What I read in 2020.

This year, we’ve all had a little more time to catch up on our reading. Whether you wanted to learn a new skill or just needed an escape, books were a welcome distraction. From business to basketball, here are the books I took something from in 2020. Hopefully, you’ll find something that helps you, or a book lover you know, finish the year out strong.

Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone, by Satya Nadella (Bookshop | Libro)

and

Good Company, by Arthur Blank (Bookshop | Libro)

I’m what Mortimer Adler refers to as a "syntopical reader,” where I compare and contrast books about the same topic, looking for dots to connect (or at least that's my excuse for never completing a book 100%). These 2 books, Hit Refresh and Good Company, are great books from amazing leaders, and they're about cultural turnarounds. They're awe-inspiring, but if I'm being honest—my entire goal is to not have to do a cultural turnaround in the first place. Cultures evolve over time, but we need to be deliberate about it so we can focus on doing useful work for customers, not turning around a culture. So many great lessons in these 2 books. 

Calm, School of Life (Bookshop)

We can all use a little calm this year. While at a conference, I learned about School of Life (a Mailchimp customer!), and I've been reading all their books. Their book Calm is one of my favorites. It provokes you to think deeply about what stresses you out in life, and gives some truly useful perspective to calm you down. I took it with me on a vacation and couldn't put it down. It's the most re-read, dog-eared, notes-in-the-margins, coffee-stained book on my nightstand.

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by Amy Edmondson (Bookshop | Libro)

and

Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences, by Jane Hyun and Audrey S. Lee (Bookshop | Libro)

As organizations become increasingly diverse, cultural fluency is a necessary skill for inclusivity and collaborative creativity among teams. I’m still thinking about the lessons in Flex on understanding and seeking out differences. The Fearless Organization is a great book about a researcher’s accidental discoveries about teamwork and psychological safety. Anyone who works at Mailchimp will tell you how often I say, “always be tinkering.” We try to foster a culture of creativity, and where it’s safe to experiment and fail. Tinkering and experimentation to connect ideas and innovate is so important, even if it leads us down an unintended path or we place the idea in the “parts bin” for later. These books embody the type of thinking that will be big for Mailchimp’s “Act 2.” I’ll be recommending these to my employees in the new year. 

So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo (Bookshop | Libro)

This was on the bookshelf behind our new VP of Culture and Inclusion Cris Gaskin during a recent Zoom call, so I ordered it out of curiosity. It raises some brilliant questions and serves as a helpful guide on how to talk about issues that can be tough for some to talk about. Fun fact: back in 2018, Mailchimp also brought Ijeoma to the Decatur Book Festival as part of our Read This Summer program. 

The Curious Incident of Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (Bookshop | Libro)

This book is about a teenager who loves math, has a very logical brain, and hates meeting new people and being touched. My kids also love it and ask me to play the audiobook in the car whenever we go anywhere.

Innovating Out of Crisis: How Fujifilm Survived (and Thrived) As Its Core Business Was Vanishing, by Shigetaka Komori (Bookshop)

I enjoyed re-reading this classic again in 2020. I have a saying that's based on my experience in our early days: "Just when you think it can't get worse, it will." The book covers the history of how FujiFilm navigated choppy waters and stayed afloat. Komori’s got sections with titles like, "One misfortune follows another," and "Learn from whatever comes your way.” Nothing went their way! It was their relentless innovation and adversity up against nonstop external forces. Such an inspirational story! 

Designing for Emotion, by Aarron Walter (A Book Apart)

This book is actually by a Mailchimp Alum! Aarron established our customer experience organization at Mailchimp and started a movement to humanize SAAS apps across the industry. This book covers the fundamentals of that design philosophy. Earlier this year I bought copies for our design teams in Atlanta, Brooklyn, Oakland, and Vancouver.

Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys, by Stephen James and David Thomas (Bookshop | Libro)

Raising 2 boys certainly is wild. This has given me and my wife Teresa all kinds of ideas about appropriate movies and books to introduce to our sons during certain age ranges, and about raising the boys a little “free range.”

Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success, by Phil Jackson with Hugh Delehanty (Bookshop | Libro)

I binge watched The Last Dance documentary and just had to learn more about Phil Jackson. It’s a great deep-dive into the mentality and psyche of a championship coach and gives insight into how to lead a team of many egos and personalities towards a common goal.