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Dean’s Top Ten Book List

Allen, David (2002) Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Abbreviated “GTD”, Getting Things Done is an action management methodology that suggests getting tasks written down and out of your mind, where more important thoughts can take place. Allen promotes a sense of well-being in time management characterized by control and perspective. Allen provides a workflow process and six levels of focus working from the bottom up listing life goals to the current actions. Allen provides additional guidance when planning and thinking are more complex and provides a five stage planning model. With the tools described by Allen, one can easily store, track and retrieve necessary information using this trusted system to ensure that one is provided the right information at the right time.

Buckingham, Marcus (2008) The One Thing You Need to Know. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Buckingham challenges Warren Bennis’ (well respected author) position on leadership in the organization. The book is basically divided in two parts characterized by the one thing you need to know to sustain success in the organization and individually. For individual success, Buckingham claims that success comes from knowing one’s strengths and having the discipline to identify what works and what doesn’t. He also distinguishes between leadership and management, stating they are not synonymous and cannot be treated that way. He does feel that one’s performance, either as manager or leader, can be improved. Additionally, he provides four important skills for a good manager.

Buckingham, Marcus and Coffman, Curt (1999) First, break all the rules: what the world's greatest managers do differently. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Great leaders share one common trait. They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They do not believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything s/he sets out to do. They do not try to help people overcome their weaknesses. They consistently disregard the golden rule. This book explains why. The leader is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. Buckingham and Coffman explain how great leaders select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience; how they set expectations - they define the right outcomes rather than right steps; how they motivate people - they build on each person's unique strengths rather than trying to fix weaknesses. This book is based on Gallup Poll data collected from tens of thousands of interviews with leaders.

Daly, Peter and Watkins, Michael (2006) The First 90 days in Government. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing

The transition period when a new leader takes over an organization or work unit in the public sector has a huge impact to that leader’s success. "First impressions" really are important, and leaders who fail to establish trust with their new charges from the beginning are very unlikely to earn it later. This is a book that addresses government-specific transition issues. Includes tips on how to move mentally into a new role (e.g. from "subject matter expert" to "manager"), how to speed up learning about the new organization, the importance of securing early wins, and how to avoid “predictable surprises.”

Goldsmith, Marshall (2007) What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. New York, NY: Hyperion.

This is a book that views things that may have contributed to your current success. However, the same behaviors could also keep you from moving up to the next level. Marshall Goldsmith is a renowned executive coach and is well-versed in helping executives achieve a higher level of success. Mark Tercek, managing director, Goldman Sachs, & Co. states “Marshall is a dynamo. He helps highly successful people get better and better and better. The author discusses success and why it’s so hard for successful people to change. He further identifies 21 habits that hold people back from the top. Some of these include: 1) winning too much, 2) adding too much value, 3) passing judgment, 4) making destructive comments, 5) starting with “no”, “but”, or “however”, 6) telling the world how smart we are, 7) speaking when angry, 8) negativity or “let me explain why that won’t work”, 9) withholding information, and 10) failing to give proper recognition. There are 11 more which should really peak the readers interest and makes this book worth reading. The behaviors are identified as irritants that if corrected will result in a more positive response from subordinates. The author does not leave you with problems and no solutions as the book concludes with ways to change for the future and a section on “pulling out the stops”. This final section addresses the rules for changing and identifies special challenges for people in charge.

Harvey, Eric, Cottrell, David, and Lucia, Al (2003). The leadership secrets of Santa Claus. Dallas, TX: Performance Systems Corporation.

The Leadership Secrets of Santa Claus is an entertaining, easy reading book that uses the metaphor of Santa Claus to illustrate eight practical strategies for leading others. The book shares the secrets of Santa for leadership traits that result in high-performance workplaces and motivated co-workers. Santa discusses the necessity of selecting your reindeer very carefully. He also speaks about making a list and checking it twice in planning work. An important characteristic of Santa is that he listens to his elves. Santa talks about going beyond the red wagon to make changes in the organization and reminds us to share the milk and cookies with the elves that perform well. Santa also keeps a list of who is naughty and nice. Lastly, Santa reminds the leader to be “good for goodness sake”, e.g., the leader must set the example. Even though the book is less than 90 pages, it contains many leadership principles which will help any leader to improve their organization.

