John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Backable: The Surprising Truth Behind What Makes People Take a Chance on You

Issue No. 465 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting warns that once you start reading Backable, you won’t put it down. Think Shark Tank meets Malcolm Gladwell meets Persuasion best practices. Enjoy! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries.


LOL! Listen to Ella Fitzgerald’s 1960 “oops” version of “Mack the Knife” in West Berlin. She forgot the lyrics but won a Grammy anyway! (See Step 6 below.)

Before the Pitch, Practice the Rule of 21

It’s only March and I’ve already read another guaranteed Top-10 book for 2021. When it arrived, I read the intro—and then I just couldn’t put it down. (The sizeable stack of other “to-read” books just glared at me!)

Suneel Gupta, the author of Backable, was invited to speak at FailCon—aka the Failure Conference! His track record of big busts was so legendary, he writes, that the New York Times wrote “a full-length story on failure, with my face at the top.”

He adds, “I had spent an entire career trying to craft an image of success. Now I was the poster child for defeat. My inbox was jammed with consolation messages. My parents offered to help pay that month’s rent.”

But there was an upside. “I decided to give this new identity a try. I began emailing highly successful people using the Times article to break the ice. I’d write things like, ‘As you can see from the article below, I don’t know what I’m doing. Would you be willing to grab coffee and give me some advice?’”

What he learned: “People who change the world around them aren’t just brilliant … they’re backable. They have a seemingly mysterious superpower that lies at the intersection of ‘creativity’ and ‘persuasion.’”

This book is a must-read! Backable: The Surprising Truth Behind What Makes People Take a Chance on You features seven steps and 26 practical pointers for becoming backable. Gupta wrote it for “…hospitals, companies, charities, and studios. I joined the faculty at Harvard University to teach students how to launch backable careers.” As the co-founder of RISE, it took some convincing that his experience (and a book) could be helpful to others. It is. (A colleague emailed me today that he too couldn’t put the book down!)

Check out these seven steps. I’ve included 15 of the 26 practical pointers and you now have the ingredients for staff presentations at your next seven weekly staff meetings—or up to 26!

STEP 1: CONVINCE YOURSELF FIRST
Peter Chernin, the Oscar-nominated producer (The Greatest Showman and Ford v Ferrari), told the author that “when he’s undecided on whether to back an idea, he’ll sometimes look at the filmmaker or entrepreneur and say, ‘That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.’ Then he’ll wait to see if they back down or show conviction.”

Gupta: “What moves people isn’t charisma, but conviction.” The number one TED Talk of all time? “You might be surprised to see Sir Ken Robinson stand with a slight slouch and a hand in his pocket while he explores whether schools kill creativity.” But study his conviction about creativity.

View “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” by Sir Ken Robinson. This 2006 TED Talk has been viewed almost 70 million times!

Schedule Incubation Time. “I don’t jump to conclusions, I jump to experimentation,” said a marketing exec at LEGO. Gupta explains how a top restaurant in Spain rebuilt its menu after a fire sidelined their restaurant for four months—and why a year later, they voluntarily closed again—for more incubation time. Bill Gates takes “think weeks.” Most new ideas, says the author, “aren’t killed inside conference rooms. They’re killed inside hallways and breakrooms.” Most great ideas need incubation time—before they’re shared with others. (Attn: Colleagues, clients, and friends with “Ideation” as your top strength. Read this book!)

Steer Into Objections. “You have the most attention from investors in the first few minutes,” notes Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn. So you must steer directly into the likely objections—from the get-go. You’ll do deeper thinking by dropping the PowerPoint (the what) and creating a narrative (the why) like Jeff Bezos requires at Amazon. (Read my reviews of The Amazon Management System and 15 Minutes Including Q&A.)

STEP 2: CAST A CENTRAL CHARACTER
Here are just two of the three big ideas in Step 2:

Choose One Person. “Great storytellers don’t just focus on a central character, but also a central reader.” The author of The 4-Hour Workweek collected 26 rejection letters from publishers—because his manuscript cast too wide a net. Then he narrowed the book to the interests of just two friends (an entrepreneur and a banker). Wham! New York Times bestseller! When a customer tells you, “Wow! It’s like you created this product, program, or service just for me,” you’ll know you’ve nailed it. (Interestingly, Max De Pree wrote his classic 92-page book for board members, Called to Serve, to just one person: Verley Sangster, the new president of a theological school in Philadelphia.)

Create a Storyboard. This is a really big and brilliant idea—in just six pages. Don’t bore your investors or donors—instead, walk them through a “storyboard” of your actual customer. (Peter Drucker would use the term, your “primary customer.”) Gupta visited Airbnb’s first office and “saw illustrations on the wall that storyboarded every major detail for an Airbnb host.” See also the detailed narrative for a Dollar Shave Club customer that convinced a female investor (“with zero interest”) to back this innovative business in just 10 minutes. The storyboard created an “empathy bridge” between the backer and the shaver! Drucker would be proud!

STEP 3: FIND AN EARNED SECRET
The author began using the term, “earned secret,” after hearing a venture capitalist explain the concept—“learning something that not a lot of other people know.” Gupta once interviewed at a fast-growing tech startup. One problem: everything he had researched before the interview; the CEO already knew. So he went to UserTesting.com and within hours he had videos of three users trying to navigate the tech company’s website (total cost: $50). Halfway through the interview he showed the videos to the surprised CEO who said, “I’ve interviewed hundreds of people—and no one’s ever prepared something like this.”

Go Beyond Google. This is must-read section—and also not a bad poster for your wall!

Intoxicate Them With Effort. When you demonstrate your conviction with personal legwork and effort—you’ll elevate your chances of getting to YES. Gupta writes about an auto exec who was pitching an idea to senior management. On his own time, he collected data on the assembly line (early morning, after work) and over several months knew every line worker by name. One supervisor even invited him to a family birthday party! Gupta coached him to flip his pitch: numbers later, his all-in legwork first. Answer: YES!

STEP 4: MAKE IT FEEL INEVITABLE
Note: See Appendix 1 for handy cheat sheet chapter summaries for your weekly staff meeting presentations.

Be an Armchair Anthropologist. Tina Sharkey asks, “What is the shift in the world that is making your idea matter?” Investors and senior leaders may not understand your idea unless you wear your “cultural anthropologist hat.” Airbnb had to document that “sharing your home with a stranger” was no longer creepy. Reminder: “Record labels had perilously ignored the iPod, and we didn’t want to make the same mistake with the iPhone.” (For more, read my review of Non Obvious Megatrends.)

With or Without Us. For some backers, you can leverage FOMO, the fear of missing out. Gupta reminds us about the Blockbuster exec who “passed on buying Netflix for $50 million.” (By the way, Netflix’s valuation on Feb. 26, 2021, was $238 billion.)

STEP 5: FLIP OUTSIDERS TO INSIDERS
Gupta notes research, dubbed “the IKEA effect,” from Harvard Business School that we place “nearly five times more value in a product we helped build than on a product we simply buy. ‘Time spent touching objects’ leads to ‘feelings of ownership and value.’” Research in the 1940s revealed that consumers felt guilty that “instant cake mixes” were too easy to bake—thus dismal sales. (Read the simple solution in Chapter 5.)

The Story of Us. To flip outsiders to insiders, you need to follow the pattern of great political speeches, writes Gupta: “the story of me,” “the story of you,” and most important, “the story of us”—what happens “when we join forces and work together.” He notes, “I’ve discovered that founders often tell the ‘story of me,’ occasionally tell the ‘story of you,’ and almost never tell the ‘story of us.’”

Make Them the Hero. Brilliant! Read these four pages on why you should always go back to people who say no—noting how you’ve addressed or incorporated the feedback you received.

STEP 6: PLAY EXHIBITION MATCHES
Guarantee! Read the intro to Step 6—and you’ll be hooked on this book and this insight. When Oren Jacob was an intern at Pixar, the company changed direction and “laid off more than half the employees.” Jacob’s dad (three cheers for dads) asked his son, “What would happen if you just went back on Monday as if nothing has changed?” LOL! He showed up, got a few raised eyebrows, and found something to do. It was the beginning of a 20-year stint where he went from “intern to technical director of A Bug’s Life to supervising technical director of Finding Nemo and finally chief technology officer for all of Pixar.”

This is convicting. Oren Jacob asked Suneel Gupta about all the practice exams Gupta took in law school. “So, for a law school exam you would spend hours practicing, but for a meeting that could have changed your career, you didn’t practice at all?”

That “punch to the gut” enabled Gupta to understand Step 6: Play Exhibition Matches. “…backable people tend to practice their pitch extensively before walking into the room.”

This is a powerful chapter—whether you’re seeking an investment, fundraising for a nonprofit, or pitching a new idea to your boss. Don’t skip these sections:

No Venue Is Too Small. Practice anywhere and on anyone! Gupta’s eight-year-old daughter has heard “plenty” of his exhibition matches!

Be Willing to Be Embarrassed. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, realized he needed to become a “student of communication.” (Note: Dick Daniels believes that “Communication is the primary competence of a leader.”)

Don’t Ask, “What Do You Think?” A medical professional “…began to see questions as medical instruments—the wrong instrument led to useless answers.”

Build Your Backable Circle. Gupta looks for the Four Cs in his “backable circle,” including a collaborator, a coach, a cheerleader (like your mom!), and a cheddar (someone “who will deliberately poke holes in your ideas”).

The Rule of 21. Your practice, practice, practice will prepare you to “welcome curveball moments” in your pitches or presentations. We can learn from jazz singers and musicians. One keynote speaker (also a jazz musician) does 21 practice rounds. Why? He knows he will mess up, “but because I’ve practiced so much, I have confidence I can recover. Knowing that makes me feel bulletproof onstage.”

For example, Ella Fitzgerald sang “Mack the Knife” to a West Berlin audience in 1960—but she forgot the lyrics! She kept singing confidently “inventing new lyrics as she went.” The crowd loved it and so did her peers. The recording earned her Best Female Vocal Performance at the Grammys in 1961. Click here to listen to her version!

STEP 7: LET GO OF YOUR EGO
Finally, Gupta introduces us to Dr. George Schaller, who studied mountain gorillas in Central Africa in 1959. He was asked, “How did you get such detailed information?” Schaller responded, “It’s simple. I didn’t carry a gun.” He discerned “you could hide a gun, but you could never hide your attitude when you carried a gun. No smile or gentleness could fully cover your unease, and the gorillas could always pick up on that.”

Suneel Gupta confesses, “After many years of struggling to become backable, I came to realize that the gun inside my backpack was my ego. That my extreme desire to impress people in the room had created distance, not connection. No matter how professional or friendly I acted, people could always tell when I wasn’t at ease.” (Another must-read chapter!)

Genius Hidden in Plain Sight. You may not be seeking investors for a startup, but don’t skip the conclusion (page 130). Gupta challenges CEOs: “…companies spend billions of dollars hiring outside consultants and high-price think tanks to come up with ideas that already exist in the minds of their employees. Their genius remains hidden in plain sight.”

And by the way, seven cheers for Gupta who delivered the meat and potatoes of this book in just 133 pages—then included value-added optional reading in Appendix 1 with helpful chapter summaries. Appendix 2 includes short highlights from interviews with nine experts on how to be backable.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Backable: The Surprising Truth Behind What Makes People Take a Chance on You, by Suneel Gupta with Carlye Adler. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours 59 minutes).

