Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America – Wil Haygood

Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America by Wil Haygood
Date read: 5/4/23. Recommendation: 9/10.

The incredible story of one of the great Civil Rights leaders who worked within the law to fight for equal rights by battling discrimination and legal segregation in America’s courtrooms. Haygood is a brilliant writer and biographer, breathing life into the reality of atrocities that Thurgood Marshall faced—both in his nomination to the Supreme Court and subsequent hearings, as well as his decades traveling across courtrooms in the American South. Marshall is an incredible example of how to work within a system that’s built against you to drive lasting change. He was dignified when others tried to humiliate him and always kept himself steady, rising above attacks on his character and fighting for the right and moral side of history. Cannot recommend this book enough, one of my favorite biographies that I’ve ever read.

Check out my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund:
“In 1940, Thurgood Marshall—who had joined the NAACP as a lawyer four years earlier after working at a barely-making-it law practice in his native Baltimore—came up with an idea to form a permanent legal arm of the NAACP. It was known as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and its mission was clear: to assault discrimination and legal segregation in America’s courtrooms.” Wil Haygood

Landmark court victories:

• Smith v. Allwright: 1944 case that outlawed the all-white Democratic primary in Texas.

• Shelley v. Kraemer: 1948 case that ruled it was illegal to bar minorities from purchasing property even if the homeowner had written it into the clause of the deed.

• Sweatt v. Painter: 1950 case that ordered the University of Texas to admit a black man it had previously barred from its law school.

• Brown v. Board of Education: 1954 case that outlawed the separate-but-equal doctrine that had been the law of the land and ordered the desegregation of public schools.

“There was not another lawyer in America whose constitutional victories could match Thurgood Marshall’s in the arena of equal rights.” Wil Haygood

As an advocate, Marshall won in the Supreme Court on 29 out of 34 occasions. 

Supreme Court nomination:
President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Marshall as the first black man to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court on June 13, 1967. Marshall had been a federal appeals court judge and was the current solicitor general. LBJ “aimed to emancipate the nation’s legal system by aiming for the very top of it.” Wil Haygood

“Thurgood Marshall had been considered Public Enemy No. 1 in the South because of his court victories upending many of the laws of segregation. With Johnson’s looming nomination of Marshall, it was as if the president were hammering the final nail into the coffin of white supremacy.” Wil Haygood

Nomination hearings:
Nomination hearings in front of of the Senate Judiciary Committee began on July 13th, 1967 in room 2228 of the New Senate Office Building. 

Senators from the South went on the attack…John McClellan, Arkansas Senator, was hellbent on destroying Marshall, since Marshall was responsible for Brown v. Board of Education which embarrassed McClellan’s state. During hearings, McClellan referred to black Americans as an ‘enemy of our security.’ McClellan had privately told his constituents that he would do all he could to stop Marshall from reaching the high court. 

Southern Senators aimed to put Thurgood Marshall “in crosshairs of the civil unrest taking place on American streets and at city halls and on all those college campuses.”

James Eastland, Mississippi Senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was also committed to doing everything in his power to keep Marshall from taking his seat on the US Supreme Court. He waited until the last minute to tell the White House when the hearings would begin, hoping to limit their preparation time. Eastland had another senator look for links between Marshall and the Communist Party. Eastland had once stood on the floor of the US Senator and thundered that “the Negro race is an inferior race.” He also once said that Mississippians would “protect and maintain white supremacy throughout eternity.” He also said that “If it came to fighting, I’d fight for Mississippi against the United States, even if it meant going out into the street and shooting Negroes.” Eastland was committed to stopping the pursuit of equality. And earlier in his career, he assailed black soldiers serving in WWII as failures in combat. 

By the time the third day of confirmation hearings began, Marshall had been subjected to more hours of questioning than any other nominee in history. Eastland did not provide a timeline of when they might end, attempting to rattle Marshall. 

On the fourth day, Strom Thurmond, the Senator from South Carolina, went on the attack. Thurmond had launched his Senate campaign in response to the Brown decision. Later he helped launched a weeks-long filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And at one point in time, he was the presidential candidate for the whites-only Dixiecrat party. “And now in 1967, Strom Thurmond had to endure the 1960s having streamrolled his life and his beloved South.” Thurmond lit into Marshall about the thirteenth amendment, as well as interracial relationships. Later, it was revealed, that when Thurmond was 62 he had carried on an affair with a black woman, Carrie Butler, who worked for his family and was only 16 years old.

