The day after Thanksgiving, I located my cell phone (which I had stuffed in a sock drawer) to find a half-dozen kind &quot;Thank You&quot;&nbsp;texts from several friends, colleagues, and clients.&nbsp; Back in my saddle this week, I find the same is true of my email inbox. 


To these, I can only say, &quot;No.&nbsp; Thank YOU.&quot; 


<img src="/blogging/editors/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-smile.gif" border="0" alt="Smile" title="Smile" width="18" height="18" />&nbsp; 


I am a part of all whom I have known, as well as &quot;all the better for it.&quot; 


Blessings to&nbsp;each of you&nbsp;as we&nbsp;teeter into&nbsp;December 2008.

Thank You for the Thank You's

and <img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fMillionaire's+Secret%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="70" height="110" />are both fine reads.&nbsp;
Make it Plain and The Millionaire's Secret are&nbsp;great reminders of what mighty things come from humble beginnings.

2 Brief Book Reviews: "Make it Plain" and "The Millionaire's Secret"

I shudder to share this&nbsp;unwieldy &ldquo;book list&rdquo; &ndash; this bibliography of sorts &ndash; in its current state of disrepair.&nbsp; But time is our collective enemy, and if I wait until it&rsquo;s &ldquo;edited,&rdquo; it will likely never see the light of day.&nbsp; 


And people are waiting!&nbsp; 


I am frequently asked, &ldquo;What books do you recommend I read?&rdquo;&nbsp; &quot;What magazines do you read?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;What television shows and movies do you watch?&quot;&nbsp; 


And I cobble together lists of books (and articles and shows and movies)&nbsp;I&rsquo;ve read or even enjoyed (!) only to lose the lists months later.&nbsp; 


Alas, I have spent the better part of the past hour cutting and pasting my various, located lists into one document.&nbsp; 


Yes, it is a rat&rsquo;s nest, but at least &ldquo;here it is.&rdquo;&nbsp; (PLEASE forgive any errors, key omissions, or outright unattractiveness of this list.&nbsp; It is redundant, unformatted, and outright ugly.)&nbsp; 


Maybe one day, someone will Pay it Forward by boomeranging it back to me &ndash; neatly organized, academically formatted,&nbsp;and much beautified!&nbsp; &nbsp;Hint, hint.&nbsp; (Don&#39;t worry, I won&#39;t hold my breath.) 


But until then, here it is &ndash; a messy, but quite thorough accounting of some of the books (and articles) I&rsquo;ve read&nbsp;or skimmed and referenced and recommended since the early and mid-90s.&nbsp;&nbsp; 








I have excluded nearly all HBR articles I have read, because they are simply too many and it&#39;s easier to say, &quot;Subscribe to HBR.&quot;&nbsp; <a href="http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/">http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp; 








It occurs to me already that I have also forgotten the pleasurable Mental Floss (<a href="http://www.mentalfloss.com/">www.mentalfloss.com</a>) magazine.&nbsp; See there; the list is already outdated and I haven&#39;t even uploaded it yet.&nbsp; Please help me... send&nbsp;us your recommendations and we&#39;ll try to include them in v2.0 several months from now! 


I hope these books serve you as they have served me but, moreover, that you enjoy them and find them both &ldquo;educational and implementable.&rdquo;&nbsp; 


Read on.&nbsp; 


<a href="/blogging/file.axd?file=2008%2f12%2fTBLG_Monograph_BookList_12-01-2008.pdf">TBLG_Monograph_BookList_12-01-2008.pdf (461.75 kb)</a>

