100 books like Managing Transitions

Just Be Honest is a great book on communication strategies. One part of this book that has always stuck with me is what Steven Gaffney calls Notice vs. Imagine. Steven Gaffney estimates that at least 50% of what we imagine about others is inaccurate. For example, upon exiting a meeting at work, 50% of each person’s thoughts, opinions, and assumptions from the meeting are likely to be wrong. The worse part about this is that each person may well think he or she is 100 percent right. I learned a lot about hidden assumptions and communication strategies from this book.

I believe that good leadership is all about being able to manage change and transformation. This book added to my knowledge on managing change. It helped me to understand empathy and learn to understand and master the emotions of those who stand in the way of change. Ms. Duck goes through each step of a workplace transformation and describes strategies to successfully navigate through the process.

Nigel Travis, chairman of Dunkin’ Brands, discusses why the most effective leaders have people around them with a diversity of thoughts, opinions, and approaches. Travis believes the best way for organizations to succeed in today’s environment is to embrace challenges and encourage pushback. He maintains that everyone in an organization must be able to question the status quo, to talk in a civil way about difficult issues, and to debate strategies and tactics without fear of reprisal.

I love the practice of what he calls “coffee chats,” to open his thought aperture. The attendees were able to ask him any questions within the bounds of civility. As he said, “The purpose of the coffee chat is to provide an open and safe forum for people to ask questions, share information, articulate ideas, express opinions, and surface disagreements.” 

I like this book because of the real-life examples of big company CEOs balancing empathy, compassion, and caring with good business acumen. During uncertainty and change, it is harder but even more important to have empathy and compassion for employees. The authors show that leaders with empathy and compassion foster much higher levels of employee engagement, performance, and loyalty in their employees. Authors Hougaard and Carter also provide tools to help managers at all levels.

History is full of military men and commanders who have had to possess leadership qualities and decision-making abilities to be successful in the field and in life.

This book has a number of great qualities described throughout the book that public managers should take note of in order to be successful. I love the 10 commandments format for the book. The case studies throughout the book for both warfare and business are very insightful, and I feel beneficial for leaders to understand how the principles described are applied in real-life situations. 

There are all types of different leaders throughout life. Some in large organizations and some in small groups.

A leader in my mind is one who motivates his or her colleagues to accomplish great feats either in the workplace or in life. In his book Push, Johnny Quinn reminds us all what it takes to be a leader, not just in sports, but in life itself.

Facing adversity is what life is all about, and Push made me feel great and motivated by how one person overcame adversity to achieve a series of goals, even if they were not in Quinn’s linear path of what he thought he was going to achieve. This is how real leaders operate, they have a great work ethic and a high degree of integrity to achieve great things. 

Webb’s book is about leaders, pure and simple. The examples used throughout the book successfully frame out what a leader is and how innovation allowed these leaders to shape the future.

Leaders such as Jigoro Kano for example, developed Kodokan Judo from the Samurai’s hand-to-hand combat style of Jujitsu, which was created for self-defense purposes. Jigoro Kano had a different mindset. Jigoro Kano wanted to create a non-lethal sport, which is what we see in the Olympics today as well as many Mixed Martial Artists (MMA) that currently compete.

Jigoro Kano’s vision of “the gentle way”, for which Judo translates to, is used for recreation, health, and fitness as well as to provide law enforcement and the military a non-lethal method to deal with criminals and combatants. 

Harari’s book is both insightful and inspirational for leaders in public service.

As were many commanders during that era, Powell was a Vietnam Veteran and learned much from the public policy debacle where he served valiantly. This helped him formulate the Powell Doctrine which provided strategic framework for the military operating in an American Foreign Policy environment.

Strategic planning was key in how Colin Powell dealt successfully with a very complex military operation (e.g. Desert Storm) by having overwhelming force as well as stakeholder support. The book discusses the different aspects of leadership as seen through Powell’s eyes, which is very insightful on what his vision of what characteristics a leader should possess.  

Management as a skill is typically established and honed by osmosis, mimicry, and corporate crash courses. Data scientists pursuing management roles need to understand management from base principles to create meaningful change and establish productive team conventions. After almost 70 years, Drucker’s book still stands up as a foundational piece of reading.

For almost six decades, I have studied the histories of firms and their successes and failures in creating value. I am always looking for heavy hitters who write about their thinking/doing process. Curt Carlson qualifies.

When he was CEO of SRI International, he guided the conception and development of HDTV, Siri, the computer mouse, electronic banking, robotic surgery which evolved into Intuitive Surgical (the dominant robotics surgical firm with its Da Vinci system), and much more.

I first found Carlson via a Harvard Business Review article in which he laid out his proven steps for value creation that seem so straightforward, yet are rarely followed. I wanted a more comprehensive discussion, and I got it with this book.