Eastland later called up a witness opposed to Marshall. Michael D. Jaffe, counsel to a company known as Liberty Lobby which was formed in the shadow of McCarthyism and was accused of anti-Semitism and a fascination with the teachings of Hitler. Its two biggest supporters were Senator Strom Thurmond and Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Tom Brady. Jaffe claimed Marshall had associations with organizations of subversive nature. 

After day five, Eastland announced he would call no more hearings. He ended them before giving a chance for Marshall’s allies on the committee to speak on his behalf. “In the nation’s history, a Supreme Court nominee had never appeared in person before a committee as long as Thurgood Marshall.” Wil Haygood

August 11—Eastland announced the committee had completed its hearing process and was ready to issue its report on Marshall’s nomination. Now it was up to the full Senate. The majority report (senators favoring Marshall) issued 3.5 pages emphasizing how he had been at the forefront of assisting black citizens in asserting their right to vote and share in constitutional rights, and how he had shown that progress can be achieved within the framework of American democracy and law. The minority report was 6x longer and scathing, ripping Marshall for judicial activism, the subjugation of federal powers, and compromising the sacredness of the Constitution.

On August 30th, 1967, more than a month after the Marshall hearings had ended, the Senate conned to vote on the nomination of Marshall to the Supreme Court. There was just a single black, male senator—Edward Brooke—and a single female senator—Margaret Chase Smith—in the entire Senate. 

The final tally stood at 69-11. Marshall was going to join the U.S. Supreme Court. LBJ had convinced twenty segregationists to refrain from voting so it was closer than it looked. 

“Let me take this opportunity to affirm my deep faith in this Nation and its people, and to pledge that I shall be ever mindful of my obligation to the Constitution and to the goal of equal justice under the law.” Thurgood Marshall

Marshall had been put through an ordeal by committee. Fred P. Graham wrote that “the present procedures serve only as punishment to a future justice by political enemies.” “Marshall was the first nominee to undergo such an extensive grilling face-to-face, and his hearings created a new level of senatorial inquiry. And once those senators smelled blood, it only pushed them deeper and deeper. A year after the Marshall hearing, the Senate blocked Justice Abe Fortas from ascending to the position of chief justice.” Wil Haygood

Confirmation hearings became partisan battles that were televised and played on repeat across news outlets across the world. 

Civil Rights Movement:
In 1964, more than 20,000 citizens had been arrested in the South following protests for racial equality. In 1965, more than 36 churches had been firebombed by segregationists in Mississippi. 

“Charlie Houston, the dean (at Howard University Law School), had studied the plight of the Negro lawyer in America, studied it and gathered statistics, and those statistics were stark and indisputable. He would constantly remind his students of the crisis confronting the Negro lawyer. Houston discovered ‘there are not more than 100 Negro lawyers in the South devoting full-time to practice: 100 Negro layers to care for the rights and interests of 9,000,000 Southern Negroes or approximately one Negro lawyer to every 90,000 Negroes.’” Wil Haygood

“Thurgood Marshall lived in a realistic and gritty world. And he had gone into dangerous southern towns at night. And lived to tell about it. Negroes would tell you Thurgood Marshall was Atticus Finch before Atticus Finch.” Wil Haygood

Brown v. Board of Education:
Fall of 1957, nine black schoolchildren tried to desegregate Little Rock Central High School and were stopped by a mob of angry whites yelling profanities, spitting, and throwing rocks. “Reporters on the scene to cover the story were chased and bloodied by the mobs. This forced President Dwight Eisenhower to go into military mode and dispatch troops to protect the children. The troops had to remain at path school watching over the black children for an entire year. Little Rock was thus seared into the nation’s psyche as mean and bigoted. 

Smith v. Allwright:
Lonnie Smith tried to vote in Houston. He was denied a ballot by the Houston election Judge S.E. Allwright. Marshall met with Smith and filed a complaint on his behalf. The case made its way to the Supreme Court. “Thurgood Marshall had never appeared before the justices of the US Supreme Court of any case approaching this magnitude. And in reality, if he were to reach that hallowed courtroom to take on Texas, he’d be taking on all the states below the Mason-Dixon Line, because they had punishing white primary systems of their own.” Wil Haygood

“Marshall opened by telling the justices what he had been saying all along: that the Texas primary simply undermined Negro voting no matter how state officials argued otherwise.” Wil Haygood

“The Texas attorney general, Gerald Mann, as expected, argued that the earlier ruling supporting Texas did not violate any of the constitutional amendments being debated. The justices, at the conclusion of the arguments, had to ponder a question: Does the constitution embrace ‘private’ discrimination?” Wil Haygood

Landmark 8-1 decision ruled on behalf of Smith and was a profound voting rights victory for the NAACP. The court wrote, “The United States is a constitutional democracy. Its organic law grants to all citizens a right to participate in the choice of elected officials without restriction by any state because of race. This grant to the people of the opportunity for choice is not to be nullified by a state through casting its electoral process in a form which permits a private organization to practice racial discrimination in the election.”

