Powerful - Patty McCord
Why read this book?
Company culture is always a popular topic - but what does it really mean?
Sometimes a positive culture can be confused with ‘fun stuff’ - the cool offices that have ping pong tables, bean bags and a sandpit to play in. Or sometimes confused with ‘perks’ - the organisations that offer unlimited holidays, flexitime and free breakfast.
Just as your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room - I would say a decent measure of your company culture is what your leavers say about your business.
This book highlights the key cultural elements that make up of one of the world’s current ‘cool’ organisations, Netflix, from the view of Patty McCord who helped to create their famous ‘culture deck’.
The author
From her website: Patty believes people come to work as fully formed adults with a desire to make an impact and be proud of what they do and she’s on a mission to spread the word that we can do this differently.
Personally, I think it’d be great if more people responsible for humans in organisations thought this way - everybody has applied for their job, so let’s take the starting point that they genuinely want to be good at it, and build an environment to make that happen.
Here’s a video of Patty doing her thing:
What has this book encouraged me to do differently?
It has shown me that the ideals that we hope to instil in business, that so often don’t progress beyond an individual or team level, really can be scaled up and become the norm in a successful global organisation.
The key concepts in the book often sound very much like common sense (like so much good advice often is!).
Ensure everybody knows the business - not just their own area, and not just the share price - but get a better understanding of what life is like in each department. How does what you do affect the accounts team? Are the requests you make easy or difficult for the tech team? By doing something a certain way, how does this affect the end customer? Take the time to know other areas of the business, how it all comes together, and how you contribute to it all in the most positive possible way.
Another key area is around employee fit and knowing your value. Netflix encourages you to go for interviews elsewhere… yes, with their competitors. Why? Because they are confident in their culture - if you genuinely think you’d be more content elsewhere, chances are you’re not the best long-term fit for Netflix, so it’s probably best you go now to make everyone happier in the long run. This process also gives employees a great awareness of their value in the market, which levels of seniority and salary they are best aligned with, and leaves no surprises at promotion / salary review time.
My favourite concept of the book is to make your organisation ‘a great place to be from’. Accept that people will move on, but in the time you have them, treat them well so they are proud to have worked with you and willingly tell anybody this in the future. Many new recruits at Netflix are recommended by former employees - there is very little need for recruiters, their wide reaching recruitment network consists of the highly skilled and knowledgable people that already know the business inside-out because they have worked there, and loved it.
Is your current organisation a great place to be from? Maybe have a browse of some of Patty’s work to see the difference you could make.
Will There Be Donuts? - David Pearl
Why read this book?
Have you ever been in a meeting where you were bored, disinterested, unclear on what was being achieved, or confused as to why you were there at all? Are there some meetings where the only thing you hope for is doughnuts? Everybody has had these experiences at work, and this book is for you.
A book about meetings doesn’t sound particularly interesting, but this one combines a friendly conversational style of writing, with some common sense advice and a refreshing view of how we communicate that can really help you to both lead and attend better meetings.
David covers the differences between ‘nearly meeting’ and ‘really meeting’ as well as working through many different types of meetings and how to get the best from each.
The intro ends with “Remember, this isn’t a book about boring meetings and whether you want to have them. It’s a book about boring lives and whether you want to live one.”
The author
David Pearl has experience of opera, theatre, film and broadcasting - now bringing all of this diverse experience to the corporate world to inspire creativity and fun.
Here’s a quick video of David chatting about meetings:
What has this book encouraged me to do differently?
Easy. To do what everybody has always wanted to do with meetings, but nobody ever realised it was OK to do.
There are far too many traditions, expectations and ‘etiquette’ things around meetings. Like when you’re invited to a meeting, you go to it. If there is a recurring weekly meeting, it happens every week. And meetings are always scheduled to last 30/60/90/120 minutes.
This book encourages you to reconsider all of the traditions. If you’re invited to a meeting, only go if it’s relevant for you to be there. If there is a recurring meeting, only make it happen when it actually needs to happen - don’t meet for the sake of meeting. And if a meeting finishes early… end it. Stop. Give people their time back.
Sometimes these things need a little bravery - breaking the traditions is the first step, then you need to take on the role of meeting hijacker to take the remaining meetings from OK to amazing…
The book will help you to address the things people don’t speak about, to enlist new recruits to your team of meeting hijackers, and generally start ‘really’ meeting people and making better use of your time.
Life Will See You Now - Gavin Oattes
Why read this book?