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In reflecting on “The Rule of 21,” Suneel Gupta writes that after practicing his pitch 10 times, “I felt something new. I knew the material so well that I no longer needed to focus on it. Instead, I could use that attention span to survey my audience.” Why do you think professional athletes are so diligent in their practice routines?
2) Who will volunteer to give a 10-minute presentation on Step 1 at our next staff meeting? If you beat the 10-minute clock, I’ll have a Starbucks gift card for you!
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Move From Presentation Mode to “Huddle Mode”
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

In his book, Giving & Getting in the Kingdom: A Field Guide, R. Mark Dillon, urges CEOs, pastors, and fundraisers to engage givers at the front end of a project. “Big ideas are mission-centered.” He quotes one gifted giver, “Please don’t come to me with an ‘order list’ already thought out, where my only decision is how much to give!”

“Show, Don’t Tell.” When asking for an investment, Suneel Gupta says you must shift from presentation mode to “huddle mode”—where you and your backer are looking at something together. “Huddle mode tends to put you in a place where you’re more natural, comfortable, and confident.”

For more insights on nonprofit fundraising, check out the resources in the Donor Bucket.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Backable suggests that sometimes your pitch might be more believable if it’s low tech, not high tech. Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video) and ask him to tell you about his intentional “low tech” boardroom presentation in New York City—featuring colored markers on the white wall of a conference room (not a whiteboard). LOL!
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Succession: Seven Practices to Navigate Mission-Critical Leadership Transitions

Issue No. 464 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting cautions: Don’t fumble your leadership succession baton pass. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my recent review of 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God.


Worst baton pass ever? Click here to view the NBC Sports two-minute YouTube video of China's catastrophic 4x100 relay handoff in the 2019 World Athletics Championship.

Worst Baton Pass Ever!

Years ago, over lunch in Dallas with Dan Bolin, we were discussing the possibility of his serving on the board of Christian Management Association (now CLA). We were good friends and I wanted an honest answer from him. If he were on the board and sensed that it was time for me to exit—would he have the guts to…?

Dan interrupted before I finished my question. “You’re asking, John, could I fire you—if needed? No problem!”

We both laughed—and I believed him! Gratefully, I was privileged to serve 11 years (without a pink slip) as the CEO of CMA before moving on to consulting in 2006, but I’ll never forget that succession conversation!

“No matter how hard we try to fight it or forget it, we all have an expiration date in our leadership,” warn the authors of Succession: Seven Practices to Navigate Mission-Critical Leadership Transitions.

If this COVID marathon has prompted you to reflect more frequently about your current position (or your current CEO), authors Peter Greer and Doug Fagerstrom remind us, “If you’re thinking about succession at the moment when you need a successor, you’re too late!” This short, fast-reading book, is another must-read on my list. Here’s why:

1 WORD. After 35 years as pastor at Wooddale Church in the Minneapolis suburbs, Leith Anderson was contemplating his exit. “Shortly after he had developed a succession plan for the board to engage in and follow, he called his mentor, Lyle Schaller, and asked what he should do next. Lyle gave him one word: ‘Leave.’”

2 LETTERS. “This might be slightly macabre,” writes Greer, president and CEO of HOPE International. He keeps two letters in his desk drawer. “My resignation letter reminds me that one day I will leave my role, and my eulogy reminds me to live today in light of what matters most.”

3 BATONS. The authors collected in-the-trenches transition stories (the good, the bad, and the ugly) from ministry and business leaders—and passed them along to us, with the reminder (and the metaphor) that the baton pass between leaders is oh-so-challenging, but possible.

  • The Good Baton Pass. When Chris Crane passed the CEO baton to Tiger Dawson at Edify, the two co-founders used an actual runner’s baton. My suggestion to CEOs: buy the baton now—click here for Amazon—and keep it on your desk to remind yourself that “Every CEO Is an Interim CEO” per ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning.

  • The Bad Baton Pass. One new CEO asked a former CEO if he wanted the baton passed back to him! When asked why, the new CEO said, “Because you are meddling in the ministry.” Apparently the previous CEO wouldn’t let go of the baton. Yikes.

  • The Ugly Baton Pass. The authors describe what’s been called “The Worst Baton Pass Ever.” It’s painful to watch, but click here to view NBC Sports’ two-minute YouTube video of China's catastrophic 4x100 women’s relay handoff (actually, bungled handoff) in the 2019 World Athletics Championship.

4 PRIORITIES. Transition, timing, building, and communicating. Those are the phases and priorities for the new leader, according to McKinsey and Company. Before you arrive in the transition phase, read the wisdom in The First 90 Days and Managing Transitions.

4 WORDS. The authors ask, “What does it mean to steward a mission [and your succession] well? Russ Crosson says it’s the fundamental punchline and it’s just four words “It’s not about you.”

5 MISTAKES. Don’t make the mistake of skipping Appendix 8 on the five mistakes that boards must avoid. Mistake #2: You should never commit the role, in advance, to an internal person. “The board should not be restricted to a choice of one, as circumstances and board members change.”

6 QUESTIONS. Actually, there are 12 helpful questions to ask yourself: stay or go? My six favorite:
   • 2. Am I more nostalgic about the past or energized by where the organization is going?
   • 3. Am I more focused on my own security and status or the needs of staff and stakeholders?
   • 6. Am I still committed to active learning and excellence? Is the organization?
   • 8. Is the board more committed to me as the leader or to the mission? Is there any significant misalignment with the board?
   • 9. Are there difficult conversations that the board or management are avoiding?
   • 10. Am I asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’ or ‘What’s best for the organization?’

7 PRACTICES. The meat of the book builds on seven specific practices in a successful succession—framed from the best practices of successful relay races. Four cheers (with my mask on) for the fourth best practice, “Listen to the coach!” The authors warn, “We ignore the advice of coaches to our own peril.”
• “Coaching isn’t just for athletics; it’s for each of us. In succession planning, why would we skip the coaching and try to figure it all out on our own?”
• “There may be no time that mentorship is more important than in succession planning.”

8 COPIES. Buy at least eight copies for your CEO, senior leaders, and the executive committee of your board.

9 INSIGHTS. Addressing three leadership myths on successions (#1: “I’m indispensable”), the chart on page 55 (I love charts!) lists three key attributes (pride, busyness, and insecurity), three truths (“There are people who will do this job well—and even better”), and three corrective pursuits (“…make it an annual conversation with the board”).

THERE’S MORE! I can’t quote the entire book here, but I’m tempted. The nuances down little side alleys are extraordinary and memorable. You’ll rarely find this practical wisdom (and mini-case studies) in the succession literature. Examples:
   • Humility. The book’s “humility” theme is stunning (emphasized 20 times!)—unlike any succession book I’ve read. That heart of humility, in my calculation, said I could learn from this book.
   • Secret Sauce. This warning for outgoing leaders who naively believe that everything they did is part of the organization’s “secret sauce”—and consequently, from a distance, then resist or bad mouth even minor changes: Don’t!
   • The Power of Symbols. The use of an actual baton to create a moment reminds me of my pick for the 2017 book-of-the-year, The Power of Moments.

ACTION STEPS. Each chapter includes action steps for four segments: Outgoing Leader, Incoming Leader, Board, and Staff. For the outgoing leader: “Annually, give the board the names of five people who could do your job well.” And for the incoming leader, this counsel from Steve Douglass, then president of Cru, to Doug Fagerstrom on how to prepare for his new role as CEO of Marketplace Chaplains. “Just one thing, Doug: Pray like you’ve never prayed before.”
   • Unique Successions. Read the short insights for four unique succession scenarios: founder, family member, successful leader, and unsuccessful leader. “We celebrate success stories, but it may be tough to follow one.”
   • Lose/Lose. The authors quote Mario Zandstra: “If you plan a succession well, you might lose your job early. But if you plan too late, you might lose the organization.”
   • Heart Surgery! “Before beginning the practices of succession planning, we must undergo heart surgery.” Early in his leadership years, Greer, with three kids under age five and huge organizational challenges, confessed that he was “doing an exceptionally poor job keeping my priorities in place. I had been away more than a hundred nights that year.” He explored other positions, but soon realized that the duo sins of pride and fear would undermine a healthy succession. “While a job change wasn’t needed, a heart change certainly was.”

3 MORE QUESTIONS. “Every three years in the executive evaluation, Jack Crowley asks himself and his team to consider the following questions:
   • What kind of organization are we in this season?
   • What type of leader do we need now?
   • Is it still me?”

Finally, this from Fred Smith: “How you leave is what people remember the most—even more than what you did while you were there.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Succession: Seven Practices to Navigate Mission-Critical Leadership Transitions, by Peter Greer and Doug Fagerstrom, with Brianna Lapp. Read more from the authors: The Volunteer (Fagerstrom), Mission Drift (Greer), and Rooting for Rivals (Greer).

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In their book, The Talent Masters, Bill Conaty and Ram Charan write, “Only one competency lasts. It is the ability to create a steady, self-renewing stream of leaders.” (Read my review.) How deep and fresh is our leadership pipeline?
2) Greer and Fagerstrom admonish outgoing CEOs: Clean up the mess before you leave! The authors quote McKinsey and Company: “Departing chief executives can leave their companies in the best possible shape by embracing tough decisions rather than leaving them for the incoming CEO.” No need to wait for the actual succession event—what mess (or messes) should be cleaned up this quarter? 
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“He took his shoes with him!”
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

Speaking of shoes…order your own St. Ignatius of Loyola high tops from the Soulwalk Series, or Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” from the Art Series at Saints and Sneakers, created by Jason Pearson. Click here.

Randy Frazee received the leadership baton from Max Lucado at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. In their book, Next: Pastoral Succession That Works, William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird describe Frazee’s “humorous visual picture” one Sunday morning. “Visiting the church shortly before it hired him, Randy publicly addressed what many recognized as the elephant in the room. Six inches shorter than Max Lucado, Randy asked him to come on stage. The two tried on each other’s shoes, to no avail. Point made. A standing ovation ensured.”

Dale Burke followed Chuck Swindoll as pastor of Fullerton Free in Fullerton, Calif. Burke quipped when asked what it was like to fill Swindoll’s shoes: “He is a wise leader, and took his shoes with him.”

The Next authors remind all pastors (and leaders): “Every arriving pastor will one day be a departing pastor. It’s not a question of if, but when.” (Note: Frazee and Burke have both departed those pastorates.) I encourage you to get ready for your next leadership succession (planned or unplanned). 

READ MORE:
• Next: Pastoral Succession That Works (Expanded and Updated, 2020), by William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird (Order from Amazon)

• ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4 - Succession Planning: Eleven Principles for Successful Successions. Download here. To read my series of 11 blogs on the 11 principles, click here.

• The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire, by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, describes four types of CEO retirement transitions: the monarch, the general, the ambassador, the governor. (Read my review.)

For more insights on succession, and the board's role, check out the resources in the Board Bucket.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do have some media messes that need to be cleaned up? “We ignore the advice of coaches to our own peril.” Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Fight House - POTUS Pop Quiz!

Issue No. 463 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting revisits Fight House, the page-turning book that chronicles rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. This Part 2 review features a Pop Quiz! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for another double bonus—two 2017 reviews of The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.


Author Tevi Troy notes that many White House staffs engaged in “process fouls,” defined as “not going through normal channels, not inviting the right people to meetings, not sticking to your lane, and the like.”

