Review: Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting insights into the significant impact of critical women who made the internet.

There are so many historical stories here that are never told, which is extremely disappointing; not the least that computing itself was originally seen a predominately female career.

The individual, and inspiring stories in this book provide great insights into the women who made the internet.

Sadly, the author does not explore the stories in a way the engages the reader, but rather leaves you wondering more about these remarkable leaders in technology.

"Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet" is a fascinating read but somewhat disappointing in respect to the depth and the understanding the women themselves. It leaves you wondering too much how they thought about their amazing roles.

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Review: The Truth About Employee Engagement: A Fable About Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery

The Truth About Employee Engagement: A Fable About Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery by Patrick Lencioni
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just cannot fault the books by Patrick Lencioni.

The style of a fable, the key messages around leadership and the challenge he puts out there for us all to get better is brilliant.

This book focuses on the "job misery" model of irrelevance, immeasurement (yes he uses a non-word, let's just get over it) and anonymity.

Essentially, he provides 3 themes to address to achieve powerful engagement:
- People cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known. All human beings need to be understood and appreciated for their unique qualities by someone in a position of authority.
Irrelevance
- Everyone needs to know that their job matters, to someone. Anyone. Without seeing a connection between the work and the satisfaction of another person or group of people, an employee simply will not find lasting fulfillment.
- Employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves. They cannot be fulfilled in their work if their success depends on the opinions or whims of another person.

Another brilliant Patrick Lencioni book.

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Review: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Daniel Pink's "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" is a 2-part book on challenging the carrot-and-stick operating system (aka model) in enterprises.

The first half of the book is a philosophical and research exploration of the "operating systems" that motivate people in any part of their life. Daniel explores this using the two lenses of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and how each of these are important to any reward system. The second half of the book are techniques, tools and research materials to help the reader in progressing further.

“When institutions—families, schools, businesses, and athletic teams, for example—focus on the short-term and opt for controlling people’s behavior,” they do considerable long-term damage."

Using research studies across the globe, Daniel challenges organisations and leaders to consider that motivation is about purpose, learning, growing, delighting customers, and doing one's best. The specific focus is on how to help people get into "flow" (that state of mind where everything is in sync and life is wonderful) in their life and their work.

"The problem with making an extrinsic reward the only destination that matters is that some people will choose the quickest route there, even if it means taking the low road."

This book does not conclude that extrinsic rewards are not appropriate, but rather that to truly help people achieve flow "Motivation 3.0" it is about elevating the intrinsic factors for each person.

A book worth reading, albeit for me, I would have preferred it was split into 2 different books. Why? I felt that the first half was cut-off too quickly and more exploration of the concepts was required. However, the first half was fantastic and well worth the read.

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Review: Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable about Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable about Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors by Patrick Lencioni
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Patrick Lencioni delivers another brilliant leadership book.

In an era of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), over 10 years ago Patrick was describing in this fable the importance of knocking down walls that divide through thematic goals, objectives and measures.

The most important aspect of this fable (told through a series of fictional companies) is how the executive team are a single team with one common objective, being the successful delivery to their purpose.

Patrick explores that silos, politics and turf wars are driven from the top, in how the executive team engage each other and work together. To do this, the book covers,

- How to recognize the signs of the devastating power of silos.
- Why it is necessary to take steps to start knocking down the walls that divide departments.
- How to create a rallying cry or an over-arching thematic goal.
- How to determine an organization’s defining objectives and standard operating objectives.
- Why it is important to measure and monitor your organization’s performance against these goals.
- How employees can survive the confusion that is often found in matrix organizations.

This is the 3rd book by Patrick Lencioni I have read and each has been brilliant.

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Review: The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The Four Disciplines at the Heart of Making Any Organization World Class

The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The Four Disciplines at the Heart of Making Any Organization World Class by Patrick Lencioni
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The presentation of a leadership book as a fable (story) is brilliant.

Patrick Lencioni's timeless classic outlines 4 disciplines that every executive / leader should focus on:

DISCIPLINE ONE: BUILD AND MAINTAIN A COHESIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM.
DISCIPLINE TWO: CREATE ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY.
DISCIPLINE THREE: OVER-COMMUNICATE ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY.
DISCIPLINE FOUR: REINFORCE ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY THROUGH HUMAN SYSTEMS.

An important part of this book is the fact the leadership groups, and in particular executive meetings have the following elements (spoilers ahead):

- Passionate. Intense. Exhausting. Never boring.
- For cohesive teams, meetings are compelling and vital.
- They are forums for asking difficult questions, challenging one another’s ideas, and ultimately arriving at decisions that everyone agrees to support and adhere to, in the best interests of the company.
- Members hold their peers accountable for behaviors that are not conducive to team performance.
- No one reads e-mail or does ancillary busywork during meetings, even when the issue on the table is not directly related to them.
- Everyone is involved and awake. If an issue hits the agenda and it is not compelling or critical, team members question whether it is worth their time.
- Finally, cohesive teams fight. But they fight about issues, not personalities. Most important, when they are done fighting, they have an amazing capacity to move on to the next issue, with no residual feelings.

This can all be summarised into,

BE COHESIVE. BE CLEAR. OVER-COMMUNICATE. REINFORCE.

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Review: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There were some great moments in this book; valuable to help deal with the world, life and being.

The fact I made 175 highlights confirms there were moments of great thought. The focus on moral compass and the value of exploring your Being; are helpful insights into improving our lives.

However, as the last chapters/rules dragged on, the writing became somewhat arrogant and in my view had a tinge of sexism; or at least misconstrued opinion on the roles of gender in our society.

As with any book, reading it gave me another persons perspective, some worthwhile and some not.

(By the way, the writing style makes this a challenging read sometimes, and hence the time it takes to finish)

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Review: People Over Profit: Break the System, Live with Purpose, Be More Successful

People Over Profit: Break the System, Live with Purpose, Be More Successful by Dale Partridge
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dale Partridge highlights at the end of this great book, that it is short; why?

Because people matter, and filling the book with unneccessary information or repeating things is wasting our time.

This book is definetely not a waste of time. It was so good that I could not even get to the end before I wrote a blog post, called the "The booger on your face".

Dale Partridge outlines "seven core beliefs shared by those focused on their core vision and impervious to compromise",

- People Matter
- Truth Wins
- Transparency Frees
- Authenticity Attracts
- Quality Speaks
- Generosity Returns
- Courage Sustains

This is a brilliant book, and well worth the few short hours it will take you to read.

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Review: The Blue Zones of Happiness: A Blueprint for a Better Life

The Blue Zones of Happiness: A Blueprint for a Better Life by Dan Buettner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting insights into the 3 Ps of passion, purpose and pleasure, and what that means for country, community and self.

Dan explores the 3 Ps through the lens of the cocentric circles of your life. He takes an outward (worldly) to inward (self) view of the role of the 3Ps. Providing examples and tips/techniques.

To provide content, the 3 Ps are:

Pride This doesn’t mean arrogance, instead, the author is talking about an overall sense of satisfaction with your life. When you look back on your life, do you feel a sense of pride about who you are and what you have done?

Pleasure This is about your experiences and emotions. People high in pleasure report more positive experiences and fewer negative experiences, and also report higher levels of positive emotions and lower levels of negative emotions.

Purpose Purpose asks whether you believe you are engaging in meaningful pursuits on a daily basis. For example, do you find your job meaningful, or is it just a paycheck?

This is potentially not a book you need to read from start to finish. The better option is to focus more on which aspects suit your personal and/or community needs at the time.

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