John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire

Issue No. 488 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks: is Carlos Ghosn, the rockstar CEO who fled Japan, guilty or falsely charged by Nissan? And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book John wrote with his son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #13 below.

Former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn escaped from Japan in an equipment storage box, “the kind used to transport clunky but delicate audio equipment.” (Apparently, not every plan requires out-of-the-box thinking.)

Rubber Stamp Boards & Lapdog Auditors

Leaders and readers—where do I start? This page-turning book has it all: international intrigue, cultural and governmental shenanigans, backroom deals and self-dealing, draconian detentions, a Green Beret’s illegal scheme to whisk Japan’s most famous foreigner out of the country, allegations, indictments, hubris, boardroom dysfunction, narcissism, and dozens and dozens of even more juicy, jaw-dropping disclosures.

This is a Top-10 book for 2021 and we’ll be talking about it for years to come! Read or listen to Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire, by Hans Greimel and William Sposato.

You’ll remember the worldwide breaking news on Dec. 30, 2019, when Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault escaped from Japan—hidden in a large black box! With meticulous Green Beret-experienced planning, this clandestine and illegal operation loaded Ghosn-in-a-box onto a private jet at the smaller, Osaka airport. Seven time zones later, after a stop in Istanbul, Turkey, Ghosn landed in Beirut, Lebanon. (And you guessed it. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan.)

How did Carlos Ghosn escape Japan?

View the 6-minute video, “Carlos Ghosn's Great Escape” (CBS Sunday Morning, Jan. 12, 2020).

Shocking Japan and the world (“Ghosn Shock” in the Japanese media), this high profile auto kingpin was arrested upon arriving in Tokyo on Nov. 19, 2018. Instead of facing trial in Japan for alleged financial misconduct (“Defense attorney Takano estimated the whole affair would drag on for at least five years”—typical of Japan’s reputed “hostage justice” system), today Ghosn is a relatively free man in Beirut, where he is a Lebanese citizen.

The story behind the story is skillfully weaved, colorfully painted, and sliced and diced by two Tokyo-based journalists with stunning street cred and international credentials. Why should business leaders, managers, board members, pastors, and nonprofit CEOs read this book?

9 REASONS YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK:

#1. LEADERSHIP COMPLEXITY. Imagine—you’re the CEO and/or chairman of not one, not two, but three major companies (Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi). Does it really work? Was Ghosn’s rockstar status a one-off risky experiment, or is this the new global leadership trend? Ghosn was “the first person to serve simultaneously as the CEO of two Fortune 500 companies.” (How many organizations, formally or informally, do some megachurch pastors lead? Does it really work? What might go south fast?)

#2. AN INNER CIRCLE OF ENABLERS. In 1999, after Renault (France) gambled $5.4 billion to rescue Nissan (Japan) from bankruptcy and had a 43.4 percent stake in the company, Renault dispatched Carlos Ghosn to Nissan. The turn-around expert became Nissan’s CEO in 2001—and the two companies and two countries lived happily ever after. (Not!) Per the authors, Nissan claimed Ghosn orchestrated “a web of self-dealing, both of the illegal variety and the merely unseemly kind, because he had concentrated so much unchecked power in himself as chairman and CEO and an inner circle of enablers. No one could tell him no.”

#3. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT. Carlos Ghosn (at various press conferences from Lebanon) claims he is not a fugitive of justice, but a “fugitive of injustice.” True or False? Authors Greimel and Sposato quote a former defense lawyer in Chapter 11, “Justice Japan Style,” that “Japanese judges are very overconfident of their ability to find the truth. They are trained not to admit that they have made a mistake, even when there is a miscarriage of justice.” (Perhaps Mastering Mistake Making should be taught in Japanese law schools?) And there's more: “the US concept of client-attorney privilege is largely absent” in Japan.

Ghosn had been confined to jail twice for a total of 130 days (with no calls to family or friends permitted). He was facing up to 15 years in prison. And according to his attorneys, Ghosn “was questioned [without his attorney present] for an average of seven hours daily, including on weekends and holidays. Prosecutors dispute those figures.” Per the authors and other sources, this intense interrogation leads to an extreme rate of “confessions.” About just one percent of cases in Japan end in acquittal—a stat that the Japanese, apparently, are quite proud of. The authors add, “One former prosecutor said that if he were to lose just two cases, his career in the prosecutor’s office would effectively be over.”

View the deep dive video on the rise and fall of Superstar CEO Carlos Ghosn.

View “Carlos Ghosn: The Rise and Fall of a Superstar CEO” from the Financial Times, July 26, 2021 (21 min.).

#4. DICTATOR OR DECISION-MAKER? How does one create—and hold together—a global automotive alliance of three major auto makers—featuring 10 brands now in 2021? Click here for the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi corporate website. With national interests and loyalties impacting every decision, how would you orchestrate the governance of this alliance—termed a “strategic alliance” that in 2017 sold 10.6 million vehicles worldwide, making it the leading light vehicle manufacturing group in the world?

Ghosn’s own words: “Between 1999 and 2018, you never heard about any problems, because, obviously, I was the final decision maker, I installed a spirit of cooperation against the extremes. But we knew that the extremes were always there. They were always going to take advantage of any situation to have their opinion prevailing.” He added, “They accused me of being a dictator, but I was a decision-maker.” Are you working on a strategic alliance? What’s your governance model? What’s your style?

#5. CULTURE CLASHES (AND INSIGHTS). Reason #5 why Collision Course is a must-read: you’ll be reminded again that deeply held values and biases in other cultures loom under the surface to create catastrophic clashes, often fueled by basic mistrust. In Chapter 14, “Foreign Entanglements,” the authors include a laundry list of mergers and investments gone bad (Vodafone took a $8.6 billion loss) often due to “culturally insensitive expat executives who had little knowledge of the market, another classic mistake.”

Hans Greimel and William Sposato humorously note what sometimes happens whenever “foreign bosses and Japanese midlevel staff are brought together, when even routine meetings run into language issues and cultural differences about expectations.” One foreign boss showed up unexpectedly at his office on Saturday “only to see the entire Japan management team holding a meeting.” They were “plotting the venture’s strategy,” they said. Yet the non-Japanese boss reminded them that they had just worked on that earlier in the week. The response: “This is the one that we’ll really be following.” Yikes.

I have been in Japan and France multiple times (for business and pleasure), but Collision Course dramatically upped my cultural savvy in the nuances of competing cultural norms. In later years, I’ve been more intentional in widening my lifelong learning lanes by reading outside my culture (See Mistake #3 and Mistake #11 in Mastering Mistake Making.) Read The Great Successor (North Korea) and Money Games (South Korea). See also Leading Across Cultures.

#6. GOVERNANCE DYSFUNCTION. “Until 2018, when Nissan finally appointed its first independent outside directors, board meetings averaged less than twenty minutes long, it claimed.” In March 2019, “Nissan’s governance task force came back with its report on the Ghosn scandal.” The report “outlined how Ghosn allegedly maneuvered with few checks or balances in a world of rubber-stamp board meetings and lapdog auditors.”

#7. THE VOLVO TRUST FACTOR. One former Nissan exec, who left during the tumult, targeted the trust factor—top to bottom. “If you can’t trust people on corporate governance, how can you trust them to build the car you’re going to put your family in? Do you really want to take a gamble with your family? Or are you just going to be done with it and buy a Volvo?” (Delete “car” and insert your company’s product, program, or service. Do customers and clients trust you? Do they trust your governance?)

#8. FIRED IN 15 MINUTES! In Chapter 16, “Scandalous Affairs,” the authors chronicle the stunning whistle-blower story of Michael Woodford (a Brit), who served just two weeks as the CEO of the Japanese camera company, Olympus Corp. The board fired him after just a 15-minute discussion—when “he started to question hidden losses of $1.6 billion in speculative investments” by the company. The chapter discloses the cultural implications of “the narrow viewpoint of employees who live in the world of their life-time employers.” These issues, certainly, played into Ghosn’s long run as CEO of Nissan. But no spoiler alert here. Read Collision Course to decide for yourself if the charges against Ghosn are legit or not. But more importantly—how effective is your organization’s whistleblower policy and culture?

#9. NYT AND WSJ AGREE! The authors note that “Remarkably, the case and Ghosn’s escape from Japanese justice found the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in unlikely agreement.” The question: “Are foreign executives in Japan safe from capricious prosecution?” In addition to business executives, I would add: international travelers, missionaries, and tourists. As a result of reading Collision Course, I’m now thinking differently about international travel. They quote a long-term foreign exec, “It has clearly put a chill on executives from abroad taking a senior job with a Japanese company. It’s a much riskier proposition than it was a year ago.” Yikes.

Whew! Many commentators suggest Carlos Ghosn’s story will become a Hollywood movie (“based on a true story”). If so, I’ll watch it—but there’s no way it will be as good as the book.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire, by Hans Greimel and William Sposato. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (12 hours, 54 minutes). And thanks to Harvard Business Review Press for providing a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) From his safe perch in Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn has been interviewed numerous times about his daring escape from Japan. “As the Alliance wobbled without him, Ghosn seemed to relish in sniping at its troubles from the sidelines. He derided the group’s new consensus-based approach as ‘Santa Claus’ management.” How would/should your CEO and/or board spokesperson respond to a former CEO’s sniping?
2) Check out the classic CEO bios of yesteryear like Iacocca (1924-2019), who led both Ford (the Mustang!) and Chrysler (1978-1992). Or read more about the “Peter Drucker of the United Kingdom,” Charles Handy, in my review of Myself and Other More Important Matters. 
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Mistake #13 of 25:
Every Leader Needs a Coach—Except Me!
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


Peter Drucker’s classic, The Effective Executive, is John’s recommended book for Mistake #13. Have you read Drucker’s wisdom on mistakes and risk-taking?

John confesses, “I squandered way too many years treading water without a coach.” In Mistake #13: “Every Leader Needs a Coach—Except Me!” John notes that while he often coached others and often encouraged others to have a coach, sadly he often neglected his own counsel. He credits $1-a-year CMA (CLA) Senior Adviser George Duff with helping him over many rough patches!

According to Milestone Leadership, “92% of executives who received coaching said they would be willing to be coached again.” (Milestone offers coaching at $750 for a 90-minute session. Whew! The $1-a-year compensation for George Duff was John’s bargain of the century!)

George Duff told John that every year he re-read Peter Drucker’s classic, The Effective Executive (the featured book in Mistake #13). Click here to order the 50th anniversary edition (2017). Click here to read the foreword by Jim Collins, “Ten Lessons I Learned from Peter Drucker.”

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do your communication strategies need more out-of-the-box thinking or in-the-box thinking? Need fresh messaging? Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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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.

Waiting for the Train: Biblical Food for Growing Before Going

Issue No. 487 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a unique story-telling approach (listen in on 100 coaching conversations!) to enrich your spiritual development. Plus—two memorable YouTube songs! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book John wrote with his son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #12 below.

Mind the Gap! That’s the simple wisdom from Day 18 in the unique spiritual coaching book, Waiting for the Train. 

This Train Is Bound for Glory!

Can you judge a book by its cover? Sometimes, perhaps.

Can you judge a book by the endorsements of the author’s friends? Maybe, maybe not.

But…can you judge a book by the foreword? In this case, yes!

Josh McDowell, the evangelical apologist, evangelist, and author of more than 150 books (not a typo!), wrote the foreword to this issue’s featured book, Waiting for the Train: Biblical Food for Growing Before Going. Noting that “Jesus was a great storyteller,” McDowell writes:

“I think there is a place in today’s world for stories that present what Jesus said in a different way, a way that resonates in truth without preaching and without overreaching.”

Who doesn’t love a good story? How about 100 short stories? The author tags himself with the memorable pseudonym, S. Tory Teller (“story teller”—get it?), and you immediately appreciate his focus on the story, not himself. (I do know the author. He’s legit and the real deal. Imagine—plowing through all the work of publishing a book and keeping your name hidden. Whew.)

The big idea: what should you be doing here on earth—while waiting for the train? The story teller is, at first, very confused. He wanted, and received, a free ticket. “I think it’s good for a one-way trip to glory,” he told the train station manager. (After reading that, I couldn’t resist. Click here to listen to Johnny Cash sing This Train Is Bound for Glory.)

Listen to This Train Is Bound for Glory (3 ½ min.).

What follows are short two-page and three-page stories between the ticket holder and Stan—a spiritual coach. Often over breakfast, the conversations take twists and turns down the road to spiritual maturity. I love this book! But…

…YIKES! Just when you think you can teach the course, Waiting for the Train WHACKS your know-it-all arrogance. I can’t stop talking about it. I recently shared a chapter with a very wise friend and he, too, was blessed and appreciative of the insights about our God of Glory.

Many of the chapters sneak up on you. Where is the author going with this rabbit trail? Then…WHAM. Right between the eyes. I love the format and the unique story-telling approach. Not preachy, just really solid content served up in tasty doses. Don’t miss the “robe of righteousness” conversation in Day 41.

I ESPECIALLY APPRECIATED:

• Day 10: The Journal of the Journey. Idea: read John 15 (the Vine and the branches chapter) every day for 30 days.

• Day 13: Why Hurry Through the Bible? The value of slowing down: “…one of the author’s nuggets of wisdom was to stay with a particular Bible verse until I was satisfied I’d claimed all that it had to offer.” Click here to listen to the classic anthem, Slow Down, by Chuck Girard.

Listen to Slow Down by Chuck Girard (4 min.).

• Day 18: Mind the Gap. On a trip to London, Stan bought a “Mind the Gap” sign (the ubiquitous warnings around the underground). It’s now on the wall of his study at home. “It reminds me to look for any ‘gap’ between God’s purposes and what I am doing in my daily life.”

• Day 40: Blessed with the Right Answer. Stan tells S. Tory Teller, “Jesus presented a question that I think is easily the most important question a person can be asked.” The question: “Who do you say that I am?” (For more, view “Jesus Claimed to Be God,” (3-min.) on Josh McDowell’s website.)

• Day 75: Having or Being Breakfast. In just two pages the story teller delivers a wake-up call about Satan as a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). Stan relates a friend’s comment from an African safari: “Some of the animals were either having breakfast, or they were being breakfast. The stronger adversary prevailed.”

• Day 98: Where’s Your Antioch? Acts 11:26 notes that it was in the city of Antioch when the disciples were first called Christians. So the two discuss the relevance of remembering your conversion details and talking about it. Two thumbs up!

You’ll love this book. Each day concludes with a three-part summary:
• Bible verses to consider
• Prayer
• Think on this

Click here to read the first chapter, “Waiting for the Train: Assurance of Salvation and What it Means for This Life.” Click here for the Waiting for the Train blog, and click here for the Facebook page.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Waiting for the Train: Biblical Food for Growing Before Going, by S. Tory Teller (foreword by Josh McDowell).

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) The book, Illuminate, creatively highlights how to “Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies, and Symbols.” How effective is our organization (and each of us individually) in communicating creatively through stories?
2) Waiting for the Train leverages 100 stories to communicate spiritual truths in a creative way—short, mini-conversations. As Jim West noted in his Amazon review, the story approach “feels like a fireside chat with a close personal mentor.” How could our organization be more effective at story telling?
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Mistake #12 of 25:
Talking the Coach Talk, But Not Walking It 
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


Honest! You can become GREAT at making mistakes! Learn how here.

In Mistake #12, “Talking the Coach Talk, But Not Walking It,” John says he recently learned that he is an Advice Monster! And Gary Collins’ wisdom may also shock you. He says to beware of the coach or counselor who promises you can be anything you want to be! (Not possible.) John recommends two books for Mistake #12: Christian Coaching, by Gary R. Collins, Ph.D., and The Coaching Habit, by Michael Bungay Stanier.

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. There’s nothing more powerful than a well-told story! Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social) to hear three memorable stories of how our clients have crashed through the clutter to communicate their fork-in-the-road causes.
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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.

Strategic Reset on Staff Working Remotely: A Framework for Success

Issue No. 486 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features an expert-loaded book on working remotely—and a 30-minute interview (live today). Listen as George P. Wood interviews John on mistake-making for the Influence Podcast. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book John wrote with his son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. 

Working from home? Nick Nicholaou and 10 colleagues deliver a framework for success in their new book, Strategic Reset on Staff Working Remotely.

Working Remotely: Accountability & Measurements

Yikes! Recent news reports say many organizations will continue to allow staff to work remotely—due to COVID. But there are downsides:

DOWNSIDE #1. “Zoom-call Blunders Led to Someone Getting Axed, 1 in 4 Bosses Say.” That was the Aug. 31, 2021, headline in the Orange County Register, noting a Bloomberg report by Matthew Boyle that “Zoom-call blunders can be hazardous to your career.” (Read the article here.)

The report noted that “Nearly one in four executives have fired a staffer for slipping up during a video or audio conference, and most have levied some sort of disciplinary action for gaffes made in virtual meetings, a survey of 200 managers at large companies found. The survey, commissioned by Vyopta Inc., which helps companies manage their workplace collaboration and communication systems, also found that executives don’t fully trust a third of their staff to perform effectively when working remotely.” Yikes!

DOWNSIDE #2. “Remote Work May Now Last for Two Years, Worrying Some Bosses.” The longer that Covid-19 keeps people home, the harder it may be to get them back to offices; ‘There is no going back.’” That’s from Chip Cutter (now that’s a great name!) in The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 22. (Read the article.)

Bosses should note that change and uncertainty = anxiety. “Some employers, including Gusto, a payroll, benefits and human-resources technology company, say they have reduced any anxiety about office reopenings by providing assurances that employees will be able to largely select how they work—and change their minds over time.

“Already, many employees are ‘bombarded’ with messages from recruiters and friends, attempting to lure them elsewhere,” the vice chair of Prudential Financial noted.

DOWNSIDE #3. “How to Gameplan Your Office Days: An Overachiever’s Guide to Hybrid Work. Thursday may be the new Monday when it comes to strategizing what days in the office will get you the most face time with senior leaders; ‘Your boss’s schedule is your schedule.’” That’s from Patrick Thomas in the Aug. 23 edition of the WSJ. He quotes an expert, “The rules for maximizing office face time with the bosses are about to get more complicated…” (Read the article.)

GOOD NEWS! Working Remotely Has an Upside!

UPSIDE #1: NEW BOOK! Strategic Reset on Staff Working Remotely: A Framework for Success, by Nick B. Nicholaou, General Editor. Just in time—GreenDot.Press released a book this summer featuring short chapters by 11 experts. Targeted to organizations and churches, the book notes: “Experts suggest the number of church and ministry staff who will work remotely following the pandemic will be quite high—fifty percent or more!”

Nicholaou’s counsel: “The question facing leaders is no longer WHO should we allow to work remotely, but is now HOW do we relaunch this in a way that is fully powerful while also protecting the organization and each team member.”

And by the way, when you’re watching the first NFL game of the season on Thursday, Sept. 9 (will Tom Brady lead the Bucs to a back-to-back Super Bowl win?), see if you can spot the “green dots” on the helmets of two players. (Visit Green.Dot.Press to learn more.)

In Strategic Reset on Staff Working Remotely, Nick Nicholaou assembled a stellar cast of in-the-trenches experts in three critical arenas: team leadership, HR, and technology. That was wise, because I can’t think of one author (or even two) that could cover the depth and breadth of this crucial topic on remote work policies and strategies. It’s takes a village—and here are the villagers Nick recruited to this project: Lisa Francisco, Michelle Halonen, Patti Malott, Michael Martin, Phill Martin, Darrell Roland, Jonathan Smith, Elaine Sommerville, Frank Sommerville, and Glenn Wood.

These 10 experts add their wisdom and practical methodologies to the very complicated task of bringing effectiveness to a less-than-effective work paradigm. Plus, Nicholaou adds his 35 years of consulting to two chapters, including an often-overlooked tech issue: “BYOD: Bring Your Own Device.”

The book—literally—gives away the store with six invaluable documents (available online):
   • Appendix A - Policy & Procedure Manual Outline
   • Appendix B - Remote Work Agreement
   • Appendix C - Remote Work Policy
   • Appendix D - Remote Workforce Solution Considerations
   • Appendix E - Video Conferencing Security Questions
   • Appendix F - Sample BYOD Policies

Many of the remote work strategies have been field-tested already in organizations and churches in recent years—but now those blue sky theories quickly became reality! Nicholaou writes, “Like all things work-related, there are risks associated with staff working remotely. In this book you’ll learn about the legal, HR, finance, and technology risks, and practical strategies to overcome them.”

