John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets: 5 Questions to Help You Determine Your Next Move

Issue No. 491 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting grabs your attention with five questions from Andy Stanley, including “the best question ever.” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for almost 500 book reviews, and click here for the Mastering Mistake-Making webpage. (See Mistake #16 below.)

1993: “Sure, I could guest host a live radio program.”
2021: Andy Stanley asks, “Is that wise, John?”
 
A Voice for Radio Is Not Enough!

Many people have told me I have a good “radio voice.” I sang bass in school and church choirs—so I often fantasized about having a radio gig. Others have said, “You have a face for radio!”

In 1993 in the Chicago area, Dick Staub interviewed me live on his nationally syndicated afternoon drive-time radio program. The award-winning Dick Staub Show was carried on over 60 stations. The interview went great and so I just happened to mention to Dick that I had thought about being on the radio someday.

A few days later, Dick invited me to guest host his program for two days. Unfortunately, I said yes. Dick said he’d be in China that week—and even if I messed up—he’d be too far away to rescue me! So with a very brief orientation a week later with Dick, I had my assignment for my first on-air day: read a book about social welfare policy and prepare questions for the in-studio interview with the author.

Yikes! Upon arrival, the author said he couldn’t stay the full 60-minutes for the interview—but not to worry, he had questions I could ask listeners. They would certainly call in, he promised.

No one called in! No one called! No one called! Imagine—trying to fill dead airtime with 30 minutes of monologue on a forgettable topic. At a commercial break, the producer gave me several prizes I could offer to callers. They called but only to get the prize from the producer—unwilling to speak on air with me. Even my faithful wife, Joanne (listening at home), sensed the disaster playing out in Chicagoland radio history—and even this knowledgeable former social worker did not call in to rescue me!

Good news/bad news. In reality, few were listening or cared. That morning on Oct. 6, 1993, Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time, announced his retirement from the Chicago Bulls. That’s what we talked about in the first hour of the program—and listeners did call in. But as the Jordan news swelled, by afternoon, no one was interested in discussing social welfare policy—including the author who left early! Oh, my.

Hmmm. You mean to tell me that just having a voice for radio is not enough? You also need a brain for radio? Who knew? And, please remind me not to take on roles outside of my skillset.

I mention this story because Andy Stanley writes in Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets, “Your decisions determine your story.”

My mistake back in 1993: Sometimes…ego and over-confidence in my abilities coaxed me into saying “yes” to opportunities and client projects—when I should have said “no.”

Have you ever said “yes” to something only to discover it wasn’t the right fit? Then it’s too late to back out and every hour or day on the project is torture, right? Whew! Why did I agree to this? Gradually, the unpleasant situation is compounded by procrastination, mediocre results, and zero joy. My radio gig was very short-lived, but it did leave a bruise. Sometimes ego trumps discernment. In my consulting years, for example, it took several rounds for me to realize my competencies were in the nonprofit space, not the for-profit (but more profitable) arena.

WHAT I LEARNED: I’m often asked, “What’s the best book you’ve read in the last year?” Some nonprofit leaders are looking for a gift book to send to donors. Others are being intentional about people development and want to bless their team members and board members. Sometimes I meet a serious lifelong learner. Leaders are readers.

I had missed the publisher’s hype when The Best Question Ever: A Revolutionary Approach to Decision-Making, by Andy Stanley, was published in 2004. But in 2007, Dick Towner encouraged me to read it. I bought the book and Joanne read it first and she agreed with Dick. When those two gang up on me, I just salute and do what they say. I read and savored it. We bought a case and named it the “Book-of-the-Year” for our clients. (Note: Stanley wrote an updated edition, Ask It, in 2014.)

GOOD NEWS! Just 12 months ago, Andy Stanley added four more questions and wrote Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets: 5 Questions to Help You Determine Your Next Move. At just 192 pages, it’s worth your time—and you’ll be sharing it with colleagues, friends, and family (and grandkids!). The five questions:
1. The Integrity Question: Am I being honest with myself? Really?
2. The Legacy Question: What story do I want to tell?
3. The Conscience Question: Is there a tension that deserves my attention?
4. The Maturity Question: What is the wise thing to do?
5. The Relationship Question: What does love require of me?