Southern states continued to impose poll taxes, literacy tests, harassment, and physical brutality to deter black Americans from voting. 

30k black votes were registered in 1940. In 1947, three years after the case, there were 100k. “Before 1964, only 22 percent of Negroes were registered to tote throughout the American South. Yes, there was the Smith decision, but fear remained; voting rights activists still fell dead from gunfire.” Wil Haygood

Supreme Court:
“During his twenty-four years on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall remained unerringly true to his principles. His concurring opinions and dissents echoed his beliefs about the First Amendment and equality.” Wil Haygood

“Thurgood Marshall wrote 322 majority opinions while on the high court. They delved from freedom of speech to the death penalty, from issues of segregation and discrimination to housing. There were also 363 dissents, giving evidence of a justice who would not bend when he felt the law was against the aggrieved and dispossessed. No justice had come to the high court with the background he possessed in traveling the land and fighting from courthouse to courthouse and devising national strategies that would alter American law.” Wil Haygood

“His were the eyes that had seen, up close, men and women grasping for freedom. He had seen shack-like structures masquerading as Negro schoolhouses. He had heard the wails of Negro mothers crying for their sons who had been sentenced on suspicious rape charges. He had seen how poverty could scar both Negro and white alike. His were eyes that had seen what very few Ivy League-trained lawyers had seen and he knew it, and he wanted them to know he knew it.” Wil Haygood

The Responsible Company – Yvon Chouinard and Vincent Stanley

The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned from Patagonia’s First 40 Years – by Yvon Chouinard and Vincent Stanley
Date read: 1/4/23. Recommendation: 8/10.

A quick read that operates like a handbook for how to build an enduring, responsible company. Chouinard and Stanley detail—across decades of experience—how doing the right thing and focusing on sustainable growth is actually what’s good for business. Every entrepreneur should read this. There are tremendous lessons in doing hard things, anchoring in truth, disrupting yourself, and investing in meaningful work.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Patagonia origins:
“Yvon created Patagonia as an offshoot of the Chouinard Equipment Company, which made excellent mountain-climbing gear recognized as the best in the world, but very little money. Patagonia was intended to be a clean and easy company.” 

“At Chouinard Equipment we were used to a life-or-death standard of product quality: you did not sell an ice axe without checking it closely for a hairline fracture or any other fault. Although we applied the same standard to rugby shirts (they had to be thick and tough to survive the skin-shredding sport of rock climbing), we knew that seam failure was unlikely to kill anyone. Patagonia was to be our irresponsible company, bringing in easy money, a softer life, and enough profits to keep Chouinard Equipment in the black.”

We are part of nature:
“As men and women we are part of nature. If we were to have no experience of wild nature, or no way to know of it, we would lose entirely our sense of human scale. We derive our sense of awe from our ability to feel nature’s force. We better know ourselves when we come face to face with the magnificence of the unknown. Emerson, Thoreau, and other transcendentalists learned and taught these lessons in New England in the 1830s through 1860s. They showed us that we can learn directly from nature about who we are and how to live.”

Not everything can be quantified: “We don’t think a speech from John Muir on the need for ecosystem services would have swayed Teddy Roosevelt to preserve Yosemite Park nearly as much as a night in the redwoods under the stars.”

Reducing environmental harm:
“Know your impacts, favor improvement, share what you learn.” Daniel Goleman

“Responsible behavior, as it becomes cumulative, also makes a company smarter, more nimble, and potentially more successful.”

Making it everyone’s job: “It is important to note that Patagonia’s dedicated environmental staff for products numbered all of two. The small size of the department was deliberate: we wanted the reduction of environmental harm to be part of everyone’s job. We did not want to create a separate bureaucracy that might clash unproductively with our product-quality or sourcing staff, or give that staff a reason to make environmental considerations secondary because someone else would handle them in their stead.”

