Top-10 Books of 2019

 

Issue No. 425 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Dec. 31, 2019) delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2019 and my Book-of-the-Year. Also, Happy New Year!  And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Top-10 Books for 2019 This last issue of the year features books I reviewed in Issues No. 398 to 425. In 2019, I published 27 issues. (But I thought Your Weekly Staff Meeting was published weekly? Not!) Certainly not all 10 books will have popular appeal—because all of us are at different levels of competency and curiosity across the 20 management buckets.What were your Top-10 books in 2019?   2019 BOOK-OF-THE-YEAR CALL SIGN CHAOS: LEARNING TO LEAD, by Jim Mattis and Bing West (Order from Amazon) – Read my review. Listen to the audio version (12 hours) at Libro.fm Best Quote. “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach and you can’t lead.” I’d slot Call Sign Chaos in a category of one. Leadership savvy (check!). Loyalty to the Commander in Chief—irrespective of political party (check!). An understandable primer on the history and deep divides in the Middle East (check!). A cogent argument for allies and partnerships (check!). Blunt but courteous approaches to commanding officers (check!). And—surprisingly—the in-the-trenches battle accounts and leadership/strategy assumptions in Iraq and Afghanistan—page-turning (check!). I could go on… Learning to lead is a lifelong journey—and the author leads the way. Gen. Mattis writes that the Commandant of the Marine Corps maintains a list of required reading for every rank. With every promotion comes a new reading list. Brilliant. Mattis served 712 days as the 26th Secretary of Defense. His Dec. 20, 2018 letter of resignation to President Trump is just one of numerous signed letters in the book’s epilogue—and is a short treatise on his core values and leadership savvy.  He also served as a U.S. Marine from 1969 to 2013 and was Commander of the U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013 under President Obama. From 2007 to 2009, for NATO, he was Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation. That’s an impressive business card! I urge you to read this book. 2019 TOP-10 BOOK LIST: The Other 9 (With brief excerpts from my reviews, these nine are listed in alphabetical order by author.) #2. KNIGHT OF THE HOLY GHOST: A SHORT HISTORY OF G. K. CHESTERTON, by Dale Ahlquist (Order from Amazon) - Read my review. Best Quote. G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) “was once asked what advice he would give to a young journalist. He said he would tell him to write one article for the Sporting Timesand one for the Religious Times and then put them in the wrong envelopes.” Published in 2019, the book is just 170 pages, and I couldn’t stop talking about it all year. #3. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2.0 (The World’s Most Popular Emotional Intelligence Test), by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves (Order from Amazon)  Best Quote. “CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace.” The authors add, “Considering the mountain of literature about EQ, you’d think corporate executives would be pretty smart about it.” “EQ, on the other hand, is a flexible skill that can be learned. While it is true that some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, a high EQ can be developed even if you aren’t born with it.” #4. TURNING THE FLYWHEEL: A MONOGRAPH TO ACCOMPANY GOOD TO GREAT (Why Some Companies Build Momentum and Others Don’t), by Jim Collins (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.   Best Quote. “No matter what your walk of life, no matter how big or small your enterprise, no matter whether it’s for-profit or nonprofit, no matter whether you’re CEO or a unit leader, the question stands, How does your flywheel turn?” Jeff Bezos “…considered Amazon’s application of the flywheel concept ‘the secret sauce.’” But this caution: you need to understand how your organization’s specific flywheel turns—and the sequence of the components. Collins notes seven key steps for capturing your unique flywheel approach—plus this warning: don’t feature more than four to six components. #5. NO! A GUIDE FOR BUSY PEOPLE: Banish Busyness and Focus on What Matters Most, by Doug Fields (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.   Best Quote. “What I didn’t realize was that every ‘YES’ I was saying turned into an unspoken ‘NO’ as well, often to the people most important to me.” More than 40 powerful quotations on why you must say NO: • “When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” (Paulo Coelho) • “Sometimes no is the kindest word.” (Vironika Tugaleva) • “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” (Warren Buffet) #6. STRATEGYMAN VS. THE ANTI-STRATEGY SQUAD: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan, by Rich Horwath (Order from Amazon) - Read my review. Best Quote. The author noted the Stanford University study that says you’ll retain six to seven times more information when it’s presented in a story format. Thus...”Fwumpfh!”…”B-Zapp!”…and “Bwa Ha Ha!” (Yes, I’m quoting directly from this must-must read graphic novel!) • “A survey of nearly 5,000 senior executives showed that more than 50% didn’t think they had a winning strategy in place.” • “A recent study of more than 8,000 new, nationally distributed products found that only 40% were still on the market three years later.” #7. LEADERS: MYTH AND REALITY, by General Stanley McChrystal (US Army, Retired), Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone  (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.   Best Quote. In the chapter on “The Geniuses,” (Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein—two of 13 leaders profiled), the authors quote Bernstein: “Finally, the great conductor must not only make his orchestra play, he must make them want to play. He must exalt them, lift them, start their adrenalin[e] pouring, either through cajoling or demanding or raging. But however he does it, he must make the orchestra love the music as he loves it. It is not so much imposing his will on them like a dictator; it is more like projecting his feelings around him so that they reach the last man in the second violin section.”  #8. “WHY YOUR MEETINGS STINK—AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT,” by Steven G. Rogelberg, (Harvard Business Review, January-February 2019), visit the HBR website here. (Read online at HBR.)  Best Quote. “One study found that despite the prevalence of meetings today, 75% of those surveyed had received no formal training in how to conduct or participate in them.” • “To prevent groupthink, consider incorporating periods of silence throughout the meeting…” • Instead of verbal brainstorming, use “brainwriting.” (A must-read paragraph!) #9. WHERE THE LIGHT DIVIDES, by Fred Smith (Order from Amazon) - Read my review.   Best Quote. “What the people of Israel did with the serpent, we do the same in many ways. We make good things into icons and then into idols.” He adds, “Some have made an idol of the church for their own benefit.” So…caution all readers! Fred Smith’s 50 short chapters will sneak up on you and—if you have any measure of a spiritual pulse—you’ll get hammered. But it’s a good hammering. He’s provocative, but also patient with us. And just when you turn the page for a new chapter (“Ah! Yes! I know this biblical account…”), Fred will twist your pre-conceived and often ill-conceived understanding—and grab you by the spiritual throat.   For the “10th book” in my Top-10 list, I’ll apologize in advance—here are three more books, co-authored with ECFA President Dan Busby. We pretty much split the writing in half—so at least half of the content is excellent (Dan’s half!).  #10A. LESSONS FROM THE CHURCH BOARDROOM: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson (Order from Amazon) – Read my summary.   Best Quote. “Would you trust a surgeon who stopped learning? How about a church board member who stopped learning?” (Click here to read the blog series from 40 guest bloggers.) #10B. MORE LESSONS FROM THE NONPROFIT BOARDROOM: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! by Dan Busby and John Pearson (Order from Amazon) – Read the 40 blogs by 40 guest bloggers.   Best Quote. In Lesson 39, we quote Donald Rumsfeld, “Meetings are a good place to discover whether an organization might be suffering from groupthink. If everyone in the room seems convinced of the brilliance of an idea, it may be a sign that the organization would benefit from more dissent and debate.”  #10C. ECFA TOOLS AND TEMPLATES FOR EFFECTIVE BOARD GOVERNANCE: Time-Saving Solutions for Your Board, by Dan Busby and John Pearson (Order from Amazon) – Read the 22 blogs on the 22 tools and templates. Best Tool. Tool #11 of 22: Monthly Dashboard Report. A one-page color-coded dashboard report from the CEO to the board can be customized to highlight three to five of your CEO’s Annual S.M.A.R.T. Goals—with this caveat from Peter Drucker, “If you have more than five goals, you have none.” This will revolutionize your CEO’s (or senior pastor’s) priorities—and get everyone on the same page. Pair this with Tool #10—and you’ll eliminate hallway whining! (Read the blog series on all 22 tools. Click here.)   Your Top-100 Books List Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  One of the big ideas in the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to create your Top-100 Book List. I’ve crafted my list using my 20 management buckets (core competencies) categories. Download the template from the Book Bucket and start your list this week!   When my buckets book was published in 2008, I listed one book recommendation per bucket on pages 83-85. In the Delegation Bucket, for example, I recommend The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, by Ken Blanchard, William Oncken, and Hal Burrows (Order from Amazon)  I'm reviewing some fantastic books in 2020, including this hot-off-the-press winner, The Amazon Management System: The Ultimate Digital Business Engine That Creates Extraordinary Value for Both Customers and Shareholders, by Ram Charan and Julia Yang (Order from Amazon).  Note in 2026: This is the NEW location for John Pearson's Buckets Blog. Slowly (!), the previous 650+ blogs posted (between 2006 and 2025) will gradually populate this blogsite, along with new book reviews each month. MORE RESOURCES: • Blog: Pails in Comparison • Subscribe: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • John's book reviews: on Amazon  • Website: Management Buckets • Blog: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations

Top-10 Books of 2020

 

Issue No. 458 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Dec. 31, 2020) delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2020 and my Book(s)-of-the-Year. Also, Happy New Year! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies).

 

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TOP-10 BOOKS FOR 2020

This issue features books I reviewed in Issues No. 426 to 457. In 2020, I published 32 issues. (But I thought Your Weekly Staff Meeting was published weekly? Fake news?) Certainly not all 10 books will have popular appeal—because all of us are at different levels of competency and curiosity across the 20 management buckets. As author Steve Leveen reminds us in The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, “Do not set out to live a well-read life but rather your well-read life. No one can be well-read using someone else’s reading list.” What were your Top-10 books in 2020?

2020 BOOK(S)-OF-THE-YEAR
Yes…in this crazy COVID year…why not? For the first time, I’m naming TWO books as my “Book-of-the-Year.” You have time on your hands—so read two books!

#1. THE ADVICE TRAP: BE HUMBLE, STAY CURIOUS & CHANGE THE WAY YOU LEAD FOREVER, by Michael Bungay Stanier. Read my review and view the author’s 14-minute TEDx Talk, “How to Tame Your Advice Monster.”



I began my review last March with this: “Hello. My name is John and I’m an Advice Monster.” Yikes! If you’ve got the guts to read this book, you won’t come out unscathed.

Best Quote. “Your job is to stop seeking the solutions and start finding the challenges.” The author adds, “You can be known as the person who helps articulate the critical issue or as the person who provides hasty answers to solve the wrong problem. Which would you prefer? Exactly.”

#1. DOESN'T HURT TO ASK: USING THE POWER OF QUESTIONS TO COMMUNICATE, CONNECT, AND PERSUADE, by Trey Gowdy. Read my review and view the author’s videos on persuasion. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (8 hours, 52 minutes), narrated by Trey Gowdy. 

 
 
Trey Gowdy, who served eight years in Congress (2011-2019), confesses, “The mistakes made early in my career were many and largely rooted in two areas: not understanding the dynamics of persuasion and not understanding the nature and characteristics of those I was try to persuade.”

Best Quotes. “Persuasion is not debating.” And, “Debating is science. Persuasion is art.” And, “Debating is for the best talker. Persuasion is for the better listener.”

2020 TOP-10 BOOK LIST: The Other 9
(With brief excerpts from my reviews, these nine are listed in alphabetical order by author.)

#2. NON OBVIOUS MEGATRENDS: HOW TO SEE WHAT OTHERS MISS AND PREDICT THE FUTURE, by Rohit Bhargava. Read my review.



 Best Quote. “When you focus on spotting stories that stand out, you gravitate toward collecting interesting ideas without understanding the broader context of what they mean. Calling the multitude of ideas spotted the same thing as a trend is like calling eggs, flour, and sugar sitting on a shelf the same thing as a cake. You can see ingredients, but true trends must be curated to have meaning just as a cake must be baked.”

#3. RUTHLESS CONSISTENCY: HOW COMMITTED LEADERS EXECUTE STRATEGY, IMPLEMENT CHANGE, AND BUILD ORGANIZATIONS THAT WIN, by Michael Canic. Read my review.



Best Quote. The author says “people are bloodhounds for inconsistency. The moment you say one thing but do another—boom!—they’re on it.” He describes a core value of “speed” at one organization, but it took accounting six weeks to send out staff expense reimbursements!

#4. THE AMAZON MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: THE ULTIMATE DIGITAL BUSINESS ENGINE THAT CREATES EXTRAORDINARY VALUE FOR BOTH CUSTOMERS AND SHAREHOLDERS, by Ram Charan and Julia Yang. Read my review.


Best Quote. On Amazon’s relentless drive to invent, “Seek and build big ideas continuously [using a brilliant press release process]…and construct cross-functional full-time and co-located ‘two-pizza’ team with the right project leader.” Why? If two pizzas aren’t enough, the team is too big!

#5. HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR LIFE? by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon. Read my review and view the author’s TEDx Boston presentation in 2012. Listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours, 34 minutes).

 

Best Quote. After meeting Christensen and learning about his three questions, co-author Karen Dillon recalls, “I stood in the parking lot of Harvard Business School a few hours later and knew I didn’t like my answers to those questions. Since then, I have changed almost everything about my life with the goal of refocusing around my family.”

#6. SERVANT OF ALL: REFRAMING GREATNESS AND LEADERSHIP THROUGH THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS, by Ralph E. Enlow, Jr. Read my review.



Best Quote. “Are you kidding me?” Enlow asks. Why did Jesus organize an inner circle campout on the mountain top with just three of the disciples? “Nine of the twelve get excluded from the greatest private screening of all time.” I underlined this:

“The emotional path between exclusion and resentment
is exceedingly well worn.”

#7. TALKING TO STRANGERS: WHAT WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE PEOPLE WE DON'T KNOW, by Malcolm Gladwell. And special thanks to Dave Barton for recommending this depressing book! To listen to the audio version (8 hours, 42 minutes), visit Libro.fm. Order from Amazon.


This best-selling author says we’re rotten at spotting liars. Citing numerous studies, Gladwell notes: “What [the researcher] discovered is what psychologists always find in these cases, which is that most of us aren’t good at lie detection. On average, judges correctly identify liars 54 percent of the time—just slightly better than chance.”

