The New Manhood
by Steve Biddulph
Wow, I didn't expect this book to be that good. I think manhood is one of the most important topics and yet I rarely see it discussed. The book is very well structured and easy to follow. The author walks you through life stages of being a son to maturing, being a father and living a fulfilling life. It covers a bit of everything: emotions, relationships, love and meaning.
While the book is written by an Australian psychologist, it resonated with my experience growing up in a different country and culture. It's scary how universal the conclusions are.
I'd say this book is a must read. While the book mostly talks from the men's perspective I think it will be valuable for all women too. I want to find a similar book but the women's version to better understand them.
Team Topologies
by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais
Finally a good book on team structure. I really enjoyed this book. It's very practical and provides a deep understanding of choices. Recent trends that more collaboration is better or all teams are the same are a big delusion. In fact sometimes less collaboration yields better results. But the question is which is which? The book doesn't give you a solution, but rather gives you tools and understanding to decide for yourself.
I listened to the audiobook, and while it was insightful, the book has a lot of diagrams, so I'll be reading it. I think this book is worth reading when you have at least 15 people across all teams.
While the book talks about tech teams, I'm curious how well these concepts could work on the organisational level across departments. š¤
Update 13th Nov 2021: finished reading the book. Yeap, it's still very good. I definitely missed some parts in the audiobook as there are many images related to the discussion.
The Alphabet of Emotions (Rus) / ŠŠ·Š±ŃŠŗŠ° ŠŠ¼Š¾ŃŠøŠ¹
by Natalia Kedrova
I had fun reading this small Russian book. It talks about the most common emotions and how to interpret them.
The book has colorful design and illustrations, which made me think that most books are visually boring.
I would recommend it to everybody if you can read Russian.
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
by William B. Irvine
This book is my first introduction to Stoicism. I would say the book is well written, but I didn't like the audiobook's narrator on Audible. It was too monotone for me.
Stoicism itself is an interesting philosophy and I would recommend you to look into it if you still haven't.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
by Martin Kleppmann
Great book. Data-Intensive Applications topic is new to me. This book served as a good introduction. It's very detailed and comprehensive. It slowly walks you step by step through different topics. The book gets overwhelming by the amount of new concepts but the author does a good job explaining it.
Unfortunately there is little knowledge I can apply to my daily work. The biggest highlight for me: distributed systems are very hard and there is no single solution, but rather the solution with the best set of compromises you can tolerate.
After reading the book, I became a bigger fan of single-leader database replication. It offers the best balance of cost, performance and complexity.
I would recommend this book to people who think they need distributed storage, because "SQL doesn't scale". Also it's a good read for senior devs who want to upskill and get an introduction to distributed systems.
The Manager's Handbook
by Alex MacCaw
I love this book because it's not written to be sold, but rather intended as a capture of the best experience. Until recently it was only available online.
The book truly stands for its title. It's a handbook. It's well structured, comprehensive and very dense. I expect to revisit it very often.
I'd like to recommend this book to everybody, including non-managers. The book is free which simplifies the distribution.
Managers can use it as a handbook. Others will benefit from a better understanding of their manager and improve at their job, as the discussed topics are relevant to all job titles. In fact, everybody will be better off if we upskill on topics of personal productivity, working as a team, goals, information sharing, conflict resolution, and consciousness.
Team of Teams
by Stanley McChrystal
This book is highly rated and I can see why. It tells a great story from life experience. The story is engaging and exciting.
However if you want to get more than a story that's not a book for you. The book lacks research and analysis. The advice is delivered in the form: "it worked for us, so it must be great and you should do the same". While such experience is great to share, it carries little value because it's not transferable in the abstract form.
Dare to lead
by Brene Brown
This is one of the harder reads I had. The topic and content are great. However it seems, Iām allergic to the way it is delivered. It took me 3 attempts over two years to finish the book.
The book highlights the importance of acknowledging our emotional side at work. I like that it recommends defining your values and enforcing them through hard conversations.
I recommend this book if you can finish it. If it's also hard to swallow, try an audiobook.
Start with Why
by Simon Sinek
I was worried that Iām not critical enough when Iām rating books as I usually give high ratings to books I read. Iām glad to know thatās not the case. This book is terrible. Itās the worst Iāve seen in a while. I enjoy Simonās inspirational speeches and Iām fully on board with the importance of āwhyā topic. And yet when combined the book has nothing to offer. The reasoning is flawed and the ideas are very repetitive. It is not inspirational, nor practical, nor insightful.
Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leaderās Guide to the Real World
by Marcus Buckingha, Mashley Goodall
That's a pretty interesting book about debunking the status quo. I generally agree with the author that the āliesā as the status quo make little sense. However, Iām not fully sold yet that the ātruthsā is the right solution. I felt the arguments were very weak at times. Also, the author gives weird definitions to the problems so later he can present his solution, which are only relevant in such setup.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the argument as it got me thinking. The book is easy to read. I would recommend it if you want to challenge your beliefs with the new facts.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
by Lori Gottlieb
Wow, just wow. I love this book. It's amazingly touching and absorbing. I started reading it, but soon realised it's perfect for audiobook. The chapters are so well written and delivered, it got me to tears multiple times. This book is like a good friendship or movie series, you connect with the characters like they are your best friends. After it's over it makes you sad you can't follow them any more.
Extra shout-out to Brittany Pressley who narrated the audiobook. She did an amazing job conveying different characters and their emotions.
I highly recommend this book to everybody.
Everyone Communicates, Few Connect
by John C. Maxwell
I listened to this audiobook and I should say it would be better to read it instead. The book is very well structured. The author provides a good breakdown of how to connect with people when communicatating.
The book doesn't offer anything groundbreaking: be valuable to others, puts others' interestes first, be interesting, be inspiring, speak clearly, be authentic. I feel the advice is too generic and theoretical. I might read it in the future though.
The Great CEO Within: the tactical guide to company building
by Matt Mochary
I loved this book. It's straight to the point. Chapters where the author is referring to other books do not repeat them, but reference the source instead.
The book's title is very accurate, it's a guide on how to build a company. It covers a bit of everything: co-founders, the team, personal habits, decision making, leadership, culture, tooling, collaboration, meetings, fundraising, recruiting, sales. My favourite chapters are decision-making, meetings and recruiting. I will be revising them later.
While the book is tailored for the CEOs, I would recommend it to a wider audience as it offers good advice to be an effective company. The chapters are clearly labeled and you probably can skip "Fundraising" as it won't be as useful to you.
Non-Violent Communication San Francisco Workshop
by Marshall Rosenberg
I read Non-Violent Communication book a few years ago. I liked it but already forgot a decent chunk of it. Recently I discovered a workshop on the same topic.
I was dreading watching it as it's 3 hours long. However after the first 30 minutes I couldn't stop watching it. It's amazing! It's very insightful and practical. I highly recommend watching it to everybody. If you like it, then you can read the book and get more details.
Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life
by Mark Goulston
Very useful book. I love books that are written by professionals and based on their practical experience. Such books rarely give you hypothetical models which authors dreamed about. However, they always give practical advices that worked for them. Another similar book is Defining Decade.
The book gives 22 communication techniques which could be used in conflict situations or when logical reasoning failed.
Like any good book based on experience, this book has plenty of stories to better explain the point. I can't wait to read another book by the author Just Listen.
I recomend this book to everybody.
The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
by Camille Fournier
The book gives an overview of what developers' career might look like when they move to management. The book has a good structure and easy to follow. I like how the author highlights challenges of each career level.
For example many developers see CTO position as their careers goal (I did myself). However the majority would resent it when they understand what it includes.
The book could benefit from deeper and wider research. It feels author's experience was the main source for the book. I wish the book was more comprehensive and included more roles.
I would recommend this book to all software developers at all levels to better understand their career path. In addition, the book should teach to spot and help bad manager they will encounter at work.
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
I had a very hard time following this book. It consists of many ideas from different areas and times. There are plenty of valuable insights, but a bit of glue and transitions would be nice. Right now it feels like a collection of author's notes.
I'm giving it 2 stars because I didn't get much out of it. What I've got at the surface is a common sense and I couldn't find a way deeper.
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
by Clayton Christensen
This is a masterpiece. This book has everything I'm looking for in a book: great research, interesting insights, clear book structure, smooth flow, just enough examples to prove the point, and finally the book is tested by time.
What's the book about? It's exactly said in the title "When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail". I have nothing else to add, it delivers on the promise.
While the research talks about huge businesses, I think itās still important to understand whatās going on at the large scale.
