Kelly McGonigal

Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Joe Navarro

The author was given a scholarship to the undergraduate business program of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and years later, after many business successes, has given back $50 million to that same undergraduate school. There are many useful points in this book, by Wharton School Publishing, on ethics, leadership, and corporate social responsibility. I like his point (pages 74 to 75) that limiting our thinking to the increase of corporate profits by every legal means possible means that humility, decency, and social leadership become irrelevant. Is that the way we want to live and do business? In Chapter 5 on lawyers the author makes the point that lawyers override personal ethics with professional standards -- a good illustration of the problems caused by "professionalism". A definition of ethics is given as "about how we meet the challenge of doing the right thing when that act will cost more than we want to pay." (page 115). The definition of success on page 167 gives one pause: "The true measure of success is not only how much one acquires but also how much one gives back". He states that a sizeable portion of corporate profits should be returned to society, and that employees should know why they do that. Chapter 11's "The Obligation to Give Back" makes a compelling argument.

The attempt is a good one, to examine historical leaders and see what lessons can be gleaned for leadership today. Unfortunately, the problem is one faced by all books written by today's leaders -- each story has a lesson, but there is no coherent theory at the end of all the lessons. For the reader looking for a fairly quick and simple look into the great leaders of the past, this is a good place to start. The connections to modern day leaders are somewhat forced.

Basically you  take the history of the world and look at it through the lens of the trading of goods. This lets you see why wars are fought and the impact on how lives are then lived given the winners and losers. Explained is the rise and fall of societies and cities, for example, why Venice was once great and is now a tourist destination, why Amsterdam had its day, and so on. Free trade and protectionism is explained at length from both a theoretical point of view and in practice in various societies from ancient times to the present. Globalization and negative reactions to it are shown to have been around for a long time. Extremely well researched with fascinating detail, it is a useful book for any student of business to understand the rise of corporations and the fall of states.

Joe Navarro

By a historian, this is a good introduction to trade and finance for the non-expert. Though, I would say that finance experts probably should read this book to get a sense of the history of their discipline, my guess is that they don't pay much attention to such things. This book makes a nice companion volume to "A Splendid Exchange". They cover the same ground: world trade, history and geography from a financial/business point of view. In this book Ferguson explains the importance of financial markets as one part of the development of modern societies, others being governments, and insurance. Covered are market crashes, frauds, unfettered greed, and the like. Hedge funds are discussed and brought to mind the idea of legalized stealing as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) were created for the purpose of gaining commissions. The money taken out of the system by taking those commissions was theft on the largest scale. My one complaint is that left unexamined is that in the modern West there is a giant confidence game being played where the assumption is that constant growth is both required and good. To me this assumption is clearly wrong and unsustainable. The con in the game is that we may talk about sustainability without discussing our precondition that we need 3% growth in our economy each year on an indefinite basis. The world population and use of resources will keep growing until sustainability is no longer possible. The question raised is if we are now seeing the beginning of the fall of the West.

This is Gladwell's third book, after "Blink" and "The Tipping Point". Outliers makes the case that extreme success, such as that of Bill Gates, is partly due to genetic inheritance (in Gates' case, IQ and the willingness to work hard), yet due largely to luck. In the case of Bill Gates, he was born at the right time to be young enough to take advantage of the revolution in micro computers and too old that he was already invested in old methods. Gates was also lucky enough to be in the right place where he had access to computers so that he could get a lot of work in and be ready to make the most of the micro computer boom when it hit. Another main point is that extreme cases of success put in about 10,000 hours of work to get ready. Here an example is the Beatles, who played a lot of hours in Germany before they were an overnight success in the United States. Another example of part luck and part development is the Matthew Effect in sport. When there is a birth date cutoff for competition as a child, such as January 1st, those born early in the year obtain a size advantage compared to those born late in the year. This advantage accumulates year by year, as the older players get more time to practice and more coaching -- those who have more get more. There is also a chapter on disasters, in this case plane crashes, that shows how culture in the cockpit can cause crashes. The main point here is that the culture one comes from can also be lucky (or unlucky). Genetic ability matters, but so does the luck of culture, circumstance, and birthdate.

When I first heard of the idea of the "Black Swan Event" it didn't seem so clear, because I'd already seen white swans in Canada AND black swans in Australia. The definition is "A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was." The name is taken from the idea that before the real black swans of Australia were discovered by Europeans the idea of a swan that isn't white was just impossible to conceive. The book itself is full of scholarship, a lot of it from psychology. The basic idea is that we in organizations often fool ourselves into believing we know the parameters of our businesses but there are massive, un-thought of events, that cause huge effects. We need to build these into our thinking. I most liked the idea in the book, of "picking nickels up in front of a steamroller". We think we are making a profit with our business model (picking up nickels), but there is a massive risk (the steamroller) that we pretend isn't there so that we can proudly count our nickel profits. A recent example, obviously not in the book, is the 2008/2009 world banking crisis. No one saw that coming yet it has enormous impacts on all of us.

This is an organizational book in reverse. Kersten takes the theories we have and turns them on their head to show how very wrong they are. Check out the Despair, Inc. website at http://www.despair.com/ for both the book and a set of posters like this one about Change: "It's a short trip from riding the waves of change to being torn apart by the jaws of defeat". Too funny.

A best-seller that has an economics base but has strong appeal to me, as a student of organizations, because the authors seek to question the unquestioned and explain the unexplained. For example, the bureaucracy of a drug-dealing organization is explained, how and why teachers cheat in the reporting of their students' standardized test scores, and when Sumo wrestlers in Japan make deals with each other for who will win a given bout. Organizational behaviour is about why and why individuals and groups do what they do in organizations, so this is really an OB book. It's interesting and easy to read. The cover picture is funny, too, because economists are always saying "you can't compare apples to oranges".

From the Afterburner Inc. management consulting and motivational speaking company (See http://www.afterburnerseminars.com/index.asp?id=us), this book explains their model of Flawless Execution, which is "Plan, Brief, Execute, Debrief, Win!" As the title says, these fighter pilots turned motivational speakers apply their military training to business. The model makes sense, I bet the seminars are full of energy, and there are good lessons to be learned from reading the book. One of the main points is about the danger of "task saturation", which is when a person has too much to do and narrows focus to try and cope (channelizers in the book's jargon), gives up (shutting down), or does one unimportant thing to look busy (compartmentalizers). I found it interesting that the shooting down of the Blackhawk helicopters (see the book "Friendly Fire" reviewed below) now made sense to me. Fighter pilots are so intent on flying their mission that there isn't any thinking, so when helicopters appeared in their "kill box" and no friendlies were to be there, they were automatically shot down in a matter of seconds. The Flawless Execution book gives a good sense of the fighter pilot model, its strengths and weaknesses, and its application to the world of business is useful.

