John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World

Issue No. 551 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a master class in leadership from Ginni Rometty, IBM’s former Chairman and CEO. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 550 book reviews, and click here for the Zoom Review of The Four Workarounds with David Schmidt and Jason Pearson. (Plus, listen to Episode 4 of The Discerning Leader Podcast below.) 


Pop Quiz! What would you do in your first 100 days to set the tone as IBM’s new leader?

Master Class in Leadership 

I know. I know. I confess that sometimes I will overuse glowing adjectives and not-so-clever rhetorical tools to inspire (or guilt) you into reading a book—but please believe me—my heart is in the right place. My book reviewer’s lexicon often oozes with…
   • Must-read!
   • Page-turner!
   • Buy 2 books!
   • Can’t-stop-talking-about-it!
   • A leader’s leader—yet stunningly transparent!

Well…here we go again. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. This is a very special book. And yes, you better buy two copies to share with your team.

GOOD POWER: 
Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World, 
by Ginni Rometty

Ginni Rometty, the former Chairman and CEO of IBM (2012-2020) traveled through 10 jobs, for almost 40 years—in just one company!—and her up-close-and-personal reflections deliver rich and meaningful reading. It’s a coaching class. Actually, it’s a master class.

If Harvard Business Review Press had asked me to title this book, I might have suggested: Good Person, or Good Leader, or All-Around Good. Rometty is not yet a saint (especially to those who lost their jobs via tough calls from the CEO office), but I was struck with the depth and breadth of this master class on leadership. Examples:

MASTER CLASS #1: FIRST 100 DAYS. Beginning as a systems engineer with IBM in 1981—and serving in a wide variety of challenging roles, Ginni Rometty was named IBM’s CEO in 2012. At the time, she was one of just 19 women who were leading a Fortune 500 company (there are 53 today). 

Pop Quiz! You’re IBM’s ninth CEO and first female CEO in 100 years! You’re following some industry and leadership giants like Thomas Watson, Sr. (1914-1956) and Thomas Watson, Jr. (1956-1971) who later served as ambassador to the Soviet Union under Jimmy Carter. (So what would you do in your first 100 days to set the tone as IBM’s new leader?)

Chapter 7, “Building Belief” (one of her five leadership principles) is a fascinating case study for new CEOs (and the boards that select new leaders). Good stuff (like her definition of “good power” pops up throughout this very helpful book). Examples:
• Upon being named CEO (two months before her start date), she immediately made 20 phone calls—“the people whose influence had been instrumental to this moment,” including one leader “who had promoted me to my first management position and taught me so much about leading with values.”
• She also called former IBM CEOs, including John Akers (1985-1993) and Lou Gerstner (1993-2002), and half a dozen clients, plus family, friends, and current direct reports. (What 20 names would be on your call list?)
• For her worldwide broadcast to IBMers on her first day as CEO, Rometty intentionally positioned herself at IBM’s primary research labs in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.—“because research had long been our company’s differentiator,” a key belief she’d championed for years. Strategically, she was counting on the almost 3,500 researchers at IBM to lead the reinvention of their innovation engine.

• And imagine this! For her first worldwide video broadcast, “I stood in front of the group, no slides, no charts. Just me and them.” She leveraged stories to champion what she titled their three Strategic Beliefs and “Being Essential from Day One.” 
• No easy task! “My goal was to come out of the gate with a balance of optimism and realism, to paint reality and give hope.” She’s very transparent that her nine years at the helm were not all smooth sailing.

What would you do and say on your first day as CEO of a worldwide organization that today has around 300,000 employees in 170 countries? Yikes!

MASTER CLASS #2: LEARNING TO LEARN. Oh, my! Chapter 4, “Learning to Learn,” is now required reading for my four teenage granddaughters and one grandson. I’ve told them often how critical it is to interview the boss before taking a job. Insights:
• Ginni Rometty was given her first management position in 1987 and her boss “taught me how to manage people by how he managed me.” 
• “During my second full year of working for Pat, my team averaged twenty-five days of formal education, which was 60 percent more class time than IBM required.”
• On creating a culture: “When Pat first joined the company, he was once sent home for wearing a light-yellow shirt instead of a white one!”
• Rometty’s vulnerability makes her story even more real and readable. Read the uncomfortable conversation she had with her manager. “Pat was talking about my weight.” (That talk ain’t gonna happen in 2023! Oh, my.)

• To her direct reports, she was a “nitpicky editor” and they nicknamed her Ginni “Red Pen” Rometty.” More than once, she writes, “I received a red pen as a gift.”
• The time management theme oozes throughout the entire book, including the time a client asked for her highlighted notes—rather than sitting through her boring presentation!
• A former colleague and “astute strategist” coached her, “Know what makes you great, because IBM would make a horrible Google, just as Google would make a horrible IBM.”

MASTER CLASS #3: LEADERSHIP AXIOMS. When you buy two copies, you better buy two red pens also. You’ll underline the leadership insights and axioms on dozens of pages.
• “I was developing a propensity for continuous learning…”
• “Everyone had something to teach and I didn’t always wait for a mentor to find me.” 
• “Over the years, I established a mosaic of mentors and tried to become a composite of their best behaviors.”
• “I also was becoming a ‘T-shaped’ professional, developing a breadth but also a depth of knowledge in a particular area.”
• “In essence, I was learning the value of learning.”

“Knowledge, however, is not enough. In researching this book, I read over performance reviews from my first years at IBM.” She adds, “Rereading the appraisals reminded me just how much people value seemingly simple acts…
   • “like being prepared,
   • being on time,
   • being responsive,
   • keeping others informed so they’re never surprised,
   • or just having a positive attitude, especially under stress.
   • Reliability.
   • Dependability.
   • Initiative.
   • Anticipating problems and addressing them before they fester.”

“These are all things people appreciate. And when all else was equal, I think professionalism helped me stand out.”

There’s so much more. Why Rometty wrote 100 handwritten thank-you notes before a big meeting. Why when other U.S. company executives were fleeing Japan after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, she promptly flew into Tokyo. And why, on her first day as CEO, she sent letters to each of IBM’s senior vice presidents “describing three things I admired about them.” In some cases, “I articulated ways I thought they could grow.” 

And certainly the acquisition (she called it a “merger”) of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ consulting division deserves its own master class status. Her plan? “I immediately assembled a transition team of three hundred people from each business, and for six weeks everyone hunkered down in offices and hotel ballrooms to get acquainted and figure out what a combined organization would look like.” (Oh, my—to be a fly on the wall, or even the guy tasked with cleaning up the meeting rooms each day. “Wow! Look what’s on this flip chart!”)

Full Disclosure! I must admit that Good Power touched a few emotional buttons for me. My oldest brother, Paul (1939-2015) launched his career at IBM in 1961 in San Jose, Calif., and then true to IBM’s internal slogan (“I’ve Been Moved”) also worked for the company in Boulder, Colo. 

A classic white-shirt engineer, Paul was an invaluable mentor to me, especially in my CEO years. (I still own IBM stock.) Visit the Systems Bucket here to read my tribute to Paul when, at a CMA national convention in Nashville, he mentored a team of volunteers in “process management” and how to leverage a “just-in-time production assembly line.” He was a true IBM systems guy!

Thank you, IBM, and thank you, Ginni Rometty, for this master class in “leading positive change in our lives, work, and world.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World, by Ginni Rometty. Listen on Libro (9 hours, 24 minutes). And thanks to Harvard Business Review Press for sending me a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) When Thomas J. Watson, Sr., was the chairman and CEO of IBM (1914 to 1956), a sales rep flubbed a $1 million government bid and immediately submitted his resignation to Watson. After discussing the series of mistakes—and what the sales rep would do differently the next time—Watson refused to accept the resignation, noting, “Why would I accept this when I just invested one million dollars in your education?” (Read the full story in Mistake #1 in Mastering Mistake-Making.) What’s the “mistake culture” in our organization? Do we celebrate and learn from our mistakes?
2) Ginny Rometty writes that her first boss at IBM had both gravitas and a high degree of what we now call emotional intelligence. “His ability to combine soft and hard leadership styles is an essence of good power.” For more on this, read my review of The Softer Side of Leadership: Essential Soft Skills That Transform Leaders and the People They Lead, by Eugene B. Habecker. So…in our organization, how effectively do we leverage both soft and hard leadership styles? 

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 3: The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends

Book #22 of 100: The Motive

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #22 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
 
THE MOTIVE: Why So Many Leaders 
Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities
by Patrick M. Lencioni

Books #22 through #40 spotlight 19 books I named to “The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends” group—featuring Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, Ken Blanchard, and Peter Drucker. We’ll start with the first of Lencioni’s best four—and his insights will shock you. (Don’t skip a page.) He calls for “the end of servant leadership.”
   • Read my review.
   • Order from Amazon: The Motive
   • Listen on Libro (2 hours, 37 minutes). 
   • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

Lencioni writes, “If someone were to dive into a stack of my books for the first time, I’d tell them to start with this one.” This “leadership fable” business story, plus end-of-the-book lessons, has a new twist—and it’s not subtle. The poke-in-the-rib: Why do you want to be a leader? It’s a must-read.

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The Discerning Leader Podcast, Ep. 4 (3/16/2023)
Listen to The Discerning Leader Podcast as Steve Macchia and Matt Scott, from Leadership Transformations, and John Pearson dialogue on the 10 phases of a spiritual discernment process—from Steve’s book, The Discerning Life: An Invitation to Notice God in Everything (John’s 2022 Book-of-the-Year). Click here for Season 25, Episode 4, "Faith-filled Conclusions (Phases 8, 9, 10),"  A Process for Discernment (March 16, 43 minutes).
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THE FUTURE NORMAL

I did not ask AI to write this review. I was tempted, but I wrote this review the old-fashioned way. This must-read on 30 trends (including "Augmented Creativity") will be a great resource for your planning teams. Read The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work and Thrive in the Next Decade, by Rohit Bhargava and Henry Coutinho-Mason. Click here to read my review. And read more book reviews on the Pails in Comparison blog.

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Do your marketing and communication teams have “a propensity for continuous learning?” We can point you to the latest trends, TED talks, podcasts, audio resources, coaches, mentors, and even those resources some still call “books.” Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

The Four Workarounds: Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations for Tackling Complex Problems

Issue No. 550 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting required big help! So I recruited David Schmidt and my son, Jason, to help us think about a hot-off-the-press book on four workarounds that scrappy organizations leverage. (View our Zoom Review.) Fascinating, yet troubling! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my review of Rising Together. (Plus, listen to Episode 3 of The Discerning Leader Podcast below.) 


Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations and the 3 Little Pigs!

You gotta love an author/professor from Oxford University’s Engineering Sciences Department and the Saïd Business School who spotlights the story of “The Three Little Pigs” to explain the thesis of his new book (just published on March 7, 2023).