In Mastering Mistake Making, I focused on Stanley’s fourth question, “What is the wise thing to do?” That’s from Mistake #24, “Saying ‘YES’ Too Often.” Here’s the big idea from Andy Stanley: “We've all done dumb stuff in our lives. We all have regrets. Yet none of us plans to mess up our lives. Why, then, does it keep happening?” Stanley offers a very practical question to ask—and it’s applicable to all of our actions in all of life's arenas. The question: “In light of my past experience, my current circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?”

The author of more than 20 books and the founder of Atlanta-based North Point Ministries, Stanley also notes the WORST question to ask: “Is there anything wrong with it?” He says the worst question is also the wrong question to ask. The best question: “Is it wise?” It’s simple, convicting, and demands discernment. For example:

• Sure, I could guest host a radio program. (Is that wise, John?)
• Well, my expertise is actually with nonprofit Christian organizations, churches, and associations—but yes, I could help your for-profit business. (Is that wise, John?)
• Joanne, we do have the money. Owning it would be fun! (Is that wise, John?)

If you’ve already nailed Question #4, “What is the wise thing to do?”—then discern if you’re gutsy enough to look in the mirror while you’re answering Stanley’s other four questions:

#1. The Integrity Question: Am I being honest with myself? Really?
• “Most people don’t learn from bad decisions because they’re convinced their bad decisions were somebody else’s fault.”
• “Decision #1: The Integrity Decision. I will not lie to myself even when the truth makes me feel bad about myself.”
• “Pardon my presumption, but you may need to write that down and put it where you can see it every day. For a while anyway. I suggest a mirror.”

This reminded me of the classic song, “Have a Little Talk With Myself,” performed by Max Q.


Listen to “Have a Little Talk With Myself,” performed by Max Q.

#2. The Legacy Question: What story do I want to tell?
• Learn about the story Joseph lived (20 years after his brothers sold him into slavery!) and why you’re writing your own story—“one decision at a time.”

#3. The Conscience Question: Is there a tension that deserves my attention?
• The story that King David chose not to write for his grandkids: “Grandpa David, tell us one more time about how you became king. You know, how you snuck up behind King Saul while he was using the potty and slit his throat!”
• This question prompted me to re-read A Tale of Three Kings: A Study in Brokenness, by Gene Edwards. Powerful!

#5. The Relationship Question: What does love require of me?
• Stanley’s mentor would ask him, “Andy, what do you hope I don’t ask you about?” (Andy’s response: “That’s cheating! You’re supposed to poke around and discover that for yourself!”)

Whew! If you’re gutsy enough—read and share this book with your team.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets: 5 Questions to Help You Determine Your Next Move, by Andy Stanley. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (4 hours, 9 minutes), narrated by Andy Stanley. And thanks to Zondervan for providing a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Raise your hand if you think John’s wife should have called into the radio show!
2) Think of a decision we made recently that didn’t turn out well. Could we have avoided the trauma if someone had asked the best question ever? “Is it wise?”
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Mistake #16 of 25:
Disregarding God-Given Gifts & Passion
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


In How to Deal With Annoying People, Bob Phillips writes in the chapter, “How to Lead Annoying People,” that Drivers and Expressives find decision-making easier than do Amiables and Analyticals. Read more on the four social styles in Mastering Mistake Making.

John’s Mistake #16: “I naively and arrogantly thought that if family, friends, and co-workers could just function more like me (the right way), we’d all just get along. Yikes!”

John learned to leverage what he calls “The 3 Powerful S’s” to understand others (and himself): Social Styles, Strengths, and Spiritual Gifts. To understand social styles, he recommends the practical and indispensable “conflict resolution 101” book—and it’s fun to read. How to Deal with Annoying People: What to Do When You Can't Avoid Them, by Bob Phillips and Kimberly Alyn (order from Amazon).

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.