This book makes a good antidote to the globalism virus, that economic globalism and "trade" are always positive in their effects, are inevitable in the history of the world, and are the just outcomes of managers. Large multinationals take a beating for their tax evasion and work movement strategies, whose managers don't consider the larger societal view of why corporations exist in the first place, what is a good life, and what their connection is to the communities in which they exist, buy, sell to consumers, and employ workers. For point/counterpoint see "The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization" (2000) by Thomas L. Friedman (reviewed below).

For me this was an earlier version of the ideas in Taleb's follow-up book "The Black Swan" (see above). One of the basic ideas is that if you start with a large enough pool of people and then randomly let half win and half lose for each trial, you eventually end up with a "winner" who was just lucky, but if you ask that winner what he/she did to deserve success, you'll get a long story. Also, the media will love that person for winning and ignore the luck. In any competition where there is randomness (luck), you'll get this effect. There are definitely times when skill plays a part in success -- Taleb's example is dentistry. But there it is hard work over a number of years that pays off. Dentists doing dentistry don't "get lucky" and become the world's best dentist. However, in a very large corporation with many competing for the top job there is a degree of chance and luck and the CEO feels like he/she is the best, after all, look who won! But luck in getting there was ignored, and someone had to win.

Barley and Kunda examine technological contractors in the Silicon Valley (outside San Francisco) in the years just before the dot com crash. These contractors are computer programmers, electrical engineers, systems and network administrators, designers, and builders. Instead of working for one company in a full-time job, they seek contracts at higher rates of pay, moving from company to company. It's a good and deep look at the new post-industrial economy, virtual organizations, shamrock organizations, network organizations, boundaryless organizations, and lean structures. Organizations are leaner, flatter, and outsourcing more. Boundaries become permeable, alliances increase, and project teams are used more to get work done (see pages 303-304). The argument is made that the American economy is NOT becoming a service economy but that professional and technical occupations are seeing the largest increase in membership.

I've placed this book in the management/leadership category because it is first and foremost an example of great leadership. Ironically, the best quote is about Memnon, who "understood politics: He could negotiate; he knew how to cultivate men and how to motivate them. He could parley in chambers; he could address an assembly. His mastery of war was total. He could attack and he could defend; he could train men and he could command them. He fed and equipped his troops and he paid them on time. His men loved him. And he had mastered his own emotions. Anger was unknown to him; pride was, in his view, a vice. If delay would win, he would stall all season. You could not provoke him. He would use gold before force, and lies and false undertakings before either. Yet when the situation called for attack, he did not hesitate. He was fearless in action and relentless in pursuit. At the same time he was not above an accommodation. He advanced his best men and served his masters with honor" (p. 94 of the paperback). The serious student of leadership needs to read books like this to draw out lessons for the leaders of today. See also by Pressfield the "Gates of Fire" and the "Tides of War".

I am a firm believer in the importance of storytelling in organizations as it relates to leadership, the development and transmission of organizational culture, organizational knowledge management, and communication. This book is easy to read and convinces the reader that storytelling is more than just a way to spend some time. The important point is made that open spaces, such as student lounges or common areas, are important for meeting people and getting to know them AND for the social creation and transmission of knowledge.

This is a very good book. Many will see it as a book about quality, business processes (how things are made or services provided), and lowering costs (higher quality and lowered costs go together). And it is these things. But I see it as about leadership, organizational culture, management style, ethics and decision making. Principle number 1 is "Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals". This is expanded on page 37 as: (i) Have a philosophical sense of purpose that supersedes any short-term decision making. Work, grow, and align the whole organization toward a common purpose that is bigger than making money; (ii) Generate value for the customer, society, and the economy; (iii) Accept responsibility for your conduct and maintain and improve the skills that enable you to produce added value. Principle 5 is "Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time". Principle 9 is "Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others". Principle 10 is "Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company's philosophy". Principle 12 on Organizational Learning is "Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation". Principle 13 on Decision Making is "Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly". Principle 14 is "Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement". These are all important ideas about management and organization, and good examples are given.

Completing the trilogy of The Innovator's Dilemma and The Innovator's Solution, Seeing What's Next has quite a bit of overlap of the other two books. I guess you don't have to read them in order so much as start here and if you have further interest go back to the first two books. I liked the applications of the ideas to specific industries such as education, health care, and aviation. As someone who looks to individual differences and the management of others as the topic of most interest (this is micro organizational behaviour), this book's approach that it doesn't matter so much which executives work in which companies, it is the characteristics of markets and technologies that drive behaviour that they see as rational. The repeated example from the books is that a disruptive innovation that does a job for non-consumers will motivate the disruptors to get into the market and provide that service, then move upmarket over time. Competitors will rationally be motivated to abandon this low profit market to the newcomers, follow their hard-to-please and profitable customers upmarket and make good profits until they finally go out of business.

The first half of the book is especially interesting as a demonstration of how managers need to learn and a critique of how most MBA programs actually teach. I liked Figure 11.2 on page 300 about reflection. The four domains of reflection are Commercial, Historical, Spiritual, and Cultural. The student starts at Society and considers these four domains in turn, then moves in an inward spiral to the Organization, then Relationships, then his/her Job, then the Self. It strikes me as a good way to consider all the important aspects of one's life. The last half of the book is about the new Masters level training program that Mintzberg and his colleagues have created at five universities around the world. Mintzberg says much that I agree with, especially his emphasis that in business schools we need to focus on deep questions of why people work, why organizations exist, and how we can help managers of businesses to be more effective. He also cites Alfred North Whitehead (1932), that there are great teachers and scholars who don't publish but whose originality requires direct interaction with their students (page 407).

This is a really nice book on Apple computer and the creation of the Macintosh computer. I recommend that any computing science student read this book to get a good idea of what your work will be like. The book is beautifully presented, has nice sections on interface design, and is written by a number of people who were there. It is kind of hard to read in places unless you know a lot about programming languages, but most of it is straightforward. Page 24 about Steve Jobs' charisma and his "reality distortion field" was funny (and true I'm sure). The funniest part, and telling too, was page 192 about the time in 1983 when Steve Jobs found out about Microsoft's mouse-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) windows operating system. "Get Gates down here immediately" said Jobs, "He needs to explain this, and it better be good." Bill Gates came the next day, alone, and was surrounded by 10 Apple employees. "You're ripping us off!" Steve shouted. "I trusted you and now you're stealing from us!" Bill Gates just stood there coolly, looking Steve directly in the eye, before starting to speak in his squeaky voice. "Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set only to find that you had already stolen it." This refers to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)site where the first mouse-based GUI was invented.

