It’s always a privilege and great fun to connect with my good friend and podcasting buddy, Wally Bock, to talk about the books we love.

For this show, we reflected back on what now seems like a long time ago, the first quarter of 2020, and picked our favorite business reads to share with you. Wally draws on two that he’s reviewed in detail and I share one I’ve not mentioned or covered in my blog.

Along the way, we digress on the future of teams, throw in a few other related, great reads, and even enter into a wager with a beer as the prize. Much like every conversation with Wally, that’s a win-win!

Enjoy the show and if you read the books, drop us a note on your thoughts.

Art's Signature

 

 

Wally explains how he arrived at his first quarter choices for the show. “It was kind of a disappointing quarter for me.” (1:10)

Wally’s “Best of the Quarter” reads are: Robert Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, followed by Amy Jen Su’s The Leader You Want to Be (1:57)

Art shares his favorite management read from the first quarter: Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization by Aaron Dignan  (2:23)

Wally offers his views on The Ride of a Lifetime. “It was a fun read. It has excellent writing. There were a lot of great learning points. It was good all the way through.” (3:03)

Wally once again defends his practice of not reading books when they come out. Art describes it as a “weird habit.”  (4:36)

Wally suggests Iger’s book is a great read for leaders and managers. (5:50)

A beer is wagered! (7:20)

Art shares his thoughts on Brave New Work and qualifies his review with, “I’m a management geek…I love this stuff.” (8:10)

We digress on one of our favorites, Gary Hamel (9:15)

The “F” discussion happens…where Wally and Art talk about the power of “frameworks” in business books (10:45)

Art suggests: Dignan’s framework and content make us think. This is a five-star book for me all day long (12:15)

Wally offers two additional books prompted by Art’s description of Brave New Work. He suggests Jason Fried’s It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work and Under New Management by David Burkus. (13:15)

Art highlights two important, recurring themes in Brave New Work: People Positive and Complexity Conscious (15:08)

Wally kicks off an interesting thread on why the notion of teams/teaming will change in our world, in part driven by the pandemic. Art piles on. (16:04)

Wally highlight his work with Rod Santomassimo on the book Teams Built to Dominate (focused on the commercial real estate market) (17:20)

We compare Wally’s view on the evolution of teams to General McChrystal’s book, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. (18:50)

Art suggests a subsequent show on teams and teaming. (20:17)

Wally speculates some more on the future of teams and Art references the late team researcher, J. Richard Hackman (21:40)

We bring this fun show to a close (23:30)

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