Leadership Management-Business Psychology Writing-Communication

The Skilled Facilitator

Successfully resolving conflict is one of the most important tasks in management and leadership. Schwarz, a Harvard-educated organizational psychologist, teaches us how to do just this in this well-received book. Its success can be demonstrated by the fact that it now resides in its third edition. (This review only applies to the second edition.) Schwarz tells us how to be not just a facilitator but a skilled facilitator of discussion within organization. He consults with…

Continue reading

Fiction-Stories Leadership Management-Business

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

This work straddles the fence between a short novel and a book on business. It covers a helpful topic of five common dysfunctions of a team. Through reading it, I helped identify pits that teams I have participated in have fallen prey to. The story itself is relatively easygoing, if a bit short and superficial. A new CEO faces the scenario where her new form has more cash and more talented leaders, but is underperforming.…

Continue reading

Biography-Memoir History Leadership

Review: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin My rating: 5 of 5 stars This in-depth look into the lives of Lincoln and his closest advisors meets the hype. It tells the life histories of President Lincoln, his attorney general Bates, his treasury secretary Chase, and his secretary of state Seward. All four had a chance of being nominated as the Republican candidate in Chicago, but Lincoln secured the nod.…

Continue reading

Leadership Management-Business

Doing the Right Things Right

by Laura Slack AudiobookThis book’s title borrows from Peter Drucker’s famous distinction that management is doing things right and leadership is doing the right things. In the introduction, Slack says that she aspires to update Drucker’s work on the executive worker for the Internet age. She does just that, incorporating advice for new situations throughout her work while remaining true to Drucker’s principles. That being said, she is no Drucker. Drucker’s strength is focusing on…

Continue reading

Leadership Management-Business

Out of the Crisis

by W. Edwards DemingCopyright 1982. Deming’s Fourteen Points Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis…

Continue reading