The first half of this book is a fascinating look into psychology experiments from a personal and historical point of view. It isn't dry science but the opposite, up close and personal, with lots of value judgments about the methods and meaning of these famous experiments. The first three chapters are about B.F. Skinner and reinforcement experiments (Skinner's Box), Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments using "electric shocks", and David Rosenhan's "Being Sane in Insane Places" about a normal person getting admitted into psychiatric wards. Though there is some negative commentary on the web about this book and the author's methods and style, I think it adds to the understanding of psychology and experimentation and gives more colour than can be found in introductory textbooks. I found the later chapters less interesting, likely because they, for me, drifted away from specific experiments towards research programmes and broader ideas.

By a UBC law professor, this book is the foundation of a TV series and the documentary movie. In the movie the case is made that the corporation has the status of a person and that person is psychotic. Profits above all else are the norm, as is unending growth. The movie is too long, for sure, but is interesting, especially the film clips from the documentaries of the 50s and 60s. See the film website at http://www.thecorporation.tv/splash.php

The book is fairly short and takes about twice the time to read as the movie took to watch. The book and movie basically cover the same ground, though the book has more detail, references, and notes. The point of view is very legalistic (naturally) and I thought focused too much on corporations (Incorporated businesses) whereas the same points could have been made about large private businesses, partnerships, and Non-Governmental Organizations too. The fundamental flaw in the reasoning is that world population is growing exponentially and no matter what steps are taken now to become more ecologically sustainable (see also the book "The Ecology of Commerce" by Paul Hawken, 1994), growth will outstrip resources. Western economies are founded on the assumption of continued and sustained growth. For example Canada in 1967 had a population of 20 million. Now in 2004 it is 30 million, which is 50% growth in less than 40 years. By 2040 Canada should be about 50 million people! Given this growth and the movement of the population from rural to urban areas, Toronto should be 10 million people and Edmonton, which in 1985 was about 500,000 and is now in 2004 about 800,000, will in 2040 be 1.5 million.

The part I liked the most was early on when he made the argument about time travellers from 1900 to 1950 versus 1950 to 2000. The point was that a time traveller from 1900 to 1950 would be amazed by the physical transformation of the landscape, moving from gas to electricity, from horses to cars, and from pencils to computers, but the social systems would be very familiar. But from 1950 to 2000 the time traveller wouldn't find the physical and equipment of the world very different -- there are still cars, airplanes, computers, and so on, but the social world was transformed from the production of primary goods like steel to the production of ideas by the "creative class".

An interesting book about how "impossible questions" are used in organizational hiring. Gives tips on how to handle these types of questions as well as some commonly used puzzle questions and answers.

The starting point is that of dilemmas, for example, a manager might say "on the one hand we need flexibility, but on the other hand we need consistency". The authors examine how business is done in different cultures by looking at seven dilemmas that arise across each of seven dimensions. They are: 1. Universalism-Particularism. Do people in the organization tend to follow standardized rules or do they prefer a flexible approach to unique situations. 2. Individualism-Communitarianism. Does the culture foster individual performance and creativity or is the focus on the larger group leader to cohesion and consensus? 3. Neutral-Affective. Are emotions controlled or do people display emotions overtly? 4. Specific-Diffuse. What is the degree of involvement in personal relationships? Do managers in the culture easily work with others or do you have to know your business partners before doing business with them? 5. Achievement-Ascription. Is status and power based on your performance or is it more determined by which school you went to or your age, gender, and family background? 6. Sequential-Synchronic. Does the culture organize time in a sequential manner, doing one task at a time, or in parallel, keeping many things active at once? 7. Internal-External Control. Are culture members stimulated by their inner drive and sense of control or are they adaptive to external events that are beyond their control? The most interesting part is how their data is divided, showing how variation on a dimension is a function of country, then industry, then religion (for example), then job function, then age, and so on. Country usually explains a lot, but even within a country there is variation depending on the other variables, like what industry you work in, what your job is within that industry, your age, gender, education, etc. Very interesting for those with a cross-cultural interest.

This is a book-long case study of the ideas presented in my management courses at the University of Alberta. There is material on entrepreneurship and the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, on relentless customer focus, on company culture and its importance, on personality and intelligence, leadership and change, and so much more! Every page is like: YES! so true! nice point! Published by Harvard Business School press, it does have their cheerleading style, but thankfully the authors point out places where Intuit made mistakes and show us it's not all easy and roses. I strongly recommend this book if you'd like to see how management ideas are applied to make sense of what one particular organization did. The first half on the founding of Intuit and the struggles to survive are most interesting. The second half deals with the challenges of growth, becoming more professional and managed, and of leadership and change.

This book goes with The Innovator's Dilemma (1997) [see below for review], and Seeing What's Next [review above]. There is a good example of low-end disruption of large integrated steel mills by mini-mills on page 35. Advice is given on how to find potential disruptive footholds. A key point on page 95 is that "Identifying disruptive footholds means connecting with specific jobs that people -- your future customers -- are trying to get done in their lives." But a mismatch of data about markets and "segments" can lead to a mismatch between planning and actual customer needs. Advice is given on how to compete with non-consumption, that is "customers who have long wanted your product but were not able to get one until you arrived on the scene". When customers are not served by existing products or are overserved (the products that exist are too feature rich and too costly for the jobs real customers have), then there is potential for an innovator company to compete successfully on cost (give them a product that does their job cheaply), convenience, or customization. The authors point out that "organizations cannot disrupt themselves", a point I liked as it shows how systems and structures reward ways of thinking and acting that are rational for those involved but don't work when there is a disruption. Managers of companies make logical, rational, and the right decisions. They are motivated to do well. But their systems and culture drive them in the wrong direction, at times. There is nothing wrong with the managers. The book's purpose is to "teach you as a manager how to use theory" -- theory is a strong and valuable tool for guiding action when normal action would be wrong. Here is the book's summary of advice: "1. identify a disruptive foothold that established competitors will be happy to ignore or be relieved to walk away from. Your competitors will help you win;  2. compete against non-consumption; 3. capture customers at the low end of the market who can't use all the functionality for which they currently must pay; 4. find a way to help customers get done more conveniently and inexpensively what they already are trying to get done; 5. segment the market in ways that mirror the jobs that customers are trying to get done; 6. be impatient for profit and patient for growth; 7. If you're slated to lead a new venture and corporate management says you need to become very big very fast, don't take the job. You are very likely to fail." I liked this book because it helped me learn to think about businesses in strategic terms -- what is strategy, what is change, how do industries change.

This is a great book about team building, motivation, and leadership. The high school De La Salle Spartans of Concord California have now won (as of April 2004) 151 consecutive football games. They have not been defeated since 1992. The key point is that while they players change every year, and change totally every four years, the coaching staff headed by Bob Ladouceur and Terry Eidson remain constant. They focus on the team, on building relationships between the players, and on demanding the players set difficult goals and publicly commit to them. There is a short article on the team in the October 2003 issue of Fast Company, a business magazine (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/75/soul.html). This book follows the team through its 2002 season, but the 2003 year was similar (see the team's website at http://www.dlshs.org/athletics/football.html). The Spartans opened their 2004 season with two losses and a tie, so the streak is over.

