Innovation Garden

A curious mind (book by Glazer & Fishman)

A Curious Mind

Brain Glazer & Charles Fishman

A Curious Mind

Brain Glazer is a producer of movies and televisions shows. This book is the story of the role curiosity, in many forms, has been a force in his life. He did not set out to work in movies but a summer job taken before law school became the entryway to this career. Looking back, Glazer recognizes that he was always curious and this curiosity was fostered by his grandmother in particular. It is clear from reading this book that Glazer has a degree of adventurousness that he has used to satisfy his curiosity.

Learning agile (book by Stellman & Greene)

Learning Agile

Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene

Learning Agile

Agile working practices have become quite trendy over the last few years, but the application of the word agile to these practices dates back to 2001. A group of 17 people active in software development had a meeting and published what they called the “Agile Manifesto ”. This was a set of four values and 12 principles to guide software development. It is worth noting that agile practices were around much earlier than this. This creates some confusion about what is or is not agile, which sometimes misses the point.

Improv wisdom (book by Madson)

Improve wisdom

Patricia Ryan Madson

Improv wisdom

This book describes how the method and mindset of improvisational theory can be applied to everyday life and business. We all have some urge to control our lives and this often means that we can’t react to events. Improvisation is the unplanned response to events and is a skill that can be learned. Improvisation in comedy gets a lot of attention but improvisation has also been part of music, conventional theater and visual arts.

Rebels at work (book by Kelly & Medina)

Rebels at work

Lois Kelly and Carmen Medina

Rebels at Work

This book is intended to help people who think differently navigate their organizations. The authors describe a good rebel as a person who observes things that are not working and suggests ways to change. A bad rebel just complains. The authors observe that rebels are not always the right people to actually lead a change, but they are often the right people to instigate the change. People become rebels in many ways and times in their careers. Some start immediately in their career and some become rebels later in their careers. Some rebels are “created” by a problem and retire as rebels when that problem is addressed. Other rebels find one problem after another to solve.

The surprising power of liberating structures (book by Lipmanowisc and McCandless)

The surprising power of liberating structures

Henri Lipmanowisc and Keith McCandless

Liberating Structures

This book is about making human interactions more productive. Most people complain about meetings, whether they are organizers or participants. The authors suggest that one reason is that we have a very limited “alphabet” for structuring meetings. A larger vocabulary would enable meetings to be structured in ways that were more satisfactory to both organizers and participants.

Perspective (book by Mirocha)

Perspective:

John Mirocha

Perspective

The success of a company depends on many things, but it is generally understood that a key purpose of a company is to harness the benefits of people working together (to reduce a variety of financial and non-financial transaction costs). This may sound like a trivial observation, but it was significant enough to win the Nobel Prize in economics for Ronald Coase. “People working together” is one description of culture, and leaders of organizations hoping to get better performance from their people need to develop some appreciation of the organization’s culture. The study of human societies and cultures is the domain of anthropology (in contrast, the study of individual people is psychology) and one of the big ideas in anthropology is that every culture must be understood from the inside-out. This book is devoted to explaining how anthropologists would approach the problem of understanding a culture by creating a perspective on the culture through observation.

Give and Take (book by Grant)

Give and take

Adam Grant

Give and Take

 

This is a book about the role of reciprocity in our lives. Imagine that there are two kinds of people at work. One group is most concerned about helping others and does things to benefit them without worrying much about themselves. The second group gives to others because they expect to get much more back from them. Giving is only the means to get more for themselves. This is a world of givers and takers.

 

Visual Teams (book by Sibbet)

Visual Teams

Dave Sibbet

 Visual-Teams

 This book is about team leadership using a wide range of graphic methods and tools. The basic thought is that people often relate better to images than to words, and that co-development of these images helps people align around the team’s goals and commit to their execution.  At times the book is difficult to read and becomes very metaphoric, while other sections are very pragmatic and explanatory.

Theory U (book by Scharmer)

 Theory U Stages of Communication

C. Otto Scharmer

Theory U

 This book addresses a range of social interaction theories, but the central and most interesting theme is communication in groups. The book contains many elements that seem almost like a stream-of-consciousness description of the author’s experience in developing his central theory which is that we can choose to have more meaningful communication if we understand our communication better.

The One Minute Negotiator (book by Hutson & Lucas)

The One Minute Negotiator

Don Hutson & George Lucas

 One-Minute-Negotiator

 This book uses the technique of storytelling to explain a simple approach to negotiating. The main issue in negotiation is that people do not want to do it and rationalize avoiding it. This often results in people achieving unsatisfactory outcomes personally or organizationally.

 The book defines negotiation as “…the ongoing process through which two or more parties, whose positions are not necessarily consistent, work in an effort to reach agreement.”  Negotiation is a process – not an event. While some negotiations involve just two parties, there are often more parties involved and they may not be “present” in the negotiations. Finally, negotiation does not always succeed.