If I were still a CEO, I’d buy four copies of The Four Workarounds—and schedule a four-hour team meeting. I’d leverage Paulo Savaget’s hilarious color commentary on “The Three Little Pigs” to explain his four workarounds. Then having previously delegated each of the four big ideas to four team members—I’d give each person 30 minutes to explain the concept of their assigned workaround. 

And then, I’d sit back and look forward to the creativity oozing all over our organization’s most complex problems.

This is a compelling book, but—CAUTION!—it may irritate your worldview and core values, but please read it. I absolutely love the title and the subtitle: 

The Four Workarounds:
Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations 
for Tackling Complex Problems
by Paulo Savaget

And speaking of core values, the subtitle reminded me of a brilliant core value at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission when Jeff Lilley was their president. Of their seven core values, this was my favorite: “INNOVATIVE & SCRAPPY: We are creative and innovative in our efforts to accomplish our mission.”

For this interesting book, I invited my son and co-author, Jason Pearson, and my longtime friend and consultant/mentor, David Schmidt, to join me for a Zoom Review. Click here.

Pearson, Pearson, and Schmidt 
on “The 4 Workarounds”

Click here to view our lively conversation.

As you’ll learn while viewing our Zoom Review, author Paulo Savaget features four types of “workarounds” that both for-profit and nonprofit organizations have leveraged to address their most vexing and complex problems. The four workarounds:

#1. Use a PIGGYBACK—when “there are other people or relationships that you can leverage.”
#2. Use a LOOPHOLE—when “there is a set of formal or informal rules that you dislike.”
#3. Use a ROUNDABOUT—when “there is a self-reinforcing behavior that can be influenced.”
#4. Use a NEXT-BEST—when “there are available resources that can be repurposed.”

Part I of the book (about 150 pages) gives stunning examples of how innovative business leaders, activists, and others have leveraged Piggybacks, Loopholes, Roundabouts, and Next-Best strategies to attack and solve very complex issues. He writes, “Workarounds are clever, unexpected, economical, and effective.”

In Part II, Savaget cleverly suggests how the Big Bad Wolf in “The Three Little Pigs” might use workarounds to satisfy his hunger for bacon! (LOL!) But he also notes how the pigs might respond with their own workarounds. A second example features Hilda, a German computer programmer, with a liberal worldview on immigration—and how she might use workarounds to help Syrian refugees to “become legally entitled to make a living” in spite of the German bureaucracy. (Pretty clever, actually.)

Caution! The author tilts toward fuzzy edges around values, ethics, and rules. In Part II, “Using Workarounds,” he urges us to “critically reflect on the value of deviance, zooming out to think about how workarounds can enable us to deviate effectively and gracefully from all sorts of conventions, from explicit rules to implicit norms.” He adds:

“We’ll explore how a workaround mindset necessitates a willingness to experiment quickly, fail productively, and repeat the process rather than conduct methodical assessments and define contingency plans.” (See also my review of Burn the Boats and why the author suggests you "Throw Plan B Overboard!")

You’ll have to listen to our Zoom Review for more. Even better—read the book with your team members. I would start with some brainstorming on the “case study” of either the three little pigs or Hilda, the German activist.

And note! Savaget complains, “My pet peeve is when people say that you must think outside the box, and then they follow a one-size-fits-all brainstorming approach. Not every creative activity needs Post-its and flip charts!” (Oh! That hurts!!)

You’ll appreciate and learn from:

THE PIGGYBACK. The author documents how ColaLife, a nonprofit that began work in Zambia, piggybacked their life-saving remedy (previously with no distribution channels) by “designing the medicine’s triangular packaging that fit between bottles in Coca-Cola crates.” (See photo.) Coke was widely available everywhere--so they piggybacked on Coke's delivery system. At the time, childhood diarrhea was the second leading cause of death in children under five in Sub-Saharan Africa.



THE LOOPHOLE. Brazil was the location for a creative workaround orchestrated during COVID by the governor of a Northeast Region state with seven million people. Desperate for ventilators from China (but with no direct flights from China to Brazil), Governor Flavio Dino, a former federal judge, fought regulations and budgetary limitations to save his people. At both U.S. and Germany refueling stops, the ventilators were confiscated. Dino’s workaround through Ethiopia involved an ingenious series of loopholes. (Legal? Be sure to read “Confronting the Morality of Loopholes.”)

THE ROUNDABOUT. Paulo Savaget, who holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, is also a Gates Scholar. He writes, “Roundabout workarounds disturb and redirect positive feedback loops, which lead to self-reinforced behaviors.” I’ll spare you the details here of one nation’s attempt to discourage public urination, but you can enjoy our Zoom Review conversation to get the details—and learn how to tap into people’s belief systems to “spark changes in their behavior.” (Here’s a short video.)

THE NEXT BEST. In 1972, attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020), argued a sexism case in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, with her husband, Marty, a tax specialist. “On the opposing bench was the solicitor general—the Ginsburg’s former Harvard Law School dean.” What to do? “Notorious RBG,” who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1993 to 2020, used a “Next Best” strategy to win the case on appeal. A champion of women’s rights, RBG argued Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue on behalf of a man who was being discriminated against. “By arguing from the position of a man’s diminished rights, RBG…successfully set a historic precedent that unequal treatment on the basis of sex is unconstitutional.” (Tune in to our Zoom Review for more details.)

There’s so much more, such as the bullet-point “prompts” for all four categories. NEXT BEST: “How can resources be reassembled in unconventional ways?” 

DON’T SKIP…the numerous innovations by nonprofits and why Pepsi’s PR backfired when they attempted to piggyback on the BLM movement. You can also learn how the author became a student of his boss (who “answered emails erratically”) and scheduled the perfect time for emails to arrive in his boss’s inbox (see page 245). 

Savaget also urges us to “Be Messy” and suggests that “Coming up with workarounds is more like playing with Legos than completing a puzzle: you have building blocks, and your challenge is to build something.”

WARNING: Your values and worldview may not align with every example (pro-choice, divorce loopholes, immigration, etc.), but as we discuss in the Zoom Review—it’s important to understand your own value system and respond in creative, innovative, and ethical ways when you leverage these four workaround strategies.

PROMOTE YOUR WORKAROUND! In the Zoom Review, you'll hear Jason's suggestion to email your organization's workaround strategy to the author, so he'll have more examples for his students at Oxford and for his next book! Contact Paulo Savaget.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Four Workarounds: Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations for Tackling Complex Problems, by Paulo Savaget. Listen on Libro (7 hours, 2 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) For more ideas on workarounds, I’ve seen creative leaders use Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck, by Michael Michalko. (Read my review.) This brainstorming card deck has 56 cards including two instructional cards, with four or five cards for each of the nine key processes, plus seven cards with creative ways to evaluate ideas. It’s a brilliant instant brainstorming system. But one more caution! It could be dangerous to your boring, status quo! The S.C.A.M.P.E.R. process leverages the nine principal ways of changing a subject: Substitute something. Combine it with something else. Adapt something to it. Modify or Magnify it. Put it to some other use. Eliminate something. Reverse or Rearrange it. Should we use this resource on one of our complex problems?

2) Is “Innovative and Scrappy” one of our core values? If not, should it be? Read more from Patrick Lencioni and the four categories of values in his insightful Harvard Business Review article, “Make Your Values Mean Something.” (Read my commentary here.)

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #21 of 100:
Joy at Work

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #21 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
 
Joy at Work: 
A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job 
by Dennis Bakke

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. Joy at Work, a 2006 bestseller, describes Dennis Bakke’s radical approach for bringing joy into the corporate and nonprofit workplace.
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Joy at Work
• Listen on Libro (9 hours, 28 minutes): 100% discount!
 • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

In 2006, I had the privilege of facilitating an all-day workshop at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C. The CFO of the DEA had invited his finance team to read Joy at Work—and then go deep on how the principles and values applied to their important work.

Why was I the facilitator? Dennis Bakke, the author, was not available and recommended me. I came away so impressed with the men and women at the DEA—and their heart for service and lifelong learning. Bakke’s book is a must-read. (Click here to listen to the first three minutes of his book and why his father advised Dennis not to attend Harvard Business School. LOL!)

BONUS! In 2013, Dennis Bakke wrote a follow-up business novel to Joy at Work—further fleshing out his approach to decision-making and delegation. The story, if you’re gutsy enough to read it, will convince you that “decision-making is simply the best way in the world to develop people.”
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: The Decision Maker: Unlock the Potential of Everyone in Your Organization, One Decision at a Time, by Dennis Bakke
• Listen on Libro (4 hours, 23 minutes): 100% discount! 

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The Discerning Leader Podcast, Ep. 3 (3/9/2023)
Listen to The Discerning Leader Podcast as Steve Macchia and Matt Scott, from Leadership Transformations, and John Pearson dialogue on the 10 phases of a spiritual discernment process—from Steve’s book, The Discerning Life: An Invitation to Notice God in Everything (John’s 2022 Book-of-the-Year). Click here for Season 25, Episode 3, "The Prayerful Process: Phases 4, 5, 6, and 7." (March 9, 41 minutes)
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JESUS REVOLUTION MOVIE!
My son, Jason, and I recently experienced the Jesus Revolution movie together. Two thoughts: 1) If you are a Christ-follower, definitely go see it. 2) If you are a seeker, definitely go see it. Experience it. Click here to read my review. (Read more book reviews on the Pails in Comparison blog.) 

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Do you need help tackling your most complex problems? As the author of The Four Workarounds notes, sometimes you need an outsider looking in—to give fresh eyes and insights to sticky issues. We can help! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

Rising Together: How We Can Bridge Divides and Create a More Inclusive Workplace

Issue No. 549 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights eight common workplace triggers that push team members into their silos. You’ll need to order two books! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my review of Grace Ambassador. (Plus, listen to Episode 2 of The Discerning Leader Podcast below.)



Order 2 Copies! Do It Now!

Honest. You’ll thank me if you STOP what you’re doing right now and order two copies of Rising Together. Really. Do it now.

Why? Author Sally Helgesen, a noted leadership coach and Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame member, warns that there are eight triggers in the workplace that “are the prime reasons men and women end up retreating to gender silos, narrowing their experience and depriving themselves of useful connections.”

She writes, “The emphasis in universities in recent years on encouraging people to shield themselves and others from potential triggers does a huge disservice to students who will soon find themselves in a workplace where the ability to deal with a range of people is expected and required.”

She encourages us to address the triggers (don’t retreat) and “build fruitful relationships with those we perceive as different from ourselves.” Easy to say, but how? After explaining the nature of triggers, Helgesen uses in-the-trenches workplace stories, with insightful color commentary, on not just the problem—but how real people (bosses, senior leaders, interns, middle managers, and new hires) are building healthier workplaces. The triggers:
   • Trigger 1: Visibility
   • Trigger 2: Managing Perceptions
   • Trigger 3: Confidence and Competence
   • Trigger 4: What Are You Trying to Say?
   • Trigger 5: It’s Not Fair
   • Trigger 6: The Grapevine and the Network
   • Trigger 7: That’s Not Funny!
   • Trigger 8: Attraction, the Uncomfortable Bits

Wait a minute! “Rising Together: How We Can Bridge Divides and Create a More Inclusive Workplace” sounds like it might be secret code for wokeness—the usual DEI talking points. Right?

