What have I been reading in 2018

As the year draws to a close I thought I'd post a summary of the books I've read in 2018.   It's quite a list ranging from short and amusing to the much slower going detailed read( yes we're looking at you Mcauley, Duberley & Johnson).  A mix of DBA study related texts, general business, faith, couple of novels, and a few on my new found interest in running.

Here they are together ( minus a few that were borrowed from libraries during the year)

.. and here's the full list

1. Why Should Anyone Work Here by Bob Coffee and Gareth Jones - discussion of 6 key attributes that organisations should have if they want to attract and retain the best people.
2. Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed - a call to rethink our attitude towards failure and see it as a path to learning. Richly illustrated with examples from research and practice.
3. Ethics by Peter Cave - Great introduction to the topic and explanations of different perspectives
4. The Social Construction of Reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann - not an easy read….book argues that “reality is socially constructed and that the sociology of knowledge must analyze the processes in which this occurs."
5. The Logic of Life by Tim Harford - applying his economist's eye and searching for the underlying rational behaviour in life
6. Energise You by Oliver Gray - short guide to achieving health, energy and happiness.
7. Too Big to Fail: Inside the battle to save Wall Street by Andrew Ross Sorkin - amazingly detailed story of the twists and turns of the 2008 financial crisis. I was struck by just how interlinked the key people were, having worked together at different stages of their careers.   
8. 17 Equations that Changed the World by Ian Stewart - from Pythagoras and the square root of minus 1 through to chaos theory and Black-Scholes this book looks at a set of key equations and their impact.
9. Talk Lean by Alan Palmer - a book about effective communication based on ‘The Interactifs Discipline'
10. Five Go Gluten Free by Bruno Vincent - amusing digression from the more serious books !
11. The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge - systems thinking and the learning organisation
12. Running Well by Sam Murphy and Sarah Connors - great introductory book to world of running including technique, exercises and injury advice
13. Secret Believers by Brother Andrew - presented as a novel but rooted in true stories of christians in Islamic states.
14. A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics by Daniel Levitin - excellent book whose ideas and examples are increasingly important as more and more data is presented to us.
15. Outside Insight by Jorn Lyseggen - conventional decision making in organisations focusses on internal data.  This book argues the case for also looking at external data and what insights it can give you into your customers and competitors.
16. Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science by Brian Fay - Each chapter answers a question and through this the book tackles issue of how we exist independently or in conjunction with others including cultural and social differences.
17. The Ethics Toolkit by Julian Baggini and Peter Fosl -This is a great book that provides short summaries and examples of ethical concepts and approaches.
18. The Rooster Bar by John Grisham - holiday read, law students facing large debts turn to hustling accident victims
19. Revelation Road by Nick Page - amusing tale of his journey through the remains of the 7 churches of Revelation
20. Inside the Banking Crisis by Hugh Pym - British perspective on the banking crisis
21. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman - classic text on EQ and its importance
22. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - really engaging read on the impact of the highly improbable and the two worlds of mediocristan and extremistan.  You'll see I was inspired to read another of his books following this one.
23. The 2020 Workplace by Jeanne Meister and Katie Willyerd - being close to 2020 it is interesting to see how much of what they forecast in the book (published 2010) would already be considered “old hat”.
24. Good Value by Stephen Green - a book of personal reflections and thoughts.  Interesting to think about capturing your own thoughts and beliefs in a simple list. 
25. Survival of the Savvy by Rick Brandon and Marty Seldman - really practical advice and guidance on high integrity political tactics in an organisational context
26. Predictive Analytics by Eric Siegel- Great overview and intro to the topic of predictive analytics with masses of examples of how they are being used across many diverse contexts. 
27. The Rules of Success by Karsten Drath - reviewed as part of the Chartered Management Institute’s Book of the year award, it provides some guidance on how to overcome setbacks.
28. Research Truth Authority by Gary Rolfe - written specifically in the context of nursing but a good overview of different research philosophies. 
29. Great Revivals by Colin Whittaker - exploring examples of church revivals from across the globe and back as far as 1734. 
30. Janesville, an American Story by Amy Goldstein - Detailed account of the human stories behind the closure of a GM plant, the community response and broader impact of the change.  A lot of suffering and huge impacts to lives with some people finding new purpose and role.  
31. Rationality & Power by Bent Flybjerg - fascinating insights into the story of the Aalborg project
32. Educating for Responsible Management edited by Roz Sunley and Jennifer Leigh - collection of contributions looking at how the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) can be embedded into business schools' approach to teaching.
33. The Collaboratory edited by Katrin Muff - collection of contributions on setting up and running collaboratories in various contexts to create spaces for collaborative working
34. Algorithms to live by : The computer science of human decision by Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths - seeing how algorithms are relevant to the decisions and challenges we face in normal life
35. Capitalism 4.0 by Anatole Kaletsky - capitalism won’t be replaced, so long as it evolves
36. The State of Africa by Martin Meredith - astonishingly deep and broad review of the history of Africa since independence, sometimes encouraging but often sad and disheartening.
37. First find your Hilltop by Roy Calvert, Brian Durkin, Eugenio Grandi & Kevin Martin - covers the 7P model of drivers that we all have in differing degrees
38. Nice Work by David Lodge - the coming together of the worlds of academia and gritty industry
39. Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore - new edition of the authoritative text on coaching with the GROW model
40. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami - intriguing story of death and love
41. How women rise by Marshall Goldsmith and Sally Helgesen - identifying 12 habits that are disproportionately likely to be factors that affect women as they progress their career.
42. Do Greater Things by Robby Dawkins - inspiring stories of salvation and healing 
43. Quiet. The power of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain - well considered and researched book exploring differences between us and how some of our assumptions may be gross simplifications and misleading
44. Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey - one of the seminal texts underpinning some approaches to coaching.  Unsurprisingly, a strong tennis focus, but clear insights with much wider applicability.
45. Running up that Hill by Vassos Alexander - engaging story of the author’s participating in a range of ultra running challenges including the Spartathlon
46. Organisation Theory: Challenges and Perspectives by John McAuley, Joanne Duberley & Phil Johnson - Comprehensive discussion of multitude of approaches to organisation theory - who knew there were so many different approaches out there !
47. The Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford - extensive consideration of the impact that rapid advances in technology could have on our lives and society
48. Succession by Marshall Goldsmith - looking at the challenge of preparing for CEO succession and the role of coaching.
49. Journeys of Hope II by Christians Against Poverty - inspiring stories of how the CAP organisation is transforming lives of people facing seemingly impossible debts
50. Organization Theory. Selected Readings edited by DS Pugh - Seminal writing on the topic.  Oldest being 1912 paper by FW Taylor on Scientific Management.
51. God on Mute by Pete Greig - tackling the vexing question of unanswered prayer
52. Fooled by Numbers by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - engaging exploration of probability and why we are so bad at understanding it
53. Grateful Leadership by Judith Umlas - highlighting the impact and arguing the case for leaders to focus on acknowledgement instead of just recognition.
54. 401 by Ben Smith - The extraordinary story of Ben’s life and his 401 marathons in 401 days challenge, changing lives and raising money to combat bullying.

