Book Review Actions · Business · Leadership · 1. Read ASAP!

BR 293: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

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Category: 1 – Read ASAP! (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: This may be one of my favorite business books of all time. An early contender for book of the year. I think it is the sheer number of insightful ideas about leadership and creating memorable experiences for others that sets this book apart. I tend to be biased toward books that share frameworks vs. lists of ideas. This is a clear exception to the rule. While there is a loose framework (“unreasonable hospitality”), Will’s use of short stories and anecdotes to make his point and deliver an incredible amount of wisdom per page make this book special.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) “Language creates culture.” The book had many references to the unique language they used. “Make the charitable assumption,” “be the swan,” “constant, gentle pressure” etc. A great reminder about the importance of language in shaping culture or how we do things here.

(2) This speech from a GM at USG was on point – “I’m excited to be here; I believe in and love this restaurant with all my heart. I’m also clear about what my job is, which is to what’s best for the restaurant, not to do what’s best for any of you. More often than not, what’s best for the restaurant will include doing what’s best for you. But the only way I can take care of all of you as individuals is by always putting the restaurant first.”

(3) Two things happen when the best leaders walk into a room. The people who work for them straighten a little, making sure that everything’s perfect – and they smile, too. That’s how we were with Floyd.” | Will Guidara on working with the late Indian chef Floyd Cardoz in “Unreasonable”

There were so many great quotes from the book. A true pleasure to read.

2. BUY it! · Bio/Autobiographies · Book Review Actions · Book Reviews · Business · Career · Entrepreneurship · Technology

BR 292: Build by Tony Faddell

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Comments: I enjoyed Tony Fadell’s book. It felt honest, direct, and helpful.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) I appreciated the many Apple/Steve Jobs stories. Some of it confirmed Steve’s intensity (e.g., Jobs on vacation was worse than Jobs at work) and some of it also showed just how much Steve cared about the details. For example, there was a lot of debate between Apple’s product and marketing teams about an “all glass” iPhone. The marketing team wanted something similar to the Blackberry. Steve simply stepped in, made the call, and asked the team to move on.

(2) I appreciated how long Tony spent thinking about thermostats. There’s a whole saga about thermostats at his home in Tahoe. My mental model for starting a company is that you should only start a company when you can’t not do it. It certainly was the case with Nest.

(3) Tony’s story about Nest at Google was a true and sobering look at big company acquisitions. Few work as intended.

(4) Tony keeps driving home the importance of having high standards as a leader. Everything flows from there. That resonated.

2. BUY it! · Bio/Autobiographies · Book Review Actions

BR 291: The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

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Comments: Walter Isaacson writes incredible biographies – that is known. I felt a rush of gratitude to him for such an in-depth take into the research process of one of the greatest breakthroughs of all time. The iterative process of discovery and the story of the collaboration between Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier and their respective research teams is a nice combination of fascinating, inspiring, and riveting.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) A recurring theme in the story was the power of bringing together people with curiosity, single-minded determination, resilience, and a willingness to collaborate on thoughtful hypothesis driven experimentation.

It is a great reminder of an enduring idea – high quality teams, led by strong and capable leaders, can accomplish amazing things.

(2) The discovery of CRISPR was a first step to humans being able to reprogram ourselves – a step as seminal as any. And yet, I appreciated the thoughtfulness with which the scientists involved proceeded. They attempted to continue to experiment while ensuring there was an ongoing conversation on the responsibilities and guardrails required. It was heartwarming to see the amount of thought paid to unintended consequences.

3. SHELF it · Technology

BR 290: Empowered by Marty Cagan with Chris Jones

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Comments: I loved Marty Cagan’s book “Inspired” and was curious about “Empowered.” It read more as a compilation of ideas tailored toward companies/people outside of technology/software-oriented industries.

Insight(s) that resonated: 

(1) A reminder of the importance of coaching in the PM manager role.

(2) Platform teams have very different success metrics vs. experience teams.

(3) Bad strategy is a consequence of leaders not willing to make trade-offs.

3. SHELF it · Novel Concepts and Interesting Research · Psychology · Sales

BR 289: The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr

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Comments: Will makes 2 simple points – (1) storytelling makes us human and (2) all story arcs rhyme with the hero’s journey. Use it to tell your stories better.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) “We organize much of our lives around reassuring ourselves about the accuracy of the hallucinated model world inside our skulls.”

(2) The 5 part story arc is: (i) Introduce hero with a system of control, (ii) Hero sees evidence that system of control doesn’t work, (iii) Hero is challenged significantly, (iv) Hero faces a reckoning, (v) Hero emerges changed and in control.

1. Read ASAP! · Bio/Autobiographies

BR 288: Will by Will Smith, Mark Manson

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Comments: My book of the year. Raw, vulnerable, thoughtful, and insightful.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) Internal confidence comes from insight and proficiency”

(2) “It is easy to be a good student when you know your teachers love you.”

(3) Will’s success as a rapper, then television actor, and then movie star had all the ups, downs, and challenges you’d expect. The common thread – outside of the usual doses of luck – was a sometimes-ridiculous amount of drive and grit. Will and his loyal team (many of whom have worked together for over 20 years) get an A for effort.

I also appreciated the refreshing honesty and vulnerability about his insecurities. The first few chapters of the book felt like it could have been written as an explanation to what might have driven that infamous Oscar slap.