This is a short book that should take a few hours to read and the payoff from that reading might be great, especially for the younger reader. It is a book of advice aimed at a Christian audience but in my view not limited to that audience. Hewitt aims to convince the reader to seek influence (I would say leadership) and gives tips for how to acquire influence. Rules in Chapter 5 are very useful: 1. status matters in a degree (so seek it); 2. status costs more (in education); 3. a BA is not enough; 4. the JD, MD, and MBA have stand-alone value; 5. the degrees in #4 have value even if you don't use them; 6. never take yourself out of the running for a credential by not applying; 7. get degrees from more than one place; 8. go abroad; 9. undergraduate grades matter only so far as they affect your admission to graduate schools; 10. treat the hunt for academic credentials seriously; 11. if you aren't admitted where you want to go, wait a year and then apply again (anything good is worth waiting for). Chapters 13 to 15 on jobs are well worth reading. Page 73 on job don'ts is valuable advice: Never steal from your employer; never date a fellow employee; don't drink or otherwise party with the folks at the office; don't speak ill of other employees. 

The culture of the Arthur Andersen public accounting firm was mortally wounded when the decision was made that not all new hires would have to complete two years of auditing. Those who were hired for business consulting no longer worked with their auditing colleagues, and thus, two cultures began to emerge and diverge. The partnership created a zero-sum reward system (the better I do the worse you do) which encouraged a culture of greed and to get all the money you could for yourself and to hell with the rest. Leadership within the partnership was so diffused that no one could change these practices, once started. New or junior employees were not allowed to challenge any partner's thinking about any issue, and those who tried were publicly humiliated by the partner. As stated in the Bathsheba syndrome, it isn't the "bad apple" or unethical person who causes the downfall of a company, but normal "good people", everyday people, who get caught in a system that allows them to do whatever they want, with no control. Ambition and greed ran rampant at Arthur Andersen with younger managers trying desperately to become a partner and get on the gravy train, and partners trying to shovel as much money as possible into their own pockets. The author, a professor of Organizational Behavior, notes that she too fell under the spell of these pressures and desires. The main point is that these organizational problems aren't confined to Arthur Andersen, but exist in many places. Po Bronson, in his book "Bombardiers" tells a story of a group of junior employees spending eight hours a day totalling up columns of numbers in a spreadsheet (which the program can obviously do). They are paid $20 an hour and billed out to a client (who doesn't know that's what they are doing) at $50. The difference, $30 an hour times five people times eight hours a day, is $1200 straight into the pockets of the partners. If you could set up a system like this to benefit yourself, wouldn't you do it too?

Essentially an expanded version of the April 1999 article in Fast Company magazine that made Abrashoff famous (see http://www.fastcompany.com/online/23/grassroots.html), this book is easy to read and well worth the time invested. The six principles of commander Abrashoff’s leadership are 1. Don’t just take command -- communicate purpose; 2. Listen without prejudice; 3. Practice discipline without formalism (he treated the crew with respect while allowing them to voice their opinions and he focused on getting things done right and not necessarily by the book); 4. The best captains hand out responsibility -- not orders; 5. Successful crews perform with devotion; 6. True change is permanent (the next captain of the Benfold was able to keep up its high performance). Two ideas I think are most powerful are his telling the crew "It's your ship", that they should act in the ship's best interests because they own it and its performance, and "The best thing a captain can do is to see the ship from the eyes of the crew". Mike Abrashoff is now a leadership consultant and speaker.

Written by two of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth's children, and originally published in 1948, this is one of several reissues. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were management consultants in the early 1900s, focusing on time and motion study and engineering efficiency. Students of management will find the book and the 1950 movie with Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy very interesting as history of the beginnings of the management consulting profession. Though not employed at a university, Frank and Lillian gave papers at conferences, published their work, and had an enormous impact on business practices. Frank died of heart trouble in 1924 and Lillian continued their work. One of her books was "The Psychology of Management", published in 1919, which was to be her PhD thesis in Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, but she had troubles with her committee (even then!) and instead published the thesis as a book and went to Brown University for her PhD. Lillian went on to be a professor of engineering at Purdue University and was awarded many honours, including a U.S. postage stamp with her likeness issued in 1984. There is a 2003 remake of the movie with Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt, but it is not about the lives of the Gilbreths. I have seen both the 1950 movie and read the 1948 book, and they are very similar. One small quibble is that one of the first children died in childhood and yet in the movie there are twelve children.

Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (2002)
Daniel Goleman, Annie McKee, Richard E. Boyatzis

Page 55 on leadership styles is interesting. They are: Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, and Commanding. I have a feeling that these map onto McClelland's theory of six basic human needs, those of security, esteem, affiliation, independence, achievement, and power. The problem for a leader is being able to do these six styles well, and to know when to use each. I liked the point in Appendix A best that "the higher the rank of those considered star performers, the more EI (Emotional Intelligence) competencies emerged as the reason for their effectiveness". The authors then point out that "One reason has to do with the intellectual hurdles that senior executives jump in obtaining their jobs". So most senior executives have high IQ's because they have been selected for this trait by business schools and corporations themselves, but they vary on EI because that trait is not selected for. Had we reversed this relationship and business schools admit based on Emotional Intelligence, we would then have books about the importance of IQ.

There is a nice short summary of this book at http://www.fastcompany.com/online/66/mylife.html. Po Bronson is the voice of Generation X. His other books are "Bombadiers" (about bond trading), "The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest" (about the .com era and venture capitalism), and "The Nudist on the Late Shift" (about working in Silicon Valley -- see below). In this book Po reports on his own life and those of 50 others who ask the big question of the book's title. I think I read this book too quickly, it needs to be savoured and considered. I liked the part on page 181 about what it feels like to find your thing: you go years and years without getting bored, it still feels like work but Mondays never come too soon, you don't daydream about living some other life, your like or dislike for the job doesn't hinge on what happened that day or even that month, there is a mental quiet. I liked the book more toward the end, and the story on page 328 spoke to me where the individual said "Changing my career saved my life". It was nice seeing that people of all ages ask the question of "What should I do with my life" and that people, not all but some, make changes. The funniest story was in Chapter 7 about the guy who was looking for what to do, and all along it was UNDER HIS BED. He was designing new golf products and putting the prototypes under his bed, but couldn't make the connection that what he wanted to do was to "Help people .... play better golf". 