Verify before trust: “Before placing an initial order with a factory, Patagonia has a member of its social/environmental responsibility team visit to verify conditions. This team member can break the deal. Our quality director has similar veto power over the sourcing department’s decision to take on a new factory.”

Win/win: “Companies that recognize the opportunity to use the intelligence and creative capacity of their people to do less harm, certainly less harm that serves no useful purpose, will benefit. The company that wreaks less environmental harm will at the same time reduce its sharply rising costs for energy, water, and waste disposal.”

Meaningful work:
“At its heart, to have meaningful work is to do something you love to do and are good at doing for a living. Most people don’t know, at first, what they love best. What they become best at develops by trial and error or by accident. We’re all good at something: with words or numbers, or we work with our hands, or we work best outside.”

“Meaningful work is doing things you love to do, often, though not always, with other people. No responsible company can function well without a lot of different people doing things they love to do in concert with others. Doing what you love to do makes work meaningful. Doing the right thing, with others, makes work meaningful.”

“We have made the choice to do better and not accept the status quo. This is how our work has become more meaningful: we’re not just making clothes, we’re making long-lasting clothes that do less damage.”

Disrupting yourself:
“In 1972, Chouinard Equipment was still a small company (about $400,000 a year in sales), but it had become the largest supplier of climbing hardware in the U.S. With the increased popularity of climbing, and its concentration on the same well-tried routes (in Yosemite Valley, El Dorado Canyon, the Shawangunks, etc.), our reusable hard-steel pitons had become environmental villains. The same fragile cracks had to endure repeated hammering of pitons during both placement and removal, and the disfiguring was severe. After an ascent of the degraded Nose route on El Capitan, which had been pristine a few summers earlier, Yvon and partner Tom Frost decided to phase out of the piton business. It was a huge risk: pitons were the mainstay of the business. But the change had to be made for reasons both moral and practical: the routes were beautiful and satisfying and shouldn’t be ruined; and to ruin them would put an end to, or greatly reduce, the possibilities for climbing in the most popular areas, and thus eventually hurt our business.”

“There was an alternative: aluminum chocks that could be wedged in and removed by hand without the use of a hammer. Hexentrics and stoppers made their first appearance in the Chouinard Equipment catalog in 1972.”

“That catalog opened with an editorial from the owners on the environmental hazards of pitons. A fourteen-page essay by Sierra climber Doug Robinson on how to use chocks began with a powerful paragraph: ‘There is a word for it, and the word is clean. Climbing with only nuts and runners for protection is clean climbing. Clean because the rock is left unaltered by the passing climber. Clean because nothing is hammered into the rock and then hammered back out, leaving the rock scarred and the next climber’s experience less natural. Clean because the climber’s protection leaves little trace of his ascension. Clean is climbing the rock without changing it; a step closer to organic climbing for the natural man.’”

“Within a few months of the catalog’s mailing, the piton business had atrophied; chocks sold faster than they could be made. In the tin sheds of Chouinard Equipment, the steady pounding rhythm of the drop hammer gave way to the high-pitched whine of the multiple-drill jig.”

“At Chouinard Equipment, we learned that we could inspire our customers to do less harm simply by making them aware of the problem and offering a solution. We also learned that by addressing the problem we had forced ourselves to make a better product: chocks were lighter than pitons and as or more secure. We might not have risked the obsolescence of our piton business just to sell something new. But doing the right thing motivated us—and turned out to be good business.”

Retention:
“It costs Patagonia roughly $50,000, on average, to recruit, train, and get up to speed a new employee; if we want to make any money, it’s a good idea to keep the ones we have happy and fully engaged.”

“How to gain a customer and keep one? First, make something or offer a service someone can use, for which satisfaction endures. Second, your company should romance, but not bullshit, the people whose business it solicits.”

Navigating downturns:
“Our emergency plan for a downturn of any magnitude now is to cut the fat, freeze hiring, reduce travel, and trim every type of expense except salaries and wages.”

Anchor in truth:
“A company needs to present itself well to the customer; it may even preen a little, the way a lover might take care to dress for a date. A life story, or product story, told just this side of myth-making is okay when it fairly represents the real. But beware of conjuring a false image of your company’s goods or services. Mystification will no longer work in a world where stage fog can be quickly dispersed by a competitor, activist, or regulator.”

“Transparency is the primary contemporary virtue for all responsible businesses.”

“For a company to set goals or assess progress toward meeting them it needs freely flowing, transparent information. No transparency: no accountability.”