Wrong! In discussing the “global spread of D&I (now DEI) initiatives and departments over the last twenty-five years,” the author notes that “…the relationship between diversity and inclusion is often misunderstood. For example, I frequently hear leaders describe diversity as their ‘goal.’ This makes little sense. Diversity is not an aspiration or an objective, it is a reality: it defines the nature of the global talent pool from which organizations large and small must draw. Inclusion by contrast is the only sustainably useful method for leading people who have historically stood outside the mainstream.”

For emphasis, Helgesen repeats this distinction twice on one page (so we’ll get it!): “So diversity describes the nature of the situation, while inclusion describes the means by which the situation can most effectively be managed and led.”

Frankly, because this is still such a hot and controversial topic, I wanted to find a reason not to read this book—and especially not to recommend it. But I couldn’t put it down—and Rising Together may be on my final list of  the Top-10 books of 2023. 

I began by sampling the chapter, “Trigger 7: That’s Not Funny!” Did you know that Tom Peters, of In Search of Excellence fame, has cut way back on using humorous quips when speaking? (Read why in the section, “Humor Gone Awry.”) And what should you do when your boss tells jokes that are inappropriate or just aren’t that funny? (I remember asking the new CEO of a charitable foundation what was different in his new role compared to his previous senior position at a large nonprofit. His response: “Now that I’m giving money away, everyone laughs at my jokes!”)

The author notes several helpful insights from the book Humor Seriously (read my review) on how to leverage appropriate humor to communicate vulnerability. This chapter also painfully reminded me of my inappropriate attempts at humor until a co-worker gave me some gutsy coaching. (See Mistake #14 in my book here.) Rising Together would have been helpful a few years back. Oh, my.

I so appreciate and trust Marshall Goldsmith’s work (his book on the 20 annoying workplace habits was my 2013 book-of-the-year). So I couldn’t ignore his foreword and his endorsement. Helgesen quotes Goldsmith frequently throughout the book, including this stunner: “There has probably never been a time in history when senior leaders were less racist and sexist than they are now. But there has also never been a time when more complaints are being lodged.”
 
Gratefully, Helgesen delivers a powerful one-two punch. She quotes the former CEO of a major health company who notes “that aha moments don’t amount to much if they don’t spur action and change behavior.” So his personal motto is:

“Aha moment. Now what?”

Helgesen uses that memorable line to structure the content of Rising Together:
• Aha Moment: Part I: Eight Common Triggers
• Now What: Part II: A Culture of Belonging

Why am I urging you to order TWO books today? Because your team will want to go deep on the triggers and the “Now What?” next steps. Inspire your best synthesizer to read and report on Rising Together at your next weekly staff meeting. Then, perhaps, go deep for the next eight weeks—featuring one trigger per weekly meeting.

I made 46 notes (by page number) on the blank pages in the front of my book—and I could have doubled that number easily. Here’s a taste of this very helpful book:

VISIBILITY. “We feel triggered by people who struggle with visibility. If we have a talent for promoting ourselves, we may feel triggered by those who refuse to do so…” Helgesen believes that “successful careers are usually built on three legs: expertise, connections, and visibility. Of these, visibility is the least acknowledged.” (How intentional is your workplace in giving visibility to everyone—at every level?)

MEN NEVER ASK THIS! In workshops, the author is often asked, “How can I represent my achievements/claim credit for my successes without anyone thinking I’m self-centered/aggressive/too ambitious?” She adds, “I have never heard this question from a man.”

THE FALLACY OF OMNICOMPETENCE. Taking a page from the EQ literature on self-awareness, Helgesen describes people with “little sense of their own limitations,” a hazard described by Coach Jeffrey Hull as “the fallacy of omnicompetence.” Those with “I-have-all-the-skills mind-set” communicate a severe lack of humility and, says Hull, “those who lack humility do not inspire trust.” (This reminded me to re-read Andrew Murray’s classic, Humility, which declares: “Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.”)

And speaking of humility, in addition to several references to Alan Mullaly’s CEO stint at Ford (after Boeing), Helgesen reminds us of that hilarious SNL clip, “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley” and his guest, Michael Jordan. (Click here for the 6 ½-minute video.)


View SNL’s Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley with guest Michael Jordan. This NBA star tells Stuart, “I’m blessed” and oh, my! Read this week’s WSJ article on the auction for “six Nike Air Jordan sneakers that Michael Jordan, His Airness himself, wore during the six NBA championship games the Chicago Bulls won in the 1990s.”

THERE’S MUCH, MUCH MORE:
• The popular mantras (such as “I gotta be me”) that “are often used as a license for unleashing our inner jerk.”
• On effective communication, the author asked a senior leader (a woman) what had been the key to her success. “Without hesitation she replied, ‘My ability to be concise.’”
• 7 pitfalls to avoid when communicating across generations (“Many younger people associate the phone with something gone wrong.”)
• 7 rules for acting and speaking as a professional (“Professionals don’t complain.”)
• “Bill Carrier notes that, in every network, people assume one of three roles: contributor, neutral, or threat.”
• Amy Gallo’s HBR article, “How to Approach an Office Romance (and How Not To)” with practical Dos and Don’ts. 

PLUS:
• “Peter Drucker had a rule for himself: he was always the last to speak.”
• Why you should include “the squeaky wheels” in early discussions.
• Why Tom Peters “believes that ninety percent of our problems could be ameliorated if we hired for collegiality.” (And why some organizations are flipping their recruiting practices and asking “prospective hires about what community service they had done.”)

Helgesen concludes this important book by reminding all of us that “Culture is not HR’s job, or the leader’s job. It’s our job, regardless of the positional power we hold.”

And don’t miss Marshall Goldsmith’s compelling insights on the last page of the book. He offers “a great question for people who insist they have no interest in power, are unwilling to pursue it or proudly disdainful of those who do.” (Sorry…you’ll need to order the book to discover and leverage this question.)

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Rising Together: How We Can Bridge Divides and Create a More Inclusive Workplace, by Sally Helgesen. Listen on Libro (8 hours, 49 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) “Clarity doesn’t just happen,” writes Sally Helgesen in the chapter, “Trigger 4: What Are You Trying to Say?” In her workshops, she asks participants to write an intention statement in 30 seconds or less. (No buzzwords, verbiage, nonspecific abstractions, or generalities like “I seek to be an agent of transformation.”) Her exercise on pages 88-91 is worth the price of the book. She adds, “As Inc. magazine points out, buzzwords and jargon primarily serve to make smart people sound stupid.” Ready? Set? Go! Write, in “personally resonant and compelling language, what you most want to contribute to your job.”

2) Reading this book reminded me of Gov. Bill Haslam’s in-the-trenches comment in 2018 during his second term as Tennessee’s governor: “It was more than a little bit helpful to keep the phrase ‘created in the image of God’ in the back of my mind as I listened to someone criticize me or my policies.” When you’re criticized, what keeps you centered to avoid your attack mode?

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #20 of 100:
The Best Question Ever

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #20 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
 
2 BOOKS!
The Best Question Ever 
and
Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets: 
5 Questions to Help You Determine Your Next Move
by Andy Stanley

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. After reading The Best Question Ever, we bought a case of these books and gave them to dozens of clients.
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets
• Listen on Libro (4 hours, 4 minutes). 
 • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

In 2007, Dick Towner and my wife, Joanne, urged me to read Pastor Andy Stanley’s poke-in-the-ribs, The Best Question Ever: A Revolutionary Approach to Decision-Making. When Dick and Joanne gang up on me, I had no choice—I read this powerful book. Stanley updated the book in 2014 (Ask It) and then in 2020, he added four more questions and gave us Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets. So what’s the best question ever?

 “In light of my past experience, my current circumstances,
and my future hopes and dreams,
what is the wise thing for me to do?” 

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John Joins Steve and Matt for Podcast Episode 2
Listen to The Discerning Leader Podcast as Steve Macchia and Matt Scott, from Leadership Transformations, and John Pearson dialogue on the 10 phases of a spiritual discernment process—from Steve’s book, The Discerning Life: An Invitation to Notice God in Everything (John’s 2022 Book-of-the-Year). Click here for Episode 2, "The Open-Hearted Approach (Phases 2, 3)" in Season 25, "A Process for Discernment" (March 2) - 41 minutes.

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Do your marketing and communication pieces reflect an organizational culture that seeks to bridge the huge divides in our world? If you’d like an honest outside assessment of your communication approach (branding, logos, images, website copy, and more), give us a call.  We can help! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

Grace Ambassador: Bringing Heaven to Earth

Issue No. 548 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks, “What’s on your name badge?” and “Is God up to something this month?” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my review of Hardwiring New Leadership Habits. (Plus, check out The Discerning Leader Podcast below.)


John Jackson’s new book, Grace Ambassador, urges churches to flip the script on the 80/20 Rule—with 80% of us deployed “in the community as the Church distributed.”

Aircraft Carrier or Cruise Ship?

Imagine—if you really, really, truly believed that you were a Grace Ambassador! Imagine if that moniker was on your name badge:
   • At your workplace!
   • At your school!
   • In your neighborhood!
   • In your home!

Imagine—if the ripple effect of the Asbury Revival (some call it the Asbury Awakening) prompted thousands (millions?) of Christ-followers across the globe to really, really, truly engage with the world as Grace Ambassadors!

Church Gathered vs. Church Distributed! Imagine—if you flipped the script in local churches and just 20 percent of the church family “would be needed for the ministries of the Church gathered and 80 percent could be equipped and released for redemptive presence ministry in the community as the Church distributed.”

Every so often, over the decades, a book comes along and sparks a spiritual awakening. Books like:
• A Taste of New Wine, by Keith Miller
• Body Life, by Ray Stedman
• Discover Your Spiritual Gifts, by C. Peter Wagner
• Experiencing God, by Henry Blackaby
• What book(s) would you add?

Coincidence? Serendipitous? A God-wink? Perhaps as you follow the sparks from the Feb. 8, 2023, Asbury Revival, you too will thirst for next steps. Perhaps this is the book, in God’s timing, for this season:

Grace Ambassador:
Bringing Heaven to Earth
by Dr. John Jackson

John Jackson’s short book (just released this week) is profound, powerful, and prophetic. Think heart, mind, and soul—no surprise for a university president. The insights and bold challenges—also no surprise. The humor? A wonderful bonus. Read this:

“I am not sure how many of us would invite a modern-day Jesus to address our church leadership conferences, since His three years of public ministry left only 120 frightened followers in that Upper Room!”