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002)
Stephen Pinker

It's long but interesting and makes the point that the variation in human personality and traits is about 50% due to genetics and about 50% due to the environment (mostly the non-family environment). An interesting complementary book is F.J. Sulloway's 1996 "Born to Rebel" about the effects of birth order. Sulloway argues that siblings are very much UNALIKE because they seek to find niches within the family environment where they can maximize parental investment. Therefore, if we want to understand personality it is half genetic and the other half is family (but siblings will have different personalities) and peer groups. Pinker's book is good for its treatment of genetic effects and how the brain works. 

If you can read only one book on management, make it this one. Drucker is an original management thinker and pushes the boundaries. Here are some of his ideas. "Management is a liberal art because it deals with the fundamentals of knowledge, self-knowledge, wisdom, and leadership. Management is an art because it is concerned with practice and application. Management has three tasks: Establishing the organization's mission; making work productive and the worker effective; and managing social impacts and social responsibilities. Profit is not the explanation, cause, or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but rather the test of their validity. An organization provides a product or service that satisfies the wants or needs of a customer. Each one of our institutions is an organ of society and exists for the sake of society. Managers of institutions are the leadership group in our society. Management's concern and management's responsibility are everything that affects the performance of the institution and its results -- whether inside or outside, whether under the institution's control or totally beyond it. The tradition mindset of business is to buy cheap and sell dear; the new approach defines a business as the organization that adds value and creates wealth. Quality in a product is not what the supplier puts in, it is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. Individuals should concentrate on their strengths, work on improving those strengths, and remedy your bad habits. On decision making: What the decision involves often becomes clear only when one has gone around the same track several times. And finally, management is a social function to make knowledge productive."

When the traveler is ready, the guide will appear. "You want to lead, don't you?" He nodded glumly. She continued. The heart of leadership is in the hearts of leaders. You have to lead from something deep in your heart." If you want to lead and yet feel that something is missing from the relentless and mindless pursuit of profit, this book can help you find your path. It is presented as a story and parable which feels right. It doesn't take long to read but can lead to deep self-reflection and self-knowledge. This new and revised edition has added feedback from the authors as the last chapters.

By an ex Stanford Business School professor, this is an interesting general leadership book for managers and business owners. Points are: 1. First get the right people, then figure out where to go. 2. Confront the brutal facts, yet never lose faith (and charisma can be as much a liability as an asset). 3. Find what you can be the best in the world at, what you are deeply passionate about, and what drives your economic engine. Pursue the intersection of these three things relentlessly. 4. Build a culture of discipline. 5. Use appropriate technology to accelerate what you are already doing in #3. 6. Persistently push in a consistent direction over a long period of time and you build momentum, eventually hitting a point of breakthrough. And on page 210 "It is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work."

This is an absolute must read. Joel's website http://www.joelonsoftware.com/index.html has parts of the book online, but there is more here for the person interested in Human Computer Interface design. It makes sense and is fun to read. Joel's best advice: "Users can't read, and if they could they wouldn't want to". See Joel's website for lots of useful advice on programming and even how to hire and pay programmers.

This is an interesting book, fun to read. Chiles covers a number of disasters and examines the circumstances that led up to them. The section on the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, pages 17 to 36 is especially interesting.

Here's a book that closely follows the ideas presented in my ORGA 652 leadership course, which is based on the book "Level 3 Leadership" by James Clawson. Ignore the title and give the book a chance in the early going, because it gets better as it goes along and has a lot to say about leadership, careers, the purpose of business, and the meaning of a life in organizations. It doesn't take long to read and is worth the time invested.

First published in 1999, this is the updated edition from April 2000. Friedman's key point is that the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9, 1989 marked the end of the cold war and a system of two worlds that were defined by differing economic and political systems. With the fall of the wall we all started to move towards one system (capitalism and free-market democracy) where countries are increasingly linked (globalization). Here's a good quote that defines globalization from page 10: "Let's not ask what markets we should export to, after having decided what to produce; rather let's first study the global framework within which we operate and then decide what to produce." The Lexus in the title stands for technology and high quality items produced for a world market, the olive tree stands for local cultures and nationalistic feeling. The tension is that both exist. Three fundamental forces are the democratization of technology (everyone has a cheap computer), finance (how we keep our money and how it flows around the world is changing to be more free), and information (the Internet and World-Wide Web of accessible and cheap information). Another nice quote (from Lawrence Grossman): "Printing made us all readers. Xeroxing made us all publishers. Television made us all viewers. Digitization made us all broadcasters." This book is a nice introduction to globalization, is easy to read, though long. The author is a New York Times newspaper reporter who travels a lot, so the book is full of interesting stories about people he has met around the world and how they are adapting, or not, to globalization.

The argument is presented that ideas, products, messages, and behaviours spread like epidemics, just like viruses do. The three rules of epidemics are: 1. Law of the few -- stronger than the 80/20 rule, a very few people can make a very big difference; 2. Stickiness factor -- there is a simple way to package information that under the right circumstances can make it irresistible; and 3. Power of context -- people's behaviour is strongly a function of the situation they find themselves in. Also interesting is the rule of 150, that is the number of people who can meaningfully know each other and interact in a group, and that a Band-Aid solution is a good one as it is fast, cheap, effective, and versatile. It all adds up to a chaos theory prediction, that change can be accomplished with minimal force at just the right place. Once the tipping point is reached change occurs with astonishing rapidity. 

By current Harvard University Professor Scott Snook who was previously a member of the United States Armed Forces, this is his PhD dissertation. The topic is the shoot down of two US Blackhawk helicopters by US airforce jets. The book is a good addition to the disaster genre and Snook relies heavily on perception and sensemaking work by Weick and group work by Hackman to view the disaster through many different theoretical lenses. It's kind of a review of organizational behavior theories and how they can be used to understand a case. I'd like to see an article from the book as, being a thesis originally, it does tend to go on and is repetitive in places. 

The well-known futurist gives us his view of the future in telecommunications, that bandwidth will be essentially free. This will allow new business models to emerge that exploit this resource, such as worldwide TV on demand. In the agriculture age land and manpower were the next thing to free. People wasted them to win wealth or political power. But in the next age, the Industrial, land grew scarce. Fuel was abundant and cheap and people wasted electricity to succeed. In the Microcosm era transistors became asymptotically costless and what became scarce was telecommunications capacity. The next revolution will waste bandwidth and conserve power, silicon area, and transistors. 

It's an anti-corporation book about how branding and marketing is taking away our public spaces, choices, and jobs. Chapter 4 on branding in schools and universities is especially interesting as it shows how commercial creep into universities, which are essentially public spaces, turns them into malls and ends up limiting the freedom of speech to criticize corporations. The author is from Montreal so the book has lots of Canadian references along with examples from the U.S. and the rest of the world. The section on jobs in third world countries is compelling and presents the anti-globalization argument. Sections of the book are "No Space" about the loss of public unbranded space, "No Choice" about how we have lost free-market choice in places like universities where deals are made that only Coke or Pepsi, but not both, may be consumed, "No Jobs" how jobs have been exported to third world countries, but not jobs the way they were but very limited work-for-hire types of jobs. The last section is "No Logo", about how people and groups are rebelling against these forces.

