Archive for the ‘Leadership Books’ Category

You Are Awesome: 9 Secrets to Getting Stronger and Living an Intentional LIfe by Neil Pasricha

Friday, September 27th, 2019

You Are Awesome: 9 Secrets to Getting Stronger and Living an Intentional Life by Neil Pasricha offers excellent advice that we can all use to have a more fulfilled and productive life. The advice here is appropriate for people in business, educators, and students alike. In short, everyone. Be sure to get some copies for your professional development library and get one for yourself.

Introduction: You Need to be More Resilient

It starts with a very cool fable that demonstrates the notion of resilience. The key is to not let defeats define who you are. Every end is a beginning. Resilience seems to be in short supply, which is why Neil wrote this book. He offers nine research-backed secrets, shared through personal stories on how we can move from shattering to strengthening. If you find yourself off course, this book is for you.

Secret #1 – Add a Dot Dot Dot

The dot dot dot here is known as an ellipsis which marks incomplete utterances in plays. Compare this to a period known as a full stop, which marks a finished sentence. Neil uses the ellipsis as a metaphor for life were everything is unfinished until you die. He uses the inspirational story of his mother, born the fifth girl in Kenya to a family who wanted a fourth boy. She was self-taught and got the highest score in the nation’s standardized test, which earned her a full scholarship to a white prep school. She just kept going like an ellipsis and looked past the periods.
The other key lesson here is that like Neil’s mom, the one word you should use over and over at the end of your sentence is yet. As is “I don’t have any better options…yet.”

Secret #2 – Shift the Spotlight

It’s egotistical to think that “it’s all about you.” It’s foolish to think that people are constantly looking and you and judging you. It’s folly to think the spotlight is on you because it isn’t. Stop caring with other people who are self-absorbed think of you. There is so much beyond your control that you need to simply learn from your failures and move on. Share your failures with others as it will help you seem more human. You will seem more normal, real, and relatable, which will help improve your relationships. If you make self-harming statements you are likely to believe them. Also, avoid exaggerating the size of your problems.

Secret #3 – See It as a Step

If you think of life as a long stairway you need to realize that you can see the steps taken but the upcoming steps are invisible. Also, realize that we are all really bad a predicting the future. People think that they have changed a lot in the past, but won’t change much in the future. This is probably wrong. When people are down, they often think they will probably stay there. This is the wrong way to think. See failure as a step towards a future that you will be happy with. Neil also recommends that you avoid the endless reports of bad news that our modern media doles out. It’s largely a machine-gun barrage of superficial negativity. He also found that writing a blog was cathartic as it helped him swap dark thoughts for lighter ones. For him, it was the dot dot dot, a shift of the spotlight, and the next step. When you fail, just prepare for this next step, which might be positive.

Secret #4 – Tell Yourself a Different Story

Shame is an intensely painful feeling or experience that we are flawed and unworthy of love or belonging. It plays a role in how we think of ourselves. Your problem is the story you are telling yourself and you can choose another story like you can choose your attitude. Three questions can help. 1. Will this matter on my death bed? 2. Can I do something about this? 3. Is this a story I am telling myself?

Secret #5 – Lose More to Win More

Some good things just take time. They take lots of failure, lots of loss, and lots of experience. Wanting to get better is a real gift. It means you keep trying, failing, and learning. If your number of failures exceed those of most people you should be proud of that. Cy Young had the most wins and the most losses. Nolan Ryan had the most strikeouts and the most walks. The more times you step to the mound the more chances you have to win. Go to parties where you don’t know people. Have a failure budget. Can you afford to lose hundreds on something that fails? How about thousands or more? More losses give you more chances to win. If you want good pictures, take more pictures.

Secret #6 – Reveal to Heal

Physical releases are easier than mental releases. Take time to let go of something and take time to feel grateful and write down at least five gratitudes a week.

Secret #7 – Find Small Ponds

Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond? If you choose the former your self-esteem will go up and stay up. Neil got this advice from a dean so instead of applying to a top company he looked for ones that were broken in some way. He got a job where he was a big deal and could make a difference. This concept applies to life. Rather than chase the hot person on the beach, look for the nerd in the library. Just don’t be arrogant or act boastfully while you are in the small pond.