Monograph: Book List

With Gladwell's third book, he is officially "2 for 3" in my book.
I give Outliers a solid, solid A.
With the exception of the Chapter Five and the Epilogue, which comprise the&nbsp;least engaging&nbsp;sections in the book, Outliers&nbsp;is one of the most remarkable books I've read in the past six months.
Gladwell's first published book, The Tipping Point, was simply outstanding.&nbsp; Blink, however,&nbsp;was a real snooze.&nbsp; (My own personal opinion is that he was rushing to cash-in on the success of The Tipping Point, but there was hardly a kernel worth writing about in Blink.&nbsp; "Thin-slicing?"&nbsp; Come on... much ado about nothing.&nbsp; Thin-slicing, indeed.)
But this latest contribution, Outliers, is a real treat.&nbsp; Candy for the brain.&nbsp; It reminds me of all the great, wonderful, intriguing ideas that led me to study the human and social sciences in the first place.&nbsp; To learn more about Outliers from Gladwell himself, check out <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/index.html">http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/index.html</a>.&nbsp; But the reasons I enjoyed it can be captured in the following representative list of&nbsp;topics that reminded me of undergraduate coursework in psychology, anthropology, and sociology that&nbsp;spurred me to continue studying and reading until... well... this very day:
1. patterns
2. selection, streaming, and differentiated experience
3. accumulative advantage
4. the 10,000 hour rule
5. divergent vs. convergent intelligence
6. general and practical intelligence
7. concerted cultivation vs. accomplishment of natural growth
8. the culture of honor
9. mitigated speech
10. the ubiquitous and unparalleled work of Geert Hofstede
&nbsp;
So, why don't I give Gladwell an A+?&nbsp; Well, setting aside Chapter Five and the Epilogue, my greatest concern is more substantive, of course, and it has to do with "too much cultural determinism."&nbsp; By Gladwell's way of thinking, we achieve what we achieve, in large part -- in fact, practically predominantly -- because of the culture in which we are raised.&nbsp; He strives to prove this through a series of stories and examples that are, indeed, fascinating.&nbsp; But they are not quite enough to fully convince.
In the particulate, his anecdotes are super.&nbsp; But in the aggregate, they border on stereotypical and ring somewhat hollow in today's increasingly 'post-racial and post-cultural' world.&nbsp; Indeed, differences remain among and between people of various backgrounds, but as a dear friend of mine from Portugal once said, "We are not all that different.&nbsp; There is TOO MUCH STEREOTYPING and GENERALIZING."
As Morris Massey articulated in his infamous, What You Are Is Where You Were When, some mild generalizations can be helpful, but they are inadequate.&nbsp; Indeed, with any taxonomy or typology, generalizations give us what Robert&nbsp;Cialdini (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion) would describe as 'a shorthand way of interacting with each other,' but beyond that... generalizations and stereotypes can be dangerous and&nbsp;altogether misleading.
I am certain, as are countless others, that MANY individuals achieve a great deal on their own, as well as overcome and transcend the shackles of their culture, background, history, and surroundings.&nbsp; I know that Gladwell does not believe, 100%, that who we are and what we accomplish is solely because of those around us, but he works himself into a corner of sorts by&nbsp;arguing so strongly&nbsp;that we do.
But, my goodness, out of 309 pages (all of which you will, indeed, read in a B-L-I-N-K)... if this is my only concern, then color me IMPRESSED and DELIGHTED and AMONG HIS BIGGEST ADVOCATES.
This book will prove to be enormously successful, and millions of people will soak it up like a sponge.&nbsp;
Here's hoping they do... and wishing Tom Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded could have achieved the stickiness of Outliers.
<img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fOutliers%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="169" height="254" />

Book Review: "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell

This past week I was in Savannah, GA.
While eating at The Gryphon Tea Room, I observed an interesting exchange between a waiter and a hostess. The hostess asked the waiter, "Would you please serve the table against the window?" To which the waiter replied exceedingly ironically, "Sure. I have nothing else to do right now. Are YOU working today?"
Harumphhhh.
And then, a day later, as I waddled through the security checkpoint at the quaint Savannah "International" Airport, I witnessed a very 'put out' TSA agent harumph behind the x-ray machine (carrying more than his fair share of 'curious items') shouting, "Man Working Here! Step aside, step aside!" He was bellowing, not at me mind you, but at his co-workers.
I found it&nbsp;interesting that within a&nbsp;twenty-four hour timespan, I had witnessed two very put-out&nbsp;employees 'harumphing' about their colleagues!
You know, times are tough. I get that. We all get that. We are that.
But I'm ceaselessly flabbergasted when employees vent and harumph in front of customers.&nbsp;The very, ahem, customers they are meant to be serving.
I remember, several years ago, working with an airline to help it restore its reputation. (Long story short: the airline remains its own worst enemy.) As my colleagues and I flew dozens and dozens of trips to ride jumpseat and observe Flight Attendants in the air, we were literally dumbfounded by the negative, disruptive chatter that consumed them and which was all overheard by paying customers within earshot. When we reported our findings, the airline acted somewhat SURPRISED. Surprised? Are you kidding me? Who's not paying attention here?
As leaders and co-workers, let's remember&nbsp;the Golden Rule of&nbsp;Customer Service: "Keep your miseries to yourself."
Customers are paying for a service, not for the sidebars that distract and diminish what could otherwise be an acceptable or stellar experience.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;
p.s. If you are ever in Savannah, be sure to visit The Gryphon Tea Room. Despite my dismay at the single blip I described above, the food is phenomenal and the experience is worth the wait.