I mean, why wouldn’t you… this book will make you smile, make you consider the important things in life, and make you feel like Gavin is your mate.
It’s funny, lighthearted and easy-to-read, but also a serious, thought-provoking and honest collection of thoughts and stories from the life of a slightly (OK, very) sweary Scotsman. What is there not to like?
On the fun side there’s the joy of massive crisps, ice lollies, sandpits and using oranges as marketing material. On the more ‘thinky’ side there are honest and touching tales of feelings, emotions and chasing success… whatever the hell success even is.
The author
Gavin Oattes has been a teacher and comedian, and is now a motivational speaker, author and Managing Director of Tree of Knowledge.
On one hand, he seems like a really normal bloke. He writes like he’s telling you a story down the pub, and by the end of the book, you feel like you really know him. Both the successes and the struggles.
On the other hand, he is absolutely not a normal bloke. He has infectious enthusiasm and energy, driven to help everybody embrace their inner kid and be a fantastic human. Absolutely not normal, average or ‘meh’.
What has this book encouraged me to do differently?
To think about success - what is it? What does it look like? What happens when you ‘make’ it? Just do your best people. Stop chasing a dream, especially if that means you become a dick along the way.
For me the main message of the book is to just concentrate on being happy, on what matters most, and be a decent human. If you can do that, while not taking yourself too seriously, having fun and embracing your inner-child, you can’t go too far wrong. And if you’re going to do something - commit to it, fully, all-in, every time, like a child.
It’s also an interesting, and very honest, insight into the thoughts of someone - who looks from the outside to be very ‘successful’ - to help you realise that we’re all just people, we all have struggles and crap thoughts, and there are many things and people that’ll help in those times. I think this book is something that’ll help in those times.
Go and read it.
And find a massive crisp while you’re at it.
Switch - Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Why read this book?
Some wise person once said that ‘the only constant in life is change’ - everyone experiences change, all the time, and if you’re not currently experiencing change… maybe there’s something you’d like to change?
This book is an easy read, focused on a very simple formula for handling change effectively, brought to life by many examples illustrating how the concepts have worked in real life… from how much popcorn cinema goers eat and changing the habits of miserable accountants, to saving a rare species of parrot and saving many thousands of human lives in hospitals.
The authors
Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Dan Heath, a senior fellow at Duke University’s CASE centre, which supports social entrepreneurs. They write in a very relaxed, anecdotal way… you even get to know about how they got on with salsa dance lessons.
Here’s Chip talking about the book:
What has this book encouraged me to do differently?
To consider any changes, large or small, in a more structured way - specifically that three main areas need to be addressed to maximise the chances of success. Chip and Dan describe these three elements as the Rider, the Elephant and the Path.
Imagine every change initiative is like successfully riding an elephant from point A to point B.
You need to provide reason, logic and clear instruction to the Rider - they are human after all, they like to understand things.
You need to provide motivation, momentum and emotion for the Elephant - if an elephant isn’t motivated to move, the rider doesn’t have the power to make it shift.
And the Path - make that as smooth as possible, removing as many obstacles as you can - because even if you have a clear direction and a content elephant, a mountainous path with hurdles will cause issues. Elephants are not good at mountains, or hurdles.
There are handy ‘clinics’ scattered throughout the book as well - case studies that you may well encounter in real life, with tips on how to handle the desired change in the most effective way. Definitely a book I’ll keep going back to for tips.
Everybody Matters - Bob Chapman & Raj Sisodia
Why read this book?
It does exactly as the title suggests, showing you what can be achieved in business when ‘everybody matters’. Rather than a theoretical look at leadership, this book outlines how Bob Chapman, over the course of many years and many mistakes, came up with his own practical methods for turning around struggling businesses by focusing on people over everything else. This book follows Bob’s journey and business philosophies.
The author
Bob Chapman is Chairman and CEO of global manufacturing business, Barry-Wehmiller. After some initial struggles, he turned around the fortunes of the business and has since overseen around 90 successful acquisitions.
Raj Sisodia is an international speaker and author on organisational philosophy.
Here’s a video of Bob:
What has this book encouraged me to do differently?
To rethink how business is done. Or more how business can to be done. As Simon Sinek mentions in the foreward, organisations focusing solely on people are an optimist’s dream. But as Bob has achieved it, it’s no longer just for optimists, but can be a dream for realists too.
