Book Review: The No Asshole Rule

Despite it's brash title, Dr. Robert I. Sutton's book, The No A**hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't, is a valuable text that effectively treads where few business authors have treaded before.Sutton makes a case for the need for insight and direction in handling Bullies, Creeps, Jerks, Tyrants, Tormentors, Despots, Backstabbers, Egomaniacs, and any other kind of workplace employees who never learned to play Sandbox 101.I found the book to be an inspiring read and found that it was full of great advice.  Two interesting management take-aways I got from reading the book were:


  1. Corporations loose money due to unbridled "jerkism" and the author suggests that the cost should be tracked in terms of a "TCA" (Total Cost of jerks) metric.

  2. Due to #1, progressive companies need to have instilled in their corporate values, policies, and hiring processes, the sentiment that being a jerk is incompatible with the corporate culture.   Interestingly enough, companies like Google actually have anti-jerk clauses in their employee handbook.


If you find yourself working with a jerk, you can do the following:


  1. Minimize your time spent with the jerk.  Don't pick projects they are on, don't attend optional meetings they are in.

  2. Another tactic is to lesson the influence the jerk has on your department and in the company in general.  Try to steer new obligations and assignments that effect you away from that individual.


I found Robert I. Sutton's book to be an interesting read.  Sorry about the title, Mom.Mike J www.RedRockResearch.com

Book Review: Product Development for the Lean Enterprise

I finished reading Product Development for the Lean Enterprise: Why Toyota's System Is Four Times More Productive and How You Can Implement It, by Michael N. Kennedy.  This book explains why Toyota's internal product development process has enabled them to surpass the Detroit auto manufacturers production in both volume and quality.

If you haven't heard already, Toyota now sells more cars in the U.S. than General Motors, as of 2007.  It's also no secret that Toyota makes the highest quality cars you can buy today.

In his book, Kennedy contrasts the Detroit product development models with Toyota's model.  He explains that the Detroit manufactures have concentrated on improving the manufacturing process by incorporating JIT (Just-In-Time) Assembly, and investing in Robotics.  He points out that although gains have been made, the Detroit manufacturer's have really been missing the core of product development--the customer.

In contrast, Toyota has focused on the development process, not only the manufacturing process.  He explains that Toyota invests much more time up front studying customers and getting their insight about product features.  Moreover, Toyota product managers "catalog" various component options and make them available for other product managers to pick from and learn from.  Ever wonder why basically every Toyota and Lexus model car has the exact same window-up/down buttons?  This is why.

These tactics give Toyota both the flexibility and the insight to be able to deliver higher relevance and higher quality in their products.  Not only does Toyota now sell more cars in America, in terms of volume, but also has more vehicle models available for consumers.  This is a direct effect from successfully gathering the voice-of-the customer.

You can't help but commend Toyota for getting it right.  You should always gather customer insight with any product being developed.

I think the Toyota model translates well to software development in the following ways:


  1. Gathering customer insight about a software product should be mandatory.

  2. Structuring code in re-usable formats (classes) will improve the effectiveness of the development group over time.

  3. Keeping a library of UI artifacts and ideas can help a development team make decisions faster, and have a more consistent look and feel across a large project, or across multiple projects.

  4. In the software industry, we often make the same mistake that the Detroit manufactures make by supposing quality is our final endpoint (ie: "Quality is Job One!").  We need to understand that relevance is different from quality, and we need to structure our processes to maximize and measure relevance, along side of quality.


Mike J Berry www.RedRockResearch.com

Book Review: The First Time Manager - 5th Edition

The First-time Manager, 5th Edition, by Loren B. Belker and Gary S. Topchick is an excellent book on management.

Although it has been titled for "The First Time Manager," there are enough gold nuggets in this book for seasoned managers as well.  Now, in it's 5th edition, you can be assured it has been refined and reality-tested.

Belker and Topchick present guidance to many areas that managers need to navigate when managing people.  From building trust, to building team spirit, to managing problem employees, to hiring and firing, and so on.

They point out that managing is not about directing people, it is about getting people to become self-directed.  They talk about personal style and communication, dealing with stress, and finally having an effective work-life balance, and a touch of class.

I would recommend this book to any manager.  It makes a great reference to consult from time to time.

Mike J Berry www.RedRockResearch.com

Book Review: Results

I finished reading Results: Keep What's Good, Fix What's Wrong, and Unlock Great Performance, by Gary L. Neilson and Bruce A. Pasternack.

I have to admit this book seemed much like many of the other "improving business performance" books that I have read, except that this book kept me confused through most of it.

The authors discuss seven different types of organizational profiles, some functional, and some dysfunctional. After reading the book, I'm still not quite sure which was supposed to be which. I even found the diagrams in the book to be confusing.

Here and there, the authors have little nuggets of good advice. For example, they remind the reader that strategy doesn't bring results, execution does. And, that execution won't happen successfully until the right people have the right information and the right incentives.

