Good to Great by Jim Collins

Good to Great by Jim Collins

My friend the Monicat pushed this one on me, complete with all of her little notes, handwritten in the most precise script, never giving answers, just asking probing, sphinxlike questions in the effort to make me a better leader. Her timing of this gift was prescient; there are major changes coming in the structure of the company where I work which will push me to expand and extend my responsibilities. This will be great, but will force me to learn a lot quickly. And since I received this a few days before disappearing on a two week (relative) break in which I intended to try to be a little more reflective, particularly on my goals, leadership, and the traits that I wanted to continue and those I wanted to shed… Well, this particular prescription couldn’t have come at a better time.

Collins and team looked at a bunch of companies who dramatically outperformed their competitors over a sustained period of time, and tried to ask WHY they did. Then they attempted to distill the commonalities from these stories into a guide for how companies went from average performers in their market (Good) to market leaders (Great.)

I ended up with a deeply marked up book and two or three pages of useful notes from this book. Wish that I could spend two days discussing the lessons here with my fellow leaders at Kabam. But not today.

Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman

Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman

I am fortunate to have a colleague who spends a lot of time thinking about appropriate books for me to read that will help me become a better leader, better executive (which is what I seem to be these days. Gulp!) She thoughtfully annotates these HBR style selections with little notes – questions mostly – and they are almost always very timely and thoughtful.

Primal Leadership mostly told me that I need to quit being such an aggressive boss and “pacesetting” all the time. This is good advice, and the book had a lot of other good advice too, covering a bunch of types of leaders and common leadership foibles. There’s probably something here for almost everyone who is a manager. The key lesson for me was to quit pushing people so hard. Good advice.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a modestly interesting management book on how to better structure interpersonal realtionships between company leaders. Presumably the lessons here could be applied to any working group, but they seem particularly focused on top level executives. There are a lot of feelings here and the book is pretty focused on the way people interact with one another rather than establishing core competencies, thinking about how to load balance effort, strategies for establishing dominance in a market, dealing with competitors, etc. Basically, if you’re interested in thinking about how some group of senior level people at your company might not be getting along well, this book might be interesting for you.

The most interesting element here is the way he tells the tale, by using a fictional Silicon Valley company and showing us the interactions of their leadership group throughout a few meetings. Sound dull? Well… It is. But it is still far, far more interesting than the epilogue, in which we move from the parable format to a more direct checklist. Here’s the list of the Five Dysfunctions:

Absence of Trust
Fear of Conflict
Lack of Commitment
Avoidance of Accountability
Inattention to Results

Now as a framework for thinking about your team or studio or company this is a pretty decent place to start. And that does make this book useful if you’re the kind of person who has ever stood in front of a whiteboard and tried to get others to think about how your organization could improve. If barbarians with axes, or gumshoes, or cumshots, or vampires, or futurism, or whooshing spaceships, or martial arts, or geopolicitcs are your thing instead.. Pass.

Winning by Jack Welsh


I had to read this one twice. My friend TJW, scion of Vancouver, advised me over a year ago that this book represented, in his opinion, the best of management theory and practice. Having now read it, I completely agree, and would add that it’s also a fine primer on how to be a leader in modern organizations.

The book is quite thorough enough and easy enough to comprehend that two readings aren’t necessary. But too long had passed since I looked at it, and I sincerely feel that a person could likely benefit from the lessons contained herein every year or so. From how to motivate employees, to how to hire new ones, to a superb chapter on business strategy, Welsh, the Warren Buffett of company management shares with us concise lessons on nearly every aspect of modern business.

The book is easy to grasp, and should likely be required reading for anyone with a stake in how a corporation or division is run.

Thanks, Jack. Useful lessons distilled from a storied career. Thanks, Tarrnie. Good recommendation.