Three thoughts related to the book:
- "Follow your customer" is a terrible idea when dealing with disruptive technologies
- Outsourcing will kill your ability to innovate fast when faced with disruption
- I found technological S curve is identical to 3X (Explore Expand Extract) idea popularised by Kent Beck
Recently Apple released and switched to M1 chips on laptops. It was perfectly timed to the letter as the book suggested 23 years ago. You donāt know what I mean? Have a read and youāll know too. ;)
The Unicorn Project
by Gene Kim
Boring. But let's start with good parts. I like how the second book looks at The Phoenix Project from another perspective. There can't be a more seamless way to connect the books. While the first book was about devops, the second is about developers. I enjoyed the part at the end when they were monitoring and fixing bugs in production. The chapter had a good pace and holds suspension to the end.
Unfortunately the second book is polluted with unnecessary details. Feels like the author wanted to show off how many cool words he knows.
The only educational part, Five Ideals, are almost forgotten as soon as they are introduced. The main character already knows it. While the story itself serves as their demonstration, ideals are detached from the reader.
The story line is turned into extremes. The main character is flawless god-like creature, while others are the most incompetent people in the world.
My favourite funny moment is when developers decided to use new technology, which they never used before. Without any experience the decision was to use it straight in production while burning bridges to the previous implementation. Unfortunately such reckless behaviour is delivered like a hero moment. It's like a surgeon decides to transplant the heart on a live patient without any experience or knowledge. š¤¦āāļø
In summary the book has great intentions but they are poorly delivered. Skip this book, it's not worth your time.
Chess not checkers
by Mark Miller
The book offers a short and entertaining story about the new CEO. It's almost identical to The Phoenix Project book in composition and story line. The story walks through the 4 guides for the organisation leadership. It's an easy read and you can finish it in a couple of hours, so I would recommend it on this basis.
I enjoyed Chess not checkers. I wish it was longer with more lessons in it, so there is more to enjoy.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns
by John C. Bogle
Barefoot Investor recommended this book. It is written by John Bogle who founded Vanguard Mutual Fund Group. If you don't know, Vanguard is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds in the world.
I found the book very dry to read, however, it has plenty of research data. The book requires a good understanding of different investment schemes to fully appreciate it. Unfortunately I could only grasp the core message: invest in index funds. They provide the best diversification and with lowest fees it's almost impossible to beat them.
That's only applicable to long term investments though. By following the mentioned advice, it should put you above the majority with minimum cost and effort. I agree with Barefoot Investor, this book is a must read for all stocks investors.
Few quotes:
In the short run the stock market is a voting machine . . . (but) in the long run it is a weighing machine. -- Ben Graham
When there are multiple solutions to a problem, choose the simplest one. -- Occamās Razor
Common sense tells us that performance comes and goes, but costs go on forever.
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.ā Stick to the good plan.
The two greatest enemies of the equity fund investor are expenses and emotions.
Resilient Management
by Lara Hogan
This book gives good introduction to management. It gives exposure to the few concepts and frameworks. While it's very short and narrow, it's enough so you can continue learning by researching the mentioned references.
Looks like the book is primarily based on Lara's experience with a sprinkle of research. The advices she gives are very specific and practical. I wish the book included more details about stages of group development. While Lara used it as a thread that connects all chapters, but it definitely could have a stronger presence.
The strongest chapter is about growing your teammates through mentoring, coaching, sponsoring and feedback. I found it very insightful and valuable.
Considering how under-skilled the managers I've met in my career, I think the book is a good fit for the majority. I'm yet to see a comprehensive management book, so I would recommend Resilient Management to at least junior to mid managers.
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
by James Clear
Great book! Good structure, practical content, easy to read. The book offers a systematic approach to dealing with habits and not relying on will power.
Joy Inc. How We Built a Workplace People Love
by Richard Sheridan
This book is a simple description how fairly successful consultancy company called Menlo works. The book is obviously promoting their process and culture, but itās not encouraging you to follow it. That makes it smooth to read and allows you to make your own conclusion.
Menlo is a consultancy and not a product company. That defines their culture and processes. Looks like a lot of processes were solidified when the company was founded in 2000s. Nothing wrong with that, it just feels dated at times.
Below are my highlights and comments
Do the work
by Steven Pressfield
This is short (2 hours) motivational book. Itās written in an engaging style. The main idea if you want results you should do the work.
The author encourages to distance yourself from your own bad habits and lack of discipline. I think thatās an interesting idea which might yield better results.
