16 FROM 16THE BEST BOOKS OF 2016

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summaries Training programmes Motivational speeches A fertile source of new

ideas

STRATEGY

#NOWMax McKeown

You can’t change the past, but you can change the future, and

now is where everything can be changed.

#NOWMax McKeown

• For anyone who has ever been told to slow down, there is a surprising truth about the power of now. Those living in the past are called Thenist – they suffer from loss, regret and worry. Nowists are more likely to achieve growth, joy and reward.

• Thenists: tasks are a means to an end; they often forget to enjoy life; they agonise over decisions, which slows them down, so they often procrastinate, or suddenly lurch into a decision that makes no sense; they are easy to interrupt or slow down; they tend to be self-doubting, and often waste energy on worry.

• Nowists: love moving and seek joy in doing things; they don’t waste their lives seeking happiness, so they seek it now; they make rapid, effortless decisions; they see sequences, and have a sense of where they are going; they are hard to stop and a force of nature; self-trusting, and confident in their abilities.

THE STUPIDITY PARADOXAlvesson & Spicer

Many organisations are caught up in a stupidity paradox: they employ smart people who end

up doing stupid things.

THE STUPIDITY PARADOXAlvesson & Spicer

• Functional stupidity can be catastrophic for companies, or just manifest itself in absurd everyday examples of idiotic, management fads and daft working practices.

• Yet a dose of stupidity can be useful and produce good, short-term results, nurturing harmony, and encouraging people to get on with things without questioning everything.

• It has three main facets: Not thinking about your assumptions (absence of reflexivity); Not asking why you are doing something (justification); Not considering the consequences or wider meaning of your actions (substantive reasoning)

• There are five main types: Leadership-induced, Structure-induced, Imitation-induced, Branding-induced, and Culture-induced.

• It can be solved by introducing reflective routines, devil’s advocates, post-mortems, pre-mortems, the views of newcomers, outsiders, and anti-stupidity task forces

LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP BSJeffrey Pfeffer

There is no evidence that the advice peddled by the

leadership industry actually works – doing the opposite

might even work better.

LEADERSHIP BSJeffrey Pfeffer

• Most leadership development efforts fail because most leadership wisdom is based more on hope than reality, on wishes rather than data, on beliefs instead of science.

• There is no evidence that the characteristics often asserted to be useful to successful leadership are actually true.

• Modesty: leaders aren’t, and immodesty actually leads to greater success (for the individual).

• Authenticity is misunderstood, overrated, and may actually be impossible. Most leaders need to be inauthentic – subsuming their personal feelings and adjusting their behaviour to suit a variety of situations.

• Truthfulness is often unhelpful. Leaders lie all the time, but misrepresentation and breached agreements are a part of business and not as harmful as you think. In fact everyone lies (40% of people have lied in the last day), and there are few sanctions for lying, so everyone carries on.

• Trust: it doesn’t get leaders anywhere, and when they violate it, nothing much happens - people even expect contract violations from companies.

Patrick LencioniTHE 5 DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM

Successful teams need to trust each other, engage in

constructive conflict, commit, hold each other accountable,

and remove ego to concentrate on results.

Patrick LencioniTHE 5 DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM

• Absence of trust. This stems from an unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Those who are not open about mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build trust.

• Fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered debate. Instead they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.

• Lack of commitment. Without having aired their opinions in open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in or commit to decisions, though they may feign it in meetings.

• Avoidance of accountability. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused people fail to call their peers on counterproductive actions and behaviours.

• Inattention to results. Failure to hold one another accountable: team members put their individual or department needs above those of the team.

• Trust: overcome invulnerability and admit to weaknesses.• Constructive conflict: needs to replace artificial harmony.• Creating commitment: means removing ambiguity.• Accountability: raise low standards; remove status and ego.

THE IDEAL TEAM PLAYERPatrick Lencioni

There are three essential virtues that make someone the

ideal team player: being humble, hungry and smart.

THE IDEAL TEAM PLAYERPatrick Lencioni

• Humble: humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute.

• Hungry: these people are self-motivated and diligent.• Smart: these people demonstrate common sense when

dealing with others (not the same as intellectual smartness).• Things start getting interesting when you look at people with

only one or two of the attributes. Those with just one are fairly easy to spot:

• Humble only = the pawn, who often gets left out• Hungry only = the bulldozer, who often annoys everyone else• Smart only = the charmer; great social skills, low contribution• Those with 2 out of 3 are much harder to spot:• Humble and hungry = the accidental mess-maker, unaware of

their effect on people• Humble and smart = the lovable slacker, only does as much

as asked• Hungry and smart = the skilful politician, out for own benefit

PRODUCTIVITY

SCRUMJeff Sutherland

Small multi-disciplinary teams get things done faster and

more effectively than conventional larger structures.

