Eric D. Brown » Books

SWAT – Seize the Accomplishment Review

Eric D. Brown — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:00:52 +0000

I just put down SWAT – Seize the Accomplishment (Amazon affiliate link) by Timothy L. Johnson….and now want to pick it back up and read it again. It’s that good.

I received the book as a review copy from the author…but don’t let that get in the way of believing me when i say that this business fable is an excellent one.

SWAT is an acronym for “Systems Working All Together”…but it also helps set the stage for the story in the book.

The storyline of this book is a good one and keeps the concepts moving forward quickly. In the story, a team lead has a difficult task to work through and turns to his best friend and cousin…who happens to be a SWAT commander.

The main character, Toby, spends time with his SWAT commander cousin and learns the systems thinking concepts that make SWAT teams successful.

The concepts are described perfectly and in a manner that makes it easy to comprehend and easy to understand how you might apply them to the problems your currently facing.

I’ve read quite a few systems thinking books but nothing as entertaining as this. While this isn’t nearly as comprehensive as Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Timothy Johnson’s put together a great little book that can help to introduce the systems thinking concepts quickly and easily.

Grab this book from your favorite bookseller today..Amazon has it for $14.95.

SWAT. Systems working all together. Timothy L. Johnson. (regnordman.com)

On the Bookshelf – Jan 2009

Eric D. Brown — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:08:58 +0000

I realized this evening that I’ve got a lot of reading to catch up on. In addition to the Kindle I received for Christmas (and the subsequent books I bought for it immediately after opening it), I’ve got a few ‘real’ books on my desk I need to read through.

On the kindle:

Note: I just finished Outliers: The Story of Success on the Kindle…I love the Kindle…Outliers was OK. I’m not going to do a review on the book…check out these great book reviews for more info on the book.

On my bookshelf:

I’m hoping to make it through these over the next month. I’m sure my time will be well rewarded. If you’ve read any of these books, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them.

Zinsser's Writing to Learn

Eric D. Brown — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:44:41 +0000

For those that caught my review of Zinsser’s On Writing Well, you may have noticed that I mentioned picking up Zinsser’s “Writing to Learn“.

This book is an easy read and is worth picking up if you’re interested in writing. The book is less of a discussion of ‘how’ to ‘write to learn’ and more of an overview of ‘why’ you should ‘write to learn’.

The book is full of examples of good writing in many different topics. The majority of the book is passages from authors in various fields surrounded by Zinsser’s commentary on why the passage is worth including.

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book like I did On Writing Well, but it is worth reading for those of you who are interested in the subject.

Critical Thinking vs Creative Thinking

Eric D. Brown — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:00:01 +0000

I just started reading “Think Better: An Innovator’s Guide to Productive Thinking” by Tim Hurson.

I just started Chapter 3 and have become amazed that I hadn’t thought about the difference between Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking….even though I’ve blogged about the subject in the past (see The Problem(s) with Linear Thinking, Critical Thinking Definitions, and my review of Jack’s Notebook).

In Chapter 3 of this book, the author does a great job explaining that these are completely different thinking processes. The author provides the following definitions:

Creative Thinking – generative, nonjudgmental and expansive. When you are thinking creatively, you are generating lists of new ideas.

Critical Thinking – analytical, judgmental and selective. When you are thinking critically, you are making choices.

I hadn’t thought about the differences between these two types of thinking…in fact, I’ve even used them as interchangeable terms for the same thing!

The author argues that using both thinking processes together creates a much more productive thinking process. An interesting analogy that he uses in the book is:

Think of the thinking process as a kayak with 2 paddles. One paddle represents creative thinking while the other represents critical thinking. If you were to only use one paddle (i.e., creative thinking), you’d end up going in circles. To make the kayak move forward, you’ve got to alternate between paddles.

So far this is an interesting book…I plan to review it in more detail later this month.

Great Book review site and blog

Eric D. Brown — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:59:05 +0000

Just a quick post to link to an interesting Book review site I found. The Dallas First Friday Book Snyopsis blog is a treasure trove of information and reviews of business books.

For those that don’t know, the First Friday Book Synopsis is a networking group focused on reviewing business books and is put on by Randy Mayeux and Karl Krayer and has been around for 10 years. I’m going to be attending my first First Friday Book Synopsis networking event on Friday….perhaps I’ll get some ideas for some more book reviews

Website Optimization

Eric D. Brown — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:00:08 +0000

In July, I was approached by Andy King to see if I’d be interested in reviewing his new book from O’Reilly titled “Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets“.

If you don’t know who Andy is, go read his resume….I’ll wait….OK…you back? Great pedigree right? Been involved in the web since 1993. Founded WebReference.com and Javascript.com in 1997. It’s safe to say he knows his stuff.

When Andy approached me, I was skeptical initially….could I do this book justice? I’ve got a technical background and have been around the web since 1995 but I know very little about Search Engine Optimization…then I look at the synopsis of the book and realized that this is about much more than SEO.

This book does more than talk about the basics of SEO. It dives into topics that go well beyond the ‘technical’ aspects (e.g., keywords, titles, etc) and talks about persuasive language, fast load times and engaging websites. Once I saw this, I was very intrigued and told Andy that I’d be happy to review the book.

I’m glad I said yes. The book is excellent…and from what I’ve seen, it is THE book on Website Optimization. Gone are the days of scouring the web for bits and pieces of info on how to optimize….this book contains it all.

Unlike most other books in this genre, this book is much more than just an overview of the concepts of website optimization. Detailed descriptions, case studies and in-depth discussions of the ‘why, what and how’ of optimization are provided to allow the reader to immediately take action with their own websites.

For those of you interested in the entire spectrum of website optimization (i.e., page load times, search engine friendliness, optimization techniques etc), this is the book for you. I expect that this book will be THE website optimization book for years to come.

Now….I need to start using the recommendations from the book on my blog!

NOTE: This book was provided by the author for review.

The Fifth Discipline

Eric D. Brown — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:00:53 +0000

OK…I probably don’t have to review the The Fifth Discipline. It’s a classic…everyone has read it. Bas de Baar had an excellent review of this book recently…mine won’t begin to approach his in length or quality but I wanted to share a few thoughts.

I read the original edition quite a while ago (in college actually) and didn’t get much out of it…but this time around I did. I knew I was going to enjoy the book when, in the Introduction to the Revised Edition, I found this gem:

…the prevailing system of of management, is at its core, dedicated to mediocrity. It forces people to work harder and harder to compensate for failing to tap the spirit and collective intelligence that characterizes working together at their best.

The book outlines Five Disciplines that must be adopted in order to become a learning organization. These Five Disciplines are:

Systems Thinking – a conceptual framework that has been developed over the last fifty years to make patterns clear

Personal Mastery – the discipline of continually clarifying and deepining our personal vision, focusing our energies, developing patience and seeing reality objectively.

Mental Models – deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations that influence our picture of the world

Building Shared Vision -involves the skills to create and/or unearthing the shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment

Team Learning – when teams are learning, they (and the members of the team) are able to produce tremendous results.

The book can be summed up in a few sentences…but they don’t do the book justice. Peter Senge states that in order to become a learning organization, the Five Disciplines must be adopted with the Systems Thinking discipline being the most important. He argues that Systems Thinking allows people and organizations to see the deeper issues of problems.

I’m not going to dive any deeper into the book or the five disciplines here (go read Bas’ post for some interesting commentary) and there are plenty of other detailed discussions of this book around the web (see here, here and here for starters).

In addition, I want to share some excellent quotes from the book that I thought highlight the underlying purpose/meaning of the book.

The first passage is:

It is vital that the five disciplines develop as an ensemble. This is challenging because it is much harder to integrate new tools than simply apply them separately. But the payoffs are immense.

This is why systems thinking is the fifth discipline. It is the discipline that integrates the disciplines, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice. It keeps them from being separate gimmicks or the latest organization change fads. Without a systemic orientation, there is no motivation to look at how the disciplines interrelate. By enhancing each of the other disciplines, it continually reminds us that the whole can exceed the sum of its parts.

The second passage is:

A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality.

And this wonderful nugget from Edwards Deming in the introduction:

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers – a prize for the best Halloween Customer, grades in school, gold stars – and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom.

These are but a few of the great passages from this book. There is a great deal of information in this book that will probably require several readings to fully take in….i may put it back on the book shelf to read again later in the year.

I really enjoyed the book a great deal. A friend of mine pointed me to the The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook as a more implementable version of the book…I’ll be taking a look at it over the next few weeks.

My reading list

Eric D. Brown — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:00:04 +0000

Instead of a book review like the last two Fridays, I wanted to throw my current reading list up and get any comments and/or recommendations for other books.

Currently reading:

The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. I read this a long time ago…just picked up the revised edition.
The Fifth Displince Fieldbook by Peter Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross and Bryan Smith. Recommended as a more applicable version than the original book.
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law by Peter Woit. This is one of those books that I read to try to keep up with the world of physics.

Currently listening to (iPod):

Resonant Leadership by Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee. I’ve seen this on a few bookshelves and thought it might be worth reading.

My “to read” List:

Website Optimization by Andrew King. Andy King sent me a copy to read…I skimmed through the book quickly and it looks top-notch.
The Mythical Man Month (2nd Edition) by Frederick Brooks. I read the first edition…picked up the 2nd edition recently.
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Recommended by a friend.
Good to Great by Jim Collins. I’ve not read this one…but I’m forcing myself to do so to see what’s so ’special’.
On Writing Well – 30th Anniversay Edition by William Zinsser. Picked this one up on a whim…I need all the writing help I can get

As you can see, this is a pretty diverse set of books and quite a few books…I’m an avid reader and love to devour new and interesting titles.

