I love looking back and reviewing the books I read in a year. As part of a yearly personal wrap up, the practice helps me to reflect & connect the dots in a continuous pattern of learning and exploring. Here are the books I read in 2019, and the first thought that comes to my mind in reflection. This time, I put my top 3 in order of favorites, while the rest are in no order of preference.
- ) The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, Mehrsa Baradaran
It’s helpful for me to understand the world, or even a project, in a cycle depiction. Either a positive cycle (habits loops, company “flywheel” etc.) or a viscous cycle of why something may have degenerated or failed to grow. This book painted a very clear picture for me to understand the viscous cycle that resulted in continued economic stagnation for minority neighborhoods, particularly African American, in America. In particular, the way in which an otherwise virtuous cycle of generations’ economic status growing via home ownership investment, being a trapped in a viscous cycle for African Americans, with clear data on the tangible effects of racism on purchase price & neighborhood valuation.
For more reflection, I synthesized my thoughts on this book in a “lyrical book report” shared at Makespace in April (2:11 in this video)
2.) Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, James Clear
New favorite book on habits & human behavior, after initial skepticism about whether it was worth the time to read. Already well familiar with The Power of Habit & other habit preachers, I didn’t know if this would be helpful. It was a jolt I need in refreshing my habit design, taking the type of knowledge core to Power of Habit into a sort of user guide on designing different types of habit systems. …”You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems”.
3.) Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein
Explore a range of curiosities in life, and apply skill & knowledge sets to unexpected places. I was left with the impression of “find a crossroads”. With the Dilbert comic author as an example: he was at best an ordinary comedian, ordinary writer, ordinary business person. Applying knowledge/ability of each, however, and Dilbert resulted as an extra-ordinary creation at those cross-roads.
The War of Art & Do The Work, Steven Pressfield
- Two very short, very impactful works. I’ve read War of Art several times now. Pressfield stirs the blood for any writer, entrepreneur, etc. in a series of stanza-like pages. You can’t walk away from these not fired up. My takeaway: seeing and battling against “The Resistance”. Having a right to the work, not to the rewards (as derived from the Bhagavad Gita, a source of Pressfield’s inspiration).
Questions Are The Answer, Hal Gregersen
- Perhaps it’s obvious why I love this book! Gregersen’s “Question Burst” exercise, which he uses at the MIT Innovation Lab, is the aspect I most associate this book with, along with being a wealth of knowledge into the educational, work, and life benefits of developing an instinct & habit for asking questions!
The Moment of Lift, Melinda Gates
- Melinda and Bill Gates have such an enlightening way of describing and dissecting the world’s major problems into understandable sequences of logic. In this book, Melinda hones in on “how empowering women changes the world”. After reading Melinda’s book, I felt thatI better understood the resource and culture constraints holding back 3rd world progress; in many cases specifically rooted in the dis-empowerment of women.
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma
- I picked this up on an airport book shelf in Thailand. Values-based living, healthy habits, motivation for meditation practices and healthy eating (the former of which I’m in a good standing with, the later of which I have much room to grow in 2020 : )
The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch
- Short life, live it fully! Don’t procrastinate on doing that thing you’re nervous about doing.
The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier
- “And what else?” …an excellent book on using question-asking (the author provides 7) as an approach to coaching. Helpful book in portraying & teaching the difference between a “manager” and a “coach”.
Measure What Matters, John Doerr
- Superpowers of OKRs (“Objectives & Key Results”) to align an organization’s focus, and break down the North Star mission into measurable objectives & key results. Packback has been using the OKR goal-setting framework since 2017, yet this book helped provide me with a whole-picture understanding on the strengths & vulnerabilities of the framework. A key takeaway for me was to accompany organizational OKRs with “Continuous Performance Management” systems, which led to Packback adopting 15Five as a performance software.
Educated, Tara Westover
- Danger of a closed/tormented mind in power & isolation. Inspiration for how much adversity self-motivated learning can overcome.
Billion Dollar Whale, Tom Wright
- Greed never leads down the right lane. Deceit never stays hidden under the rock forever. Our financial system, globally, still has so many pockets, loop holes, and gray areas for a story like this to occur.
Make It Stick, Peter Brown & Mark McDaniel
- Learning science flywheel of: Codification → Consolidation → Retrieval Practice. Mental model formation, merits of spacing out retrieval of information, written reflection, applying concepts in different fields, and much more. This was a super helpful book for me in continually polishing my own “mental model” into the science of how learning occurs!
Sales Acceleration Formula, Mark Roberge
- Third time going back to re-read this book over the past 5 years. Here’s why: building a company can feel like an unpredictable haze at times, particularly when striving to scale at a predictable rate. The difference between prospering and failing does, in large part, come down to the ability to expand the product or service’s reach through the vehicle of a sales organization. This book, recommended to me long ago, is the most dependable guide I know for designing systematic order to the otherwise hazy chaos of scaling growth.
The Bhaghavad Gita, introduced & translated by Eknath Easwaran
- Be alike in both victory & defeat. You have a right to the labor, but not to the fruits of the labor. Aim for results, while renouncing attachment to the results.
How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt
- Heightened appreciation that democracy is not a guarantee. Better understanding of the “gatekeepers” of upholding democracy. There’s an interesting & conflicting theme I observed: the “gatekeepers” that this book outlines as having been dangerously broken through by Trump, represent the same closed-room network that have maintained the socioeconomic detriments of the status quo in America. My resulting question is, how do we uphold the safety measures of democracy, while not rigidly preserving status quo constraints?
The Greatest Salesperson in the World, Og Mandino
- Actually not a sales book at all, this is an excellent tale, similar to The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, of the main character following a quest to build a good life, healthy habits, and core values. In a fun way, the story narrates how in developing these traits, the character can better attain the success they seek. A short read that I recommend as a good intro/refresher/motivator for core values and healthy habits!
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Ownes
- Thoroughly enjoyable! I tend, unfortunately, not to read a ton of fiction throughout the year. This book reminded me why I should read more. My lasting recollection is of the young girl’s resilient & improbable underdog life, and relentless curiosity as a self-driven learner.
Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell
- Well written as Gladwell’s books always are. I’m left with an insightful view on the “false positives” I’m prone to make in first/in-person impressions with people, particularly in interview settings. However, I felt the closing argument Gladwell makes in this book took liberty of too many assumptions and is one that I’m not in agreement with him on.
Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni
- A litmus test for viewing, assessing, and challenging the progress of forming a healthy team. Helped me refine my lens through which do develop this within our intra-teams at Packback, and has been a continued exercise at leadership off-sites.
Traction, Gino Wickman
- Systems, systems, systems. If “5 Dysfunctions” depicts how a high functioning team ought to act, this book and it’s underlining “Entrepreneurial Operating System” (EOS) approach provides a helpful user guide on how to execute.
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable, Patrick Lencioni
- Create & over-communicate systems of organizational clarity!
Death by Meeting, Patrick Lencioni
- I added this book to the queue during a period in 2019 wherein I was honed in on improving meetings as a key medium through which to continually improve upon operational excellence at Packback. Kind of a dry story to be honest, not sure it warranted a whole book, but hammered home the core points that Lencioni identifies in his [better] book “Five Dysfunctions of a Team”.
Original post via Medium on Jan 13, 2020·7 min read