There is no shortage of really wonderful books, but there is a special type of book that has helped me frame my strategic and tactical leadership and management thinking and problem solving. It has been rare that a book has helped me quickly adjust or put a new idea into practice, and wanted to list them since maybe they’re useful for others.
High Output Management
Andy Grove explicitly defines the role of a manager, their place in the team, and how to measure success has helped me clarify and focus on specific behaviors. Additionally, it made me more comfortable with the long measurement loop to know how things are working.
The Culture Code & Switch
The pairing of these books is very helpful in understanding what culture really looks like, and not just an inspirational quote. It’s helped me set a strategy and then actually implement positive cultural shifts. These books have helped me create broader impact across the organizations I work in. Reading these books also encouraged me to always think beyond only my role as a manager.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
This book is an invaluable resource to follow along with and really make sure you have a solid forward looking strategy, and specifically helps identify the patterns that may buy your team a bit of time but ultimately harms having the impact the team should have. It’s practical, immediately useful advice and guidance.
The Toyota Way
Reading The Toyota Way causes me to oscillate between surprise and frustration. I am surprised that there is so much great content that guides thinking about the role of both the individual and team in an organization, sets expectations for management, and it is just inspiring since many lessons transfer over from the automobile manufacturing world. Then the frustration hits me, because I see us stumbling over problems that others have figured out and iterated over the last 40+ years. It gives me hope that we will adapt these lessons, and reduce waste, irregularity, and over-burdening in my technical work.
The Culture Map
This book has really helped me reason through how I engage with others and improves my own self-awareness. It clearly lays out how complex culture really is, and isn’t superficial or reductionist. A lot of people have interesting backgrounds, and this book provides a framework to recognize and adapt that has been incredibly helpful in better enabling me to work with the person and not just match to some cultural expectations. It was helpful in better understanding myself (I was in rural environments, but by outspoken New Yorkers) and how I fit in, or out of, expected cultural aspects.
Crucial Conversations
At least one book that focuses on facilitating and having more constructive conversations must be on any leadership book list. Crucial Conversations was the best I found that helps explain how to move away from combative or competitive conversations and make them constructive and collaborative. It helps me escape binary thinking, and the I frequently return to breaking out of victim/villain stories and helping others do the same.
Thanks for the feedback
I love feedback and feedback increases self-awareness and makes me more effective. This book really sets the tone for building up healthy relationships where feedback flourishes. The only way you can have a good culture of feedback in a team is if people are repeatedly asking for, listening, and modeling the right behavior. In other words, people have to own their feedback. The book breaks feedback down into fine-grained details, has clear suggestions, and reduces some of the fear associated with feedback. It has helped explain some of the aspects of a common problem in engineering teams: “My peers give me technical feedback just fine, but behavioral feedback is entirely absent”.
Turn the ship arounD!
I really enjoyed reading this exploration of how someone tried, failed, iterated and eventually succeeded in applying the habits of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to the least likely situation. The military and in a submarine! A really interesting part of this book is that if you can empower someone, you are also saying their empowerment comes as a gift from those in charge and can be revoked.
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
I read this first when I was younger and didn’t like it and thought it was silly. Then I read it again later, and it really opened my mind up. I read it a third time, and had further paradigm shifts, then a fourth and still learned from it. It is one of those books that I can find some section that helps me see some area of my life that I’m struggling with a bit, and typically unaware of.
Factfulness
Similar to Crucial Conversations, finding a favorite book that helps you examine your thinking to be less wrong is important. This book was the most powerful in helping me, and the notion of “it’s bad, but getting better” has been hugely helpful. It’s also just a fun read.