SCRUMJeff Sutherland

• Gantt or process charts always look pretty but they are always wrong. Don’t waste time designing them.

• The Scrum approach reduces team sizes, breaks down projects into short-term goals, allows constant assessment of progress and an agile, adaptive approach to problems.

• The main ingredients of Scrum are:• Pick a Product Owner: decides what needs to be done.• Pick a team: 3 - 9 people, wide range of skills. 7 is ideal.• Pick a scrum master: to coach everyone through the

process and remove obstacles.• Product backlog: list of everything that needs to be done.• Plan sprints: fixed amounts of time less than a month.• Make work visible on a scrum board - To Do, Doing, Done.• Daily stand up meeting or scrum – each day, same time,

15 minutes maximum.• Sprint Demo: team must demonstrate a working version of

what has been done: no work in progress/anyone can come• Sprint retrospective: what went well/could be done better

SMARTER FASTER BETTERCharles Duhigg

It is possible to work smarter, faster and better by improving

motivation, goals, team dynamics, decision-making, and the assimilation of data.

SMARTER FASTER BETTERCharles Duhigg

• This is all about the secrets of being productive. There are eight main reasons why good companies and people get things done:

• Motivation: make choices that put you in control• Teams: manage the how, not the who• Focus: envision what will happen and plan for that• Goal setting: stretching ambitions broken down into sub goals• Managing others: push decision making to whoever is closest

to problems• Decision-making: envision multiple futures to plan ahead• Innovation: recombine old and new ideas (90% of the most

creative ideas include ideas previously mentioned somewhere else – from a database of 17.9m manuscripts. Innovators are actually intellectual middlemen.)

• Absorbing data: when encountering new information, force yourself to do something with it. This is best achieved by disfluency – engaging thoroughly with it, which is harder at first. Inability to do so is called information blindness.

TALKABILITYJames Borg

There are some secrets of effective conversation that you

can perfect.

TALKABILITYJames Borg

• This is all about what to say and how to say it, so you can get more from every conversation.

• The words you use determine your success in life, relationships, your job and in business.

• iContact or eye contact: proper conversations are always better than using technology, or being distracted when talking.

• Everything can be misunderstood:“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure that what you think you heard is what I meant.”

• Paralinguistics looks at the melody and tone of what is said, not just the words. Paralanguage is vital to empathetic conversation.

• Prosody is the rhythm, stress and intonation of speech.• Listen and silent are spelled with same letters: the rhythm of

talking and listening is vital to effective communication.• The primacy-recency effect: we remember best the first item

of information presented to us. We remember second best the information that comes last. Beginnings and endings are crucial.

CULTURE

THE CULTURE MAPErin Meyer

Global business is a great deal easier if you pay attention to

how other cultures work.

THE CULTURE MAPErin Meyer

• Decoding how cultural differences affect international business involves:

• Communicating (low to high context)• Evaluating (direct to indirect negative feedback)• Persuading (principles-first to applications-first)• Leading (egalitarian to hierarchical)• Deciding (consensual to top-down)• Trusting (task-based to relationship-based)• Disagreeing (confrontational to avoids confrontation)• Scheduling (linear-time to flexible-time)• Views of meeting success are fascinating. In a good meeting:

A. A decision is made (USA)B. Various viewpoints are discussed and debated (France)C. A formal stamp is put on a decision that has been made before the meeting (Japan, China)

WHY SHOULD ANYONE WORK HERE?

Goffee & Jones

Successful company cultures need honesty and meaning,

allowing people to be themselves and do work that

makes sense.

WHY SHOULD ANYONE WORK HERE?

Goffee & Jones• In the past, businesses made people conform to the

organization’s needs. That doesn’t work any more.• Leaders need to attract the right people, keep them and inspire

them to do their best work. • There are six attributes of a healthy company culture:• Difference: Let people be themselves• Radical honesty: Let people know what’s really going on• Extra value: Magnify people’s strengths• Authenticity: Stand for something more than shareholder value• Meaning: Make the work make sense• Simple rules: Make rules clear and apply equally to everyone• What makes work meaningless? • Scale: companies are too big• Division of labour: silos and lack of connection between

people and tasks • Time lags: big gaps between doing things and eventual

outcome

NEGOTIATION

THE NEGOTIATION BOOKSteve Gates

You can be a better negotiator by preparing properly, holding your nerve, staying calm, and

making your offer first.