This book feels like more like a summary essay of the authorās previous book "The War of Art". I havenāt read it yet, but even the foreword makes it very clear.
Below are my highlights.
The Mythical Man-Month
by Fred Brooks
This is one of the iconic book of its time. Apparently it had a great influence. The book was republished in 1995 and author decided not to change much. Big mistake. The book has two type of content: very relevant and ridiculously outdated.
Unfortunately I run out of patience of sorting those two and I didnāt finish the book. I would not recommend this book.
The key message that you should not estimate software work in man hours because they donāt scale linearly. The communication and management overheads grow with the team size. Adding people to already late project will only delay it as there are onboarding costs.
Below are my highlights.
The Defining Decade
by Meg Jay
I wish Iāve read this book in my twenties. The book explains whatās going on with the brain of 20 years old person and how that affects their life viewed from the psychologist perspective. Now Iām in my thirties I canāt agree more because most of those lessons I had to learn myself.
Below are my highlights.
Great by choice
by James C. Collins
Great by choice is a book about research that answers the question: why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?
The book is based on research, has many examples and very engaging. It serves all of that with amazing structure including handy chapter summaries.
It is a bit too detailed to my liking in some places.
Below are my favourite highlights
Update: I read some criticism of Jimās research and there are some very strong points. While his research methods might be good (there are enough criticism about it as well) the issue lies in a small pool of companies. Statistically itās very easy to get false positive when you have only 20 companies to look at.
There are two videos which expand on the issue with such research - About p-hacking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLucH3Q - And how data is random https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tSqSMOyNFE
The Four
by Scott Galloway
The book includes the short analysis of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google along with future prediction. It was an interesting listen but I didnāt make any notes.
The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho
Hah! I listened to this book a long time ago but seems like I didnāt blog back then. Luckly I decided to listen to it again.
I think itās safe to call this book classic. Itās very popular and highly rated, while was written 30 years ago. It has great story, good character development and all of that is interweaved with life lessons. On top of that is fairly short, so I highly recommend it.
Š„ŃŠ»ŠøŠ½Š¾Š¼ŠøŠŗŠ°
This book gives a good introduction to ecomony basics. It quickly touches on a lot of concepts so donāt expect to get a good introduction. The author prioritises cool slang over explanation simplicity. This book is very entertaining indeed, but having the basic knowledge myself I found it had to follow.
Brave New Work
by Aaron Dignan
Overall this book is a good introduction into new way of working. It compiles a lot practices into place. It doesnāt go in depth but it shows you the direction you can explore yourself.
The key idea is to rethink how we interact and do work. It gives a new framework to think about the change. The book starts with establishing the ground work and introducing the new concept of Organisation debt.
Agile at Spotify
by Henrik Kniberg
Today I stumbled upon an interesting topic of culture in Spotify. Henrik Kniberg is main person who provided the insights to it.
It's all started in 2012 when Henrik wrote about it in Scaling Agile @ Spotify with Tribes, Squads, Chapters & Guilds. The organisation grew and changed since then, but I think it's valuable to see how the organisation evolved.
In 2014 two videos (one, two) were released providing a sweet short summary. I highly recommend them to watch.
Such a strong content and great delivery backed by successful company grew the popularity like a wild fire. There is an interesting post about the wrong adoption of the ideas. See There Is No Spotify Model for Scaling Agile
Rough Consensus
by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
I'm very excited about Rough Consensus. Democracy is built around the majority. It works great when all voters are at the same high level of expertise. Unfortunately that can't be further away from reality. For example in voting: "Don't let ignorant people vote".
In practice nobody knows everything, so we should respect our differences. The core idea of Consensus: the lack of disagreement is more important than agreement. The focus on the flaws helps to drive the discussion and share the knowledge of the minority to the rest of the group. It's a way to pick the best option, and not the popular option.
I highly recommend to read the original paper: On Consensus and Humming in the IETF. It explains how to do it and the mistakes to avoid.
High Performance Habits
by Brendon Burchard
800x
I like this book because it's practical. I also hate it in places because it feels like the book couldn't qualify as a best seller without completely unnecessary chapters. The book can be very useful if you can finish it.
First of all few words about the author. It's hard to respect Brendon when he is proud that he wrote a book in 1 month (not this book). Author who seeks success while openly claiming that good research is unnecessary. You will see that while reading it. Few chapters are written around author's personal stories and claims based on it. So yeah, who needs research?