Do the hard thing:
“Patagonia was not always an especially transparent company, nor were we eager to learn about problems that seemed beyond our control. We collectively groaned when we learned how harmful conventionally grown cotton was. We had no idea when we decided to switch to organic cotton how much work would be involved; we knew only that it was possible, and that we had no compelling reason to continue to use harmful, chemically dependent cotton.”

“Over time, your company will become healthier as a benefit of knowing your business more intimately—and more fully engaging your workforce and community.”

Call Sign Chaos – Jim Mattis

Call Sign Chaos – by Jim Mattis
Date read: 5/16/22. Recommendation: 9/10.

Tremendous book on leadership and what it takes to lead in a chaotic world. Mattis details lessons learned from more than four decades serving in the Marine Corps. He pulls from a wealth of personal and vicarious experience and structures the book around leadership in three distinct capacities—direct leadership, executive leadership, and strategic leadership. Cover to cover there are useful lessons on building exceptional teams, getting the foundation right, relentless preparation, commander’s intent, a bias towards action, and managing up. I would highly recommend this for any managers and those looking to hone their own leadership skills.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Building teams:
“The two qualities I was taught to value most in selecting others for promotion or critical roles were initiative and aggressiveness.” JM

“When tasked with supporting other units, select those you most hate to give up.” JM

General Ulysses S. Grant’s criteria for leaders: humility; toughness of character, so one is able to take shocks in stride; and the single-mindedness to remain unyielding when all is flying apart but enough mental agility to adapt when their approach is not working.

“If you can’t talk freely with the most junior members of your organization then you’ve lost touch.” JM

Foundational skills:
You must have done the thing you’re training others to do if you want respect. If you shortcut this through promotions you haven’t earned, it will come back to haunt you. “Every Marine is first and foremost a rifleman and must qualify on the rifle range. Lieutenants learn that everything they will go on to do in the Corps, no matter the rank or the job, relates back to the private who is attacking the enemy.” JM

“Be brilliant in the basics. Don’t dabble in your job; you must master it.” JM

“As an officer, you need to win only one battle—for the hearts of your troops. Win their hearts and they will win the fights.” JM

Learn the basics so well they become second nature: “We all knew one another’s jobs so well that we could adapt to any surprise. My intent was to rehearse until we could improvise on the battlefield like a jazzman in New Orleans. This required a mastery of instruments of war, just as jazz musician master his musical instrument.” JM

Commander’s intent:
Aggressively delegate tasks to the lowest capable level. Decentralize decision making. 

Bias towards action: “Because a unit adopts the personality of its commander, just as a sports team adopts the personality of its coach, I made my expectation clear: I wanted a bias for action, and to bring out the initiative in all hands.” JM

“Do not bog down once in the attack. If one thing isn’t working, change to another. Shift gears. Don’t lose momentum. Improvise.” JM

“Operations occur at the speed of trust.” JM

Mistakes versus lack of discipline: “There’s a profound difference between a mistake and a lack of discipline. Mistakes are made when you’re trying to carry out a commander’s intent and you screw up in the pressure of the moment…A lack of discipline is not a mistake.”

Bias towards action:
Move with conviction, ambiguity and flip-flopping kills morale. Perspective from war in Iraq (Fallujah): “First we’re ordered to attack, and now we’re ordered to halt. If you’re going to take Vienna, take fucking Vienna.” JM

Resourcefulness: “Any planning construct that strives to provide mechanistic certainty is at odds with reality, and will lead you into a quagmire of paralysis and indecision. As economist Friedrich Hayek cautioned, ‘Adaptation is smarter than you are.’ The enemy is certain to adapt to our first move. That’s why in every battle I set out to create chaos in the enemy’s thinking, using deception and turning faster inside his decision loop, always assuming that he would adapt.” JM

Reading:
“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” JM

“History teaches that we face nothing new under the sun.” JM

Never allow yourself to be unprepared:
“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” Churchill

“Mastering your chosen vocation means you are ready when opportunity knocks.” JM

When a Marine has survived three fire fights, his chances of survival improve exponentially. During his time at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC) in Quantico, Virginia, Mattis pioneered simulators to train and sharpen cognitive skills until young leaders could swiftly appraise situations without hesitating before taking action. 

