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Books / Blinkist Management

Books​

  • 97 Things every Engineering Manager should know - Camille Fournier
  • Reworkby Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
  • Team Topologies - Matthew skelton
  • The Manager's Path - Camille Fournier
  • The New Strategist: Shape Your Organization and Stay Ahead of Change by Gèunter Mèuller-Stewens

What you don't know about leadership, But probably should. by Jeffery A Kottler​

  • Good leaders understand their own ignorance and respect their subordinates' expertise

  • Good leaders understand the power of meaningful communication, so ban mobile phones from the meeting room

  • Great leaders share three attributes, but poor leaders tend to have one thing in common

    • Self confidence - calm under pressure

    • Proactive spirit

    • Deligent and reliable

    • Inspire loyalty

  • Terrible leadership at work has terrible implications at home

    • kick the dog behavior

  • The best leaders promote trust and make sure staff feel cared for and valued

  • Effective, stress-free leaders stay calm and confident under pressure and don't worry about what they can't control

Poke the Box by Seth Godin (18 June 2018)​

Inovation is the key to success, and it comes from poking the box, seeing what the response is and testing out exciting ideas. Bringing an idea to life is easier said than done but by recognizing our fears around failure, we can push ourselves to take the big leap into the unknown. Whether it's a ground-breaking concept or a small, personal project, every endeavor requires the appropriate amount of attention, preparedness and determination to see it through to the end.

The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle (20 June 2018)​

  • Group Culture - Relationships between people working together to achieve a common aim
  • Cultivating a sense of safety and belonging is the foundation of a strong group culture
  • Let people know that you're listening to them and that you know you aren't perfect
  • Share your vulnerabilities is vital if you want your group to perform at its highest level
  • Communicate your expectation that people will cooperate, and lead the way by showing your vulnerabilities
  • Establishing a common sense of purpose is the secret to unlocking great group performance
  • If you want to build a sense of purpose, repeat it again and again and don't shy away from corny slogans

Fit for growth by Vinay Couto et. al​

  • Cost cutting
  • Outsourcing
  • Restructuring
  • Renewal

The Idea-Driven Organization by Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder​

  • Be humble
  • Good listener
  • Going to the gemba (Gemba is a Japanese word that refers to the actual place where the real work is done)
  • Kaizen teian (Philosophy of how small changes, routinely applied and sustained over a long period of time, lead to significant benefits for a business)
  • Idea activators (teaching new skills which can used to create new ideas)
  • Idea mining

The Failure of Risk Management by Douglas W. Hubbard​

  • Relationship between risks should also be taken in account while performing risk assessment
  • Expert opinions are often biased

We fail to remember all the times the weather prediction was correct

  • Calibration training can improve probability estimation by reducing overconfidence
    • Test for ranges
    • Post-mortem analysis
  • Estimate your risks with the most accuracy by using the Monte Carlo Simulation
  • Technique of deconstruction

Calculate risk of all parts of a system individually and then between them.

  • Compare your model to real facts and determine what additional information is worth to you.
    • Expected value of additional information
    • Expected opportunity loss (expected cost of being wrong)
  • Build a scenario library - a collection of standard corporate risk scenarios replete with a set of variables and correlations.

The five most important questions you will ever ask about your organization by Peter F. Drucker (9 July 2018)​

  • What is our mission
  • Who is our customer
  • What does the customer value
  • What are our results
  • What is our plan

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman (14 July 2018)​

  • Multipliers - who can join any team and make it flourish
  • Diminishers - bad leaders, who can drain any team of its energy and drive
  • Liberator
  • Challenger
  • Decision Maker / Debate Maker
  • Investor

Leadershift by John C. Maxwell (23 Apr 2019)​

The 11 essential changes every leader must embrace

  • Great leaders bring out the best in everyone, rather than seeking to shine themselves
  • Developing a growth mind-set is a better approach than focusing on hitting simple goals
  • Great leaders don't simply climb up the ladder; through mentoring, they build ladders for others to climb
  • Connecting with people achieves better results than simply directing them
  • Making the shift to valuing diversity will bring greater value and richness to your leadership and life
  • Embracing moral authority is the pathway to great leadership
  • The best lives have meaning, so embrace the leadershift from career to calling
  • Actionable advice - File away everything you learn

Growth IQ by Tiffani Bova (2 May 2019)​

Get smarter about the choices that will make or break your business

  • Start growing you business by prioritizing customer experience today
  • Get the most out of your existing customers by focusing on customer base penetration
  • Market acceleration offers your business new growth opportunities
  • Expanding your product line (product expansion) is key to success in changing markets
  • Customer and product diversification is risky and costly, but the potential benefits are often huge
  • Optimize sales to make it easy for customers to buy your products
  • Winning new clients isn't enough - minimizing customer turnover, or churn, is just as important
  • Hit your growth targets more quickly by embracing partnerships
  • Coopetition isn't easy but entering alliances with competitors might just pay off
  • Boost your business by pursuing unconventional strategies and recognizing the right moment for new growth paths

Timing with monitoring, preparation and execution.