Secret #8 – Go Untouchable

It seems that every day there are more distractions in our lives. Cellphones are a big culprit while things like meetings at work and a barrage of emails also contribute. When Neil quit Walmart to become a full-time writer he found that he didn’t have the amount of time he anticipated to do creative work. His solution was to create weekly UNTOUCHABLE days where he unplugged and just focused on creative activity. He found his productivity skyrocketed so he now schedules two such days a week sixteen weeks into the future. If he has to shift one of these days he keeps it in the same week.

Secret #9 – Never, Never Stop

This chapter could have been called “what I learned from my dad.” He emigrated from India to Canada, worked hard, and never gave up. He kept things simple and when he made a decision he didn’t waste time rethinking it. The big idea is that you can only go forward so start going that way and never stop. Thanks, Neil.

Neil Pasricha

Neil is a New York Times bestselling author of six books including The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation. His podcast 3 Books is his quest to uncover the most formative books in the world. He gives 50+ speeches a year including TED Talks and SXSW. He has degrees from Queen’s University and Harvard Business School and lives in Toronto. Reach him on Twitter as @nielpasricha, visit his blog at Neil.Blog, and drop him a line at neil@globalhappiness.org.

You Just Don’t Understand – Improve Communication Deborah Tannen

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen is a must for anyone who can identify with either gender. If you want to improve your ability to communicate with members of the opposite sex, get this book. Tannen draws on her considerable research and that of many others in the field to explain the differences in how women and men communicate. While my summary hits the main points, the details I left out are fascinating.

Click here to see my summary of You Just Don’t Understand.

You’ve Gotta Connect: Building Relationships that Lead to Engaged Students, Productive Classrooms, and Higher Achievement by James Alan Sturtevant

Monday, January 26th, 2015

You’ve Gotta Connect: Building Relationships that Lead to Engaged Students, Productive Classrooms, and Higher Achievement by James Alan Sturtevant makes the case that the most important thing teachers can do is connect with and accept their students. It may not always be easy, but once you do connect, students will behave better and learn more. This book is packed with great advice and belongs in every teachers professional development library. Click at the bottom on any page to purchase copies for teachers you know.

James Alan Sturtevant

James has worked as a high school social studies teacher since 1985. He see it as a wonderful activity but his job by no means defines him. Since the early 1990s he has taught at Big Walnut High School located in Sunbury, Ohio. He earned a BA in history and Political Science from Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, and an MA in history from the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He has been married to Penny Sturtevant since 1991. Penny is the principal at Big Walnut Middle School. They have three children that they love dearly.

1. Commitment: Don’t Start Class Without It.

When a visiting professor asked him how he created such a wonderful atmosphere in his classroom, James gave it much thought and came up with the following. Connections have improved as his career has progressed. Connection is not automatic as he had to work at it. You don’t have to have his personality type to connect. You need to be willing to try new approaches and gauge their effectiveness. As a result of this pondering, this book was born.
To begin, you have to make a commitment to connect, even with students who have annoying attitudes. You also need to be prepared to work hard on connecting with some students. Humans need connection and when they connect, they are more likely to be happy and productive. Connected students will be more engaged in learning and more creative as well. They will retain more, have fewer behavior issues, feel better about themselves, get along with other students, achieve at higher levels, and not drop out. Keep in mind that you can care for a student and still have high expectations.
James suggests that you make a poster for yourself that contains what effective communication is and is not. (See page 22) In short, you need to be: available, caring, respectful, trustworthy, warn, welcoming, compassionate, loving, interested in students, a great listener, and accepting. What you shouldn’t do is: act like a peer, try too hard to be liked, gossip, have vague boundaries and expectations, be sarcastic, pamper students, be phony, demand respect rather than earn it, and pretend to care. Like the other chapters in this book, this one ends with a number of activities that you can do by yourself or with others to help internalize the key concepts.