“Initiative has to be practiced daily, not stifled, if it’s to become a reality inside a culture. Every institution gets the behavior it rewards.” JM

Managing up:
“When you are engaged at the tactical level, you grasp your own reality so clearly it’s tempting to assume that everyone above you sees it in the same light. Wrong. When you’re the senior commander in a deployed force, time spent sharing your appreciation of the situation on the ground with your seniors is like time spent on reconnaissance: it’s seldom wasted.” JM

Problem solving:
The credit belongs to the man in the arena: “A leader’s role is problem solving. If you don’t like problems, stay out of leadership. Smooth sailing teaches nothing.” JM

Trillion Dollar Coach – Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle

Trillion Dollar Coach – by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
Recommendation: 7/10. Date read: 4/3/21.

Details the leadership and life lessons of Silicon Valley’s most renowned coach and mentor, Bill Campbell. Bill played a critical role in the growth of Apple, Google, and Intuit, among dozens of others before he passed away in 2016. This book serves as a guide for forward-thinking leaders who are seeking to build enduring companies by empowering their people. As Bill emphasizes, people are the foundation of any company’s success. You have to start here and ensure the right team is in place while accruing respect through your own actions and the substance of your character.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Humility:
Your title makes you a manager; your people make you a leader.

“You have demanded respect, rather than having it accrue to you. You need to project humility, a selflessness, that projects that you care about the company and about the people.” Bill Campbell

Focus on being all substance rather than style or virtue signaling.

“Leadership is not about you, it’s about service to something bigger: the company, the team.”

Manager’s role:
“People are the foundation of any company’s success. The primary job of each manager is to help people be more effective in their job and to grow and develop.”

Trip reports:
“To build rapport and better relationships among team members, start team meetings with trip reports, or other types of more personal, non-business topics.”

Decision making:
“Eight out of ten times people will reach the best conclusion on their own. But the other two times you need to make the hard decision and expect that everyone will rally around it.”

First-principles:
How do you make hard decisions when the room is full of conflicting opinions? “In any situation there are certain immutable truths upon which everyone can agree…it’s the leader’s job when faced with a tough decision, to describe and remind everyone of those first principles. As a result, the decision often becomes much easier to make.”

“Define the ‘first principles’ for the situation, the immutable truths that are the foundation for the company or product, and help guide the decision from those principles.”

Compensation:
“Compensation isn’t just about the economic value. It’s a signaling device for recognition, respect, and status, and it ties people strongly to the goals of the company.”

Work the team, then the problem:

“When faced with a problem or opportunity, the first step is to ensure the right team is in place and working on it.”

“The top characteristics to look for are smarts and hearts: the ability to learn fast, a willingness to work hard, integrity, grit, empathy and a team-first attitude.”

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor – Donald Robertson

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor – by Donald Robertson
Recommendation: 8/10. Date read: 3/15/21.

A unique approach that ties together stories from Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius’s life with Stoic philosophy and modern psychology. As Robertson walks through the chapters alongside Marcus, it’s clear what a rare leader he was with Stocisim as his anchor. To lead, you must care about something bigger than yourself. As Marcus knew, no number of bodyguards could be enough to shield a ruler who does not possess the goodwill of his subjects. There are great chapters on building self-awareness, navigating difficult decisions, and finding strength in kindness.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

To lead, you must care about something bigger than yourself:
No number of bodyguards is enough to shield a ruler who does not possess the goodwill of his subjects. 

Rhetoric vs. Philosophy:
Epictetus on the difference between a Sophist and a Stoic: “the former speaks to win praise from his audience, the latter to improve them by helping them to achieve wisdom and virtue. Rhetoricians thrive on praise which is vanity; philosophers love truth and embrace humility. Rhetoric is a form of entertainment, pleasant to hear, philosophy is a moral and psychological therapy, often painful to hear because it forces us to admit our own faults in order to remedy them.” DR

External advantages:
“Those who squander their sudden wealth end up more miserable than they could have imagined. When handled badly, eternal advantages like wealth do more harm than good.” DR

Strength in kindness:
Marcus Aurelius believed true strength consisted of one’s ability to show kindness, not violence or aggression. During his reign, he pledged that not a single senator would be executed. He kept this promise even when he was betrayed by several during a civil war in the east.

Decision making:
Do not let ambiguity linger for too long…Once Marcus came to a decision, he implemented it with unwavering determination. See Ernest Shackleton for a similar example in moments of crisis. 

Marcus was also meticulous in examining matters that required careful deliberation (decisions that were not easily reversible). He would challenge his first impression and patiently consider the issue. 