POTUS Pop Quiz! (Part 2 review of Fight House)

Today marks the 22nd day of the Biden/Harris administration. So far, it appears, all of Biden’s White House staff and cabinet members are still at their desks, unlike Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s second White House Director of Communications. He exited after just 11 days in that position!

This is Part 2 of my review of Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, by Tevi Troy. (Click here to read Part 1.) Staff turnover, leaks, and rivalries—fueled by ego, arrogance, and all sorts of character flaws—are sadly the stuff of every White House. It’s disappointing, but delicious reading.

For example, Obama’s brilliant brand and aspiration, “No Drama Obama,” while sincere and noble according to the author, missed the mark many times. Obama’s first term cycled through three chiefs of staff (Rahm Emanuel, William Daley, and Jacob Lew; and four if you count an interim chief) until finally Denis McDonough survived all four years of Obama’s second term.

In Part 1 we spotlighted snippets on Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. So why should you read Part 2 on Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump? The author quotes Harry Truman: “The only thing new in this world is the history you haven’t read.”

POP QUIZ! Match these eight presidents to the eight statements below. (There will be prizes for perfect scores.)

1) Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
2) Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
3) Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
4) George H.W. Bush (1989-1993)
5) Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
6) George W. Bush (2001-2009)
7) Barack Obama (2009-2017)
8) Donald Trump (2017-2021)

___ A. “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

___ B. “When asked about stories of infighting in the White House, [he] responded that strife did not bother him; he encouraged it. ‘I like conflict,’ he told reporters, elaborating that ‘I like having two people with different points of view. And I certainly have that. And then I make a decision. I like watching it. I like seeing it and I think it is the best way to go.’”

___ C. “[He] was also the first MBA president. As such, he stressed strong management principles and discipline in the running of the White House staff. On the management side, [he] took the theory and practice of management seriously. As [an aide] put it, ‘I have read Peter Drucker, but I’d never seen Drucker until I saw [the president] in action.’ [His] campaign manager…agreed, saying that [he] ‘is the best one-minute manager I’ve ever been associated with.’”

___ D. “As president, though, [his] niceness was part of the problem. Immediately after acknowledging that [he] had the right skills and temperament for his House job, [the author of Organizing the Presidency] also noted that ‘running the White House required a more commanding approach.’”

___ E. A policy adviser “described that initial period as ‘just chaotic. There wasn’t anybody in charge.’ [A media consultant] had a similar view, but also noted [the chief of staff’s] lack of a coherent process. As [he] put it, [the president’s] ‘first White House staff, and the way they constantly went around [the chief of staff]—it was destructive.’ As a result, ‘everybody was freelancing, everybody was promoting themselves, everybody was looking out for themselves.’ [Another person] recalled that things were so bad that ‘There was a piece in I believe the New York Times that basically said this would be a failed presidency. You know, ten days into [the president’s] first term.’”

REMINDER FROM PART 1: In a fascinating three-page appendix, the author includes “The Infighting Scorecard” chart—listing a “trio” of the “three leading causes of staff infighting common to the modern presidency and most organizations,” he says. The chart lists the presidents on the left and these categories across the top:
• Ideological Discord (low to high)
• Process (tight to loose)
• Tolerance for Infighting (low to high)

___F. “On the three-part test of ideology, process, and presidential tolerance, [this president] and his team score poorly. The central battle of the administration, the one between [the secretary of state and the National Security Adviser], took place between two antagonists with well-known ideological disagreements over foreign policy. The process challenge was worsened by the lack of a chief of staff to mediate disputes in the administration’s early days, followed by the appointment of a self-admitted ineffective chief of staff…”

___G. This president’s trusted campaign staffer went to work at the White House—where there was a strong culture of congeniality and no leaking. But “…he was more prone to violate some of the rules [i.e. no leaking] he so carefully adhered to during the campaign. In one telling instance during the transition, [he] was approving press releases and noted the announcement of a new White House communications director, the very job he wanted and expected. He was unhappy both with the decision and the way he found out about it: ‘Not only did I not get it, but this was the professional equivalent of being broken up with via a Post-it note. This was messed up.’”

___ H. The First Lady’s influence in the White House was often profound—especially for this president, who joked at the Gridiron Dinner, “[My wife and my chief of staff] tried to patch things up the other day. They met privately over lunch—just the two of them and their food tasters.”

ANSWERS. Click here for the answers (and the prizes!), posted on my Book Bucket webpage.

I hope these teasers will inspire you to read the book. As I mentioned in my Part 1 review, these mini-case studies in leadership, administration, team-building, and team-denigrating are must-read. Politics aside, CEOs and senior leaders would do well to study the good and the bad—and look in the mirror often.

Why my mirror metaphor? Richard “Dick” Darman, director of the OMB under Bush 41, gets roughed up in this book—and it appears with good reason. “His bragging about how he had forsaken private sector opportunities for public service led one unimpressed participant to joke that he was pulling his ‘St. Dick’ act.” I found that insightful—recalling that dozens of nonprofit CEOs over the years have gone out of their way to remind me that they had successful (i.e. well-paying) careers first in the marketplace.

ONE MORE THING…that I’ve never noticed in writing more than 450 book reviews: Tevi Troy’s word choices are perfect and precise. I always read with pen in hand and so I began circling the rich and memorable vocabulary that punctuates his points. Examples: politesse, priggish, propinquity, sobriquet, sycophancy, and declension. (On declension, “Winston Churchill himself once famously mocked [U.S. Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles: ‘Dull, Duller, Dulles…’”)

While feasting on this book and the descriptive word choices, I had ongoing conversations with my new Echo Show (my favorite Christmas gift). “Alexa! Definition for ‘malleability.’” Her answer: “capable of being shaped, as by hammering or pressing”—the perfect definition for the sharp-elbowed culture of White House relationships! (Read this!)

More gleanings from the author’s government glossary: schadenfreude, symbiosis, interlopers, internecine, obsequiousness, puerile, stratagems, putatively, and spelunking. (LOL! One Ford senior advisor went around the chief of staff directly to the Oval Office for “inbox spelunking!”) And this: leakers would “use an absurdly big word, a word from the hoary depths of the dictionary, like ‘inchoate’…” and thus the leak would be blamed on a staffer who pridefully used such words!

As you watch the Biden/Harris administration in action (and wonder who leaked what), remember this wisdom from Ecclesiastes: “There’s nothing new on this earth. Year after year it’s the same old thing. Does someone call out, ‘Hey, this is new’? Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, by Tevi Troy. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (9 hours).

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Author Tevi Troy noted that many White House staffs engaged in “process fouls,” defined as “not going through normal channels, not inviting the right people to meetings, not sticking to your lane, and the like.” Any process fouls in your organization recently?
2) Fight House notes that “Andy Card used to tell staffers that ‘George W. Bush is the most disciplined person I know.’ This discipline, Card would explain, extended to his exercise, his religious worship, and his management of the White House staff.” Who’s the most disciplined leader you know? Why? 
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George Shultz’s Pop Quiz for Ambassadors!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

Maybe…we should add another name to the core competency of the Drucker Bucket? “We don’t just give lip service to management—we are disciplined students of great leadership and management thinkers like Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard and others [like George Shultz].”

The U.S. statesman George Shultz died on Feb. 6 at age 100. Media tributes have abounded, rightfully, including a column from Fight House author Tevi Troy who noted that Shultz was “one of only two Americans (along with Elliott Richardson) to hold four cabinet-level positions—serving as Secretary of State, Treasury, and Labor, as well as director of the Office of Management and Budget.”

Troy adds, “By legend, he maintained a one-page resume, leading to the ‘George Shultz Resume Rule,’ which I often share with job-seekers: ‘George Shultz had a one-page resume. If he did it on one page, so can you.’”

His tribute also shared this: “The State Department was also the source of the most legendary George Shultz story. Shultz would call all newly minted advisers up to his office before sending them off on their new postings. He would walk the ambassadors over to the globe he had in his office, and tell them, ‘I'm going to spin the globe and I want you to put your hand on your country.’ After each ambassador earnestly pointed to the country to which he or she was headed, Shultz would correct them, explaining that their country was the United States of America.”
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. If clients and donors think of your branding as “Dull, Duller, or Dullest,” you’re overdue for a refresh. Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God

Issue No. 462 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting proposes a radical journey during COVID—30 days off-the-grid with St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. (Or try a one-day silent retreat for starters.) And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my recent review of Leadership Core: Character, Competence, Capacity.


30 Days Unplugged author Father Merlino imagines a podcast with Jesus from Luke 2:41-50. (Art by Mark Dever)

Father Merlino Goes Off-the-Grid With St. Ignatius!

Apparently, when you turn off your iPhone and other distractions—and follow the St. Ignatius spiritual exercises for 30 days (not a typo!)—you’ll discover that Jesus delivers some very, very funny lines!

At least that was the 2018 profound experience of Father Darrin Merlino, a Catholic priest in between assignments. During COVID in 2020, when we were “forced to live like monks” (LOL!), he reflected back on that fork-in-the-road month at a Colorado retreat center. And gratefully for us, he shares his joy-filled journey and journal with us. You must read 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God.

But first, let’s back up a minute for context. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) was born in his family’s castle in Spain, sowed his wild oats early, excelled in military skirmishes, but a cannonball almost did him in. While recuperating, he read The Life of Christ and became a Christ-follower. Another early influential book was The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis.

On a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Ignatius’ ship was detained and he spent a serendipitous year growing his faith in the Catalonia region of Spain, begging, working, and reading the stories of St. Francis. Thus began his work on The Spiritual Exercises—instructions on how to take a spiritual retreat.

Hmmm. While this sounds interesting, even beneficial, most of us can’t imagine “30 days unplugged.” Good for a priest or a pastor—certainly. Realistic for the rest of us? Hardly. (But as Lee Corso always warns on ESPN, “Not so fast, my friend!”)

Keep reading, please. Even Father Merlino wondered if his larger-than-life personality, with a super-sized relational side, could cope in a cloistered 30-day Ignatian silent retreat in Sedalia, Colo. Yet he confesses that after serving as a priest for 20 years, “that month was truly life-altering for me.” He adds, “The only reason I was able to hear His voice so clearly was that I had turned off my tech—not an easy task for someone addicted to his phone and laptop…”

My Confession. If you’re like me during this unending lockdown, you can hardly wait to travel again. But Father Merlino has an alternative travel plan for us—follow “St. Ignatius’ map to the journey of a lifetime.”

St. Ignatius (who, by the way, was named the patron saint of spiritual retreats in 1922), structured a four-part rhythm/retreat experience—over four weeks (30 days). As recommended, during his July 1-30, 2018 retreat, Fr. Merlino met each morning with a spiritual director who provided handouts/assignments and encouragement.

The practice of solitude and silence enabled Fr. Merlino to engage in the Meditations (intellect) and the Contemplations (imagination). Using our imagination and creativity, St. Ignatius urges us to picture ourselves in the Gospel stories. Example:

Fr. Merlino pictured himself in Luke 2:41-50 as Matthew Marconi, the interviewer and podcaster, broadcasting a Q&A segment with Jesus on his “Matthew on the Mic Show.” The first caller’s question to Jesus: “Yeah. Uhh, my name is Charlie from Nova Scotia. What did you talk about with the Jewish leaders in the Temple?”

Jesus explains and then adds, “When I was a twelve-year-old boy in the Temple, I got through the explanation of about 200 prophecies when My mom and dad showed up. I was on a roll. I was shocked to see My parents, really. I wasn’t sure why they were there.” (You must read the full narrative for July 16!)