Despite the confusing text, I can tell the book had a lot of research behind it. I wish the authors would have simply summarized all of their findings and presented the material with a "how to" model.

Unfortunately, I would not recommend spending time reading this book. I think for the time invested reading all 279 pages, there are other books in this space that will off re valuable take-aways.

Mike J Berry
www.RedRockResearch.com

Book Review: Winning

Jack Welch, together with is wife Suzy, have a Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller with their book titled Winning.

Following Jack Welch's direct, no-holds-barred style, he presents quite plainly the road-map to successful management.

He talks about constructing corporate values and effective mission statements.  He talks about the importance of candor, respect, and effective reward-systems.  He continues with topics on Crisis Management, Change, Strategy, Budgeting, People Management, and finally Work-Life Balance.

This book is full of take-aways and insight.  It's a real wonder to be able to take decades of Jack Welch's experiences and have them condensed into a single book.  If you haven't read this book, you should.  Soon.

Mike J Berry www.RedRockResearch.com

Rook Review: Confessions of an Unmanager

Recently I read Debra Boggan & Anna VerSteeg's book titled Confessions Of An Unmanager: Ten Steps To Jump Start Company Performance By Getting Others To Accept Accountability.

This is an interesting book that speaks to the great "divide" in corporate America.  The divide, they say, is the distinction between how management conducts themselves in relation to their teams they manage.

The authors suggest corporations function better with a "flat model."  Their suggestions are:


  1. Leaders should never command or dictate change.

  2. Employees should always be involved from the very beginning.

  3. Executives should not get privileged parking spaces.


Well, OK, the third point was not emphasized heavily, but was mentioned.

The flat-management approach emphasized in this book relates well to Agile Development team dynamics.  In an effective Agile team, input and influence from all are needed to produce superior customer value in the software product.  In fact, this book is listed as a favorite read on the ScrumAlliance.org leadership reading list.

The most valuable takeaway I got from reading this book was to think in terms of how my actions, as a manager, can either emphasize or minimize the space between management and the team.  A great suggestion they gave was to hold a team meeting directly after the executive meetings, thus symbolically minimizing this divide.

I think this is a good book to read once.

Mike J Berry www.RedRockResearch.com

Book Review: Execution - The Discipline of Getting Things Done

I just finished reading Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan.  This is an excellent book that examins the dynamics of making things happen inside of a corporation.

Bossidy and Charan make a case for needing the right people, the right strategy, and the right operations in place to successfully grow a company.  They further their case by suggesting that there is a fundamental problem in business management where executives mistakenly think execution is a tactical aspect of business, and should be delegated.  They suggest this idea is completely wrong and that executives need to shoulder the task of execution at their levels.

They suggest that every business executive team should ask themselves how the company is executing and what accounts for any gap between expectations and management's performance.

I found two very practical elements from reading this book.   The first is the importance of reality.  Good managers seek reality, and encourage their direct reports, and peers to be as realistic as possible.

The second element is an elaborate description for conducting an effective strategy review.

If your department or company is contemplating a new strategy or a new major directive, this book is a must read.

Mike J Berry www.RedRockResearch.com

Book Review: Secrets of Great Rainmakers

Secrets of Great Rainmakers: The Keys to Success and Wealth is short sales book by Jeffrey J. Fox.   They say in life that we are all sales-persons, so books like this are good to read every so often.

Fox's book is rare in that he has interviewed many "rainmakers" and taken their personal philosophies and stories and complied them into this book.   He discusses many topics including "Heed the first Buy Signal" and "Killer Sales Questions #1 and #2."

Most touching to me was his chapter on Paperboys.  It seems the majority of the rainmakers and highly successful people he interviewed had in common a first job as a paperboy.  He said, if you have to hire two equal candidates, but one had a paper-route in their youth, and the other did not--hire the paperboy.  This made me feel good because I come from a family of paperboys.

Mike J Berry

Book Review: How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere: The Secrets of Good Communication, by Larry King, is a fun, short book to read.

Larry did a service to the public by writing this book and elaborating on some guiding principles that have helped him succeed in his career of--well, talking.

Novel among his concepts is the premise that successful people are good talkers and good talkers are successful people.  I can't think of a more appropriate industry than IT to be reminded that we need to improve our speaking skills.

Larry's stories transcend many areas of life: from managing people, to interviewing for a job, to public speaking, to talking your way out of the principal's office--Larry has a story for everyone in this book.

Mike J Berry www.RedRockResearch.com

Book Review: Integrating Agile Development into the Real World

Hooray, another book on Agile Development! 

In Integrating Agile Development in the Real World, Peter Schuh explains in depth how to get your team to adopt the Agile Development Model.

Schuh covers several Agile Methodologies including the problems to watch out for during the process.

I do have to say, this book seemed like a "whole bunch of everything" and so I didn't feel, after reading it, that I was really any more informed about Agile Development.

I would recommend the book for a group just being introduced to the Agile Development Model.

Mike J Berry www.RedRockResearch.com