I especially appreciated these chapters:
   • Chapter 4: Accountability & Measurements (Three cheers for SMART Goals!)
   • Chapter 6: Oversight (Must-read: “What to do when an employee isn’t working out.”)
   • Chapter 8: Staff Meetings: Building a Cohesive Team (Learn how Patti Malott leveraged 14 copies of Zig Ziglar’s book, Secrets of Closing the Sale.)
   • Chapter 10: Transitioning from “On-the-Clock to Getting-Work-Done” (Malott loves humor—so read how her team pranked her on a Zoom call!)
   • Chapter 11: Hiring and Onboarding a Remote Workforce (Three cheers for mistake-making! Interview question: “Share with me your biggest failure.” Look for lessons learned.)
   • Chapter 15: Tools That Empower (Before your team members download their favorite tools and apps indiscriminately, read the section “Oops! We Already Had That Option?”)

As you already know, there are numerous and complicated upsides and downsides when staff work remotely. This expert-loaded book is a must-read. (And check out Nicholaou’s 2019 book, Church IT: Using Information Technology for the Mission of the Church.)

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Strategic Reset on Staff Working Remotely: A Framework for Success, by Nick B. Nicholaou, General Editor.



3 BONUS BOOKS! Delegate your reading to team members and ask for three volunteers who will read my reviews of Remote, Inc., Next Job, Best Job, and Anxiety at Work—and then ask each person to read and report on one book at a future staff meeting.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) The authors of Strategic Reset on Staff Working Remotely highlight a consistent theme: results. In Chapter 4, Glenn Wood lists examples of two SMART goals and two not-so-SMART goals. Do our remote workers have written SMART goals—and do they report on them weekly and monthly? (See The Results Bucket and The Meetings Bucket for more resources.)
2) Yikes! How confident are we that our current definitions of exempt and non-exempt employees (and who qualifies for a ministerial exemption) are up-to-date and legal under 2021 state and federal regulations? Read Chapter 12, “The Remote Worker and the FLSA,” by Elaine Sommerville, CPA, and Frank Sommerville, JD, CPA. 
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John on the Influence Podcast #259
“How to Make Mistakes Well”
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


Listen to this 30-minute podcast as George P. Wood interviews John Pearson, author of Mastering Mistake-Making.

Listen to this 30-minute podcast as George P. Wood interviews John Pearson, author of Mastering Mistake-Making. George poses a dozen questions to John including, “You’ve worked with a lot of ministry leaders over the course of your career, both internationally and nationally. What are the top two or three professional mistakes you see pastors and other ministry leaders make on a regular basis?”

Click here to listen to the podcast on “How to Make Mistakes Well” and how John tries to avoid answering George’s very tough questions!

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Is your communication team working remotely, but not communicating effectively? Jason has some pointers for you. Contact 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.

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War

Issue No. 485 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights the life-altering implications of leadership transitions—with another bestseller from Malcolm Gladwell. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book I wrote with my son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #11 below.

The cadet chapel at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs “is a chapel from another universe. It looks like someone lined up a squadron of fighter jets like dominoes with their noses pointed toward the heavens.”

The “Mafia Label” Was Not a Compliment

“This isn’t working. You’re out.”

Malcolm Gladwell’s page-turner, The Bomber Mafia, is the perfect end-of-summer read. Action! Bombs! Morality! Science! Politics! Leadership! (Did I mention leadership?) And…two very different views of war and how to win wars (Jesus or Satan?).

Gladwell writes, “The Bomber Mafia is a case study in how dreams go awry.” He adds, “And at the heart of it all are Haywood Hansell and Curtis LeMay, who squared off in the jungles of Guam. One was sent home. One stayed on, with a result that would lead to the darkest night of the Second World War. Consider their story and ask yourself—What would I have done? Which side would I have been on?”

General LeMay informed General Hansell. “This isn’t working. You’re out.” Put yourself in Haywood Hansell’s shoes. “Hansell could stay on if he wished, to be LeMay’s deputy, a notion Hansell considered so insulting that he could barely speak.”

Gladwell continues, “The Bomber Mafia is the story of that moment. What led up to it and what happened next—because that change of command reverberates to this day.” The subtitle ignites your curiosity: "A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War."

Is your organization facing a leadership change (or putting it off)? This “case study” in command reminded me of David McKenna’s wisdom in Stewards of a Sacred Trust: “Like the ripple effect of a stone tossed into a pond, the CEO’s influence will move in waves through generations. No decision of the board, absolutely no decision, is more profound.”

The bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia further elaborates on this “case study in how dreams go awry. And how, when some new, shiny idea drops down from the heavens, it does not land, softly, in our laps. It lands hard, on the ground, and shatters. The story I’m about to tell is not really a war story. Although it mostly takes place in wartime.”

Gladwell adds, “It is the story of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer. A band of brothers in central Alabama. A British psychopath. Pyromaniacal chemists in basement labs at Harvard. It’s a story about the messiness of our intentions, because we always forget the mess when we look back.”

And…it’s a story about mistake-making and Carl Norden (the genius), a Dutch engineer, educated in Switzerland, who came to America in 1904. Norden “…was a true believer in blank slate, and this reveals his ego. He said, ‘I don’t want to know the mistakes other people made. I don’t want to know what they did right. I’m going to develop what’s right myself.’”

And he did. I won’t spoil the story—the true account—of why the invention of the “Norden bombsight” ranks up there with vaccines, fertilizers, and air-conditioning. You’ll have to read it for yourself—all 256 fast-moving pages in The Bomber Mafia. Gladwell talks about his books in this recent interview on CBS Sunday Morning:


View Malcolm Gladwell’s 7-minute interview on CBS Sunday Morning.

Gladwell, as is his unique style, weaves history, speculation, and observation into another fascinating read. Example from way back: “I remember one congressman being quoted as saying, ‘Why do we have all this controversy over airplanes? Why don’t we just buy one of them and let the services share it?’”

And speaking of the military services, Gladwell digresses from his plot to add Carl Builder’s color commentary about what Builder calls “the puzzling and often contradictory behavior of America's military forces.” He adds, “…powerful—and glacially resistant to change—are the entrenched institutions and distinct ‘personalities’ of the three armed services themselves.”

Per Gladwell, “Builder argued that you cannot understand how the three main branches of the American military behave and make decisions unless you understand how different their cultures are. And to prove this point, Builder said, just look at the chapels on each of the service academy campuses.”

Compare the Army and Navy chapels to “…the cadet chapel at the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs. This is a chapel from another universe. It was finished in 1962, but if I told you that it was finished last month, you would say, ‘Wow, that’s a futuristic building.’ The Air Force chapel looks like someone lined up a squadron of fighter jets like dominoes with their noses pointed toward the heavens. It looks ready to take flight with a magnificent, deafening whoosh. Inside the cathedral, there are more than twenty-four thousand pieces of stained glass, in twenty-four different colors, and at the front, a cross forty-six feet tall and twelve feet wide, with crossbeams that look like propellers. Outside, four fighter jets are jauntily parked, as if some pilots, on a whim, had dropped by for Sunday morning communion.”

The Air Force, Carl Builder adds, “is utterly uninterested in heritage and tradition. On the contrary, it wants to be modern.” Thus—the culture war is first fought among the military services, and then on the actual battlefield. (Fascinating.)

Why the book title? The leaders of the Air Corps Tactical School were labeled “the Bomber Mafia.” Gladwell elucidates, “Their motto was: Proficimus more irretenti: ‘We make progress unhindered by custom.’” The mafia label “was not intended as a compliment—these were the days of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano and shoot-outs on the streets. But the Air Corps faculty thought the outcast label quite suited them. And it stuck.

“Harold George, one of the spiritual leaders of the Bomber Mafia, put it like this: ‘We were highly enthusiastic; we were starting on, like, a crusade…knowing that there were a dozen of us and the only opposition we had was ten thousand officers and the rest of the Army, rest of the Navy.”

After you’ve read (or listened to) The Bomber Mafia, watch the movie, Twelve O’Clock High. Gladwell: “It was based on a book written by Beirne Lay, the pilot under LeMay. Twelve O’Clock High starred Gregory Peck as the leader of an attack on a ball-bearing factory. It’s worth watching because it perfectly captures the persistence of the Bomber Mafia’s vision. The men had failed the first time, but it didn’t matter. They would try again. Whatever evidence was slowly gathering about the limitations of the Norden bombsight didn’t faze them. The dream was alive.”

View Twelve O’Clock High on Amazon Prime.

Twelve O’Clock High is often used in MBA courses (Harvard, etc.). I viewed it the first time in 2007 as a guest in Connie Salio’s course at Biola University’s Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program. Click here to read my review. Click here to view Twelve O’Clock High on Amazon Prime (2 hours, 12 minutes).

Does your organization have a bold idea? Launching a new program or department—radical or revolutionary? Gladwell’s research will give you the guts to try. He notes, “The Tactical School was a university. An academy. But not many of the faculty had any experience teaching. And the things they were teaching were so new and radical that there weren’t really any textbooks for anyone to study or articles for anyone to read. So they mostly made things up—on the fly, so to speak.

“Lectures quickly turned into seminars, which turned into open discussions, which spilled out into dinner in the evening. That’s what always happens: Conversation starts to seed a revolution. The group starts to wander off in directions in which no one individual could ever have conceived of going all by himself or herself.”

Again—no spoiler alerts, but don’t miss these snippets:
   • “Obsessives lead us astray sometimes. Can’t see the bigger picture. Serve not just the world’s but also their own narrow interests. But I don’t think we get progress or innovation or joy or beauty without obsessives.”
   • The four tenets of the Bomber Mafia doctrine (previously all bombing was done at night, but these revolutionaries tried it in broad daylight with the new invention).
   • How “spitballing” (“thought experiments”) before bombers and even bombsights existed—enabled innovation.
   • Why Londoners never panicked during the Blitz of 1940-1941, per a government film, “The sign of a great fighter in the ring is, Can he get up from the floor after being knocked down? London does this every morning.”
• Gladwell’s poetry: “…he’s a figure who made a novelist’s fingers itch.”

And these:
   • On Hansell: “…unflinchingly honest, a little naïve, but fundamentally a romantic, with all that implies.” His first date with Dorothy Rogers: she “found him tiresome. He wrote her every day for the better part of a year. She answered two, maybe three of his letters. They were married in 1932.”
   • Curtis LeMay on the easy way to win the war: “…there ain’t no such animal.”
   • Why Haywood Hansell “sided with Jesus” on how to end the war. “You should never do evil so that good may come. But LeMay would have thought long and hard about going with Satan. He would have accepted the illegitimate means if they led to what he considered a swift and more advantageous end.” (What’s your view?)

Your theology matters. Don’t skip Chapter 9’s shocking report on the bombing of 67 (not a typo) cities before Japan surrendered in August 1945. Would you…authorize those bombings?

To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, by Malcolm Gladwell. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours, 14 minutes).

P.S. Need more war stories to wrap up your summer reading? Check out:
   • The Tragedy of Patton: A Soldier's Date With Destiny — Could World War II's Greatest General Have Stopped the Cold War? by Robert Orlando (read my review)
   • View the award-winning movie, Silence Patton, directed by Robert Orlando, 2018 (1 hour, 25 minutes) – Click here.
   • Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre (read my review)
   • New movie coming in 2022: Operation Mincemeat

And…click on these titles to read my reviews of three more Malcolm Gladwell books:
   • Talking to Strangers (2020)
   • David and Goliath (2013)
   • Outliers: The Story of Success (2013)

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Was it worth it? Was General LeMay’s horrific bombing campaign prudent? (It, perhaps, prevented a U.S. invasion of Japan and more lost lives.) Now imagine that you’re calling the shots. Is a shorter war your highest value?
2) The Norden bombsight had a virtuous goal: precision bombing with minimal civilian casualties. Oops. The opposite happened. What should we be learning from the study of war?
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Mistake #11 of 25:
Traveling Without Preparing
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson

Wow! Counting this issue, John has reviewed four books by Malcolm Gladwell, but he refrained from borrowing any of Gladwell's book titles for the "mistake" book. LOL! 

In Mistake #11, “Traveling Without Preparing,” John recommends a Malcolm Gladwell bestseller and also confesses, “I was unprepared for the intricacies and nuances of being a global citizen. I should have asked for coaching from experienced goodwill ambassadors.”

He writes, “Now with 59 countries crowding my passport, I realize an empty suitcase is preferable to an empty mind!” So with the help of coaches and just-in-time books, John learned (somewhat!) how to navigate other cultures across the globe. He especially appreciated two books:

• Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, says that your long-standing assumptions about leadership might need to change, based on a person’s ethnicity. For example, Greeks and Guatemalans are in the top five of the “uncertainty avoidance” countries (high reliance on rules), while Swedes and Jamaicans represent the top-five cultures best able to tolerate ambiguity. (Did John mention he’s Swedish?) Read John’s review.

• Leading Across Cultures: Effective Ministry and Mission in the Global Church. James E. Plueddemann quotes Joshua Bogunjoko, “Cross-cultural leadership is a school from which you never graduate.” Must-read: the informative two-page vignettes, “Reflections on Multicultural Leadership.” Read John’s review.

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Before you bet the farm on your next marketing blitz—slow down and invite early feedback on your innovation. Explore how to test pilot a campaign first. Contact 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.

Let Us Prey (Revised Edition): The Plague of Narcissist Pastors

Issue No. 484 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting includes a critical alert about narcissistic leaders (including pastors)—and prevention methods and metaphors. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book I wrote with my son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #10 below.

Narcissistic leaders “are consummate chameleons, able to change their colors effortlessly as they mimic the background of whatever situation they may be in, and that includes their ability to appear compassionate.”

Interview Question: “How Weird Are You?” 

Last year, while locked down in the Pearson Bunker, we began talking about writing the “mistakes” book. The big idea—If I’d Only Read This Book Earlier in My Career, I Could Have Avoided This BIG Leadership Mistake!

But should the book highlight my Top-10, Top-50, or Top-100 big leadership mistakes? (Yikes. I have an abundance of examples.) Much too late, I’ve often read a book that would have rescued me in those gut-wrenching situations.

Today’s book would certainly be on that list. Maybe I could have avoided some big leadership mistakes had I read more and understood more about narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

In my work with churches, denominations, and nonprofit ministries, it would have been immensely helpful if I had read Let Us Prey at the front end of my leadership years. While Darrell Puls focuses on “The Plague of Narcissist Pastors And What We Can Do About It” (the subtitle), his book is a Big Wake-Up Call for all ministry leaders, board members and the silent sufferers in the pews and organizations—anywhere and everywhere—where narcissists are doing their damage. Oh, my.

Puls writes from sad experience. He served as a staff pastor under a narcissist. As a church consultant (conflict resolution and more), he’s seen the destructive underbelly of narcissist pastors and, yes, narcissist churches. He notes, “Healthy and unhealthy organizations tend to follow the patterns of their leaders.”

The author makes it clear—he loves the church. He’s a cheerleader for pastors. And he’s not naïve. “We are all narcissists to some degree,” he writes, “and many have observed the increase in narcissistic behavior in our society.” He adds, “Narcissism is a spectrum condition meaning that it goes from the least inclination to full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).”

Church board members, staff members, and key volunteers—especially—must read Let Us Prey. But any leader or board member (nonprofit or for-profit) will benefit from the author’s thoughtful analysis of narcissists and NPD. It’s impossible to summarize the depth of the issue—and some solutions—in this short review, but these snippets, I pray, will inspire you to read the book.

#1. NPD DEFINED. According to the diagnostic criteria of the American Psychological Association, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following…” Page 23 lists nine statements, including these three eye-poppers:
   1. “Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).”
   3. “Believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).”
   5. “Has a sense of entitlement (i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations).”

As Puls defines NPD, he notes the all-important differences between covert and overt narcissists. (Websites are also helpful including the Mayo Clinic’s description of NPD.)

#2. THE NARCISSIST’S RIVAL: GOD. Puls’ research is vast. The bibliography (14 pages) lists more than 200 books, articles, and resources. He quotes Donald Capps in the publication, Pastoral Psychology, who concludes “with the premise that the most valuable test for extreme narcissism revolves around this question: Does the person in question believe and act as if they are God?” The answer: “…deep inside the true narcissist sees himself as godlike and God as a terrifying rival.”

#3. THE NARCISSIST AS LEADER. “It is our expectation that our pastors will do the work of the Lord rather than be the Lord of the work. The narcissist insists that he is the Lord of the work and all others should serve him.” It gets worse:
   • “The acting ability of the narcissist must not be underestimated or misread. They are consummate chameleons, able to change their colors effortlessly as they mimic the background of whatever situation they may be in, and that includes their ability to appear compassionate. Covert narcissists in particular can mimic compassion for extended periods, but overt narcissists tire of it quickly and are able to mirror empathy only in short swatches.”
   • “…the narcissist pastor will find a way to insert himself into the sermon in a positive way. It may be a statement about how good it is to have self-esteem and how wonderful he feels at knowing that he is a child of God, or it could be subtler in softly proclaiming his own humility, which is in itself a contradiction—he’s proud of his humility.”

#4. THE NARCISSISTIC CHURCH. In Chapter 9, the author identifies characteristics of the narcissistic church: denial, uniqueness, grandiosity, entitlement, paranoia/isolation, lack of empathy, little awareness of external perception, rationalization, and organizational psychosis. The chart on page 167 compares individual narcissism with organizational narcissism in six categories. One key tip-off: watch for superlatives.

This must-read chapter includes this: “One man I know personally talks constantly about how his church is the best, most biblically accurate, friendliest, wealthiest…keep adding superlatives. His own narcissistic needs are met at least in part by being a member of this particular church.”

#5. PREVENTION. Pastors, CEOs, senior team members, board members—they all come and go. But don’t relax. If you’re not facing a narcissistic challenge today—it could be just around the bend with your next hire. Chapter 12 is jam-packed with practical preventative help—especially for governing board members who must understand “their legal responsibility to protect the church [or organization] as fiduciaries.”

Puls includes 14 interview questions from a business leader, Carl Cadwell, that may help a search committee or supervisor identify narcissistic issues in a candidate. Each question includes a commentary on what to look for. Example:
   • “How do you define success for yourself?” Commentary: “This will quickly bring out desires for prestige, power, recognition, etc.”
   • “On a scale of 1 to 10 how weird are you?” Commentary: “It is not so much the number; it is more seeing how candidates react to a question. Because our whole belief is that everyone is a little weird.”
   • “What is something you believe that nearly no one agrees with you on?” Commentary: “This is an interesting way to get at a sense of isolation, grandiosity, and even paranoia.”

#6. THERAPY. If, like the author, you’ve been trashed by a narcissistic pastor or leader, you’ll find comfort in the therapeutic pages of Let Us Prey. Chapter 10, “Healing the People” is balm for the soul. “You are not at fault if a narcissist pastor has victimized you. You were carefully and intentionally groomed, seduced, and manipulated to reveal some of your greatest hopes, weaknesses, and fears only to have them used against you by someone you trusted.”

UNMASKED! Ironically, if you read this in our current COVID-19 marathon, the latest edition includes powerful, but sad, first-person stories in Chapter 4, “Unmasked.” Note: The revised edition was published in June 2020. The 2017 edition (which I also read) was pulled due to some research inaccuracies. Have I mentioned yet that the 2020 edition is “must-read?”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Let Us Prey, Revised Edition: The Plague of Narcissist Pastors and What We Can Do About It, by Darrell Puls.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Darrell Puls notes that “while healthy people have a full emotional range of A to Z, the narcissist, while mimicking the full range, only experiences a range of A to B…” He adds, “In fact, most of their projected emotions are an act designed to get what it is they need most: admiration and adulation from others as a means to control them.” Have you—or someone close to you—been the victim of a narcissist? What did you learn?
2) Yes, you have likely made leadership mistakes in the past, but perhaps some doozies could have been avoided with a greater focus on lifelong learning. What book are you reading (or listening to) this month? 
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Learn More About Narcissism
BONUS NOTES (not included in the emailed edition of Your Weekly Staff Meeting)

The core competency in the Culture Bucket affirms, “We strive to create a corporate culture with core values that are crystal clear. We yearn for a God-honoring workplace where grace and trust are alive and well. Because we are human we will always have relational conflicts, so we are zealots about resolving conflict early. We invite those who won’t live out our values to exit. We experience true joy at work.”