Steve's book goes well with Joel's on "User Interface Design" (see above). It's also about user interface design and makes the point that the best rule for designing a website is to make it very easy for the user to get where he/she wants to go. That is, don't make me think! Steve's website is http://www.sensible.com/ and his company motto is “It's not rocket surgery.”(sm)

This book is one of Robin Sharma's series on self-help, career and life management, and leadership. A Toronto author and speaker, his website http://www.robinsharma.com has all the details of his programs and materials. I found this book very useful for thinking about career issues. The most telling advice: Page 71 -- Find out what you truly love to do and then direct all your energy towards doing it; Page 143 -- Consistently cultivate your mind, body, and soul; Page 180 -- The most noble thing you can do is to give to others (your time and energy); and Page 197 -- Live in the "now" and savour the journey. Some may find the story a little too preachy or too easy, but the book is easy to read and yet has profound ideas that are worth consideration.

Ridley explains the biological basis of human behaviour by working through each of the 23 chromosomes in human DNA. It's very interesting and detailed, and the science is difficult at times but worth the effort. This book goes well with Pinker's "The Blank Slate" as it shows how much of our behaviour and personality are due to genetics. The pendulum has swung from the 1970s emphasis on Nurture (or environmental influences) as being the dominant or even the only cause of how we are, to today's point of view that Nature explains about half of the variation in what we do and Nurture (society, family, peer-groups) the other half. A telling point, though, is that Nature explains lots more about who we are that does not vary much between us. If we are all bipedal, upright walkers, with pretty much the same brain structure, two eyes sensitive to color and movement, and so on, then we are all fairly alike on how we act because of these things. They don't vary much, though, between individuals, so scientists aren't that interested in explaining that commonality among us. 

This is a book on how to manage others, and I'd say it has a lot of useful advice. It's not academic, being written by consultants, so as an academic I find it a bit glib and tending towards the genre of "Five Rules for Effective Managers" kind of books. But there are some interesting tidbits of advice. One I liked on page 156 was that you as manager should spend the most time with the best performers. If you don't your message is "the better your performance becomes, the less time and attention you will receive from me, your manager". I also liked, on page 28, their list of questions to measure the strength of a workplace. They are: "Do I know what is expected of me at work? Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work? Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person? Is there someone at work who encourages my development? At work, do my opinions seem to count? Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important? Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? Do I have a best friend at work? In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress? At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?" I don't think you can go too far wrong if you ask these questions about yourself at work or the people at work that you manage.

Follow up books are "Now, Discover your strengths" (2001), and "The one thing you need to know: About great managing, great leading, and sustained individual success" (2005), and "Go Put Your Strengths to Work : Six Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance" (2007).

This is a great read about Silicon Valley. It gives you a sense of being there. This book is a lot of fun, it's not really about nudists or late shifts, but about the whole Silicon Valley experience in the dot com years. Po Bronson is a very funny guy and makes an appearance in the "Code Rush" video on how Netscape went to open sourcing of its code. See Po's website at http://www.pobronson.com/

A nice history of information in societies. The Roman Road system, the cursus publicus, was an information system that allowed the quick transmission of information by courier. It was a strategic asset to the Roman government. Signal fires, the visual telegraph (most people don't know about this one, but it was a line of outposts, like forest ranger towers, used to send information visually down the line), and the electric telegraph are covered. The key point: "Once it became possible to communicate instantly from one coast to the other, it became necessary for business to do so" (p. 58). This book and Tom Standage's "Victorian Internet" go well together. 

While we are accustomed to saying how the rate of change is accelerating in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it may be claimed that the changes of the late 1800s and early 1900s were even greater for their society. One such change was the telegraph. This book tells that story and is a good and easy read.

More on Silicon valley and the dot com boom years. This book goes well with Po Bronson's "Nudist on the Late Shift". Burn rate is the speed with with the Internet startup is going through its venture capital funding, and therefore is a measure of how long it has to live. It's a personal memoir and gives a good background to the tenor of the times. 

Makes the argument that software programmers need a space of their own so that they can have uninterrupted time to think and get in the "flow", the state where you are so involved in your work that you become unaware of the outside world. This is when complex thinking and coding gets done so the person's environment has to aid that process. It's a staple at Microsoft, which has used its advice in the construction of its programmer's workspaces. In Organizational Behavior this is part of Job Design but is underrated. We often talk about the psychological elements of how jobs are built and ignore the physical side of work -- privacy, noise, lighting, space, and air.

The main title for this book, "Sources of Power", is misleading. Klein examines real decision makers in context and develops a model of "Recognition Primed Decision Making", that people in a decision context don't examine all the alternatives (the rational model) but look for a fit between the circumstances they are in and a pattern they remember. Then they construct a story of how it might turn out and if it looks good, go for it. There is also a good bit on cognitive interface design and how it can help decision makers make the right choice. Chapter 14 on "team mind" is a good introduction to that topic.

This is a wonderful little book about how each of us thinks about and reacts to changing circumstances in work and life. It's presented as a fable of two mice and two "little humans" in a maze where the reward is "cheese". The mice Sniff and Scurry move quickly and simply to find new cheese when an old source is drying up. The little people Hem and Haw have more trouble. They don't see changes happening, they feel it is unfair when "their" cheese is moved, and they are afraid of making any changes, preferring to go hungry when there is no cheese than to re-enter the maze to look for new cheese (new rewards). It takes a half an hour to read, has a good moral, and I liked the way many concepts from an introductory organizational behaviour course are used to tell the story.

The cover picture says it all. The government of North Dakota laid out six square mile townships onto the land as a way to provide order and make the space more governable. The grid is latitude by longitude, but lines of longitude converge to the poles, so to keep the squares the roads north must jog every 24 miles. Imagine driving along through the wheat fields, then having to make a jog before going north again! The book is about how governments want their people and places to be simple and ordered, the better to rule them, and the unintended consequences that follow. There are interesting chapters on how last names came about, city planning, Lenin and Soviet collectivization, and monoculture agriculture. I liked the part on page 343 about a nutrition circular at Yale that said that "many new, essential elements of proper nutrition had been discovered in the past two decades and that many more elements will presumably be identified by researchers in the decades ahead". It is rare that scientists think that they could be wrong today, even though we know we have always been wrong before. The rules of thumb for development, or change, on page 345 are useful. 1. Take small steps in social change. 2. Favor interventions that can be easily undone if they turn out to be mistakes. 3. Plan on surprises - choose plans that allow the largest accommodation to the unforeseen. 4. Plan on human inventiveness to improve whatever design you have provided.