THE NEGOTIATION BOOKSteve Gates

The 10 important traits of successful negotiators are:1. Nerve. Believe in your position, never offend, and always

remain calm.2. Self-Discipline. Understand what to do, do that which is

appropriate.3. Tenacity. The equivalent of stamina in sportspeople.4. Assertiveness. Tell them what you will do, not what you

won’t do.5. Instinct. Trust it – you will be right more often than not.6. Caution. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.7. Curiosity. Ask why because you want and need to know.8. Numerical reasoning. Know what it’s really worth, what it

really costs.9. Creativity. Explore and build on possibilities.10.Humility. People make agreements, and humility breeds

respect.

THE YES BOOKClive Rich

Negotiation now requires a more sophisticated,

collaborative approach.

THE YES BOOKClive Rich

 Attitude: manage their own and others’ negotiation attitudes~ Fusers: work in partnership; join agenda of both parties.~ Confusers: distort first impressions and lead attitudes astray.~ Users: are old-fashioned and it doesn’t work.~ Losers: who wants to be one?Process: manage the stages of the negotiation, which are:~ Preparation: put in the spadework before starting.~ Climate setting: create the right atmosphere.~ Wants & Needs: why do people want what they say they want?~ Coinage: value things that may be of value to the other party.~ Bidding: ask for what you want, mean it, have good reason~ Bargaining: keep reframing the issue or expanding the pie. ~ Closing: move to closure briskly when the opportunity arises.Behaviour: they understand and manage their own and others’~ ‘I’ behaviour: expectations; reasons; probe; incentives ~ ‘You’ behaviour: disclose; explore; common ground; listen~ ‘We’ behaviour: visualise; check consensus; share solutions~ Parting behaviour: pit stop; break; silence; terminate

BEHAVIOUR

THE NO ASSHOLE RULERobert Sutton

Assholes should not be tolerated – at work or anywhere else.

THE NO ASSHOLE RULERobert Sutton

• A temporary asshole: anyone having a bad day or bad moment. We can all be like this.

• A certified asshole: a persistently nasty and destructive jerk.• After talking to the alleged asshole, does the target feel

oppressed, humiliated, or belittled?• Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people

who are less powerful than them?• Common everyday actions that assholes use include:

personal insults, invading one’s personal territory, uninvited physical contact, threats and intimidation (verbal and non-verbal), sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems, withering email flames, status slaps to humiliate, public shaming, status degradation rituals, rude interruptions, two-faced attacks, dirty looks, treating people as invisible.

• The Total Cost of Assholes to an organization comes via retention and recruitment costs, lost clients, and wasted time.

• A few demeaning creeps can overwhelm the warm feelings generated by hoards of civilized people.

IDEAS

THE WORKSHOP BOOKPamela Hamilton

Workshops can be a success if you design them properly and

use the right techniques.

THE WORKSHOP BOOKPamela Hamilton

Rule breaker: write the rules of the product or category, then write the extreme opposites and explore the space between.Newspaper/postcard/ storyboard: write headlines or articles from the future, forcing participants to envision their goals.Advice to myself 10 years ago: passing on experience.Future trends: brief description of trend; opportunities this offers the business; risks if we ignore it.Calibration: draw a vertical line down chart. Put a tick on the left and a cross on the right. Work through issues: yes/no Identifying initiatives: name it, describe it, and then vote on it.Accountability template: project description, elements, opportunities, challenges, action next week, month, with names. Old way, new way: what’s the usual way of doing this, and how are we going to change it?Ideal job: what is it? Good for defining peoples’ motivations.Outputs not updates: get it done, don’t just keep telling everybody what you are doing.Be a problem owner, not a problem moaner.

PREDICTION

SUPERFORECASTINGTetlock & Gardner

It is possible to increase the accuracy of forecasts by acting

as superforecasters do.

SUPERFORECASTINGTetlock & Gardner

So-called experts are only slightly better at prediction than random guesswork, or “a dart throwing chimp”. But a group of 3,000 ordinary people in the US can predict the future with a degree of accuracy 60% greater than average. This is how:• Triage. Concentrate on clear questions that can be

answered, albeit with hard work.• Break intractable problems into tractable sub-problems.• Strike the right balance between inside and outside views.• And between under/overreacting to evidence.• And between under- and overconfidence.• Look for the clashing causal forces at work in each problem.• Distinguish as many degrees of doubt as the problem

permits, but no more.• Look for the errors behind your mistakes but beware of rear-

view mirror hindsight biases.• Bring out the best in others/let others bring out best in you.• Master error-balancing cycle: try, fail, analyse, adjust, repeat.• Don’t treat commandments as commandments.

HOW TO USE

• Be inquisitive• Make the time• Understand the lines of

argument• Have a point of view• Inform your work• Enjoy the debate• Ask Kevin to speak or train

KEVIN DUNCANMore detail at:

www.greatesthitsblog.comAsk Kevin to speak or train:

07979 808770kevinduncanexpertadvice@gmail.co

m Twitter: @kevinduncan