Weekend Leadership Reading: 4/26/19

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Weekends are time when things slow down a little. Your weekend shouldn’t be two more regular work days. That’s a sure road to burnout. Take time to refresh yourself. Take time for something different. Take time for some of that reading you can’t find time for during the week.

Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms. This week there are articles about rethinking cherished beliefs and persuasive myths.

From Greg Satell: How To Create Something Truly Original

“The most destructive myth about creativity is that there are innate traits that allow some people to be creative, while others, who lack these, cannot. The truth is that in decades of research on creativity, nobody has been able to identify any such traits.”

From Randall S. Peterson and Kathleen O’Connor : Rethinking authenticity

“Bringing your ‘whole self’ to work can feel like a risky manoeuvre. Here’s why.”

From Theodore Kinni: In praise of the purposeless company

“No purpose? No problem. Create customers, care for employees, be a good citizen, and make money instead.”

From Stephen Bungay: 5 Myths About Strategy

“Myths present a different, subtler trap, which is what makes even smart people fall for them. They are usually based on a plausible half-truth, and they do not immediately lead you astray if you start to act on them. It’s only with the passage of time that you realize that you’ve made a mistake, but by then your wrong choices can’t be unmade and the damage is done.”

From Brooke Manville: Why Reinventing Systems Beats Just Solving Problems

“Imagine if you were suddenly in charge of rebuilding America’s infrastructure. Or overhauling our society’s healthcare. Or restructuring the tuition economics of higher education. How would you answer such a call? Twenty years ago, you might have led the effort as a problem-solver-in-chief, creating a plan by breaking the big challenge into smaller pieces, hiring analysts to crunch some options, and then forging a compromise solution among competing stakeholders. OK for then, but not today.”

From Marc Effron: 3 leadership fads that undermine your success

“Let’s face it — we’re uncritical consumers of information. We accept that the news in our Facebook feed is accurate. We believe that Gwyneth Paltrow offers dependable health care insights. So, it’s no surprise that we embrace reasonable-sounding ideas about how to improve our work performance, especially if they’re advanced by people with Ph.D. after their names.”

Book Suggestions

Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age by Greg Satell

Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change by Greg Satell

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard

The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps Between Plans, Actions and Results by Stephen Bungay

The Harvard Business Review Leader’s Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level by Ron Ashkenas and Brook Manville

8 Steps to High Performance: Focus On What You Can Change (Ignore the Rest) by Marc Effron

Every week I share some recommendations of business books that I think are worth a look. Follow this link to the most recent list.

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