two 20 page articles. That's pretty good, many of these books could be easily replaced by a single article or, in some cases, a five slide presentation. However, despite the real value of the tools provided it loses lots points as a book for a couple of reasons.
First, some very muddy thinking. At one point, the author alludes to the difficulty of quantifying complexity, launches into a few anecdotes, then says "now that we've determined what complexity is..." I re-read the section twice before deciding that the author didn't actually know what complexity was, a discovery which was born out by the rest of the book and emphasized by the occasional use of "complex" and "complicated" as synonyms. This sort of sloppiness is on display throughout the book, to the point that while I'm convinced that the author has valuable experience with simplicity, and that they know it when they see it, I'm frankly uncertain that they understand what simplicity is.
Second, the astounding irony of filling up 200 pages with an enormous amount of filler in the course of making an argument to keep things simple. There were whole chapters that were superfluous. Chapter 5 was downright embarrassing. And there was no chapter that was free from that worst of all business tropes, the anecdotal testimonial.
I'm giving this book three stars because there's some honest to goodness value in it, but please don't let that imply that it it's a good book. I would gladly pay twice as much for a book half as long that didn't have all the garbage....more
There's lots of good advice here, though as a product it's over-designed in the way some solutions are over-engineered. This is neither a book nor a sThere's lots of good advice here, though as a product it's over-designed in the way some solutions are over-engineered. This is neither a book nor a slide deck, but something in between. It's pretty, sits well on a coffee table, and provides a nice extended illustration for the HBR article "Reinventing your Business Model". ...more
A book of anecdotes pretending to be a book of ideas. Many of the anecdotes are good ones, but aside from those few good stories, the book has little A book of anecdotes pretending to be a book of ideas. Many of the anecdotes are good ones, but aside from those few good stories, the book has little to offer other than conventional wisdom and some window dressing. Sinek comparing his "golden circle" to the golden ratio is the dumbest thing I've seen in a business book in a long time, and business books as a rule are full of dumb things.
The brilliant insights in this book could be easily condensed and clearly communicated to a dozen powerpoint slides. You could take this in a couple oThe brilliant insights in this book could be easily condensed and clearly communicated to a dozen powerpoint slides. You could take this in a couple of ways:
1) If the essential messages of the book could be conveyed so minimally, what's the rest of the book do? (response: mostly touts Thiel's credentials and worldview, which is often dopey)
2) A dozen slides of brilliant insights? That's, what, 10 brilliant insights? That's got to be quite a book. (response: Probably closer to 15. And yes, it is.)
A little dated (especially the last chapter discussing these new fangled computing machines), but still an excellent and perhaps the definitive statemA little dated (especially the last chapter discussing these new fangled computing machines), but still an excellent and perhaps the definitive statement on what it means to be effective in a knowledge worker role, and why these are important considerations for everyone regardless of title....more
A solid overview of Systems thinking, applied to the specific problems of military action. The majority of the theory in this book was very familiar tA solid overview of Systems thinking, applied to the specific problems of military action. The majority of the theory in this book was very familiar to me, but McChrystal brings an intelligence and perspective that made reading it more than a review. ...more
Another highly enjoyable book about something that, as you think about it afterwards, is dismal and terrifying. Lewis laments the fact that he may havAnother highly enjoyable book about something that, as you think about it afterwards, is dismal and terrifying. Lewis laments the fact that he may have inspired hundreds of bright young men to go to Wall Street with Liar's Poker, but when you make the dull aspects of high finance entertaining and the worst qualities of human nature comical (and sometimes downright endearing), you're going to inspire people.
He's probably done it again. He should write about regulating....more
A pop psychology defense of existentialism as a practical approach to life. I'm broadly sympathetic to this theme, which Dweck reduces things to a bonA pop psychology defense of existentialism as a practical approach to life. I'm broadly sympathetic to this theme, which Dweck reduces things to a bone-simple dichotomy. Stasis/fatalism/essentialism = fixed mindset. Dynamism/pragmatic optimism/existentialism = growth mindset. So far so good. Dweck also gives some good examples and practical applications from her experience as a researcher and councilor. Better still.
