An Engaging Story: General Electric (GE) was a significant brand as I grew up and not an insignificant player in my Electrical Engineering undergraduate course. So, I am interested in understanding how such a great company could have gone off the rails. Uncharacteristically, I chose to listen to the audio version rather than purchase the electronic version of this book. …
Several years ago, I read a few articles about MMT. Those articles gave me enough of an understanding that I stopped worrying about the U.S. national debt. When I attempted to explain to others why the deficit itself isn’t a problem, they responded with skepticism. I decided to educate myself further and, coincidentally, my son recommended this book as a beginning to understanding MMT at a deeper level.
When David Jenyns contacted me and asked if I would read and review his book, I was knee-deep in books to read already. Another author referred me to him, so I agreed to review his book, but I couldn’t promise when. With that understanding, I purchased his book and put it in the stack.
I did get to reading SYSTEMology, and I am pleased that I did. To begin with, I am a system and process kind of guy. I believe in documenting what we are doing and working to improve it over time. I use checklists and process outlines in my work every day.
Harari hits another home run. I love the subtitle of this book, A Brief History of Tomorrow. And Harari builds a solid case for his views of how the world of technology might blend with or destroy Homo Sapiens. His book is broken into three parts and takes us through human history (much more detail in Harari’s book Sapiens: A brief …
Chris Fuller has written a “lessons learned” leadership book based on his Alaskan adventure training as a dog sled musher. The structure of Iditarod Leadership is both interesting and quite useful for review. Fuller speaks of “taking notes in a small notebook” while learning the ins and outs of mushing. Those “notes” appear at the end of chapters summarizing the lessons learned. …
There are occasions when I receive requests to review books. As long as they are about leadership or organizational or personal development, I try to make time to do the reviews. Unless it’s a pre-published book, I decline the offer to have a copy sent to me and, instead, purchase my copy. I do read the books (I’m told some …
Contrary to Pfeffer‘s advice, I want to be fully transparent. Presently, I am a Leadership Coach who is actively engaged in working with business leaders from startup companies to multi-billion dollar public companies. Also, during my career in industry, I have had the good fortune to be a leader and to work with business leaders. Therefore, I have developed my view …
It took me longer than expected to read John Jackson’s excellent book Socially Close. I’m not a particularly fast reader, but that wasn’t the reason it took so long. Nor was it because the book was boring — it definitely isn’t. And it didn’t take me so long because Jackson’s writing is obtuse or difficult to understand. On the contrary, he …
I am “always” on the lookout for interesting models for corporate governance, ethics and/or change. So when the publisher for Geffcken’s book, Shift, briefly described the content and asked me if I’d be willing to review his book, I accepted the request. After I purchased the book, it sat for a while so that I could finish the books already …
I found this book to be fascinating since I’ve spent my professional life in and around technology companies. Even today while most of the business leaders I work with are not directly in the technology business, all are using and are affected by technology. So I’m still into technology up to my neck. The Second Machine age discusses the trends …