The Cluetrain Manifesto (book by Levine et al.)

The Cluetrain Manifesto

Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searis, Dave Weinberger

Cluetrain Manifesto

 This book was written in 2000 as a rant about two topics. The first is a rant about marketing in a web-enabled world. The second is a rant about corporate communications and authenticity in a web-enabled world. These two rants are linked by the idea that corporations often think that they must control communication within, from and about themselves. The plea from the authors is “quit sending messages and start having conversations”.

 

Riding the Blue Train (book by Sayle & Kumar)

Riding the Blue Train: A Leadership Plan for Explosive Growth

B. Sayle & S. Kumar

 A company can’t expect to change its goals and expect to achieve them without changing its people. This is not so much a question of skills as it is of attitudes and behavior. Ways of thinking that were successful in the past may limit the possibility of thinking differently in the future. Many companies conduct themselves under the impression that they are not “broken” and so don’t need fixing. This may be an incorrect assumption, but they can’t or won’t see it.

Partnering Intelligence (book by Dent)

Partnering Intelligence (2^nd Ed)

Stephen Dent

 In a world increasingly dependent on information and skill, the ability to gain access to more information and skills will be a big competitive advantage. Success in this effort requires a capability for partnership. Analogous to other sorts of “intelligences”, this book is about partnering intelligence.

 6 attributes contributing to partnership intelligence are:

1. Self-disclosure & feedback*
2. Win-win orientation
3. Ability to trust
4. Future orientation
5. Comfort with change
6. Comfort with interdependence

Everyone Communicates Few Connect (book by Maxwell)

Everyone Communicates Few Connect

John C. Maxwell

 

The book’s central focus is that people seek connection through communication, but that most people don’t recognize that connection is much more than the communication of information. The author’s background is as a minister who has bridged the worlds of business and church. In these roles, the author discusses how a person can connect one-on-one, with small groups or large audiences.

Buy in (book by Kotter & Whitehead)

Buy*in

John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead

 

This book is about how to defend an idea or proposal against illegitimate attacks. Often, perfectly good ideas are rejected because opponents create confusion, seek delay, promote fear or engage in personal attacks. Resisting these attacks involves a straightforward process too.

 

From Values to Action

Harry H.J. Kraemer

From Values to Action

 The author rose from business analyst through the CFO position to CEO at Baxter International over a 23 year career. This book explains his perspective; that leadership begins with 4 principles: self-reflection, balance, true self-confidence and humility. Kraemer suggests that each leads to the next and thus leadership has its ultimate foundation in self-reflection.

 

Leaders Eat Last (book by Sinek)

Leaders Eat Last

Simon Sinek

Leaders eat last

 

This book has a very strong point of view; the author admits that it is a polemic. Basically, being a leader means putting others first and making sure that the organizations that they lead do the same. In business, this means putting people ahead of money. A good business leader needs others skills as well, but no group of people will extend themselves for someone who is all about the numbers. Many leaders in many organizations put money before people, which ironically leads them to put themselves before the organization.

 

Powers of Two (book by Shenk)

Powers of Two

Joshua Wolf Shenk

Powers of Two

 There are two common ideas about people’s creativity. The more common and traditional view is that of the lone genius working in splendid isolation. The other, more recent view is of the team working together to create something new. This book asserts that pairs are the fundamental unit of creativity. If you begin to dig deeper into the stories of many famous creative people, you find a second person – but not a third. There are a large number of famous pairs: Lennon & McCartney, Watson & Crick, and Jobs & Wozniak to name some more prominent pairs. Examples of pairs where one of the partners is “hidden” include Vincent and Theo Van Gogh, George and Marcia Lucas, and Tiger Woods and Steve Williams. The author set out to study the dynamic that begins the partnership, some of the characteristics of creative pairs, and their ultimate dissolution. One thing to note: pairs are not always partnerships the way that we think of them. In the context of this book, a pair is a vehicle for two people to lift each other to a higher level of performance – often a creative performance.

 

Start with Why (book by Sinek)

Start with Why

Simon Sinek

Start with Why

This book starts talking about marketing, but the central premise applies far beyond marketing. Sinek observes that most companies communicate WHAT they offer and sometimes HOW they deliver it. Customers find this slightly motivating. A more compelling message expresses WHY the company is doing what it is doing. Two good examples of “why” messaging are Apple and Southwest Airlines. Apple is not a computer company; it is a lifestyle company (think differently and a focus on the individual) that sells electronic goods and services. Southwest is dedicated to helping you to “feel free to move around the country”. Starting with “why” attracts peoples who seek the same “why” and thus sets the stage for loyalty.

