New
- Actions Speak Louder: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Inclusive Workplace by Deanna Singh (5/31)
- The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy by David Gelles (5/31)
- The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success by Ed Mylett (6/1)
- After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul by Tripp Mickle (6/3)
- 7 Rules of Power: Surprising–but True–Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career by Jeffrey Pfeffer (6/7)
- Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business If You’re Not a Rich White Guy by Kathryn Finney (6/7)
- The Momentum Theorem: How to Create Unstoppable Momentum In All Areas of Your Life by Dave Ramsey (6/7)
- When They Win, You Win: Being a Great Manager Is Simpler Than You Think by Russ Laraway (6/7)
- Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential by Tiago Forte (6/14)
- The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan (6/14)
- Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by Steve Magness (6/21)
- How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney (6/21)
- Leading with Heart: Five Conversations That Unlock Creativity, Purpose, and Results by John Baird and Edward Sullivan (6/21)
- How Are You, Really?: Living Your Truth One Answer at a Time by Jenna Kutcher (6/28)
- Leading Lightly: Lower Your Stress, Think With Clarity, and Lead With Ease by Jody Michael (6/28)
- Modern Leader by JeVon McCormick (7/3)
- The Carbon Almanac: It’s Not Too Late by The Carbon Almanac Network (7/12)
- The Win-Win Wealth Strategy: 7 Investments the Government Will Pay You to Make by Tom Wheelwright (7/13)
- The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball (7/19)
Popular
As we pass the halfway point for 2022, it seems like a good point to see what is working in the market.
Atomic Habits by James Clear continues dominate the #1 slot, have sold four times the number of copies as the #2 title on the 2022 year to date sales list. Other books you’d recognize like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, StrengthFinder 2.0, Dare to Lead and Extreme Leadership, continue to sell as well.
Here are the top selling business books so far that were published this year in 2022:
- Baby Step Millionaires: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Wealth–And How You Can Too by Dave Ramsey
- The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide To Success And Happiness by Ed Mylett
- CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish The Best Leaders From The Rest by by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra
- Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race To Make The Impossible Possible by Albert Bourla
- Own Your Past Change Your Future: A Not So Complicated Approach to Relationships, Mental Health & Wellness by John Delony
- Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell
- The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment by Marshall Goldsmith
- The End of the World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping The Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan
- Miss Independent: A Simple Plan to Start Investing and Grow Your Own Wealth by Nicole Lapin
- Amp It Up: Leading For Hypergrowth By Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman
Many of these books had big organizations or big names. Baby Step Millionaires and Own Your Past Change Your Future are from Ramsey Solutions. Mylett’s launch is supported by World Financial Group. CEO Excellence is written by partners from McKinsey. Moonshot has had strong support from Pfizer. Tony Fadell of Apple and Nest fame is bringing people to Build. And long time business author Marshall Goldsmith had a audience for The Earned Life.
I am interested to see what the second half of the year brings.
Best
The Effective Executive:
The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
by Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker starts The Effective Executive by asking: if the ultimate measurement of manual labor is efficiency, what is the corollary measure for knowledge workers? The main thesis of his book is that rather than doing things rights, knowledge workers must strive for effectiveness by doing the right things. “Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time,” Drucker says.
In his classic style of driving to the heart of the issue, he quotes studies that show how humans have a poor perception of time and are worse at remembering how they spend their time. Drucker suggests keeping a diary to track one’s activities. If more than half of your time is dictated by others, control needs to be gained back. Three common time sponges that need special attention include: doing things that don’t need to be done, doing things that could be better done by others, and doing things that require others to do unnecessary things.
Drucker dedicates a whole chapter to contribution, asserting that this type of measurement provides focus. At the organizational level, an eye on contribution shifts the attention upward and outward, toward clients, customers, and constituents. “To ask, ‘What can I contribute?’ is to look at the unused potential in the job,” Drucker writes. He believes that communication, teamwork, self-improvement, and development of others all become natural extensions of contribution.
Contribution itself comes only with concentration. Drucker felt this was the one true secret to effectiveness, and his statement, “Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time,” foreshadows both Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and David Allen’s Getting Things Done. With a focus on one activity, executives ask important questions about abandoning weak initiatives, especially ones that have never met expectations. Leaving the past is central to progress. The very nature of the job of the executive is to make decision about committing resources to the possibilities of tomorrow.
Decision-making is Drucker’s final practice of effectiveness. Being effective is solving the problem once. Effective executives look at problems as generic to start with and try to solve them with rules that will be simple and easy to follow for everyone, not just those involved in the current issue. Solutions that everyone in the organization can understand improve the likelihood of their adoption. The decision is not complete until it is put into action. Drucker again preceded recent authors like Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan in Execution, when he emphasizes the idea that a decision is merely intent if it is not a part of someone’s responsibilities.
Time. Contribution. Concentration. Decision-making. Each of these subjects has been covered in a myriad works since The Effective Executive. Drucker stand apart in his writing directed to the executive and covering the topics at just the right level of detail and from just the right perspective to enable action.
Drucker on First Things First…
- Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.
- No matter how well an executive manages their time, the greater part of it will still not be their own.
- To get really productive time requires self-discipline and an iron determination to say “No.”
- Concentration is necessary precisely because the executive faces so many tasks clamoring to be done.
- The only question [around priority] is which will make the decision—the executive or the pressures.
- Aim high, aim for something that will make a difference, rather than something that is “safe” and easy to do.
- The effective executive does not truly commit themselves beyond the one task they concentrate on right now. Then they review the situation and pick the next one task that now comes first.