The best part the book is very well structured and easy to follow. The content is weak in places, but there is nothing that conflicts with my personal experience, so it's easy for me to accept it even with weak arguments.
The book presents 6 habits and 3 common mistakes/traps.
Theory of Human Motivation
by A.H. Maslow
800x
Everybody heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I was curious to know more about it than what's in wikipedia so I read the original paper called "Theory of Human Motivation".
To remind you, the paper was written in 1943 and it's one of the best reads I've done. Modern books prioritise the high words count. The paper is opposite of that. It is very concise and full of references.
To my surprise only the first half of the paper talks about five levels. There are so much more to it! The second half argues that the hierarchy is not rigid. It was never meant to fit everybody and be 100% accurate. I think that's a very important part that got lost in the process of over-simplification to a single image of a triangle.
It was pleasing to see the author arguing both sides of the argument. The paper mentions the limitations of the proposed model, exceptions and areas for the further research.
Anything you want
by Derek Sivers
This is extremely dense book. It wins extra points for being concise. You can read it in hour or two. There is also audiobook read by the author.
I still can't make my mind about Derek. It's either he is genius and hiding it very well. Or he is the most naive and luckiest man. Either way read the book, it's worth it.
One thing really surprised me. Derek talks about completely different attitude of running a business. Every single business I know is there for one reason ā money. You might think that's the best way to run the business. Sure, but it's definitely a survivorship bias. Money focused business might live longer but it's like a walking dead ā it ruins the scenery.
It's rare to find customer focused business. Everybody says they focus on their customers. Yeah right, as long as their business is growing. Are your customers really interested in your business growth? I don't think so. They are interested in a great service/product. In fact larger companies tend to have worse service than their small competitors.
The author's mindset is similar to Basecamp. Focus on customers. You are not going to need it. Adjust as you go. No funding.
Quick notes:
I like his "HELL YEAH! or no" principle. I saw it many years ago and it got stuck with me for all that time.
Delegate or die: Answer the question and explain the thought process and philosophy behind the answer.
Trust, but verify: Remember it when delegating. You have to do both.
A real person, a lot like you: Technology depersonalises humans, but there are people on the other end, remember that.
Quote from Steve Blank: No plan survives first contact with customers.
You should feel pain. If you do you will always know what to improve.
If you like the book I would recommend to follow Derek's blog.
The Phoenix Project
by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
This is a great technical story. I find it hard to explain my daily job to a non technical person. This book is the best example I've seen which closely resembles what the tech work is like. It's not the perfect match but the closest I've seen by far.
The story's realism keeps holding your attention till the end. The book is well paced and full of management lessons. Few highlights which I enjoyed:
"Free puppy" analogy. When what you think is free ends up costing you a lot over the years. I find people tend to favour short term thinking unfortunately.
Management of key resources and bottle necks at production factories and office jobs.
The book brings attentions to 4 types of work in tech teams:
- Business projects
- Internal projects
- Changes
- Unplanned work
And my final observation, just like in real life, managers in the book don't have formal management education.
The book focuses on the management aspect of work. I would recommend this book to experienced tech people, because they will appreciate it more. If you are outside of tech and want to get a glimpse into the daily lives of tech management jobs have a look as well.
Shape Up. Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters
by Ryan Singer
It is available online.
Shortly after I finished Inspired book Shape Up book came to my radar. After reading this book the whole puzzle got together. The pieces:
- 37 signals is a software company that develops Basecamp
- Basecamp is a project management and communication tool
- Basecamp is used by 37 signals to develop Basecamp
This book serves well as a guide on how to use Basecamp. The closer your process is to this book, the more useful Basecamp will be for you.
Itās important to note that Basecamp is a cash-cow. The quality of the development process is not necessary affects its success. Read the book with a grain of salt.
Their process is also Dual Track. The first stage is exploration and the second is development. However unlike in Inspired, itās not clear if they ever do user testing. The book is very practical and itās easy to see that it evolved over time.
I find Shape Up process very reactive as they discourage having backlog. I agree with the principle that important ideas will always come back, so you donāt need to record them. However they went to the extreme to reinvent the road map every 2 months. Basecamp doesnāt feel like a product but a playground for its founders.
I think the book will gain popularity because itās short and free. It would serve as a good introduction to dual track processes. I will recommended it on this basis to others.