Hi folks,
Finally, after months and months of endless awards admin, I am overjoyed to announce the start of one of my favorite TOA traditions – The TOA Book of the Year award, or as I like to call it, ‘The Most Irrelevant Prize in World Literature’. For those requiring a refresher, I announced (‘announced’) my shortlist in this recent post (1).
I liked last year’s process so we’ll repeat it for this year’s edition. We’ll start with a series of preliminary posts where I’ll slowly eliminate the books I will not include among my finalists. These posts will include a brief blurb about what I liked in the book as well as a ‘parting thought’ – the big idea that has stayed with me since my reading.
Unlike with last year, I looked for common links among my eliminations and paired books together whenever possible. This didn’t apply to every book but I think it will add some extra perspective to these preliminary posts. We’ll assess how this new process goes before making any decisions about whether to make it a permanent feature of these awards.
OK – without further ado, let’s begin the elimination rounds from the 2018 TOA Book of the Year awards with a pair of books I read as part of my ‘Business Bro Book Club’. This bizarre idea was simultaneously short-lived (in that I stopped rereading business books) yet remains ongoing (in that I’m still working on posts for these books). I decided the best approach was to pause this project until I could find an actual job where I could apply the insights and lessons from these books.
High Output Management by Andy Grove (February 2018)
Grove’s book defines the standard for the managerial role. I read it in February in preparation for a new managerial job I had just accepted (at the time, I didn’t know I would be prevented from actually taking on the managerial responsibilities discussed during the recruitment process). Still, rereading wasn’t a total waste as I enjoyed the process while also reminding myself of the book’s enduring wisdom.
Parting thought: the manager’s job is to train or motivate
This was an easy one and a concept I’ve highlighted many times on TOA. Grove’s entire book is built around his insight that an employee performs poorly for one of two reasons – either the employee cannot do the job or the employee does not feel like doing the job. Thus, the manager’s job is to train or motivate. I argue that every other line in the book is related to this thought (clear communication is essential for good training, a poorly organized work process suffocates motivation, a thoughtful performance review motivates the employee, etc).
Plain Talk by Ken Iverson (June 2018)
Iverson’s book examines leadership at the executive level and the scope is therefore a little different from Grove’s focus on middle management. However, the two authors share a reliance on common sense and people skills that influenced my own leadership philosophy. Being about executive leadership, Plain Talk’s common sense approach is a little more eye opening because these days common sense is not associated with the C-level. Iverson shows that this does not need to be the case, especially when he describes how top executive pay should be based almost entirely on the organization’s performance. Given what I know about CEO pay, my best guess is that most CEOs did not read this book prior to taking the job.
Parting thought: an organization should have no more than four levels of hierarchy
Iverson describes the four levels as follows: front-line employees, supervisors, managers (who organize the efforts of multiple teams), and the executive level. When I eventually run an organization, this will be one of my core principles because it is a simple way to understand and explain roles. The framework will help me recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the team while allowing each person to understand how a specific set of responsibilities fits into the organizational structure.
Footnotes / endnotes / admin rants
0. The 2018? The 2019? The 1975? Who knows, who cares...
Yes, I am aware that last year's award was also called 'The 2018 TOA Book Award', or something like that. No, I don't care.
1. More admin...
I hinted in this post that I might cover other 'awards' first before digging into these books. Well, maybe I will, but I think it's about high time I talked about these books, no?