In the exercises, St. Ignatius asks retreatants to leverage their hearts, minds, and senses. You’ll enjoy July 9 (“I really had a lot of fun with these meditations throughout the day”) when Fr. Merlino journals more than 175 things that have touched his senses over the years. Just a few here:
   • Tasted: In-N-Out Burgers, Parma prosciutto, gelato (he’s Italian!)
   • Seen: Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier, Sistine Chapel, Venice
   • Smelled: garlic, coffee, cologne
   • Heard: children laughing, the click of a camera, Gregorian Chant
   • Touched: soft bread, pinching cheeks, Eucharist

What’s on your taste-see-smell-hear-touch list? Amazingly, this unpretentious priest grants us permission to read his journal! His transparency is refreshing.
• Fr. Merlino imagines God at a workbench “creating a computer program, which is me. I see all my gifts and talents, one by one, being added.” He adds, “Unfortunately, I then see Him taking away the ability to be organized. Yes, He does have a sense of humor!”
• “My spiritual director suggests I read Isaiah 43:1-19 at least three times out loud.” Fr. Merlino then imagines a new image in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling: Adam is out. He’s in!

“Pearson—you mentioned there was Jesus humor. Is there more?”
• In Fr. Merlino’s commentary on Luke 2:51-52, he notes, “Breaking from my meditation, what I find fascinating is that none of the boys in Nazareth made the cut to be an Apostle!”
• Imaging himself as a guest on Bill Maher’s TV show: “He is accusing me of being a sinner. I say, ‘Duh, of course I am. The difference between you and me is that I admit that I am a sinner, but you haven’t yet.’”
• Yet, Fr. Merlino’s guardian angel chimes in, “This one is taking forever to perfect.”
• Archbishop Fulton Sheen, speaking to prisoners, “The difference between you and me is that you got caught.” (True story!)

In silence and solitude, Fr. Merlino recalled his calling while reading the meditation on Matthew 4:18-25. At the time, he “had NO desire to be a priest, ever!” Yet he writes that on January 6, 1987, around 10:30 p.m. “my mom blurted out of nowhere, ‘I think the Lord is calling you to be a priest.’” He admits, “All of a sudden, I felt a real strong presence of the Holy Spirit, causing me to lose my breath. It almost literally suffocated me.”

Fortunately, Fr. Merlino survived his calling (!), and over a mile high in Colorado in 2018, he discerned, and the Lord confirmed, his calling to media evangelism as co-founder of Catholic Media Missionaries. (Media? His ordination in 2000 was the first ever in U.S. history to be broadcast live via the internet). Visit his website here to learn more, including how to view CMM’s flagship video conversation series, “Hound of Heaven.” (Note: discernment is a big deal in St. Ignatius’ spiritual exercises.)

Did you know—that TV’s “instant replay” is a form of contemplation? 30 Days Unplugged notes, “Contemplation comes easily if we let it. It is simply part of us and of our world. Whenever we recall a keenly embarrassing moment, or a fondly remembered moment in our lives we are contemplating them. We are replaying them, making them a deeper part of our lives.” And this insight about contemplation: “It lets the Church, and us, remember the many things [Jesus] said and did. And, we can hardly be surprised that, where we do not have all the data, we fill in; we make the moment come alive. His story is important, and we want to keep remembering and retelling it.”

And wow, God has gifted Father Merlino with a vivid imagination! He invites us to scamper along his rabbit trails and sidebars, including: George McFly in Back to the Future, the Divine experience of an eight-man rowing crew team (reminded me of The Boys in the Boat), then at Dodger Stadium—he’s blasting home runs during BP. And get this: under Michelangelo’s tutelage, “God chisels me fatter and bald to show me the true image of how he sees me now.”

There’s more: Chesterton Chats, “Freedom” by Aretha Franklin, the Incredible Hulk, Wonder Woman, God putting the finishing touches on his D.I. “Darrin’s intelligence,” and “Grow the heck up!” Crafting a personal mission statement—then with Holy Spirit nudges, re-writing Version 2.0 around midnight. Brilliant: how Jesus wipes “away sin like a high-powered windshield wiper during a heavy rain.”

In the July 10 meditation on Psalm 34, Fr. Merlino asks, “How can my soul glory in God?” and the answer comes to him through songs and hymns. The line “Taste and see that the Lord is good” is paraphrased in The Message (think the senses) as: “Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—how good God is. Blessed are you who run to him.” So, naturally, this sent me to YouTube where I found The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir’s “taste and see” version with almost 27 million views!

Listen to The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sing Psalm 34 (8 min.)

BONUS! 30 Days Unplugged features stunning original artwork—more than 60 drawings by 24 artists. Buy two books: one for your coffee table and one to read and reread and reread. Visit the artists here.

Finally, be assured Fr. Merlino knows that most of us will not be able to do the 30-day silence and solitude drill. There is an eight-day option. Even Dr. Scott Hahn, who wrote the foreword, admits he may never do the 30-day plan, but adds, “I have two sons who have done it, and I’ve seen the difference it made in them as they discerned their priestly vocation.”

30 Days Unplugged includes five next steps, suggesting you “use this book for a makeshift home retreat.” Plus, the robust website, Ignatian Spirituality, includes a nine-minute video with a summary of the four phases of The Spiritual Exercises. The video also suggests alternatives to the 30-day experience. Click here. Need a retreat location? Click here and click here.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God (Full Color Edition), by Father Darrin Merlino, CMF. Note: To order the specially-priced “Black & White Edition,” click here.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) The prayer for July 9 in 30 Days Unplugged, includes this: “Teach me to listen, Holy Spirit, for Your voice—in busyness and in boredom, in certainty and in doubt, in noise and in silence. Teach me, O God, to listen.” When you’ve experienced boredom during this COVID marathon, how have you addressed it spiritually?
2) Father Merlino invested five hours in the spiritual exercises for July 9. During the fourth prayer period, he focused on: risks I took (“jumping off a bridge about 90 feet above the water”), dangers experienced, influences, Scriptural influences, cherished people, life’s achievements, and unfulfilled desires. What would be the value for you—of pausing and reflecting for an entire day with the Lord? 
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“Our Perennial Knack for Disobedience”
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

Read 30 Days Unplugged and Fr. Merlino’s reminder that Jesus’ forgiveness covers kleptomaniac kids and disorganized adults. Amen!

The core competency in the Book Bucket notes, “We mentor team members with thoughtfully selected titles and chapters to help them…grow in their faith and serve others with passion. We don’t just talk about books—we actually read them!” Here are four resources for exercising your spiritual muscles:

#1. Leadership Transformations. Steve Macchia is president of Leadership Transformations (click here) which has a plethora of resources for spiritual formation, including online soul care events, and a spiritual discernment retreat guide (read my review).

Speaking of prison (see above), in his book Crafting a Rule of Life, Steve Macchia profiles the great hymnwriter Fanny Crosby (8,000 hymns!). She wrote “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” after speaking at a prison prayer service and heard one of the prisoners shout, “Savior, do not pass me by!” I found this soulful version by Lyle Lovett. Click to enjoy.


Listen to Lyle Lovett sing “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior” (5-minutes).

#2. Renovaré. Richard Foster, in Devotional Classics, writes about the four-part rhythm of St. Ignatius’ 30-day exercises: “We need a deeper musing upon our perennial knack for disobedience and God’s unbounded habit of mercy. We need a rich contemplation upon that Life that shows us the way so we may follow ‘in his steps.’ We need a fuller meditation upon that Death that sets us free. We need a more profound experience of that Resurrection that empowers us to obey Christ in all things.”

#3. “Slow Down and Wait on God” is Lesson 28 in Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom: 40 Insights for Better Board Meetings (2nd Edition), by Dan Busby and John Pearson (order from Amazon). The lesson includes a summary of Lorne Sanny’s classic, “How to Spend a Day in Prayer.” Click here to read the short chapter online.

#4. Ruth Haley Barton and the Transforming Center offer retreats, books, and the podcast, “Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership.” (Read the review of my pick for 2009 book-of-the-year.) Barton says, “The best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self.”
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are you writing a book during COVID? Many authors are self-publishing. (Jason collaborated with Fr. Merlino on 30 Days Unplugged.) Need help? Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump

Issue No. 461 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a page-turning book that Joe Biden should read—chronicling rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2020 Book(s)-of-the-Year and Top-10 picks.



“Washington has a ladder that goes up and down, and those you kick beneath you on the ladder might—will—kick back harder when they are on an upper rung.”

The Infighting Scorecard (Part 1)

Let’s hope Joe Biden’s first White House staff meeting this week didn’t replicate the chaos of President Carter’s crew. According to Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, “On the very first day of the Carter administration, the staff had no idea who should run meetings.”

With no designated chief of staff (per Jimmy Carter’s preference), the power plays were palpable—but no leader emerged. A staffer asked Hamilton Jordan (who ran the Carter campaign), “Should we have a staff meeting every day?” Jordan’s response, “We’ll have a meeting when there’s something to meet about.”

Whoa! Tevi Troy, bestselling author and former White House advisor, wrote this page-turner a year ago—and I couldn’t put it down. But caution: this book’s main characters will disappoint you (red or blue). The author says there is “nothing new under the sun” and “infighting has been constant in every presidential administration since George Washington.” Ditto the Trump White House—nothing new.

Thus “Fight House,” unfortunately for the American people, is more descriptive than “White House.” Think dysfunction, chaos, confusion, and rivalries. It’s sad, really—but very juicy reading!

These mini-case studies in leadership, administration, team-building, and team-denigrating are so insightful, I’m splitting my review into two issues.

PART 1 OF 2: PRESIDENTS TRUMAN TO NIXON

“The president needs help” was the four-word summary from the Committee on Administrative Management, convened by Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945). They suggested that Congress fund six “executive assistant” positions. The criteria: people “possessed of high competence” who had a “passion for anonymity.” No leaking? How’d that work out?

So Congress established the Executive Office of the President in 1939. Shocking, but true—that staff of six has mushroomed to more than 1,600 people today, according to the author. Yikes. Here’s a taste of staff rivalries over the decades:

HARRY TRUMAN (1945-1953). Truman employed a “spokes-on-the-wheel” staff structure (“in which aides reported to a centralized hub in the form of the president himself”—no chief of staff). Truman was a listener more than a reader—he preferred oral briefings, not memos. The rivalries between the cabinet secretaries and the White House staff were just warming up—yet Truman rarely addressed conflict.

News Flash! I’m guessing that more than a few Joe Biden staffers began writing their White House memoirs this week! The memoir wars in Fight House is a repeating theme—and Tevi Troy’s research is vast. The 34 pages of endnotes and book references may bust my book budget.

For example: Clark Clifford, Truman’s special counsel, battled with General George Marshall (Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State). Clifford’s memoir: “Not only did he never speak to me again after that meeting, but, according to his official biographer, he never again mentioned my name.”

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1953-1961). “If Truman liked order, his successor Dwight Eisenhower loved it. The mercurial Truman saw order as professionally necessary. Eisenhower saw it as a way of life.” Ike on Truman: “…he didn’t know any more about government than a dog knows about religion.”

One of the first presidents to have a chief of staff, Ike “also believed in cabinet government and gave his department heads leeway to run things as they saw fit.” Troy notes that by increasing the White House staff from 32 to 50 it exacerbated conflict and rivalries. A larger staff created more temptation “to run the departments from the White House.”

