Issue No. 519 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends a can’t-put-it-down, nonfiction, page-turner from two investigative reporters. The subtitle: “A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy.” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for John's new blog, Pails in Comparison (PIC), with shorter book reviews of his latest “PICs.”
Read Dead in the Water. It’s a page-turning mix of Captain Phillips meets Midsomer Murders meets The Wall Street Journal meets Lloyds of London meets Tom Clancy!
Lloyds of London Just Called! Yikes!
Quick! Add Dead in the Water to your summer reading list. (Or, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere—Quick! Add Dead in the Water to your winter reading list!)
Two investigative journalists make bold promises in the subtitle of Dead in the Water: “A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy.” Hype or not?
• True. (Check!) But it reads like a Tom Clancy novel.
• Story. (Check!) So fast-moving, I couldn’t put it down.
• Hijacking. (Check!) Remember Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips?
• Murder. (Check!) Sadly, you’ll have to read this page-turner.
• Global. (Check!) Cyprus, London, Yemen, Manila, and more.
• Maritime. (Check!) Plan A: Transport $100 million of oil from Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula to China—and avoid Somali pirates.
• Conspiracy. (Check!) Lloyd’s of London called. They’re on the hook for a serious insurance payout. What really happened on the Brillante Virtuoso—and who really owns this oil tanker and the oil?
There’s no spoiler alert here, but Dead in the Water delivers as promised. Imagine navigating a ship—almost three football fields long—and staying clear of 11,000 other tankers chugging through the sea-lanes—outrunning those vicious pirates. Did I mention the maritime traffic also includes 5,300 container ships worldwide?
Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel, both award-winning business reporters for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine (and more) have serious credentials—and even more serious guts. This book is “the product of more than four years of reporting, drawing on tens of thousands of pages of court filings, witness testimonies, police records, military documents, emails, memos, and audio transcripts, as well as interviews with more than seventy-five people…” They add, “No scenes or dialogue have been invented or embellished…”
“More than once during our research, we were warned of risks to our safety if we continued to investigate,” they write. Whew! Did I mention guts? They caution readers about the “lawless seas” and weave our imaginations into this dangerous world where “the most audacious crimes can occur”—where “there are certainly no police, and often no consequences.”
Why does it exist? Maritime crimes are “enabled by the complexities of twenty-first century finance and, perhaps most of all, the collective indifference of a global population that wants what it wants, wants it now, and doesn’t want to know the human cost.” (You may need a gut check also.)
You will love this book—and on your reading journey, you’ll be intrigued with the intricacies of Lloyds of London (I had no idea!); you’ll learn who shows up when a distressed ship sends up the flares and why; and you’ll follow two ex-detectives from London’s Metropolitan Police as they try to unravel this complicated mess of a crime.
If Hollywood stays true to the true story and makes Dead in the Water into a movie, I’ll see it twice!
To order from Amazon, click on title for Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy, by Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel. Listen on Libro.fm (9 hours, 22 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) What’s the value of reading nonfiction books that transport you outside your own culture and country—and into the abundant global leadership and management messes? (Example: click here to read my review of Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire, by Hans Greimel and William Sposato.)
2) Recommend a book your colleagues should read that is based outside of our country. Why should they read it? (Need suggestions? Here are two below.)
• Money Games: The Inside Story of How American Dealmakers Saved Korea's Most Iconic Bank, by Weijian Shan (read my review)
• The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un, by Anna Fifield (read my review)
What’s your coaching style? Word salads? Or five-word insights or questions—then silence? Watch the poignant scene in Top Gun Maverick and then re-read The Advice Trap. (Convicting!)
Top Gun Maverick:
Five Words. Then Generous Silence.
Stunning! That’s my one-word review of Top Gun Maverick, the long-awaited “Top Gun 2” that picks up from the original 1986 movie. I was captivated by this 2022 box office record-breaker on an IMAX screen (PG-13). And no surprise—numerous leadership and management moments popped out.
For fun, watch the Top Gun Maverick trailer:
Leadership Moment: Admiral Kazansky (Val Kilmer) shares five powerful words with “Maverick” (Tom Cruise) in the action-packed 2022 movie, Top Gun Maverick. View trailer.
My favorite scene: “Maverick” (Tom Cruise) visits his ailing friend, Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer). “Iceman” has lost his voice (sadly, also true in real life) and must type his comments onto a computer screen. His responses are few and brief. (Try that in your coaching!)
A big issue is holding Maverick back. Yet Iceman’s thoughtful response doesn’t require an essay or five jargon-filled paragraphs. Just five words:
“It’s time to let go.”
Then silence. No more typing. No meandering word salad. Just this poignant, wisdom-filled one liner: “It’s time to let go.” The IMAX moment of silence is powerful. (Try that in your coaching!)
The scene reminded me of the powerful page, “Generous silence,” in The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever, by Michael Bungay Stanier (my 2020 book-of-the-year). He notes, “Generous silence can allow the delicate insights of a conversation to blossom and bloom.” (Read more wisdom on pages 181-182.)
GOD LOVES YOUR WORK! What if…God isn’t calling you to address poverty in Haiti, or dig wells in Africa? What if God is just asking you to love your nine-to-five work—and affirm your holy calling to your day job? Read my short review of God Loves Your Work: Discover Why He Sends You to Do What You Do, by Larry Peabody. Visit the new blog, Pails in Comparison.)
JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. The Coaching Habit recommends you “Cut the Intro and Ask the Question” in the same style that James Bond action-packed movies begin with “Pow!”—within the first 10 seconds of the movie. The author urges coaches to, “Cut the preliminary flim-flam. You don’t need a runway to pick up speed—you can just take off.” Whether you need help in your coaching or in creating action-packed, attention-getting media, we can help. Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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