"Man Working Here!"

Given the amount of change occurring around us, I have noticed a marked &#39;uptick&#39; in the number of requests to facilitate &#39;re-organization.&#39;&nbsp; In short, many companies and organizations are forced &#39;to do more with less.&#39; 


In light of this need, I submit a brief White Paper that may help.&nbsp; It is merely one of many required &#39;stakes in the ground,&#39; but it is indeed one. 


Happy Reading. 


<a href="/blogging/file.axd?file=2008%2f12%2fTBLG_WhitePaper_OrganizationalDesignElements_12-01-2008.pdf">TBLG_WhitePaper_OrganizationalDesignElements_12-01-2008.pdf (256.63 kb)</a>

White Paper: When Re-Organizing, Consider These Elements

Bringing Down the House led to 21 with Kevin Spacey.&nbsp; I have not seen the movie, but a number of friends have recommended the book.
It's a quick read -- one of three I&nbsp;enjoyed over Thanksgiving 2008 -- and I predict you'll crank through it in a few hours too.
The bottom line: it's a blast, but also a bleak series of recollections.&nbsp; Given the many dark and twisted characters, you may feel the need to bathe afterward.&nbsp; The underbelly of Vegas attracts all manner of humankind, and most of them are in rare display here.
For the mathematician in all of us, the feats accomplished by the merry band of blackjack raiders is quite impressive and always fascinating.
Enjoy the book... I'm sure it's much better than the movie.
<img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fBringingDownTheHouse%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="240" />

Book Review: "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich

Wow -- this book was a figurative and literal&nbsp; B E A T I N G . 
I know he's a three-time Pulitzer Prizer winner... perhaps that's why I expected better.
Sure, he knows his stuff, but the book is circular, redundant, dry, and only momentarily compelling.&nbsp; Given his obvious zealotry about the important subject matter, it's&nbsp;unfortunate he becomes his own worst enemy.&nbsp;
Friedman makes his point SO WELL, AND SO MANY TIMES that I wonder how GREAT the book might have been were it only half the overwhelming 438 pages.
In time, it will prove to be a classic... ahead of its time... brilliant... and will be heralded as "the book that&nbsp;encapsulated it all."&nbsp; His sources, data, statistics, and stories are second-to-none... but then become second, third, and fourth-only-to-himself after&nbsp;perhaps 200 pages or so.&nbsp; His hypotheses and recommendations are dynamite, but hardly pithy.&nbsp; I feel guilty for perceiving the book to become tiresome about something that is so profoundly critical to us all.&nbsp;
But today, it is simply overkill, and too wonk-ish to attract the millions upon millions who need to read it if we are to truly democratize and integrate what has hitherto been known as 'the green movement.'
Thanks, Tom, for writing it.&nbsp; I only hope that enough of us are up to reading and implementing it.&nbsp; In time, perhaps an abridged version or summary will follow that can be distributed and implemented by the majority.&nbsp;
<img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fHot%2cFlat%2cCrowded%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="91" height="137" />

Book Review: "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- And How It Can Renew America" by Thomas L. Friedman

For too many years, I entered Thanksgiving with a TON of work to be done on the backside of it.&nbsp; My first week of December has often been as busy as &ndash; or busier &ndash; than any other week in the year.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s generally the mad client rush to &lsquo;get in what we can get in&rsquo; before year-end.&nbsp; 


As a result, it&rsquo;s hard for me to remember enjoying Thanksgiving all that much, at least &ndash; in recent years.