“Full Employment Policy.” Caution! Jackson will disrupt your “lethal misbeliefs” and reorient your theology. What will it take to get people out of the pews and into their God-given kingdom assignments? This former pastor, ministry leader, and prolific author believes the church today needs a “full employment policy”—but it’s not what you’re thinking. He writes:

“Every Christian has received a specific calling of God to ministry. Do you know your place in God’s plan? The vast majority of us are not employed on a pastoral ministry team in a local church setting.
• That means our primary call to ministry—our place—is within a non-church setting.
• Our secondary call to ministry is within a local church family.”

What? The drill isn’t Sunday morning at eleven anymore?

In my old age, the final book I’d like to write will be titled, If You’ve Only Got an Hour-a-Week to Give to God—Come and Hear Me Preach! My opinion: that’s the dominant message of many local churches. Fill the pews on Sunday morning—and we’re all happy. (Don’t get me started.)

Jackson’s 20/80 rule is so, so contrarian. But just imagine when Grace Ambassadors—already equipped for service—deeply understand that their workplaces are “not a curse, but a calling.” Imagine! He asks us to affirm that the mission of the church is more like an aircraft carrier—not a cruise ship!

Note: Larry Peabody, author of God Loves Your Work, quotes a pastor who confesses, “…I had spent the majority of my time equipping my congregation for what they were called to do in the minority of their lives. This majority-minority disparity is rampant across the pulpits of America. It is fundamental that we need to address this Sunday-to-Monday gap.”

Jackson invests two chapters on spiritual giftedness with a memorable metaphor—this 2003 Super Bowl commercial spoofing the Cast Away movie, starring Tom Hanks. (View this 45-second hilarious video!)

 
“What’s in the package?” asks the FedEx executive/desert island survivor when, five years later, he delivers the FedEx box to its rightful owner—unopened, of course. View the 45-second video.

The memorable line: “What’s in the package?” That's what the curious FedEx executive/desert island survivor asks when he delivers the box. The woman at the door opens the box and answers, “Nothing, really, just a satellite phone, GPS locator, fishing rod, water purifier, and some seeds.”

Jackson notes, “This is how some of us live! We possess packages that contain exactly what we need, treasures right in front of our noses, and we do not even open them.” He adds, “Your treasure is your spiritual gift. If you are unaware of it, then it remains an unopened package that contains exactly what you need to find your place in God’s plan.”

I’m so grateful for leaders who helped me discover my spiritual gifts—and deploy them in God’s unique assignments for me. Reading these two chapters reinforced again my wonder and appreciation for God’s plan for the church. (See my Mistake #18 in Mastering Mistake-Making, “Not Understanding My Spiritual Gift Mix,” and Book #53 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.)

“Double Listening.” Today, culture is a mess. In summarizing each of the spiritual gifts noted in the Bible, Jackson quotes John R. W. Stott who acknowledged Karl Barth’s wisdom on the spiritual gift of teaching. “…the goal of the communicator, the teacher of God’s Word, is to practice ‘double listening’—taking the newspaper in one hand, the Bible in the other and building a bridge between the two, so the timeless truths of God’s Word connects with the reality of today’s news.” 

(In my seminary days, Dick Ottoson was my very innovative pastor. He would often do just that in Sunday services: read the headlines of the Chicago Tribune—and then pray through the problems on our behalf. Powerful!)

Second Reformation. Jackson is also praying—for a second Reformation. He is “…praying for a corporate revival as the Church of Jesus begins to release His grace and goodness to the world in every sphere of culture.” He challenges readers and leaders to affirm, “What season of life we are in and when it would be best to move into other realms of service.” 

Are you hanging on to your current assignment with clenched fists? Or like Jackson, are you praying that you “will have the spiritual maturity to serve in a different capacity for the sake of the Kingdom of God” when your current assignment is over and you enter a different season of life? (That takes spiritual guts!)

Hmmm. Asbury Revival this month. A new and powerful book this month. A new movie this month, Jesus Revolution (opening Feb. 24) chronicling the Jesus People movement of the 70s. Hmmm. What is God up to? In his book, Jackson also reminds us about the 1857 New York City revival (imagine!) when businessman Jeremiah Lanphier “started a noontime prayer meeting. His church had appointed him as a ‘city missionary,’ and not knowing what to do, he prayed a simple prayer: ‘Lord what wilt Thou have me to do?’” (Listen to the rest of the story here.)

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Grace Ambassador: Bringing Heaven to Earth, by Dr. John Jackson (foreword by Ed Stetzer). Listen on Libro (4 hours, 47 minutes). 



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) John Jackson writes, “The concept and reality of grace is like a sumo wrestler—hard to get your arms around!” (He defines it further.) How would you define grace? If your name badge read “Grace Ambassador,” how might your life change?
2) Are your spiritual gifts deployed or, per Jackson’s metaphor, still in the FedEx box? Visit this website (for individuals and teams) for a discovery tool that provides you with a personalized analysis of your God-given spiritual gifts. What are your spiritual gifts—and do your co-workers and boss know them and encourage you to leverage your gifts in your workplace?

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #19 of 100:
Peter Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #19 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

Peter Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions: 
Enduring Wisdom for Today’s Leaders 
by Peter F. Drucker, Frances Hesselbein, and Joan Snyder Kuhl

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. Peter Drucker writes, “Self-assessment is the first action requirement of leadership: the constant resharpening, constant refocusing, never being really satisfied.”
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Peter Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions
• Listen on Libro (2 hours, 55 minutes)  
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

Who is your primary customer? Peter Drucker writes that “the primary customer is the person whose life is changed because of your work.” As you think about Grace Ambassador and Drucker’s five questions (especially “Who is our customer?”), download Worksheet 2.1, “Local Church Simplified Segmenting Chart: Who is God calling you to reach and serve?” from the Customer Bucket. Click here.

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PODCAST: Steve Macchia Invites John to Discern!

Listen to The Discerning Leader Podcast as Steve Macchia and Matt Scott from Leadership Transformations drill down with guest John Pearson on the 10 phases of a spiritual discernment process—from Steve’s book, The Discerning Life: An Invitation to Notice God in Everything (John’s 2022 Book-of-the-Year). Click here for Episode 1, "The Big Question (Phase 1)" in Season 25, "A Process for Discernment" (Feb. 23). The podcast is 37 minutes.

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Do you know the spiritual gifts of each person on your communication and marketing teams? Are you leveraging them? Do they view their story telling roles as a calling or a curse (per Grace Ambassador)? Are you leveraging the spiritual giftedness of your current volunteers? We can help!   Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential

Issue No. 547 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting quotes Matt Higgins, a Shark guest on ABC’s Shark Tank. He recommends you “Burn the Boats” and toss Plan B. (Do you agree?) And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for over 500 book reviews. And click here to listen in on “The Next Chapter With Charlie Podcast” as Charlie Hedges interviews me for Part 2 on my mistake-making adventures!


Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky had this response to the emergency escape route offered by the United States: "I need ammunition, not a ride.” It was a classic “Burn the Boats” mindset. (Order this t-shirt on Amazon.)

“I Hate Plan B”

Oh, my. When the U.S. offered Volodymyr Zelensky an emergency escape in 2022 because “Ukraine had no chance of overcoming the full weight of the Russian army, and that if Zelensky didn’t abandon Kyiv soon, he would meet his demise,” he went on the air with this response to President Joe Biden: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Matt Higgins, guest shark on ABC’s Shark Tank, urges you—and all leaders and entrepreneurs—to “Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential.” That’s the subtitle of his new book, Burn the Boats.

Get real! No escape plan? No Plan B? That’s just crazy-thinking. (Or is it?)

Maybe if you’re a mega-wealthy person (a shark or a successful entrepreneur, or like Higgins, you’re cofounder of a private investment firm), you can burn the boats and go all in. But what if you’re leading a small nonprofit or church, or growing a family business—do you dare bet the farm? Wouldn’t failure be devastating?

The wisdom in this book may surprise you. And I’m guessing you’ll inspire (bribe?) your kids and grandkids to also read this book. At age 10, growing up in poverty in Queens, N.Y., Higgins “sold flowers on street corners and hawked ten-dollar leather handbags from a van at local flea markets” to help his mom with expenses. With no dad in the picture, he dropped out of high school at 16. He later earned a law degree—but get this—he never took the bar exam. That was part of his “Burn the Boats” mindset.

The book features dozens of leadership insights (in bold print) that may stop you in your tracks. (Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of doing that. That might work.) Examples:
• “Maybe you’re the wrong leader for this business, no matter how incredible it is.”
• “When I was working at McDonald’s, my advantage was my willingness to be the best gum scraper anyone could be, and do it with a smile.”
• “Big Leaps, Not Incremental Progress.” (Hmm. That sounds counterintuitive to one of my favorite books, Little Bets. I need to think about this!)

• And this: “It’s a common mistake in private equity to spend tons of money and energy on experts to look at the financials of a business, but no money on psychologists to do a deep dive on the leader.” Higgins now brings in his favorite industrial psychologist “for major deals anytime I have the leverage to make it a condition of writing a check.” Four cheers for feedback! (See my Mistakes #12 to #15 and listen to Charlie Hedges interview me on his podcast.)
• “It’s a recipe for failure, and the single biggest trap I see smart leaders fall into.” What’s that? Failure to look within—realizing you can’t do it all. The result? “You’re hiring people because you have to, not because you want to. So you end up holding your employees to an impossible standard, micromanaging them, and stepping in too soon when you’re worried they’ll fail.”

And speaking of failure, listen to this one-minute clip from Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I Hate Plan B.”


View this one-minute video to learn why Arnold Schwarzenegger says “I hate Plan B.” In his endorsement of Burn the Boats, he writes, “Big dreams require relentless focus, and any time we spend planning for failure set us up for failure.” (Do you agree?)

CHAPTER 5, “EMBRACE EACH CRISIS,” is my favorite chapter. (Three cheers for The Crisis Bucket!). Imagine this: Matt Higgins was NYC’s youngest press secretary ever for Mayor Rudy Giuliani when 9/11 shocked the world. He later became the COO of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the firm tasked with rebuilding the site of the World Trade Center.

Higgins has two key lessons on crisis management: 1) A crisis can “lead to superior long-term resilience, and an increased ability to cope and thrive in the future.”
2) "A true Burn the Boats mindset harnesses the clarity that comes in a crisis without needing the walls to come crumbling down around us. Crises force us to limit choices and focus on what really matters. But we can do that anyway.”

OOPS! I MEANT TO SAY…Chapter 6, “Break the Patterns That Stand in Your Way,” is my favorite chapter. Honest! The alignment with the new book on XQ, Experiential Intelligence, is stunning. (Read them together!) Higgins’ highlights:
• How a Bloomberg reporter derailed Juicero—a startup. “CNET called them ‘the greatest example of Silicon Valley stupidity!’”
• “Ask yourself: If you’re in the hospital for a week, will the business still function?”
• “The biggest job of a leader is putting great talent in place and helping them shine.”
• Higgins quotes an owner, “I knew I had to hire a president, but hiring senior leaders into a company is just about the hardest thing you have to do. A bad hire in a senior position is a catastrophe.”