I came away with many reflections about the nature of fame and success and the trade-offs that come with it.

3. SHELF it · Business · Leadership · Management · Technology

BR 286: Amp It Up by Frank Slootman

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Comments: An interesting insight into the psychology of a 3 x successful tech CEO – Kevin Slootman scaled Datadog, ServiceNow, and Snowflake.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) “Years ago, I used to hesitate and wait situations out, often trying to fix underperforming people or products instead of pulling the plug. Back then I was seen as a much more reasonable and thoughtful leader — but that didn’t mean I was right. As I got more experience, I realized that I was often just wasting everybody’s time. If we knew that something or someone wasn’t working, why wait? As the saying goes, when there is doubt, there is no doubt.”

(2) There’s a lot of upside to be unlocked by just being operationally excellent. Build good strategy and then spend disproportionate amount of energy creating a great operational cadence that helps your team/organization execute well.

2. BUY it! · Business · Psychology · Skills

BR 287: Making Numbers Count by Chip Heath and Karla Starr

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Comments: Another Heath Brothers classic – interesting research put masterfully together to make a simple point -> take the time to think about how we use numbers to make a point. There’s a lot of upside to getting it right.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) A million seconds is 12 days from now. A billion seconds?

32 years.

That difference surprised me as it wasn’t what I expected. A billion is significantly bigger than I had imagined.

We don’t have an intuitive understanding of big numbers. The implication is that we need to make the effort to always put numbers in context for the people we’re presenting to.

(2) Some “translations” that resonated:

The fastest human, Usain Bolt, would be beaten in a 100m dash by a Rhino by 2s and would be close to a Chimpanzee. he wouldn’t be close to a Cheetah or an Ostrich.

If cows were a country, they’d be #4 in Carbon emissions. They emit more than Saudi Arabia or Australia.

Apple market cap wealth is greater than 150 out of 171 countries. (or at least was – until recently :-))

If California were a country, it’s GDP would be more than all but 5 countries in the world.

Six sigma is 3.4 defects per millions. That means baking 2 decent chocolate chip cookies every day and going 37 years before baking one without a defect.

If everyone ate as much meat as a person in America, we would need to use every bit of land on the planet and add an extra Africa and Australia to meet the demand 

Imagine your (US) tax payment is visualized as employment over the course of a year. It would mean working 2 weeks for social security, 2 weeks for Medicare and Medicaid, 5 days on national debt, 1.5 weeks for Defence, then most of the rest of the year would be government payroll, 6 hours for “SNAP” (Nutrition assistance), 12 minutes to National Parks, and 2 mins to NASA.

Translations make abstract numbers accessible.

(3) Florence Nightingale was a data wizard (more in the book ;-)).

3. SHELF it · Business · Design

BR 285: The Secret Lives of Customers by David Scott Duncan

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Comments: This book attempts to bring the idea of “Jobs to be done” to life with a story about a company that lost its way as it pursued hyper growth. It was an interesting read and one that I might come back to as I figure out how to apply “jobs to be done.”

Insights that resonated: 

(1) Customers hire our products to get specific jobs done – the more we understand these jobs, the more success we’ll find building the right solutions.

3. SHELF it · Psychology

BR 284: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

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Comments: This was an interesting read with good ideas that occasionally felt a touch long. That said, I loved the fact that Oliver Burkeman wrote this to remind us of the brevity of life and the importance of saying no to things that don’t matter to make space for the things that do.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) “Consider all the technology intended to help us gain the upper hand over time: by any sane logic, in a world with dishwashers, microwaves, and jet engines, time ought to feel more expansive and abundant, thanks to all the hours freed up.

But this is nobody’s actual experience. Instead, life accelerates, and everyone grows more impatient. It’s somehow vastly more aggravating to wait two minutes for the microwave than two hours for the over – or ten seconds for a slow-loading web page versus three days to receive the same information by mail.”

(2) “The original Latin word for “decide”, decidere, means “to cut off,” as in slicing away alternatives; it’s a close cousin of words like “homicide” and “suicide.”

(3) “Some Zen Buddhists hold that the entirety of human suffering can be boiled down to this effort to resist paying full attention to the way things are going, because we wish they were going differently (“This shouldn’t be happening!”), or because we wish we felt more in control of the process.

There is a very down-to-earth kind of liberation in grasping that there are certain truths about being a limited human from which you’ll never be liberated. You don’t get to dictate the course of events. And the paradoxical reward for accepting reality’s constraints is that they no longer feel so constraining.”

(4) “The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short. But that isn’t a reason for unremitting despair, or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It’s a cause for relief.

You get to give up on something that was always impossible – the quest to become the optimized, infinitely capable, emotionally invincible, fully independent person you’re officially supposed to be. Then you get to roll up your sleeves and start work on what’s gloriously possible instead.” 

(5) Robert Boice, a psychological professor, spent his career studying the writing habits of fellow academics.

His conclusion was that the most productive and successful among them made writing a smaller part of their daily routine than others. They wrote in brief daily sessions – sometimes as short as 10 minutes and never longer than 4 hours – and religiously took weekends off.

They cultivated the patience to tolerate the fact that they probably wouldn’t be producing very much on any given day, with the result that they produced much more over the long term.