"MISTAKES ARE LIKE TUITION." Read the blog by Dr. Richard (Rick) Goossen, Chairman of The Entrepreneurial Leaders Organization (The ELO Network), "Have You Mastered the Craft of Making Mistakes?" And listen to George P. Wood's interview with John Pearson, "“How to Make Mistakes Well” on the Influence Podcast.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Before you launch your next “sure thing” marketing campaign—slow down and consult outside wisdom, especially on the question, “Is it wise?” Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Made From Scratch: The Legendary Success Story of Texas Roadhouse

Issue No. 490 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting serves up a hot-from-the-oven AMAZING book with 91 lessons from the founder of Texas Roadhouse restaurants. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for almost 500 book reviews, and click here for the Mastering Mistake-Making webpage. (See Mistake #15 below.)

The chapter, “Service With a Heart, Six Feet Apart,” in the new book, Made From Scratch, is an insightful (and yes, out-of-the-box) 30-page playbook/case study detailing how Texas Roadhouse addressed the Covid-19 shutdown.
 
91 Lessons from Texas Roadhouse

I just read Made From Scratch: The Legendary Success Story of Texas Roadhouse. Written by Kent Taylor (1955-2021), founder, the book was an instant Wall Street Journal bestseller in August. Amazingly, I’ve never dined at a Texas Roadhouse—yet this out-of-the-box company operates over 647 restaurants system-wide in 49 states and 10 foreign countries.

So what should I order next week when I visit my nearest location in Oceanside, California? Hand-cut steak? Fall-off-the-bone ribs? The menu looks amazing: made-from-scratch sides, fresh-baked bread with honey cinnamon butter, and tempting desserts. (Did I mention free peanuts?)

This book is amazing. You’ll underline hundreds of examples from all 20 management buckets—especially the People Bucket, the Team Bucket, the Operations Bucket, and the Hoopla! Bucket. Taylor notes, “We had always said we were a ‘people company that just happened to sell steaks.’”

7 AMAZING MORSELS!

#1. AMAZING! 91 BULLET POINTS! Every chapter concludes with four to eight “What I Learned” bullet points from founder Kent Taylor. (I read those first. And yes, I counted them: 91 takeaways—bite-sized for your weekly staff meeting discussions.) Examples:
   • “The best business owners and executives I’ve ever met are voracious readers and students of leadership. Every year at our convention we bring in gurus—like John Wooden—to learn and stretch ourselves.” (With more than 70,000 team members, their annual Managing Partners Conference includes about 1,000 company leaders.)
   • “Find yourself a good coach who will give you honest feedback.” (See Mistake #15 below.)
   • “If you have a good idea, pitch it. If no one is listening, that tells you something about the culture you are in. You then have three choices: Put your head down and get along, try to change the culture, or get out of Dodge.”
   • “Be creative when finding talent. You never know if your next awesome employee will be helping you at the dry cleaner, or if your team’s heart and soul will be discovered rotating your tires. Positive attitude and a willingness to learn new things trumps experience.”

#2. AMAZING! COVID PLAYBOOK. Chapter 19, “Service With a Heart, Six Feet Apart,” is an insightful (and yes, out-of-the-box) 30-page playbook/case study detailing how Texas Roadhouse addressed the Covid-19 shutdown. Inside sales plummeted—and so Taylor reaching out to his “crazies” (the innovative managing partners) to learn what they were doing. Bingo! Creativity and curbside dining mushroomed.

“We had leaders who had been burning it up curbside with these new ideas. I called them our Big Dogs. And we had some managing partners who couldn’t seem to get off the porch, whom we affectionately termed our Puppies. By now [Week 4 of Covid-19], we had paired Big Dogs with the Puppies, and the Puppies started venturing off their porches, having fun, and making sales.”

#3. AMAZING! WILLIE’S CORNER. What’s not to like about a company that partners with Willie Nelson? According to Texas Roadhouse, “Willie’s contributions to country music earned him recognition at each of our locations with Willie’s Corner, which is a dedicated area of the restaurant that celebrates his legendary career. You will even find employees and guests around the world wearing our very own Willie Braids, which serve as a reminder of our laid-back atmosphere and fun with purpose!”

I couldn’t resist. While writing this review, I listened to “Willie’s Roadhouse” on Sirius XM and I also stumbled across this poignant rendition by Willie Nelson, “I Thought About You, Lord.”


Listen to “I Thought About You, Lord,” by Willie Nelson (4 min.).

