I’ve always been interested in finding new ways for organizations to operate. When I was early in my career, I always had a habit of questioning the conventional wisdom of policies and procedures. I always want to know if the actions that we’re doing are delivering the results that we’re expecting. This led me on a journey to understand how teams function and to go beyond the easy answers.
Technology is rarely the problem in most organizations. It’s people, processes, and how the two come together to create a web of dysfunction.
I loved Turn the Ship Around because it takes you on a journey from start to finish and sprinkles the lessons for change throughout that journey. The book taught the importance of empowering leadership throughout an organization.
As leaders we can do more harm than good by accidentally hording the power of decision making. This book will teach you to undo that mistake.
"Leadership should mean giving control rather than taking control and creating leaders rather than forging followers."
David Marquet, an experienced Navy officer, was used to giving orders. As newly appointed captain of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine, he was responsible for more than a hundred sailors, deep in the sea. In this high-stress environment, where there is no margin for error, it was crucial his men did their job and did it well. But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention in the fleet.
Our work environments are complicated. We don’t always recognize how something seemingly unrelated can have a huge impact on another item or task way downstream.
Being able to think and view the world through the lens of systems opens your approach to solving problems both technical and human. Reading this book helped me make the connection that change control policies were the cause of our increased failure rates.
These sorts of unlikely relationships are what thinking with a systems mindset allows you to create.
The book does a thorough job of taking you through the language of systems, diagramming systems, and walking you through some real-world examples. It’s the perfect tool for your career toolbox.
The classic book on systems thinking, with more than half a million copies sold worldwide!
This is a fabulous book. This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing. Forbes
Perfect for fans of Kate Raworth, Rutger Bregman and Daniel Kahneman!
The co-author of the international best-selling book Limits to Growth, Donella Meadows is widely regarded as a pioneer in the environmental movement and one of the world's foremost systems analysts . Her posthumously published Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to…
It’s amazing how invisible work can destroy the productivity of a team.
This book teaches why it’s critical to make your work visible. It has a bend towards agile working environments, but it can honestly be used anywhere with a little bit of adaptation.
The author uses the idea of a “time thief” to help illustrate her point and to help you, the reader, conceptualize just what this lack of visible work is costing you.
Today's workers are drowning: nonstop requests for time, days filled to the brim with meetings, and endless nights spent heroically fixing the latest problems. This churn and burn is creating a workforce constantly on the edge of burnout.
In this updated edition, IT time management expert Dominica DeGrandis reveals the real crime of the century time theft, one of the most costly factors impacting enterprises in their day-to-day operations.
Through simple solutions that make work visible, DeGrandis helps people round up the five thieves of time and take back their lives with time-saving solutions. Chock-full of exercises, takeaways, real-world examples,…
I love Rework because it’s a business book that is straightforward in its language and approach.
It’s economical with its page count and once it makes a point it moves on. And there are a ton of great points in this book. 37 signals has always had a unique approach to work and managing their company. While the book has an entrepreneurial mindset in its approach, the lessons are applicable to any leader.
If you’re the type of person that isn’t happy with the “standard” approach to how things are done, this book is for you.
A radical new business book from business trailblazers Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson that offers a reappraisal of business best practice - advocating stripping everything back to bare essentials. With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who's ever dreamed of doing it on their own. It will COMPLETELY change your approach to work.
Every once in a while, a book comes out that changes just about everything. This is one of those books. Ignore it at your peril' -- Seth Godin, New York Times bestselling author 'Inspirational...REWORK is a minimalist manifesto that's…
Not all the problems of an organization belong to other people.
Sometimes you’re part of the problem. One of the issues people struggle with is managing their increasing workloads and maintaining a high level of quality. Deep Work helped me understand how much focus we need to get into the flow and produce at a high-level.
If you’re someone who feels like they’re always nibbling at the edges of productive work, but never quite getting into a deep flow of things, then this is the book for you.
Many modern knowledge workers now spend most of their brain power battling distraction and interruption, whether because of the incessant pinging of devices, noisy open-plan offices or the difficulty of deciding what deserves your attention the most. When Cal Newport coined the term 'deep work' on his popular blog, Study Hacks, in 2012, he found the concept quickly hit a nerve. Most of us, after all, are excruciatingly familiar with shallow work instead - distractedly skimming the surface of our workload and never getting to the important part. Newport began exploring the methods and mindset that foster a practice of…
Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions shows how to implement DevOps techniques in the kind of imperfect environments most developers work in. Part technology tutorial, part reference manual, and part psychology handbook, this practical guide shows you realistic ways to bring DevOps to your team when you don't have the flexibility to make sweeping changes in organizational structure.
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks left by browsing deer, predatory weasels, and inquisitive bears, skunks, and raccoons. Master tracker Kim A Cabrera provides photos and illustrations.
Winner of the prestigious John Burroughs Medal, Russell also writes about community, a sense of place, and a renewed connection with the nonhuman world. She explores the health of…
What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs
Did a red fox pass this way? Could that be a bobcat print there in the dirt? Do those tracks belong to a domestic dog or a coyote? Combining lyrical memoir with an introduction to wildlife tracking, What Walks This Way explores the joys of learning to recognize the traces of the creatures with whom we share our world.
The nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife-mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice-near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. With wit and compassion, she guides readers through…
