Issue No. 425 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2019 and my Book-of-the-Year. Also, Happy New Year! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2018 Top-10 picks from last year.
TOP-10 BOOKS FOR 2019
This issue features books I reviewed in Issues No. 398 to 425. To read other 2019 book reviews from Your Weekly Staffing Meeting, visit the archives at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog on this page.
In 2019, I published 27 issues. (But I thought Your Weekly Staff Meeting was published weekly? Not!) Certainly not all 10 books will have popular appeal—because all of us are at different levels of competency and curiosity across the 20 management buckets. What were your Top-10 books in 2019?
2019 BOOK-OF-THE-YEAR
CALL SIGN CHAOS: LEARNING TO LEAD, by Jim Mattis and Bing West (Order from Amazon) – Read my review. Listen to the audio version (12 hours) at Libro.fm
Best Quote. “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach and you can’t lead.”
I’d slot Call Sign Chaos in a category of one. Leadership savvy (check!). Loyalty to the Commander in Chief—irrespective of political party (check!). An understandable primer on the history and deep divides in the Middle East (check!). A cogent argument for allies and partnerships (check!). Blunt but courteous approaches to commanding officers (check!). And—surprisingly—the in-the-trenches battle accounts and leadership/strategy assumptions in Iraq and Afghanistan—page-turning (check!). I could go on…
Learning to lead is a lifelong journey—and the author leads the way. Gen. Mattis writes that the Commandant of the Marine Corps maintains a list of required reading for every rank. With every promotion comes a new reading list. Brilliant.
Mattis served 712 days as the 26th Secretary of Defense. His Dec. 20, 2018 letter of resignation to President Trump is just one of numerous signed letters in the book’s epilogue—and is a short treatise on his core values and leadership savvy.
He also served as a U.S. Marine from 1969 to 2013 and was Commander of the U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013 under President Obama. From 2007 to 2009, for NATO, he was Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation. That’s an impressive business card! I urge you to read this book.
2019 TOP-10 BOOK LIST: The Other 9
(With brief excerpts from my reviews, these nine are listed in alphabetical order by author.)
#2. KNIGHT OF THE HOLY GHOST: A SHORT HISTORY OF G. K. CHESTERTON, by Dale Ahlquist (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
Best Quote. G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) “was once asked what advice he would give to a young journalist. He said he would tell him to write one article for the Sporting Times and one for the Religious Times and then put them in the wrong envelopes.”
Published in 2019, the book is just 170 pages, and I couldn’t stop talking about it all year.
#3. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2.0 (The World’s Most Popular Emotional Intelligence Test), by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
Best Quote. “CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace.” The authors add, “Considering the mountain of literature about EQ, you’d think corporate executives would be pretty smart about it.”
“EQ, on the other hand, is a flexible skill that can be learned. While it is true that some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, a high EQ can be developed even if you aren’t born with it.”
#4. TURNING THE FLYWHEEL: A MONOGRAPH TO ACCOMPANY GOOD TO GREAT (Why Some Companies Build Momentum and Others Don’t), by Jim Collins (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
Best Quote. “No matter what your walk of life, no matter how big or small your enterprise, no matter whether it’s for-profit or nonprofit, no matter whether you’re CEO or a unit leader, the question stands, How does your flywheel turn?”
Jeff Bezos “…considered Amazon’s application of the flywheel concept ‘the secret sauce.’” But this caution: you need to understand how your organization’s specific flywheel turns—and the sequence of the components. Collins notes seven key steps for capturing your unique flywheel approach—plus this warning: don’t feature more than four to six components.
#5. NO! A GUIDE FOR BUSY PEOPLE: Banish Busyness and Focus on What Matters Most, by Doug Fields (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
Best Quote. “What I didn’t realize was that every ‘YES’ I was saying turned into an unspoken ‘NO’ as well, often to the people most important to me.”
More than 40 powerful quotations on why you must say NO:
• “When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” (Paulo Coelho)
• “Sometimes no is the kindest word.” (Vironika Tugaleva)
• “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” (Warren Buffet)
#6. STRATEGYMAN VS. THE ANTI-STRATEGY SQUAD: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan, by Rich Horwath (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
Best Quote. The author noted the Stanford University study that says you’ll retain six to seven times more information when it’s presented in a story format.
Thus...”Fwumpfh!”…”B-Zapp!”…and “Bwa Ha Ha!” (Yes, I’m quoting directly from this must-must read graphic novel!)
• “A survey of nearly 5,000 senior executives showed that more than 50% didn’t think they had a winning strategy in place.”
• “A recent study of more than 8,000 new, nationally distributed products found that only 40% were still on the market three years later.”
#7. LEADERS: MYTH AND REALITY, by General Stanley McChrystal (US Army, Retired), Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
Best Quote. In the chapter on “The Geniuses,” (Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein—two of 13 leaders profiled), the authors quote Bernstein:
“Finally, the great conductor must not only make his orchestra play, he must make them want to play. He must exalt them, lift them, start their adrenalin[e] pouring, either through cajoling or demanding or raging. But however he does it, he must make the orchestra love the music as he loves it. It is not so much imposing his will on them like a dictator; it is more like projecting his feelings around him so that they reach the last man in the second violin section.”
#8. “WHY YOUR MEETINGS STINK—AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT,” by Steven G. Rogelberg, (Harvard Business Review, January-February 2019), visit the HBR website here. (Read online at HBR) - Read my review.
Best Quote. “One study found that despite the prevalence of meetings today, 75% of those surveyed had received no formal training in how to conduct or participate in them.”
• “To prevent groupthink, consider incorporating periods of silence throughout the meeting…”
• Instead of verbal brainstorming, use “brainwriting.” (A must-read paragraph!)
#9. WHERE THE LIGHT DIVIDES, by Fred Smith (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
Best Quote. “What the people of Israel did with the serpent, we do the same in many ways. We make good things into icons and then into idols.” He adds, “Some have made an idol of the church for their own benefit.”
So…caution all readers! Fred Smith’s 50 short chapters will sneak up on you and—if you have any measure of a spiritual pulse—you’ll get hammered. But it’s a good hammering. He’s provocative, but also patient with us. And just when you turn the page for a new chapter (“Ah! Yes! I know this biblical account…”), Fred will twist your pre-conceived and often ill-conceived understanding—and grab you by the spiritual throat.
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For the “10th book” in my Top-10 list, I’ll apologize in advance—here are three more books, co-authored with ECFA President Dan Busby. We pretty much split the writing in half—so at least half of the content is excellent (Dan’s half!).
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#10A. LESSONS FROM THE CHURCH BOARDROOM: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson (Order from Amazon) – Read my summary.
Best Quote. “Would you trust a surgeon who stopped learning? How about a church board member who stopped learning?” (Click here to read the blog series from 40 guest bloggers.)
#10B. MORE LESSONS FROM THE NONPROFIT BOARDROOM: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! by Dan Busby and John Pearson (Order from Amazon) – Read my summary.
Best Quote. In Lesson 39, we quote Donald Rumsfeld, “Meetings are a good place to discover whether an organization might be suffering from groupthink. If everyone in the room seems convinced of the brilliance of an idea, it may be a sign that the organization would benefit from more dissent and debate.” (Click here to subscribe to the blog series beginning on Jan. 8, 2020.)
#10C. ECFA TOOLS AND TEMPLATES FOR EFFECTIVE BOARD GOVERNANCE: Time-Saving Solutions for Your Board, by Dan Busby and John Pearson (Order from Amazon) – Read my summary.
Best Tool. Tool #11 of 22: Monthly Dashboard Report. A one-page color-coded dashboard report from the CEO to the board can be customized to highlight three to five of your CEO’s Annual S.M.A.R.T. Goals—with this caveat from Peter Drucker, “If you have more than five goals, you have none.” This will revolutionize your CEO’s (or senior pastor’s) priorities—and get everyone on the same page. Pair this with Tool #10—and you’ll eliminate hallway whining! (Read the blog series on all 22 tools. Click here.)
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Your Top-100 Books List
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook
One of the big ideas in the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets is to create your Top-100 Books List. I’ve crafted my list using my 20 management buckets (core competencies) categories. Download the template from the Book Bucket and start your list this week!
When my buckets book was published in 2008, I listed one book recommendation per bucket on pages 83-85. In the Delegation Bucket, for example, read The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, by Ken Blanchard, William Oncken, and Hal Burrows (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.
COMING JAN. 6, 2020: Visit the Book Bucket webpage on Jan. 6 to download three lists of books (updated through 12/31/19) that I’ve reviewed since 2006, including my Top-100 books list.
I'm reviewing some fantastic books in 2020, including this hot-off-the-press winner, The Amazon Management System: The Ultimate Digital Business Engine That Creates Extraordinary Value for Both Customers and Shareholders, by Ram Charan and Julia Yang (Order from Amazon).
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are you leveraging the extraordinary power of visual media to inspire your members, clients, or customers? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video), including the new book by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love. (Read John’s review here.)
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