#4. AMAZING MISTAKES! Founded in 1993, the early years were not without mishaps. Taylor writes, “Prominently displayed on the wall of my office are artifacts from each of the three stores I opened in 1994 and eventually had to close. There’s a fish from Sarasota, a cow skull from Clearwater, and a fish from Cincinnati. Under each is a plaque showing their open and close dates and how much money each lost. I’m proud of those failures because of the lessons learned.”

#5. AMAZING! FOUNDER EXITS FOR A MONTH! Have I mentioned “amazing?” Kent Taylor kept an empty office, next to his, with a sign on the door, “Office of the President.” Finally, in 2000, he hired the president. Taylor’s title became “Founder and CEO.” And get this: “I handed him the keys to our support center and said, ‘This is your playground.’” So they split up Taylor’s duties and the new president had a full plate immediately. (It reminded me of the fill-in-the-blanks organizational chart concept in the book, The E-Myth.)

“I told him I’d see him in a month, and I hit the road,” writes Taylor. “Why a month? Because for anyone in our support center who had issues—not liking someone else, for example—now G.J.’s door was open and my car door was closed as I headed down the highway, a couple hundred miles away. That’s called instant change, deal with it.”

#6. AMAZING! BEST-SELLING AUTHORS AS EDITORS! Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, bestselling authors of The Carrot Principle (2007), Anxiety at Work (2021), and other books, were recruited by Kent Taylor to edit his book! Amazingly—they agreed. (How’d he do that? Taylor must have read Trey Gowdy’s book on persuasion!). Even more amazing—read how Taylor texted hand-written pages of the manuscript every night to Gostick!

In January 2020, the two invited Taylor to a gathering of the Marshall Goldsmith 100, which featured Alan Mulally, the former Boeing and Ford CEO. I’m guessing “Learner” was in Kent Taylor’s Top-5 strengths assessments—because he read a book a week and was a voracious learner from other CEOs like Truett Cathy, Herb Kelleher, and others. He read Nuts! (the Southwest Airlines story) in 1996 and lists his Top-10 takeaways from the book, including:
• “Hire for spirit, spunk, and enthusiasm (and train for skill).”
• And my favorite: “Own mistakes, share mistakes, learn from mistakes (and move on).”

Confession: I skipped to the appendix first and read, “On Leadership.” He paraphrases The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, and comments on “Mentors and Failures,” and culture. He noted that every book on leadership has their own “top three, five, or ten leadership ideas,” so he “figured why not join the club.” He lists 10 leadership insights.

“Books I Dig,” also in the appendix, features three- and four-line blurbs on 18 valued leadership books, including Built to Last, by Jim Collins, and a book I have not yet read, Leading With Gratitude, by Gostick and Elton.

#7. AMAZINGLY RELEVANT! With top recommendations from leaders I admire, including Marshall Goldsmith, this practical and often irreverent, contrarian, and hilarious book is worth your time.
   • My camp director colleagues will quote from this book often. (A camp director’s local influence is similar to how Taylor describes a Texas Roadhouse managing partner—a city’s ad hoc mayor.)
   • Business owners will buy it for their managers (read the story about the peanut trail to the next door restrooms at JCPenney!).
   • The bias towards people care (especially team members and vendors) will cause church and nonprofit leaders to look in the mirror.
   • And the unique sidebars with commentary from more than 65 people (investors, track coaches, co-workers, vendors, and Willie Nelson)—truly out-of-the-box and validating. Brilliant idea.
   • Would your team members identify with this testimonial?

“I had worked for Bennigan’s for seven years
prior to Texas Roadhouse
and it was miserable going to work every day.
Whenever you asked for anything, the answer was always,
‘It’s not in our budget.’
With Roadhouse, the answer is,
‘Yes. What’s the question?’”
(Greg Beckel, market partner)