You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education by Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica

Monday, May 21st, 2018

You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education by Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica will help parents get the education their children need to live productive, fulfilled lives. If you or anyone you know has children in or approaching school, this is a must-read. Be sure to get a copy and perhaps some gift copies for parents you know. This is a sequel to Creative Schools. See my summary here.

1. Get Your Bearings

As a parent your worry list includes too much testing, a narrow curriculum, individual attention, learning problems, medication, possible bullying, college costs, and finding a good job. Schools also might not value a child’s strength as they magnify their weaknesses, and make grades so important that students lose a sense of self. Children love to learn and are natural learners. For most of human history, children educated themselves as they learned from others. With today’s focus on test scores, children are more likely to dislike learning as they become less healthy and more sedentary.

A focus on things like STEM is often done to the detriment of other subjects that are none the less important to our economy and society. Ken argues for ditching the acronyms. Current reforms have not budged achievement levels as they cause enormous stress and loss of enjoyment. Businesses want employees who are adaptable creative team players as the support reforms that suppress these very attributes. Vocational courses are also squeezed out as too many college graduates can’t find appropriate work.

2. Know Your Role

Regardless of your family structure, the adults in a child’s life are responsible for meeting a variety of needs. Here Ken uses Maslow’s hierarchy, which includes physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. The final need means becoming meaningfully fulfilled as a person. As for esteem, children need praise, but it shouldn’t be endless and it should be tempered with constructive criticism. Children know when they have worked hard. Parents should set boundaries and provide moral education. Help them learn how to make decisions and to find a sense of direction and purpose. This shows why one-size-fits-all education is wrong.

Ken defines five parenting styles. It seems that the authoritative style is usually the best as it involves setting rules that can be justified to the child and the willingness to alter the rules it conditions permit. Students should be allowed to struggle at times so as to work to solve their own problems. Such rules are more like guidelines that are a work in progress, and they tend to produce the happiest children.

3. Know Your Child

Research indicates the one’s genes and one’s environment have about the same impact on what one becomes. This means that parents have about half of the responsibility. The culture surrounding a child has a huge impact. Usually, money has a big role as poverty brings with it a great deal of stress for many reasons. Poor kids are six times more likely to be neglected or abused, live in neighborhoods that are less safe, have lower birth weight, learning disabilities, and emotional and behavioral problems. There is no single definition of intelligence and each child’s potential needs to be unlocked if they are to be successful.

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Your Starter Guide to Maker Spaces by Nicholas Provenzano
Monday, December 3rd, 2018

Your Starter Guide to Maker Spaces by Nicholas Provenzano tell the story of how he started and built a successful maker space at his school. His guidelines explain what one is, who can help you build one, where it should go, and what to put in it. He explains how it can promote project-based learning and turn failure into a positive thing. Every school should have a copy.

Introduction

Since making doesn’t have a set curriculum, it should be no surprise that this book is written by an English teacher. The goal is to have students use different tools to demonstrate understanding. You don’t have to be an expert to turn your students lose and it’s ok to fail. This book features Nick’s experiences rather than a pile of research. He claims to be a tinkerer rather than an expert and hopes that you can draw on his work to help jump-start your own and the work of your students.

1. So, What is Making?

Nick’s definition of making is that it is the creation of something new that was not there before. By being broad and vague it is not constrained. This definition also makes it more inclusive so the everyone can make with anything you can find along with computer code. It is also vital that you ditch the idea that making is for STEM classes. You need to add the arts (STEAM) as the arts bring everything together. You want students to be creators, not just consumers.

Since some students don’t have a supportive making environment at home, schools need to provide one. They all need to experience problem-based lessons to prepare for life after school. Another key is that teachers have to see themselves as makers. At the least, they make lesson plans. They also make other things and need to be role models when it comes to making. There is also an element of storytelling as just about anything you make has a story associated with it.

2. I Know What Making Is, but Why Should I Care?

In many schools students don’t have much choice about what they do or study. A maker space gives them choice and freedom if they are making what they want. Creativity and innovation are also often eliminated from the curriculum. Not so in a maker space. You should also design your maker space to support collaboration. Businesses want all of these things and many schools don’t try to build them into students’ lives. Finally, a maker space should be a fun place for students to be. There is no reason why school can’t be more fun than it already is and maker spaces can help.

