These are the books I’m reading.
Title: The Effective Executive
Author: Peter F. Drucker
Date read: Nov 19, 2019
Takeaways: High-level areas of effectiveness such as time management, decision-making. Great principles, but kind of dry in the delivery. I found it hard to stay engaged.
- Focus on strength in an indivudual, rather than weakness, to maximize their efficiency.
- Take responsibility for being understood.
- To make an effecitve decision, one must first have a full understanding of all aspects of it.
- “Is this still worth doing?” – Sometimes dropping something mid-way is more effective than pushing through for the sake of completing.
Title: The Culture Code
Author: Daniel Coyle
Date read: Nov 1, 2019
Takeaways: The importance of working as a team is paramount to a group’s success. Clearly stating (and reiterating) the group’s priorities as well as label the behaviors that support those priorities will instill them into the team’s culture.
- “You can’t prevent mistakes, but you can solve problems generously.”
Title: Never Split the Difference
Author: Chris Voss
Date read: Oct 26, 2019
Takeaways: Great book full of anecdotal stories from a former FBI hostage negotiator. Chris drives home the importance of using tactical empathy, active listening, and calibrated questions to uncover the “Black Swan” in a negotiation.