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September monthly round-up
Hope you all had a nice September. It's hard to believe we're three-quarters through the year, but I'm certainly ready for the holiday season to start soon. This month was a pretty good one, with two book summaries and four blog posts (three related to the books I summarised):
Book summaries
- Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
- The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz
Blog posts
- Why you have so many unnecessary or ineffective meetings. Death by Meeting got me thinking about some of the many reasons why meetings are so often ineffective (only a few of which were covered in the book).
- Why I write criticisms of books. I kind of fell into writing criticism posts about many of the books I read because I think I'm naturally rather critical. Here I offer up an explanation of my thought process, so that hopefully my posts aren't taken the wrong way.
- Why should you want to be a satisficer?. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains that satisficing, as opposed to maximising, is correlated with stuff like happiness, optimism, self-esteem and life satisfaction. The implication is that satisficing causes all that good stuff. I question that assumption.
- Can maximisers become satisficers? If so, how? Even if you want to be a satisficer, it's easier said than done. This post considers whether it's even possible to change our maximising/satisficing tendencies and explores how you might go about it.
October will likely be a quieter one, as I'll be travelling. But I have a summary for Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant almost done, which you can expect to see next week.
Until next time,
To Summarise
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I summarise non-fiction books with more detail and critical analysis than you'll find elsewhere. Join my newsletter to get new summaries delivered straight to your inbox!
In August, I posted 2 book summaries and 1 blog post: Book summaries The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich - a very interesting but dense explanation of how WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) cultures are different, and how they got to be that way. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt - covers how to spot the far-too-common examples of "bad strategy" and develop good strategy instead. Blog posts Is it better to be WEIRD? - a long-ish...
You’re probably familiar with bad strategy. It’s full of fluff, lofty visions and desirable outcomes, with no clue on how to achieve these things. In Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, Richard Rumelt explains how good strategy is different. As usual, the key takeaways are below, and you can find the full summary by clicking the link above. KEY TAKEAWAYS The word “strategy” has been so misused that many people don’t even know what it means. Bad strategy fails to...
My latest summary is for The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich, a fascinating book about culture and psychology, with a dash of history. This one's a bit lengthier than normal, reflecting the scope of Henrich's ambitious, 700-page book! As usual, the key takeaways are below, and you can find the full summary by clicking the link above. KEY TAKEAWAYS What is WEIRD? WEIRD is an acronym for: Western, Educated,...