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Four Books I'm Looking Forward To

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I’m going through my in box after letting things collect for a while I attended to some major projects. Here are four books I’ve recently obtained that I’m looking forward to reading:

1. Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

Jim Collins’ new book.

I know Jim Collins only writes about one book every ten years or so, but I can barely keep up because they are so packed with incredible insight. Good to Great and Built to Last (his best, in my view) were so helpful I spent 12 hours taking notes over each of them (and then more time reviewing the notes and writing out further thoughts).

Jim Collin’s books are among the best, bar none, that you can read on how to lead your organization effectively (or, if you aren’t in top leadership, create a pocket of greatness wherever you are).

Get all of Jim Collin’s books if you haven’t, read them, take notes, then read them again.

I hope I can do that with Great by Choice in a timely manner!

2. The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

Tim Keller’s new book.

I need to read more on both marriage and parenting. I am so far behind on my parenting reading that I didn’t finish Making the Terrible Twos Terrific until our oldest was 6. Fortunately, our third just turned two, so there’s still hope with that book. And, I think I can get to this book in much less time than it took me to get to that book on the Terrible Twos.

3. Jesus + Nothing = Everything

Tullian Tchividjian’s new book, on the sufficiency of Christ. Excellent subject, excellent title. Sounds like he discusses this in the context of the most challenging year of his ministry, and so it will be combined with lots of personal stories and insights that he gained through a period of suffering. Looking forward to this a lot.

4. Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership

John Dickson’s recent book. I heard John speak at the Global Leadership Summit this August, and his presentation was the best message on humility I have ever heard. I love, love, love his definition of humility and think it is right on: humility is holding power in the service of others.

I’m hoping to get to these soon. I have about 20 books on social action and ending global poverty lined up to read as soon as I can, then I hope to get through a bunch of books on parenting, and in the midst of that I hope to fit in these and a bunch of others.

The Most Important Article on Leadership Ever Written

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To say that is not to say it is the best article on leadership ever written, though it certainly ranks up there.

Rather, it’s the most important because of discipline-altering conversation it started and change it created.

The article is “Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?,” (pdf) by Abraham Zaleznik. It was written back in 1977 and published in Harvard Business Review.

As HBR later summarized, Zaleznik argued that “the theoreticians of scientific management, with their organizational diagrams and time-and0motion studies, were missing half the picture — the half filled with inspiration, vision, and the full spectrum of human drives and desires. The study of leadership hasn’t been the same since.”

The conversation that Zaleznik’s article started, for example, is behind John Kotter’s classic 1990 article “What Leaders Really Do” (pdf) — which may take the title for the best article on leadership ever written.

Both articles remind me of Churchill’s point that “the hard part is not winning the war; it’s persuading them to let you win it.”

And, to be honest, the biggest obstacle to “winning the war” — whether that means accomplishing your mission as a ministry or non-profit, or transforming your industry and creating great products worth talking about as a for-profit — is often managers.

It just has to be said.

There is a paradox in my saying that. For I agree whole heartedly with Marcus Buckingham that the manager plays a critical, essential role in the modern organization. We need managers, and they are key to creating strong organizations.

But what we need, as Buckingham also shows (see his fantastic book on management, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently) is real managers. That is, managers who trust their people and don’t have an inflated sense of control and risk aversion.

The problem is not management, but management gone bad. Managers too often focus on obstacles and what can’t be done rather than what can be done and how to find creative ways around the obstacles.

We need good leaders, and we need good managers — managers who manage right. And the last I checked, a militant commitment to mediocrity was not part of the definition of management.

Perhaps understanding leadership a bit better will help us all become better leaders and managers. To that end, I offer both of these articles.

The Business of Design

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Good design is good business. This is starting to be recognized more and more, but there is still a long ways to go for the importance of good design to truly take root.

This is a helpful Fast Company article from 2005 on how “in a global economy, elegant design is becoming a critical competitive advantage. Trouble is, most business folks don’t think like designers.” It shows how design-oriented companies think and operate, and why this matters.

And, this is relevant not just for businesses, but churches, ministries, and all non-profits. Good design matters because people are emotional as well as rationale. To care only about the utility of a product is to fail to treat people holistically. (And, interestingly, the result is most often less helpful products as well.)

7 Benefits of Reading Non-Christian Books

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Tony Reinke, in his excellent book Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books:

What types of books should Christians read? Scripture is the most important book, and the highest priority for our reading. Christian books can teach us valuable lessons about God, the world, our sin, and our Savior.

But in this chapter I want to focus on the value of non-Christian books. By that term, I mean any book not authored by a converted Christian or written from an explicitly Christian motive. What should we do with all these books? Should we burn them? Should we treasure them? Should we read them in secret under the bedsheets with a flashlight?

My conviction is that non-Christian literature — at least the best of it — is a gift from God to be read by Christians. These books are, in the words of Spurgeon, gold leaf compared to the gold bars of Scripture, but they are gold, and they do have value.

He then discusses seven benefits to reading non-Christian books. I’d love to reproduce the whole discussion, as it is an excellent outline on how to think about the relationship between common grace and saving grace, but to see that you’ll have to get the book! But here are the seven benefits he goes in to:

  1. Non-Christian literature can describe the world, how it functions, and how to subdue it
  2. Non-Christian books highlight common life experiences
  3. Non-Christian books can expose the human heart
  4. Non-Christian books can teach us wisdom and valuable moral lessons
  5. Non-Christian books can capture beauty
  6. Non-Christian literature raises questions that can only be resolved in Christ
  7. Non-Christian books can echo spiritual truth and edify the soul

Cape Town Anniversary

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The Lausanne Movement blog has a series of post from two weeks ago in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization last October.