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Zig Zag Principle – A Revolution in Goal Setting
Monday, October 10th, 2011

InThe Zig Zag Principle: The Goal-Setting Strategy That Will Revolutionize Your Business and Your Life, Rich Christiansen (© 2012 Mountain Grabbers, a McGraw-Hill Company: New York, NY) offers a goal setting strategy that he believes will revolutionize your business and your life. This book is a step-by-step tactical book. It is not a theory or a vague concept. It offers practical application tips you can use to succeed on the job and in life. While is ostensibly a business book, I believe the concepts apply well to the field of education.

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My Best Eleven Book Summaries from 2013
Monday, December 30th, 2013

Since starting my blog in 2009, I have summarized 97 books. I do this to help you with purchase decisions, and to help people review the key concepts after they have read the book. Today I am posting links to my favorite summaries from 2013. My focus is education, but I find that there are many books from the world of business that offer great advice for educators, parents, and students. All 97 summaries are still available so dig in and be sure to purchase those that appeal. Thanks again for your wonderful support and Happy New Year.

Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries by Peter Sims explains the qualities that set innovative people apart from the pack. He summarizes a great deal of research that makes his points convincing. While this is an ideal book for high school and college students, it’s never too late for adults to take advantage of these valuable lessons.

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants is Malcolm Gladwell’s fourth best selling book to be summarized here. I’ve been a big fan ever since I summarized The Tipping Point.

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina tells how what we know about brain science can be used to positively influence our daily lives. This book is vital for educators, policy makers, and anyone who wants to get more out of their gray matter.

Why Students Don’t Like School? by Daniel T. Willingham answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. The focus here is how do students’ minds work, and how you can use this knowledge to be a better teacher.

Adapt: Why SUccess Always Starts with Failure by Tim Harford offers an inspiring and innovative alternative to traditional top-down decision making. Tim deftly weaves together psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, and economics along with compelling stories of hard won lessons from the real world. He makes a passionate case for the importance of adaptive trial and error to deal with problems both global, personal, and everything in between

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip & Dan Heath shares research and cool stories that show how our decisions are disrupted by an array of biases and irrationalities. They go on to introduce a four-step process designed to counteract these problems. Their fresh strategies and practical tools will enable you to make better choices at work and beyond. If you want to increase your chances of making the right decision at the right moment, this book is for you.

Bull Spotting: Finding Facts in the Age of Misinformation by Loren Collins will help you spot and avoid lies in a world with more accessible truth and lies than ever. Learn how to use the tools of critical thinking to identify the common features and trends of misinformation campaigns. Loren will help you tell the difference between real conspiracies and conspiracy theories, real science from pseudoscience, and history from fantasy. This is a book everyone needs to consider.

Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will by Dale J. Stephens is a handbook for people of any age who wants to take control of their own learning. Dale suggests actions you can take now and explores how school has failed almost everyone in some way. You will still need hard work and determination to thrive in the real world as this book offers an alternate approach to learning rather than an easy solution. Dale offers lots of valuable advice and many inspirational stories of success by unschoolers.

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel Pink is a fresh look at the art and science of selling, which is something we all do. If you want to better understand others’ perspectives, make your message clearer and more persuasive, and much more, click below to purchase this book. It is purposeful and practical, and may change how you see the world as it transforms what you do at work, at school, and at home.

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson deals with the point where natural talent meets personal passion. Ken explores the conditions that lead us to live lives filled with passion, confidence, and personal achievement. The stories about people from a wide variety of fields entertain and inspire. The book is a classic.

The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills by Daniel Coyle is a bit over 100 pages and offers specific tips for developing talent. Daniel relies on abundant research to help you copy the techniques used by the top performers in many fields. In addition to growing your own talents, this book will help parents, educators, and coaches increase the success rate of their students. Every home should have a copy.

