My 2020 Bookshelf
“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.” – Roald Dahl
Here are some of my 2020 books I would recommend as they intrigued me, but more importantly they helped me further fuel my learning and reflection. Thank you to all my mentors and friends (you know who you are) who keep recommending me books to read.
RULE MAKERS, RULE BREAKERS
by Michele Gelfand
Summary: Why are clocks in Germany so accurate while those in Brazil are frequently wrong? Why do New Zealand’s women have the highest number of sexual partners? Why are “Red” and “Blue” States really so divided? Why was the Daimler-Chrysler merger ill-fated from the start? Why is the driver of a Jaguar more likely to run a red light than the driver of a plumber’s van? Why does one spouse prize running a “tight ship” while the other refuses to “sweat the small stuff?”
In search of a common answer, Gelfand has spent two decades conducting research in more than fifty countries. Across all age groups, family variations, social classes, businesses, states and nationalities, she’s identified a primal pattern that can trigger cooperation or conflict. Her fascinating conclusion: behavior is highly influenced by the perception of threat.
With an approach that is consistently riveting, Rule Makers, Rule Breakers thrusts many of the puzzling attitudes and actions we observe into sudden and surprising clarity.
IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION
by Gareth Morgan
Summary: Since its first publication over twenty years ago, Images of Organization has become a classic in the canon of management literature. The book is based on a very simple premise—that all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that stretch our imagination in a way that can create powerful insights, but at the risk of distortion. Gareth Morgan provides a rich and comprehensive resource for exploring the complexity of modern organizations internationally, translating leading-edge theory into leading-edge practice.
EGO IS THE ENEMY
by Ryan Holiday
Summary: Many of us insist the main impediment to a full, successful life is the outside world. In fact, the most common enemy lies within: our ego. Early in our careers, it impedes learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, it can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure, it magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back.
Ego Is the Enemy draws on a vast array of stories and examples, from literature to philosophy to history. We meet fascinating figures such as George Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who all reached the highest levels of power and success by conquering their own egos. Their strategies and tactics can be ours as well.
THE BARCELONA WAY
by Prof Damian Hughes
Summary: In The Barcelona Way, sports psychologist Damian Hughes reveals the key principles that have defined FC Barcelona’s success and shows how the DNA of a winning team can be successfully applied to any working environment, with dramatic results. They are: Big Picture, Arc of Change, Repetition, Cultural Architects, Authentic Leadership. These are the same principles that are
adhered to in successful working environments across any industry. Drawing on interviews with key architects of the culture, as well as his own extensive experience as a sports psychologist working with leading sports and business institutions, Damian Hughes provides unique insights into the crucial
issues confronting the modern corporate environment, and shows how the lessons learnt at FC Barcelona can also be applied to develop your own winning culture.
THE WIZARD AND THE PROPHET
by Charles C Mann
Summary: In forty years, Earth’s population will reach ten billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups –Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. Cut back! was his mantra. Otherwise everyone will lose!
The Wizards are the heirs of Norman Borlaug, whose research, in effect, wrangled the world in service to our species to produce modern high-yield crops that then saved millions from starvation. Innovate! was Borlaug’s cry. Only in that way can everyone win! Mann delves into these diverging viewpoints to assess the four great challenges humanity faces–food, water, energy, climate change–grounding each in historical context and weighing the options for the future. With our civilization on the line, the author’s insightful analysis is an essential addition to the urgent conversation about how our children will fare on an increasingly crowded Earth.
THE TYRANNY OF METRICS
by Jerry Z Muller
Summary: Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we’ve gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself. The result is a tyranny of metrics that threatens the quality of our lives and most important institutions. In this timely and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage our obsession with metrics is causing—and shows how we can begin to fix the problem.
Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, this brief and accessible book explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging “gaming the stats” or “teaching to the test.” That’s because what can and does get measured is not always worth measuring, may not be what we really want to know, and may draw effort away from the things we care about. Along the way, we learn why paying for measured performance doesn’t work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But metrics can be good when used as a complement to—rather than a replacement for—judgment based on personal experience, and Muller also gives examples of when metrics have been beneficial.
Complete with a checklist of when and how to use metrics, The Tyranny of Metrics is an essential corrective to a rarely questioned trend that increasingly affects us all.
21 LESSONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
by Yuval Noah Harari
Summary: “Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future.
As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.”
FLOW GENERATION
by Nicolo Andreula & Vera Sprothen
Summary:
Remember when clouds were in the sky, phones were in the wall and work was something we ‘went to’? Technology has changed that. Secure jobs have become insecure gigs, home is where the Wi-Fi is and our boss is an algorithm.
And us? We’re all over the place, unsure about the future. All the old paths are crumbling. Unlike our parents we have no clear idea how to make it to retirement. It’s like our lives have turned liquid.
How will we earn money tomorrow?
Is our degree still relevant?
Will we ever afford a house?
Have a pension?
Live happily ever after?
TALENT MAGNET
by Mark Miller
Summary:
“There is a long-standing truth in the world of organizations: Talent wins! But how do you attract the best people? What do they really want? Based on his rigorous and extensive research, Miller learned that top performers are looking for very different things than solid contributors.
In Talent Magnet, Miller uses a clever and entertaining business fable to share these findings. He tells the parallel stories of Blake Brown, a CEO struggling with winning the war for talent, and Blake’s 16-year-old son, Clint, who is trying to get his first job so he can raise money to buy a well for a village in Africa.