He adds, “This is true no matter who does the judging. Students are terrible. FBI agents are terrible. CIA officers are terrible. Lawyers are terrible.”

Best Quote. “The issue with spies is not that there is something brilliant about them. It is that there is something wrong with us.”

#8. UPSTREAM: THE QUEST TO SOLVE PROBLEMS BEFORE THEY HAPPEN, by Dan Heath. Read my review and view the author’s 4-minute video on “upstream thinking.” To listen to the audio version (7 hours, 47 minutes), visit Libro.fm.


Prophetically, the book is COVID-relevant: “You don’t want to be exchanging business cards in the middle of an emergency.” I listed 10 teasers in my review.

Best Quote. The Dutch bicycle company VanMoof reduced shipping damage by 70% to 80% when “they started printing images of flat-screen televisions on the side of their shipping boxes, which are very similar in shape to flat-screen TV boxes.” 

#9. THE VISION DRIVEN LEADER: 10 QUESTIONS TO FOCUS YOUR EFFORTS, ENERGIZE YOUR TEAM, AND SCALE YOUR BUSINESS, by Michael Hyatt. Read my review. Listen to the book on Libro.fm (4 hours, 48 minutes), narrated by Michael Hyatt.

 

Best Quote. What if your boss (or board) is the Keeper of the Status Quo? Hyatt lists five critical steps for selling your boss on a new vision. And this wisdom when selling to influential stakeholders: “You may not always be able to get agreement, but you can get alignment.”

#10. OH GOD, I’M DYING! HOW GOD REDEEMS PAIN FOR OUR GOOD AND FOR HIS GLORY, by Terry Powell and Mark Smith. Read my review.



Best Quote. In “Releasing Resentment,” the fourth faith lesson, the authors quote St. Augustine: “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.” Powell and Smith list eight very-very-convicting questions on releasing resentment, including this poke-in-the-ribs: “Have I stopped telling others what this person did to me?” (See Ephesians 4:29.)

Bonus Book!
#11. THE LITTLE GUIDE TO YOUR WELL-READ LIFE: HOW TO GET MORE BOOKS IN YOUR LIFE AND MORE LIFE FROM YOUR BOOKS, by Steve Leveen. The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life.



Best Quote. The author quotes Mortimer Adler, coauthor of How to Read a Book: “Whereas a bookplate indicates financial ownership…writing in a book indicates intellectual ownership.” Leveen is encouraging. “If you have led an active reading life, your reading power at age eighty will tower over your reading power at age thirty.” And this:

“If you are not setting some books aside unfinished, 
you are not sampling enough books.”

 

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Note in 2026: This is the NEW location for John Pearson's Buckets Blog. Slowly (!), the previous 650+ blogs posted (between 2006 and 2025) will gradually populate this blogsite, along with new book reviews each month.

MORE RESOURCES:
• Blog: Pails in Comparison
• Subscribe: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews
• John's book reviews: on Amazon 
• Website: Management Buckets
• Blog: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations

Top-10 Books of 2021

 