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Summaries of Five Books by Chip and Dan Heath with Help from Karla Starr
Wednesday, March 16th, 2022

Yesterday (3/15/2022) I posted my summary of Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath and Karla Starr. Looking back in my book summary archives, which contains over 200 summaries of nonfiction books, I find that this is the fifth book Chip Heath has coauthored that I have summarized. The other four are by Chip Heath and his brother Dan. They all offer great advice for any educator, parent, or anyone who wants to have a more productive and happy life. Below you will find links to all of the summaries. Enjoy.

Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath & Karla Starr gives specific advice on how to frame numbers in a manner that your audience and make sense of and remember them long after hearing a presentation or reading an article. If you find that you have to use numbers to persuade people, read this book and share it with your kids and coworkers.

The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath makes the case that we all experience moments that make a huge difference in our lives and that there are things we can do to make them happen. You need to be aware of moments in your life and look for ways to make them happen again for yourself and those you serve. This is a must-read for any leader.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath deals this one of the most important topics faced by any leader and everyone else. They believe that the primary obstacle comes from conflict built into our brains. They explore this conflict between our rational brain and our emotional brain that compete for control. This book will help your two minds work together. It draws on decades of research from multiple fields to shed new light on how you can affect transformative change. Discover the pattern they have found and use it to your advantage. Click below to purchase this important book.

Upstream: How to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath deals with the notion of preventing problems before they happen rather than being stuck with constantly fixing things after they break. He discusses barriers to Upstream thinking and offers questions Upstream leaders need to address. Whether you are a leader in your organization or just an ordinary individual trying to reduce stress and live a happier life, this book is a must.

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip & Dan Heath shares research and cool stories that show how our decisions are disrupted by an array of biases and irrationalities. They go on to introduce a four-step process designed to counteract these problems. Their fresh strategies and practical tools will enable you to make better choices at work and beyond. If you want to increase your chances of making the right decision at the right moment, this book is for you. Click the icon at the bottom of any page to buy this important book for yourself and your key colleagues.

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The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch
Monday, May 20th, 2019

The Wisdom and Wit of Diane Ravitch – This collection of 97 short essays from 2010 to 2018 offers a look at how her thinking evolved from the test and punish approach of No Child Left Behind to her understanding of how these federal policies pushed by corporate leaders like Bill Gates have had a very negative impact on public schools and students. Here are some of the high points. Be sure to grab a copy for your school’s professional development library. The chapters tend to repeat themselves a bit, but her points are sound.

2010 – Why She Changed Her Mind

She kicks off this book with the story of how she changed her mind on NCLB’s standardized testing regime and charter schools. The program was utopian and destined to show that all schools were failing. It gave no incentive to teach anything except basic language arts and math. It produced graduates who are drilled endlessly on basic skills and ignorant of almost everything else. Ironically there were no real gains on the tested subjects since it was implemented in 2002.

As for charter schools she saw that on the whole they did no better than public schools and they were able to exclude most of the students who were hardest to teach. Since the best predictor of low academic performance is poverty, it makes no sense to punish low performing schools. Reasons like these are why she changed her mind.
She notes that the reforms of the Obama administration are built on the shaky foundation of NCLB. The idea is that if students don’t get higher scores someone must be punished. This pointless strategy solves no problems. It’s ironic that Obama’s plan represents a wish list for the Republican Party with its push for more testing and charter schools.

Obama’s “Race to the Top” pushed states like New York to adopt the Common Core Objectives, test students in all subjects and grade levels, make schools use independent observers, and fire teachers who fail to produce good test scores. These bad ideas all came from the corporate sector where they had already failed. They also drive out work on skills business want like creativity, collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking.

While Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with public schools, 77% give their child’s school a grade of A or B. Reformers think that teachers are the most important factor in determining achievement when in fact their efforts are far outweighed by students’ backgrounds, families, and other non-school factors. This may be why charters, on the whole, fail to outperform public schools.

Ravitch traveled to Finland to see why their schools do so well. Their reforms are just the opposite of those in the US. There is no focus on academics prior to age seven, the only tests are those teachers give to inform their practice, all schools are public, and access to teacher preparation is highly selective. Their focus is on teacher preparation rather than testing and punishing.

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