andreweverett360 Book Review, Management, systems thinking

Team of Teams

team-of-teams


Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
by General Stanley McChrystal with Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell

When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in 2003, he was fighting a 21st-century war with a 20th-century military. This engaging book is about the reconfiguration which led to faster decisions and greater results. McChrystal’s mission was to defeat Al Quaeda in Iraq (AQI), but his leadership insights are applicable to business as well.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Creativity

The Myths of Creativity

the-myths-of-creativity


The Myths of Creativity: The Truth About How Innovative Companies and People Generate Great Ideas
by David Burkus

“Creativity is the starting point for all innovation, and most organizations rely on innovation to create a competitive advantage.” In this interesting book, management professor David Burkus debunks 10 myths of creativity, citing academic research and examples from business.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Career

What You’re Really Meant to Do

what-youre-really-meant-to-do


What You’re Really Meant to Do: A Roadmap for Reaching Your Unique Potential
by Robert Steven Kaplan

“The key to achieving your aspirations lies not in ‘being a success’ but rather in working to reach your unique potential… Remember, lots of people will tell you what you should do and what you should want, but they don’t have to live your life. Chances are, moreover, that they’re not very happy with their own lives.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

Good Business

good-business-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi


Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021)

Good Business is about enjoyment of work and productivity. It is based on the author’s research on flow, the psychology of optimal experience.

Flow is “a deep sense of enjoyment.” To be fully engaged in a state of flow, one must be skilled and challenged. “Basically, the more a person feels skilled, the more her moods will improve; while the more challenges that are present, the more her attention will become focused and concentrated.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, General

Crowdsourcing

crowdsourcing


Crowdsourcing
by Daren C. Brabham

Daren Brabham defines crowdsourcing as “an online, distributed problem-solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities to serve specific organizational goal.” He emphasizes that “the locus of control regarding the creative production of goods and ideas exists between the organization and the public, a shared process of bottom-up, open creation by the crowd and top-down management by those charged with serving an organization’s strategic interests.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Management, Psychology & Neuroscience

What Keeps Leaders Up at Night

what-keeps-leaders-up-at-night


What Keeps Leaders Up at Night: Recognizing and Resolving Your Most Troubling Management Issues
by Nicole Lipkin

In this excellent book, clinical psychologist Nicole Lipkin explains the psychology behind many of the human behaviors that affect productivity and sound decision making in the workplace. “Good leadership requires dealing effectively with messy, quirky, unpredictable, confusing, irrational, and clumsy people. That is what makes the business of leadership so insanely difficult and complex.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

Management Rewired

management-rewired


Management Rewired: Why feedback doesn’t work and other surprising lessons from the latest brain science
by Charles S. Jacobs

This book is applies neuroscience research to the field of management.

The trend in business has been toward making data-driven decisions, but Charles Jacobs explains why using only the logical side of our brain would lead to myopic decisions.  Fortunately, the prefrontal cortex is connected to the amygdala, the portion of the brain which deals with emotion and memory, and this helps us make judgments based on previous experience.   This reminded me of what Jack Welch has written about managing from the gut, which Welch says is basically pattern recognition.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

The New Economics

the-new-economics


The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education
by W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993)

Deming is a legendary name in quality management, especially in Japan through his consulting work with Japanese industry from 1950 onward. He died in 1993 at age 93 before the second edition of this book went to press.

“This book is for people who are living under the tyranny of the prevailing style of management,” writes Deming in the preface. He has strong convictions, many of which are counter to conventional management thinking.

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