To keep your core values relevant, learn more about narcissism—to prevent your team from hiring the wrong leader, recruiting the wrong board member, and misunderstanding or ignoring inappropriate behavior. Check out these resources:

• 14 Staff Meeting Questions. “I’m Not a Narcissist.” Consider using David Russell’s 14 behavior questions at your next staff meeting (test them with a colleague first!). Read here on the Manage2Win Blog.

• The Owner-Pastor Cult. “It’s Time to Confront the Cult of the Owner-Pastor in the Body of Christ,” by Scott Rodin. Read here in The Steward’s Journey Blog.

• Clergy Honesty. According to a Jan. 6, 2020 report, Gallup’s 18th annual survey of honesty and ethical standards indicated that nurses were rated the highest and car salespeople were rated the lowest. But 54% of Americans rated police officers very high or high in the survey (note the date), while only 40% rated clergy very high or high. Read more.

• Get Out of the Box! Click here to read my 2018 review of Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (Second Edition), by The Arbinger Institute.

• Need Some Inspiration/Encouragement? In the chapter on “Healing the People” in Let Us Prey, Darrell Puls suggests a “T.R.U.T.H.” process. The second T” is for Transforming and he shares an insightful metaphor, “Changing the Wind,” noting the disciples’ method for addressing the problem versus Jesus’ approach in Luke 8. After reading this, I then watched this powerful praise video with Jessy Dixon, “Master, the Tempest Is Raging.” Click here.


View on YouTube: "Master, the Tempest Is Raging"

For more resources and books, visit the Culture Bucket.

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Mistake #10 of 25:
Being “Mr. Nice Guy” vs. “Mr. Truthful Guy”
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson



Read what John learned from “Power Broker” Margaret Thatcher in Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s book, Leaders: Myth and Reality.

John writes, “My association leadership years didn’t prepare me for consulting. I quickly had to understand the difference between likeability and results. Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom for 11 years (1979 to 1990) was dubbed the ‘Iron Lady’ by a Soviet journalist—a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.” Leadership: Myth and Reality quotes Thatcher:

“If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.”

It took John a while—and it took some guts—but eventually he discovered that clients appreciated the unvarnished truth. John says he may not have been well-liked when he presented his recommendations, but at least his clients didn’t shoot the messenger! Read Mistake #10 to learn more, including the unique partnership between Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II—and what happened when they spoke the truth.

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. In Mistake #10, we note the “Five Stages of Decline” in organizations (per Jim Collins). To avoid decline, you often need outside help—someone gutsy enough to ask you tough questions. Contact 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.

3 Reruns - Best Practices From a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World

Issue No. 483 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a Baptist shout-out to Catholic friends and colleagues with an entertaining film and two powerful books. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book I wrote with my son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #9 below.

Could J.P. Morgan learn leadership principles from a 450-year-old company that changed the world?
 
10 People With No Capital and No Business Plan!

C.S. Lewis wrote, “It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.”

So here are three reruns (not as old as St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas), but worth your time. And…since I’ve been preaching (and trying to model) reading outside my lane—here’s a born-again Baptist’s three-gun salute to my Catholic friends. Enjoy!

#1. VIDEO: WE HAVE A POPE (2012, English subtitles, 1 hour, 44 minutes)
No spoiler alert is needed because I’ll just set the stage for you. The papal conclave is in session—and balloting has begun. The thunderous murmuring from dozens of cardinals needs no subtitles: “Not me, Lord! Not me!” No one wants the job.

View the trailer for We Have a Pope.

Makes me wonder if, post COVID-19, there will be more or less applications for presidents, prime ministers, popes, governors, and mayors? Leaders needed. Yikes!

Finally, a pope is selected—and that’s when the fun and the soul-searching begin. The reluctant leader is not sure he wants to be pope. (Plan A or Plan B?) He is unprepared, he thinks, for this one-in-a-billion leadership challenge—and the cardinals (still locked in the Vatican, without cell phones) are not much help to their new leader. Yet he had their votes. Hmmm. Plan A or Plan B?

Click here to read my review. To view the video on Amazon Prime, click on the title for We Have a Pope.



#2. BOOK: THE POPE & THE CEO (2011, 152 pages)
Andreas Widmer’s poignant book, The Pope & The CEO: John Paul II's Leadership Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, is highly relevant to all CEOs, leaders and managers. (Click here to read my review and the must-read story.)

As a young Swiss Guard to the pope, the author observed the back office leadership of Pope John Paul II. Yet later, Widmer failed in business and had to re-learn the simple, but God-honoring papal principles of leadership. It’s a page-turner because the stories are so powerful and practical.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Pope & The CEO: John Paul II's Leadership Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, by Andreas Widmer.



#3. BOOK: HEROIC LEADERSHIP (2003, 336 pages)

Chris Lowney, the author of Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World, writes: “What often passes for leadership today is a shallow substitution of technique for substance.” This is a book with substance—plus laugh-out-loud humor. Click here to read my full review.

Lowney turned in his Jesuit name badge on a Friday. On Monday, he clocked in at J.P. Morgan. Named a managing director of this huge investment banking firm while still in his 30s, he held senior positions with them in New York, Tokyo, Singapore, and London.

Bemused and amused by the proliferation of leadership lesson books (Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, to name just one), Lowney responded. “I was intrigued by what sixteenth-century priests might teach us twenty-first century sophisticates about leadership and about coping with complex, changing environments.”

I know. I know. I recommend a “must-read” book in every issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting. But, this one really is a five-star must-read. “Obedience issues in an uninterrupted life of heroic deeds and heroic virtues,” writes Lowney. When’s the last time you rubbed shoulders with a truly heroic leader?

The Company of Jesus (the Jesuits) was founded in 1540 by “ten men with no capital and no business plan.” Yet within a generation, they built the world’s most influential company of its kind. In 10 years, with no experience, they launched 30 colleges. “Instead of talking about leadership, they lived it.” Founder Ignatius of Loyola trained every recruit to lead. Jesuits believe that self-leadership emanates from four unique values: 1) self-awareness, 2) ingenuity, 3) love, and 4) heroism.

If you salivate at the chance to lead people through complexity, build global teams, control out-of-control growth, mediate turf battles, cultivate wealthy donors, and enforce rigorous hiring standards—you’ll feast on this gourmet book. (And to check your motives on why you want to lead, read Patrick Lencioni’s 2020 book, The Motive.)

Chris Lowney’s real world experience keeps it honest. His delicious and dry wit embarrassed me multiple times in 2008 while reading the book at 30,000 feet. The laugh-out-loud moments were frequent!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Heroic Leadership: Best Practices From a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World, by Chris Lowney.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS
1) The Jesuits coached Chris Lowney on how to spot leaders. He writes, “…looking for leaders while focusing on the wrong skills is a hit-or-miss proposition—like picking future opera stars by examining their golf swings.” How do we identify, coach, and mentor emerging leaders in our organization?

2) After serving as a Swiss guard to Pope John Paul II, Andreas Widmer jumped into the business world—but it didn’t go well at first. He confesses to numerous personnel disasters. “My most painful mistakes in business,” he wrote, involved prioritizing tasks over people. Thinking back to his Vatican days, Widmer observed how an effective leader must be “a synchronizer of talent.” How effective are we at identifying task/people mismatches—and then addressing them early?

3) To go deeper on Ignatius of Loyola, look over Father Darrin Merlino’s shoulder in his recent book, 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God. Discuss: Is it possible that the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius—if taken seriously—can help “10 men with no capital and no business plan?” Why or why not?
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Mistake #9 of 25:
Fibbing…to Fit My Fiction
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


Clayton Christensen writes that telling the truth "100 percent of the time is easier than 98 percent of the time."

Every mistake in this new workbook by John and his son, Jason, is paired with a relevant book recommendation. Noting the time he “fibbed” a response to Francis Schaeffer, the eminent evangelical theologian, John wishes Clayton Christensen (1952-2020) had written his book years earlier!

How Will You Measure Your Life includes Christensen’s wisdom on always telling the truth and acting with integrity, “100 percent of the time is easier than 98 percent of the time.” John’s mistake:

“I was raised with the core value, ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ My heart has been to honor God with this practice every day. But regretfully that day—lying won and honesty lost.” Read Mistake #9 to see what John learned.

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. When you view We Have a Pope, you experience again the power of film to tell a powerful story (even with subtitles). For ideas and insights on telling your powerful story, contact 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.

The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right

Issue No. 482 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features my letter to three of our five grandchildren (recent high school grads), along with a new book on how to launch their careers. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book I wrote with my son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #8 below.

Grandpa John recommends a new book to his favorite 18-year-old grandkids (l. to r.): Emelia, Anders, and Zuzu. The Unspoken Rules suggests you look for the five "influencers" at your new job. "Of course, no one walks around with those labels on their foreheads!" (Art by Zuzu Pearson) 
 
Dear Emelia, Anders, and Zuzu:

You’re cordially invited to join me at Starbucks for a book discussion and a pop quiz!

As you know, I usually write each issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting to all my readers and leaders, but most of them already have careers. And though some of our readers do have dysfunctional bosses, rarely enough funding, and bulging employee handbooks—most love their careers and are doing well. (That’s because they read books!)

Instead, this eNews is just for the three of you (but others are welcome to also read your Grandpa John’s advice). And you guessed it—I have another must-read book! Anders, you scanned my review copy of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right and said it was helpful as you started your summer job. It must be really good, because you already got your first raise! Way to go!

Emelia, had you asked me—a month ago—for my Top-10 list of the “unspoken rules” you need to know in your first career, I would have confidently shared 20 rules with you. Grammy Joanne would have another 20 for you. Ditto your parents, youth director, and older friends. “That’s an easy book to write,” I would have said—a month ago. But today…

…I can’t believe I’m writing this—the savvy insights in Gorick Ng’s hot-off-the-press book from Harvard Business Review Press are uniquely amazing. The Unspoken Rules is a one-of-a-kind career tool. I just ordered one copy for the three of you (please share!). If you’d prefer the audio book from Libro.fm, let me know.

