Book Summary: The missing manual for your habits.

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Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

by James Clear

Atomic Habits offers a straightforward, step-by-step framework for creating good habits, breaking bad ones, and driving long-term behavior change.Based on behavioral science, it provides a comprehensive manual for taking control of your habits. 

More than 40% of our daily actions are driven by habits rather than conscious thought, as mentioned in The Power of Habit summary. When so much of our behavior is automatic, it seems worthwhile to take another, deeper look at managing habits.

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Book Summary: Be the leader your team loves.

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Progress Principal book cover

The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work

by Teresa Amabile, Ph.D. and Steven Kramer, Ph.D.

This book uncovers the real ingredients of productivity that lead to high-performance teams and organizations. It’s principally based on research involving 238 employees in seven companies who provided daily diary entries (nearly 12,000 of them) that revealed the ups and downs of their “inner work lives” and the impact on their performance.

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Book Summary: Your habits aren’t your destiny.

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The Power of Habit Book Cover

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

by Charles Duhigg

Studying habits is a wise investment if you consider that, on average, 43 percent of our daily actions are because of habits rather than conscious thoughts. Yes, two-fifths of what we do in a day happens while we are on “autopilot”!

That’s usually okay if the outcome of our actions is aligned with our goals or at least furthers our health or safety. But what about those more challenging habits? The ones that make us unhappy with ourselves afterward? The ones that have consequences that we have to rationalize? Or worse, the ones we’ll indulge in regardless of the risks or repercussions?

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Book Summary: Benefits of a checklist culture.

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Checklist Manifesto book cover

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

by Atul Gawande

You might think, “everybody knows how to make a list.” But checklists aren’t those kinds of lists, and this book is about more than list-making.

As well as explaining the whys and hows of checklists, the book explores how they help us deal with the complexities professionals face today – managing complex situations that call for complex responses. And face these demands knowing what we know about human fallibility.

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Book Summary: The productivity secret of top chefs.

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Everything in Its Place: The Power of Mise-En-Place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind

by Dan Charnas

In this book, journalist Dan Charnas explains how we can manage our work more effectively using the principles found in most professional kitchens around the world. A philosophy and approach to work called “mise en place” (pronounced “MEEZ ahn plahs”).

Early in our careers, we often struggle to handle all the work at the office because we haven’t been trained on how to do it. College and professional school don’t prepare us for this major aspect of life–how to manage projects, set priorities, and create order. Work and workplace organizing skills are necessities in the modern world, yet, we are given minimal guidance and support, then expected to navigate the chaos of the world of work.

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Book Summary: Silicon Valley’s success formula.

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Measure What Matters:
How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs

by John Doerr

In this book, you will learn about OKRs, a management methodology to identify the most pressing issues in your organization, your department, your team, or in your own work, and get your people aligned and in action on them. It’s the management approach, in part, behind Google’s massive success and that of other businesses and nonprofits.

OKRs stands for “Objectives” and “Key Results.” An objective describes what’s to be accomplished. Key results are the measures to achieve the Objective and the benchmarks to monitor results.

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Book Summary: The three-word formula for powerful communication.

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The Narrative Gym for Business: Introducing the ABT Framework for Business Communication and Messaging

by Randy Olson and Park Howell

The Narrative Gym for Business provides a practical, effective framework for shaping any form of communication intended to connect with and motivate the recipient. The heart is a simple three-part model for framing messages using narrative structure, which resonates with recipients in ways that science has proven non-narrative messages can’t.

Dr. Randy Olson is a scientist-turned-filmmaker. He was a tenured professor of marine biology (with a Ph.D. from Harvard) when he moved to Hollywood and went to film school. Besides writing and directing films about significant issues in science, he’s on a mission to help scientists (and others) become better communicators.

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Book Summary: Lessons from exceptional boards.

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The Source 12: Twelve Principles of Governance That Power Exceptional Boards

by BoardSource

BoardSource developed these twelve principles to help nonprofit and association boards maximize their collective capacity. The principles are aspirational, outlining how an empowered board is a strategic asset. They point to what is possible and how boards can add lasting value to the organizations they govern. The full report is available for purchase at: https://boardsource.org/product/source-twelve-principles-governance-power-exceptional-boards/

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Book Summary: Get The Most From Your Board

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The Board-Savvy CEO:
Building a High-Impact Partnership with Your Board

by Doug Eadie

In The Board-Savvy CEO, longtime nonprofit governance consultant Doug Eadie lays out the why, what, and how of building a high-performing board and a rock-solid relationship between the board and the chief executive. It’s up to you to provide the who and when, but the rewards are a better performing organization, a higher-performing board, and a stronger relationship between the board and CEO.

Eadie dispels the “me-them” stance and static notions many CEOs have about boards. The board-savvy CEO takes an engaged approach toward the goal of board members who are “satisfied owners of the governing work.”

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Book Summary: A Guide to Strategic Governance

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Governing for Growth: Using 7 Measures of Success to Strengthen Board Dialogue and Decision Making

by Nancy R. Axelrod

In addition to summarizing the measures, the guide outlines why these measures matter to boards, discusses the gap between theory and practice, proposes that the CEO is the linchpin for strategic thinking (one of the study’s key findings), and it concludes with how to prepare your board to engage the seven measures.

This guide explores how associations can use the 7 Measures of Success: What Remarkable Associations Do That Others Don’t to increase their board’s attention to strategic issues and enhance its strategic thinking abilities. The measures resulted from a study conducted by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) that “identified seven key factors found in associations that remain remarkable year after year.”

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