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