What Was the Most Important Thing About Cape Town 2010?

Here’s a key reflection from one of the posts on the most important outcome from the Congress last fall:

In an interview at the close of the Congress, Doug Birdsall, Executive Chair of The Lausanne Movement, said he believes the personal connections made by leaders were among the most important accomplishments of the gathering.  Additionally he said leaders were able to sense the magnitude of what God is doing around the world and that together the Church regained its footing and regained its nerve for world evangelization.

I agree 100%. Making connections and seeing what God is doing are the central purposes of any conference — most of all a convention such as Cape Town 2010 that brought together delegates from almost every nation in the world. And from the results of the past year, it looks like these outcomes have born much fruit — and will continue to bear fruit for a long time to come.

Here’s a closing video that looks back on the congress: Cape Town 2010: Looking back at the Congress

The New Rules of the Internet

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The “new rules” have been around for a while now, but this is still a great summary by Jeff Jarvis in What Would Google Do?:

  1. Customers are now in charge.
  2. People can find each other anywhere and coalesce around you or against you.
  3. The mass market is [sort of] dead, replaced by the mass of niches.
  4. Since markets are conversations, the key skill in any organization is no longer marketing but conversing.
  5. We have shifted from an economy based on scarcity to one based on abundance.
  6. Enabling customers to collaborate with you (creating, distributing, marketing, supporting products) is what creates a premium in today’s market.
  7. The most successful enterprises today are networks and the platforms on which those networks are built.
  8. The key to success is not owning pipelines, people, products, or even intellectual property, but openness.

Should You Upgrade to the iPhone 4s?

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I had the same initial reservations as Michael Hyatt: It seems like you get most of the advancements through the iOS5 software, and the iPhone 4 is already really great. Is it worth it to upgrade to the iPhone 4s?

After his daughter convinced him to give it a try, he upgraded — and is very glad he did. He gives a great summary of the three biggest benefits in upgrading, and has me convinced.

I should add that, with something like an iPhone, it is generally my policy to get every upgrade, because the increase in speed alone is usually worth it. It also helps keep you up to date on the advancements in technology, by experience rather than simply hearing second-hand. I think that is important for keeping our thinking up to date so that we can fully maximize technology for good.

But I was reluctant here, giving slightly higher priority to saving money than I usually do. As is typical, though, I’ve found that the intent to save money often ends up shooting you in the foot when the issue at stake is, as here, an investment in tools that exist to equip you in doing good. So, with this lesson reinforced once again, I will be getting the iPhone 4s.

Respect and Generosity are Governing Principles for Any Effective Leader

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It is so easy, especially in turbulent economic times such as those we are in now, to get focused on efficiency and cost cutting. And those things do have their place.

But they are not the main thing. They are not what’s most important. And leadership should be diligent to never succumb to the temptation to let them usurp what is most important.

After a God-centered passion, two of the most important principles for any leader are respect and generosity.

Generosity — not efficiency. And respect — not efficiency.

Efficiency can, and often does, undermine both. That’s why you have to make it second, not first.

There are few (if any) promises in the Bible to prosper the “efficient” man or woman. But there is an abundance of promises to the generous person.

We know this from the Bible. But often we think that “business thinking” is different. That somehow the realm of running non-profits and businesses and other organizations plays by different rules.

But it doesn’t.

To be sure, people often think it does, and act like it does. That’s why we need to be careful about saying “non-profits need to be run more like businesses” and so forth — not because the principles for running an effective business are always different (though sometimes they are), but because there are many wrong business principles being used to run businesses, and we don’t want to let those infect the non-profit sector as well.

But the things that are ultimately required for running a business and non-profit well are ultimately the same things necessary for living a good life. And generosity and respect are two of those overarching principles.

And we aren’t left simply looking at the Bible to see this (though that should be enough). The best business and leadership thinkers have always acknowledged this.

Take Peter Drucker. At the end of his book The Effective Executive, he points out that his emphasis on making strengths productive “is fundamentally respect for the person — one’s own as well as others. It is a value system of action.” Drucker isn’t detaching executive effectiveness from the realm of morality and decency and sheer humanity. Rather, he sees them as utterly intertwined. A focus on strengths is ultimately a respect for the individual.

Likewise, he points out that the practice of “putting first things first” is not simply an issue of effectiveness, but character. “What is being developed here is not information, but chracter: foresight, self-reliance, courage. What is being developed here, in other words, is leadership — not the leadership of brilliance and genius, to be sure, but hte much more modest yet more enduring leadership of dedication, determination, and serious purpose.”

Drucker does not abstract effectiveness, even in large organizations, from character. They are utterly intertwined such that the core practices of effectiveness are actually manifestations of (and means of developing) character and respect for others.

Likewise, when I was at the Global Leadership Summit the year before this one, Jack Welch made a very significant comment. He said “Top people have a generosity of spirit. They get a kick out of giving bonuses, for example. They don’t have envy. They love helping people grow.” There’s character once again, and generosity. Top people are generous. Generosity is not just something for our personal lives and personal finances; we are to have a generosity of spirit in the way we go about our work. That is biblical, but what we see is that it is also borne out by the experience of the most effective business leaders and thinkers of our time.

So, how do you lead? Do you care first about generosity, or efficiency? About respect — and thus it’s corollary of positioning people according to their strengths — or efficiency?

I’m not playing these things off against efficiency, rightly understood. For ultimately, the best way to be efficient is to value generosity and respect before efficiency.

Leadership: What Not to Do, 3

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Don’t leave it to merely to your advisers. In contrast:

Any good leader must develop a substantive base. No matter how talented your advisers and deputies, you have to attack challenges with as much of your own knowledge as possible. (Rudy Giuliani)