Instead, what I recall is being consumed by work over the Thanksgiving week, preparing for and anticipating all that would be required of me the week following.&nbsp; And then, of course, the same onslaught often just grew and grew, snowballing into the Christmas and New Year week, leaving me zapped every January!


I remember one Thanksgiving where I spent five days &ndash; Wednesday thru Sunday &ndash; writing a course for a client that had to go to press the Monday after.&nbsp; Another year, I spent the ten days around Christmas day developing a three-course curriculum for a large banking client because they wanted to &lsquo;go live&rsquo; in Mid-January but didn&rsquo;t decide this until mid-December.&nbsp; (On both occasions, my family was NOT happy.)&nbsp; The list of &lsquo;Thanksgivings and Christmases barely had&rsquo; is too shameful and embarrassing and personally convicting to mention.


Being an entrepreneur in a service company &ndash; exacerbated by this year&rsquo;s tough market and thin dollars &ndash; can make &lsquo;the going&rsquo; quite rough.&nbsp; As is the case for most every for-profit organization the world over, saying &lsquo;No&rsquo; can be hazardous to one&rsquo;s health, and so I have generally found a way to say &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; but often at my family&rsquo;s expense.


So here we are, the week of Thanksgiving 2008, and how am I doing?&nbsp; With all my limbs crossed and knocking on wood as I write this, I am very optimistic that I&rsquo;ll have a more balanced Holiday Season this year than I can recall in a long time.


Yes, I have several curricula to write &ndash; a 12-module Leadership series, a new Strategic Thinking module, an entire semester&rsquo;s worth of content for an Executive Education series, and several smaller projects too minute to mention here &ndash; but alas, for all but one of these deliverables, I have &lsquo;more than three weeks&rsquo; to finish!


My writing time will be punctuated with two final trips for the year &ndash; but I am confident that I can pull it off and not lose my mind in the process.


My wife, daughter, and I will be spending Thanksgiving with family in and around Hilton Head Island, SC and Savannah, GA.&nbsp; Something about the Southeast always calms my soul.&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know if it&rsquo;s the billowy moss that swings and drapes like ghosts&rsquo; linens or the easy manner of those who live there, but I find myself drawn to the area year after year.


Two of my favorite movies are The Prince of Tides and Midnight in the Garden of Good &amp; Evil. &nbsp;Both possess such haunting soundtracks and engulfing moods and scenes that whenever I watch them it&rsquo;s all I can do to avoid packing and heading for the airport.


And so this year, it&rsquo;s away we go.&nbsp; A big trip, ripe with expectation and hope and recovery at the end of a hectic, tumultuous year that runs concurrent to most people&rsquo;s summary of 2008.


Ironically, as the world seemingly spins out of control, many of us are blessed with good family and health enough to find comfort in those we have known all our lives.&nbsp; Thanksgiving is a fine time, as good as any, to tell them how much we love them, how much they mean to us, and how fortunate we are &ndash; despite our many losses &ndash; to either have them still, or to recall their sweet memories and all they did to prop us up on the wobbly bike of life.


My mother sent me a sweet note the other day, commenting, &ldquo;You make a living by what you get.&nbsp; You make a life by what you give.&rdquo;


Amen.


Now get thee to thy family gathering, and rip yourself off a plump turkey leg and dig in.


Nothing says, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m home&rdquo; like eating meat around a homemade fire.


And do your family a favor, would &lsquo;ya please?&nbsp; Try turning off the stinkin&rsquo; Blackberry for a few days.&nbsp; If you can&rsquo;t, try stuffing it in your sock drawer until Monday, or hand it over to someone who loves you. 


Amen2. 