Hunter, James C. (1998) The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership. Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing.

This book is about the timeless principles of servant leadership through the story of John Daily, a businessman whose outwardly successful life is spiraling out of control. He is failing miserably in each of his leadership roles as boss, husband, father, and coach. To get his life back on track, he reluctantly attends a weeklong leadership retreat at a remote Benedictine monastery. To John's surprise, the monk leading the seminar is a former business executive and Wall Street legend. Along with John, you will learn that the principles in this book are neither new nor complex. This work is an easy read and provides ways to improve your leadership skills especially considering if you want to understand the timeless virtues that lead to lasting and meaningful success.

Mortenson, Greg and Relin, David O. (2006) Three Cups of Tea. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

A book about a leader, in THREE CUPS OF TEA: One Man's Mission to Promote . . . One School at a Time. Greg Mortenson and acclaimed journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the unlikely journey that led Mortenson from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan's K2, the world's second highest mountain, to successfully building schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to fight terrorism with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote villages in central Asia. “THREE CUPS OF TEA” is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world-one school at a time. In 1993, Mortenson was descending from his failed attempt to reach the peak of K2. Exhausted and disoriented, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan. Alone, without food, water, or shelter he eventually stumbled into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health. While recovering he observed the village's 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. The village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left the village, he promised that he would return to build them a school. From that rash, heartfelt promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time: Greg Mortenson's one-man mission to counteract extremism and terrorism by building schools-especially for girls-throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban. Mortenson had no reason to believe he could fulfill his promise. In an early effort to raise money he wrote letters to 580 celebrities, businessmen, and other prominent Americans. His only reply was a $100 check from NBC's Tom Brokaw. Selling everything he owned, he still only raised $2,000. But his luck began to change when a group of elementary school children in River Falls, Wisconsin, donated $623 in pennies, thereby inspiring adults to take his cause more seriously. Twelve years later he's built fifty-five schools.

Slim, William (1956) Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945.

This is an older book, first published in 1956 and most read it as a tactical and operational account of the Burma campaign, which in itself remains obscure to most people in the U.S. Slim is very human in his writing. He was beaten badly. Slim had a huge task rebuilding an army, coped with a scarcity in just about everything and did it while a committed enemy was “at the door.” Slim is honest. He talks about his mistakes, his errors in planning and in judgment. He shows great concern for the men he led. Throughout the book you read his thoughts about his men’s morale, about the leaders below him and what he had to order them to do in extremis in the areas of health and training. He has a sense of humor, innovation, and understanding of the need for balance in the leader. For example, he purposefully set a regime for his own health and well-being and encouraged the same in his subordinates. He understood that he could work himself and his subordinates to a point where poor health would affect their judgment. This book takes reflection while reading to pick out the leadership lessons, but the very act of doing that makes the ideas stick in the reader’s mind.

Tzu, Sun (6 BC) The Art of War. translated by Giles, Lionel (1910).

Some thoughts stand the test of time, such as great writings characterized in “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. The book has received praises throughout the centuries due to its relative aspects of warfare, tactics, and strategies, but it goes further. The book expounds on the importance of knowing and recognizing the organizational structure, how each member affects that structure, and how to respond to ambiguity that impacts the organizational and its environment. The book is full of famous quotes that are used and cited in many of today’s prestigious writings. One quote that I really identify with is: “However, when the Army is restless and distrustful, trouble is sure to come from the other feudal princes. This is simply bringing anarchy into the Army and flinging victory away” (Sun Tzu, 3:16-17). This quote is not simply relative to Armies; but teams, organizations, communities, and societies. In America today, political parties continue to struggle with their core values. As a result, not only is party partisanship at an all-time low, but inner party relationships are diminishing. Some occurrences since Sun Tzu’s writings and the cited quote can be characterized by the multitude of different and new developments in religious ideologies, schools, and perspectives on education and learning. Additional areas of influence include political and personal views that result in the engagement of wars.