97% of ‘Lean’ initiatives fail. Organisations cut costs, reduce waste, increase efficiencies and streamline processes. But they make the decisions based on numbers, not humans. So the humans often end up miserable, with a lack of control, lack of trust, lack of purpose and the general feeling that their employee doesn’t care about them.
This book encourages you to consider each employee as a human - which sounds like common sense, but is very rarely done especially in times of redundancy, downsizing and restructuring. Would you want your children to be treated the way your employees currently are?
Leadership should be considered an honour, you have people’s time and feelings entrusted to you - do what you can to send them home happy and make this the culture of your organisation. Happy, engaged and cared for employees, that are genuinely listened to, may just surprise you with the performance levels they achieve.
Who knows, by taking a more human approach to leadership, your business may experience the levels of commitment and loyalty experienced by Bob. They’ve even developed their own in-house ‘university’ where all lecturers are employees - to ensure the culture and principles continue to be spread through every new business acquisition.
From reframing leadership, building a culture and planning for the future; to providing freedom, recognising success and humanising every process… worth a read to see how things can work very differently.
Biased - Jennifer L Eberhardt
Why read this book?
Everybody knows of bias (whether that be unconscious or otherwise), stereotypes and outright prejudice - this book uses science and research to tell the story of bias. Where it comes from, how it develops, historical elements and personal anecdotes. It makes you step back and think about how biases are a product of entirely normal brain function as well as societal influences.
Why do ethnic minorities need to ‘whiten’ their CVs to level the recruitment playing field… why do women need to do blind auditions to join an orchestra… why are the general public, criminals and police officers all be treated differently based on race… this book covers it.
The author
Jennifer L Eberhardt is a professor of psychology at Stanford, specialising in the psychological association between race and crime. Although this book does focus heavily on race and crime, it also touches on gender, the workplace, education, black history and uncensored anecdotes of a black person growing up in the USA.
Here’s her intro to the book:
What has this book encouraged me to do differently?
To think. A lot.
Although it is written in a very engaging and personal way, this book is in no way a platform for personal views. It’s a description of how the world currently works backed up by literally millions of pieces of data - from court rulings and arrest statistics, to job applications and umpire decisions in baseball.
I now better understand that white privilege isn’t the presence of something… wealth, health or preferential treatment. It is the absence of experiencing race-related bias.
The world works disproportionately against minorities, and a ‘colour-blind’ approach isn’t going to address that. Treating every disability the same wouldn’t work - blind people and wheelchair users have very different needs and should be treated as such. Due to the weight of human history and fundamental elements of psychology, certain races or backgrounds also face different challenges which need to be recognised before they can be addressed.
Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker
Why read this book?
I really like sleep, and had always thought I was very good at it too! This book encourages you to consider sleep in a different way - covering the function and benefits of sleep, the impact of not sleeping, the role dreaming, and implications for the real world. By real world I don’t mean what this means for future academic research and scientific discovery, but what it means for you as a human right now, what you can do to maximise the benefit of your sleep and the impact this would have on your health, career and performance.
The author
Matthew Walker is professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley, and formerly professor of psychiatry at Harvard. Yes, he’s a scientist and an academic - he brings all the detail, references and experiment-based evidence you’d expect from someone with his experience, but it’s also easy to read, it isn’t too heavy.
He’s also done a TED talk:
What has this book encouraged me do differently?
It has made me value sleep more (and I was already a very big fan!) - I’m no longer tempted to ‘just get that done’ before finishing work for the day. By doing this you’re enforcing a double effect - not only are you doing a worse job now as you’re tired, but you’re also affecting the next day… your ability to work to your potential, to drive, to even function at all.
Knowing that sleep deprivation world record attempts are not recognised due to the possibility of death, and that pilots are encouraged to nap early in a long haul flight to help their performance later (i.e. when landing a plane) really makes you think about working late yourself, and the impact this has on professions such as junior doctors.
I also have a much clearer understanding of how substances and routines affect sleep - caffeine won’t wake me up, but it will block the systems which help me to fall asleep - once those effects wear off, I’m going to crash faster than ever! Blue light is bad, alarm clocks cause mini heart attacks and alcohol is a big no-no for both sleep quality and memory retention.
There are also implications for creativity and maximising your performance in this area… but I won’t give away all the secrets… go read the book, it’s a good’un.
Rest - Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
I’ve read it - and my thinkings about it will appear here shortly!
In the meantime, here’s a video overview from the author to get you interested: