Books to Know

I wish you could know Ginny - a former NASA biophysicist, Aikido black belt, Zen priest and superb executive coach and facilitator. The most no-nonsense and most productive colleague I’ve met in ages, she has articulated in her Zen Leadership book ten “flips” of consciousness that take the labor out of coaching by redirecting leaders’ energy and attention.

Perhaps your organization already considers its associates leaders. Are they also artists? Is it possible to demonstrate artistry in every role? Author Erik Wahl believes it is.

Patrick Lencioni is one of my favorite authors, having written several extraordinary business books such as The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Death By Meeting, and Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars. Lencioni is an excellent storyteller and uses fables to convey important business insights and teachings. The Advantage was published in March of 2012 and is his first book that doesn’t employ a fable format. However, it shines in its ability to organize and convey with clarity the important teachings in his previous books, including the three I mentioned above.

I read this volume with deep interest and through two sets of lenses; one as a Psychologist, and the other as an Executive Coach. I believe Cain’s basic mission in publishing this book is to bring the reader’s attention to how underutilized and undervalued introverts really are. She begins with the premise that we live in a broader value system she calls the “extrovert ideal”. That is to say, “there is an omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight.”

Why CEOs Fail? Even the authors admit, it could just as easily have been titled ‘Why Leaders Fail.’ Authors David L. Dotlich (former executive at Honeywell) and Peter C. Cairo (former professor at Columbia University) set out to answer the questions of ‘why do obviously talented leaders make poor decisions, alienate key people, miss opportunities and overlook obvious trends and developments?’ And, ‘why do leaders who genuinely want to do the right thing end up doing the wrong thing?’