In a fascinating three-page appendix, the author includes “The Infighting Scorecard” chart—listing a “trio” of the “three leading causes of staff infighting common to the modern presidency and most organizations,” he says. (Assignment: create a scorecard for your organization!) The chart lists the presidents on the left and these categories across the top:
   • Ideological Discord (low to high)
   • Process (tight to loose)
   • Tolerance for Infighting (low to high)
   • Result

Ike’s scores? Where Truman preferred a “relatively non-contentious environment,” Eisenhower “preferred not to see conflict, but was willing to set some up to get better results.” (Tune in to my Part 2 issue and you might be surprised how Obama and Trump fared on the scorecard.) For more on Eisenhower, click here to read my November 2020 review of How Ike Led.

JOHN F. KENNEDY (1961-1963). Tevi Troy notes that the “modern celebrity culture began to influence the world of politics” during JFK’s term. The chapter’s LOL subtitle: “Passion for Anonymity on the White House Staff? Not So Much.” He says that the best-known feud was between VP Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General “Bobby” Kennedy (JFK’s brother). The “drama and fury” would “make for an excellent Netflix series,” Troy writes.

Attn: Kamala Harris! The vice president position “to outsiders, is a position of great prestige, but to a power player like Johnson, the former Senate majority leader, it was a comedown.” Johnson was miserable as VP. “I detested every minute of it,” said LBJ who had a phone installed in his office for direct calls from the White House, “but the phone rarely rang.”

The shocking nicknames that the Kennedy team used for LBJ were beyond the pale. The author’s five-page appendix of “White House Nicknames” is eye-opening: “Professor Leaky,” “Director of the Sanitation Department,” “ABC News Commentraitor,” and more.

The LBJ/Bobby Kennedy “dynamic shifted again after Kennedy’s assassination, and Bobby ended up serving unhappily under the thumb of the man he tormented.” The lesson to all future White House staffers: “…tread carefully. Washington has a ladder that goes up and down, and those you kick beneath you on the ladder might—will—kick back harder when they are on an upper rung.”

LYNDON B. JOHNSON (1963-1969). Troy reveals that rivalries in the LBJ era were “president-focused rather than staff-focused. Rivalries were not based on who had access to the president as much as who the president targeted.” Often an active participant in staff conflicts, Johnson’s bullying style exacerbated the drama.

Where Ike and JFK each had two secretaries, Johnson needed five to keep up with his herculean output. He worked two shifts every day (6 a.m. to midnight, with an afternoon nap). LBJ: “An eight-hour man ain’t worth a damn to me.” Press Secretary George Reedy termed the White House “an indoor stadium hosting a perpetual track meet.”

“All of this berating and mood swinging came from Johnson’s own sense of inadequacy.” He hated leaks. (Read my review of Robert Novak’s 662-page memoir, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington.) “Johnson even suggested building a wall between the West Wing and the Old Executive Office Building to separate reporters from staff physically.”

What’s your style: reader or listener? LBJ’s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara “was famously impatient, eschewing oral briefings.” Why? “Because I can read faster than they can talk.”

The author weaves insightful commentary on leadership styles and a leader’s tolerance for conflicting views—“a recurring problem in White House management.” Without a forum for dissenting views at least three things will happen: leaking, behind-the-back whispering, and “writing unfavorable memoirs.”

And this is tragic. According to sources I researched, one out of every 10 Americans who served in the Vietnam war (1955-1975) was a casualty. A total of 58,148 were killed and 304,000 were wounded out of 2.7 million who served. Could we have lessened the pain? The author’s last page in the LBJ chapter notes the Johnson vs. Kennedy conflicts. He concludes, “In this very real sense, America’s most unpopular war was shaped by one of American politics’ bitterest rivalries.”

RICHARD M. NIXON (1969-1974). Nixon supported a strong cabinet-led government, yet “distrusted the federal bureaucracy and wanted to keep decisions under his and his closest aides’ control. Maybe this is all you need to know: “In the Nixon administration, people ended up in prison.” Yet, “Nixon was also one of the most experienced people ever to become president.” The author labels Nixon the “feud stagemaster.”

When the first Biden senior official exits the job “to spend more time with my family,” remember this: “Al Haig recalled that Kissinger was very tough on his staff—he drove away over a third of them in the administration’s first nine months.”

In numerous White House administrations, including Nixon’s, the grab for power and prestige is often about office space, size, and proximity to the Oval Office. In the Nixon administration, a wall was built in Bryce Harlow’s first floor West Wing office, removing his private bathroom, so Henry Kissinger’s adjoining office would be larger. (Page 72 is a must-read. LOL! Fortunately, the author had a full inventory of **** marks!)

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor, had a private bathroom. Carter’s VP, Walter Mondale, wanted a private bathroom but was denied the perk. Staffer (and Carter’s cousin) Hugh Carter unsuccessfully attempted to drop the perk of White House cars transporting senior staffers around the city. Jody Powell nicknamed him “Cousin Cheap.” One think tanker mocked the suggestion: “Do you want them to hitchhike? Catch a bus?”

What—No Memoir? I found one high-integrity person in this Nixon chapter that details the Kissinger-Rogers turf wars. William Rogers, who served as Attorney General under Ike and Secretary of State under Nixon, submitted a resignation letter “free of recrimination or argument.” The author adds, “Rogers continued to maintain his silence long after leaving government, refusing to write a memoir, as, he rightly observed, it is ‘hard to write interestingly without being critical of people.’”

PART 2 OF 2: PRESIDENTS FORD TO TRUMP
Watch for my Part 2 review of this book (President Ford to President Trump) next month, perhaps on President’s Day. Learn why Reagan’s former chief of staff, James Baker, said of then current chief of staff Donald Regan (who hung up on Nancy Reagan), “That’s not just a firing offense. That may be a hanging offense.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, by Tevi Troy. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (9 hours).

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Donald Trump is now a member of a very exclusive fraternity described in the book, The President’s Club (read my review). Former presidents, CEOs, staff, and board members can have positive or negative impact on organizations. Do you have a strategy for keeping your former team members informed and raving fans?
2) Is your staff structure a “spokes-on-the-wheel” approach or do you have a chief of staff? Is it working? Click here to read or view more about The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, by Chris Whipple. Warning! Bill Daley got shingles from stress after serving as Obama’s chief of staff.

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Biden Gets 100 Days, You Get 90!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

New U.S. President Joe Biden, and his staff, should read my pick for 2010 book-of-the-year: The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, by Michael Watkins. (Read my review.)

Watkins writes, “The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself; you get 90.” The first chapter plowed new ground with five propositions on transitioning to a new job. “Too often…the new leader behaves more like a virus…”

The author says there are four kinds of organizations (or departments). Which one did you inherit in your last transition? His acronym, “STARS,” describes the four: Start-up, Turn-Around, Realignment, and Sustaining Success. A successful CEO of a Turn-Around may fail at a Realignment. How would you label the U.S. during this presidential transition?

Here’s one more must-read book on passing the baton: Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, by William Bridges. (Read my review.)
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Does your shop have a new leader? Is everyone on the same page—using the same carefully-crafted elevator speech? Need help? Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Leadership Core: Character, Competence, Capacity

Issue No. 460 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a comprehensive and convicting book on how to blend competence, character, and capacity. Might be my 2021 book-of-the-year! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2020 Book(s)-of-the-Year and Top-10 picks.


According to “The Iceberg of Ignorance,” just 4% of problems are known to executives, while 74% of problems are known to team leaders.

Dick Daniels Has Been in Your Staff Meetings!

Dick Daniels has an uncanny understanding of our organizations. How did he listen in on our staff meetings, our one-on-one performance reviews, our job interviews, our office gossip, and our board meetings? Yikes!

I’m out on a limb here, but not really. Leadership Core: Character, Competence, Capacity will likely be my 2021 book-of-the-year. It will take a phenomenal book to jostle this pick off its perch. Hot-off-the-press this week, this comprehensive and convicting masterpiece spotlights seven “leadership multipliers” with three strategies for building your leadership culture.

While most authors and leadership gurus focus on competence (and only punctuate the discussion with a P.S. about character), Dick Daniels convinces you that the high bar of competence must also be blended with serious attention to both character and capacity.

He warns, “When organizational culture only values the bottom line, three things result: (1) Leadership Competency is rewarded, (2) Leadership Character is assumed, and (3) Leadership Capacity is never fully realized.”

Are you thinking you don’t have time to go deep in 2021? Another warning: “Every leader will face at least one impossible situation during their leadership tenure. That time is described as having your back against the wall, with no way out, completely alone, and the feeling of gloom you have when it seems like the end is near.” (Don’t despair: Dick Daniels has deep insights and wisdom for you.)

Similar in format to his 2015 book, Leadership Briefs: Shaping Organizational Culture to Stretch Leadership Capacity (my pick for 2015 book-of-the-year), this powerful 2021 resource features 42 short chapters (just three to four pages each)—perfect for your weekly staff meetings. That is, if you still need a weekly staff meeting! (Read Chapter 27, “A Meeting Rhythm: Communicating With Clarity and Consistency.”)

Daniels notes, “The consensus about meetings from almost everyone is that you have too many and they are the biggest time waster in your workday.” He adds, “Meetings don’t need to be monthly or weekly or an entire hour.”

Here’s what’s so uncanny about Dick Daniels. You could ask me to address the problem of “Hierarchical Elitism: When Leaders Don’t Model the Way” (Chapter 10). No problem. I would list three or four solid guidelines. You could too. But ask Dick Daniels the same question and he delivers “Nine Pecking Order Rules of Grace for Senior Leaders,” including “In all social encounters, ask twice as much as you tell. Be an includer who knows how to interrupt the dominators so you can pull in the quieter introverts who won’t fight for equal airtime.” (Where does he get this good stuff? It’s off-the-chart insightful—and packaged brilliantly.)

Oh, my. When the book arrived, I checked 24 of the 42 chapter titles that intrigued me. Could you do a 10-minute talk on these topics—without preparation?

PART ONE: Core Character
#1. The Johari Window 360: Blind Spots
#4. Failure: Where Character Is Forged
#8. A Civil Workplace: Ten Culture-Climate Questions
#12. Blindsided: The Toxic Team Member

PART TWO: Core Competence
#17. Leaders Initiate Continual Change: Unavoidable Realities
#19. Your Personal Communication Audit: Six Reflective Questions
#23. Over and Under Styles of Management: Know Your Team
#28. Leading in a Crisis: When Everything Goes Wrong

PART THREE: Core Capacity
Intro: The Shadow Side of Capacity: Can I? Should I? Must I?
#33. Leading From Any Chair: Second Chair Has Influence
#35. Nine Box Revisited: Performance, Potential, and Personal Drive
#41. Hardwiring New Leadership Habits: Think, Talk, Act, Reflect

Two of his seven leadership multipliers focus on Core Character—the pathway to positive influence.
• Character Multiplier #1—Integrity: The personal side of character is what other people think about you.
• Character Multiplier #2—Respect: The interpersonal side of character is what you think about other people.

Did you know that “people lie more on Monday and Friday than Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday?” Daniels notes research indicating “people lie two to four times a day.” So the author discusses five times when your staff might lie: 1) Lying to land a job, 2) Lying to get ahead, 3) Lying to achieve work-life balance, 4) Lying with feedback, and 5) Lying during the exit interview. He notes that when leaders and managers are not trained in giving effective feedback, they “avoid telling the harsh truth” with direct reports—often because of a “too-nice culture.”