Marcus was never taken in by charlatans nor did he engage or attack them. He simply ignored those who were a drain on his time and energy. 

Decatastrophizing:
“Involves reevaluating the probability and severity of something bad happening and framing it in more realistic terms.” Instead of “What if?” shift to thinking “So what?” 

Upsetting experiences aren’t timeless. Everything has a before, during, and after phase.

Self-awareness:
“Those who assume they have the fewest flaws are often the ones most deeply flawed in the eyes of others.” DR

The obstacle is the way:
“What do you think Hercules would have amounted to if there had not been monsters such as the Nemean lion, the Hydra, the stag of Artemis, the Erymanthian boar, and all those unjust and bestial men for him to contend with? Why, if he had sat at home, wrapped up asleep in bedsheets, living in luxury and ease, he would have been no Hercules at all!” Epictetus

Joy:
“The Stoics tended to view joy not as the goal of life, which is wisdom, but as a by-product of it, so they believed that trying to pursue it directly might lead us down the wrong path sought at the expense of wisdom.” DR

Expectations
Reverse clause = undertaking action while calmly accepting that the outcomes aren’t entirely within your control. Expectations are reserved for what’s within your sphere of control.

“Virtue consists in doing your very best and yet not becoming upset if you come home from the hunt empty-handed.” DR

First Break All the Rules – Gallup Press

First, Break All the Rules – by Gallup Press
Recommendation: 7/10. Date read: 10/3/20.

A solid introduction to management and how to better develop your team. I found it particularly useful as someone who is currently trying to build this skill and help others grow in their careers. The book centers on four key elements: 1) When selecting someone for a role, select for talent. Not simply experience, intelligence, or determination. Gallup emphasizes, “As a manager, your job is not to teach people talent. Your job is to help them earn the accolade ‘talented’ by matching their talent to the role.” 2) When setting expectations, define the right outcomes, don’t prescribe the right steps. 3) When motivating someone, focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses. 4) When developing someone, help them find the right fit, not blindly moving them up to the next rung. Basic, but fundamental concepts that are worth digging into.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

The focus of great managers:

• I know what is expected of me

• I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right

• At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day

• In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work

• My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person

• There is someone at work who encourages my development

Select a person, set expectations, motivate the person and develop the person:

• When selecting someone, select for talent (not simply experience, intelligence, or determination).

• When setting expectations, define the right outcomes (not the right steps).

• When motivating someone, focus on strengths (not weaknesses).

• When developing someone, help them find the right fit (not the next rung).

Talent:
“A love of precision is not a skill. Nor is it a knowledge. It is a talent. If you don’t possess it, you will never excel as an accountant. If someone does not have this talent as part of his filter, there is very little a manager can do to inject it.” Alex: talent in product is a love to create/build.

Three kinds of talent: striving = why of a person, thinking = how/decision making, relating = who of person. 

The talent alone isn’t special, you must match it with the right role. For example the relating talent of empathy with nursing. 

“As a manager, your job is not to teach people talent. Your job is to help them earn the accolade ‘talented’ by matching their talent to the role.”

“A broker with lots of desire and focus is not necessarily a better broker than one with lots of achiever and discipline. But she would certainly fit better in the entrepreneurial company, just as the broker blessed with achiever and discipline would be better cast in the more structured company.”

Focus on strengths:
“You succeed by finding ways to capitalize on who you are, not by trying to fix who you aren’t. If you are blunt in one or two important areas, try to find a partner whose peaks match your valleys. Balance by this partner, you are then free to hone your talent to a sharper point.”

Interviewing:
Past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior, but only give credit to the person’s top of mind response. If the behavior is consistent, a response will come to mind will a single prompt. If they need two or three probes to describe an example, they likely haven’t faced that scenario with any sort of regular frequency.

A person’s source of satisfaction are clues to his talent. Ask what their greatest personal satisfaction is, what kind of situations give them strength, what they find fulfilling. 

Performance Management:
Foundation = simplicity, frequent interaction, focus on the future, and self-tracking.

Leadership in Turbulent Times – Doris Kearns Goodwin

Leadership in Turbulent Times – by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Date read: 4/25/20. Recommendation: 10/10.