Issue No. 500 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Dec. 31, 2021: not a typo—500th issue!) delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2021 and my Book(s)-of-the-Year. Also, Happy New Year! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for the Mastering Mistake-Making webpage.  “Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.” (Anatole France) TOP-10 BOOKS FOR 2021 This issue features books (and movies) I reviewed in Issues No. 458 to 499. In 2021, I published 43 issues. (But I thought Your Weekly Staff Meeting was published weekly? Fake news?) Certainly not all 10 books will have popular appeal—because all of us are at different levels of competency and curiosity across the 20 management buckets. As author Steve Leveen reminds us in The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, “Do not set out to live a well-read life but rather your well-read life. No one can be well-read using someone else’s reading list.” What were your Top-10 books in 2021? 2021 BOOK(S)-OF-THE-YEAR Yes…because we’ve endured another crazy COVID year…why not? For the second time, I’m naming TWO books as my “Book-of-the-Year.” You have time on your hands—so read two books (or maybe 10!). #1. LEADERSHIP CORE: CHARACTER, COMPETENCE, CAPACITY (LEADERSHIP MULTIPLIERS), by Dick Daniels. Read my review here. I began my review with this headline: “Dick Daniels Has Been in Your Staff Meetings!” I added, “Dick Daniels has an uncanny understanding of our organizations. How did he listen in on our staff meetings, our one-on-one performance reviews, our job interviews, our office gossip, and our board meetings? Yikes!”   Best Quote. “Every leader will face at least one impossible situation during their leadership tenure. That time is described as having your back against the wall, with no way out, completely alone, and the feeling of gloom you have when it seems like the end is near.” (Don’t despair: Dick Daniels has deep insights and wisdom for you.) Note: This is the first time that an author has received TWO book-of-the-year picks. His first must-read: Leadership Briefs, my 2015 book-of-the-year.   #1. EXPERIENCING GOD (2021 EDITION): KNOWING AND DOING THE WILL OF GOD, by Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby, and Claude King. Read my review or listen to the 2009 edition of the book on Libro.fm (11 hours, 3 minutes). From May to December, I read about one chapter every weekend from Experiencing God (2021 Edition). This powerful/powerful update of the classic book/workbook was published in May 2021 with seven new chapters and dozens of memorable stories that you’ll share with families and friends. (I shared one story around our Thanksgiving table last month.) Best Quote. “Nowhere in the Bible does God promise to stop us from making mistakes!” He lists four inappropriate ways for discerning God’s voice. (Even well-meaning people make these mistakes! Yikes!) These are serious mistakes—because people are misunderstanding what the Bible teaches. They include: “1) Asking for a miraculous sign, 2) Seeking a method, 3) The ‘name it and claim it’ method, and 4) Open and closed doors.” 2021 TOP-10 BOOK LIST: The Other 9 (With brief excerpts from my reviews, these nine books are listed in alphabetical order by author.) #2. NEXT JOB, BEST JOB: A HEADHUNTER'S 11 STRATEGIES TO GET HIRED NOW, by Rob Barnett. Read my review. Listen on Libro (8 hours, 5 minutes). If you’re currently in between jobs again (the author’s label: #iBJA), this is a must-read. Best Chapter. “The Perfect 30-Minute Interview” (Chapter 9) is unlike anything I’ve read on navigating your actual interview. Shocker: “…your number one goal in any first job interview isn’t to get hired.” (The goal: score that second interview.) #3. BECOMING TRADER JOE: HOW I DID BUSINESS MY WAY AND STILL BEAT THE BIG GUYS, by Joe Coulombe with Patty Civalleri. Read my review. Listen on Libro (7 hours, 32 minutes). Literally, this book checks all 20 management buckets.   Best Quote. “…the most important single business decision I ever made was to pay people well.” #4. THE BOMBER MAFIA: A DREAM, A TEMPTATION, AND THE LONGEST NIGHT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Order from Amazon.) Listen on Libro (5 hours, 14 minutes). No recommendation needed. If the author is Malcolm Gladwell—‘nuff said!   Best Quote. The Bomber Mafia is a story about mistake-making and Carl Norden (the genius), a Dutch engineer, educated in Switzerland, who came to America in 1904. Norden “…was a true believer in blank slate, and this reveals his ego. He said, ‘I don’t want to know the mistakes other people made. I don’t want to know what they did right. I’m going to develop what’s right myself.’” #5. PUBLIC SPEAKING LAWS OF SUCCESS: FOR EVERYONE AND EVERY OCCASION, by Richard J. Goossen. Read my review. Our five grandkids joined me for a Zoom review of this very, very practical book with 50 insightful laws on public speaking—including funerals, weddings, lectures, sermons, seminars, and keynotes. Brilliant! Best Quote. “You only learn by doing—not by waiting to be perfect. You can be better than 90% of all public speakers by following and applying the laws of success in this book—guaranteed.” #6. COLLISION COURSE: CARLOS GHOSN AND THE CULTURE WARS THAT UPENDED AN AUTO EMPIRE, by Hans Greimel and William Sposato. Read my review. Listen on Libro (12 hours, 54 minutes). This page-turner chronicles the daring CEO of Nissan who fled Japan—hidden in a box—on a private plane to Lebanon! Best Quote. The authors quote a former defense lawyer in Chapter 11, “Justice Japan Style,” that “Japanese judges are very overconfident of their ability to find the truth. They are trained not to admit that they have made a mistake, even when there is a miscarriage of justice.” #7. THE MOTIVE: WHY SO MANY LEADERS ABDICATE THEIR MOST IMPORTANT RESPONSIBILITIES, by Patrick M. Lencioni. Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro (2 hours, 37 minutes). Get this! “If someone were to dive into a stack of my books for the first time, I’d tell them to start with this one.” (Amazing! His book, The Advantage, was my 2012 book-of-the-year). Best Quote. Don’t invite Lencioni to your commencement program! When this business guru hears a graduation speaker admonish students to “go out into the world and be a leader,” he says he wants to stand up and shout, “No!!! Please don’t be a leader, unless you’re doing it for the right reason, and you probably aren’t!” #8. BRAIN RULES FOR WORK: THE SCIENCE OF THINKING SMARTER IN THE OFFICE AND AT HOME, by John Medina. Read my review. Listen on Libro (8 hours, 36 minutes). POST-COVID? Dr. Medina is warning “clients about relying too heavily on people looking at behavioral crystal balls to predict the future of work beyond COVID-19. If past is prologue, most people will get it wrong anyway.” Best Quote. What’s your leadership style: empathy or toughness? Dr. Medina says the difference between Prestige and Dominance “comes down to leading with forearms versus foreheads.” (I think Medina could do stand-up comedy!) #9. 30 DAYS UNPLUGGED: HOW A CATHOLIC PRIEST TURNED OFF HIS iPHONE AND TOOK A CALL FROM GOD, by Father Darrin Merlino, CMF. Read my review. Apparently, when you turn off your iPhone and other distractions—and follow the St. Ignatius spiritual exercises for 30 days (not a typo!)—you’ll discover that Jesus delivers some very, very funny lines!  Best Quotes. Fr. Merlino’s commentary on Luke 2:51-52 notes, “Breaking from my meditation, what I find fascinating is that none of the boys in Nazareth made the cut to be an Apostle!” Then…imagining himself as a guest on Bill Maher’s TV show: “He is accusing me of being a sinner. I say, ‘Duh, of course I am. The difference between you and me is that I admit that I am a sinner, but you haven’t yet.’” Reminder! The Top-10 books are listed in alpha order by author's last name! #10. FIGHT HOUSE: RIVALRIES IN THE WHITE HOUSE FROM TRUMAN TO TRUMP, by Tevi Troy. Read my review (Part 1 of 2 reviews). Listen on Libro (9 hours, 1 minute). These mini-case studies in leadership, administration, team-building, and team-denigrating are so insightful, I wrote a second review, “POTUS Pop Quiz!”   Best Quote. Attn: Kamala Harris! The vice president position “to outsiders, is a position of great prestige, but to a power player like [Lyndon] Johnson, the former Senate majority leader, it was a comedown.” Johnson was miserable as VP. “I detested every minute of it,” said LBJ who had a phone installed in his office for direct calls from the White House, “but the phone rarely rang.” Bonus Book! #10. NO WAY HOME: THE CRISIS OF HOMELESSNESS AND HOW TO FIX IT WITH INTELLIGENCE AND HUMANITY, by Wayne Winegarden, Joseph Tartakovsky, Kerry Jackson, and Christopher F. Rufo. Read my review. My short review includes 10 “True or False” questions on how to fix homelessness. Best Quote. True or False? “Today, across Los Angeles’s 500 square miles, roughly 10,000 people live in some 5,000 vehicles.” BOOK BUCKET LISTS! I love lists and the core competency in the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets is to create your own Top-100 Books List. I’ve curated my list using the 20 management buckets categories. Download the template from the Book Bucket and start your list this week! For more Books-in-the-Bunker ideas, check out these lists: •  2020 Spiritual Growth Books   •  2020 Leadership Growth Books  •  Best Board Governance Books – click here •  30 Books to Delegate During This Crisis...and the Next Crisis (a 12-page PDF with links to 30 book reviews) – click here •  8 Leadership Flicks  COMING IN 2022. I'm reviewing some fascinating books in 2022, including a must-read gem by Chip Heath and Karla Starr, Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers. Pre-order on Amazon for the Jan. 11, 2022, release or listen on Libro (4 hours, 35 minutes). Making Numbers Count should be required reading/listening for every CEO, CFO, board chair, and marketing team member. (Note: Chip Heath, along with his brother, Dan, wrote the 2017 book-of-the-year, The Power of Moments.) Visit the Book Bucket webpage to download lists of books that I’ve reviewed since 2006, including my Top-100 books list. Note in 2026: This is the NEW location for John Pearson's Buckets Blog. Slowly (!), the previous 650+ blogs posted (between 2006 and 2025) will gradually populate this blogsite, along with new book reviews each month. MORE RESOURCES: • Blog: Pails in Comparison • Subscribe: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • John's book reviews: on Amazon  • Website: Management Buckets • Blog: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations

Top-10 Books of 2022

 

Issue No. 541 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Dec. 31, 2022) delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2022 and my Book-of-the-Year. Also, Happy New Year! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for the table of contents to Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.    Help! My wife thinks I may have too many books. But I don’t think so, do you?   TOP-10 BOOKS FOR 2022 This issue features selected books I reviewed in Issues No. 501 to 540. In 2022, I published 40 issues. (But I thought Your Weekly Staff Meeting was published weekly? Fake news?) Certainly not all 10 books will have popular appeal—because all of us are at different levels of competencies and curiosity across the 20 management buckets.  In 2022, I also launched the Pails in Comparison blog, with shorter book reviews—comparing and contrasting new titles to other books and buckets (buckets, pails…get it?). I published 27 “PIC” issues. Some issues in both blogs included more than one book, so I reviewed about 75 books in 2022. Note in 2026: This is the NEW location for John Pearson's Buckets Blog. Slowly (!), the previous 650+ blogs posted (between 2006 and 2025) will gradually populate this blogsite, along with new book reviews each month. As author Steve Leveen reminds us in The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life (Book #1 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books), “Do not set out to live a well-read life but rather your well-read life. No one can be well-read using someone else’s reading list.” What were your Top-10 books in 2022? 2022 BOOK-OF-THE-YEAR #1. THE DISCERNING LIFE: AN INVITATION TO NOTICE GOD IN EVERYTHING, by Stephen Macchia. Listen to the book on Libro.fm (8 hours, 7 minutes). Read my review. In recent years, I’ve slowly munched on one book for up to six months (just on weekends)—seeking to go slow and deep. Examples: Packer’s Knowing God and Blackaby’s Experiencing God. But…the deep end of the pool can be threatening. Nevertheless, The Discerning Life was my weekend book for half of 2022. Favorite Quote: “Far too often, spiritual discernment has been pigeon-holed,” Steve writes, “into the exclusive realm of decision-making, learning how to make good choices and know God’s will methodically and predictably. We want a simple system to follow: set up the room, put people in place, consider the right options, add a prayer, and then press the button of discernment.” 2022 TOP-10 BOOK LIST: The Other 9 (With brief excerpts from my reviews, these nine books are listed in alphabetical order by author.) #2. ONE DAMN THING AFTER ANOTHER: MEMOIRS OF AN ATTORNEY GENERAL, by William P. Barr. Listen on Libro.fm (22 hours, 1 minute). When Ed Levi, Dean of the University of Chicago Law School (and then president of the university), was asked to describe his stint as Attorney General under President Gerald Ford, he responded, “It’s just one damn thing after another.” Favorite Quote: The metaphors are enlightening and memorable. “Getting [Trump] to accept good advice was like wrestling an alligator.” And when asked how he felt beginning his first term as the AG, Barr commented, “Like I’m about to run across a river on the backs of alligators.” (Order from Amazon.) #3. BEFORE AND AFTER JACKIE ROBINSON, A STORY OF THE BROOKLYN DODGERS TOLD THROUGH THE LENS OF TICKETS AND PASSES, by Dan Busby. Read my review. Note: Amazingly, Dan Busby (1941-2022) was able to complete this book before his homegoing. Click here to read the tribute to my good friend. Favorite Factoid: “Number 42 is now the most celebrated number in baseball. Each year on April 15, every player in the Major Leagues wears 42 and no one wears it the rest of the year.” (That’s just one of 22 “Quotable Quotes” in the book’s introductory appetizers.) Order from Amazon. #4. MAKING NUMBERS COUNT: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF COMMUNICATING NUMBERS, by Chip Heath and Karla Starr. Read my review. Listen on Libro (4 hours, 35 min.). This bestselling author says that “our brains process stories better than statistics.” I know. Why read a book about numbers? First—the authors are hilarious! Rather than giving a meaningless number like $1 billion, they break it down to spending $50,000 per year, for fun, for 55 years...adding, it would take you about two generations to spend $1 billion. They add further, “Almost 14 presidential terms” or “one wait to hear your name called at the DMV.” Lol. 150 Fast-Reading Pages: The genius of this book (less than 150 fast-reading pages, plus almost 50 pages of fascinating notes) is in the mouth-watering examples of stats versus stories. (Oh, my. I could have used this during my CEO years. Just brilliant.) #5. LEADERSHIP: SIX STUDIES IN WORLD STRATEGY, by Henry Kissinger. Listen on Libro (19 hours, 9 minutes). Read my review. Invest just five minutes and listen to the first two pages of Leadership, by Henry Kissinger, and then discern: Have you ever heard a more eloquent description of leadership? (Click here for the 5½-minute audio on Libro.fm.) Favorite Review: Kissinger writes that leaders are either prophets or statesmen. (Did I mention he wrote this book at age 99?) Just this week, Walter Russell Mead’s column in The Wall Street Journal features his recent interview with Henry Kissinger. Click here to read “Kissinger Sees a Global Leadership Vacuum. A dearth of statesmen has left the world misruled by populists and technocrats.” (Dec. 26, 2022) #6. THE 6 TYPES OF WORKING GENIUS: A BETTER WAY TO UNDERSTAND YOUR GIFTS, YOUR FRUSTRATIONS, AND YOUR TEAM, by Patrick M. Lencioni. Listen on Libro (4 hours, 11 minutes). Read my review. You will love this hilarious story, told in the classic Lencioni business fable format. (Really, it’s hilarious!) And it’s extremely helpful—three stages of work and six types of working genius. (Yes! Look in the mirror and repeat after me, “I’m a genius! But…I’m not a genius in all six types.”)   