What I've been reading - March / April 2016

A slower couple of months on the reading front so combined into one ...

Predictably irrational by Dan Ariely

Really enjoyed this book.  As the cover puts it …. “In a series of illuminating and groundbreaking experiments, behavioural economist Dan Airely demonstrates how expectations, emotions, social norms and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.   Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day,,but we make the same types of mistakes.  We consistently overpay, underestimate and procrastinate.  We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own.  Yet these misguided behaviours are neither random nor senseless.  They’re systematic and predictable."

Not going to argue with that - fascinating read,

The book is full of examples of intriguing experiments that have been run.  In one case undergraduate students were recruited to take part in an experiment.  In the first part they were to solve some anagrams.  When the'd done this they were told that the experiment had a second part and that they needed to go down the corridor to another room to complete it.  What was actually being studied though was simply how long it took them to walk down the corridor to the second room.  Some of the participants were given words to unscramble that could be associated with “elderly” - US experiment so examples included Florida, bingo, ancient etc.  The people primed with the elderly words had a considerably slower walking speed to the next room than the control group that was not primed in this way!

In another example they explore how satisfaction with your food in a restaurant can be best assured by being the first person to order!  ( That way your order is not influenced in any way by what people before you have said).

Big Data by Bernard Marr

 

The world is getting smarter and big data is at the core, we increasingly leave a digital trail and this can be analysed by increasingly smart analytic software.  “Big Data” is often talked about and the huge volumes of information that is being gathered.  Arguably though the value is not in the volume but rather in the things that can now be done with that data.

The book provides a SMART framework for Big Data

• Start with strategy - get clear on what you want to achieve, and what questions you want to answer
• Measure metrics and data - understand different sorts of data ( structured vs unstructured, internal vs external etc), think though what sources of data you need to answer your questions
• Apply Analytics - use the appropriate analytic tools to process the data
• Report your results - think through how the data will be visualised, lots of new ways being developed that can be used to enable people to see the data.
• Transform your business and decision making - gain fresh insights into your customers, internal processes, people.

The author has also written “Big Data in practice” - a collection of 45 case studies showing how companies are applying Big Data and analytics to their businesses.   Given my focus on the application to HR it was interesting to note that none of his 45 case studies are from that area.  

The HR Scorecard Linking People, Strategy, and Performance by Becker, Hustlid and Ulrich

The book focuses on how HR professionals can take a more strategic view of HR and its contribution to the success of the organisation.  Issues of alignment and mapping how HR contributes to the business strategy are covered.  Important to note that as HR Scorecard is developed this is not a one off activity but rather something that will need to constantly evolve as the needs of ht business change.  

They draw a distinction between Lagging and leading indicators.  Lagging indicators reflect what has happened in the past, e.g. financial indicators.  Leading indicators, unsurprisingly, are things that you can measure now which are predictors of future outcomes, examples might include current customer satisfaction as indicator of future sales.   Using lagging indicators is easier but they compare it to trying to drive a car by looking in the rear view mirror.

Another important point they make is the issue of using available data rather than relevant data to drive decisions.  Will be tempting to use the data that we are already collecting to base decisions on but this may not be the data that you need.  Using convenient data rather than relevant data to drive your decisions may not be a formula for success.