No Bullshit Leadership by Christ Hirst (21 May 2019)​

Why the world needs more everyday leaders and why that leader is you

  • Leaders are individuals who captain their ship and the people on it from one place to another
  • Leadership is all about execution, decision-making and not being afraid to make mistakes
  • Changing an organization's culture empowers people to make decisions for themselves
  • Behind every great leader is a legion of ambitious yet dependable followers
  • The best leaders radiate energy and resilience, which they pass on to their whole team
  • Even the most broken of teams can be revived with proper leadership
  • Actionable advice - Don't forget to make time for downtime

5 Voices by Jeremie Kubiceck and Steve Cockram (21 Jun 2019)​

How to communicate effectively with everyone you lead

  • Nurturers look out for others rather than themselves, and often go unheard

    • values the input of others and emphasizes group harmony

  • Creatives are the voices of innovation, but people often struggle to understand their ideas

  • Guardians seek to protect traditional values and are highly pragmatic

  • Connectors bring people together, forge new bonds and maintain existing relationships

  • Pioneers are fanatical about achieving their goals and don't shy away from making tough calls

  • Encourage nurturers to speak up and allow creatives to think outside the box

  • Letting guardians ask tough questions, encouraging connectors' passions and asking pioneers to speak last will lead to more positive meetings

  • The most effective team managers lead by example and control their own voices

  • Actionable advice - Question ingrained biases against certain voices in your culture

It Doesn't Have to be crazy at work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (2 July 2019)​

Model a great work-life balance

  • Do whatever you want your employees to do (like taking vacation, leaving the office at a decent hour and taking time off when they're ill)

Extraordinary Influence by Tim Irwin (21 Aug 2019)​

How great leaders bring out the best in others

  • The human brain loves affirmation, but it needs more than a pat on the back
  • Affirmation works best when you focus on personal strengths and professional competencies
  • Effective affirmation strengthens profound values, especially when you use the right words
  • Criticism has lasting negative effects on the brain, especially when it's made in public
  • Rebuilding trust in individuals and the group can help companies overcome crises
  • Lots of companies are putting affirmation at the heart of their performance review systems
  • It's much better to give kids affirmative and constructive feedback than to yell at them
  • Actionable advice - Improve your self-awareness by journaling

Blinkist - Meltdown by Chris Clearfield and Andras Tilcsik, Why our systems fail and what we can do about it. (9 Oct 2019) (Risk Management and Mitigation)​

  • Why bad things happen when Captain is flying the plane instead of co-pilot because of hierarchy
  • Actionable advice: premortem, prospective hindsight
  • Ignore the warning signs in metro rails collision
  • Planes never leave the incident report in dust, they always take action on that
  • Reflection and iteration are essential coping strategies for high pressure situations
  • Using agile methodology in home, where you discuss everyday what went well and what not, and what can be done to improve it
  • Building diverse teams helps reduce risk and improve results for organizations
  • Encouraging dissent makes team more effective and systems stronger
  • Using structured decision-making tools can help you avoid disasters big and small, using SPIES instead of confidence interval
  • Confidence interval has a very narrow range of values, SPIES (Subjective Probability Interval Estimates) pushes to consider broader range of possibilities.
  • Also predetermined criteria can help
  • Failures can be avoided by reducing complexity and increasing buffer between the parts of any system (Gear, Mountain Climbing, Bakery, Opaque systems)
  • You don't need to predict it to prevent it
  • Complex tightly coupled systems

9 Lies about work by Marcus Buckingham​

  • People care which company they work for
  • The best plan wins
  • The best companies cascade goals
  • The best people are well-rounded
  • People need feedback
  • People can reliably rate other people
  • People have potential
  • Work-life balance matters most
  • Leadership is a thing

Blinkist - All you have to do is Ask - Wayne Baker​

How to master the most important skill for success

  • Reciprocity Ring (pay it forward)
  • Psychological safety in workplace
  • Types
    • The overly generous givers
    • The selfish takers
    • The loan wolves
    • The giver requester

Blinkist - Think like an entrepreneur, act like a CEO by Beverly E. Jones (14 Jan 2019)​

50 indespensable tips to help you stay afloat, bounce back, and get ahead at work

  • For a strong start to a new endeavor, make a plan
  • intrapreneur - An intrapreneur takes initiative by handling what needs to be done whether or not they're asked to do so.
  • A CEO mind-set keeps you steady when change is constant

That means focusing on the big picture, making sure that you understand your industy and the factors that affect it. This means keeping an eye on the market you work in, the regulatory framework of your industry, changes in the political environment and innovations on the horizon.

  • Praise benefits both the giver and the receiver, so handle it gracefully
  • The Sugar Grain Principle (incremental change) helps you tackel career change gradually
  • Leaving a job the right way can create opportunities in the future
  • Do a little something every day

Blinkist - Social Chemistry by Marissa King (Networking)​

Decoding the patterns of human connection

Networking Styles​

Expansionist​

Hit at every conference and cocktail hour. Ease with approaching strangers and exceptionally talented at forging spontaneous ties.

Broker​

Tends to have a diverse network of people with diferent interests and expertise.

Convenor​

Network is closely interconnected. Valued and intimate friends

  • The ideal network blends quality and quantity
  • Convenors create networks based on trust, itimacy and exclusivity
  • Brokers bring diverse connections together
  • Expansionists have impressively board networks

Networking is overrated and probably not worth doing … for most people

The Hammurabi Code (Skin in the Game)​

Around 18th Century BC lived a King named Hammurabi who instituted a social law now known as the Hammurabi's code. It is the one of the first evidence of law ever written down. One ofthe principle features of the code was about the builder - If a builder built a house for a man & the house collapses to cause the death of the owner, then the builder has to be put to death.