Zuzu, my suggestion: read this EVERY time you start a new job. The “unspoken rules” are off-the-chart helpful. Ng’s nuances are frequently missed by newbies and, I’ll bet, even by experienced managers. Examples:

SEND THE RIGHT SIGNALS. It’s tough to pick my favorite chapter, but Chapter 7, “Send the Right Signals,” is immensely helpful. Take-aways:
   • Detailed nuances on: Emails and Instant Messages, Phone Calls, Video Calls, Voice Mails, Online Activity, and In-Person Behavior
   • Table 7-1: How to distinguish between monochronic and polychronic people (Examples: “Are prompt no matter what” vs. “Are prompt depending on the relationship”) – Will your next boss be mono or poly? What are you?
   • Five questions for in-person behavior, including “What do you leave on your desk, in your trash can, and in the printer—and what does it say about your priorities?”
   • “You need to assume that you are always being watched.” (Yikes!)

TWO FLAVORS & THREE Cs. “Every email you send is a new opportunity to demonstrate your Three Cs.” (The foundational theme of the Three Cs: Commitment, Competence, and Compatibility flows purposely through the book.) But while the detailed email protocol is fantastic (never read anything like it!), the author warns that workplaces come in two general flavors: Email-first or IM-first. Ng writes, “Writing at work is therefore like dressing up for work.” Business casual or more formal? Ditto—your written communications.

GOOD AND BAD QUESTIONS. “Knowing the difference between good and bad questions is critical. As much as people like to say, ‘there are no stupid questions,’ there are.” The three concentric circles on page 37 will be on the pop quiz! And the eight “blanks to fill in to see the big picture” of your organization are worth gold (page 36). And…LOL! Read about the intern on page 32 who met the CEO in the elevator—but didn’t know she was the CEO! To “show up like a high performer,” check out the 15 higher-priority and lower-priority tasks when prepping for your first day (a 45-minute research project).

THE PROBLEM. Gorick Ng’s performance review in his first career job was not pretty. It referenced a 2:30 a.m. (not a typo) meeting at the office with his manager. He notes, “That night felt like surgery without anesthesia.” What did he learn? He didn’t have the “knowledge of the unspoken rules—certain ways of doing things that managers expect but don’t explain and that top performers do but don’t realize. Knowing how to navigate the unspoken rules is essential to career success.”

The problem? The unspoken rules “aren’t taught in school. Instead they are passed down from parent to child and from mentor to mentee, making for an unlevel playing field between insiders and outsiders.” How does Ng know this? “Because I was one of the outsiders.” (Grandpa John note: Yes—blame your parents, not your grandparents!)

The author was the first person in his family to attend college—Harvard University. Today, Gorick Ng (also a graduate of Harvard Business School) is a career adviser at Harvard—specializing in coaching first-generation, low-income students. He previously managed new employees at Boston Consulting Group. Thus—this superb book.

MANAGE YOUR WORKLOAD. Trust me, grandkids! When you follow God’s leading into the right career and into the right organization (or you start your own company, in space perhaps?), you will need to prioritize your workload—every day. Chapter 9, “Manage Your Workload,” is very, very practical. (I could have used this wisdom 50 years ago!) For example, the Venn diagram on page 123 is LOL-funny, but so, so true: “The tension between what you find important and what others find important.”

Three intersecting circles:
   • What you find important
   • What your manager finds important
   • What your company finds important
The descriptors:
   • Things that make you happy but that won’t get you anywhere in the organization.
   • Things that you’ll be unhappy doing.
   • Things that make your manager happy but don’t help you or your career.
   • Things that get you noticed but that make you and your manager miserable!

And the center of those three intersecting circles: “A mythical place!”

EXTRA CREDIT. The classic URGENT versus IMPORTANT quadrants (the Eisenhower Matrix) are featured in Chapter 9 along with five recommendations, including: “If something is neither urgent nor important, remove it from your life.” Extra credit: read my review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, by Stephen R. Covey, or google “Eisenhower Matrix.”

MISTAKES! Don’t skip “So You Made a Mistake, Now What?” The author challenges readers, “If you aren’t making mistakes, you may not be stretching yourself enough”—but pay attention to the kind of mistake you make. LOL—again! As you know, your dad and I just wrote the book, Mastering Mistake Making, but had we read The Unspoken Rules when it arrived in April, we would have quoted this wisdom:
   • “No mistakes are better than mistakes.
   • Safe mistakes are better than dangerous mistakes.
   • Small mistakes are better than big mistakes.
   • Private mistakes are better than public mistakes.
   • First-time mistakes are better than non-first-time mistakes.”

The quadrants on page 136 are useful—plotting Noticeable Mistakes and Unnoticeable Mistakes against Reversible Mistakes and Irreversible Mistakes. (One common line in all four quadrants: “Avoid making the same mistake again.”)

EVERY PAGE HAS A TAKE-AWAY. Honest! Don’t speed-read this book or you’ll miss these gems:
   • In-the-trenches stories: best and worst practices like Neel’s Three Cs disaster on a Zoom call (page 79-80)
   • Why you should always say “Yes” when asked, “Do you have any questions?” (page 35)
   • A template for building your external narrative (page 58)
   • Five questions to ask yourself before clicking “send” on your emails (pages 84-85)
   • Five kinds of influencers: Gatekeepers, Veterans, Experts, Socialites, Advisers (page 145) and this note: “Of course, no one walks around with these labels on their foreheads.”
   • The company’s culture: ask for permission or ask for forgiveness? (page 147)
   • Yikes! You must understand “The Lesson of First Loyalties” (page 148).
   • For introverts: “How to keep a conversation going.” Think E.A.R.—Engage, Ask, Repeat. (page 164)

BRILLIANT ADDED VALUE. Four more reasons why this is must-read:
   • How to master meetings (Chapter 12): read the bullet-point summary (a feature of every chapter) on page 187. Example: when to speak up.
   • Zuzu—you’ll appreciate the discussion of high context vs. low context cultures (page 191)—especially if your manager is not U.S.-born.
   • Emelia—plan on lots of conflict in your career, but learn how to resolve conflict in Chapter 14 and don’t miss the “10-10-10 strategy” from Suzy Welch on page 213. “Which option will I feel best about in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years?”
   • Anders—assuming you may change jobs (and even careers) more than once, note the email template for announcing your exit to your team members (after you’ve told your boss). See Step 4, “Leave Graciously,” on pages 217-222 (one of three options if your current job is not working out: live with it, fix it, or leave).

See you at Starbucks for the book discussion and pop quiz! And by the way, CONGRATULATIONS on your high school graduations! (And congrats to your parents who homeschooled you all these years. Impressive!)

Blessings,

Grandpa John

P.S. When you are promoted to management—leverage the practical wisdom in The Unspoken Rules as you mentor your new hires.

To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right, by Gorick Ng. Listen to the book on Libro.fm (7 hours, 2 minutes). And thanks to Fortier PR for sending me a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS
1) The author of Next Job, Best Job recommends you not use the “Swiss Army knife” approach on your resume—hedging your bets by listing every job you’ve ever had. Why is the generalist approach not appropriate for most job interviews? (Read my review.)
2) Michael Watkins lists 11 fundamentals for the new manager or leader as she negotiates for success with her new boss. Read the review of my pick for 2010 book-of-the-year, The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels. (Example: “Don’t trash the past.”) What would be on your list of fundamentals in your first 90 days for building a great relationship with your new boss?
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Mistake #8 of 25:
Incessantly Whining About Being Too Busy
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


John missed the memo about complaining behind closed doors!

“My default conversations were about busyness, not results.” That’s the subtitle of Mistake #8 in the new book by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. John says he played the victim way too often. (“We are so, so busy!”) He confesses, “It was my fault that we were out of control, but my response was dumb and counterproductive.”

Way too late in life, John read Dick Daniels’ incredible book, Leadership Briefs: Shaping Organizational Culture to Stretch Leadership Capacity—and this insightful chapter, “The Social Graces of Memorable Leaders.” It was John’s 2015 Book-of-the-Year.

Daniels urges leaders to balance the hard skills of leading with the soft skills of effective leadership. He lists “Six Graceful Reminders.” Here’s number four: “Complain Behind Closed Doors.” He writes, “Bad days provide an opportunity to model how to fly above the fray rather than play the part of the victim who seeks sympathy in the messiness of life.”

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do your newest team members understand “the unspoken rules” regarding design, digital, marketing, and social communications in your organization? For an insider’s savvy,  contact Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
___________________________________________________________________________________

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.

The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities

Issue No. 481 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends a serious (but also hilarious) book—the latest poke-in-the-ribs from Patrick Lencioni. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book from John Pearson and Jason Pearson, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #7 below.

Order Chick-fil-A milkshakes and host a “Milkshakes and Motives” team meeting. Will you enjoy peach, cookies-and-cream, or chocolate?
 
Why Do You Want to Be a Leader?

Best-selling business author Patrick Lencioni’s latest book will shock you. (Don’t skip a page.) He calls for “the end of servant leadership.” And this priority: “If someone were to dive into a stack of my books for the first time, I’d tell them to start with this one.”

The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities is classic Lencioni. The “leadership fable” business story, plus end-of-the-book lessons, has a new twist—and it’s not subtle. The poke-in-the-rib: Why do you want to be a leader?

Lencioni: “…the majority of the other books I’ve written focus on how to be a leader: How to run a healthy organization, lead a cohesive team, manage a group of employees.” (All good, right?)

But he admits, “However, over the years I’ve come to the realization that some people won’t embrace the instructions I provide because of why they wanted to become a leader in the first place.”

And by the way, don’t invite Lencioni to your commencement program! When Lencioni hears a graduation speaker admonish students to “go out into the world and be a leader,” he says he wants to stand up and shout, “No!!! Please don’t be a leader, unless you’re doing it for the right reason, and you probably aren’t!”

I’ve read and reviewed my fair share of Lencioni leadership fables—and highly recommended them to others. So would I agree with him that new readers and both emerging and experienced leaders should read The Motive first? I get the importance of “why,” but don’t wanna-be-leaders need a good dose of “how” before they can fully understand the unhealthy “why” motivations they bring to the table?

My suggestion: ask your team members to read The Motive and then huddle over this question. Maybe call the event “Milkshakes and Motives.”

No spoiler alert here—because I don’t want to reveal the business story (two CEOs: one healthy, one not so healthy). The story is just 125 pages, including blank pages. The lesson section is just 40 powerful pages.(You can read this over a long lunch at Chick-fil-A—or listen to it in just 2 hours and 37 minutes.)