Burn the Boats grows on you. There’s so much more you’ll discover and share with colleagues:
• 4 principles for embracing a perpetual growth mindset
• 4 archetypes every organization needs: the Visionary, the Catalyst, the Executor, and the Communicator (What’s your role? Compare these four to Lencioni’s six types of working genius here.)
• 5 destructive behavior patterns: Withholders, Hijackers, Victims, Martyrs, and Gaslighters
• 4 characteristics predictive of success: Empathy, Defiance, Detail, and Finish

Who on your team will read and report on this important book first?

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential, by Matt Higgins. Listen on Libro (7 hours, 14 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In Matt Higgins’ chapter, “Consolidate Your Gains,” he asks “What do you do better than anyone else?" How would you answer that?
2) In the chapter, “Submit to the Greatness of Others,” it seemed to me that Matt Higgins was channeling Peter Drucker’s counsel to Bob Buford (1939-2018). Buford wrote, “We would use their credibility, not ours—we were the platform, not the show. Or as Peter once told me, ‘The fruit of your work grows on other people’s trees.’” (Click here to read my review of Drucker & Me: What a Texas Entrepreneur Learned from the Father of Modern Management.) So…is our organization structured to be the platform or the show?

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #18 of 100:
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #18 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: 
Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry 
(Expanded Edition, 2018)
by Ruth Haley Barton

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. I posted reviews of this very special book three times (so far!). I titled my first review, “Soul Whackers.”
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership
• Listen on Libro (6 hours, 47 minutes, 2015 edition)  
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

The first edition of Ruth Haley Barton’s book was published in 2009, but read what Gary Haugen, Founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, writes in the foreword to the expanded edition in 2018 (click here):

“…imagine with me for a moment, a staff of high-performing lawyers, criminal investigators, social workers and professionals in Washington, D.C., and offices across the developing world, rushing into the office to begin their day, faced with the task of fighting slavery, human trafficking, police abuse, and other forms of violent oppression. As these staff arrive at their desks, their first order of business is to stop. All phones are off. Laptops closed. No email. No meetings. Just silence. Solitude. Stillness. For thirty minutes.”

Haugen gave every staff member two gifts: a blank leather journal with the words “8:30 Stillness” embossed on the cover and this book by Ruth Haley Barton. For more, listen to the three-minute audio from Chapter 1, “When Leaders Lose Their Souls.” Click here. (Oh, my.) 
 
ASBURY! Imagine the “soul whacking” that is happening on the campus of Asbury University since a spiritual revival broke out on Feb. 8, 2023. Read more here.

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Part 2: Charlie Hedges interviews John on The Next Chapter Podcast

"Mastering Mistake-Making (Part 2 of 2)" is the topic on this week's podcast of The Next Chapter With Charlie Hedges. LOL! Charlie labels John a "Master of Mistake-Making" in this 37-minute interview on the book John and Jason Pearson wrote in 2021. This is Episode 269. Listen here or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Listen to Part 1 of 2 (Episode 268) here.

More on the book here.

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Burn the Boats says there are four archetypes every organization needs: the Visionary, the Catalyst, the Executor, and the Communicator. Who is your Communicator and how effective is your storytelling? We can help!  Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

Hardwiring New Leadership Habits: Does Development Develop?

Issue No. 546 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a nettlesome question from Dick Daniels: “Does development develop?” Hardwiring New Leadership Habits is a must-read! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for over 500 book reviews. And click here to listen in on “The Next Chapter With Charlie Podcast” as Charlie Hedges interviews me this week about mistake-making.


Dick Daniels notes that your team likely includes three groups: Expectation Exceeders, Expectation Meeters, and Expectation Missers. So…are you good with the status quo, or is it time to hardwire new leadership habits?

No Way!

Been there. Done that.

You’re a fly-on-the-wall at Global Organization Resources Inc.’s annual senior team three-day offsite retreat. Everyone’s prepared. Planning for the next year, the 10 leaders have thoughtful ideas on GOR’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Then it happened! On Day 2, “Synthesis Day,” the CFO, Wilson, threw a monkey wrench onto the agenda. Wham! (And he’s “usually the quiet one in the corner who’s looking over his spreadsheets.”) His big beef? GOR was spending way too much on developing their people.

And no surprise, Wilson had his facts and figures. “It’s the warm, fuzzy expenditures that make us feel better…” he said. But the people development budget was three times more than what their two largest competitors spend annually.

The team's response at the CFO's disruption? “I was shocked. We were shocked. Say what?” And with that testy opening, Dick Daniels treats leaders and readers to a master class in leadership—at all levels—with this nettlesome question, “Does Development Develop?” (OK—geniuses! Prove that one to your number-crunching CFO.) Good News! The answers are in this book:

Hardwiring New Leadership Habits:
Does Development Develop?
by Dick Daniels

“No way,” I thought. When Dick Daniels alerted me to his new book, I tilted toward skepticism. “What more could he possibly write about?” Daniels is a stunning thinker and writer—and his previous books are so comprehensive that I named both as my books-of-the-year in 2015 and 2021. So…hasn’t he already said it all in two books?

• Leadership Briefs: Shaping Organizational Culture to Stretch Leadership Capacity (2015 Book-of-the-Year: read my review)

• Leadership Core: Character, Competence, Capacity (Leadership Multipliers) - (2021 Book-of-the-Year: read my review)

No way! (Er, um…way!)

Hardwiring New Leadership Habits: Does Development Develop? is jam-packed with ready-to-use action steps and insights—coupled with a memorable metaphor: how to connect three “wires” to hardwire new leadership habits. The book is short and crisp and brings a holistic clarity to that pesky question: does development develop? 

How much does your organization spend (or invest) in people development? Dick Daniels writes, “The motivation in developing team members is either proactive or reactive. Companies spend money proactively to move the needle from good to great in specific aspects of one’s leadership.” 

“The other approach is a reactive investment to address problem areas or deficiencies in one’s leadership approach. Our assumption is that leadership represents learned competencies. Great leaders never stop growing, so they never stop learning and applying what they learn.”

And this warning: “Sometimes the reactive initiative is a last attempt to help a team member before deciding whether to retrain, reassign, or release and replace them.” He agrees with Lisa Lang, in her ATD article, “Enter the Learning Zone,” who writes:

 “What individuals learn in school is no longer enough
to sustain a career. Learning must be embedded into employees’ daily lives at work to facilitate lifelong learning.”

Just 170 pages, the take-aways in this hot-off-the-press book are remarkable:
   • The matrix contrasting No Organizational Investment vs. Organizational Investment (horizontal) and Organizational Value vs. No Organizational Value (vertical). The no/no quadrant: “Leads to Organizational Atrophy.”
   • Why the leadership development mission must address all levels: supervisors, managers, and leaders.
   • What happens when there is an absence of “a succession planning leadership pipeline from the company’s talent pool”—and why the development vision is so critical.

ALERT! “One of the toughest leadership transitions is the move from operational leader to strategic leader,” writes Daniels. He notes the “seven seismic shifts” that must occur per the HBR article, “How Managers Become Leaders,” by Michael D. Watkins. Example: “Bricklayer to Architect.” Click here to read the article or click here to order HBR's 10 Must Reads for New Managers (with bonus article “How Managers Become Leaders”). Serendipitously, Watkins’ book, The First 90 Days, happened to be in the rotation today for the second book review below (Book #17 of 100).

THERE’S MORE!
• The Character and Competence matrix: 
   --High Character/Low Competence: “I like you but I don’t respect you.”
   --High Character/High Competence: “The Leadership Capacity Multiplier”
   --Low Character/Low Competence: “Your days are limited here.”
   --Low Character/High Competence: “I respect you but I don’t like you.”

• “The New Nine Box Grid”—perhaps the most important five-page chapter on leadership ever written. (Honest!) Chapter 3, “Hardwire Connection #3,” describes three groups: Expectation Exceeders, Expectation Meeters, and Expectation Missers. How are you currently addressing those with Low Potential and Low Performance? And…how are you inspiring and retaining those with High Potential and High Performance? I’d buy this book just for this chapter.

• Stunning questions that enrich clarity:
   --10 Culture Questions (#3: “What are the spoken and unspoken rules, and does anyone get a pass?”)
   --“The Stay Interview” from SHRM (read more)
   --Personal Reflection Tool: a 21-day exercise, with your coach, for self-assessment at the end of each day.
   --10 Organizational Diagnosis Questions (scale of 1 to 10): How valued is development in your organization? Example: “Just hire someone soon” vs. “We have a leadership pipeline.”
   --The Johari Window Model: Do you know anyone in the “Known to Others” and “Not Known to Self” quadrant? That’s the “Blind Spot.”

Bottom Line: If you’re a senior leader—and you think you don’t need this book, you may have a blind spot. And speaking of blind spots (read this), bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith endorsed Dick Daniels’ book and called it “Powerful!” I agree.

Does development develop? How would your team—and your CFO—answer this pesky question?

And by the way, I was wrong. Dick Daniels does have a lot more to write about—and I have a lot more to learn. So will Hardwiring New Leadership Habits be my 2023 Book-of-the-Year? No way! (But…I’ve been wrong before.) 

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Hardwiring New Leadership Habits: Does Development Develop? by Dick Daniels. (Click here to read a two-page article by Daniels in TD Magazine.)



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In Chapter 8, “Hardwire Connection #8: Avoid Tripping the Ten Circuit Breakers,” Dick Daniels warns about “circuit breakers” that can dismantle a people development culture. He writes, “Among the three levels of a development culture, leading yourself is always harder than leading the team or even leading the organization.” He quotes Lee Iacocca: “The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.” Do you agree or disagree—why?

2) Daniels includes 15 antonyms for hardwired: “unplanned, accidental, acquired, artificial, careless, disorder, external, flexible, foreign, incidental, negligent, slack, spontaneous, superficial, and thoughtless.” Oh, my! Would any of these words apply to the development culture in our organization?

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #17 of 100:
The First 90 Days

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #17 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

The First 90 Days: 
Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter
by Michael D. Watkins

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. The author of The First 90 Days uses a helpful acronym, “STARS,” that describes four transitions: Start-up, Turn-Around, Realignment, and Sustaining Success.  Warning! A successful CEO of a Turn-Around may fail at a Realignment.

• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: The First 90 Days
• Listen on Libro (6 hours, 58 minutes) 
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

The “STARS” theme oozes through all the chapters. The author gives examples across all sizes of organizations, including an astounding example from Coca-Cola. Warning leaders than no one is immune from the perils of transition, he discusses the CEO stint of Douglas Ivester, promoted to Coke’s CEO in 1997, after serving three years as president and COO.

“But Ivester was unable to make the leap from COO to CEO. He refused to name a new COO, even when strongly pressed to do so by Coke’s board of directors. Instead, he continued to act as a ‘superCOO’ and maintained daily contact with the sixteen people who reported to him. His extraordinary attention to detail which had been such a virtue in finance and operations, proved to be a hindrance in his new position. Ivester could not free himself from day-to-day operations enough to take on the strategic, visionary, and statesmanlike roles of an effective CEO.”

