As I have mentioned before in the preface to a similar collection of books, I remain embarrassed by the “Digital Transformation” title of this little series of book reviews, as it really conjures images of management consultants selling snake oil. Nevertheless, having started with this moniker, I will stick with it, and hope that the title doesn’t put you off too much. Here is a collection of titles I have read over the past year or so. It is somewhat of an eclectic mix, but I think covers some of the key skills required to successfully navigate the choppy waters of tech.
How Leaders Become Strategists
Richard Rumelt
The first book is by Richard Rumelt, the author of my favourite strategy book of all time, a book, which in a parallel life, I wish I would have written myself – “Good Strategy – Bad Strategy”. Rumelt started off as a systems engineer (like me, which is why I flatter myself with the comparison), and so brings a systems-approach to deconstructing and framing strategic choices. In his latest book, “The Crux – How Leaders become strategists”, Rumelt tries to get to the heart of what makes good strategic decision-making. He argues that rather than focusing on lofty visions, goals or ambitions, leaders should dwell on the structure of the problem at hand, what he calls the ‘crux’. Drawing on examples from multiple industries he shows how focusing on a problem, rather than a goal, can give the insight required for success. Therefore we learn of how Marvel pivoted from licensing Spiderman and X-Men to third-party studios to creating its own studio to maximise the value of its other superhero franchises, or how the Louvre’s glass pyramid emerged from a problem defined as creating an entrance to the museum without obscuring the museum’s historic façade. Given this insight, Rumelt goes on to give examples of how organisations build on this insight, such as how Nvidia invested big in adapting its GPU architectures for AI training and inference ahead of the ChatGPT hype explosion or how Google launched its AdWords programme by creating a clear delineation between sponsored ads and its search results. This is a book that requires periodic re-reads.
Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company
Claire Hughes Johnson
I came across the next book through a review in The Economist, an unlikely source for this type of title. Whilst many business books focus on fleshing out a single idea or concept, “Scaling People: Tactics for management and Company” by Claire Hughes Johnson is something very different. Drawing on her experience as a senior executive at Google and Stripe, Hughes Johnson provides a useful, if somewhat hefty, hands-on, one-stop shop for the operational toolkit for running an effective tech company. It can read as a COO’s handbook, covering the essential building blocks of operational excellence. From Creating a cadence that works, through all the practices required to establish and develop high-performing teams, this book is a great reference for benchmarking your own company’s practices. In line with its practical bent, the Hughes Johnson provides several examples and templates that can be copied or adapted to your context. Although clearly not all prescriptions will be applicable to your reality (e.g. the American approach to managing people out of a company would not sit well in most European contexts), this is a book that I come back to time and again.
The Habit of Excellence – Why British Army Leadership Works
Lt Col Langley Sharp
On first consideration, a book on leadership based on an organisation more than 350 years old does not intuitively seem to be the most obvious place to look for inspiration on how to lead modern tech organisation. It was the endorsement of Matthew Syed which however brought me to read this, and can say I am really glad I did. Over the years, the British Army has been beset with all sorts of practices and issues that are anathema to modern management practice. From the regressive purchasing of commissions to the reputation of ‘lions led by donkeys of the first world war’ to the ethical quagmire and allegations of cover-ups of the conflicts of the last forty years. It is however this challenging context, coupled with the unique situation that, unlike other organisations, all the army’s top brass are recruited from within. For the army to succeed and thrive, there is therefore no alternative to effective leadership development. Lt Col Sharpe takes us on a journey on some of the key principals, explaining how leadership is important at all ranks, how it is instilled in the concept of servant leadership, the role of continuous learning and the importance of intelligent disobedience. This is underpinned by running thread of role played by empathy, emotional intelligence and resilience. On the topic of distinction between officer and non-commissioned officer or soldier leadership, this book is perhaps less useful to the rest of us, but otherwise on a manual on how to instil a culture of service-based leadership, this book is certainly worth your while.
How to be an Inclusive Leader
Jennifer Brown
As a white, middle-aged, middle-class (in the British definition) man, whose career thus far has been spent largely surrounded by people who are not too dissimilar to me, I must admit that I often find it difficult to find an authentic and indeed, credible, voice when it comes to speaking about equity and inclusion. This fairly short book by Jennifer Brown provides a very practical framework to help create a more inclusive culture. Whilst there is nothing particularly earth-shatteringly surprising in the four-step framework she proposes (spoiler alert, it’s unaware –> aware –> active –> advocate), the book is particularly helpful in providing the language and tools to engage with people, whether they are diversity sceptics or enthusiasts in an empathetic way. Brown explains the intersectionality of identity and privilege, how we all have a complex mosaic of characteristics and experiences, many of which we choose to keep hidden, and hence inclusion activities help everyone as a rising tide, and not a zero-sum gain. She does so in a book that manages to provide powerful examples, whilst avoiding being ‘preachy’. Once again, a book that I do dip in and out of quite frequently.
Rebel Ideas – The Power of Diverse Thinking
Matthew Syed
If there ever was a book that resonated with my thoughts on how to bring teams together, it is Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas. Earlier this year I wrote about cognitive diversity, the power of bringing different viewpoints, perspectives and experiences to solve problems. The nature of the problem is key here – the make-up of a team solving a pre-defined, well-understood problem does not have a particularly strong bearing on outcomes. However, for complex problems, particularly those with unclear paths to success, being able to provide a range of different viewpoints provides a clear edge, and can act as an antidote to GroupThink or the emergence of echo chambers. Syed explains how having a diversity of viewpoints is not sufficient, you also need a culture and mechanisms to enable different ideas, often contradictory ones to surface. Syed warns that, particularly where a problem space is particularly complicated, it is easy to get lost in its intricacies, as if ensconced within its walls. This is why an outsider mindset is essential to escaping this trap, and can open up awareness of impending seismic changes, as illustrated by the fact that most of the steam-based powerhouses of the early industrial age completely missed the transformative effects that electricity would have on industry. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Working Backwards – Insights, Stories and Secrets from Inside Amazon
Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
Including this book in this list is a bit of a cheat, as I haven’t properly read it from cover-to-cover. Allow me to explain. I recently left Amazon after a fairly brief stint of just under two years. Although I didn’t spend too long there, I have found that my experience has fundamentally rewired the way I work, and I suspect for the long-term. It certainly has had a more profound effect on me than the MBA course I undertook over a decade ago. Amazon’s secret sauce lies not in its technology prowess (which of course is considerable), but rather in what it describes, quite openly, as its ‘peculiar’ culture. Underpinned by its leadership principles, the Amazon way of working consists of a set of non-negotiable practices, from working ‘backwards from the customer’ to using documents as the basis for all significant decision-making. Coupled with an approach to data and metrics that is simultaneously rigorous and sceptical, an organisational structure designed from the ground-up to scale, and a series of practices designed to help navigate the most gnarly of problems, the Amazon culture is what makes the company. This book provides as good an overview of how these practices work at Amazon as you’ll get without enduring its gruelling multi-stage interview format, as well as describing how to be Amazonian outside of Amazon. Its certainly worth the effort.