Tag: business

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Review

“The Culture Code”

Daniel Coyle

I’ve been enjoying that the book club at work seems to bounce back and forth between books that are Very Programmer-Oriented and things that aren’t at all specific to programming. This time, it’s the latter, despite the word ‘code’ in the title: The Culture Code is, in fact, more of a management book.

The focus is, as you might expect, on culture. What is a culture of success/productivity/various-other-positive-buzzwords? How do you create one?

Very broadly, the answers are: “one in which people feel safe and can feel vulnerable, and do is in the pursuit of a shared goal”. As for creating that environment, well, that’s what the rest of the book is about. And, generally, the tips boil down to “show people that these things are the case.” Make people feel safe by showing that they belong, that they are part of the in-group of this culture. Demonstrate that it’s okay to be vulnerable by making yourself vulnerable, showing your weaknesses. And reiterate the shared goal… mostly through use of little catchphrases, seems to be the advice there. It does feel a little trite, but then, having those little catchphrases repeated over and over does seem to hammer them into one’s head.

I actually did find there to be a good bit of value in this book, but in that “useful self-help book” way, where there’s the broad topic that you could’ve fit on an informational pamphlet, and then there’s the rest of the advice, which is scattered around in a way that feels almost like one of those little daily desk calendar things. My pull-quotes notebook lost several pages to this book.

So, overall, I found this a good book to read! I think it is, perhaps, uniquely well suited to be a Workplace Book Club read, and could happily suggest it as the first book for starting one of those up if you don’t have one already. Give the book a go.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
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Review

“Negotiating the Impossible”

Deepak Malhotra

As with every business book, it’s certainly of the genre, and that winds up coloring my review with a certain amount of “for a business book…” a lot of the time. Still kinda applicable here, in that you have to know it’s a business book, but Malhotra actually does a great job of not feeling like he’s writing a business book most of the time. It’s impossible to entirely escape the trappings, but he at least avoids the “this is a backdoor memoir of someone who isn’t actually that interesting” problem that plagues a lot of these. Turns out, using stories from history and politics makes this kind of thing a bit more interesting! Use your own stories occasionally, but—especially with the amount of non-disclosure agreements clearly in play—they aren’t actually as interesting as hearing about, say, how JFK approached the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The actual “business advice” aspect isn’t bad, either. You can tell the guy is a teacher, and has had time to practice teaching this in order to actually boil it down well. I can actually kinda feel the structure of the class, which unit happens at which part of the term, each chapter being a week or two of class. The ideas have been boiled down through that practice, and he’s got a nice overview kind of thing at the end of each section.

All in all, this was a surprisingly interesting read, and I do recommend it. Can’t hurt to know a little bit more about how to handle negotiations, as they’re more common in life than you’d think. Give it a read.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
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Review

“Overcoming Bias”

Tiffany Jana & Matthew Freeman1

This may be the first time I’ve read one of these business books and not had the thought “yeah, this could’ve been a pamphlet.” Whoever edited it did a great job, presumably ruthlessly cutting out all the unnecessary parts, and the result is a lean, clean read.

The backstory of the authors—they’re married and co-own a company that basically consists of the two of them going around running corporate workshops on the topic of overcoming bias—helps it make a lot of sense, actually. This might not be a book that’s been edited down to the right point; it might be the rough script they use for their workshop sessions, expanded out from bullet points on a notecard to a book form. And from that perspective, it’s also done very well; they added just enough storytelling without getting bogged down, and make their points very well.

And, aside from that, it contains one of the best paragraphs I’ve ever read:

But just as we have told countless white people we have worked with, “by the power vested in us (by virtue of Tiffany’s negritude and our combined dedication to racial reconciliation), we hereby absolve you of your white guilt.” Now don’t get all excited and start throwing around slurs and crazy talk. We are just saying that we are fully aware that you did not personally create racism.“

Beautiful. I don’t know that I have ever read anything as hilariously, brutally honest about the concept of white guilt as “by the power vested in us (by virtue of Tiffany’s negritude)”. Just impeccable.

This is the most glowing review I think I’ve ever written of something that’s categorized as a “business book,” and I stand by it. This book feels like it can be useful as an introduction to diversity, as well as a useful reference material as you continue to learn more. Check it out.2

  1. Formatting- and voice-wise, I’d say Matthew was the primary author of this, with editing and interjections by Tiffany, but the fact that her name is alphabetically first is one of those “it is what it is” kinds of things. The fact that it then shows up in places as being written by “Tiffany Jana et al.”, though, that is hilarious. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
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Review

“The Simple Art of Business Etiquette”

Jeffrey L. Seglin

I’ve actually read several books in this genre since my last book review. In general, they all contain the same advice, just phrased slightly differently. This is the one I’m actually choosing to review, though, simply because it was the best-written out of the variety I’ve now sampled.

It’s a hallmark of this genre of productivity/business/self-help books that they’re basically a bulleted list of tips. Given that editors tend to frown upon a manuscript being ten pages of bullet points, though, they all get padded out. Generally, that padding is some mix of anecdotes about the dos-and-don’ts espoused in the bullet points, and some form of interactivity—quizzes, “write your own response”, that kind of thing. Seglin did a great job of balancing those three types of things; each short chapter is a brief intro to the point, an anecdote on the subject, and then a multiple-choice question, followed by an explanation of the answer. It ends with the actual bulleted list, which feels like a nice mix of review and expansion of the already-given points.

The book, like the chapters, is short and easily digestible. My jotted notes from before I started writing this review end with the following: “No eureka moments, but nice gathering together of points.” I stand by that; there’s nothing huge, exciting, or new in this, but it’s useful to have all this disparate advice gathered into one easy-to-read unit. Check it out.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