Favorite Frustrations! The book is eye-opening—you will quickly understand why you and your team members are often frustrated with work projects. And it’s transformational—when you learn what brings you joy and when you should say “no.” And…the Working Genius model is applicable to work, home, and church. (See my review for the link to the online assessment.) #7. ROAD TO FLOURISHING: EIGHT KEYS TO BOOST EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND WELL-BEING, by Al Lopus with Cory Hartman. Listen on Libro.fm (6 hours, 52 minutes). Read my review. The authors ask you to pick one:     [  ] Life-giving work.    [  ] Life-sucking work. Eight Favorite Keys: Using the helpful “FLOURISH Model,” the book goes deep on “Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being.” So…how would your team members rate these eight factors—and have you ever discerned an objective, quantifiable way to measure overall engagement at your shop? The eight: Fantastic Teams, Life-Giving Work, Outstanding Talent, Uplifting Growth, Rewarding Compensation, Inspirational Leadership, Sustainable Strategy, and Healthy Communication. #8. PARADISE FOUND: A HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM'S RISE FROM THE ASHES, by Bill Plaschke. Listen on Libro.fm (8 hours, 2 minutes). Read my review. I couldn’t put it down. Literally. Even though I’m “retired” (whatever that means), I took the day “off”—and read the book in one day. Never done that before. Favorite Overcomer Story! On Nov. 8, 2018, the friendly folks in Paradise, California, watched their town burn to the ground at the rate of 80 acres per minute. The devasting toll:    • 84 lives lost!    • In a day, the population dropped from 26,800 to 2,034!    • 20,000 burned-out cars, 19,000 homes lost! Of the 104 football players, 95 of the Paradise High School Bobcats had lost their homes. A playoff game for the next night was cancelled. Coaches, athletes, faculty, students, and parents—lives and futures in total disarray. Could the town and the team recover? No way. #9. IN THE KINGDOM OF ICE: THE GRAND AND TERRIBLE POLAR VOYAGE OF THE USS JEANNETTE, by Hampton Sides. Listen on Libro.fm(17 hours, 28 minutes). Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Recruit a crew of 32 outstanding men—and set sail from San Francisco to explore the North Pole—one of the few unmapped areas on the globe (as of 1879). Order from Amazon.   Favorite Quote: Stuck! Marooned! Incapacitated! Yet… “[Captain] Delong appeared to accept that he was locked in for the winter. He seemed, indeed, to embrace adversity—and to hunt for its possible meanings. ‘This is a glorious country to learn patience in,’” he wrote in his journal. “My disappointment is great, how great no one else will probably know. There seemed nothing left but making a virtue of necessity and staying where we were.” Imagine! For 21 months, the ship—stuck in ice—just drifted. #10. DON’T MISS YOUR LIFE: THE SECRET TO SIGNIFICANCE, by Aaron Tredway. Read my review. This former professional soccer player (now pastor and ministry leader) quotes D.L. Moody: “Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that doesn’t really matter.”   Favorite Gut-check: “Have you ever noticed, Jesus doesn’t say we should aspire to hear God say,    • ‘Well done, good and successful servant!’    • ‘There’s no mention of a good and famous servant or a good and wealthy servant.’    • ‘Jesus doesn’t say we should seek to hear the words, good and powerful servant either.’” Bonus Book: Special Mention! THE GIFT OF DISILLUSIONMENT: ENDURING HOPE FOR LEADERS AFTER IDEALISM FADES, by Peter Greer and Chris Horst, with Brianna Lapp and Jill Heisey. Listen on Libro.fm (6 hours, 7 minutes). Read my review. Of course—you’ll agree—idealism is always inadequate, so do we really need this book? But then why am I so drawn to the stories? So captivated by the big idea—and the practical (not preachy) way that the Old Testament words of Jeremiah are fleshed out in this book? Favorite Quote: “And no amount of positive thinking or inspirational Christian wall art promising a hope and a future would change their circumstances. Yet Jeremiah remained faithful and hopeful throughout his journey.” BOOK BUCKET LISTS! I love lists and the core competency in the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets is to create your own Top-100 Books List. I’ve curated my list using the 20 management buckets categories. Download the template from the Book Bucket and start your list this week! For more Books-in-Your-Bunker ideas, check out these lists: • Spiritual Growth Books  • Leadership Growth Books • Best Board Governance Books – click here • 30 Books to Delegate During a Crisis (a 12-page PDF with links to 30 book reviews) – click here • 8 Leadership Flicks • New in 2022: Mastering 100 Must-Read Books – click here COMING IN 2023. I'm reviewing some fascinating books in 2023, including a hilarious book by The Wall Street Journal’s sports writer: I Wouldn't Do That If I Were Me: Modern Blunders and Modest Triumphs (but Mostly Blunders), by Jason Gay (2022, 208 pages) - Order from Amazon. Listen on Libro.fm (4 hours, 28 min. - read by the author) Visit the Book Bucket webpage to download four lists of books that I’ve reviewed since 2006, including my just updated Top-100 books list. MORE RESOURCES: • Blog: Pails in Comparison • Subscribe: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • John's book reviews: on Amazon  • Website: Management Buckets • Blog: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations