John Pearson's Buckets Blog: Your Weekly Staff Meeting

May 17, 2025

The 10-Second Rule: Following Jesus Made Simple

Issue No. 646 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting spotlights “The 10-Second Rule” that may take a lifetime to learn—but it’s worth it! Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of The Psychology of Leadership: Timeless Principles to Improve Your Management of Individuals, Teams… and Yourself! And, check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies).

The author of The 10-Second Rule imagines that he's playing baseball with Jesus! He's the pitcher and Jesus is the catcher. Jesus signals a fastball, but the author responds, "No, not a fastball." (Read how it ends!)

The Good Samaritan for Dummies!

Guarantee. If you’re bold enough to read this book, you will never forget the simple, but punch-in-the-gut message. And that’s a good thing—because you’ll be on the road to experience more joy in your daily routine than you ever thought possible.

The 10-Second Rule:
Following Jesus Made Simple
by Clare De Graaf (Paperback edition: April 28, 2015)

The author, who describes himself as a follower of Jesus, businessman, and “a full-time volunteer spiritual mentor of men,” recalled the time his kids wondered why he didn’t help the homeless person asking for money when they were stopped at a traffic light. His response was inadequate—and it made him think: “Why is it that I feel so unprepared for these ‘pop quizzes’ God occasionally sends my way?”

So what’s The 10-Second Rule™?

“Just do the next thing
you’re reasonably certain
Jesus wants you to do
and commit to it immediately—in the next 10 seconds—
before you change your mind!”

Here are two options for you:
• Option 1: Read the book and skip the rest of this review. (Best option!)
• Option 2: Read my review first, but warning—no way will my paltry ponderings communicate the simplicity and brilliance of this quick-reading book. Honest. I was tempted to just give you the title and the Amazon link—and then exit this review.

So…here goes, but where to start? Maybe De Graaf’s baseball story in the chapter, “Listening to God.” Are you like me—often waiting for an unmistakable sign from Heaven—before you serve Jesus today? The author imagines this scene: “I’m playing baseball with Jesus.” De Graaf is the pitcher. Jesus is the catcher.
• Jesus signals a fastball. (De Graaf shakes his head—“No, not a fastball.”)
• Jesus signals a slider. (“No, I’m not comfortable with that one either.”)
• Jesus signals a third sign. (“No, not today, thank you!”)

Jesus, disappointed, decides “to let me throw whatever I want to.” You get the metaphor, I know. De Graaf asks, “Has Jesus stopped giving you signals?” He answers his own question: “I doubt it. He never stops speaking to his children. Is there a signal God’s been trying to give you, even as you read this sentence, that you’ve ignored because you just don’t want to obey?” Yikes.

VIEW THIS 1-MINUTE VIDEO:

View this one-minute video and learn why John Ortberg, Joni Eareckson Tada, David Green, Roy Peterson, and others appreciate The 10-Second Rule.

The book was published in 2010 and my friend Dan Busby (1941-2022) sent me this book in 2012. But…yikes! I set it aside on my over-crowded “to be read” bookshelf—and only discovered it last week! Oh, my. On Heaven’s side, I will thank Dan—and apologize for the 13-year delay in reading and reviewing this extraordinary book. (Will there be apologies in Heaven?)

Dan clearly loved the baseball references in The 10-Second Rule. (See Dan’s baseball books.) I’m sure we both would have resonated with Clare De Graaf’s “batting average” of missing the mark on the 10-Second Rule. De Graaf writes:

“You may be asking yourself just how often I obey the Rule myself. I don’t know—40, 50 percent. Maybe. On a good day.” Yet he adds, “This is where grace shines. Nothing about our relationship with God is based on a percentage, or we’d give up altogether.”

I’ve already read half-a-dozen astonishing Rule stories to my wife, Joanne. Simply stunning. You’ll also share these stories with your friends, family, and co-workers. Examples:
• The businessman who thanked an airline employee with a twenty. (Little did he know!)
• The guy who wanted to help a homeless person—yet upon opening his wallet, he had just one dollar in it. Read what the giver learned about himself.
• Amazing stories about Brad, Susan, Veti, and Kyle. Learn why Kyle, a recent high school grad, anonymously gave his school an envelope stuffed with $20 bills ($500 worth!)—with a challenge for 25 students. (But note: the Rule is not always about money.)

Can we really be sure to trust the “impressions” from the Lord to take action within 10 seconds? De Graaf acknowledges, “…when we’re not sure, we tend to play it safe—and do nothing.” But he cheers us on with this: “…I only need to believe it’s the kind of thing Jesus himself might do if he were me. I don’t need to be 100 percent certain. In fact, the need for certainty is often the enemy of obedience.”

In seeking to discern God’s voice (see Chapter 3), the author says that “the impressions you and I receive from God generally fall into three broad categories.”
• Reminders: aka “green lights”—as in “a thou shalt.”
• Warnings: “These impressions are like a warning buzzer about a sin we’ve already committed or we’re contemplating (a thou shalt not).”
• Special Instructions: “…like an instant message, giving us specific guidance as to who we ought to serve, and how, at a given moment.”

De Graaf’s wisdom on warnings for teens is a tad contrarian—but memorable. He recommends that all of us (adults and kids) establish “pre-decisions”—so we’ll be ready to make God-honoring decisions in those 10-second opportunities.

But for teens, he tells about a leader who suggested they skip church one Sunday to “give them some personal time for this one assignment—spend an hour or two along with God, seek his guidance, and then make a mental list, strictly between God and yourself, of the things you’ll never do, or never do again.” That has powerful potential, right?

The chapter, “Love the One You’re With,” spotlights the Good Samaritan and begins with this from Dallas Willard: “In the morning we cannot yet know who our neighbor will be that day.” De Graaf writes, “It’s a story we all know. In fact, one of the problems with this story is that it’s too familiar. Even non-Christians know what the Good Samaritan did…”

So he urges us—as we test the water on the 10-Second Rule—not to choose sides and refrain from doing the moral math on who might be unworthy of our ego-driven benevolence. The Good Samaritan, says De Graaf, “…was compassionate enough to do something incredibly kind, at considerable expense and inconvenience, without knowing whether the victim was a good guy or a jerk.” Oh, my. This is serious stuff—isn’t it?

So…noting that John Ortberg endorsed this book—and appreciating Dallas Willard’s quote—I was reminded that Ortberg asked his publisher to title one of his many books, “Dallas for Dummies.” (They said no!) Hence—I labeled this book review, “The Good Samaritan for Dummies.” (But really…it’s so much more than a 101 course in listening to and acting on God’s voice.)

Example: To prepare for those 10-second rule encounters, De Graaf reads through all four Gospels every year. Why should we go deep and even deeper? “To really follow Jesus, you’ll need to know the whole counsel of God—to know everything that God has tried to communicate to us in the Bible. Your goal is nothing less than building a biblical worldview for yourself—a practical, working theology that informs every moral or spiritual decision you’ll ever make!” (See more on worldviews here.)

De Graaf blends humor with wisdom and poignant stories. I will keep this book close.
• “There’s a joke about a church leader who once cried out in exasperation, ‘Prayer! Has it come to that?’”
• “If you are not faithful in the little things, you will not be entrusted with greater things. Let’s be honest. Okay, I’ll go first. I don’t daydream about being faithful in small things.”
• He references “baby steps” from the Bill Murray movie, What About Bob?
• In the chapter, “The School of Jesus,” De Graaf mentions one of his favorite TV series, The West Wing, and what we can learn from Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), President Bartlet’s speech writer. (Here’s another speech writer’s wisdom from 2024.)
• De Graaf’s daughter, Megan, blogged this: “And I hate it when I have to ask my kids to do something a million times before they do it and I’m sorry I do that to God all the time. All the time.”
• “Society refers to nice things people do for others as ‘random acts of kindness.’ However, God is anything but random.” De Graaf reminds: “…no impression that’s truly from God is ever random.”

De Graaf promises that when millions of us get “intentional about imitating Christ, the kingdom family will explode! The 10-Second Rule is more than just a clever memory device to help us tweak our obedience skills some. It’s one of the primary ways God’s will gets done on earth as it is in heaven: by following Jesus’ directions day and night—imitating him.”

Gratefully, De Graaf doesn't just leave us with a “Just Do It” command (or commercial). His website resources are helpful for leveraging The 10-Second Rule in your church, small group, and in your mentoring.

I’ll wrap this up with De Graaf’s quote from Søren Kierkegaard: “The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”

Maybe in the next 10 seconds, you should order this book?

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for The 10-Second Rule: Following Jesus Made Simple, by Clare De Graaf. Listen on Libro (3 hours, 56 minutes). Note: This paperback edition includes a 15-page study guide.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Do you have a rule of life? The concept is not new. Read my review of Steve Macchia’s book, Crafting a Rule of Life: An Invitation to the Well-Ordered Way.

2) LOL! When I found The 10-Second Rule on my “to be read” bookshelf, I thought the book was about time management—so I added it to my list of 12 time management books I plan to read over the next 12 months. Oh, my. Curve ball! But this may be the most important book I will read this year. Besides the Bible, what’s the most life-changing book you’ve ever read?

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #16 of 99: Top Ten Ways to Be a Great Leader

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #16 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

Top Ten Ways
to Be a Great Leader
by Hans Finzel

Can you ever read too many books on effective delegation? No! "Delegation" is just one of the “Top-10” insights from leadership guru Hans Finzel. Chapter 8, "'H' Is for Hands-Off Delegation," reminded me again that I was a lousy delegator. Yikes.
• Read my review (Issue No. 366, Aug. 18, 2017).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #16 of 20: The Delegation Bucket

I hope these reminders will inspire you to reread this book—or at least the short chapter on delegation:
• “Sloppy delegation is one of the greatest sins of leadership. There seems to be no mistake a leader makes that spreads more misery to followers.”
• “The lack of good delegation is rooted in fear in the leader.”
• “Delegation should match each worker’s follow-through ability.”
• Must-read: “10 Great Tips on Awesome Delegation,” including, “Let go of your desire to do it better yourself.”
• “Over-managing,” writes Finzel, is “one of the cardinal sins of leadership.”

Note: For more on delegation in the boardroom, read Lesson #26, “Big Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand,” in More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants!, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. (Read the chapter. Order the book.)

Podcast via AI
Bill Butterworth: Everyday Influence

Click here to listen (7 minutes) to the AI-generated podcasters who “review” John’s review of Everyday Influence, by Bill Butterworth. (Read John’s review here.) Visit here for more AI-generated podcasts.

Crazy Busy?

Too busy? Too crazy busy? Need a refresher on time management? Me too! Join me for a 12-month leisurely marathon through 12 “time management” books (one per month). I’m reading (or re-reading) some classics and a few new ones. Click here for the list. And, visit Pails in Comparison Blog for more book reviews.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers. 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. As a Libro.fm Affiliate, we earn credits. 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. (c) Copyright 2025. John W. Pearson. All rights reserved.

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Tags: Clare DeGraaf, John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, The 10-Second Rule, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

May 10, 2025

The Psychology of Leadership: Timeless principles to improve your management of individuals, teams… and yourself!

Issue No. 645 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting champions the virtues of lifelong learning. Leaders are readers. The book you read last year may not solve this year's challenges. Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of When Culture Hates You, by Natasha Crain. And check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies).

LOL…but maybe not? What if you just read Drucker—and never ventured into Blanchard, Collins, and Lencioni (re: my Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends)? Better to keep reading and keep learning! (Note: per the bylaws of Your Weekly Staff Meeting, we're required to run this cartoon at least once a year.)

Beware of “Goal-Induced Blindness!”

Just when I think you’re all in on the SMART goals bandwagon, along comes a contrarian book that cautions: “…like medicine, goals can have side effects.” You and your team members will appreciate this book:

The Psychology of Leadership:
Timeless principles to improve your management
of individuals, teams… and yourself!
by Sébastien Page (April 15, 2025)

Another book on leadership? With 18 (count ‘em) critical principles? Eighteen? Do we really need another 18 must-read leadership lectures? (Wait…forget what I just said. Apparently, there are actually 20 critical core competencies. It’s not just one thing anymore.)

So...yes...more learning from these 18 memorable principles in The Psychology of Leadership—a short course in goals, execution, and the power of personality psychology—from (get this) a finance/investment guy!

PART I: SETTING LONG-TERM GOALS
“You’ve heard that employee engagement, culture, and meaning are important. Start with why! has become a corporate cliché. But practical advice on how to start with why has been lacking.”

Principle 1: Don’t Die on Everest—Beware of the Side Effects of Measurable Goals.
• Sébastien Page warns that “goal-induced blindness happens when you’re so obsessed with reaching a goal that you don’t see the negative consequences of your actions.” He adds, “like medicine, goals can have side effects.”
• Example: Over the last 30 years, says the author, four of every 100 climbers attempting to reach the summit of Mount Everest have died!

Principle 2: Don't Become a Miserable Rich Person—Redefine Success.
• Page recommends an off-site with your team and “…if you’re brave enough to risk a mutiny, ask everyone to shut off their cell phones for the day.”
• See page 31 for your agenda—the PERMA model from Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology: (P) positive emotions, (E) engagement, (R) relationships, (M) meaning, and (A) accomplishments.

