This Friday morning (November 11th) I’ll be speaking at the Social Media Shepherds monthly event on “How the Gospel Should Shape Your Web Strategy.” It will be 8:00 – 9:30 am at Bethlehem Baptist Church (downtown campus), 720 13th Ave S, Minneapolis, room 203 (upstairs and to the left).
For anyone in or around the Twin Cities interested in web strategy and social media, it would be fun to see you there.
Looks like you can also RSVP and get more info on Facebook.
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
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.
A friend of mine in my small group just published this book with Microsoft Press. I’m impressed. Way to go, Phil!
For any out there in IT who work with SharePoint, this book looks like a helpful resource worth checking out.
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
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.
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.)
