Intellectual Curiosity 2018-2019

(note: My 2020 focus is biographies. Recommendations are welcomed, preferably those that go beyond a narrative and focus on lessons learned.)

Expanding My Mental Models: 2018-2019

Consciously or not, we all have mental models that guide our comprehension of life, behavior, and approach to problem solving.

"...you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form. You’ve got to have models in your head." -Charlie Munger

During the past two years my intellectual curiosity and mental meandering led through a lot of material. Rather than provide reviews, here is a summary of those that most influenced my mental models. The items below left indelible impressions that continue to echo and have fine-tuned my lenses for understanding the world.

Most influential 2018-2019

• Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Lesson: There is no “right" approach to leadership, and efficacy will vary by circumstances.
• The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger. Lesson: Respect the past, but don’t revere it. If you revere it, it will hold you back.
• The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Lesson: Checklists improve outcomes with no increase in skill.
• Hit Refresh – the Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul by Satya Nadella. Lesson: When you press refresh on your browser not everything gets replaced, only those things that need to be replaced. From time to time it’s healthy to press refresh... probably in all areas of our work and lives.
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Lesson: an incredibly simple and insightful model for thinking about organizational culture, which I use regularly in my professional work of studying teams and organizations. This was certainly not the intent of the book, but finding this gem also highlights the value of venturing afield in order to learn. Surprisingly helpful insights can come from anywhere. Even without this serendipitous find, this was among the most poignant books in recent memory and the topic was an enjoyable mental meandering on a relatively (for me) untrodden path.
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. Lesson: a model for dysfunction, drawn from fifteen years of consulting with leaders from all sorts of organizations around the world. This book provides insights for why teams and organizations often don't work well, struggle to reach their potential, or outright fail. Few organizations struggle due to lack of talent or smarts. Indeed, most organizations have an excess of smarts, but being "healthy" would better enable them to achieve success.
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz. I read this book in full twice and refer back to it often. The commentary about “Ones and Twos” often comes to mind.
• Small Giants: Companies that Choose to be Great Instead of Big, 10th-Anniversary Edition by Bo Burlingham. Lesson: Growth isn’t the only definition of success. Most top-selling business books promise, “Follow these rules and you can rest on your laurels!” There is some of that, but in this 10th-anniversary edition the book demonstrates intellectual honesty and revisits companies that later declined and identifies reasons they did not endure. The other lesson here: no organization ever really arrives. Change, competition, and evolution are constant. There is no resting on your laurels.
• The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies and Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing our Digital Future. Both by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. These books are two sides of the same coin. Together they explain the accelerating influence of tech businesses in all aspects of our lives. My suggestion is to read them back to back. Also recommended in tandem are chapters 1-2 of Range by David Epstein, which articulate the environments in which Artificial Intelligence is likely to thrive and struggle most. Anyone can better understand the world through the lens of reading these books.

In addition to books, some podcasts have materially influenced my understanding of the world.

• Finding the Road to Character. Lesson: “You can be happy alone. You win a game, you get a promotion, you feel big about yourself. Happiness is the expansion of self. But joy is the merger of self. It is a kind of thing that happens when you forget where you end and something else begins.” This speech provided insight into the power of relationships and the joy comes in no other way.
• The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish Podcast. Episode/interview with Neil Parsicha: Happy Habits. I have listened to this one in full at least twice.
• At the Table with Patrick Lencioni. The Table Group advocates that organizations who are both smart AND healthy have an advantage over those that are only smart. Rather than lists of dos and don’ts from specific situations, the Table Group books and podcasts are aggregated from 20+ years of consulting to various organization types all over the world (though predominately in North America). A history of breadth, depth, trial and error are behind the content. Those who have read Lencioni’s books will find the podcast material familiar territory.

Other ground covered...

Business and Leadership books

• Creativity Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
• The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
• The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick Lencioni
• How The Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins
• American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce Hoffman
• The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone

General Interest

• The Other Wes Moore – One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore. A compelling narrative about how our histories can turn on small hinges.
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Because our humanity matters, and each year when I read this book over the Thanksgiving weekend it reset my priorities and internal compass.
• The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. Highly recommended companion to Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck. This book should be required reading in business school – this book is about knowing yourself and answering your own personal why.
• Mindset by Carol S. Dweck
• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
• Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World by William H. McRaven
• Fooled by Randomness by Nassin Taleb
• The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
• Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. Skip it – this is the only item on the list I suggest skipping. The concept was interesting but the examples came across as purposefully incendiary and only reflecting confirmation bias.

Just for fun

• The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
• The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E. Hoffman
• Origin by Dan Brown. This was fun to read alongside The Second Machine Age and Machine, Platform, Crowd.

Documentaries

• '85: The Greatest Team in Pro Football History
• Forks over Knives
• Disneynature Wings of Life
• The Science of Fasting
• Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind
• Human Flow

Because 2019 was the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landings

• The Man Who Knew The Way to the Moon by Todd Zwillich (Audible book only)
• Goodbye Cassini – Hello Saturn (documentary)
• The Farthest Voyager in Space (documentary)

Favorite quote from 2018-2019

“Good judgment comes from experience, which comes from bad judgment.” – Bill Gurley