Principle 3: Learn to Enjoy Mowing the Lawn—Set Goals That Maximize Engagement.
• The author is a fan of the SMART goals acronym, “a favorite of old-school corporate leadership trainers.” (What—me? Old school?).
• “It’s cheesy corporate training stuff, but…it works.”

Principle 4: Make Year-End Reviews Useless—Prioritize Relationships.
• Note: Every chapter has a helpful “Takeaways to Improve Your Game” summary.
• Here’s the LOL conclusion of Principle 4: “Now, can I give you some feedback? Stop using the phrase, ‘Can I give you some feedback?’ You’re welcome.”
• Read more in HBR, "The Feedback Fallacy," by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall.

Principle 5: Don't Fake It—When You Talk About Meaning, Mean It!
• Read the cringy statements from several companies who each claimed: “We’re making the world a better place through…” The CEOs provided “meaning to their goals rather than pursuing goals that had meaning.” (Gut-check: your goals!)
• Page notes the story about the three bricklayers and the cathedral—and then admits: “I didn’t spend enough time on this topic in the past. I kept my head down and focused on laying bricks.”
• Read the brick story on the "Sacred Structures" website from Jim Baker, a church organizational leadership and management coach.

Principle 6: Ignore the Gifted Kids—Don't Focus on Winning.
• Page quotes Malcolm Gladwell who notes in David and Goliath that “high-achieving, but not genius-level, students who attend prestigious Ivy League universities give up on their ambitions more than other students.”
• The antidote: “You must get off the goals-accomplishment treadmill and rethink your entire goal-setting process. You must redefine success.” (I would add: move from “success” to “significance” per Bob Buford’s wisdom.)

Principle 7: Don't Admire Billionaires—Choose Your Role Models Carefully.
• Bonus! Listen to the first three minutes of Principle 7.
• Warning! “Most incredibly successful people are bad at relationships.” The author's message: “It’s not necessary to be a jerk or sacrifice family life in the name of accomplishment.”

Principle 8: Build a Bigger Rocket—Unleash the Power of Social Comparison.
• Page discusses the unhealthy aspects of social media, but offers contrarian counsel for your team: “Rally your team against a worthy competitor. Make internal competition friendly and enjoyable.”
• “Internal competition should be secondary to collaboration—or even a tool for it.” (Page adds, “And please, please, please, I beg you to hit ‘Like” on my LinkedIn posts.” LOL!)

Principle 9: Upgrade Your Operating System—Identify and Manage Your Core Beliefs.
• You’ll love the author’s transparency. “If you give me the choice between manual labor and a root canal, I might ask you to start the drilling.” He adds, “If a lightbulb goes out, I ask, ‘Can we get someone to fix this?’”
• You’ll appreciate his approach to disagreements with his team at T. Rowe Price. It’s all about their core beliefs, including “Clients First.” “In all cases, whoever can prove—or convince others—that their proposal is best for our clients wins the argument.”

PART II: EXECUTING YOUR GOALS
The author highlights the “ivory tower problem” with execution. “It happens when the decision-makers (generals) have no awareness of what’s happening in the trenches (soldiers), but they’re making critical decisions for those soldiers. Lives are at stake. How do you get generals aware of what’s going on?"

Principle 10: Tune the Engine—Optimize Stress for Peak Performance.
• Yikes! I’ve never read anything helpful on this—until now. “You must adjust how you manage employees based on their stress tolerance. Organizations, too, have an optimal level of stress.” (Must-read chapter.)
• I love his push-backs on certain leadership theories.
• Yet, “Like an elite athlete, realize that you can’t operate at your level without a bit of stress. Isn’t that liberating? Now you can stop stressing about stressing.”

Principle 11: Think About Death—Work Backwards From Your Goals.
• Need to lose 15 pounds in 15 weeks? Read this chapter. Page appreciates Covey’s “begin with the end in mind” wisdom.
• A big believer in mastering “process,” Page reminds us of the two-pizza rule at Amazon and what Jeff Bezos calls the “Day 1” model.

Principle 12: Sit on It—Learn Strategic Patience.
• Of the four social styles, Drivers and Expressives should read this chapter first. Calling for “strategic patience,” the author says the principle is “constantly violated in business.”
• “It speaks to the psychology of decision-making under uncertainty. Most organizations suffer from a false sense of urgency and a bias towards action.” (Read more on the psychology of decision-making and a hypothetical example on "deciding when to get married!")

Principle 13: Separate Signal From Noise—Focus on What Matters.
• “In addition to planning backward and exercising strategic patience, control theory teaches us to separate signal from noise. As a leader, what issues need your attention (signal), and which ones should you ignore (noise)?”
• Bonus: This chapter includes “Top 5 Rules for Corporate Success from Mark” (Mark was a mentor), plus “Sébastien’s Top 3 Additional Rules,” including one page on “Take Care of Yourself” (the importance of sleep, good diet, and exercise).

PART III: UNLEASHING THE POWER OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY
In this section, the author spotlights the “Big Five Traits” of personality—and weaves them into the psychology of leadership. Each principle features a helpful chart. (Note: non-church language alert for this section.)

Principle 14: Read the Room—Call on the Introverts. [Extraversion]
• Page delivers a short course on Extroverts and Introverts (a good reminder!) and points us to Susan Cain’s TED talk. Why do introverts make good leaders? “…because they’re better than extroverts at empowering others.”
• My question for you: what do you still need to learn? Page writes, “In four words, here’s the most critical lesson in leadership I’ve learned over the last few years: talk less, listen more.”

Principle 15: Don't Run Your Business Like a Democracy—Be Disagreeable, Sometimes. [Agreeableness]
• While the author is extremely well-read and quickly summarizes the big and important ideas in dozens of books—here’s what I really love about Sébastien Page: he’s not afraid to disagree with leadership gurus.
• Example: “What you won’t find in Covey’s book is the notion that sometimes it’s necessary to be disagreeable. As a leader, you can’t always agree with everybody.”
• He adds, “…new leaders who break too many eggs fail.” Yikes! Page reminds us that, per The First 90 Days, “senior leaders who take a new job will fail or succeed within their first 90 days. And by the way, about 50% of leadership transitions fail, with the new leader leaving or getting fired. No pressure!”
• Would you encourage Pope Leo XIV to read The First 90 Days? (This was my 2010 book-of-the-year.)

THERE'S MUCH MORE...but I’m not going to do all your reading and work for you. So…I’ll just tease you with the final three principles—and you’ll need to find the morsels yourself.
• Principle 16: Learn to Love Worry—Harness the Positive Side of Neuroticism. [Neuroticism]
• Principle 17: Be Like Jim Morrison and the Pope—Balance Openness and Structure. [Openness]
• Principle 18: Eat Your Vegetables—Unleash the Power of Good Habits. [Conscientiousness]
The final principle spotlights "the power of habits" and time management. (Watch for my blogs.) And speaking of the new Pope and Catholics, read my recent review of Superhabits.

Guarantee. If you do the work and read (and study) this book, you’ll be a better leader—and the people you’re coaching and mentoring will also grow in their leadership. Marshall Goldsmith agrees!

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for The Psychology of Leadership: Timeless principles to improve your management of individuals, teams… and yourself! by Sébastien Page. Listen on Libro (9 hours, 37 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) You’re coaching and mentoring a young leader. What 10 books (or other lifelong learning resources) would you recommend? What’s on your ideal bookshelf? Plus...what are your favorite 10 to 20 "timeless leadership and management principles?"
2) Think back to your first 90 days at your present position. Michael Watkins says you experienced one of four kinds of organizations (or departments) when you arrived. Which one did you inherit in your last transition? His acronym, “STARS,” describes the four: Start-up, Turn-Around, Realignment, or Sustaining Success.
3) Yikes! According to the WSJ, Pope Leo XIV has inherited a “Financial Mess Pope Francis Couldn’t Fix.” Which “STARS” is it: Start-up, Turn-Around, Realignment, or Sustaining Success?

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #15 of 99: Making Numbers Count

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring "Book" #15 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

Making Numbers Count:
The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers
by Chip Heath and Karla Starr

How did I miss this right on page three? “Here’s a quick test of whether you are handling numbers correctly: Go through your letter, document, or PowerPoint deck. Circle each number and then look above and below by one paragraph or bullet point and find the phrase where you translate the number.” (Click here to listen to the first three minutes of pages 3 and 4.)
• Read my review (Issue No. 502, Jan. 12, 2022).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #15 of 20: The Budget Bucket
• Listen on Libro (4 hours, 35 minutes).

Translate Dry Stats Into Emotional Moments!
• The Statistic: “40% of U.S. adults do not always wash their hands after using the bathroom at home.”
• The Story: “2 out of every 5 people you shake hands with may not have washed their hands between using the toilet and touching your hands.” (Yikes!)

The authors ask: Are you using examples to better communicate your dry, boring numbers? Examples: “By comparison…” “To put that in context…” “Think of it this way…” When your CFO and board treasurer are talking about the budget—do non-financial staff and board members comprehend? Use stories with your stats. Example:

What’s the difference between a million and a billion? You could give the dry statistics—but where’s the fun in that? (And who would remember?). So the authors create a story. You enter a lottery to win either $1 million or $1 billion—with a catch. If you win, you must spend $50,000 per day. How long will it last? (Click for answer.)

Making Numbers Count is worthy of a second read. Your people (staff, board members, donors, volunteers, etc.) will deeply appreciate the energy you’ve invested in creatively communicating memorable numbers. Guaranteed!

AI Podcast
10 Marketing Principles

Click here to listen to the AI-generated podcasters (10 minutes) who “review” John’s summary of the book he co-authored with Bob Hisrich, Marketing Your Ministry: Ten Critical Principles. (Read John’s updated summary here.) For more podcasts, click here.

1 Cookie or 2 Cookies?

The 10 critical principles in Marketing Your Ministry are as relevant today—as they were in 1990 when Bob Hisrich and Pearson co-authored this book. Examples: “Principle #6. Don’t be the 8th lemonade stand in a row of 9,” and “Principle #7: Don’t over-engineer. Your audience won’t pay extra for something they cannot appreciate.” Read the short summary and discern how you can improve your marketing strategy. Plus, visit Pails in Comparison Blog for more reviews.

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Tags: John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, leadership, management, psychology, Sébastien Page, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

April 24, 2025

When Culture Hates You: Persevering for the Common Good as Christians in a Hostile Public Square

Issue No. 644 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting urges you to heed this wake-up call about your role for the common good—in spite of a hostile public square. Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my “Part 1 of 2” review of There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift and our “Part 2 of 2” video review of this extraordinary book! And check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies).

What’s for breakfast? COOKIES! Ditto lunch and dinner! That would be the worldview and result, suggests Natasha Crain, if you asked 10 five-year-olds to form a new tiny country just for themselves!

Post-Easter Wake-up Call!

I hate to mention this—so soon after Easter—but if you embrace the Christian faith and seek to live out your faith authentically in the public square—Natasha Crain says that the culture HATES you! (Note: If you tilt toward being an agnostic or an atheist, I hope you’ll keep reading my review of this important book. Or read the book, Is God Real?)

When Culture Hates You:

Persevering for the Common Good
as Christians in a Hostile Public Square
by Natasha Crain (Feb. 4, 2025)

If you’re tempted to skip this book—please don’t. The author lists common reasons why some Christians opt out of “persevering” for the common good—and prefer to lay low to avoid backlash from the culture. Engage in politics? No thanks!

I don’t want to be labeled like some so-called “Christ-followers” who can be very uncharitable and ungracious when engaging in political discussions. Natasha Crain understands, adding: “Christians are just as guilty as anyone of being jerks.”

Still—she pushes back on our tendencies to not engage in the public square—noting four less-than-thoughtful excuses you may have used. (Ouch! Now she’s meddling!) Crain’s opinion if we opt to disengage: “If I may be blunt, this is intellectual and spiritual laziness.”

Yikes and Gulp! So maybe now would be an appropriate time to remind you of my favorite quote from Charlie Munger (1924-2023), “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything unless I know the other side’s argument better than they do.”

As you read When Culture Hates You—this you can count on: Natasha Crain is a brilliant and logical thinker. She’s adept at using questions to gently prod and poke. She skillfully summarizes key issues in plain language. She’s respectful of diverse views. Her research is rigorous. She thoughtfully articulates a biblical worldview on complex issues—without getting lost in the theological weeds. I learned a lot.

Half the book is a short course in understanding why the culture hates Christians. (And to be clear, if you volunteer in a soup kitchen, you’re not hated for that. But…if you wander into the complexities of the “common good,” you’re not welcome. She explains.)

Part 2 of the book boldly addresses five thorny issues: 1) how the mainstream media views “Dangerous Christian Nationalists,” 2) oppressors and the oppressed (a look at “secular social justice activists”), 3) why the pro-choice movement views pro-lifers as misogynists, 4) the “Cruel Rights-Deniers” (the view from transgender activists), and 5) “Hateful Bigots” (the view from the sexual revolution).

I urge you to read the very helpful Part 1 first—to get a fresh take on prevailing worldviews. While Crain’s content is heavy (and may prompt a heavy sadness, especially in Part 2), her writing style is upbeat. I found myself cheering her on. Explaining her view that “the vast majority of culture wars today are over the common good” (because “people disagree on what is good for society”), she imagines a classroom of 10 five-year-olds—“and telling them to form a new tiny country just for themselves.” What would they create, in 30 minutes, for the ”common good” of their new kindergarten kingdom? Crain guesses this result:
1) “Cookies will be served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily.
2) Cartoons will replace classroom instruction.
3) No one will ever be asked to pick up their own toys.”

The last rule is problematic, writes Crain, because when kids leave Legos on the floor, they are “the most painful thing on Earth to step on.”

So Crain posits three scenarios for landing on a worldview—and explains why society has problems agreeing on the common good. Are there moral standards? Crain contrasts “the shallow simplicity of bumper-sticker slogans” against a biblical understanding of right and wrong. Yet, who will decide—for example—on gender issues? “Divergent views on who or what a human being is are actually at the root of every cultural debate today.”

So should Christians “impose” their religious views on society? (Be sure to read Crain’s push-back on the word “impose.”) Each of the five “issue” chapters include succinct “Quick Responses” to five popular challenges. Example: on abortion, when you’re admonished: “You should keep your religion out of my uterus,” Crain suggests several simple questions:
• “What do you mean by religion?”
• “Do you believe society should ever allow laws that are based on values held by religious people, or do you believe we should only allow laws based on values held by atheists?”
• “If you believe it’s okay to pass laws that incorporate values held by religious people, where do you draw the line on which ones should not be allowed?”

How would you respond to this statement? “Men have no right to tell a woman what she can or can’t do with her body.” Crain suggests these questions to probe deeper:
• “How did you come to that conclusion?”
• “Do you believe that principle applies to issues other than abortion?”
• “For example, do you believe men should have a say in whether women can use their bodies to drink and drive? Why or why not?”

Wow. The five issues in Part 2 are as relevant as today’s headlines. Examples:
• “Gender Storytime at the Supreme Court” (WSJ, April 20, 2025)
• “Colorado’s Totalitarian Transgenderism Bill” (WSJ, April 17, 2025)
• “Harvard and the View from Hillsdale” (WSJ, April 18, 2025) – Note this is especially relevant to Crain’s commentary on culture and worldviews.

SO HELPFUL! Oh, my. I made 66 notes in my well-worn copy of When Culture Hates You—and that didn’t include the salient notes (endorsements) from Erwin Lutzer, Jim Daly, Mark Mittelberg, Robert J. Pacienza, Alisa Childers, and Seth Dillion (CEO of The Babylon Bee). Be sure to browse the 25 “Quick Reponses to 5 Popular Challenges” on five critical issues. So good. (Plus…read the 35 “Actions for the Common Good”—seven per chapter in Chapters 6 to 10. Excellent suggestions!)

MORE INSIGHTS:
• Would a person’s worldview about a “preborn human” also apply to a toddler? (One of many thoughtful questions—you’ve likely never thought about. Crain’s use of logic, not emotion, will cause you to think deeply.)
• Crain references slavery (unacceptable to most everyone today) and answers classic objections with this: “Christians shouldn’t have worked to end slavery because we shouldn’t have imposed our views on others.” (See this podcast with Robert J. Pacienza.)
• The author explains “critical theory thinking,” and notes: “Understanding the linguistic equivocation involved, however, is half the battle.” She adds, “We have to remember that words like these are lobbed based on a false standard.”
• Does your workplace require you to use your preferred pronouns? Read this.

THE AUTHOR’S LEXICON delivers memorable and usable explanatory phrases: “functional deists” and “disagreement fatigue.” Plus: better definitions for “impose” and “power.” Pop Quiz: explain “intersectionality.” And this: four antidotes for Christians who “get squeamish” when asked to advocate for “righteousness in how society functions.” (Crain is an articulate cultural missionary! I’m grateful!)

BONUS BOOK! Natasha Crain teases readers with four "subtle presuppositions of culture that are confusing many Christians today: 1) feelings are the ultimate guide; 2) happiness is the ultimate goal; 3) judgment is the ultimate sin; and 4) God is the ultimate guess." Those "cultural presuppositions" are from her excellent book, Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture (Feb. 8, 2022). Read my short review.

I hope someone on your team and in your family will read When Culture Hates You. I just ordered another copy for a friend.

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for When Culture Hates You: Persevering for the Common Good as Christians in a Hostile Public Square, by Natasha Crain. Listen on Libro (6 hours, 17 minutes).

BONUS! Listen to Natasha Crain:
• Sean McDowell’s interview with Natasha Crain (Feb. 18, 2025)
• Natasha Crain Podcast (over 50 podcasts)

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Natasha Crain cites George Barna’s research that “69 percent of Americans believe people are ‘basically good’—as do more than half of Christians whom researchers otherwise classified as having a biblical worldview.” One problem! Barna says that belief is one of the “Top 10 Most Seductive Unbiblical Ideas Americans Adopt.” What do you believe the Bible says about humans?

2) Read the chapter, “Should Christians Impose Their Views on Others?” Natasha Crain answers five objections, including “Objection 1: Christians shouldn’t impose their views on others.” Her response: “In every matter of public policy, someone is imposing their view on someone else. That’s just the nature of the process.” Do you agree? Why or why not? How would you guide the conversation to get to the heart of the issue?

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #14 of 99: Called to Serve

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring "Book" #14 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

Called to Serve:
Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board
by Max De Pree

“Contrarian wisdom” is how I described Max De Pree’s 91-page gem—a perfect book for new (and veteran) board members. Examples: “There is a reason why this is a small book. We want it to be useful, but not a burden.” And this: “We believe good people need reminders and an occasional nudge, not a sermon.”
• Read my review (Issue No. 352, Dec. 7, 2016).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #14 of 20: The Board Bucket
• Bonus! Read my 30 short blogs on the book.
• Bonus! Listen to the AI-generated podcast.

Commenting on board committees, De Pree notes the story of the visitor from England who watched his first American football game and observed, “The game combines the two worst elements of American culture—violence and committee meetings.”

Rather than penning a 300-page snoozer, De Pree (1924-2017) crafts a coaching conversation (a series of letters) with a young leader and his first CEO/board relationship. It’s easy reading and the short epistles are extraordinary. He counsels, “A good board will measure the appropriate inputs as well as the outputs. Failure to measure what matters damages our future.”

LOL! In 2017, I “summarized” Max De Pree’s 91 pages of contrarian wisdom into 30 blogs (not a typo!) for ECFA’s Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations Blog.

Podcast via AI
Called to Serve (Effective Boards)

Click here to listen to two AI-generated podcasters (12 minutes, 16 seconds) who “review” John’s review of Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board, by Max De Pree. (Read John’s review.) For more podcasts, click here.

This Book Required 2 Reviews!

Some books require TWO reviews—and a podcast! Read my “Part 2 of 2” review of the new book, There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift. Listen to our podcast with Malia Yim and Paul Palmer—and learn why the author references more than 25 articles in Harvard Business Review. Plus, visit Pails in Comparison Blog for more reviews.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free two to four times a month to subscribers. 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. As a Libro.fm Affiliate, we earn credits. 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. (c) Copyright 2025. John W. Pearson. All rights reserved.

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Tags: common good, hostile public square, John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, Natasha Crain, objections, When Culture Hates You, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

April 10, 2025

There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift

Issue No. 643 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting offers two book options: a fascinating read about business strategy, innovation, and reinvention—or a book about a 35-year-old billionaire. Surprise! Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection. And check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Note! Enjoy a YouTube Video for Part 2 of 2 of today's issue.

Will you pick Book #1 or Book #2 to read (or listen to)? Surprise!

Part 1 of 2: “I’m Going to Innovate Some Stuff!”

Which book will you read (or listen to) next: Book #1 or Book #2?

BOOK #1. Published just this week by Harvard Business Review Press, this book is a master class in strategy, product and program development, marketing, customer research, incremental innovation, differentiation, “Blue Ocean strategy,” the reputation-reality gap, and how to recover from a “PR dumpster fire.” (And it has more than 25 references to articles from Harvard Business Review—so you can go even deeper.)

BOOK #2. Also hot-off-the press, this page-turner explores the impact and influence of one person—“a strategic genius”—who leverages her songwriting brilliance and artistry to create a new music market niche against all odds and naysayers. You’ve probably heard of this 35-year-old sensation—the first musician to make the Forbes World's Billionaires List, with a “ranking primarily based on her songs and performances.” Who? Taylor Swift.

GOOD NEWS! You don’t need to pick between Book #1 and Book #2. It’s the same book!

There's Nothing Like This:
The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift
by Kevin Evers (April 8, 2025)

Kevin Evers, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, says he wrote this book “with the same respect and framing I’d put to any great innovator, or creative force, or marketing genius, or strategy guru. I saw no reason to treat Taylor Swift’s success any differently than that of any business icon—Jobs or Branson or Bezos or Musk.” And get this: the author credits his wife for the book idea!

He admits: “To be sure, Taylor Swift probably isn’t tucking into Harvard Business Review for marketing strategy prior to dropping an album or reading the latest innovation literature coming out of B-schools.” He quotes Swift’s humor and transparency at the 2023 iHeartRadio Music Awards when she was honored with the Innovator Award. Swift laughed:

“I never a single time woke up in the morning and thought,
‘You know what I’m going to do today?
I’m going to innovate some stuff.’”

The author’s big idea: to take us on a “chronological romp” through Swift’s career—her missteps, her achievements, her humanity—explaining how she “has managed to find success, sustain it, and scale it multiple times to the absurd heights it’s reached today. To give more shape to that feeling so many fans and admirers have about her—that there really is nothing like it.”

[Disclaimer! I’m an old guy—so I’ve never followed Taylor Swift’s music. But after reading the first chapter, I couldn’t put this book down. I’ll explain why.]

#1. BLIND SPOTS. In 2006, Taylor Swift, at 16, was writing country music songs for other teenagers. Yet the major labels believed “it made sense to avoid teenage female artists. It was Nashville conventional wisdom. It was accepted as gospel. They’d tried that, failed, and possessed anecdotal evidence to back up their claims.” Why risk it?

Evers reminds us about the book and the Harvard Business Review article by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, “Blue Ocean Strategy.” In a blue ocean, “a previously unknown market space . . . demand is created rather than fought over.” When organizations stick to conventional wisdom, “it can also lead to blind spots,” adds Evers, and “Swift was banking on the idea that Nashville had a blind spot—young women who write their own songs for young women.”

Extra Credit: read more from Kim and Mauborgne here.

#2. DIFFERENTIATION. Evers writes that Taylor Swift was “the queen of her own niche. And she was protecting it.” He adds, “There weren’t other artists her age who were writing their own songs that were tailored [no pun intended, apparently] for the teen to the young adult country-pop market.”

Intuitively, Swift affirmed the business savvy from Chris Zook and James Allen who wrote, “Differentiation is the essence of strategy, the prime source of competitive advantages.” Read their “pioneering” HBR article, “The Great Repeatable Business Model.” They add, “The sharper your differentiation, the greater your advantage.”

Extra Credit: Read more on competitive advantage and read Zook’s and Allen’s book, The Founder’s Mentality (watch for my review). Plus, read Bob Hisrich’s wisdom, “Don’t Be the 8th Lemonade Stand in a Row of 9,” from our book, Marketing Your Ministry: Ten Critical Principles.

#3. PREMATURE CORE ABANDONMENT. After Swift’s first album, Taylor Swift, in 2006, the obvious question comes—what to do next? But warning! “The path from first to second album is full of dangers. This phenomenon, researched for decades and feared even longer, goes by difference names. Second-album syndrome. The sophomore slump. Or simply: The Slump.”

The author notes that Swift followed a business rule-of-thumb strategy called “incremental innovation” for her second album, Fearless (a blend of country and pop). Insightfully, Swift and her innovative record company, Big Machine, avoided a common trap called “premature core abandonment.”

And yes—the author points us to another fascinating HBR article on this topic, “When Growth Stalls.” Yikes! Read this: “The record shows that if management cannot turn a company around within a few years, the odds are that it will never again see healthy top-line growth.”

Extra Credit: Ask AI to explain the stunning success (even after missteps) of Taylor Swift’s career. Did you know she won her first Album of the Year at the Grammys for Fearless?

#4. ADJACENT MARKETS. Should you follow Taylor Swift’s lead and venture into what business leaders call “adjacent markets”—or not? (Was it wise to leave country—and move to pop?) Caution! Kevin Evers points us to Target’s venture into Canada (an adjacent market)—and why they ultimately closed all 133 Canadian stores. (I feature this case study in one of my favorite PowerPoint presentations for nonprofit boards.) Read HBR’s “Why Target's Canadian Expansion Failed,” by Denise Dahlhoff.

Extra Credit: Listen to the short podcast, “Why Target’s Big Canadian Expansion Went South” from the “Knowledge at Wharton Podcast” (via the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania). And read this breaking news from April 8, 2025, in Forbes on the creative re-release of Swift albums.

#5. TAYLOR SWIFT—THE START-UP! “If Taylor Swift were a startup—and in many ways that’s what a music career is—by 2011 she had become a unicorn” (per the term used by venture capitalists). And this is LOL-funny:

According to the author, an investor pitching “SwiftCo” would spotlight the following:
• Three multiplatinum albums in a row.
• “Brand equity was high.”
• They would gush about her “product-market fit—she grew revenue while gaining new customers at a very low cost, through a canny go-to-market strategy that leveraged social media promotion and direct engagement with customer to surprise and delight them.” Evers adds, “This is really how they talk.” (LOL!)

Extra Credit: Read more about unicorns here and here.

MUSIC TO YOUR EARS (and bottom line). I won’t spoil the lifelong-learning journey for you—but I’m betting there are several key people on your team that will absolutely love this book and annoy you with quotes and innovative ideas for the next six months. This well-researched book—with a very human touch—is amazingly relevant to your organization or company. And…it’s so well-written with wonderfully creative word choices popping up to “surprise and delight” us! (How could it not be? It’s about a creative juggernaut!)

More Insights:
• Taylor Swift’s disruptive innovation per Harvard prof Clayton Christensen’s job-to-be-done theory. (Read this and the second article in my blog here.)
• Why “productive paranoia” served Swift well and why it will serve you well. (Read this and this from Morten Hansen and Jim Collins.)
• What Evers translates as “management speak for staying relevant by changing,” he discusses how “positive shocks—sudden breaks from successful collaborations” may jump-start your creativity for your next big project. According to the Academy of Management Journal, “The idea is that a stable network of collaborators is a good thing until it’s not.” (Read “New People Can Spark Creativity by Shaking Things Up.”)
• Why Elvis Costello (supposedly) said, “You have twenty years to write your first album and you have six months to write your second one.”
• How Seth Godin’s marketing savvy and “poke the box” approach aligns with Taylor Swift’s prioritization of her customers/fans.
• Why most reinventions fail. See John Kotter’s HBR article on the eight phases—with each “phase beset with potential pitfalls.” (And this.)

PART 2 OF 2! View the "Part 2 of 2 Zoom Review” of this book with color commentary by Paul Palmer and John Pearson, with special guest Malia Yim.

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift, by Kevin Evers. Listen on Libro (8 hours, 35 minutes). And thanks to Harvard Business Review Press for sending me a review copy. (NOTE: The book quotes various music industry execs, and Swift, who are known to use a few words rarely heard in church.)

BONUS! Listen to the podcast interview with author Kevin Evers:

Just 30 minutes, listen to “Taylor Swift's Strategic Genius: A Masterclass in Success with Kevin Evers & Charles Good” (Episode #215). See also Episode #216.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Here’s a Starbucks Gift Card for the first team member to volunteer! Make a list of the 20 Management Buckets and, as you read this book about Taylor Swift, find examples that align with the core competency in at least 10 of the buckets.
2) Here’s a Chick-fil-A Gift Card for the first volunteer who will create a complete list of the Harvard Business Review articles in the Notes section of the Taylor Swift book (there are more than 25 HBR endnotes)—and then inspire at least 10 lifelong learners on our staff and/or board to read one article each. (Hint: go here!)

BONUS: Read these two new HBR articles also!
• "Taylor Swift and the Strategic Genius of the Eras Tour," by Kevin Evers (Dec. 6, 2024)
• "The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift," by Kevin Evers (March–April 2025 issue of HBR)

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #13 of 99: Judgment

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring "Book" #13 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

Judgment:
How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls
by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis

The authors quote Peter Drucker, “The most important task of an organization’s leader is to anticipate crisis . . . perhaps not avert it, but to anticipate it.” How did I miss this classic chapter from Tichy and Bennis? Must-read-again: “Chapter 10: Crisis as a Leadership Development Opportunity.”
• Read my review (Issue No. 78, March 3, 2008).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #13 of 20: The Crisis Bucket.

Chapter 10 in Judgment spotlights David Novak, “a veteran at crisis management. He is a seasoned leader who knows that crisis judgment starts with good people judgment.” Oh, my. You’ll learn about three crises at Yum! Brands and Novak’s systematic approach to each crisis—what the authors call his “clear Teachable Point of View.”

And if you missed Novak’s 2024 book from HBR Press, read my review of How Leaders Learn: Master the Habits of the World's Most Successful People.

Reminder: your next crisis is coming!
• Option #1: Anticipate it. (Visit the Crisis Bucket.)
• Option #2: Wing it. (Not recommended.)

Podcast via AI
Next Level Nonprofit

Click here to listen to the AI-generated podcasters (13 minutes, 57 seconds) who “review” John’s review of Next Level Nonprofit: Build A Dream Team + Increase Lasting Impact, by Chris Lambert. (Read John’s review.) For more podcasts, click here.

CONFLICT?
Set Up 5 Chairs!

I predict that the next time you’re coaching someone through a conflict, you will use the brilliant model from these former Harvard profs: Mirror Work, Chair Work, and Table Work. Read my review to learn why the physicality of using actual chairs (“set up five chairs”) may produce stunning results. Read Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In. And visit Pails in Comparison Blog for more reviews.

02:37 PM in Your Weekly Staff Meeting | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: Genius, Harvard Business Review, John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, Kevin Evers, Strategy, Taylor Swift, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

March 28, 2025

Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection

Issue No. 642 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks if you’ve ever read or listened to a book on enriching your conversations and listening skills? (Me neither!) Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of The Sodfather. And check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies).

The very helpful book, Radical Listening, offers a continuum of rude to polite interruptions for your next conversation: Taking the Microphone, Stealing the Podium, Asides, Humor, Alerts, and Minimal Encouragers. Need to improve (or confess)?

Don’t Take the Microphone or Steal the Podium!

Go ahead. Ask your spouse (or your co-worker, best friend, or family member)…if you need to enrich your listening skills. (No-brainer, right?) So read this new book:

Radical Listening:
The Art of True Connection
by Christian van Nieuwerburgh
and Robert Biswas-Diener (March 25, 2025)

The authors remind us that if we live into our late 70s—“if you had only a single conversation a day, you would have about 28,000 conversations in your lifetime.” So here’s my question: Raise your hand if you’ve ever read a book, listened to a podcast, or participated in a workshop on being a better listener and conversationalist? (Yikes!)

But it’s never too late. And you just might bless the people closest to you—if you implement even 10 percent of the practical insights in Radical Listening. The authors, experienced executive coaches, researchers, and academics (one also rides a Harley!), deliver practical—and often humorous—counsel and coaching on how to have better conversations. Examples:

6 OBSTACLES TO LISTENING. By page 24, I was under conviction! Any chance you’re guilty of one or more of these six obstacles to an effective conversation?
• Comparing, Competing, Mind Reading
• Unsolicited Advice, Priority Status, Time Poverty
The half-page chart on page 24 delivers 12 ways to mitigate these conversational sins. Instead of jumping in and “comparing,” the authors suggest you “Remind yourself to be more interested in their experience than sharing your own. Get curious about their situation and ask for more information.”

Oh, my. I was in a meeting this week—and immediately wanted to jump in with my more interesting and more entertaining story (comparison!). Then I stopped mid-sentence! Radical Listening shined a spotlight on my lack-of-listening-savvy. Yikes.

STEALING THE PODIUM! In my favorite chapter, “Interjecting,” the authors launch their coaching clinic on interruptions and interjections by mentioning the “familiar marimba ringtone” that interrupted the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 back in 2012. The conductor halted the music and waited! The New York Times covered this faux pas. Some called for the clueless “culprit” to be banned from future concerts!

The book is filled with fascinating 2 x 2 graphics that illustrate the memorable bullet points and stories. (You’ll need some blank 2 x 2 quadrants for your notes.) This helpful graphic contrasts “Large” vs. “Small” interruptions with “Rude” vs. “Polite” interruptions. (Avoid the top-left quadrant!) The continuum: Taking the Microphone, Stealing the Podium, Asides, Humor, Alerts, and Minimal Encouragers. “Skillful interjection, if done thoughtfully—and not at the symphony—“is one of the most engaged forms of Radical Listening,” say the authors.

Wow. I’m tempted to photocopy page 127 and bring it to my next meeting with this warning: “Heads up! I’ve just read Radical Listening, and I have a scorecard with me. I’ll be taking names and giving each of you feedback at the end of our meeting!”

WHY I KEEP READING. Like many of my readers, most of us could probably “wing it” a bit, if asked to facilitate a one-hour workshop on effective listening. (How hard could that be?) But just a few pages into Radical Listening, I was stunned by the authors’ approach—and their clear mastery of the content. While Christian van Nieuwerburgh and Robert Biswas-Diener admit there are numerous sources on healthy listening habits, their claim is unique—that Radical Listening is something very, very different. (I was blown away by how much I didn’t know—and how much I learned. I’m grateful. My wife, Joanne, will be very grateful!)

LISTENING 101…AND MORE! The authors label the first eight chapters as “Listening 101,” but then coax us into a deep dive on “The Listening Context”—the advanced course in listening. Chapter 9, “Listening Across Cultures,” features their “crash course in culture.”
• Read why one CFO, whose company serves eight nations, has deputized “listening ambassadors” in each country’s main office. Brilliant!
• Another chart, “Facets of Cross-Cultural Communication,” will remind you that when you cross a border—you should bone up on six key areas, including “Use of Non-Verbal Behaviors.” (Hand gestures and smiles may get you into trouble. Ditto: prolonged eye contact.) And “Tolerance for Conflict” in various cultures may surprise you. (Bonus: see my recent review of Conflict Resilience.)
• This chapter reminded me of the helpful book, Leading Across Cultures, by James E. Plueddemann. Read my review.
• LOL! I could have used Radical Listening years ago in Taiwan. Read “Mistake #11” in my confessional, Mastering Mistake-Making.

By the way, co-author Christian van Nieuwerburgh serves on university faculties in both Ireland and Australia. His global executive coaching practice includes his innovative short videos, Coach on a Motorcycle. Visit his YouTube channel. (Extra credit: see his 10-part series, “Getting Unstuck when Writing.”) In 2024, Robert Biswas-Diener was named to the Thinkers50 “50 Coaches” list. Read more about this co-author here, including his keynotes and workshops in more than 30 countries.

MORE LISTENING INSIGHTS. I don’t want to spoil the self-discovery journey for you, so I’ll just tease you with a taste of what’s coming when you read (or listen to) the book:
• Learn why the authors recommend a “silent sound bath” treatment!
• In Chapter 5, “Acceptance,” discover the downside of politeness in a conversation. (On second thought—this is my favorite chapter!) Also learn about the downside of judgment.
• How many of the “10 mental biases” would your co-workers accuse you of? Does your boss or CEO suffer from “false-consensus bias”—the tendency “to believe that there is more agreement than there actually is” on your team?

SEE WHY...why the “focusing illusion” (a lesser-known cognitive bias) might torpedo your next interview with a candidate. (Oh, my. That reminded me of a bad hiring decision I made…way back!)
• Pop Quiz! What are the five types of questions to avoid in a healthy conversation? (Sneak peek: The Trojan Horse question “is just a way of giving advice.”)
• If you want to be a Radical Listener, what five questions are the most helpful? (Hint: a “future-focused” question might be my favorite.)
• One more: The authors remind us that we make mistakes, we “labor under logical fallacies,” and sometimes “we are just plain wrong.” Better communication requires shifting from our negative inner monologues and critiquing the speaker—to a learning mindset. (Not a bad reminder when listening to Sunday sermons!)

MY FAVORITE CHAPTER(S). I’ve already mentioned my favorite chapter (two, actually!). But to be honest—every chapter is my favorite chapter. This is a really, really useful book. I hope you’ll read it and order copies for others in your circle who want to enrich their listening competencies. It’s also endorsed by the author of The Coaching Habit. That’s high praise.

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection, by Christian van Nieuwerburgh and Robert Biswas-Diener. Listen on Libro (5 hours, 45 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) What other resources do you recommend on being a better listener? Way back, I reviewed Breakfast with Fred, by Fred Smith, Sr. (1915-2007). Jam-packed with discernment from 50 leaders (over breakfast), you can still enjoy a weekly dose of his “Timeless Wisdom for Today’s Leaders.” Click here for the recent issue, “The Listening Leader.” He wrote, “Most leaders are adequate talkers, but inadequate listeners.”
2) Do you learn by reading or listening? If you’re a listener, click here to listen to Dick Daniels’ podcast (six minutes), “Logical Listening: The Other Half of Communication.” For more short podcasts from his book, The 365 Day Leader, click here.
3) Do you have board members who “take the microphone” or “steal the podium” during board meetings? Read the blog I wrote for ECFA, “Board Meeting Rules of Thumb: Do Not Interrupt!” It features Ruth Haley Barton’s 10 listening guidelines.
4) Any Bible verses or axioms come to mind about being a better listener? (Read James 1:19-20 in the Amplified Bible.)

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #12 of 99: I Want to Make a Difference Now

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring "Book" #12 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

I Want to Make a Difference Now:
Your Bridge to Global Impact
by Don Parrott

Don Parrott was president of Finishers Project when he wrote this book in 2011. Now known as MissionNext, this innovative ministry then merged with MissionWorks. Have you ever thought about serving outside of North America?
• Read my review (Issue No. 232, Oct. 1, 2011).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #12 of 20: The Volunteer Bucket

My “second read” of this book reminded me again of the amazing stories of men and women who have launched second careers in overseas ministry and missions work. (Warning! This is a dangerous book!)

Parrott writes with humor and insight and spotlights 50 short blurbs on Boomers who took the leap—often across an ocean. See Chapter 1: “Lord, Don’t Send Me to Africa, and Other Bold Statements of Faith.” The book includes end-of-chapter convicting questions. (Oh, my.) Example: The 12 questions in Chapter 7 feature a rating scale (1 = weak, 5 = strong) to gauge your own self-awareness. What’s your rating for this one: “I can laugh at myself.”

New AI Podcast:
Recalibrate Your Calling Every Day

Click here to listen to the AI-generated podcasters (7 minutes, 28 seconds) who “review” John’s review of Dick Daniels’ helpful book, The 365 Day Leader: Recalibrate Your Calling Every Day. For more podcasts, click here.

BONUS! Daniels has posted more than 50 “Brief Podcasts for Busy Leaders” here on his website.

11:15 AM in Your Weekly Staff Meeting | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: conversationalist, culture, John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, Radical Listening, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

March 18, 2025

The Sodfather: An Extraordinary Journey in the Shadows of Sports' Greatest Fields

Issue No. 641 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting reminds you that today is MLB opening day in Tokyo! And perfectly timed, here’s my review of the 80-year career of “The Sodfather”—a legend in MLB and the NFL. Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work.

George Toma, aka "The Sodfather," writes about asking Billy Graham not to kneel on the grass during the 10-day crusade at Kansas City's Municipal Stadium in 1967. "He complied." He wanted the crowd to KEEP OFF THE GRASS also. But look what happened anyway! (Photo credit: M.A.I.D. Used by permission.)

“At my core, I’m a dirt man.”

BREAKING NEWS! Play Ball! Today is Major League Baseball’s opener, but it’s NOT in Chicago or Los Angeles. It’s in Tokyo! The Chicago Cubs (Go Cubs!) play the 2024 World Series Champs, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in the MLB World Tour Tokyo Series. (You read that right!)

Early risers on the East Coast can enjoy Game 1 on March 18, Tuesday 6:10 a.m. ET. (And yes, that’s 3:10 a.m. PT for my West Coast friends.). Game 2 will be March 19, Wednesday at 6:10 a.m. ET. (Go Cubs!)

To commemorate Opening Day, here’s an absolutely fun book—and a pop quiz!

The Sodfather:
An Extraordinary Journey in the
Shadows of Sports' Greatest Fields
by George Toma with Craig Handel (May 18, 2024)

George Toma, now 96, grew grass and a jaw-dropping legacy in his 80-year career as the “the greatest groundskeeper of all time.” I’m so grateful he wrote this book. “Green grasses and artificial turfs were his canvases and Super Bowls his masterpieces.”

Toma manicured the field for the first Super Bowl in 1967 in Los Angeles. He was at every Super Bowl from 1967 to 2023. For much of his career, Toma was the head groundskeeper for the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City, Mo., which includes stadiums for the Kansas City Royals and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs honored him with three Super Bowl rings!

Coauthor Craig Handel notes, “…in my 40 years of writing, I’ve never met anyone like him. Probably never will.” You’ll love this book—so here’s a True or False Pop Quiz to tantalize you into reading The Sodfather.

TRUE OR FALSE?

#1. TRUE OR FALSE? In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell suggests that “becoming an expert in any skill is correctly practicing one’s craft for at least 10,000 hours.” Craig Handel estimates that George Toma invested 250,000 hours in his groundskeeping craft. And even when George “retired,” he spent about 150 days away from home in his first six years as a consultant.

#2. TRUE OR FALSE? George Toma said that working on athletic fields all over the world was “something I’ve always enjoyed immensely.” Yet he names Emil Bossard who was with the Cleveland Indians (now the Cleveland Guardians) as the “greatest groundskeeper ever.” Not Toma? “At my core, I’m a dirt man” Toma said.

#3. T or F? Toma served as either the head field supervisor or consultant for the first 57 Super Bowls, beginning with Super Bowl I in L.A. in 1967 to Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Ariz., in 2023. (Note: the KC Chiefs played in both games.)

#4. T or F? Toma came by his profession organically, one might say. He was born on Feb. 2, 1929, aka “Groundhog Day.”

#5. T or F? Toma’s father died of Black Lung Disease at age 46 when George was just 11. Through hard work (at age 10, he worked 10 hours a day for 10 cents an hour), he reached the pinnacle of his profession. He’s been inducted into eight Halls of Fame!

#6. T or F? Toma spotlights Bill Veeck (1914-1986), who owned three MLB teams at various times, including the Chicago White Sox. Veeck said that “a good groundskeeper is worth five to seven victories a season.”

#7. T or F? For the first Super Bowl, Toma asked NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle what kind of logo he wanted at midfield. Rozelle’s response: “Put on whatever you want, George. It’s your field.” (Imagine! The CEO telling the groundskeeper to make the decision!) That reminds me of my 2006 book-of-the-year, Joy at Work, by Dennis Bakke, and his second book, The Decision Maker.

#8. T or F? Toma writes, “ESPN had me do one of its famous 30-second Sports Center commercials. Wearing a Marquis de Sod T-shirt, I started by saying, ‘Like a lot of organizations, ESPN was having trouble with its carpet. So they had me install a more natural surface.’” (Watch the hilarious video.)

#9. T or F? What? Really? It’s possible (perhaps, maybe) that MLB and NFL groundskeepers can give their home teams certain advantages. No way. Way? By the way, Toma doesn’t hold back when he has something to say. Oh, my! “That’s why I’m writing this book: to tell my side of the story so we can learn from these mistakes and hopefully prevent these situations from every happening again.” (View this video. True of False?)

#10. T or F? You’re kidding, right? Groundskeepers have their own national association? Yes! Someone needs to manage the more than one million playing fields in America! With his colleagues, Toma helped launch the Sports Field Management Association. (This was especially interesting to me since I was privileged to lead three national associations for 25 years.) Today, SFMA serves more than 2,700 members. (Want greener grass? Visit the exhibit hall at their next annual conference.)

#11. T or F? In 1967, Billy Graham had a 10-day evangelistic crusade at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium. Toma writes, “We became good friends, and during his event, I asked him if he could avoid kneeling on the grass. He complied.” But it didn’t matter, adds Toma. The growing crowd exceeded the stadiums seats, so Toma allowed them to sit on the grass in left field. Then right field. Then the infield grass! Johnny Cash and June Carter sang. “Later, Mr. Graham and Mr. Cash had a get-together at Excelsior Springs, Missouri. They invited me.”

WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK?
• Every MLB and NFL fan. (Go, Cubs!)
• Buildings and grounds team members at camps, campuses, churches, and companies.
• Anyone wanting a template for writing your own story. (“You should write a book!”)
• Sports nostalgia buffs—yearning for more stories about Mickey Mantle, George Brett, Len Dawson, Charles Finley, Lamar Hunt, Alvin Dark, Satchel Paige, and dozens of others.

7 DEGREES OF SEPARATION?
I’m grateful to Alan Busby, who texted me last December about The Sodfather. Alan’s father, Dan Busby (1941-2022), served as president of ECFA. Dan also knew his way around a baseball field and collected opening day tickets from every major league baseball team. He often consulted with the National Baseball Hall of Fame concerning memorabilia acquisitions. Dan wrote two baseball books:
• Before and After Jackie Robinson, A Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers Told Through the Lens of Tickets and Passes (Read my review.)
• Before and After Babe Ruth: A Story of the New York Yankees Told Through the Lens of Tickets and Passes (Read my review.)

I’m mentioning the Busby family because Alan shared the following: “I grew up in Westwood, Kansas, a few doors down from George Toma and regularly rode my bike through his grass and used his tree’s root base as a ramp!”

“Dad in his subtle competitive nature would always aspire to have the best yard but this achievement would always come short with a big-league opponent playing across the street. I recall one year Dad went as far as to have the whole yard stripped and fresh Kentucky bluegrass sod brought in, if you can imagine.” (That’s the Dan Busby I knew and loved! LOL!)

Alan recently wrote to George Toma and received a nice note back, along with a copy of The Sodfather. (Toma, by the way, writes that he still mows his own grass at age 96!)

MY GRASS?
Me? As #4 of five boys growing up, my Dad had five “apprentice groundskeepers” and one mandate, “I want this place looking like a park.” Maybe if George Toma had written his book earlier, I would have been inspired. But I’m so, so grateful for my 30-year friendship with Mario, who has been our faithful “all-things-beautiful” for our front and backyard and more. (I know when to delegate!) Here is a recent photo of Mario and his greatest cheerleader!

Mario (left) and his 30-year apprentice, John.

GROWING WEEDERS INTO LEADERS
This review would be sadly incomplete if I didn’t mention the perfect companion book to The Sodfather. In 2017, I received a signed copy from Jeff McManus of his wonderful book, Growing Weeders Into Leaders: Leadership Lessons from the Ground Level. For nearly 25 years, he transformed Ole Miss “from an overlooked campus into the most beautiful in the nation,” earning recognition from Forbes, The New York Times, and others.

In my review, I list 10 reasons why you’ll love this book, including Reason #7. McManus quotes John Maxwell: “What’s worse than training your people and losing them? Not training them and keeping them.” His bestselling book “reveals how he turned an unmotivated disorganized team into a nationally recognized powerhouse.”

Reminder: Go, Cubs, Go! (P.S. True or False? All 11 statements are true.)

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for The Sodfather: An Extraordinary Journey in the Shadows of Sports' Greatest Fields, by George Toma with Craig Handel.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Go Cubs! If you’re a Cubs fan and you can still picture the beauty of Chicago’s Wrigley Field, read my reviews of The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse, by Tom Verducci; and also read A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred, by George F. Will. What two teams will be in the 2025 World Series? In your opinion, what’s the most beautiful baseball field in the U.S.?
2) In Part 11, “Hall of Fame Sports Stories,” in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books, our son, Jason, and I highlight five sports stories (download the list here), including The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown (read my review). Note: The WSJ just named this book one of “Five Best: Books on Negotiation.” Read why. What's your favorite sports story. Why?

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #11 of 99: Leadership Prayers

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring "Book" #11 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

LEADERSHIP PRAYERS
by Richard Kriegbaum

Wait…what? You’re saying I should reread a book on PRAYER that aligns with the DONOR Bucket? (That’s right! Too obvious?) Stick with me here. This week, I reread the two-page prayer, “Budget.” It’s one of the most succinct, yet probing two pages I’ve ever read about the leader’s dilemma: “It is so hard to choose between what to do now and what to try later.”
• Read my review (Issue No. 193, Aug. 15, 2010).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #11 of 20: The Donor Bucket

After his two-page prayer, Richard Kriegbaum reflects: “The core values of an organization are the promises its members make to each other. The budget is the most comprehensive and detailed description of what the organization has promised to do in expressing those values. What makes budgeting so difficult for a future-oriented leader is that the budget is mostly about history, about keeping promises that have already been made. If the promises were made wisely, they will have created a good set of present opportunities, attracted great people, secured a strong position in the market with a positive image, and allowed for increasing net revenues."

New AI Podcast:
"You Should Write a Book"

Click here to listen to the AI-generated podcasters (13 minutes, 36 seconds) who comment on Nancy Nelson's 50 stunning stories in her book, Stories of Sheer Pure Grace. For more podcasts, click here.

Attn: Fundraisers
Read This Book!

STOP annoying your donors! Here’s help. You can dramatically reduce your fundraising costs, generate more revenue, and go home earlier if you JUST STOP doing what has never worked. Read my short review of Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI. Visit Pails in Comparison Blog for more reviews.

09:48 AM in Your Weekly Staff Meeting | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: Craig Handel, George Toma, John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, The Sodfather, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

March 12, 2025

Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work

Issue No. 640 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a new book that explores the issue (often heartbreaking) of “How competency checking and race collide at work.” Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my recent review of Superhabits.

Shari Dunn writes: “My intention with this book is to get us to see past ill-timed Band-Aid actions—ineffective corporate DEI initiatives, ‘color-blind’ solutions, individual mentorship, among others—and provide the hardworking antibiotic that will clean the wound that is racism in the workplace in the United States once and for all.”

Band-Aids vs. Breakthroughs

A friend asked me this week why I would want to read Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work, by Shari Dunn.

I told my friend about my new favorite quotation from Warren Buffett’s former partner, Charlie Munger (1924-2023). Munger said, “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything unless I know the other side’s argument better than they do.” (Read more in my 2023 book-of-the-year, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results.)

That’s a very high bar. It’s much easier to coast and give in to the social media partisans and the talk show host dogmatists and let them try and persuade me on any given issue. But wait…who do I listen to? And why? And can I articulate Shari Dunn’s voice better than she can? No way. But Munger’s wisdom inspired me to try. So will you read this?

Qualified:
How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work
by Shari Dunn (Feb. 25, 2025)

Frankly, I was somewhat reluctant to do a deep dive into Qualified, but now I’m grateful that the author did some of the hard work for me. I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about racial issues that continue to divide our workplace and our country. (I can do better.) Dunn’s book, at least for me, was not a comfortable read. (Heart-breaking, at times.) But it’s an important book—and I urge leaders, readers, pastors, priests, CEOs, department heads, and HR team members to give it a try.

My very limited journey on understanding racial issues began—in earnest—during my seminary years when I met William E. Pannell at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I read his 1968 book, My Friend, The Enemy, described by one of his friends as “a passionate corrective to a white evangelical community that he both loved and distrusted.”

In 1970, I led a Wisconsin winter retreat for high school students from 70 churches and Pannell agreed to be our speaker. Looking back now, I realize our Baptist churches were not ready for his winsome, but hard-to-hear message. And get this—all the way up to his homegoing at age 95 in 2024, he continued to challenge the status quo. That takes guts. In the 1990s, he suggested that the magazine, Christianity Today, should be rebranded, “Suburban Christianity Today.”

For more on Dr. William E. Pannell (1929-2024), read this tribute from Fuller Theological Seminary. Click here for the 2024 feature-length film, “The Gospel According to Bill Pannell,” and here for the film’s trailer. Click here for a five-minute “Message from Bill Pannell,” shown at the premiere of the film. Read this tribute in Christianity Today and this obituary in CT.

[THANKS…for allowing me to reminisce about Bill Pannell and my own journey. I wonder if author Shari Dunn and Bill Pannell ever met? And would they agree on most issues? Now…back to our regularly scheduled programming.]

COMPETENCY CHECKING. Let’s restart with this question—a key focus of Qualified. Pop Quiz: Define “competency checking.” Dunn documents and defines “the Shifting Standards Model (SSM)” which she says “can help explain . . . [why Black employees must meet a higher standard]. Simply put, you shift the requirements or ‘standards’ based on who it is.” She makes a compelling argument about this.

Dunn adds, “Because white employers frequently assume Black people are unqualified or incompetent, they competency-check them by paying more attention to any mistake made during the interview (or on the job) in writing samples, conversations, etc. The SSM could be one factor as to why employers consciously or unconsciously set the bar higher when reviewing the background and qualifications of Black and other candidates of color.”

In the chapter, “The Roots of Competency Checking,” the author’s extensive research and memorable anecdotes combine to make her case—a case that is tough to ignore. Oh, my. (The notes in the back of the book—a full 50 pages.)

BOOK’S PURPOSE. On how to “Move Past the Past,” Dunn employs an apt analogy—why an entire house is at risk when the foundation is poorly laid. She’s hopeful that we can fix the foundation. Her history lesson is helpful. (Did I also mention heartbreaking?)

She writes, “Dismantling systemic racism might require a combination of foundational fixes and ‘tear-downs,’ and the purpose of this book is to reveal a blueprint for you to follow to help you identify what you should be aware of and lay out the tools you will need as we jointly begin this work toward building a more equitable and just society that doesn’t pretend not to see race but acknowledges and accounts for its role as a destabilizing factor.”

(Note: There’s a lot of pushback on the term “systemic racism.” Have you done a deep dive on both sides of this concept?)

I CONFESS. The first half of the book was tough to read—on many levels. I kept wishing that those who hold different views on some of the issues could be invited into the conversation—right in the pages of the book. Dunn is no fan of many influential people on the other side of some of the issues. She disagrees with the stated positions of many, including the governors of Texas and Florida, several Supreme Court Justices and one TV network (guess which one).

She takes a well-deserved swipe at what the CEO of a major bank said in 2020. The CEO is quoted: “While it might sound like an excuse, the unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of Black talent to recruit from.” (Must-read: her response to this alarming and incorrect statement.) See also this from the WSJ, “Big Banks Are Scrubbing Their Public Mentions of DEI Efforts.”

I kept reading—and I kept wondering: is Dunn hopeful? She shares a “Band-Aid” metaphor which is both hopeful and helpful:

“My intention with this book is to get us to see past ill-timed Band-Aid actions—ineffective corporate DEI initiatives, ‘color-blind’ solutions, individual mentorship, among others—and provide the hardworking antibiotic that will clean the wound that is racism in the workplace in the United States once and for all.”

Ironically, Qualified was published just last month—on the heels of more than a dozen major corporations (and other organizations) that are disbanding DEI initiatives. (Some are keeping it intact.) Read this and this. Perhaps she speaks to this prophetically:

Saying much of this push-back “…comes disguised as ‘anti-woke’ rage,” Dunn adds this. “These are people who have used rhetoric and obfuscation on personal and national platforms to hijack the terms, malign the methodology, and confuse the debate so that people believe diversity is the illness, inclusion is exclusion, equity is biased, and up is down.”

Yikes. Did I mention this book may challenge your strongly-held views and opinions? I will read this book twice, along with others books (including Jason Riley’s book coming May 6, 2025)—and my goal is to be able to thoughtfully articulate both sides (the many sides?) of this heartbreaking issue.

I appreciated Dunn’s “Epilogue”—just four pages. It’s also hopeful. She writes. “Here is where I leave you. I hope this book is received as it was intended: as an invitation. A call to action, not just to acknowledge the profound challenges we face, but to actively and even enthusiastically engage in the hard work of dismantling them.” I urge you to read this book.

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work, by Shari Dunn. Listen on Libro (9 hours, 57 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.

WANT TO GO DEEPER? Listen to the Bloomberg Businessweek podcast interview with Shari Dunn, “Challenging the Narrative that Diversity Equals a Lack of Qualifications” (11 minutes, 57 seconds).

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Shari Dunn quotes James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Is our company or organization intentionally facing the issue of “competency checking” at work (or even in our volunteer arenas)?

2) Is the “Band-Aid” metaphor relevant in your company or organization? If not, what analogy or metaphor would you use to describe your aspirations for a healthy workplace where you are leading and managing with God-honoring integrity in your relationships? What Scripture verses are relevant to your HR culture? (In the “Acknowledgments” section of Qualified, the author mentions Proverbs 27:17.)

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

"Book" #10 of 99: 8 Leadership Flicks!

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring "Book" #10 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD!

Discover how your favorite books (and movies!) still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

8 LEADERSHIP FLICKS!
11½ Hours of Movies, Videos & YouTube

To celebrate the Hoopla! Bucket this week, you don’t have to read anything! Enjoy this curtain call for eight movies I featured at the start of COVID in 2020. Including comedy, these flicks address leadership issues, insights, and ideas.
• Read my mini-reviews (Issue No. 433, April 2, 2020).
• Management Bucket #10 of 20: The Hoopla! Bucket

Will your team learn more from your next boring talk—or from an afternoon of popcorn and picture shows on leadership? Ask: if this is your second viewing, what did you learn this time that you missed the first time?

#1. HARRIET (2019). You’ll want to watch it twice. I was stunned by Harriet Tubman’s attentive heart—always listening for divine direction. Memorable Line: “The hole in my head just made God’s voice more clear.”
#2. WE HAVE A POPE (2011). Memorable Line: “Not me, Lord! Not me!”

#3. THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA (1969). I stumbled across this one during COVID when the WSJ recommended the novel by Robert Crichton (which I have not read). Set during WWII and directed by Stanley Kramer, and starring Anthony Quinn, a wine-producing Italian village must hide a million bottles of wine from the Germans.
#4. TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH (1949). Starring Gregory Peck, this film is often used in MBA courses (google it). Constantino Salios taught a course at Biola University’s Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program in 2007 and invited me to join the class for this powerful film.

#5. IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON (2007). Memorable Line: “And of course at that time, the Atlas boosters were blowing up every other day down at Cape Canaveral. And it looked like a very, you know, a good way to have a short career.” (Jim Lovell)
#6. SESAME STREET: ERNIE PUTS DOWN THE DUCKIE (2003). Memorable Line: “Put down the duckie if you wanna play the saxophone.”

#7. OUR DAILY BREAD (1934). Memorable line: “Ya gonna follow me or quit like yellow dogs?” (NYT: “One of the 10 best films of 1934.”)
#8. MAKE YOUR BED (2014). Memorable Line: “If you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.”

New AI Podcast:
Miracle on a Bus!

Click here to listen to the AI-generated podcasters (13 minutes, 28 seconds) who comment on the stunning “orange” story recently featured on the God Reports website, “Retired Church Secretary’s Miracle on a Bus.” (Read the article.) For more podcasts, click here.

Your City Needs a Mary Henry!

Every major city in the nation needs an author like Mary Henry to write 50 or more tributes to the “Black People Whose Names Grace [Our City’s] Sites.” Read why in my review of Tributes: Black People Whose Names Grace Seattle Sites, by Mary T. Henry. (Note: She wrote this at age 99 and is now 101!) For more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.

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Tags: John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide, Shari Dunn, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

February 28, 2025

Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life

Issue No. 639 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting trumpets spotlights a phenomenal book—Superhabits—and a colorful diagram based on the virtues of St. Thomas Aquinas. And if your boss is now asking for a weekly progress report—and where did that idea come from? (LOL!), use my two-page template, “Weekly Update to My Supervisor.” Plus, click here for recent eNews issues posted at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my two-part review of Dan Heath’s new book, Reset.

DILIGENCE! In 1909, R. G. LeTourneau (1888-1969) took an automobile correspondence course and granted himself a BM Degree, "Bachelor of Motorcycles,” after he learned how to take apart and put back together his newly acquired motorcycle. He did this feat in ONE day! The rest is earth-moving history!

Exercising Your Virtues Muscles!

The author of Superhabits warns us: “A mid-air crisis is not the time to be learning many new things.” Hopefully, you’re not in crisis mode today. So it’s the perfect time to be learning from the founding dean of Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. (Dr. Abela was also a brand manager at Procter & Gamble, and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.) You’ll love this book!

Superhabits:
The Universal System for a Successful Life
by Andrew V. Abela (Oct. 15, 2024)

But yikes! Our granddaughter, Annika, a high school senior, gave me this special book for my birthday almost four months ago—and I’m finally reviewing it! Why the delay? I read it slowly. I made over 50 notes. It’s that good. Meaty. Thought-provoking. And systematic. (I love systems, but I can’t decide if I’ll slot this in the Systems Bucket, the Culture Bucket, the Results Bucket, the Crisis Bucket, or maybe the Hoopla! Bucket!)

In this joyful book, Andrew Abela generously shares the results of his diligent deep dive into the Treatise on Virtues of St. Thomas Aquinas. He calls his project, “Anatomy of Virtue: The System of ‘Superhabits’ for Making Life Easier, Happier, and Healthier.”

And get this! The hardcover copy of Superhabits comes shrink-wrapped with a stunning 16” x 21” full-color poster, plus access to the Busch Virtue Diagnostic. (Bonus: Visit Dr. Abela’s Substack blog and you can download a PDF of the “Anatomy of Virtue” diagram.)

ANATOMY OF VIRTUE. v. 13.0 - Based on the Treatise on the Virtues of St. Thomas Aquinas. For further information, go to https://superhabit.substack.com. Email questions and comments to Dr. Abela at [email protected]. © 2024. A. V. Abela, Ph.D. Used by permission.

This business school dean is not the first to systematize virtues and/or write practical commentaries on the power of habits. (See Charles Duhigg’s bestseller.) But, if you do any coaching, teaching, preaching, or mentoring—I’m thinking your content (and your system) may be sadly incomplete without this book. And here’s another bonus: it’s a delight to read—and you’ll be sharing the dozens of stories and concepts for years to come. Promise!

Abela notes, “For thousands of years, philosophers have written about what I’m calling superhabits.” But how many “superhabits” are there? Apparently no one can agree!
• Epictetus (4)
• William Bennett (10)
• Benjamin Franklin (13)
• Romano Guardini (17)
• Positive psychology (it depends: 6 or 24)
• John Garvey (29)

St. Thomas Aquinas to the rescue! Superhabits shines a light on the system used by this 13th century philosopher monk “by offering a system of virtues, not just a list.” As you’ll discover, the book spotlights four cardinal superhabits: Practical Wisdom, Justice, Courage, and Self-Discipline. I counted 39 superhabits that are integral to the cardinal habits. (Trust me—you will enjoy this deep dive.)

LOL! “Aquinas’ approach was much like the children’s game ‘Twenty Questions.’” (Read more about this simple explanation in Chapter 9, “The Superhabits System.”) Aquinas “presented the superhabits—the virtues—systematically in a way that demonstrates completeness, and that illustrates how the superhabits all work together.” (And don’t skip the math problem—calculators allowed—on page 102.)

To explain further, Abela references “one of the most crushing criticisms you can receive” as a junior consultant at McKinsey: “Your analysis isn’t MECE” means “that you haven’t adequately separated the business problem you’re working on into its component parts.” He adds, “There had to be no overlaps among the parts, and no gaps between them: they had to be Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive, or ‘MECE.’” (Go ahead—crush someone at your next weekly staff meeting!)

And this is key: you already have the superhabit “muscles”—they just need to be exercised. Abela promises, “Whatever challenge you’re facing in life, there’s a superhabit for that.” That’s a bold claim, right? But after reading and reflecting on this powerful system, I’m a convert. The spiritual life (faith, hope, and love from 1 Corinthians 13) is not neglected in this system. Pastors and priests may also want to align the “fruits of the Spirit” from Galatians 5 into this system.

There’s no need to pick my favorite chapter (they’re all very helpful)—but if you insist—I’ve already told two granddaughters about Chapter 12, “Practical Wisdom.” Abela skillfully leverages the heart-pounding events of Jan. 15, 2009, when Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger landed U.S. Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in New York City. All 155 passengers and crew survived!

“Practical Wisdom,” writes the author, “is the superhabit of making and implementing wise decisions, whether well-deliberated, strategic decisions over extended periods of time, or near-instantaneous ones like the ones Flight 1549 faced.” He adds, “Practical Wisdom recognizes that a decision is not properly made until it is implemented.”

Practical Wisdom has eight component superhabits. Per Aquinas, there are “four for gathering the relevant information, one for reasoning, and three for implementing.” So using a minute-by-minute (actually second-by-second) view from the cockpit with Captain “Sully,” the author illustrates how each of these superhabits—learned well in advance of a crisis—enabled “Sully” and his crew to land the plane. Absolutely fascinating!

The eight superhabits that back up Practical Wisdom include: Memory, Judgment, Teachability, Creativity, Reasoning, Alertness, Foresight, and Preparedness. Abela adds, “Aquinas was writing 750 years ago; but it is remarkable how closely his framework matches, and yet goes deeper than, many contemporary decision-making processes.” (I agree. Stunning!)

For an old guy like me (“…why did I just come into the kitchen?”), the four pages with practical insights on memory include four suggestions from Aquinas for “how to remember things reliably.” So Abela suggests you make a “funny or unusual image in your mind of what you want to remember…” (So now when I need a pair of scissors, I’m picturing those scissors riding a Harley!)

Listen to Dr. Andrew Abela’s talk, “The Virtues as Super Habits,” presented at the 2024 Summer Conference of the Napa Institute (33 minutes.) And/or view this interview with Dr. Abela on the “This Is the Day” podcast (6 minutes, 24 seconds.)

Practical Wisdom includes the superhabit of Teachability. Abela appreciates Jordan Peterson’s rule nine, “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.” You get this, right? Imagine if everyone on your team (or in your family) devoted themselves to lifelong learning and growing in these superhabits—before the next crisis. (Yikes!) Why?

“One important way Sully demonstrated
the superhabit of Teachability was his
determination to learn from others’ mistakes.”
(See my recent blog on 16 mistake-making books.)

And talk about contrarian! While many people claim, “I’m just not creative,” Abela guarantees that the creativity muscle can be developed. At the end of those frightening four minutes and 17 seconds since takeoff, Captain Sully made an announcement to his passengers, “This is the Captain. Brace for impact.” The plane landed on the Hudson River (a very creative choice) at five minutes and 49 seconds after takeoff. Imagine!

LOL! “After reaching shore, there was a humorous moment when Sullenberger called the U.S. Airways Operations Control Center to check in with them. The duty operations manager picked up the phone and in a rushed voice said, ‘I can’t talk right now. There’s a plane down in the Hudson!’”

Is your team well-prepared for your next crisis? As Peter Drucker counseled leaders, “Fortunately or unfortunately, the one predictable thing in any organization is the crisis. That always comes.” How much exercise do you and your team members get with the Alertness muscle and the Preparedness muscle?

TEASERS #1:
• Humility: read what C.S. Lewis said about designing the best cathedral in the world.
• Diligence: learn why R. G. LeTourneau gave himself a one-man graduation ceremony for earning his B.M. degree for Bachelor of Motorcycles!
• Courage (“…like every superhabit, is the mean between two extremes”): the stunning WW2 story of the American oil tanker, SS Ohio, miraculously arriving in Grand Harbor at Malta to the cheers of 100,000 citizens! (See also my recent review of The Courage Gap.)

TEASERS #2:
• Justice: learn about the slave trader, John Newton, and his re-conversion to Christianity in 1748. Abela ties that into Newton’s hymn, “Amazing Grace,” and learn what Mahalia Jackson said to Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
• Perseverance: “…Donald Rumsfeld used to say, ‘Once you quit one thing, then you can quit something else, and pretty soon you’ll get good at being a quitter.’”
• Read. The. Conclusion! Don’t skip the magnificent summary. Do. Not. Skip. The. Conclusion! Abela promises, “Superhabits are contagious!

Patrick Lencioni said that Superhabits is going to be a classic. I agree. Arthur C. Brooks called it a “must-read.” I agree. And—oh, my—this book deserves at least two reviews.

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life, by Andrew V. Abela.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) What “system” have you used to enrich your life—and those around you? Steve Macchia (see “Second Reads” below) is also the author of Crafting a Rule of Life: An Invitation to the Well-Ordered Way. (Read my review.) Macchia appreciates the first century Italian monk, St. Benedict (480-547) and his classic, Little Rule for Beginners.

2) Staying on the superhighway of saints (or perhaps the Camino de Santiago), let me also recommend the wonderful book, 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God, by Father Darrin Merlino, CMF. You’ll learn about the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). Gutsy! (Read my review.) Could you unplug for 30 days? (How ‘bout one day?)

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #9 of 99: Becoming a Healthy Team

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #9 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books and niche chapters still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

Becoming a Healthy Team:
5 Traits of Vital Leadership
by Stephen A. Macchia
(LTI Publications, Feb. 7, 2014, 188 pages)

Raise your hand if your team is humming along with no hiccups. (I thought so!) You can never have enough help when inspiring your team members—day after day, after day. (Just ask Elon Musk if it’s easy to keep team members focused on priority tasks!) This book will help.
• Read my original review (Issue No. 15, Dec. 4, 2006).
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #9 of 20: The Team Bucket

My SECOND READ Insights/Ideas: I missed this brilliant companion resource. When scanning this book again, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Steve Macchia and Justin Schell wrote a companion tool, Becoming a Healthy Team: Workbook and Exercises. This 100-page resource guides your team through collaborative exercises which reinforce the book’s themes: Trust, Empowerment, Assimilation, Management, and Service (T.E.A.M.S.). Utilizing creative team building experiences, the exercises include: Bible study, reflection, confession, lectio divina, shared practices, and fun activities.

Fun? Yes! For the “Healthy Teams Empower” exercise, group members need new names! “…make up one of the most outlandish names for yourself. Create nametags using these names and call one another by these names for the rest of your time together.” (I’d start a new study group—just to have fun with this exercise!) For more resources, including a 30-question team assessment, visit Leadership Transformations. (Note: Macchia's book, The Discerning Life, was my 2022 book-of-the-year.)

New AI Podcast:
The Best Leaders!

Welcome back to our new mini-feature, “BucketCast.” Click here to listen to the AI-generated podcasters (14 minutes, 6 seconds) who comment on my book review of Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits that Separate the Best Leaders from the Rest, by William Vanderbloemen. (Read my review.) For more podcasts, click here.

16 Books on Mistake-Making!

Really! At least once a year, you should read a book on mistake-making! So, here’s my latest blog with 16 books—one for every mistake flavor. Patrick Lencioni suggests you keep Mistakes Leaders Make on your desk all year—and read it once a year! Click here for mini-reviews of 16 books. For more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.

10:41 AM in Your Weekly Staff Meeting | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: Andrew Abela, John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, St. Thomas Aquinas, Superhabits, virtues, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

February 18, 2025

Anatomy of 55 More Songs: The Oral History of Top Hits That Changed Rock, Pop and Soul

Issue No. 638 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting trumpets a toe-tapping book on 55 rock, pop, and soul hits (plus three more). And…this bonus: Click here for the Johnny Be Good 2025 Awards Show—honoring the guest bloggers who wrote about their favorite rock, R&B, and pop songs (plus the index to 45 songs from the book, Anatomy of a Song.)

You know you want to! View this 75-second opening scene of James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me. Factoid: Carole Bayer Sager was the first female cowriter of a 007 movie theme song.

My 7 Favorite Songs (from a list of 55)

“Alexa! Play my seven favorite songs!” (Warning! If you read this special edition of Your Weekly Staff Meeting, get ready to start toe-tapping to your own favorite songs.) Why? Once again, I’m detouring off the leadership and management grid to serve up a fun book:

Anatomy of 55 More Songs:
The Oral History of Top Hits
That Changed Rock, Pop and Soul
by Marc Myers (Dec. 5, 2023)

I’m guessing Marc Myers has seen a doctor about his incessant toe-tapping because Myers’ latest book (the 2023 paperback features 58 songs) is a rock, pop, and soul music feast. Using the same format as Anatomy of a Song (45 rock, R&B, and pop iconic hits), the author is having way too much fun!

I’m meandering through Anatomy of 55 More Songs, but I’ve already picked my seven favorite chapters—and listened to my favorite versions of these seven songs on YouTube. Enjoy!

#1. “Walk on By” (Dionne Warwick - Listen on YouTube). Written by lyricist Hal David and composer Burt Bacharach, the song was released in April 1964 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. Read this lead-off chapter in Anatomy of 55 More Songs to learn why Bacharach “answered” Warwick’s “walk on by” line with two flugelhorns (not trumpets). Toe-tapper!

#11. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (Diana Ross - Listen on YouTube). Cowriter Valerie Simpson warns about what happened with her cowriter Nickolas Ashford. “I’ll just say that when you’re writing love songs all day long with someone, you can wind up falling in love. We did, and Nick and I married in 1974.” Simpson and Ashford met in church (he was homeless). This memorable “power ballad” was released in July 1970 and it reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart.

#22. “Killing Me Softly with His Song” (Roberta Flack - Listen on YouTube). Those “jot-it-down-on-a-napkin” stories that entrepreneurs like to tell? Ditto: Roberta Flack. In 1972, on a flight from NYC to LA, she hear Lori Lieberman’s version of “Killing Me Softly” perhaps four times on the American Airlines music channel loop. Leveraging her church music (organ and piano) background, she arranged the song for her style—and the rest is history. It was released in January 1973 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. It has been covered over 400 times!

Bonus Song! I can’t resist. Listen here to one of my favorite all-time versions of “Come Ye Disconsolate” by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway.

#27. “Sundown” (Gordon Lightfoot - Listen on YouTube). “Jealousy isn’t healthy for a relationship, but it tends to work out pretty well when writing a song,” Gordon Lightfoot told Marc Myers in Chapter 27 of Anatomy of 55 More Songs. Read how Pops Staples, of the Staple Singers, influenced this song. (See more on “Pops” in Song #29 of 45 in Anatomy of a Song.) Released in March 1974, “Sundown” was the biggest hit for “Canada’s most revered folk singer-songwriter.”

#36. “Nobody Does It Better" (Carly Simon - Listen on YouTube). Did you know that by 1979, four of the nine James Bond films produced had themes sung by women? Yet “Nobody Does It Better,” the theme written for The Spy Who Loved Me, “marked the first time a woman was credited as the cowriter of a Bond theme.” Carole Bayer Sager was the lyricist for the song that was released in July 1977. The soundtrack album was nominated for an Oscar. View the iconic opening parachute scene from the movie.

#39. “The Gambler” (Kenny Rogers - Listen on YouTube). You’ll love songwriter Don Schlitz’s commentary on the creative process for this Kenny Rogers hit. (According to author Marc Myers, Rogers had 420-plus hits across a spectrum of genres.) Schlitz dropped out of Duke University at age 20. When his bus arrived in Nashville (“Music City”), he had just $89. He credits his tenth-grade English teacher who taught him the importance of memorable titles. Hence: “The Gambler.” He wrote the lyrics on his dad’s L.C. Smith manual typewriter. Schlitz and Rogers both won Grammy Awards for this November 1978 release. (This chapter reminded me of the documentary, “It All Begins With a Song.” Read my review.)

#43. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” (The Charlie Daniels Band - Listen on YouTube). LOL! Read why “The Devil Went Down to New Hampshire” doesn’t have the poetic power like “Georgia.” You’ll remember the fiddle in this classic song, but did you know Charlie Daniels never had fiddle lessons? And did you know that the classical violinist Itzhak Perlman (listen to “Fiddler on the Roof”), and his children, were big fans of Daniels? The inspiration for this song? Stephen Vincent Benet’s 1925 poem, “The Mountain Whippoorwill.”

55 SONG TITLES. Click here for a master list of the 55 songs from the original hardback. (Note: Click on “Table of Contents.”) For more on author Marc Myers and his “Jazz Wax” website and newsletter, click here.

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for Anatomy of 55 More Songs: The Oral History of Top Hits That Changed Rock, Pop and Soul, by Marc Myers ("New and expanded now with 58 songs!"). Listen on Libro (9 hours, 37 minutes).

ANATOMY OF A SONG (45 HITS) INDEX &

2025 GUEST BLOGGERS 2025 AWARDS SHOW!

Congratulations to our faithful guest bloggers who added so much to our 2024 marathon through the 45 songs from the book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop, by Marc Myers. Read my review here. Order from Amazon here. Listen to the book on Libro (9 hours, 34 minutes). Each blog spotlights a song from the book and a guest blogger’s color commentary.

Click on this link to view the 2025 GUEST BLOGGERS AWARDS SHOW and learn which bloggers were recipients of the "BEST OF..." awards.

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #8 of 99: Humility

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #8 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books and niche chapters still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

Humility
by Andrew Murray
Wilder Publications (April 2, 2008, 60 pages)

What’s the balance between pride and humility when we tell our organization’s story in publications, brochures, donor letters, and fundraising events?
• Read my review (Issue No. 141, May 25, 2009)
• Order from Amazon.
• Listen on Libro (2 hours)
• Management Bucket #8 of 20: The Culture Bucket

My SECOND READ Insights/Ideas: I missed this brilliant truth the first time I read this. “Oh, beware of the mistake so many make, who would fain be humble, but are afraid to be too humble. They have so many qualifications and limitations, so many reasonings and questionings, as to what true humility is to be and to do, that they never unreservedly yield themselves to it.”

New AI Podcast:
BucketCast

Welcome back to our new mini-feature, “BucketCast.” Click on this link to listen to the AI-generated podcasters who comment on my book review of The One Year® Book of Hymns: 365 Devotions Based on Popular Hymns (18 minutes, 49 seconds). For more podcasts, click here.

The Courage Gap

“Fear is the most used word in the Bible racking up a whole 365 mentions,” writes Margie Warrell in her new book, The Courage Gap: 5 Steps to Braver Action. This book is short and important. Read my review. For more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.

11:25 AM in Your Weekly Staff Meeting | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: Anatomy of 55 More Songs, Awards, John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, Marc Myers, Your Weekly Staff Meeting

February 13, 2025

Reset: How to Change What's Not Working (Part 2 of 2)

Issue No. 637 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features the second review of a brilliant book on how to change what’s not working. Plus, click here for my 2024 Top-10 Books and Book-of-the-Year. And go here for four lists of books reviewed from 2006 to 2024. Plus, find more book reviews at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog—and click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Click here for Part 1 of 2 of the two-part review of Reset: How to Change What's Not Working.

FOR YOUR NEXT WEEKLY STAFF MEETING! In Chapter 9, “Tap Motivation,” of Dan Heath’s new book, Reset, he describes a staff retreat assignment. Using sticky notes, “write down one task that's on your plate today that you would pay someone to take over for you. Then…on a second sticky note, write down one task you'd be so excited to do that you'd pay for the privilege.”

The Twin Mistakes! “They undercoddle their best customers and overcoddle their worst.” (Part 2 of 2)

Since writing my Part 1 of 2 reviews of Reset, I’ve done another deep dive into this phenomenal book. I urge you—and your team and board—to read or listen to:

Reset:
How to Change What's Not Working
by Dan Heath (Jan. 21, 2025)

This bestselling author is often hilarious (see his footnotes)—yet insightful. With practical and pragmatic examples, the book also delivers contrarian counsel. Don’t skip Chapter 8, “Do Less AND More.”

In that chapter, Dan Heath spotlights a consulting firm—zealots for the Pareto principle (the 80/20 rule)—that helps clients change their operational approaches based on the 20 percent that yield 80 percent of the revenue. One problem though:

The firm had “found that his clients make twin mistakes: They undercoddle their best customers and overcoddle their worst. Often those mistakes derive from a noble desire: These companies aspire to treat customers the same.” Heath adds, “But to treat a $1 million customer the same as a $100 customer? It’s like treating your hamster the same as your daughter because they’re both mammals.”

The consultant discovered that “paradoxically,
the biggest customers are often treated worse than the smallest.”

Personal example! A colleague told me years ago about a nonprofit organization that invited every donor to give an extra $15—over and above their regular giving—to meet a special need. Sounds reasonable, right? “Dear John…Last month you gave $25. This month, please consider giving $25 + $15 = $40.”

Except…a major donor received the same ill-conceived generic one-size-fits-all appeal: “Dear Jane…Last month you gave $1 million. This month, please consider giving $1 million + $15 = $1,000,015.”

Oops!

LOL! I recently had my car serviced. When reading Chapter 2, “Consider the Goal of the Goal,” I couldn’t stop laughing! Similar to the story of Ryan, who was inundated with customer satisfaction surveys from his car dealership (Heath labels the looney practice, “the customer shakedown”), I was also the victim of way too many texts and emails—begging me to respond to their incessant surveys.

I did not complete the surveys. But I'm thinking about bringing a copy of the book (and my two reviews) over to the dealership and presenting them to the General Manager! (Too cheeky, perhaps? I think not. It’s a great dealership, but reading “How to Change What’s Not Working” will be helpful to the leader and her team.)

LISTEN TO CHAPTER 2. Dan Heath’s entertaining podcast, “What’s It Like to Be…” featured a bonus podcast last month on his new book, Reset, with the full audio of Chapter 2, “Consider the Goal of the Goal.” Listen here. (He begins with the "customer shakedown" story.)

CHAPTER 8 WILL SHOCK YOU. You may find, like one organization did, that 80 percent of their customers were costing them money! Have you applied the 80/20 test to your customers, clients, or donors? The wisdom in “Do Less AND More” is jam-packed:
• Family and Relationships: “What if we are undercoddling the most important people and overcoddling the least?” (Gut check!)
• Why a consultant skipped a client dinner to play ping-pong with his son.
• The value of a 2x2 quadrant (Stop, Start, Less, More). See also Mark Matlock’s three headers in Faith for the Curious.
• Read why—before he said yes to being CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metropolitan Chicago, the candidate volunteered for the organization and made a $25 donation “to experience the organization from the outside.” (See also Chapter 1, “Go and See the Work.”) He got the job and “within a month, a third of the board and a quarter of the staff were gone.” (Sound familiar to today’s news?)

WAIT…WHAT? Are you telling me that after reading my Part 1 of 2 review of Reset, you still haven’t visited DanHeath.com for a one-page summary of the book? And you still haven’t listened to Heath’s 10-minute video summary of his book? (Do it now. I’ll wait.)

REFRESHER! Reset has two parts:
• Part 1: Find Leverage Points. (Go and see the work. Consider the goal of the goal. Study the bright spots. Target the constraint. Map the system.)
• Part 2: Restack Resources. (Start with a burst. Recycle waste. Do less AND more. Tap motivation. Let people drive. Accelerate learning.)

Don’t ask me for my favorite chapter—because every one of the 11 chapters are seminar-worthy. (Your consultant is reading this now and will be poking-you-in-the-ribs yet this quarter!) And get this: every chapter includes a "Whirlwind Review." There's even more at the author's website: end-of-chapter resource recommendations, with live links to articles and value-added resources. Brilliant!

MORE INSIGHTS:

LET PEOPLE DRIVE. When Guy Krueger was not selected for the US Olympic archery team, he switched to coaching. He wasn’t a great coach and after a humiliating experience, he enrolled in a training program for coaches. Finally—he stopped “bossing” his athletes. “Because the coach can’t shoot the arrows for them. The coach should let the athletes drive.”

My suggestion: read Chapter 10 and then post the book cover on your office wall—to remind yourself that you can’t shoot the arrows or throw the darts. “Let People Drive.”

ZINGERS:
• Cool Cats! Read about the dangerously overpopulated animal shelter in Jacksonville, Fla., and the question that the new director asked—that started a national movement. “He didn’t know what he didn’t know. But that ignorance would turn out to be genius.”
• Church “Deadtime.” In Chapter 7, “Recycle Waste,” learn how one pastor cut out “watching” and trimmed 5 to 10 minutes from the service time without cutting any of the actual worship.” (Just one of many examples of early wins—“putting points on the board in weeks or months, not quarters or years.” Plus eliminating “deadtime” gave church members “a precious head start in beating other congregations to local restaurants for Sunday lunch.” LOL!)
• “Nitpicked Every Decision!” Heath pulls a few punches from Ed Catmull’s book, Creativity, Inc. The co-founder of Pixar could see that the “oversight group” (re: budget and deadlines) was basically at war with the creative team. Solution: “They eliminated the oversight group.” Yikes! (The brilliant explanation will give you courage. Heath also recommends the “Type 1” and “Type 2” decisions at Amazon.)

FINALLY… (Finally? This is pure torture—because I still have dozens of teasers that I can’t squeeze into this review. A third review maybe?)
• In Chapter 4, “Target the Restraint,” Heath discusses the “constraints” (aka “bottlenecks”) at Chick-fil-A. Fascinating and timely. See the recent WSJ article on Chick-fil-A*.
• For more on constraints, Heath recommends the novel, The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox. Or read my review of The Goal: A Business Graphic Novel (2017, 129 pages).

*And speaking of Chick-fil-A, congrats to Orange County Rescue Mission for receiving the company's very generous "True Inspiration Award" in 2024. Bryan Crain leads the executive team at OCRM.

TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for Reset: How to Change What's Not Working, by Dan Heath. Listen on Libro (6 hours, 17 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.

BONUS! Read The Wall Street Journal review, by Daniel Freedman, of Reset. It was featured in the Feb. 14, 2024, print edition: "How to Turn Things Around. Successful leaders ‘go and see the work.’ That means factory owners on the floor with employees, principals in the halls with students."

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:

1) Lifelong learning advice: never skip a book’s concluding chapter. Dan Heath’s last chapter spotlights “Joy at Work” and how to move an enormous boulder uphill (one of Heath’s themes). A gutsy hospital nurse and director in Brazil asked team members to post “What matters to you?” and “What are the impediments to what matters?” SHOCKER: The public bulletin board was crammed with 300 Post-Its! Brilliant: the leaders focused first on “quick wins” (fix the coffee maker!) and “stone in the shoe” issues. QUESTION: Are you gutsy enough to ask this question at work?

2) “You get what you celebrate,” preached Frank Blake, the former CEO of Home Depot. His view: no one cares what your memos say! At your next weekly staff meeting, read the story in Chapter 9, “Tap Motivation,” about the Home Depot cashier who was ringing up the lumber purchases of an elderly gentleman—and then asked him about his project. He replied that “his grandson had passed away, and he had decided to build the coffin with his own hands.” QUESTION: If you were the cashier, what would you say and do next?

SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books
You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!

Book #7 of 99: How to Deal with Annoying People

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #7 of 99 in our new series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books and niche chapters still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.

How to Deal with Annoying People:
What to Do When You Can't Avoid Them
by Bob Phillips and Kimberly Alyn
(Harvest House Publishers, March 1, 2005, 320 pages)

While this book's title is humorous, the content is extremely serious.
• Read my review (Issue No. 67, Dec. 17, 2007)
• Order from Amazon.
• Management Bucket #7 of 20: The People Bucket

My SECOND READ Insights/Ideas: I missed this brilliant idea the first time I read this. From the first hour of the first of many all-day social styles training sessions led by Don German—I would be hard-pressed to name anything that has been more helpful to me (personally and professionally), except my Christian faith.

I’ve read and recommended numerous books about the four social styles (Analyticals, Drivers, Amiables, and Expressives)—yet I’m always looking to learn more. When I picked up Bob Phillips’ book again, I was shocked that I had not underlined anything in Chapter 15, “Dispelling Ten Stereotypical Gender Myths.” (Excellent reminders!)

I’m a Driver (see the charts on the People Bucket website), so perhaps I rushed through this book unwittingly. I also missed Chapter 16, “Mottos and Sayings of Annoying People,” especially the two pages of “Conflicted Sayings.” (Two styles affirm, “Look before you leap” and two styles believe, “He who hesitates is lost.”)

And how did I miss the page, “Quotes of Famous Leaders”—including their social styles? You’ll love the quotes from Dale Carnegie, Theodore Roosevelt, Norman Vincent Peale, Golda Meir, and others, and this from Winston Churchill: “Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”

BONUS! View this 10-minute video, “The 4 Social Styles in the Boardroom,” I presented at the 2020 virtual conference of Christian Ministry Advancement (formerly Christian Management Australia).

New AI Podcast:
BucketCast

Welcome back to our new mini-feature, “BucketCast.” Click on this link to listen to the AI-generated podcasters who comment on my book review of A Comedian’s Prayer Book, by Frank Skinner, plus 2 additional LOL books (7 minutes). For more podcasts, click here.

Someone on Your Team Should Read This!

Is DeepSeek for real? While this book was published just 12 months ago, someone on your team and/or your board should digest Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet. The book’s not for everyone. In fact, I’m surprised I read it—I’m hardly a tech guy. Yet the author, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, hooks you into the history, the promise, and potential of the Internet and AI. For more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.