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Made From Scratch: The Legendary Success Story of Texas Roadhouse, by Kent Taylor. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (8 hours, 32 minutes). And thanks to Simon & Schuster and Fortier PR for providing a review copy.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Kent Taylor believed you should “Dance with those who brung you.” That axiom inspired him to identify the unique strengths and core values of Texas Roadhouse that would never change. (Read his list of 15 on page 192, including #13, “First-time-guest focus.”) IDEA: “OK, team…Let’s list at least 15 things we should never change in our organization—and then join me this weekend at Texas Roadhouse for dinner!”) 
2) “As soon as you make a profit,” wrote Kent Taylor, “find a way to give back. Cast your bread upon the waters.” Taylor gave up his salary during Covid-19 to help the chain’s frontline workers. He also donated $5 million to the company’s benevolence fund for employees. Would the general public consider us a generous and caring organization?
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Note: Sadly, according to the book’s afterword, “The former high school and collegiate track champion ended his life in March 2021 after struggling with severe and debilitating tinnitus, a result of contracting Covid-19. Despite many medical efforts, the condition—which affected both ears and worsened considerably over time—was one hurdle Kent could not overcome.” He was 65.

Today...I prayed that in his final days, Kent Taylor had found comfort and hope in the Gracious God of Willie Nelson’s song, “I Thought About You, Lord.” Today...I grieve for his family and team members.
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Mistake #15 of 25:
Assuming I Was Good at Getting Feedback
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


Stephen Covey wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If he had written The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Mistake Makers, perhaps a chapter would have been titled, “Sharpen the Feedback Saw.” 

John’s Mistake #15: “Based on other nonprofit best practices I had observed, I erroneously assumed I was gifted at soliciting frank and fervent feedback from my team. Oops! Wrong assumption! My world was too narrow.” John adds, "The 'sin of niceness' in my nonprofit circles set a very low bar."

John recommends two books by Dennis Bakke that broadened his world:
   • The Decision Maker: Unlock the Potential of Everyone in Your Organization One Decision at a Time (read the review)
   • Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job (read the review)

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.

"MISTAKES ARE LIKE TUITION." Read the blog by Dr. Richard (Rick) Goossen, Chairman of The Entrepreneurial Leaders Organization (The ELO Network), "Have You Mastered the Craft of Making Mistakes?" And listen to George P. Wood's interview with John Pearson, "“How to Make Mistakes Well” on the Influence Podcast.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Have you aligned your core values and your list of “15 things we will not change”—with your communication strategy? Need help? Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Public Speaking Laws of Success for Everyone and Every Occasion

Issue No. 489 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a hot-off-the-press book that guarantees you can be in the Top-10 percent of public speakers—if you follow the author’s 50 laws of success. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book John wrote with his son, Jason, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #14 below.

Ask a colleague to use the “Public Speaking Laws of Success Scorecard®” to evaluate your next presentation using the rating sheet from the new book, Public Speaking Laws of Success.

5 Grandkids Join Me for a Zoom Review of Public Speaking Laws of Success

About 60 years ago (yikes!) during Youth Sunday at my home church in Seattle, I was the designated preacher for the Sunday evening service. It would have been very, very helpful if Rick Goossen had already published his book back then. The members at Elim Baptist Church might have appreciated a better-constructed and delivered sermon. Trust me.

But at least I got one thing right according to Public Speaking Laws of Success for Everyone and Every Occasion—the importance of practice, practice, practice. (Thanks to our youth pastor, Ray Bakke, I practiced on the grace-giving congregation!) So better late than never, I’m still practicing—and I’m still learning. On Nov. 18, I’m leading a half-day board governance training seminar for The Barnabas Group/Orange County. (More practice!) 

The good news/bad news: the 50 short-and-sweet chapters in Richard J. (Rick) Goossen’s book remind me that I still have room for improvement. But there’s hope!

“You only learn by doing—not by waiting to be perfect. You can be better than 90% of all public speakers by following and applying the laws of success in this book—guaranteed.”

Rick Goossen has taught these 50 public speaking laws of success to more than 1,000 college students—and he’s personally worked with over 200 of the world’s leading speakers. So…taking a cue from my youth pastor (practice, practice, practice), I inspired my grandkids to join me for a Zoom conversation (aka “public speaking”) on what they learned from reading Public Speaking Laws of Success for Everyone and Every Occasion. Click here to view the 25-minute video:

View the Zoom panel conversation with John Pearson and his five grandkids on the new book, Public Speaking Laws of Success for Everyone and Every Occasion (25 minutes).