In the leadership fable, you’ll see two competing motivations for being a leader. If you’re a CEO, does your motivation for being CEO align with how your team views your motivation? Interestingly, writes Lencioni, “As passionately as I feel about all this I almost didn’t write this book because one of my heroes didn’t agree with its premise.”

The hero? Alan Mulally, former CEO at Boeing and Ford, disagreed with a key premise in Lencioni’s book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business. You’ll love the scuffle between Mulally and Lencioni on pages 129-131 of The Motive. Gratefully, Lencioni did write his twelfth book and (okay, I’ll say it), it’s a must-read.

SURGERY AS DRUDGERY? Back in 2012, I picked The Advantage (a helpful summary of his earlier books) as my book-of-the-year. I recently quoted this gut-check wisdom to a leader:

Lencioni says that “bad meetings are the birthplace of unhealthy organizations and good meetings are the origin of cohesion, clarity and communication.” He adds, “If someone were to offer me one single piece of evidence to evaluate the health of an organization, I would not ask to see its financial statements, review its product line, or even talk to its employees or customers: I would want to observe the leadership team during a meeting.”

When discussing “the five omissions” of unhealthy leaders, The Motive enriches Lencioni’s very high view of the importance of well-led meetings—with these memorable metaphors:

“A leader seeing his or her meetings as drudgery would be like a doctor viewing surgery that way. Or a teacher thinking about class lectures that way. Or a quarterback seeing games that way. As I said earlier, meetings are the setting, the arena, the moment when the most important discussions and decisions take place. What could be more important?

“Think about it this way. The best place to observe whether a surgeon is good at her job, a teacher is good at his, or a quarterback is good at his, is to watch them during an operation, a class session, or a game, respectively. What is the best place to observe a leader? That’s right—a meeting.”

Read the book to learn the other four “omissions”—and then discuss all five topics at your “Milkshakes and Motives” team meeting. (I’ll have the Chick-fil-A peach milkshake please.) The business fable is hilarious at points (with a dose of locker room language) and it’s impossible to read it and not discuss it. Enjoy.

To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities, by Patrick M. Lencioni. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (2 hours, 37 minutes). And thanks to Jeff Gerhardt for recently gifting the book to me.

P.S. In addition to The Motive and The Advantage, check out these other books from Patrick Lencioni (after you’re read The Motive!):

• Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business (read my review)
• The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues (read my review)
• The Five Temptations of a CEO (read my review)
• The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and Their Employees) - (read my review)
Note: listen to the books at Libro.fm

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS
1) Patrick Lencioni lists two unhealthy results when “leaders accept the less-than-amazing status of meetings.” Have we ever had an “amazing” team meeting? What’s your guess on the two unhealthy results that occur with “less-than-amazing” meetings?
2) Lencioni defines management: “…the act of aligning people’s actions, behaviors and attitudes with the needs of the organization and making sure that little problems don’t become big ones.” He adds, “Avoiding this is nothing but negligence.” Do you agree with his definition? Do leaders really need to “manage”? 
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Mistake #7 of 25:
Minimizing Murphy’s Law
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


You’d think the new leader of the Christian MANAGEMENT Association (now CLA) could have orchestrated a drama-free move from Illinois to California on time and under budget. Oops!

“I was not yet a believer that “If anything can go wrong, it will.” That’s the subtitle of Mistake #7 in the new book by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. Read the story and cringe at John’s cross-country move in 1994! And speaking of cringing…“I cringe when I recall some of the horrendous mistakes I have made during my lifetime,” writes Ted Engstrom. His suggestion: be transparent, keep going, and call your mistakes learning experiences (his italics).

John learned this from Ted: “Experience teaches us to leave room for the unexpected or to isolate ourselves in order to minimize interruptions.” Click here to read John’s review of The Essential Engstrom: Proven Principles of Leadership, by Ted W. Engstrom (Timothy J. Beals, Editor).

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Patrick Lencioni preaches that CEOs must also be CROs: Chief Reminder Officers—constantly repeating, repeating, repeating the big ideas (strategy, etc.). If no one is listening to your “corporate speak” anymore—and you need some fresh communication tools— contact Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
___________________________________________________________________________________

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.

A Comedian’s Prayer Book and 2 More LOL Books for Summer!

Issue No. 480 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends three LOL books for your summer lite reading from a comedian, a best-selling joke book author and cartoonist, and a historian. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book from John Pearson and Jason Pearson, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #6 below.


What book will you pick? Funny, funnier, or funniest?
 
3 LOL Books for Summer Lite Reading!
It’s summer here in the Northern Hemisphere—and time for some lite reading (or listening). Pick one of these three LOL rib-ticklers:

LOL #1- A COMEDIAN’S PRAYER BOOK

British comedian Frank Skinner pairs his superb imagination to his faith journey and delivers (okay I’ll say it) a laugh-out-loud 106-page delight, A Comedian’s Prayer Book. He confesses, “The title is a worry, isn’t it?”

But no worries. No lightning strikes if you read it. It’s deep and wide—LOL-funny with poke-in-the-ribs (pie-in-the-face?) theological musings. He prays:

“One of the joys of prayer is that you get all my references. I could do a joke about El Greco or Efrem Zimbalist Jr, but there’ll never be any need for footnotes. It’s beautiful. You’re the audience I’ve always dreamt of.”

Using theatrical terminology, Skinner sets the stage: “…I’ve tried to retain the bare candour of the simple rehearsal-room improvisation, but infused it with all the production values required to make it a passable public entertainment. I’ve taken my convictions, my questions, my fears, my doubts, my elations, and presented them in what I think is an eavesdropper-friendly form. Hell, judgement, atheism, money, faith and the X-Men all feature.”

“So, this rich man, camel, eye-of-a-needle thing.” It’s probable that this thinking-man’s comedian has plumbed the depths of Matthew 19:24 far deeper than most of us. In his prayer, he admits “Yes, I have a few bob in my pocket…” so looking for loopholes, he wonders, “Imagine if there’s one word missing from the Gospel text, an exhausted scribe rendering an understandable error.” Maybe it really reads, “It’s easier for a camel eyelash to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven? At last, I could enjoy some of this money I’ve worked so hard for.”

Noting that the TK Maxx stores in Britain sell bargain buddhas (yet also flyswatters!), he suggests to the Lord, “So why didn’t I see a single Jesus for sale? I’m not here to lecture you about marketing, but it worries me that we’ve lost so much ground with the I’m-up-for-a-little-bit-of-spirituality crowd.” His prayer continues:

“I know our biggest seller is the crucifix and, of course, it’s been a Christian symbol for two thousand years. It is an enormous inspiration to me, personally, and I have, more than once, wept as I’ve knelt before it. I just wonder if it’s a symbol with something of a specialist appeal? Has an interior designer ever suggested a room needed something torture-themed?” (He suggests a more “user-friendly” symbol for people outside the Faith.)

He prays for “the chosen, the accepters and refusers. This is the kind of work I feel suited for, petitioning you on behalf of the heroes and the deserters, my eyes to the floor, last-three-pews.” He’s comfortable (but with guilt)—like many of us—with a self-conscious level of church involvement: “I’m a last-three-pews Catholic. I don’t want to be organising the Harvest Festival. I put money on the plate, but I don’t even want to be the guy who takes the plate around.”

Warning: your second read through A Comedian’s Prayer Book delights/convicts even more:

• The honesty—extraordinary.
• The humility—quotable.
• The humor—off-the-charts. (I’d fly to London for an evening of conversation between Frank Skinner and Father Darrin Merlino, CMF, author of 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God.)

On the Lord’s Prayer (“It’s that bit when you conduct an impromptu prayer-workshop, offering advice and examples for the would-be kneeler.”), this comedian prays:

“When someone asks me, directly, about doing a charity gig or opening a fete or something, I always tell them to speak to my agent. It gets me off the hook. I like the idea that, when you returned to Heaven, the Father said, ‘Did you tell them about prayer?’ and you said, ‘Yes. I told them to call you’. I imagine there was a resulting loud creak, like an oak tree splitting, as the Almighty’s eyebrows were raised, followed by a hurricane-like sigh.”

Enjoy this special book—and don’t miss Skinner’s running gag, “The Devil has all the best tunes,” deployed humorously across a hundred LOL pages. Click here to view a six-minute interview with the author, excerpted from the BBC’s Song of Praise telecast.


Click here to view a BBC interview with Frank Skinner (6 min.).

To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for A Comedian’s Prayer Book, by Frank Skinner.



LOL #2 - LAUGHTER THERAPY: GOOD MEDICINE TO MAKE YOUR HEART GLAD

After COVID (we pray it’s “after” asap)…we’ll all need therapy and—just in time—my favorite joke book guru and bestselling author, Bob Phillips, has teamed up with cartoonist Jonny Hawkins to deliver the perfect summer read, Laughter Therapy: Good Medicine to Make Your Heart Glad. Here’s a funny one from the 168 pages of hot-off-the-press jokes and cartoons:

SHOCK! “A minister was asked to inform a man with a heart condition that he had just inherited a million dollars. Everyone was afraid the shock would cause a heart attack and the man would die.

“The minister went to the man’s house and said, ‘Joe what would you do if you inherited a million dollars?’ Joe responded, ‘Well, Pastor, I think I would give half of it to the church.’

“And the minister fell over dead.”

To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Laughter Therapy: Good Medicine to Make Your Heart Glad, by Jonny Hawkins and Bob Phillips. And thanks to Bob for sending me this hilarious review copy!



LOL #3 - HUMORISTS: FROM HOGARTH TO NOEL COWARD

Here’s a third LOL option for your summer reading. Humorists is a very satisfying book/comedic journey from historian Paul Johnson who channels W.C. Fields: “We know what makes people laugh. We do not know why they laugh.” (Read my review from April Fools’ Day 2015.)

Johnson, with his unique style of short historical chapters, elegant writing, and deep insights, delivers a cavalcade of comedy—while spotlighting an amazing list of humorists and their secret formulas for making us laugh.

3 CLERGYMEN DON’T WALK INTO A BAR. If you’re looking for a joke book, this is not it. If you’d enjoy a deep dive into a British historian’s hunches on humor—have at it.

Johnson profiles 15 humorists including Benjamin Franklin, G.K. Chesterton, Toulouse-Lautrec, W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, James Thurber, Noel Coward, and others. He includes Groucho’s famous line, “I don’t want to belong to a club which would have me as a member.”