The Wall Street Journal even piled on. (Read my review.)
 

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Charlie Hedges interviews John on The Next Chapter Podcast
Mastering Mistake-Making (Part 1 of 2)" is the topic on this week's podcast of The Next Chapter With Charlie Hedges. LOL! Charlie labels John a "Master of Mistake-Making" in this 35-minute interview on the book John and Jason Pearson wrote in 2021. Charlie started podcasting before most of us could even spell the word. This is Episode 268. Listen here or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

More on the book here. 

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. How robust is your leadership succession pipeline for your communications and marketing teams? Are you attentive to retaining great people and addressing under-performing people? We can help you enrich your pipeline with creative approaches. (Every role does not require exactly 40 hours of work per week!) Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

Miracle Wheels: The Story of a Mission to Bring Mobility to the World

Issue No. 545 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights Don Schoendorfer’s stunning story: PhD engineer launches a global nonprofit by reading Nonprofit Kit for Dummies! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, click here for my Top-10 book picks from 2022 and my 2022 Book-of-the-Year, and click here for four updated book lists.


How many PhD engineers does it take to give away 1.3 million wheelchairs in 94 countries? (One!)

Hell Freezes Over in India!

No problem! It’s 1974 in Cambridge, Mass., and Don Schoendorfer braces for the first question on his oral qualification exam for his engineering PhD at MIT. The brilliant professors on the committee begin with their best curveball:

“People mention that when they walk out onto the Golden Gate Bridge, they can hear humming. Could you please explain where that sound is coming from?”

Schoendorfer nailed it! And he nailed the follow-up questions about equations, first principles, and more. He writes, “By the time I was done answering every line of questioning from the committee members, my hands were covered in white chalk and the blackboard behind me, the one I’d been writing on, was filled with equations, drawings, and solutions.”

Fast forward. How did God orchestrate the journey of a shy introvert from Ashtabula, Ohio…to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology…to the burgeoning bio-medical field of blood cell separation in Southern California…to becoming the founder of a global-impacting nonprofit that has given the gift of mobility (free wheelchairs!) to more than 1.3 million people in 94 countries on five continents…and counting? You must read:

Miracle Wheels: 
The Story of a Mission to Bring Mobility to the World
by Don Schoendorfer with R.C. George

Super Bowl Sidelight! In the book’s foreword, NFL Quarterback Nick Foles, the 2018 MVP of Super Bowl LII (his Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots 41–33), notes that an estimated 75 million people worldwide still need wheelchairs.

In this inspiring and very transparent book, Schoendorfer shares the poignant story of how his daughter urged her parents to return to church. In 1996, “over that first year attending Mariners Church, I went from being a ‘pedestrian Christian’—someone merely standing on the sidewalk and watching other people practice their faith—to wanting much more.”

After several failed attempts to serve others (tutoring, etc.), Don invites us into his conversation with God! Oh, my.

“I know you’re an introvert, God said. You don’t like people in general, I’ve really noticed that. You barely got through your psychology class in college. You’re not trained as an educator. You have no knowledge about being a mentor. And quite frankly, I’m discouraged that you’re not using the tools I gave you.”

“What tools would those be, Lord? I wondered.”

“You’re an engineer, aren’t you? As an engineer, can’t you come up with something that would help my kingdom?”

In church, he was convicted by a four-sentence story, “The Fool’s Game,” shared by his pastor, Kenton Beshore. (Read more in this 2006 Los Angeles Times interview. And note to pastors: It’s content—not length—that makes your sermons impactful! For example, read about a sermon Juan Carlos Ortiz once preached. Classic!)

What happened? From prototype in 1999, to 100 wheelchairs in Don’s garage, to the journey with four pilot test chairs to India in 2001, Free Wheelchair Mission, the global nonprofit was launched. When was the last time you and three other volunteers hurdled the obstacles of airline schedules, visas, and the bureaucracy to travel to India—and checked medical supplies, medicine, and four wheelchairs as baggage? LOL! 

Fighting jet lag and in search of cold drinks during their first night in India, the team asked their hotel clerk to recommend a restaurant. The local establishment was named “Hell Freezes Over!” (The perfect metaphor for this 21-year journey!)

The India trip, for Don, was research-focused. He wanted to gather data to document and prove that his wheelchair prototype could be used in the developing world. “When I left California, this had been my expectation for this trip, to collect cold, lifeless data. But what I found instead were real people with real needs that I had the ability to meet face-to-face. I’d come to India with a paper on my mind. But I left India with people in my heart.”


Click here to view the 2½-minute video as Don Schoendorfer talks about his new book on ABC’s Good Morning America 3.

Update! According to Free Wheelchair Mission, through the generosity of their donors, “six containers of wheelchairs arrived at their destinations in Chile, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and the Philippines in January 2023. Soon, 3,178 people with disabilities in these countries will receive the gift of mobility.” To give the gift of mobility (one or more wheelchairs), visit FWM here.

Amazing! But, let’s back up a bit. Before FWM was incorporated as a nonprofit, checks began arriving from friends who shared Don’s passion for bringing the gift of mobility to the world. Generous checks! His garage was crammed with wheelchairs, but donors challenged him to purchase more materials for more wheelchairs. What to do?

One friend simply said, “Don, you need to start a nonprofit.” So what does this biomedical engineer, with a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT, do? The same thing you’d do. He bought a copy of Nonprofit Kit for Dummies! (I actually reviewed this book in 2014. Click here.)

The rest is history—but not really. There’s much more to come. Don Schoendorfer quotes global stats that indicate 75 million people still need wheelchairs. He invites you to help like our mutual friend, George Duff (1931-2023) helped. With his family and local church, George Duff (read my tribute here) was a longtime cheerleader in the Seattle area for Free Wheelchair Mission. To listen to Don Schoendorfer’s comments at George Duff’s memorial service on Jan. 14, 2023, click here and fast forward to Minute 40.00 for Don’s seven-minute tribute. Schoendorfer notes seven qualities that Duff modeled. (That will preach!)

I gave my grandkids this book so—I pray—they’ll connect the dots between life experiences (XQ) and God’s call. 

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Miracle Wheels: The Story of a Mission to Bring Mobility to the World, by Don Schoendorfer. And thanks to Connie Salios (FWM board member) for sending me a review copy.



BONUS BOOK! While reading Miracle Wheels, I also read a new book on “XQ” (the third dimension of IQ and EQ). Don Schoendorfer could be the PhD poster boy for Experiential Intelligence: Harness the Power of Experience for Personal and Business Breakthroughs. Soren Kaplan, the author, defines XQ as “…the combination of mindsets, abilities, and know-how gained from your unique life experience that empowers you to achieve your goals.” (Read my review over at the Pails in Comparison blog.)

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Who on our team and in our circle of family and friends should read Miracle Wheels? Who would be gutsy enough to share this book with selected donors of our favorite nonprofit? (Whoa! Would all their money then go to Free Wheelchair Mission—or would this God-story maybe inspire givers to be even more generous with more nonprofits?) John Pearson gave this book to his grandkids (all teenagers)—so they would learn how to connect the dots between life experiences (XQ) and God’s call. Whose life will you impact with this book? 

2) To drill deeper on XQ and how Don Schoendorfer leveraged his life experiences to create and implement the vision of Free Wheelchair Mission, read Experiential Intelligence: Harness the Power of Experience for Personal and Business Breakthroughs, by Soren Kaplan. Think back: what experiences growing up, in school, and in your early career days, prepared you for the work God has called you to do now and in the future? 

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #16 of 100:
Necessary Endings

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #16 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

Necessary Endings: 
The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships 
That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward
by Dr. Henry Cloud

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. Necessary endings, writes Henry Cloud, “are the reason you are not married to your prom date nor still working in your first job.”
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Necessary Endings
• Listen on Libro (7 hours, 15 minutes)
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

Cloud lists 11 reasons why leaders and managers avoid necessary endings, including these four avoidance strategies:
   • “We are afraid of the unknown.”
   • “We do not possess the skills to execute the ending.”
   • “We have had too many and too painful endings in our own personal history, so we avoid another one.”
   • “We do not learn from them, so we repeat the same mistakes over and over.”

If your gut says it’s time to end a relationship, help an employee exit, dismount a dead horse, say farewell to a sacred cow, or drop a loser program, product or service, this “pruning book” will show you how.

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XQ - Experiential Intelligence
You’re familiar with IQ and EQ, but what about XQ? Read John’s review of the new book, Experiential Intelligence: Harness the Power of Experience for Personal and Business Breakthroughs, by Soren Kaplan. And check out other new book reviews on the Pails in Comparison blog. 

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. How compelling is your story? Should your founder or CEO (or even a volunteer or customer) write your organization’s story? With self-publishing tools today and gifted writers, it’s faster than you think. (Read “You Should Write a Book” for several examples.) Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs

Issue No. 544 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting delivers a “True or False” quiz with 13 statements about a hot-off-the-press handbook for entrepreneurs—relevant for CEOs and entrepreneurial team members. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, click here for my Top-10 book picks from 2022 and my 2022 Book-of-the-Year, and click here for four updated book lists.


“A start-up is a journey of failures,” writes Uri Levine. Good luck!

Entrepreneurial Wisdom: True or False?

“A start-up is a journey of failures,” writes Uri Levine, who describes himself as a passionate entrepreneur and disruptor, and a two-time “unicorn" builder. He quotes Albert Einstein, “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried anything new.”

Quick! You, or someone on your team, must read and report on this fabulous book, just published Jan. 17, 2023:

Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: 
A Handbook for Entrepreneurs
by Uri Levine

The author notes that Ben Horowitz was a CEO prior to becoming a successful venture capitalist. Once Horowitz was asked, “Did you sleep well at night, being the CEO of a start-up?” The response: “Oh yes. I slept like a baby. I woke up every two hours and cried.” That’s actually true—but what about the following statements?

TRUE OR FALSE?

[   ] 1. WOZ TOOK NOTES! Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, loves this book! He writes in the foreword that he “read every word, taking handwritten notes on paper.” (True or False?)

[   ] 2. FIRE FASTER. Uri Levine said the “first trigger for writing this book” was when a CEO heard Levine speak about the hard firing/hiring decisions that CEOs must make. On the second day of the event, the CEO told Levine, “It’s done. I fired my cofounder. It was painful and I didn’t sleep all night long, but once I announced that to the company, everyone approached me and said, ‘Thank you, it was about time!’ So, I know I did the right thing.” (True or False?)

[   ] 3. UNICORNS DEFINED. Levine is the co-founder of Waze, the world’s largest community-based driving traffic and navigation app. Google acquired Waze for $1.15 billion (not a typo) in 2013. Levine is also a former investor and board member of Moovit, the “Waze of public transportation.” Intel acquired Moovit for $1 billion (not a typo) in 2020. By the way, start-ups which sell for $1 billion or more are called unicorns. (True or False?)