On my first pass through this incredible book, I made 65 notes on the blank pages in the front of the book. I should offer these notes for sale! Here is a baker’s dozen of my 65 take-aways:
   • The Humility Audit: 10 questions (p. 67-70)
   • The Ethical Leader Matrix (p. 84)
   • The Iceberg of Ignorance: Problems Known to Executives: just 4% (p. 110)
   • Seven Practices of Great Askers (p. 110-111)
   • The 24-25-51 Rule of Communication (p. 112)
   • Expectation levels: Exceeders, Meeters, Missers (p. 133)
   • Competency gaps: “The Stay Interview” (p. 142)
   • 10 Unavoidable Realities About Change: “Those who get on board early are not usually your best advocates.” (p. 154)
   • “Leaders also understand the why gets fuzzy every thirty days or so.” (p. 154)
   • “In considering the three hiring questions (Chapter 20, “Hiring the Best”), who on your team would you not hire today?” (p. 169)
   • Three decision-making tools in “Deciding as a Team: In Times of Uncertainty” (Chapter 24)
   • The shadow side of the author’s “Activator” strength (p. 228)
   • The Six Development Questions for Daily Reflection (p. 315)

Have you ever read anything on “executive presence?” Me neither! Chapter 30 references a fascinating TED Talk by Ann Curry, author of Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges. This Harvard prof says team members are always asking two questions: “1) Can they trust you, and 2) Can they respect you?” Click here for the TED Talk, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.”

How do you engage team members who are not on the senior team—but, if asked, have so much to offer? Dick Daniels suggests you watch the most inspirational TED Talk he’s ever viewed. Click here for “The Transformative Power of Classical Music” by conductor Benjamin Zander and read Chapter 33 to learn how this conductor engaged the unhappy cellist assigned to the “insignificant” 11th chair. And in the TED Talk (LOL!), learn why a CEO wrote Zander after hearing his presentation: “I was so moved. I went back and I transformed my entire company into a one-buttock company!”


Click to view the 20-minute Ted Talk,
“The Transformative Power of Classical Music.”

Others agree on the changing role of leaders and managers. Read today’s “Future of Everything” section in the print edition of The Wall Street Journal, “All Together Now: A different model of the boss is emerging—a coach and nurturer, not necessarily a business whiz.” Click here to read the online version: “Your Next Boss: More Harmony, Less Authority. Prized for being ‘social-emotional experts,’ future managers may spend less time issuing directives and more time collaborating,” by Kathryn Dill (posted Jan. 12, 2021).

NEXT STEPS. Ask a team member to present a bite-sized summary of a chapter at every staff meeting in 2021. And don’t skip the eight questions in the “Final Exam” on page 303, including this poke-in-the-ribs: “Do you know the cost of justifying your executive rudeness in the name of importance and busyness?” Ouch!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Leadership Core: Character, Competence, Capacity (Leadership Multipliers), by Dick Daniels. (And my thanks to the author for including my endorsement in his book. When I grow up, I hope I can write and think like Dick Daniels!)

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Dick Daniels says that “Delegation is one of the most overlooked skills needed in every leader’s toolbox.” Amen! (Visit the Delegation Bucket.) He suggests some leaders invest one day a month offsite to focus on strategic issues—not operational urgencies. Are our senior leaders allocating appropriate time to strategy or day-to-day minutia?
2) My pick for the 2013 book-of-the-year was Marshall Goldsmith’s What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Discover the 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break. Named the #1 Leadership Thinker in the World (nice business card!), he also endorsed Leadership Core, by Dick Daniels. You can probably think of an annoying workplace habit a co-worker needs to break. But according to Goldsmith, smart, successful people are pitifully blind to their own annoying habits. So who will help you discern what habits you need to break?
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A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

“Communication is the primary competence of a leader,” writes Dick Daniels. “Just because something was said does not mean it was heard, understood, or agreed with.”

The core competency in the Printing Bucket (aka the Communication Bucket) reads, “We elevate the power of the written and spoken word and leverage our communication tools to create synergy and alignment between our mission, BHAG, strategic plans and programs.” Here are three resources to help your team members close the competency gaps in their communication skillsets:

#1. You’re Got to Be Believed to Be Heard: The Complete Book of Speaking…in Business and in Life, by Bert Decker. (Read my review.) “The most important dimension of communication takes place not at the conscious level, but the unconscious level. We’re talking about trust, believability and likeability—the emotional connection.”

#2. 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations, by Joey Asher. (Read my review.) A simpler method for an effective talk, says the author, is to begin, “If I were you, I would ask three questions about this topic.” He adds, “Then write the three questions on a flip chart. Answer the questions. Then stop.” Why might this method work?

#3. How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World’s Most Inspiring Presentations, by Jeremey Donovan. (Read my review.) The author researched hundreds of online videos of the most popular 18-minute TED Talks. In just 107 big-print, fast-reading pages, he boils it all down. But it’s not a speaking-tips-for-dummies blah/blah/blah book, it’s much, much better—and rich in detail where it matters.
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2021 BIG GIVE-AWAY WINNERS!
Congratulations to the three winners of our random drawing: Laurel Gaard, Kevin Keegan, and Art Snead. And thanks to everyone who submitted their picks for three books they plan to read in 2021. The winners will receive autographed copies of The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever, generously donated by Michael Bungay Stanier. If you didn’t win, you can still order the book by clicking here.

REMINDER: This month we updated our three book lists (as of Dec. 31, 2020) and you can download the lists (PDFs) by clicking on the Book Bucket here.
   • List #1: Books by Management Buckets Categories (450+ books)
   • List #2: Chronological List of 458 Issues of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (450+ books)
   • List #3: John Pearson's Top-100 Book List (updated 12/31/2020)
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. If you agree with Dick Daniels that “Communication is the primary competence of a leader,” you may be under-investing in your communication strategies and tactics. There’s help! Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

10 Spiritual Growth Books I’m Reading in 2021

Issue No. 459 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a give-away and seven books I’m reading in 2021, plus three books I’m re-reading. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2020 Book(s)-of-the-Year and Top-10 picks.


Read Knight of the Holy Ghost: A Short History of G.K. Chesterton.
Sketch by Jason Pearson.

The Problem With the World Is Me

A year ago—when everything was just peachy—I devoted one issue to “2020 Spiritual Growth Books.” I asked, “In the next decade, what’s your plan for growing and enriching your walk with God?” (Click here for my 2020 list.)

What’s Wrong With the World? Based on COVID and the news this week, heed the gentle reminder from G. K. Chesterton that our problems are not material, they are spiritual. Our solutions are not political, they are spiritual. In 2016, our son, Jason, presented a solo exhibition, “The Problem With the World Is Me.” It was inspired by G.K. Chesterton’s response when The Times of London invited intellectuals to respond to the question, “What’s the problem with the world?” View Jason’s three-minute video with Chesterton’s two-word answer, “Dear Sirs, I am.”

This past week an unprecedented number of readers asked me, “What are your 2021 recommendations for spiritual growth books?” (Well…to be honest…only one reader asked that question, but even that was unprecedented!)

So…I’m venturing into no man’s/no woman’s land here and “semi-recommending” seven books that I have NOT yet read.

7 Spiritual Growth Books
I Plan to Read in 2021

#1. Weakness Is the Way: Life With Christ Our Strength, by J. I. Packer (2013, 118 pages) - This giant of the Christian faith, and author of Knowing God, finished his race on July 17, 2020 at age 93. Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro.fm (2 hours, 12 min.)

#2. Invitation to Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God, by Ruth Haley Barton (2018, 146 pages) – Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro.fm (4 hours, 10 min.). Note: Barton’s masterpiece, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, was my 2009 book-of-the-year.

#3. The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, by Arthur G. Bennett (1975, 220 pages) - Jon Ortlip and the team at Ambassadors Football gave me this special gift several years ago, and while I have browsed this classic, this year I’m going deep. Read more about the book here. Order from Amazon.

#4. Mother Teresa's Secret Fire: The Encounter That Changed Her Life, and How It Can Transform Your Own, by Joseph Langford (2008, 313 pages) – This caught my eye (and my soul) in 2009 when The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan wrote, "2008 was my year of reading furiously. None of these books were more important than Mother Teresa's Secret Fire." – Order from Amazon.

#5. The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things, by Leighton Ford (2008, 225 pages) – Order from Amazon. In 2020, I reviewed Leighton Ford’s latest book, A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own—and that prompted me to give attention to The Attentive Life.

#6. The Cure & Parents, by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch (2016, 131 pages) – Order from Amazon. I’m a big fan of the TrueFace team and have read and reviewed many of their books—but not this one. Using humor and story, even the Acknowledgments pages invite you in! “Writing a book on parenting is not like writing a book on the future of plutonium. With a parenting book, individuals can comment from experience whether or not you know what you’re talking about. Like your own kids, for example.” Note: I may also re-read John Lynch's update of his 2013 book (new chapters!), On My Worst Day: Cheesecake, Evil, Sandy Koufax and Jesus. Read my review. Order his Nov. 2020 book here.



#7. The New Elder's Handbook: A Biblical Guide to Developing Faithful Leaders, by Greg R. Scharf and Arthur Kok (2018, 192 pages) – Order from Amazon. The massive 74-page chapter, “75 Questions for New or Prospective Elders,” is a treasure trove of questions-you’ve-never-thought-about with 75 practical/theological answers. Example: “How do you recognize false doctrine? How do you refute error? How do you rebuke or admonish people? How should you comfort the bereaved?” This is the perfect companion book to Lessons From the Church Boardroom.

3 Spiritual Growth Books
I Plan to Re-Read in 2021

#8. Harsh Grief Gentle Hope: From the Agony of a Mother’s Greatest Loss on Earth, Comes the Divine Comfort and Hope From Heaven, by Mary White (Oct. 15, 2020, 121 pages) – I read the first edition of this poignant true story on an airplane in 1995. I sobbed uncontrollably—alarming my seatmates. “On a dark spring night, Jerry and Mary White’s only son became the victim of a brutal homicide.” I will read this again in 2021 and write a review. Many are experiencing devastating loss during COVID. We need the deep faith and example of the Mary’s and Jerry’s to point us to Heaven. Order from Amazon.

#9. The Top 10 Leadership Conversations in the Bible: Practical Insights From Extensive Research on Over 1,000 Biblical Leaders, by Steve Moore – Order from Amazon. I reviewed this “Top-10” book in 2018 and promised to return to it again. It’s deep and wide. Get your underlining pen ready for gems like this: “The best way to find out whether you have a servant’s heart is to see what your reaction is when somebody treats you like one.” (Elizabeth Elliott) – Read my review.

#10. Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups (1990, 353 pages) – Order from Amazon. A gift from Bob Andringa in 1994, both Joanne and I have found joy and wisdom from this classic. Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, editors of this remarkable book, begin, “We today suffer from the unexamined notion that the more recent something is, the better, the more true it must be. This book is our attempt to counter this present-day myopia. It brings together fifty-two carefully chosen selections from the great devotional classics.” Read my review.

MUSICAL BONUS! During COVID and after watching the news, I often turn to an eclectic sampling of YouTube morsels. What ministers to you? I appreciate “Come, Ye Disconsolate,” by Acapeldridge, “Hear My Song, Lord,” by Gaither Vocal Band, “Anthem,” by Leonard Cohen (… “that’s how the light gets in.”), and most recently episodes of the BBC’s Song of Praise broadcast such as “The UK’s Favourite Hymn.”