I started at the back of the book with Johnson’s four-page color commentary on how he came to write Humorists. Fascinating! (And...my thanks to David Curry, who often makes me laugh, for recommending this and all of Paul Johnson's books.)

To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Humorists: From Hogarth to Noel Coward, by Paul Johnson. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (7 hours).



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS
1) Comedian Frank Skinner prays and affirms Jesus’ request that “when we do charitable works, we should do them in secret.” His prayer acknowledges, “This advice makes complete sense, but it has, nevertheless, almost certainly cost me an MBE [Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire].” LOL! Okay, colleagues—let’s have a gut-check discussion about our motivations for charitable giving and acts of service. Is our generosity genuine?
2) Skinner prays further, “Early Christianity feels like a thin person’s game. Hence ‘enter by the narrow gate’. That would certainly explain why five loaves and two fishes was more than enough for the five thousand—‘Thanks, but I don’t really do bread’. I wish the Bible gave a name to the first fat Christian. It must have been like when Heaven’s entrance-conditions were broadened to include the Gentiles.” LOL! Do your prayers include humor? Does God laugh?
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Mistake #6 of 25:
Prioritizing Convenience Over Generosity
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


In 2004, the staff at CMA (now CLA) awarded John the first ANNUAL MEATLOAF AWARD—not exactly an honor (per Pearson’s Mistake #6).

“I failed to inspire and give permission for the staff to call audibles.” That’s the subtitle of Mistake #6 in the new book by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. Ignoring the perfect time to be generous with his team, John describes “The Meatloaf Mutiny” that ensued when he prioritized convenience over generosity.

Too focused on production, John had not yet read the mistake-making insights from Leadership for Dummies, and this wisdom from Ken Blanchard and Don Shula: “Winning coaches make their teams audible-ready.”

For Mistake #6, John shares what he learned from two books:
   • Leadership Smarts: Inspiration and Wisdom from the Heart of a Leader, by Ken Blanchard
   • The New One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, MD

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do your communication pieces include appropriate doses of humor—or is it stale, corny, or confusing? To explore the art and science of appropriate humor, contact 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.

Next Job, Best Job: A Headhunter's 11 Strategies to Get Hired Now

Issue No. 479 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a new street-smart guide for your “Next Job, Best Job.” It’s a must-read—even if you’re not yet in between jobs. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book from John Pearson and Jason Pearson, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #5 below.


Imagine the chess match...if both the interviewer and the job seeker have read Next Job, Best Job!
 
Avoid Sameness and Nonstarter Resumes

In a perfect world, I would pay to be a fly on the wall and watch this job interview scenario:

MANAGER: Wow, Joe! Your impressive resume got you past the first obstacle (our HR team). Nicely done! But beware: I just read Next Job, Best Job—so I know all your clever tactics for this 30-minute interview.

JOE: Well then…you already know that I’m not your typical “Swiss Army knife”—hedging my bets by listing every job I’ve ever had. And you also know from my cover letter that my experience aligns extremely well with the specific needs you have. I’m guessing that your second quarter hiccup last year was a big challenge for your department? (LOL! I’ve read Next Job, Best Job also!)

Really…I’d pay serious money (or at least chip in a generous Starbucks card) to observe the jousting in a job interview where both the interviewer and the candidate were fans of this new truthteller, Next Job, Best Job: A Headhunter's 11 Strategies to Get Hired Now, by Rob Barnett.

Trust me. This is not your typical blah, blah, blah, blah bromide. Who should read this hot-off-the-press book?
   • You—no matter your job status.
   • You—if you’re not in your sweet spot.
   • You—because your position might be eliminated in the future.
   • You—because you’ll likely move on sooner than you think.
   • You—because your HR team probably won’t read this!
   • You (even if you’re retired)—because you’ll recommend Next Job, Best Job to dozens of family members, friends, and colleagues seeking your advice.

If you’re currently in between jobs again (the author’s label: #iBJA), this is a must-read. And good news! The author feels your pain (he’s been there). Before I give you my “Seven Best” (below), please note this caveat.

I had the privilege of leading three national/international associations over 25 years and—no surprise—about a dozen headhunter firms thought I worked for them! (That comes with the territory for association executives.) Some still email or call me: “John, who would you recommend as VP of Operations for XYZ?” Headhunters are a unique breed. Some are even good friends! But…

…when they read that Rob Barnett, the author and headhunter, only became a headhunter in 2018—whew!—one’s natural tendency will be to dismiss the book, his ideas, and his 11 strategies. My counsel: don’t.

Perhaps because he’s been on the other side of the desk for decades, and just more recently put out his headhunter shingle, I’ve discerned that the author’s unique background has powered fresh, original thinking, enriched his savviness, and fueled dozens (actually hundreds) of insightful tactics that make this book so worth the read.

Here are my SEVEN BEST for Next Job, Best Job:

#1. BEST CHAPTER. “The Perfect 30-Minute Interview” (Chapter 9) is unlike anything I’ve read on navigating your actual interview. Shocker: “…your number one goal in any first job interview isn’t to get hired.” (The goal: score that second interview.)

#2. BEST JOB SEARCH REGIMEN. Read the detailed three-page schedule for organizing your daily job hunt routine from 9:00 a.m. to 5:25 p.m. (10:20 a.m.—get off social media! At 10:25 a.m.—“I’m not kidding. Turn your social apps off.”) Did I mention the author could do stand-up comedy?

#3. BEST “WHEN TO WALK” ADVICE. When should you reject an offer—and how? The author delivers detailed nuances I’ve never, ever read before. When you say no to a new position—be prepared for four possible reactions from the interviewer, including this (the third version): “I respect your decision. I’m sorry we couldn’t make it work and I hope we stay connected.” Barnett calls this person: “A pro who took it like a pro.” And more good news: perhaps “that relationship can be revived again in another opportunity down the road.”

#4. BEST THERAPY. The author won’t let you wallow in your in-between-jobs-again (#iBJA) status, but he’s unusually sensitive to the emotional challenges of being #iBJA. In his twenties, he joined a Tuesday evening group of seekers with Father A.A. Taliaferro, who invited them to join a “secret group” called the Worrier’s Club. Just one requirement: “We would be allowed to worry our heads off, but only for five minutes each day, because worrying accomplishes absolutely nothing.” (Listen to this three-minute excerpt at Libro.)

#5. BEST NONSTARTER RESUMES. “Hiring execs want specialists—not generalists,” writes Barnett. “Don’t be a Swiss Army knife.” He lists 12 nonstarter career aspirations that should never see the light of day on your resume or on LinkedIn. Examples:
   • Seeking my next career opportunity
   • Storyteller
   • Creative People Person
   • Thought Leader
   • Freelancer
   • Consultant
   • Experienced professional, passionate, dedicated, driven to succeed

#6. BEST PROCESS. The author’s “North Star” theme oozes throughout the book and he walks you through a process to find your best job. “Branding yourself with a clear North Star in the headline of your resume and LinkedIn profile defines the role that best reflects your passion, expertise, and experience.” (Be prepared to toss your current resume and do a major rewrite of your LinkedIn profile.) What does your heart compel you to be and do? Barnett admonishes:

“If a company is looking to hire a butcher, saying you’re a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker doesn’t give you a leg up. Quite the opposite. You’ll be three times less likely to be hired if you tell everyone that you’re seeking three different jobs.”

#7. BEST REBRANDING. Oh, my. The author gives away the store—for just the price of a book. The 37-page chapter, “Marketing Yourself,” is a crash course in your professional rebrand: a new resume, the strongest LinkedIn profile, the perfect headshot, the right wardrobe, a new bio, convincing recommendations, and a killer cover letter. Follow his detailed/detailed counsel and your stale LinkedIn profile will be rescued from “the world’s largest pile of sameness.”

I could go on…but I hope you’ll read the book. In the BEST chapter, Barnett counsels you on how to answer the common interview questions as well as the curveballs that good interviewers will speed your way. One big idea: recruit “preppers” to conduct mock interviews. You must prepare your best answer to: “What’s your dream job?” He also helps you structure a memorable response to “What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?”

So…whether you’re interviewing or being interviewed, enjoy this book. Checkmate!

One More Caveat: In Next Job, Best Job, the author uses a few “non-church words.” (That’s how Trey Gowdy labels his own occasional word choice! See Gowdy’s recent book on persuasion—also a helpful tool for job seekers.)

To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Next Job, Best Job: A Headhunter's 11 Strategies to Get Hired Now, by Rob Barnett. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (8 hours, 5 minutes). And thanks to Fortier PR for sending me a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS
1) Next Job, Best Job suggests (get ready for this!)…you review EVERY contact on your iPhone, plus EVERY friend and follower on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media accounts. Someone may be the perfect connection for you and your Next Job, Best Job.
2) Barnett urges, “Learn all you can about your next company’s social media policies before you start typing a single word.” Why might that be important for job seekers? And…is our organization’s social media policy clear to all insiders?
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Mistake #5 of 25:
Thinking Leadership Is Learned by Magic
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


“In my early years, you could have rubber-stamped ‘Mistake! Mistake! Mistake!’ over much of my work.” So grateful for Olan Hendrix, Peter Drucker, and other authors/leaders.

“I missed the memo about focusing on results and SMART goals.” That’s the subtitle of Mistake #5 in the new book by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. John describes the day that his wife, Joanne, rescued him from a low-priority workshop and redirected him to a management workshop led by Olan Hendrix. “That day-long crash course in Management 101 changed my life,” he notes.

John writes, “In my early years, you could have rubber-stamped ‘Mistake! Mistake! Mistake!’ over much of my work. My biggest mistake: not understanding the importance and power of SMART goals. And aligned with that mistake (or rather, misaligned)—a frenetic focus on activity instead of results. I learned the hard way—but you can learn the easy way: identify and get buy-in on three to five annual SMART goals and report on them monthly.

For Mistake #5, John shares what he learned from Peter Drucker and these two books:
   • A Year With Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello (click here for the index to the 52-week blog series)
• Drucker & Me: What a Texas Entrepreneur Learned from the Father of Modern Management, by Bob Buford (foreword by Jim Collins)

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are your “Worrier’s Club” moments inappropriately focused on your communication strategy? Jason can help you with both therapy and creativity! Check in 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.