What books are on your reading list? Any recommendations for me?

a sense of urgency

Eric D. Brown — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:00:14 +0000

John P. Kotter, author of “Leading Change” and “Our Iceberg is Melting” is set to release a new book titled “a sense of urgency” (release date September 3 2008). I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy to review….and for the most part, I’m glad I read it.

The basic thesis of the book is that organization’s have a heard time “creating” the ‘right’ sense of urgency in order to ensure organizational change occurs. NOTE: My regular readers may remember me complaining about the term ‘creating a sense of urgency‘ in a previous post (see here and here)….I still don’t like the term ‘create’ but am coming to grips with it.

The author presents the following three key issues to consider during organizational change initiatives.

Urgency – The sense of urgency must be ‘high enough’ before beginning any change efforts.
Complacency – organizations become complacent and ignore the need to change.
False sense of urgency – could also be described as ‘urgency directed at the wrong things’.

According to the author issues #2 and #3 above are the key issues keeping organizations from implementing and retaining the ‘right’ changes.

Many organizations have become complacent with their current position in their industry. This complacency lulls the people and organization into thinking that their previous successes will allow them to remain leaders in their industry.

In contrast to complacency, false sense of urgency occurs when an organization recognizes that they need to change but don’t really understand what or how to change. Because of this, most organizations ‘create’ change initiatives by forcing change, which does nothing but create a flurry of activity. This flurry of activity is quite impressive…but it is energy expended on the ‘wrong’ change.

The author suggests that when an organization has a true sense of urgency, the leaders of the organization will demand change now with real progress made every day. He suggests that leaders ‘win the hearts and minds’ of their staff. He argues that presenting information and data to your staff is all well and good but information by itself will not embed the proper sense of urgency within the organization. In order to install the ‘right amount of urgency’, you must present a logical case for change as part of an overall strategy to engage the hearts and emotions of the people within the organization.

The author provides some information on how to capture the hearts and minds of an organization, but doesn’t go into too much detail or provide in-depth analysis of why these methods work. I like this fact because there’s never really a ‘right way’ of winning people over and I believe the author understands that.

I will say there is one minor aspect to this book that I didn’t like…the fact that the author uses words like ‘right change’, ‘wrong change’ and ‘proper sense of urgency’ without describing how to determine what these words really mean.

That being said, I liked the book overall. It is an easy read and full of helpful information. If you have an interest in organizational change, I’d recommend this book. It is an excellent primer for anyone interested in learning how to instill the proper sense of urgency by winning over the hearts and minds of your organization.

NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher as an advanced review copy.

Outsmart!

Eric D. Brown — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:00:11 +0000

Jim Champy’s new book titled “Outsmart!: How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t” is an interesting book. It’s short and easy to read…and full of some very interesting stories about building competitive advantage.

For those that don’t know, Jim Champy is the author of classics like “Reengineering the Corporation” and “Reengineering Management” and is the Chairman of Consulting at Perot Systems.

The book does do a good job of describing how eight ‘high velocity’ companies have used what Champy described as ’surprising counterintuitive lessons’ to grow into industry leaders in a short amount of time. The ’surprising counterintuitive lessons’ are:

Compete by seeing what others don’t
Compete by thinking outside the bubble
Compete by using all you know
Compete by doing everything yourself
Compete by tapping the success of others
Compete by creating order out of chaos
Compete by simplifying complexity.

The book is split into chapters with each chapter covering a different lesson. Each lesson is presented to the reader by describing an organization that used that lesson to become successful and why that lesson should be considered by other companies. Each chapter closes with questions that you can ask yourself and/or your organization to see if you can tap into these lessons to grow and become more competitive.

For anyone looking for another “Good to Great” type of book with statistics and detail about why companies were chosen and how these companies were built, this isn’t the book. This book doesn’t go into detail about why/how companies were chosen or what ‘high velocity’ really means, but it does a good job of describing how the organizations listed were able to find their ‘niche’ by utilizing one of the above lessons to build themselves into industry leaders.

If you’re looking for an easy to read book that provides a brief overview a select number of companies who’ve applied the above lessons and been successful, this book is a good buy for you.

For further reading check out Jim Champy’s guest post titled “Where are all the great companies?” on Lisa Haneberg’s Management Craft blog.

Eric D. Brown » Books

SWAT – Seize the Accomplishment Review

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On the Bookshelf – Jan 2009

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Zinsser's Writing to Learn

Critical Thinking vs Creative Thinking

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Great Book review site and blog

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Website Optimization

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The Fifth Discipline

My reading list

a sense of urgency

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Outsmart!