Get your scorecard ready because our granddaughter, Helena (12), evaluated her four siblings as they presented their thoughts on their favorite chapters. (And what’s good for the Goossen is good for the Pearson, right?) I’m going out on a limb here, but at my Nov. 18 seminar, I’ll ask 10 people to evaluate my “public speaking” chops using the very practical scorecard in Goossen’s book (pages 179-180), “Public Speaking Laws of Success Scorecard®.” Listen to the video to learn more about the 10-topic rating sheet.

Listen to the big ideas on these four chapters:
• Chapter 3: The One-Minute Test (Emelia Pearson, 18)
• Chapters 45-46: Four Weddings...and a Funeral (Zuzu Pearson, 18)
• Chapter 43: The Interview (Anders Pearson,18)
• Chapter 24: Play to Your Strengths (Annika Pearson,14)

You’ll love this book! The 50 short chapters are spread across four sections: The Mechanics, The Key Principles, The Digital Environment (aka Zoom meetings), and The Applications. Goossen’s 10,000 hours of experience (per Malcolm Gladwell’s insights) deliver practical content wrapped in hilarious stories—with contrasting best and worst practices.

Rookies and veterans (including your pastor or priest) will find inspiration, helpful methodologies (like “the hook”), and humor. Goossen writes, “Years ago, my good friend Malcolm Gladwell and I spoke together at a conference for a combined fee of $100,000.” The rest of the paragraph clarifies that lead sentence in Chapter 25, “Embellishment.” Bottom line: don’t embellish!

Each chapter includes one of Goossen’s 50 laws. The “Big Mo” chapter summary:

“LAW #10: Always keep Big Mo on your side through the pace and momentum of your presentation, so the audience knows where you are going and how and when you are likely to get there.”

Listen to our Zoom panel—and you be the judge. Was “Big Mo” evident? For our presentation, my public speaking panelists each shared a favorite chapter. But we all agreed—it was tough to pick just one. I picked 20 favorite chapters:

THE HOOK
• The One-Minute Test (One minute after you speak, can people summarize your speech?)
• The Hook (Brilliant ways to “hook” your listeners at the beginning of a talk.)
• Story Time (Goossen’s story of arriving in hot and humid Hong Kong at age 25—sweating and interviewing at leading law firms. The big idea: how to tell your story in a compelling way.)
• Know Your Audience (A stunning example from Pat Williams, the co-founder of the NBA Orlando Magic basketball team—when he had to brush up on hockey to relate to his Canadian audience.)
• Be Present (Read how Mark Barnett, the producer of Survivor, Shark Tank, The Apprentice, and The Voice, allocates his time after he speaks. A superb example.)

DANGER AHEAD!
• The Most Dangerous 15 Seconds (what might happen if you go off script!)
• The Next Most Dangerous 15 Seconds (keys for ending well and not going off script)
• Play to Your Strengths (“…only speak on topics you know something about…don’t try to bluff your way through any topic.”)
• Murphy Is Your Friend (as in…Murphy’s Law: “What can go wrong, may go wrong.”)

THE KLEENEX OF VIDEO CONFERENCING
• When you’re on Zoom—what’s the same and what’s different? Plus, tips for conference panels, webinar presentations, business meetings, and board meetings.
• Warning, says Goossen: “Video conference technology has created the biggest dilution in company brand value since the dawn of the Internet.”
• Why your people may be ill-prepared (without serious training) to represent you well on Zoom (the author tags Zoom, “the Kleenex of video conferencing”).
• See my reminder from Bloomberg: “Zoom-call Blunders Led to Someone Getting Axed, 1 in 4 Bosses Say.”

SHUT DOWN YOUR OPEN MIC!
• Introductions (When asked to “Please introduce yourself and share something interesting about yourself,”—most people are not ready, and they’re boring. Be prepared and “treat it like a mini-speech.”)
• Open Mic (This is pretty funny. Learn why Goossen no longer has an “open mic” at the meetings he leads.)
• Spontaneous Combustion (What to do if you’re called on, without warning, to say a “few words” to the group. Memorize the author’s five helpful points.)
• Hands-On Presentation (Attn: Grandkids and Slow Learners! Here are eight “etiquette” rules.)