However, I didn't enjoy the book much. Buried somewhere in Dweck's wide eyed amazement at her discovery (The ancient adage to never stop learning is a "New Psychology of Success"?), a series of testimonials ("Here's another random letter by someone saying how great I am and how much I helped them with their life, using these techniques!") and endless fuzzy anecdotes lurks the uneasy fact that Dweck isn't ready to subject this approach to a critical look at its limitations. This hesitation pops up throughout the book (sometimes comically). Early on Dweck presents some questions in interlocutory, including a few that amount to "is the fixed mindset bad". No, no, she insists, that would be a value judgement. It's self-limiting, damaging to your loved ones, and responsible for many extremely harmful things, but let's not call it "bad". Unsurprisingly, Dweck cannot stave off moral judgements throughout the text. A person cheating on their partner is excused because the partner has a fixed mindset. Lying, cheating and stealing might be bad, but they all imply the fixed mindset for Dweck, with the strong, tacit implication that people in the growth mindset can be excused such indiscretions (they're not the same thing).
Then again, Dweck projects relentlessly on her subjects. To those with which she sympathizes (or whom have been successful), she ascribes a growth mindset. The fixed mindset is ascribed to people less successful, or people who perhaps just rubbed her the wrong way.
I'm being excessively glib, but in fairness so is Dweck. It's almost impossible to avoid being so when you want to make such a simple distinction. Now here's the thing: I believe the distinction is valuable. I'm sure that working within the model presented has been helpful to many people and will likely be helpful to me. I would like to promote something very similar to this book to other people as an aspect of living deliberately. However, this is not the book I would recommend. It's too self-satisfied, sloppy and frankly ignorant. I keep coming back to the subtitle. How is it possible for a professional academic in psychology to think that this is new?
I suspect that for most subjects there is a dedicated community that takes that subject seriously and thinks about it with a rigor and focus that elevI suspect that for most subjects there is a dedicated community that takes that subject seriously and thinks about it with a rigor and focus that elevates it well beyond the everyday application or appreciation of that subject. A capable writer can sometimes provide a glimpse into that community and make their concerns understandable to the layman.
Moneyball does this for the applicable community around baseball. In addition, it explores the fascinating oddity that this community was largely independent and excluded from official major-league baseball organizations of the 90s and 00s. It is strange to have those who are most dependent on an activity for their livelihood be so divorced from those that think rigorously about how that activity can be done well. If this was about something less trivial than a professional sport, it would be frustrating and infuriating. Fortunately, when the powers that be make a lot of really stupid decisions about baseball, the negative effects on society are minimal (there actually may be some positive societal effects, which would be a good subject for another book). The result is an interesting and funny story about institutional stupidity....more
For people who want to understand the peculiar failure modes of capitalism that have been illustrated by the bubbles, crashes, and bailouts of the pasFor people who want to understand the peculiar failure modes of capitalism that have been illustrated by the bubbles, crashes, and bailouts of the past decade, Liar's Poker is required reading. Not that it provides solutions to the problems (far from it), but it illustrates the problem space perhaps better than any other book I know.
It does this by means of a sympathetic, yet introspective, portrayal of the vicious, base-natured villainy that is Wall Street Corporate culture. There is little room to doubt that the attitudes and practices presented in this book are directly responsible for far reaching problems affecting the world, yet it's easy to see why instead of being received as a warning the book was embraced as a how-to guide by a generation of ambitious would-be finance jockeys.
"Never before have so many unskilled twenty-four-year-olds made so much money in so little time as we did this decade in New York and London. There has never before been such a fantastic exception to the rule of the marketplace that one takes out no more than one puts in."
Consider this: I read this book shortly after Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy and concurrent with Kerouac's On The Road. I think in those two counter-cultural touchpoints there may be one or two figures who would not jump at the proposition above with both feet, but for most of them the embrace would be as instinctive as breathing. In a weird way, the Wall Street abuses were part of an unbroken continuum with that counter-culture. Sal Paradise would have done very well for himself here. At the same time, the subversion of the bourgeois ideal of incremental cumulative reward for societal benefits of ones labor is like a victory point scored by capitalism against itself. Imagine the high scoring games that would occur if soccer players could increase their salary by an order of magnitude with an own-goal.
The era Michael Lewis illustrates here didn't die or collapse at the end of the 80s, it has continued and if anything has become more extreme to the present day. However, it's difficult to blame the individuals for being self-interested (in the soulless, paranoid way of empty suits), or the politicians for not solving a problem when no solution is clearly possible. Like the attempts to introduce "balancing" factors to a biological ecosystem, each iteration makes the old problems worse while introducing new ones.
The genius of this book is that it is a highly enjoyable and readable frolic, which only becomes oppressive and dismal when you stand back and think about what it entails. Sadly, many readers never take that last step and flock to become the next generation of piranhas on Wall Street. Given the promise of millions of dollars for people with limited ability to contribute meaningfully to society, it's hard to blame them.
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