andreweverett360 Book Review, Psychology & Neuroscience

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

by Oliver Burkeman

We live in an era where appliances and software supposedly make our lives easier. “Yet, paradoxically, you only feel busier, more anxious… And becoming ‘more productive’ just seems to cause the belt to speed up.”

We all have a finite amount of time in our lives—in the neighborhood of 4,000 weeks, assuming an 80-year lifespan and rounding to 50 weeks per year. “Our limited time… what Heidegger calls our ‘finitude’… isn’t just one among various things we have to cope with; rather, it’s the thing that defines us, as humans.”

“The world is bursting with wonder, and yet it’s the rare productivity guru who seems to have considered the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder.”

Continue reading “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” →
andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World

Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World

by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall 

Conventional management practices are based on a mindset of conformity and control. The authors, in contrast, argue the key to optimum performance is encouraging individuals make the most of their idiosyncratic strengths. The authors study team performance and employee engagement for ADP Research Institute and Cisco respectively.

Continue reading “Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World” →
andreweverett360 interview, Management

An interview with Mark C. Crowley, author of Lead from the Heart

An interview with Mark C. Crowley
author of Lead from the Heart:
Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century

December 16, 2020 — 63 minutes — Book Review — Amazon

      • [0:01:04] Employee engagement.
      • [0:13:16] Hiring people with heart.
      • [0:18:56] Connect on a personal level. Manager as a coach.
      • [0:21:43] If you don’t give a shit about people, none of this is going to work.
      • [0:24:28] Maximize employee potential.
      • [0:26:27] Flow.
      • [0:32:25] The boss who doesn’t care about you.
      • [0:34:10] Value and honor achievements.
      • [0:37:17] The heart is a feeling, sensing organ.
      • [0:42:23] Work From Home.
      • [0:49:44] How the wrong people get promoted.
      • [0:55:58] Organizational culture and values.

Transcript
Continue reading “An interview with Mark C. Crowley, author of Lead from the Heart” →

andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency

Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency

by Tom DeMarco

Slack is an outstanding management book full of wisdom about corporate culture, change, failure, learning, quality, risk management, productivity, and managing people.

“You can’t grow if you can’t change at all.” Slack is “the lubricant of change… Slack represents operational capacity sacrificed in the interests of long-term health… Learning to think of it that way (instead of as waste) is what distinguishes organizations that are ‘in business’ from those that are merely busy.”

Continue reading “Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency” →

andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference

the-power-of-small

The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference
by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval

You may not be familiar with their names, but you are probably familiar with the authors’ work. They are the founding partners of the Kaplan Thaler Group, the advertising agency responsible for the Aflac duck campaign. One of them wrote the “I want to be a Toys R Us Kid” jingle earlier in her career. Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval previously wrote The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness.

This book is about paying attention to little things which have a big impact. Continue reading “The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference” →

andreweverett360 Book Review, Career

Strengths Finder 2.0

strengths-finder-2-0

Strengths Finder 2.0

by Tom Rath

The premise of this book is that people are happiest and most productive when their work is well suited to their strengths. Conversely, many people pursue the “path of most resistance.” The book includes a code to access an online assessment which will identify your top five strengths.

“Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement… People who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general.” Continue reading “Strengths Finder 2.0” →

andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

The Power of Nice

the-power-of-nice

The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness

by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval

You may not be familiar with the authors’ names, but you are probably familiar with their work. They are the founding partners of the advertising agency responsible for the Aflac duck campaign.  One of them wrote the “I want to be a Toys R Us Kid” jingle earlier in her career.

Their message is that being nice (but not phony) in personal and professional encounters builds goodwill, which can lead to big and small rewards.  Many examples are included in the book. Continue reading “The Power of Nice” →

andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

The One Thing

the-one-thing

The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan

This book is about finding your focus and making it your top priority in order to achieve extraordinary results.  Identifying your focus comes from asking The Focusing Question: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”

“The Focusing Question is a double-duty question. It comes in two forms: big picture and small focus. One is about finding the right direction in life and the other is about finding the right action.” Continue reading “The One Thing” →

andreweverett360 Book Review, Management

The No Asshole Rule

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t

by Robert I. Sutton

Assholes create a toxic work environment, destroying productivity. Sutton introduces the Total Cost of Assholes (TCA) metric. In the case of a salesman named Ethan, the cost was estimated at $160,000, including time spent by Ethan’s manager, HR professionals, senior executives, outside counsel, as well as the costs related to high turnover of support staff.

Sutton warns not to hire wimps and polite clones. “A series of controlled experiments and field studies in organizations show that when teams engage in conflict over ideas in an atmosphere of mutual respect, they develop better ideas and perform better. For this reason, Intel requires all new employees to take “constructive confrontation class.”

Sutton, Robert I. The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. New York: Business Plus, 2010. Buy from Amazon.com

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.