[   ] 4. PAIN! “A problem is easily defined,” writes Levine. “When you tell someone about it, that person should say, ‘Yeah, I have that issue as well!’” The author says problems fit into a two-by-two matrix with two axes: “Total Addressable Market” and “Pain.” And before you disappoint investors with your new idea, be sure you review the four quadrants in the matrix:
   • “Winners” (high usage/value and many users)
   • “Niche” (high usage/value, but few users)
   • “Losers” (low usage/value and few users)
   • “Dreams and Nightmares” - This includes everyone, but “low value or low frequency of use”—think of the DMV: a pain, but your visits are not frequent enough for someone to fix it. (True or False?)

[   ] 5. FAILURE IS OK. Oh, my! Chapter 2, “A Start-up Is a Journey of Failures” slams you with 35 pages of warnings! Expect failure and good luck in the “desert of no traction.” In the early days of Waze, “We turned the app on worldwide all at once, and it was a disaster. It was simply not good enough—except in four countries: Ecuador, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Latvia.” 
   • “Failure is not only OK but also necessary.”
   • “Failure is not a badge of shame.”
   • “Launch before your product is ready.”
   • “How much time should you allocate to your journey of failures? Years!” (True or False?)


View the book’s promo video (1 minute, 27 seconds).

[   ] 6. START-UP “STARTIPS.” Every chapter concludes with five or more summary bullet points, “Startips,” such as:
• “Make your mistakes fast.”
• “If you’re afraid to fail, you’ve already failed because you’re not going to try.”
• “Rule of thumb: Users convert on the third try.”
• “The proven lifetime value of a customer needs to be at least three times higher than the customer acquisition cost, otherwise you don’t have a sustainable business model.”
• “Price is determined in the market, and not by the company. The cost, however, is determined by the company, and the market doesn’t care about it.” (True or False?)

[   ] 7. FIRING/HIRING. Levine believes you’ll know if a new hire will fit in within one month—and that’s why he titles Chapter 6, “Firing and Hiring” (with the emphasis on firing). “Remember that a great hiring manager will have a hit ratio of about 80 percent and a miss ratio of about 20 percent. Even Golden State Warriors basketball star Steph Curry doesn’t score 80 percent from three-point range.” (True or False?)

[   ] 8. OPERATING IN PHASES. Whether you’re 24/7 on a for-profit start-up or a nonprofit start-up, this book is must-reading. Example: How do you discern what is your “MIT”—your Most Important Thing? If you get this wrong, says Levine, you’ll hire the wrong person for the wrong phase. “Be careful not to hire too early,” he cautions. (True or False?)

[   ] 9. PMF. Get ready to become a student of Product-Market Fit (PMF). “The most dangerous moment for a start-up is when you think you’ve figured out product-market fit even though you really haven’t." Peter Drucker would have loved this book—it’s all about listening to the customer and also watching the customer try out your new product, program, or service. Another warning: “You need to do iteration after iteration of your product before you ever hire a salesperson.” (True or False?)

[   ] 10. ROLLER-COASTER JOURNEY. “If building a start-up is a roller-coaster journey, then fundraising is a roller coaster in the dark. You don’t even know what’s coming. Closing a deal would be in the dark, upside down, and in reverse…” (True or False?)

[   ] 11. TEN-FOOT POLE! In 2010 when Waze was almost out of cash, Levine pitched a very successful venture capital fund. In an adjoining room, Levine heard one of the potential investors comment, “We wouldn’t touch Waze with a ten-foot pole.” Fast forward to the day Google acquired Waze, the Waze team discussed whether they should send those non-investors an actual ten-foot pole! “We didn’t, but we enjoyed considering it!” (True or False?)

[   ] 12. FAST GROWTH. How fast can, or should, you grow? Chapter 10, “How to Get to a Billion Users,” is absolutely fascinating—with 32 short topics (I counted them) on growing your enterprise, including “50 Other Ways It Didn’t Work,” and a very practical whiteboard exercise, “50 Ways to Bring Your Users.” (True or False?)

[   ] 13. FUNDRAISING! Levine believes funders invest for two reasons: they liked the story and they liked the CEO. “You need to be at your best, and appearance does matter. So, the CEO goes to the first meeting ALONE [boldface by the author]. That way, no one else is on the stage with the CEO to take away the spotlight." Note: This reminded me of the wisdom in the book, Backable. (True or False?)
 
WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK? 
   • For-profit leaders and start-up wanna-be's.
   • Nonprofit leaders. (Very relevant insights!)
   • Any team member tasked with launching a new product, program, or service.
   • Anyone whose fear of failure has short-changed your organization’s growth.
   • Every CEO and board member.
   • Anyone who loves Shark Tank (including reruns!) – Note: Watch for my February review of Burn the Boats.  

LOL! I loaned my review copy of this compelling and comprehensive book to an entrepreneurial friend. He loved the detailed narrative, but I needed my copy back (with my notes!). So I ordered this book for him.

TRUE OR FALSE? SPOILER ALERT (in Spanish!). ¡Todas las afirmaciones son verdaderas!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs, by Uri Levine. Listen on Libro (11 hours, 48 minutes).



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) According to Uri Levine, there are four different types of user categories: Innovators, Early Adopters, the Early Majority (afraid to try new things—don’t like change), and the Late Majority (“will use something only if they must”). So…per the “User Segmentation” chart on page 209, do we understand our users—and how different they are from you and me?
2) “A start-up, in order to be successful,” writes Levine, “needs to do one and only one thing right, and to increase the likelihood of doing so, it needs to say no to everything else.” He adds, “Focus is about doing one thing at a time.” So…let’s look in the mirror. How many times have we said “no” in the last 90 days?

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #15 of 100:
The Advantage

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #15 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

The Advantage: 
Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business
by Patrick Lencioni

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. Patrick Lencioni says that “bad meetings are the birthplace of unhealthy organizations and good meetings are the origin of cohesion, clarity and communication.”  

• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: The Advantage
• Listen on Libro (5 hours, 25 minutes)
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

In Lencioni’s next to last chapter, “The Centrality of Great Meetings,” this best-selling business guru writes, “If someone were to offer me one single piece of evidence to evaluate the health of an organization, I would not ask to see its financial statements, review its product line, or even talk to its employees or customers: I would want to observe the leadership team during a meeting.”

Note: to read my reviews of four more Patrick Lencioni books, see Part 3, “The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends,” in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

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“You’re Leading a Parade!”
George Duff, my friend and mentor, was welcomed to his heavenly home on Jan. 1, 2023. He was 91. A celebration of life service was held on January 14 on Mercer Island, Wash. I’ve been so blessed with rich memories of George this month, including this wisdom: “Remember, you are talking not to a crowd but to a parade that is changing all the time.” (Read my blog for ECFA here.) Read my tribute here. 

Note: George Duff was a volunteer champion of Free Wheelchair Mission (watch for my review of the new Miracle Wheels book). Visit FWM to send a tribute card to the Duff family.

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Nervous about launching your new product, program, or service? Join the club! We’ll walk you through the “MIT” steps and, maybe, provide therapy along the way! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

Praying With the Early Christians: A Year of Daily Prayers and Reflections on the Words of the Early Christians

Issue No. 543 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests several conversation-starters for your morning meetings with Almighty God. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, click here for my Top-10 book picks from 2022 and my 2022 Book-of-the-Year, and click here for four updated book lists.


We’re over-blessed with resources to prompt our morning conversations with Almighty God. What’s your favorite?

Morning Music With the Master

In just 750 tightly-crafted words in the introduction to this short-and-significant 365-day devotional, Eugene Peterson winsomely pulls us into the grand life of conversation and prayer with Almighty God. His 1994 book (one of four in a series) is still a gem:

Praying With the Early Christians: 
A Year of Daily Prayers and Reflections on the Words of the Early Christians
by Eugene H. Peterson

He quotes Baron Friedrich von Hügel’s belief that prayer “is more like sucking on a lozenge than gulping a meal.” And he notes G.K. Chesterton’s view “that there was a great difference between the lively person wanting to read a book and the tired person wanting a book to read.”

If your daily discipline of meeting God for conversation and comfort is ever-growing and deeply satisfying in 2023—feel free to exit this issue and move on. But if you’re like me—and over the years, you’ve appreciated a variety of morning disciplines—keep reading.

In a dozen days, so far, in 2023, I’ve discovered renewed joy in the simple and short daily devotional readings from Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), the prolific pastor, professor, and author who also penned the beloved Bible paraphrase, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Each daily page includes:
   • The date
   • The topic (with two to five Bible verses to read)
   • Key verse
   • Short commentary (five to seven lines)
   • Short prayer

I’m so enjoying Praying With the Early Christians—which spotlights “a little over a quarter of our New Testament scripture” which was written by St. Luke. (Did you know that?) Luke’s Gospel of Jesus Christ and his Acts of the Apostle “are a two-volume work that provides a comprehensive account of the early Christians.” 

Peterson hoped to inspire us into this daily rhythm of readings from St. Luke—with the expectation “to get us modern Christians praying into step with the early Christians” so that we will be as “astonished as was the first-century world with their love and witness.”

As part of my conversations with the Lord, per the “ACTS” discipline (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), I’ve begun this delightful adoration/praise journey every morning with this book. 

But I've added one element. After reflecting on the daily reading, I wait for the Lord to remind me of a hymn or worship song. (Sometimes, the daily prayer is a line from a hymn.) Most mornings, with ear pods in, I listen to a new or favorite version of the hymn that comes to mind, thanks to Amazon Music, YouTube, or iTunes. Or sometimes I whisper, “Alexa, play ‘Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart.’”


Listen to “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart.’”

It’s the first thought I have when I wake up—“I wonder what hymn or song the Lord has for me today?” 

Example: Last week, when prompted about “hope” by Eugene Peterson, the Lord led me to this soul-touching rendition of “Whispering Hope” from the BBC Songs of Praise broadcast of Nov. 2, 2008, featuring Hayley Westenra and the Cornwall Male Voice choirs. Oh, my!


Click here to view this two-minute, soul-touching hymn, “Whispering Hope.”
 
Some mornings, I venture over to Hymnary.org to learn more about the composer and then hum along with the original lyrics. (See more on “Whispering Hope” here.)

Years ago, Bob Andringa reminded me of the wisdom in this proverb:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. 
The second best time is today.”

If you aspired to start a 2023 morning conversation/prayer habit with the God of the Universe on January 1, but you haven’t launched yet—no problem. Today is the second best time to start. (And I just checked—He still has openings!)