&nbsp;

Thanksgiving 2008

Last night, my wife and I watched "Jonestown: The Life &amp; Death of Peoples Temple" on PBS.&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/jonestown-preview/">https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/jonestown-preview/</a>
It was&nbsp;a fantastic expos&eacute;, very well done.&nbsp; And of course, the content and story itself -- the tragedy that was The Peoples Temple -- was heartbreaking, infuriating, and devastating.&nbsp; There are literally hundreds of families still walking this earth that were scorched by the mania of Jim Jones.&nbsp; One survivor alone lost nineteen relatives at the 'kool-aid-cyanide-suicide' which, as another survivor describes it, "Wasn't a suicide at all.&nbsp; Those who did not imbibe were shot in the head."
The images of babies, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters... 909 in all, who died that fateful day, November 18th, 1978 -- are absolutely heartwrenching.
From sociological, psychological, anthropological perspectives -- the sleep deprivation, the communal property, the preying upon and taking advantage of the weakest and poorest, the intertwined subjugation and messianic messages, the 'turning' of husband against wife / wife against husband / parents against children / children against parents / neighbor against neighbor&nbsp;-- were... and are predictable recipies for baking the perfect cult.
In time, the idealism that began with peace and love was eclipsed by Mr. Jones' psychoses, and a dysfunctional, fear-based organization was created that began to turn on itself like ouroboros.&nbsp; And once the implosion began, it raged swiftly, reaching its predictable conclusion within hours.
As we watched the documentary from our Monday Morning Quarterback Chair... our Hindsight is 20/20 Chair... the groupthink, peer pressure, and manipulative tactics were so obvious, so heavy-handed.&nbsp; It's like watching a magician AFTER he's explained the trick.&nbsp; "Well of course, I saw that coming."&nbsp; But too few did.&nbsp; Even those who expressed an interest in the preceding weeks to 'get out' could not resist the undercurrent.&nbsp; Of those who survived, approximately 80 of them were 'elsewhere' that day, including Jim Jones adopted son.&nbsp; Of the 5 or so who literally 'escaped into the jungle,' they only survive today because the gunmen surrounding the compound were unable to shoot or capture them.
This all reminds me of something I read in the fantastic, albeit short book, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, which is -- the greater the perceived losses of our current path x increasing commitment to that current path = a very difficult magnetic force to avoid.&nbsp; Read the book for yourself, and you'll see how this applied to LBJ's "Great Society" and the War in Vietnam, to George W. Bush's "Iraq War" and "Surge" strategy, as well as to a decorated&nbsp;airline pilot who singlehandedly caused the worst airplane collision in aviation history.
It occurs to me that as organizational leaders, we are not immune from the kool-aid.&nbsp; For many of us, our workplaces become a meta-family of sorts, with their own rituals, chants, slogans, values, and requirements.&nbsp; We burn the midnight oil, devote ourselves wholly to the enterprise, feel guilt or remorse for giving our all yet perceiving it's never enough, and so on.
All I can say is, "Remain objective."&nbsp; Welcome&nbsp;disagreement, keep perspective, don't over-consolidate power through excessive centralization, maintain a balance of power through diversity of thought and creativity, and&nbsp;always be open to contrarian perspectives and the freedom to experiment.&nbsp; Sure, in the end, we must have alignment on a common course of action (or risk wasting resources, time, labor, and energy), but only after thoughtful, participative, engaged dialogue about those most important decisions that affect everyone and those who follow them.
In the end, I am haunted by the words of one Jonestown escapee who said, after describing the loss of his wife and newborn son, "I knew in my head 'this is wrong,' but I couldn't bring myself to speak the words."
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

The Jonestown Tragedy: A Cautionary Tale Reminding Us of the Importance of Dissension

Periodically, someone will ask for an example to illustrate the difference between how strategists&nbsp;and most leaders think about the world.&nbsp; Here&#39;s a great example, borrowed from a dear friend: 



Asked about Starbuck&#39;s organizational intent, a typical businessperson might say: 

&ldquo;Leverage a&nbsp;distinctive brand plus coffee buying, production, and marketing systems to achieve premium pricing and global dominance....&rdquo; 
 



When in reality, their strategic intent says: 


&ldquo;Sell back to a busy customer the 20 minutes each day she will look forward to the most....&rdquo; &nbsp; 


&nbsp;


Thanks for the great example, J.P.

Differentiating 'Strategy' from 'Business as Usual'

By way of encouragement, may this lift you up today.


And tomorrow.


And beyond.


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPLCaAu_H2U">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPLCaAu_H2U</a>