There is much good in this book but also much I disagree with. First off, pages 14 to 20 about the scientific method as it is practiced by today's university scholars is right on the mark and also pretty funny. Harris illustrates well how much of the data gathered by psychologists, sociologists etc. is fundamentally flawed and fills the journals up with what is essentially junk. A main point made is that correlational studies don't deal with causality, so that we can't know if parents treat a child "harshly" because that's the way they are or because of the kind of child they are dealing with. Scientists know causality is not implied by correlations but that doesn't mean it can't be ignored. Harris' main point is that Nurture is not provided by the family but by the peer group. Some of this makes sense, but her examples are often anecdotal and based on her own experiences as a child or as a parent to her two children. It's a big book for really what is one point -- a child's peer group is an important influence in the socialization process, probably much more important than are parents. The part about people switching "persona" as they move from one social context to another is interesting. 

Known as the "First Lady of Engineering" (see first day cover below), this autobiography covers her life up to 1941 but wasn't published by the Institute of Industrial Engineers and her children Ernestine Gilbreth Carey and Daniel B. Gilbreth until 1998. Lillian Gilbreth received her first degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1900 in Psychology. Lillian Gilbreth is one of the first women of management and a pioneer in management consulting in the area of time and motion study.

A follow-up to "The Third Chimpanzee" and appearing before Diamond's excellent "Guns, Germs, and Steel", this book is a brief look into the genetic basis for sexual selection. Charles Darwin not only wrote about Natural Selection and how species fit a habitat, but also about sexual selection -- that characteristics of a species might be selected for through the selection practices of mates. Thus, peacocks might come to have large and colorful tails not for natural selection reasons (it doesn't make them more fit for their environment, it actually makes them less fit because the tail makes it harder for them to move easily away from predators) but because peahens select mates on the basis of the tail display. The logic is that a male with a large and colorful display who has managed to remain alive with this natural handicap must have good genes and therefore makes a good mate. This kind of argument can be applied to human behaviour as well. 

This is a business strategy book that takes the big-picture view of how companies should think about their practices. It is written by Shona Brown, who did her first degree in Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa Ontario and by Kathleen Eisenhardt, who is a well-known professor from Stanford University's Engineering School. The book is well-written, though at times I found it hard to follow because I normally focus on micro Organizational Behaviour, which studies organizations at the level of the person, the dyad, and the group. But when I thought about how one might run an MBA program using some of their ideas, it made sense. What I liked most was their diagrams showing common tensions organizations face and their prescriptions for competing on the EDGE of the two tensions. For example, in Figure 2.1 on page 30 the tension is between being structured and loose. When too loose the company/organization falls into the "Chaos Trap" of breaking all the rules, a too loose structure, and lots of random communication. When too tight the company falls into the "Bureaucratic Trap" of following all the rules (for their own sake), too much structure and process, and narrowly channeled communication" Their point is that companies and the people in them need to live on the "Improvisational Edge" between chaos and bureaucracy. One SEEKS the tension between the two traps. The second tension on page 61 was between seeing all sub-businesses as the same and seeing them as all different. The third tension, page 94, was between the past and the future, the traps being too connected to the past and having too much novelty. The fourth tension was between commitment to A future and flexibility for THE future. Chapter 6 on time pacing was interesting (e.g. Intel's constant innovation of new chip design on a schedule). I guess the tension here was between seeing time as dictating to you versus you dictating to it. Chapter 7's tension was between creating a prairie (start small and let it grow) versus assembling a toaster (put the parts together). Chapter 8 was on "Leading the Strategy" and was about different roles leaders can take.

The point made is that there are two kinds of innovation: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining innovations allow increases in speed, performance, and features. They often take lots of investment of time and capital and are pursued by companies in an industry as they seek sales of high margin goods. Disruptive innovations (or technologies, or products) tend to be simpler, cheaper, more convenient and reliable than established products. The key here is that established companies SIMPLY CAN'T SEE why they should get involved in developing some product (a disruptive one) that isn't as good as what they already have. It doesn't have the features, the abilities, and so on, so why do it? And it doesn't sell for much, so there's no money there! This explains why new entrants in an industry (disk drives, earth movers, portable radios, etc.) can find a niche providing some simpler, cheaper, but less capable and feature-rich product to a new market. Once they get a foothold they can use their experience in that market to build products that are more competitive with existing brands. Established companies retreat to high margin high cost goods where, paradoxically, they make really good money for a while before they are driven out of business. Chapter 9 on how electric cars should be considered as a disruptive technology makes a lot of sense and clearly shows how the current big car companies just don't get it -- electric cars just don't fit their business model for how to make money.

Morgan's book is something of a classic and gives a number of metaphors -- "The organization as a brain", "The organization as a psychic prison" and so on, to use as tools for thinking about organizations in different ways. It summarizes quite a bit of the organizational behaviour and organization theory literatures, and can provide food for thought about how organizations work. I'm not sure how much benefit the casual reader will get from this book. 

Bronson's second novel is similar to Tracy Kidder's 1981 "Soul of a new machine" in that he follows a group of programmers and engineers in their building of a new computer. Thrown in are venture capitalists and the problems of dot com startups. It reminded me of the 2001 movie Startup.com which of course came later, but I read the book after I saw the movie. It's a business novel, fun and interesting, part adventure and part detective story. Po's book has also been made into a movie of the same name.

Sulloway argues that siblings are very much UNALIKE because they seek to find niches within the family environment where they can maximize parental investment. The basic idea is that firstborns find an empty environment where they can choose their own niche, and most choose the conservative one where they maximize parental investment in themselves and not any future siblings. Protesting the cessation of breastfeeding, with its concomitant increase in the mother's fertility and therefore the likelihood of another sibling and competitor, is a normal behaviour. Second borns find an environment where the easy niche is already filled and therefore they have to find another one to occupy where they can get resources. Thus, laterborns are likely to be more rebellious and creative. They have to be to survive. While the arguments sometimes go on too long, and the data supplied are mostly about scientists from cultures and time periods long passed, I think his argument helps us to understand within-family dynamics for the period in which siblings are living together in the family.

I remember reading about wild buffalo standing on the plain and how the hunter would shoot one after the other and the others wouldn't run, they'd just stand there, and I was so frustrated -- "Why don't they RUN!!". But now I know. Po Bronson describes bond traders working for a huge and faceless corporation and they are fired and humiliated, one by one, as the others, numbed, look on. Each knows their turn will come, but they are too stunned by greed and alienation, to run while they have the chance. This book is half about bond traders, their lives and work, and half about the alienation of people from modern work organizations. I found it confusing in places, but very interesting overall and fun to read, and I could relate to the relationships among the bond traders. A book that covers some of the same ground on the alienation of the modern Western workplace is "Rivethead" by Ben Hamper, whose setting is the assembly line factory.