Over the years, I’ve appreciated a wide variety of resources for my morning meetings:
• A Diary of Private Prayer, by John Baillie (read my review or read online here)
• Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence, by Sarah Young (read my review)
• The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, by Arthur Bennett (Editor) - (read my review)
• Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups (2005 Revised Edition), by Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith (read my review)
• And click here to scan my list of “2020 Spiritual Growth Resources,” including Trust for Today: 365 Days of Encouragement – A Year With the Trueface Team and Silencio: Reflective Practices for Nurturing Your Soul, by Stephen A. Macchia, Editor. (click here for 12 resources)

And this caution from Silencio about one zealot:

“Deciding to read through the Bible in a year, at breakneck speed,
he completed his assignment … but he sensed very little of the voice of God in his life.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Praying With the Early Christians: A Year of Daily Prayers and Reflections on the Words of the Early Christians (Praying With the Bible series), by Eugene H. Peterson.



MORE OPTIONS! The “Praying With the Bible Series,” by Eugene Peterson, also includes three more titles: Praying With Moses, Praying With the Prophets, and Praying With Paul. Click on the titles or the books below to order from Amazon:
           
  

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
What resource do you use for inspiring team members at your weekly staff meeting? Some leaders feature a “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” segment each week (see Mastering 100 Must-Read Books). Another resource is The One Year Mini for Leaders, by Jim Seybert. (Read my review.) What should we do in 2023 to make our weekly staff meetings enriching and with appropriate Hoopla?

AND THE WINNER IS! In Issue No. 542, I invited readers to submit their cartoon captions for the desert island survivor. The judges had a tough time deciding (and the rules book was thick), so…(drum roll)…there will be two Grand Prize Winners: 
• Dick Nelson: “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
• Sydney Romanov: “A fortunate result of the boat crash, he finally had time to figure out what his wife meant by ‘I’m fine.’”

Congrats to both winners—and, as they say, the “check” is in the mail! At your next staff meeting—photocopy the cartoon and invite team members to write their cartoon captions. (Why? This will help jumpstart your 2023 creativity for Hoopla! Bucket values.)  

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #14 of 100:
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #14 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: 
Discover the 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break
by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter

Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. Good News: a client gave me this book in 2013. Bad News: a client gave me this book!
   • Read my review.
   • Order from Amazon: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
   • Listen on Libro (9 hours, 38 minutes)
   • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

Whew! This is one powerful, convicting book. Bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith says there are 20 workplace habits you need to break. He quotes Peter Drucker:

“We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”

Goldsmith agrees and then asks, “When was the last retreat or training session you attended that was titled, Stupid Things Our Top People Do That We Need to Stop Doing Now?”

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“You’re Leading a Parade!”
George Duff, my friend and mentor, was welcomed to his heavenly home on Jan. 1, 2023. He was 91. A celebration of life service will be Jan. 14 on Mercer Island, Wash. I’ve been so blessed with rich memories of George this month, including this wisdom: “Remember, you are talking not to a crowd but to a parade that is changing all the time.” (Read my blog for ECFA here.) Read my tribute here. 

Note: George Duff was a volunteer champion of Free Wheelchair Mission (watch for my review of the new Miracle Wheels book). Visit FWM to send a tribute card to the Duff family.

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. We have strategized with numerous clients and helped them design eye-catching books and resources that tell their stories—and enrich the lives of their customers and/or donors. For example, here’s a unique resource for your visually-oriented team members: Michelangelo's Sacred Art of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling: A Coloring Book Exploration. Order from Amazon. For more ideas, contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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

I Wouldn't Do That If I Were Me: Modern Blunders and Modest Triumphs (but Mostly Blunders)

Issue No. 542 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting launches 2023 with a LOL book to jumpstart your creativity. Hilarious, yet poignant. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my Top-10 book picks from 2022 and my 2022 Book-of-the-Year.


“He finally had time to…”
Zillions of cartoonists have reinvented this desert island cartoon. What’s your LOL caption? Complete the sentence and submit to Your Weekly Staff Meeting. (There may be prizes!)

Jumpstart Your 2023 Creativity

OK, I admit it. I read the comics every day in the online editions of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register. (I only read the funniest strips. My opinion: comics are trending towards unfunny, unfortunately.)

My favorite annual Christmas gift (Thank you, Joanne!) is the page-a-day Cartoons from The New Yorker 2023 Day-to-Day Calendar. The cartoon below is hilarious! The camper in the tent asks, "Do you hear something?"



And when a great humor book comes along, I laugh my way across every page. Proverbs 17:22 (NIV) reminds us, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Comics, cartoons, and LOL books all share a DNA that inspires me: CREATIVITY!

Example: Are you creative enough to write an original punch line for the classic desert island cartoon? There have been zillions—but they keep coming. The creativity of many cartoonists and authors is stunning. So…when Jason Gay’s new book arrived last month, I savored it …slowly…miserly measuring out each chapter…as if I only had one treasured book on that lonely desert island. 

I Wouldn't Do That If I Were Me: 
Modern Blunders and Modest Triumphs (but Mostly Blunders)
by Jason Gay

This is the perfect book for the new year. Good medicine for the soul. Enjoy it—chapter by chapter, dose by hilarious dose—but warning! This Wall Street Journal sports writer sometimes shifts the gears in his clown car and very personal and poignant stories pop out. You’ll love this book!

MARS. Jason Gay predicts that we’re all going to wind up on Mars. Traveling there, you’ll receive “an insane amount of frequent flier miles.” It’s a long flight, but you can “look out the window” or “read the in-flight Mars Rocket magazine. It’s, like, eleven profiles of Elon Musk.” And this: “When you get to Mars, the jet lag is going to be unbelievable. I’m just warning you.”

Good news! “There will be pickleball, because those pickleballers are everywhere now.” And—this is a surprise!—“There are probably board meetings” to discuss septic systems and elevator problems. “Life is too short,” admits the author. “I’m not raising my hand for any Mars board subcommittees.”

ATTN: SWA SURVIVORS. If you survived a flight (or did not) during Southwest Airlines’ cancelled flights debacle, you’ll appreciate Jason Gay’s chapter, “Fighting While Flying.” He writes, “Somewhere along the way, flying stopped feeling like travel and started resembling . . . the internet, in real life.” (So true!) He suggests “doses of perspective” including:
• “Assume your flight is going to be a terrible experience.”
• “We need to widen the category of reasons we can ban people from the sky.” (Example: “Passengers who take off their socks.”)
• “Stop the window screen patrol” and “Recline humanely.”
• “Loud typing.” (He’s been shushed more than once while working on a column!) And: “Can we please take it easy on the jerky?”

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY. Before you read this chapter—and to exercise your creativity competencies—make a list of the proper gift for each year of wedded bliss (Years 1 to 51). I had no idea that the rules have been updated! Here are some hints:
   • 7th Year: Phone charger
   • 10th Year: Typing lessons
   • 34th Year: Book about submarines
   • 44th Year: Tire jack

PUBLIC SPEAKING. Apparently, even after reading Public Speaking (one of my Top-10 books of 2021), I have more to learn. Jason Gay says he “had the shocking honor of addressing the graduating class” at his college alma mater. (He thinks the invite was actually meant for another person named Jason!) But he does dispense timely wisdom: “The main goal of any speech is to stop talking.” (He lists 23 short keepers. Give this book to your pastor!) 

SILENCE! Maybe my favorite short chapter was “Interview with a Man Who Lost His Phone on the First Day of Vacation.” (True story! He interviews himself. Hilarious.) Learnings:
• No iPhone camera? No problem. “Not every parenting moment needs to be exhaustively chronicled.”
• Instead of nonstop listening to podcasts, “I had to retrain myself to do chores in silence. Make the bed, put away clothes, clean the bathroom—these things had to happen in silence, like I was in trouble at a monastery.”
• “Also, I read a book.” On the plane ride home, he read another book. The interviewer notes, “Never see that anymore.” Jason: “The passenger next to me called for a flight attendant. She was concerned.”

OR MAYBE… my favorite chapters (three!) were about Baxter, his cat—and I’m not even a cat guy. (LOL: Must-read!) Or maybe the chapter, “Sitting Still”—the poignant tribute to a friend who died a year ago. Can you get teary-eyed reading a humor book? Yes.

NOT ACTUALLY FAIR. Is it fair for one author (a sports writer, even) to be gifted with such exuberant creativity and humor? Not really, but bravo to Jason Gay!

“A cheerful heart is good medicine.” I will read this wonderful book again.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for I Wouldn't Do That If I Were Me: Modern Blunders and Modest Triumphs (but Mostly Blunders), by Jason Gay. Listen on Libro.fm (4 hours, 28 minutes, read by the author). And thanks to the publisher for sending a review copy.



P.S. When I read Jason Gay’s 2015 book, Little Victories: Perfect Rules for Imperfect Living, I wrote, “I can hardly wait for Little Victories 2.” Now…I can hardly wait for his next book.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) To enjoy Jason Gay’s hilarious sports (and more) insights, read the Wall Street Journal columns on his 2023 resolutions, his “22 More Rules for Thanksgiving Family Touch Football,” and this Jan. 4, 2023, poignant piece, “Football Can Wait for Damar Hamlin”). Do you have the right balance of humor and hoopla! to spark your team’s creative juices?
2) I reviewed three “humor” books in 2021, including A Comedian’s Prayer Book, by Frank Skinner. In 2022, I reviewed Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how anyone can harness it. Even you.) The authors describe four styles of humor. What’s your style? What’s the upside (and LOL side) of studying humorists, cartoonists, and funny sports writers? How do you exercise your creativity muscles?   

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Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year

Book #13 of 100:
Leadership Briefs

For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #13 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. 

Xenophon's Cyrus the Great:
The Arts of Leadership and War, by Xenophon
(Larry Hedrick, Editor)

Books #6 through #21 feature 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. When Peter Drucker was asked for the best book on leadership, he responded: “The first systematic book on leadership—the Kyropaidaia by Xenophon, himself no mean leader of men—is still the best book on the subject.”
   • Read my review.
   • Order from Amazon: Xenophon's Cyrus the Great
   • Listen on Libro (6 hours, 31 minutes)
   • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)

Many of my reading colleagues tilt towards the skinny management books, not 295-page tomes. But this is neither. This is readable. This is exciting. Leadership, coaching, mentoring, innovation, psychology, motivation, crisis management, social styles, cultural hiccups. Plus: stunning acts of kindness. And generosity—AMAZING generosity. The case studies in generosity (on and off the battlefield) will shock you. Wow.

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SCRAPPY ORGANIZATIONS!
Watch for my “Zoom Review,” March 7, of The Four Workarounds: Strategies from the World's Scrappiest Organizations for Tackling Complex Problems, by Paulo Savaget (Pub. Date: March 7, 2023, 304 pages). Pre-order from Amazon. David Schmidt and Jason Pearson will join me on Zoom with their color commentaries. Visit the Pails in Comparison blog for a short list of books on my 2023 review list. 

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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Even serious work can be communicated with humor. (We buy insurance from a gecko!) As you position your story in 2023, consider how the four social styles and the four humor styles will respond to your communication strategies and tactics. Check-out our book, ReBrand: Workbook + Coloring Sheets For Ministry Branding. We can help you. Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).

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