Blake reaches out to leaders in other industries and works with his team to solve the puzzle of making his organization a destination for exceptional performers. But he also learns from his son. Listening to Clint and his friends compare notes on the companies they’ve worked for that summer, ranging from the awful to the inspirational, Blake realizes they want the same three things out of a job as any top performer in a Fortune 500 company.”
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE ADVANTAGE
by Jacob Morgan
Summary: ”Recently a new type of organization has emerged, one that focuses on employee experiences as a way to drive innovation, increase customer satisfaction, find and hire the best people, make work more engaging, and improve overall performance. .
How can organizations truly create a place where employees want to show up to work versus need to show up to work? For decades the business world has focused on measuring employee engagement meanwhile global engagement scores remain at an all time low despite all the surveys and institutes that been springing up tackle this problem. Clearly something is not working. Employee engagement has become the short-term adrenaline shot that organizations turn to when they need to increase their engagement scores.
Instead, we have to focus on designing employee experiences which is the long term organizational design that leads to engaged employees. This is the only long-term solution. Organizations have been stuck focusing on the cause instead of the effect. The cause is employee experience; the effect is an engaged workforce.”
THE TALENT DELUSION
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
Summary:
”All organisations have problems, and they nearly always concern people: how to manage them; whom to hire, fire or promote; and how to motivate, develop and retain high potential employees. Psychology, the main science for understanding people, should be a pivotal tool for solving these problems – yet most companies play it by ear, and billions of dollars are wasted on futile interventions to attract and retain the right people for key roles.
Bridging the gap between the psychological science of talent and common real-world talent practices, The Talent Delusion aims to educate HR practitioners and leaders on how to measure, predict and manage talent. It will provide readers with data-driven solution to the common problems around employee selection, development and engagement; how to define and evaluate talent; how to detect and inhibit toxic employee behaviours; and how to identify and harness leadership potential.”
THE SCIENCE OF TALENT
by Kate O’Loughlin
Summary:
“Lots of people know that ‘talent happens’ in their organisation, but many are not quite sure what ‘talent’ is or how ‘it’ happens. It can be difficult for anyone who wants to know more, to really understand what is done and why it is done in a particular way.
• Should you get rid of appraisals?
• Should millennials be treated differently?
• Should you tell people they are ‘talent’ and others that they are not?
O’Loughlin looks at what the science tells us about the theories behind these ideas, and what other alternatives there might be.”
HR DISRUPTED
by Lucy Adams
Summary:
“HR has lost its way and needs to find a new direction. The central question this book sets out to answer is: if we are to survive and thrive in this new, volatile business world, how do we lead, manage, engage and support our employees in a radically different way?
HR departments, and companies, need to transform their approach. This entails not simply tinkering with the process or the mechanics, but taking a completely fresh look at the entire scenario.
So what happens when you read this book? First, there’s the lightbulb moment: ‘I do that and I hadn’t even realised it’. Then you’ll see what this means for you and your organisation, with practical tools, ideas and techniques so you can start making changes immediately. And finally, the hard bit: this book will help you introduce this new thinking to others in your business.”
THANK YOU FOR BEING LATE
by Thomas L Friedman
Summary:
“Thomas Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them and cushion their worst impacts.
His thesis: to understand the 21st century, you need to understand that the planet’s three largest forces – Moore’s law (technology), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss) – are accelerating all at once. These accelerations are transforming five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community.”
THE RED-HAIRED WOMAN
by Orhan Pamuk
Summary:
“On the outskirts of a town thirty miles from Istanbul, a well digger and his young apprentice – a boy fleeing the confines of his middle class home—are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, they develop a filial bond neither has known before.
But when the boy catches the eye of a stunning red-haired woman who seems as fascinated by him as he is by her, the events that ensue change the young man’s life forever and haunt him for the next thirty years. A tale of family and romance, of youth and old age, of tradition and modernity, The Red-Haired Woman is a beguiling mystery from one of the great storytellers of our time.”
A FLAG WORTH DYING FOR
by Tim Marshall
Summary:
“When you see your nation’s flag fluttering in the breeze, what do you feel?; For thousands of years flags have represented our hopes and dreams. We wave them. Burn them. March under their colours. And still, in the 21st century, we die for them. Flags fly at the UN, on the Arab street, from front porches in Texas. They represent the politics of high power as well as the politics of the mob.
Tim Marshall draws on more than twenty-five years of global reporting experience to reveal the histories, the power and the politics of the symbols that unite us – and divide us.”
WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR
by Paul Kalanithi
Summary:
“The memoir of Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University, who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in his mid-thirties.
Kalanithi uses the pages in this book to not only tell his story, but also share his ideas on how to approach death with grace and what it means to be fully alive.”
IN THE RUNNING
by Kate Mosse
Summary:
“Running isn’t a hobby, it’s a way of life. Runners run to be the best they can be, to challenge who they are, to inspire others and to champion their cause.
From the woman who ran for three and a half days without sleep, to the 61-year-old man who broke records in an 875-km ultramarathon, this collection of unforgettable stories will inspire anyone who’s ever pounded the pavement to keep on running and enjoy every minute of this liberating sport.”
THE AMAZING STORY OF THE MAN WHO CYCLED FROM INDIA TO EUROPE FOR LOVE
by Per J Andersson
Summary:
“The story begins in a public square in New Delhi. On a cold December evening a young European woman of noble descent appears before an Indian street artist known locally as PK and asks him to paint her portrait – it is an encounter that will change their lives irrevocably.
This is the remarkable true story of how love and courage led PK to overcome extreme poverty, caste prejudice and adversity – as well as a 7,000-mile, adventure-filled journey across continents and cultures – to be with the woman he loved.”