The author follows a Microsoft team. It's a very interesting case study on project management. Bill Gates' management style is also described. The interesting finding is that when it looks like all is lost, the project suddenly, magically, comes together and is a success.

"Competition between segments of the scientific community is the only historical process that ever actually results in the rejection of one previously accepted theory or in the adoption of another". Kuhn makes the point that we have theories of the world that create a paradigm of how to think about the world, how to study it, what questions to ask. The dominant paradigm reigns until a new group of scientists challenges the old way of thinking and creates a competing paradigm. The new one can win if it explains better, but the old guard will fight a rear-guard action to the death. For example in the 1960's in psychology behaviourism was a dominant paradigm, then was challenged by cognitivism, and cognitive science eventually won when all the old behaviourists retired. In my grade 7 class in 1963 I remember a classmate saying to the geography teacher that South America seems to fit into Africa. This idea was dismissed because popular theory at the time was that the continents don't move. Although Alfred Wegener in 1912 had proposed a theory of continental drift, these ideas didn't fit the current paradigm and were dismissed. Arthur Holmes in the 1930s built on Wegener's ideas but received no attention until the 1960s when a new generation of geologists and geophysicists were ready to reject the old theories and accept the theory of continental drift that we all accept today. 

Diane is a sociologist who takes that base for her analysis of the Challenger disaster. Her basic point is that the culture of NASA evolved to accept risk (to others). The book is super long and I prefer her Administrative Science Quarterly article "Autonomy, Interdependence, and Social Control: NASA and the Space Shuttle Challenger" from June 1990.

The argument is made that cultures with a high degree of trust between their members are able to build large corporations where people will work together with assumed trust between them. Countries with a high degree of trust, such as Japan, Germany, and the U.S., have a dense network of voluntary organizations (boy scouts, social clubs, fraternities, protestant-style churches, guild-like professional organizations, charities) where people learn to trust non-family members. Other countries with strong government and strong families, such as China, Hong Kong, and South American countries, have difficulty extending trust past the confines of the family and therefore have trouble building large corporations, which rely on professional middle managers who are hired on skill and aren't family members. Virtually all business starts out as family business, but only where the society extends trust beyond blood ties can large corporations grow. Societal norms of inheritance are particularly important for family business. The stronger is equal inheritance among all the children, the quicker is wealth dissipated and the faster the company size declines over generations. Primogeniture, the rule that the first born (usually the son) gets all, allows the accumulation of wealth and forces younger sons in the society to be entrepreneurial. Chapters 14 and 15 on Japan and China are very interesting, especially about family size, inheritance practices, and ideas about adoption. While neoclassical economics assumes that work is a disutility (something that people would rather not do), the argument is made here that people find satisfaction in the mastery and transformation of nature through work. The argument is made that spontaneous sociability in the U.S. (and presumably Canada) is in decline since the 1950s, trust among strangers is in decline, the family is breaking down, and society is becoming more individualistic. The economy should suffer over time because of this. Finally, on page 318 the important point is made that obligation at work is a two-way street. Managers can get loyalty, flexibility and cooperativeness from workers, but need to give in return security, benefits or training. The book "Bowling Alone" (2001) by Robert D. Putnam is a good supplement to "Trust", the best point being that the number of lawyers in the U.S. has tripled in recent years, evidence of declining trust in the society as a whole.

A fascinating look into the team at Microsoft that created the NT operating system. It's a fun read and equally interesting from a project management point of view and to learn more about how the inner workings at Microsoft. Read this book along with "I Sing the Body Electronic" and "Soul of a New Machine" and you will have a good understanding of high-tech work teams.

The main theme of the book is the advantage of network effects in the growth of computer oriented businesses in two areas of the United States. In Silicon Valley there are venture capitalists, universities with close ties to business, lots of small suppliers of every computer part and chip that a startup might need, and so on. But the book is also about organizational structures and culture, communication patterns, and the advantages of flexibility and change. A classic in IS/IT circles for the discussion of network effects, the book should be studied by organizational researchers and students for the advantages conferred by the right structure and culture.

It's not exactly easy to read, but this advice by the master of the Samurai is a timeless classic. It's about winning in individual battle, every time. By the end of his career as a samurai, Musashi was using a wooden sword and still beating his opponent. The advice is often used by business people today for one-on-one conflicts. 

This book goes along well with Stephen Pinker's "The Blank Slate" to show how we are a product of our evolution and genetics. I liked the chapter that described why males do risky things like driving fast, taking chances. The answer is to impress females of their fitness and therefore to encourage the females to allow them to mate. The logic is that "If I can do these risky things, then I must have strong genetics (fitness) to have allowed me to survive this far". Diamond covers how we are similar genetically to the chimpanzees and how we have evolved.

It's been a while since I read this book, but I recall that it was funny and gave a true-life description of what it is/was like to work on the automobile assembly line. If you've never worked in a factory, reading this book should give you a hint of what it's like.

There are any number of translations of Sun Tzu's ancient treatise on leadership, conflict, and war. I think this one by Cleary is one of the best. Read it once a year and think deeply on the advice. It is not a book that can be skimmed. 

This is a companion volume to "The Art of War" and is useful for getting in-depth advice about change. Read it once you've read the Art of War and are ready for more.

A student recommended this book to me. It's a "how-to" motivation book by a psychotherapist that is really an OB course condensed into 184 short pages. There's lots of Organizational Behaviour theory here, well described with lots of stories. I wish there was an updated edition. Twelve rules for bringing out the best in people are: 1. Expect the best from people you lead; 2. Make a thorough study of the other person's needs; 3. Establish high standards for excellence; 4. Create an environment where failure is not fatal; 5. If they are going anywhere near where you want to go, climb on other people's bandwagons; 6. Employ models to encourage success; 7. Recognize and applaud achievement; 8. Employ a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement (he means punishment); 9. Appeal sparingly to the competitive urge; 10. Place a premium on collaboration; 11. Build into the group an allowance for storms; and 12. Take steps to keep your own motivation high. I strongly recommend this little book.

This book gives a nice history of Apple computer and the major players in its development up to the Macintosh. It goes well with the 2004 retrospective "Revolution in the Valley" which picks up the story at the start of the Macintosh.

Written in 1981 and since reissued, this is a classic in the Information Science literature about the design of a new Data General computer. It's kind of poignant knowing that the machine is doomed, the book shows project management in detail and also how the guts of a computer are put together. If you are a computing science student you should read this book so that you know what it is like to build a new computer in an organization, to work in a high-tech group, and how the hardware and software go together. Also read "Showstopper" and "I sing the body electronic".