The Five X's of Y

Some books are just easier to read than others. Stories are nice. They move quickly, keep the reader's attention, and when well done, communicate something of value. Such is the case with two of Patrick Lencioni's books, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Five Temptations of a CEO. Both are written as "leadership fables" where a typical Bay Area team (CEO) is shown the error of its (his) ways through a simple story with short chapters and lots of white space.

There are thousands of books out there with a few easy steps to better whatever. Most make sense, usually because they are common sense. Business books don't sell because they have new ideas, they sell because they have good packaging. Much like businesses themselves sometimes. Now I'm not saying this is bad, just that there's not much new to be learned, but much to be implemented (see You are Being Lied To at ChangeThis).

Lencioni's books are the same. In fact, he even gets away with selling two books with the exact same material. The five dysfunctions of a team are simply the result of the team leader giving into the five temptations of a CEO. But the team book sells more because corporate leaders can give it (the book, seminars, classes, whatever) to their teams rather than work on their own stuff. But I digress. Here are the 5 temptations with their corresponding dysfunction.

1. Choosing status over results leads to Inattention to results
2. Choosing popularity over accountability leads to Avoidance of accountability
3. Choosing certainty over clarity leads to Lack of commitment
4. Choosing harmony over productive conflict leads to Fear of conflict
5. Choosing invulnerability over trust leads to Absence of trust

Written out together like that makes the parallels obvious. In fact, it doesn't even look like the "leads to" conjunction really applies, but rather the dysfunction is equal to the temptation. Which I guess is the point. Lencioni's ideas are not revolutionary. He's not even the first to put them in a list. But they are simple, they are effective, and they are hard to do. And his books take about 2 hours to read, packaged in a very nice little tale.

So the moral of the story is simple. Be honest, take responsibility, focus on results. And if you want me to read a lot of your books...write short ones.

Nine From the Ninth

Rarely does a son get the opportunity to see his father's war stories down in print. They're more often like the final story in Nine from the Ninth, where a young lad asks to hear the story, but quickly moves on to something else. I have, however, the unique opportunity to read my dad's stories, written 30 years after the fact, and I am not quickly distracted by other things.

Nine From the Ninth is a compilation of war stories written by three Vietnam veterans of the Ninth Infantry Division. Two served as Rangers, while the third rode with them as a Public Information Officer. Each man wrote three stories, tied together only by the time in history and their life-long friendship.

In my biased view, the three written by Bob Wallace were the most enjoyable to read, each one comprised of a series of short vignettes showcasing aspects of his experience in Vietnam during 1969. Growing up, my dad didn't talk about the war, and the opportunity to see life through his eyes at the age of 24 is fascinating and poignant.

I have never fought in a war. There is a part of me that romanticizes military life and makes me view soldier and warriors as heroes. And they are. The situations described in this book put 20 year old men (boys, by some estimations) in a place where lives hung on their decisions. Their own, their teammates, and their enemies. There is a primal nature to the combat that is described that cannot be captured on Hollywood films, and is completely foreign to modern American life.

Nine from the Ninth is worth reading. It is written by regular guys, guys that got drafted into a war far from home and just wanted to do a good job and get home. They were not supermen, but they acted the part when their country called on them. For this, I admire my dad, along with all the others who served, all the more.

PS - While you can order the book from Amazon, if you'd like a personalized or autographed copy, drop me a line. I can probably hook you up with something.

Setting Up Shop

When I recently "inherited" my father-in-law's woodworking tools, I got really excited about the possibility of becoming a craftsman. I still am. But it's beginning to become very real to me that my dreams are much more dreams than reality. I like thinking about working with wood, but I haven't been doing much actual woodworking. That's why I really enjoyed this book.

Setting Up Shop, by Sandor Nagyszalanczy (good luck pronouncing that one) came from our local library just because it looks cool. The subtitle is The Practical Guide to Designing and Building Your Dream Shop. It turns out that it helps if you already have a shop before you start working on your dream. Because I can do a whole lot of looking at pictures and dreaming, but until I have more than a pile of tools in my current garage, it's all fantasy.

As far as the actual book goes, it's fine. Nice pictures, a good description of everything you need for a shop from location to tool layout to storage to ventilation and dust collection. It's a fine thing to check out from the library, and if you're actually in the position with time and desire to actually build your dream shop, it's probably a useful book. For the rest of us, it's a nice way to dream.

Spiritual Leadership

While browsing our bookshelves, I came upon Spiritual Leadership, by J. Oswald Sanders. It seems that my wife got this book while doing camp leadership back in college. Being generally interested in spirituality and leadership, I was curious as to how they might be combined. Suffice it so say that I was impressed.

The book is a series of lectures given by Sanders to the Oversees Missionary Fellowship many years ago. The first edition was published in 1967, and I read from one older than Amazon's selling now. The principles, however, are primarily Biblical, and have lost none of their impact over the years.

I enjoyed most the fact that the same content I am finding in many recent leadership writings is found here, but with the added spiritual dimension. Sanders begins with the simple question of whether Christians should aspire to leadership at all. Doesn't the ambition for leadership conflict with the virtue of humility? This tension runs throughout all of the short chapters. The answer...perhaps.

Sanders lays out a model of leadership that is difficult, strenuous, and often poorly rewarded. He speaks to the Biblical model of servant-leadership and emphasizes that the leader is to be first not in prestige, but first in humility, in service, in sacrifice, and in suffering. For the Christian leader, emulation of Christ is the first goal, and that emulation brings with it no expectation of earthly glory or reward.

However, in American evangelical society, spiritual leaders are often accorded glory, whether rightly or wrongly. Best selling authors and mega-church pastors receive financial and social rewards, being considered gurus leading the rest of us to a better life. This naturally creates a tension for any talented leader called by God...is the calling clear and truly from heaven, or is the call a justification for pursuit of glory in a church job?

Lay leaders are faced with similar questions, although normally on a smaller scale. Leadership of a Bible study or ministry within the local church rarely brings financial rewards, but the social prestige within the church community is nearly guaranteed. Will the eager servant be equally as eager to change diapers in the nursery as to teach their peers Sunday School class?

For Christians in leadership positions outside the church, this book is equally applicable, although Sanders was clearly speaking to those within the church. The lessons of vision and drive and discipline are true no matter who is following or where we are going. In fact, I would posit that the Christian leader of a non-Christian organization has an even more difficult task as he must meet both secular and Biblical standards for quality leadership.

I read this book too quickly (as I usually do), but unlike many other books on leadership, I don't plan to forget about it as quickly. This book set itself apart in my mind because it combined both solid leadership lessons with the foundation for why I should care. Discipline for discipline's sake is all well and good, but when the pursuit of Christ's glory is added, real meaning is found.