SHUT UP!
• The Interview (How to interview others: “A good question hits the mark; ask the question, and then shut up!”)
• Four Weddings…and a Funeral (You’ll love the savvy speaking tips and hilarious stories; plus what NOT to say at a wedding!)
• The Perils of Panels (How to moderate a Zoom panel, including “as a last resort, muting someone!”) I can hear it now: “Grandpa John, thanks for moderating this Zoom panel, but you SHOULD HAVE READ CHAPTER 48 before attempting this!”

Rick Goossen is founder and chair of the ELO Network (the Entrepreneurial Leaders Organization) with programs worldwide including Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford. He has organized more than 60 business conferences for entrepreneurs—and the best and worst public speaking stories from those events add color to this page-turner. Goossen is also the co-author of Entrepreneurial Leadership: Finding Your Calling, Making a Difference. Click here to read my review.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Public Speaking Laws of Success: For Everyone and Every Occasion, by Richard J. Goossen. And thanks to the author for providing an advance review copy.



BONUS VIDEO! Click here to view our Zoom panel discussion on the book, The Art of Writing (June 16, 2020).

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In Chapter 7, “Structure & Symmetry,” Rick Goossen discusses the fundamentals of a good presentation. Don’t be a comedian, he warns. (Oops! See Mistake #14 below.) Goossen preaches, “Without the scaffolding of a good talk you merely have a collection of hard-to-remember points.” How many hours have you invested in the last three years—learning and practicing the art of public speaking? Plus, ask a colleague to evaluate your next public speaking gig—including counting the number of “filler” words, such as “uhh,” “uhm,” “like,” and “you know.”
2) What other books have you read to enrich your public speaking skills and/or delivery of relevant sermons? Check out these reviews:
   • 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations (read review)
   • How to Deliver a TED Talk (read review)
   • You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard: The Complete Book of Speaking…in Business and in Life (read review)
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Mistake #14 of 25:
Ignoring My Annoying Workplace Habits
Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned, by John Pearson with Jason Pearson


Don’t make this BIG MISTAKE! Read Mastering Mistake Making—especially Mistake #14. John confesses, “My ‘inner compass of correct behavior had gone out of whack.’”

Much too late in his career, John read the bestseller, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Discover the 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break, by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter. (Read the review.) John’s mistake:

“I did not create space for receiving feedback on my own work or behavior—which then prevented my giving authentic feedback and coaching to others.”

Read Mistake #14, “Ignoring My Annoying Workplace Habits,” to learn how a thoughtful wake-up call from Don Cousins, then the associate pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, positioned John away from trying to be funny all the time (an annoying habit)—and moved him toward greater effectiveness. John notes “That may have been my most important day during my Willow staff years.”

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do your less-than-professional PowerPoint decks and homemade videos distract from your public speaking presentations? Need a messaging review and refresh? Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

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

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

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

Rubber Stamp Boards & Lapdog Auditors

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

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

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

How did Carlos Ghosn escape Japan?

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

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

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

9 REASONS YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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


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

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

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

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

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do your communication strategies need more out-of-the-box thinking or in-the-box thinking? Need fresh messaging? Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Waiting for the Train: Biblical Food for Growing Before Going

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

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

This Train Is Bound for Glory!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I ESPECIALLY APPRECIATED:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. There’s nothing more powerful than a well-told story! Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social) to hear three memorable stories of how our clients have crashed through the clutter to communicate their fork-in-the-road causes.
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Strategic Reset on Staff Working Remotely: A Framework for Success

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

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

Working Remotely: Accountability & Measurements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GOOD NEWS! Working Remotely Has an Upside!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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


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

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

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

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

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

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

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

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

The “Mafia Label” Was Not a Compliment

“This isn’t working. You’re out.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

View Twelve O’Clock High on Amazon Prime.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

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

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

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

Interview Question: “How Weird Are You?” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

For more resources and books, visit the Culture Bucket.

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



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

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

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

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

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

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

View the trailer for We Have a Pope.

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

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

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



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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. When you view We Have a Pope, you experience again the power of film to tell a powerful story (even with subtitles). For ideas and insights on telling your powerful story, contact Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessings,

Grandpa John

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

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



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


John missed the memo about complaining behind closed doors!

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

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

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

Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do your newest team members understand “the unspoken rules” regarding design, digital, marketing, and social communications in your organization? For an insider’s savvy,  contact Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.