Is the American Dream Killing You? by Paul Stiles

This is a good book with a few fatal flaws. First, the author — obviously a very intelligent and passionate person — makes a critical reasoning error by mistaking correlation for causation. Just because two things happen together, doesn’t mean that one of them caused the other.

The particular example that made my skin to crawl was the idea that the economic boom during the last 50 years has caused the degradation and the dismantaling of the nuclear family. In particular, Stiles says that this is because women entered the workforce en masse driven by feminist ideology and market forces (the need for cheap labor). This put stress on traditional family roles and organization and has led to much higher rates of divorce.

Politics aside, there are other plausible explanations for this phenomenon. For example, women who might have divorced prior to 1950 simply could not afford to because they knew they would have no money and no way to get a good-paying job. Therefore, they stayed married in spite of what it might have done to their emotional, spiritual or even physical health.

The second problem with this book is related to the first. Because the author is prone to sweeping generalizations about market causes and social effects, right-wing (and some left-wing) political rhetoric bubbles easily to the surface. This degrades the quality of many of his arguments and observations.

However, if you can tolerate this part of his writing, there are some interesting ideas to be mined from this work. Specifically the idea that The Market — the economic engine that drives our country in tandem with all its behaviors and point-of-view — needs to be moderated by human values and social and environmental justice.

We cannot, as a country and as a people, build tract housing, warm the atmosphere, turn a blind eye to white-collar crime and gobble up pornographic and violent media without ultimately degrading our quality of life. The main, and important point, made is that the free market is amoral. If we use free market principles to define who we are and what we value, then we will be left lonely, empty-handed and surrounded by the trash that is now our planet.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick M. Lencioni

This book is good, but not that good. The first problem is that this book is an allegory. While this is a helpful method of teaching, it also tends to oversimplify problems and their proposed solutions. Teamwork, especially at the leadership level, is one of the most challenging problems that companies face. This is due to a number of factors, not the least of which is leadership egos — something that the author does a very nice job of describing and deconstructing.

However to apply the principles presented in this book would be difficult unless you are an especially creative or powerful leader. Most leaders don’t have the opportunity to fire people or remove them for the team (something that happens not once, but twice in this book). While I agree that this can be the most effective method of improving team dynamics, for a lot of leaders, it isn’t a realistic option for most people.

I did appreciate, however, how much the author focuses on trust and the willingness to have, and work through, conflict. This is true of any relationship, including co-workers, friendships and even marriage. This book is an easy, enjoyable read, but it runs the risk of simply being a platform for Lencioni’s consulting firm. Please give us more depth or consider marketing this as a case study.

The Secret Handshake: Mastering the Politics of Business in the Inner Circle by Kathleen Reardon
This book is more evidence that success in social relationships is important to career success and meeting your personal and professional goals. Reardon does a nice job of breaking down this otherwise complex and cloudy subject into digestable chunks, and throws in a few self-assessment quizes to boot.

In the first part of book, she discusses the gradients of politics at work, which can be very helpful in allowing the reader to discover what type of political animal they are, and also shedding light on seemingly “crazy” behavior at work. It’s validating to learn that there are more “pathologically political” organizations than the company you may have had the misfortune of working for.

More importantly, Reardon goes on to outline how honing your observation, interaction and acting skills can contribute to your ability to move up within an organization. She is right about the in-group, out-group dynamics of the workplace, but people in the out-group often make the mistaken assumption that the in-group has conspired to create the social, cultural and organization norms that exist, when, in fact, the in-group has usually just evolved in response to various social, organizational and business pressures and personalities.

The most important lesson of this book is the idea that observing and emulating leaders, leadership culture and political norms is of critical importance in finding your place at the top of the org chart. Immitation is not only the sincerest form of flatery, it also demonstrates, through your actions, that you believe in the company.

The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun

Finally, there is a project management book that manages to capture all the major skills and activities needed to complete successful projects, while not ignoring the real world. The reason that this book is so good is Berkun understands and articulates the real paradoxes of project management. For example, project managers are expected to tolerate abiguity but pursue perfection. We are also required to be both believers and skeptics, autocrats and delegators, leaders and managers. We must also know when to be which.

Using succinct concepts and even laughably simple diagrams, the author leads readers through three major areas: Plans, Skills and Management. There is a lot of straight talk about what things will and won’t work, why project managers are so busy and how navigating politics and relationships can sometimes be the most difficult part of the job. Two sections that should be recommended reading for anyone who works with other humans (which is pretty much all of us) are: How to make good decisions and How not to annoy people.

This book is especially helpful if you work on projects with creative or technical people. Berkun gives some excellent advice for dealing with the abiguity of simultaneously designing and building innovative products.

If you need an meaningful and entertaining book about project management, this is the one. Every word is worthwhile, even the footnotes.

For more about Scott Berkum and this book see http://www.scottberkun.com/

The Brand You 50 by Tom Peters

This book is fun to read, especially if you’re feeling a little manic. The Brand You 50 is what you need if you want to get better at selling yourself. Tom Peters reminds us through this extended list of essays that it’s all right to be in love with yourself and what you are doing. In fact, getting excited about the quality and the importance of your work is the only way to make any project fun and rewarding. This book contains a number of interesting and meaningful tips about how to think about what it is that you offer to the world of work or just in the world. My only complaint is that it’s difficult to read, because of his incessant use of ALL CAPS and W-O-R-D-S spelled out in ALL CAPS. This certainly drives home his point about being distinctive, but it’s annoying after 3 pages.