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Win an Autographed Copy of The Advice Trap
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

What’s your 2021 reading plan? Email me with your list of at least three books you’ll read in 2021 and I’ll enter you in My 2021 Big Give-Away! Three readers, chosen randomly, will receive an autographed copy of my pick for 2020 Book-of-the-Year, The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever, by Michael Bungay Stanier. (Thanks to the author for his generous and unsolicited donation!)

This week we updated our three book lists (as of Dec. 31, 2020) and you can download the lists (PDFs) by clicking on the Book Bucket here.
   • List #1: Books by Management Buckets Categories (450+ books)
   • List #2: Chronological List of 458 Issues of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (450+ books)
   • List #3: John Pearson's Top-100 Book List (updated 12/31/2020)

List #1 and List #2 also include the 2008 to 2020 Book-of-the-Year honors, and the Top-10 books of each year. List #3 features the 20 core competencies of the 20 management buckets—and the must-read books for each bucket (the Top-100 books I’ve reviewed).

Also at the Book Bucket webpage, download the bonus list, "30 Books to Delegate During This Crisis...and the Next Crisis," a 12-page PDF with links to 30 book reviews as of July 1, 2020.

I mentioned in the last issue that our granddaughter, Zuzu Pearson (age 18 and an occasional co-reviewer with me), read 175 books in 2020!!! (That’s not a typo!). What’s your 2021 goal for reading or listening to books?

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Need some marketing and communication fresh ideas (books, audio books, podcasts, Ted Talks)? Check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Top-10 Books of 2020 and Book-of-the-Year

Issue No. 458 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2020 and my Book(s)-of-the-Year. Also, Happy New Year! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2019 Top-10 picks.

TOP-10 BOOKS FOR 2020

This issue features books I reviewed in Issues No. 426 to 457. To read other 2020 book reviews from Your Weekly Staffing Meeting, visit the archives here.

In 2020, I published 32 issues. (But I thought Your Weekly Staff Meeting was published weekly? Fake news?) Certainly not all 10 books will have popular appeal—because all of us are at different levels of competency and curiosity across the 20 management buckets. As author Steve Leveen reminds us in The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, “Do not set out to live a well-read life but rather your well-read life. No one can be well-read using someone else’s reading list.” What were your Top-10 books in 2020?

2020 BOOK(S)-OF-THE-YEAR

Yes…in this crazy COVID year…why not? For the first time, I’m naming TWO books as my “Book-of-the-Year.” You have time on your hands—so read two books!

#1. THE ADVICE TRAP: BE HUMBLE, STAY CURIOUS & CHANGE THE WAY YOU LEAD FOREVER, by Michael Bungay Stanier. Read my review and view the author’s 14-minute TEDx Talk, “How to Tame Your Advice Monster.”



I began my review last March with this: “Hello. My name is John and I’m an Advice Monster.” Yikes! If you’ve got the guts to read this book, you won’t come out unscathed.

Best Quote. “Your job is to stop seeking the solutions and start finding the challenges.” The author adds, “You can be known as the person who helps articulate the critical issue or as the person who provides hasty answers to solve the wrong problem. Which would you prefer? Exactly.”

#1. DOESN'T HURT TO ASK: USING THE POWER OF QUESTIONS TO COMMUNICATE, CONNECT, AND PERSUADE, by Trey Gowdy. Read my review and view the author’s videos on persuasion. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (8 hours, 52 minutes), narrated by Trey Gowdy.



Trey Gowdy, who served eight years in Congress (2011-2019), confesses, “The mistakes made early in my career were many and largely rooted in two areas: not understanding the dynamics of persuasion and not understanding the nature and characteristics of those I was try to persuade.”

Best Quotes. “Persuasion is not debating.” And, “Debating is science. Persuasion is art.” And, “Debating is for the best talker. Persuasion is for the better listener.”

2020 TOP-10 BOOK LIST: The Other 9
(With brief excerpts from my reviews, these nine are listed in alphabetical order by author.)

#2. NON OBVIOUS MEGATRENDS: HOW TO SEE WHAT OTHERS MISS AND PREDICT THE FUTURE, by Rohit Bhargava. Read my review.



Best Quote. “When you focus on spotting stories that stand out, you gravitate toward collecting interesting ideas without understanding the broader context of what they mean. Calling the multitude of ideas spotted the same thing as a trend is like calling eggs, flour, and sugar sitting on a shelf the same thing as a cake. You can see ingredients, but true trends must be curated to have meaning just as a cake must be baked.”

#3. RUTHLESS CONSISTENCY: HOW COMMITTED LEADERS EXECUTE STRATEGY, IMPLEMENT CHANGE, AND BUILD ORGANIZATIONS THAT WIN, by Michael Canic. Read my review.

Best Quote. The author says “people are bloodhounds for inconsistency. The moment you say one thing but do another—boom!—they’re on it.” He describes a core value of “speed” at one organization, but it took accounting six weeks to send out staff expense reimbursements!

#4. THE AMAZON MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: THE ULTIMATE DIGITAL BUSINESS ENGINE THAT CREATES EXTRAORDINARY VALUE FOR BOTH CUSTOMERS AND SHAREHOLDERS, by Ram Charan and Julia Yang. Read my review.

Best Quote. On Amazon’s relentless drive to invent, “Seek and build big ideas continuously [using a brilliant press release process]…and construct cross-functional full-time and co-located ‘two-pizza’ team with the right project leader.” Why? If two pizzas aren’t enough, the team is too big!

#5. HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR LIFE? by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon. Read my review and view the author’s TEDx Boston presentation in 2012. Listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours, 34 minutes).

Best Quote. After meeting Christensen and learning about his three questions, co-author Karen Dillon recalls, “I stood in the parking lot of Harvard Business School a few hours later and knew I didn’t like my answers to those questions. Since then, I have changed almost everything about my life with the goal of refocusing around my family.”

#6. SERVANT OF ALL: REFRAMING GREATNESS AND LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS, by Ralph E. Enlow, Jr. Read my review.

Best Quote. “Are you kidding me?” Enlow asks. Why did Jesus organize an inner circle campout on the mountain top with just three of the disciples? “Nine of the twelve get excluded from the greatest private screening of all time.” I underlined this: “The emotional path between exclusion and resentment is exceedingly well worn.”

#7. TALKING TO STRANGERS: WHAT WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE PEOPLE WE DON'T KNOW, by Malcolm Gladwell. Read my review—and special thanks to Dave Barton for recommending this depressing book! To listen to the audio version (8 hours, 42 minutes), visit Libro.fm

This best-selling author says we’re rotten at spotting liars. Citing numerous studies, Gladwell notes: “What [the researcher] discovered is what psychologists always find in these cases, which is that most of us aren’t good at lie detection. On average, judges correctly identify liars 54 percent of the time—just slightly better than chance.”

He adds, “This is true no matter who does the judging. Students are terrible. FBI agents are terrible. CIA officers are terrible. Lawyers are terrible.”

Best Quote. “The issue with spies is not that there is something brilliant about them. It is that there is something wrong with us.”

#8. UPSTREAM: THE QUEST TO SOLVE PROBLEMS BEFORE THEY HAPPEN, by Dan Heath. Read my review and view the author’s 4-minute video on “upstream thinking.” To listen to the audio version (7 hours, 47 minutes), visit Libro.fm

Prophetically, the book is COVID-relevant: “You don’t want to be exchanging business cards in the middle of an emergency.” I listed 10 teasers in my review.

Best Quote. The Dutch bicycle company VanMoof reduced shipping damage by 70% to 80% when “they started printing images of flat-screen televisions on the side of their shipping boxes, which are very similar in shape to flat-screen TV boxes.”

#9. THE VISION DRIVEN LEADER: 10 QUESTIONS TO FOCUS YOUR EFFORTS, ENERGIZE YOUR TEAM, AND SCALE YOUR BUSINESS, by Michael Hyatt. Read my review. Listen to the book on Libro.fm (4 hours, 48 minutes), narrated by Michael Hyatt.

Best Quote. What if your boss (or board) is the Keeper of the Status Quo? Hyatt lists five critical steps for selling your boss on a new vision. And this wisdom when selling to influential stakeholders: “You may not always be able to get agreement, but you can get alignment.”

#10. OH GOD, I’M DYING! HOW GOD REDEEMS PAIN FOR OUR GOOD AND FOR HIS GLORY, by Terry Powell and Mark Smith. Read my review.

Best Quote. In “Releasing Resentment,” the fourth faith lesson, the authors quote St. Augustine: “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.” Powell and Smith list eight very-very-convicting questions on releasing resentment, including this poke-in-the-ribs: “Have I stopped telling others what this person did to me?” (See Ephesians 4:29.)

Bonus Book!
#10. THE LITTLE GUIDE TO YOUR WELL-READ LIFE: HOW TO GET MORE BOOKS IN YOUR LIFE AND MORE LIFE FROM YOUR BOOKS, by Steve Leveen. Read my review.

Best Quote. The author quotes Mortimer Adler, coauthor of How to Read a Book: “Whereas a bookplate indicates financial ownership…writing in a book indicates intellectual ownership.” Leveen is encouraging. “If you have led an active reading life, your reading power at age eighty will tower over your reading power at age thirty.” And this: “If you are not setting some books aside unfinished, you are not sampling enough books.”
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The Zuzu 2021 Book-Reading Challenge!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

What’s your 2021 reading plan? Our granddaughter, Zuzu Pearson (age 18 this month, and an occasional co-reviewer with me), read 175 books in 2020!!! (That’s not a typo!). What’s your 2021 goal for reading or listening to books?

I love lists and the core competency in the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets is to create your Top-100 Books List. I’ve curated my list using the 20 management buckets categories. Download the template from the Book Bucket and start your list this week!

For more Books-in-the-Bunker ideas, check out these lists:
• 2020 Spiritual Growth Books – click here
• 2020 Leadership Growth Books – click here
• Best Board Governance Books – click here
• 30 Books to Delegate During This Crisis...and the Next Crisis (a 12-page PDF with links to 30 book reviews) – click here
• 8 Leadership Flicks – click here

LOL 2020. Hopefully, you found some humor in the midst of COVID in 2020. I did—right out the front door of my home office. Read about my letter to The Wall Street Journal, the writer’s response, a cartoon, and my front yard sign! Click here. LOL!

COMING IN 2021. Visit the Book Bucket webpage on January 8 to download three lists of books (updated through 12/31/2020) that I’ve reviewed since 2006, including my Top-100 books list.

I'm reviewing some fantastic books in 2021, including a must-read leadership book to be released by Dick Daniels, author of my pick for 2015 Book-of-the-Year, Leadership Briefs: Shaping Organizational Culture to Stretch Leadership Capacity, by Dick Daniels. (Read my 2015 review.)
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Have you been postponing critical branding in 2020? Don’t lose another year—thinking your communication strategy is low priority. For fresh and frank feedback, check in with Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Fast Times: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adapt

Issue No. 457 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting squeezes in one more book recommendation before 2021. Fast Times is “extremely useful and relevant” says the CFO of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and watch for the next issue with my 2020 book-of-the-year honors. Click here to check out the 30 books I reviewed in 2020.



“The Pace of Change Will Never Be This Slow Again”

Here’s your 2021 New Year’s Resolution: order Fast Times (quickly!) and delegate the reading of this transformational book to a senior leader. Or…if you follow the “Think Week” twice-a-year lifelong learning pattern of Bill Gates, add Fast Times to the stack of books you’ll read in your quiet quarantined cabin in 2021.

The four authors of Fast Times: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adapt wrote this stunning book “for senior executives who are frustrated by the slow pace and limited return on investment (ROI) of their digital transformations, and are unsure what’s holding them back.”

All senior leaders at McKinsey & Company, the global management consulting firm (for-profit, nonprofit, government, etc.), the four co-authors are based in Paris, London, Copenhagen, and Germany. They warn late-comers to the digital world, “Fast movers win.” They caution, “Time and again we see companies that have taken a fast-follower strategy and not be able to move fast enough.”

The coffee table book’s format and shape is arresting and will be copied by other book designers: short four- to seven-page bite-size chapters, eye-catching graphics, fascinating sidebars from the trenches, ample white space, big quotable quotes, and “Food for Thought” short summaries. Better buy two copies. Your copy will get “borrowed!”

Whether your digital strategy is non-existent, just mediocre, or best of breed—don’t think this book is just about digital. If I were still a CEO today, I’d make this eye-opener required reading by every board member, senior team member, consultant, and middle manager. Example: You want speed? The founder of Spotify says, “We aim to make mistakes faster than anyone else.”

Best of all, in just 141 pages (plus oodles of reference notes), you’ll feast on 18 management practices, organized around four key areas—all perfectly sized for your next 18 weekly staff meetings or Zoom calls. Here’s a taste:

STRATEGY
Q1. Are you rushing your strategy—and slowing your transformation? “…our experience has shown that companies often have only a hazy view of how much value they can squeeze out of what they already do.” Did you know that John Deere, besides selling tractors, also advises farmers on weather conditions? Must read: six questions on “Are you a target for disruption?”

Q2. Are you confident that you have an accurate picture of how your organization is really doing? Is “internal naval-gazing” your challenge? Whoa! In a fascinating sidebar about Procter & Gamble’s effort to raise the company’s digital IQ, a senior VP started “with a digital IQ test to assess base-level understanding.” More than 50 percent of the leaders at the annual top-management meeting did not pass! The result: it put a spotlight on the case for change—and why their business leaders needed to “commit to meaningful digital transformation.” (And P&G was a leader in strategy issues. Read my review of Playing to Win.)

Q3. Will your strategy work in the real world? Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.”

Q4. Are you clear about which transformation model is best for your company? Can you name the four models? (Yikes! Four?) Learn why a European bank created an HR “war room” to focus on faster hiring of top talent—a big theme in Fast Times.

Q5. Do you know what great looks like? First, get outside “your own four walls to see agile companies in action.” Speed? “When the CDO of a large US retailer said he wanted to launch a new business, the CIO said it would take at least 500 people four years, and cost $100 million.” Instead, the innovative CDO hired a new team and moved to a new location. In just five months (not four years), the new business was generating $150 million per month!

What fast looks like:
• Product launch: 6 months (normal) vs. 2 weeks (fast)
• New hires: 6 months (normal) vs. 3 weeks (fast)
• Marketing campaign: 1/month (normal) vs. 24/day (fast)
• Code release: 1 every 6 months (normal) vs. 1 per day (fast)

CAPABILITIES
Q6. Have you made it safe to fail? The CEO of ShopRunner “has asked executives in their reviews to describe recent failures. If the failures hadn’t cost the company money, the executives didn’t get their bonuses.” Another CEO “mandated that decisions be made within 30 minutes of the start of any meeting.” Yet another CEO, plagued with low risk-taking, scheduled decision-making meetings at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings! “Not surprisingly, teams started making more decisions for themselves.”

Q7. Do you know what it takes to scale an agile culture? Worth the price of the book—the components of an agile budgeting process. Plus: “…the CEO of one of the world’s largest banks spends a day a month with the bank’s clients and encourages all members of the C-suite to do the same.”

Q8. Have you hired digital stars? Whew! “Get comfortable with bigger pay gaps” when hiring top digital staff. But they will be “magnets for successive waves of high-quality talent.” The authors quote Red Adair, the American oil well firefighter, internationally known for extinguishing and capping oil well blowouts. “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” Warning: the tenure of digital workers is 36 months—and shrinking.

Click here to visit the Fast Times website and complete the “Digital Transformation Health Check” on your organization’s digital program. You can also read Chapter 6, "Have you made it safe to fail?"

Q9. Is your workforce up to the task? The trend: customized and individualized continuous learning—in bite-size segments. P&G created an enterprise-wide Digital Genius Academy (DGA). Warning: when you’re successful, other companies will be recruiting your digital stars! (The book suggests how to “rethink HR.”)

Q10. Do digital stars consider your organization a graveyard? “…a RiseSmart study found that 84 percent of employees would consider moving to an employer with a fantastic reputation even without a big jump in salary.”

Q11. Do you know how to use new tech to rebuild your core IT and data platforms? Oops!
“Imagine a modern-day Formula One team that chooses to seat its driver in a race car from the 1990s.”

Q12. Are your own people developing your most important tech? Re-think outsourcing. “This ‘build-it-here’ approach is a key characteristic of successful digital companies.”

Q13. Is cybersecurity part of your IT transformation team or simply a control function? The authors note a popular axiom. There are two types of companies: “those that have been hacked, and those that don’t know they’ve been hacked. And things might be getting worse.”

ADOPTION AND SCALING
Q14. Is your transformation team filled with change bureaucrats or builders? The Western Union Way team—WU Way—created “capability-building teams” with 10 high-potential team members from around the company. Transformation began with 10, then to a first wave of 50, then 200, and ultimately to all 12,000 people.

Q15. Can everyone in your company easily access everything your people have learned? Are you good or guilty? “All that learning isn’t worth much if no one can find it.” Another axiom: “If my company only knew what my company knows.” P&G launched a video platform called “Fastest Learner Wins”—five-minute or less “snackable” content. Amazon has an internal wiki site and an internal video site, “Broadcast.”

Q16. Does your commitment match your bold statements? Are you gutsy enough to pull the plug on new projects run by stars? Check out the five questions under “A Litmus Test for Commitment,” including “Are you spending at least 20 percent of your working day on your digital transformation?” Also, have you made any big bets? (However, let me push back a bit. Don’t discount the wisdom of Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries. Read my review.)

Q17. Are you communicating in a way that’s meaningful to your people? I’d encourage every major city mayor and state governor to read this chapter. During COVID, I’d give our political leaders a C+ (at best)—on their communication competencies (preachy, incoherent, inconsistent—yikes). The authors quote Virgin’s Richard Branson, “Communication is the most important skill any leader can possess.” Plus, read why one CEO invests an hour per week calling former customers.

Q18. Are you ready to see your transformation through to the end, no matter what? Warning signs: transformation fatigue, devising too many metrics, absence of explicit buy-in from the board, and not hitting the tipping point for a successful transformation (10 percent must hold an “unshakable belief”). And this: “We had more people talking about coding than actually coding.” LOL!

Suggestion: pick one of these 18 questions and pilot-test a short “Fast Times” segment at your weekly staff meeting. If it engages your team to think differently about the digital landscape, you’ve got the fixin’s for 17 more weeks. Plus—don’t skip the innovative final two pages. Rather than impress readers with co-author bios, each McKinsey senior leader shares his “parting thoughts” in a brief personal perspective. Brilliant.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Fast Times: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adapt, by Arun Arora, Peter Dahlstrom, Klemens Hjartar, and Florian Wunderlich. And thanks to Fortier Public Relations for sending me a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) “Failing is not always acceptable” in the pursuit of speed, say the Fast Times authors. They list three times “it’s plain wrong” including when “the thinking is lazy or flawed.” What is our team’s culture concerning speed, competencies, failure, and risk?
2) On July 9, 2004, Amazon banned PowerPoint presentations at the core executive team level—and honed the “Six-Page Narratives” (sometimes two pages) approach. Click here to read my review of The Amazon Management System. What’s our approach for vetting new ideas and enhancing speed?
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Systems That Serve People—Not the Bureaucracy!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

Here’s the core competency in the Systems Bucket: “We are passionate about systems thinking and process management. We encourage systems people to use their gifts and mentor others for the benefit of our Cause and our Community arenas. We are careful not to tinker or over-tweak, yet we are tenacious about tickler systems. We have a heart to create systems that serve people, not the bureaucracy!”

Nick Nicholaou of Ministry Business Services says there are three reasons you should never create your own software solution: 1) it will never be completed; 2) it will be difficult to support (and maybe your developer will die, without leaving any documentation); and 3) it will be very expensive.

That’s from my 2016 review of his book, Church IT. Good news, the publisher, Christianity Today International, released an updated edition of Nick’s book last year.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Church IT: Using Information Technology for the Mission of the Church, by Nick B. Nicholaou (2019).


For more resources in the Systems Bucket, click here.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Nick Nicholaou says there are “four disciplines” of church IT, including web and graphic design. Do you have the right person leading all four disciplines? Ask Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Ho! Ho! Ho! This is funny!

Bonus Blog! Enjoy this bonus blog post with a funny cartoon and a WSJ writer's response to my letter to the editor. You won't believe it! I posted this sign in my front yard this week with this memo and cartoon!

HO! HO! HO!

DATE: December 14, 2020

TO: All Neighbors, Dog Walkers, & Cell Phone Conversationalists!

FROM: John Pearson’s Home Office (overlooking Calle Guadalajara!)

RE: Laugh-Out-Loud! (…or maybe TALK-Out-Loud!)

This is funny! On Dec. 9, The Wall Street Journal featured a fascinating article by Alexandra Samuel, “How to Protect Your Privacy When Working From Home.” It suggested you walk around the neighborhood and make your office calls then. I couldn’t resist—so I submitted a letter to the editor with a tongue-in-check mention about listening in on YOUR calls! LOL!

The Editor
The Wall Street Journal

RE: “How to Protect Your Privacy When Working From Home” (Dec. 9)

During this coronavirus marathon, dozens of my work-at-home neighbors have been following Alexandra Samuel’s advice for sensitive office calls: “a walk around the neighborhood—out of earshot of my neighbors as well as my family—allows me to speak freely and get some exercise, too.” But, hello? My home office faces the street and with my office window open, I can hear every “sensitive” office call! Unfortunately, the neighborhood dogs have designated my mailbox area as their favorite rest stop—so I hear everything. “Hey, Joe! Just deal with it. Stop whining to Pedro about Jennifer’s Zoom manners!”

John W. Pearson
San Clemente, Calif.

Amazingly, the writer emailed me on Dec. 10—and sent a cartoon!

Oh gosh, John— you have made me realize I am a blight on the neighborhood!

Your description of the predicament was so vivid that I commissioned the attached cartoon for you from my husband and in-house cartoonist, Rob Cottingham. Perhaps if you post it on your front gate, the neighbors will get the hint?

Thanks so much for writing!

Alex

Laugh-out-loud! I thought you would enjoy her response—and this hilarious cartoon from her husband and "in-house cartoonist," Rob Cottingham.

P.S. Merry Christmas and enjoy your walks along Calle Guadalajara. Maybe some day—after COVID—we can get acquainted! (And, by the way, your sensitive office call conversations are safe with me!) Read Alexandra Samuel’s article online.

How to Protect Your Privacy When Working From Home
There are ways to keep colleagues from intruding on your home life, and family members from intruding on your work life

“Walk it off: For sensitive office calls, take a walk around the neighborhood with your phone and headset so that you can talk freely out of earshot of your family and neighbors. You’ll get some exercise, too.”

P.P.S. That’s me in the cartoon, in my second-floor home office—listening in on your “sensitive” phone calls! LOL!