 

Humble Inquiry (book by Schein)

Humble Inquiry

Edgar Schein

Humble Inquiry

 This book is a continuation of Schein’s thinking about how people interact. In particular, Schein has been thinking about people who are working together on complex tasks where there are differences in cultural background, social or professional rank, or expertise that lead to status differences. These status differences make trust-dependent open discussion difficult. The way to build trust that allows good, clear communication is to ask questions. It is the “higher” ranking person who needs to initiate the process because they need to “level down”.

 

Management of the Absurd (book by Farson)

Management of the Absurd

Richard Farson

Management of the Absurd

 I read this book for the first time in the late 1990s. When reading it again, I was struck by how much of this book stuck with me, in some cases almost word for word. The book is about paradoxes in management, and one paradox is that the book is so concisely and clearly written that this summary won’t be as good as the book.

 

The Checklist Manifesto (book by Gawande)

The Checklist Manifesto

Atul  Gawande

Checklist Manifesto

The author is a surgeon who has reflected on the nature of “error” in medicine. People undergoing surgery are at high risk of complications, many of which are due to the treatment – not the patient’s underlying condition. So-called preventable injuries range from 20-40% of all complications. He has since become associated with an effort to increase the use of a 17-point checklist for every surgical procedure. This book makes the case for the development and use of checklists whenever complex work is undertaken. Creating a checklist is harder than it seems, but using one is easier.

Trust Works (book by Blanchard et al.)

Trust Works

Ken Blanchard, Cynthia Olmstead, Martha Lawrence

Trust Works

 Like most Blanchard books, this is a combination of parable, framework and examples. In this case, the topic is trust. The book is quite simple and so is this summary.

 The authors propose that a person will trust another person when four things are true. The person must be able, believable, connected and dependable. They call this the ABCD model of trust.

Radical Collaboration (book by Tamm & Luyet)

Radical Collaboration

James W. Tamm & Ronald J. Luyet

Radical Collaboration  

“It’s not enough that we win; everyone else must lose.” This quote from Larry Ellison is a nearly opposite expression of the message of this book. Collaboration is an important topic in most organizations and in most people’s private lives. I suspect that the publisher decided to call the book “radical” to increase sales because the approach described is mostly common sense. The authors describe collaboration in terms of five themes: (1) collaborative intention, (2) truthfulness, (3) self-accountability, (4) self-awareness and awareness of others, and (5) problem-solving and negotiating. Two concepts stand out. First, collaboration starts with individuals, and falters when individuals prevent themselves from collaborating. Second, collaboration has much more to do with attitudes than techniques. The overall context of this book is negotiation, but they concepts probably apply to all kinds of working together.

The hidden power of social networks (book by Cross & Parker)

The Hidden Power of Social Networks

Rob Cross & Andrew Parker

Hidden Power of Social Networks

 The central premise of this book is that the real work of organizations is done via the social networks within the organizations. The tools developed to analyze physical network analysis reveal that social networks have features also found in physical networks. There are people with many connections who fill a central role and people who are essentially isolated. There are others who create bridges or bottlenecks between groups. One important feature of these social networks is that they may not be visible to casual observation, and consequently leaders may be unable to see when decisions disrupt networks or prevent them from forming.

 

Make Space (book by Doorley & Whitthoft)

Make Space

Scott Doorley & Scott Witthoft

Make Space

 

This book describes some of what has been learned in the Stanford University d.school about the design of spaces for teams. This group had to move into new facilities four times in four years. They had to teach and work in spaces that they remodeled knowing that they would be moving out soon. They scavenged furniture and made many of their own fixtures. The constant change and need to improvise helped them do many experiments on the relationship between space and behavior.

The Power of Positive Deviance (book by Pascale et al)

The Power of Positive Deviance

Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin

 Positive Deviance

 Some problems are “technical” and can be solved by application of expertise. Some problems are “adaptive” and can only be solved when the “participants” in the problem change their behaviors. This book describes a method called “positive deviance” to uncover and diffuse solutions to adaptive problems. The book focuses on social problems, because it is people that must adapt.

 

Helping (book by Schein)

Helping

Edgar Schein

Helping

 Edgar Schein’s expertise is organizational development and communication. The thesis of this book is that helping each other is a central part of social interaction, and that many large and small social issues arise when somebody requests or offers help. Socialization insures that the majority of these interactions are useful and painless, but this is not always the outcome. Schein’s observations are summarized in seven principles.

• Effective help occurs when both giver and receiver are ready.
• Effective help occurs when the helping relationship is perceived to be equitable.
• Effective help occurs when the helper is in the proper helping role.
• Everything that you say and do is an intervention that determines the future of the relationship.
• Effective helping starts with pure inquiry.
• It is the client that owns the problem.
• You never have all the answers.*

Resonate (book by Duarte)

Resonate: Present visual stories that transform audiences

Nancy Duarte

 Resonate

 This book is about presentations and how to make them more effective. If there is ONE big idea in this book, it is that the only reason to give a presentation is to change the world. You don’t need to change the whole word, but all presentations are about change. If you don’t intend to create a change, use a report.