This was one of the best books, if not the best, that I’ve read in the past twelve months. Goodwin highlights lessons in leadership demonstrated by four US Presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Goodwin explores how each president came from a very different upbringing and the role that played in their leadership style. She also looks at how each man responded to extreme hardship during the bleakest moments of their lives—three of the four emerged from catastrophic turns of fortune with an enlarged capacity for leadership. Each president demonstrated their own unique capacity for transformational, crisis, turnaround, and visionary leadership. Goodwin structures the book in an accessible way that proves to be a great jumping-off point to explore both the lives and the leadership principles that helped guide a few of our best presidents.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Formative Years:
“Privilege can stunt ambition, just as the lack of privilege can fire ambition.” DKG

“Temperament is the great separator.” Richard Neustadt

Lincoln: 
Incredible motivation and willpower to develop every talent to the fullest.

Lincoln’s hallmark: the philosophical and poetic depths of his mind.

Honed a clear and inquisitive mind through hard work. He would rewrite passages that stuck him and keep them in a scrapbook. “I am slow to learn and slow to forget what I have learned.” Lincoln

“While his mind was neither quick nor facile, young Lincoln possessed singular powers of reasoning and comprehension, unflagging curiosity, and a fierce, almost irresistible, compulsion to understand the meaning of what he heard, read, or was taught.” DKG

Formal education ended at the age of nine, after that he had to educate himself. He was voracious reader, scoured the countryside to borrow books and read every volume. 

Of the four presidents in this book, “Only Abraham Lincoln, who had actually endured physical danger and the bitter hardships of wilderness life, never romanticized his family’s past.” DKG

Teddy Roosevelt: 
“His ability to concentrate was such that the house might fall about his head and we would not be diverted.”

Teddy’s hallmark: his scintillating breadth of intelligence. 

Franklin Roosevelt: 
Optimistic spirit and expectation that things would turn out for the best were a testament to the self-confidence he developed during the peacefulness and regularity of his childhood days.

FDR’s hallmark: “An uncommon intuitive capacity and interpersonal intelligence allowed him as a child to read the intentions and desires of his parents, to react appropriately to shifting household moods—gifts that he would nurture and develop in the years ahead. While he did not learn as a felling academic often does—by mastering vast reading material and applying analytical skills—he possessed an incredibly shrewd, complicated, problem-solving intelligence.” DKG

His ability in later years to adapt to changing circumstances also proved vital to his leadership success. Adaptability was forced upon him at the age of eight when his father suffered a heart attack. “The need to navigate the altered dynamic of Springwood required new measures of secrecy, duplicity, and manipulation—qualities that would later prove troubling but were at this juncture benign, designed only to protect a loved one from harm.”

After his father’s heart attack, FDR spent more time in the house (rather than sledding, horseback riding, fishing, which he and his father did daily in his early years). Here he began to build collections of stamps, maps, model ships, etc.

Collecting is a way of ordering a disordered world. It holds a special meaning for children, offering a small corner of the world where the child is in charge, experiencing the “thrill of acquisition.” (Summarizing Walter Benjamin)

Test and learn: “He would fling things agains the wall, seeing if they would stick; if they didn’t, he would acknowledge his mistake and try something else.” DKG

Hobbies and Meditative Space:

• Lincoln was able to relax with poetry and theater.

• Teddy was interested in birds, exploration, and the latest novels.

• FDR spent hours away sailing, playing with stamps, enjoying poker and social chatter.

• LBJ, in contrast, could never unwind and let go for a few hours.

“Roosevelt’s childhood hobbies (mainly sorting and arranging his stamp collection) would serve in later years as invaluable tools in nourishing his leadership—providing a meditative state, a space which he could turn things over in his mind, the means by which he could relax and replenish his energy.” DKG

Adversity and Growth:
Growth in the face of frustration and extracting wisdom from experience: “Some people lose their bearings; their lives are forever stunted. Others resume their normal behaviors after a period of time. Still others, through reflection and adaptive capacity, are able to transcend their ordeal, armed with a greater resolve and purpose.” DKG

“Each of these three men (Lincoln, Teddy, FDR) emerged from a catastrophic turn of fortune with an enlarged capacity for leadership.” DKG

Lincoln: 
Alive time vs. dead time (see Robert Greene): The half-decade after Lincoln’s unhappy tenure in Congress was anything but a passive time. “It was, on the contrary, and intense period of personal, intellectual, moral and professional growth, for during these years he learned to position himself as a lawyer and leader able to cope with the tremors that were beginning to rack the country.” 

“What fired in Lincoln in this furious and fertile time of self-improvement? The answer lay in his readiness to gaze in the mirror and soberly scrutinize himself.” DKG

“Leave nothing for tomorrow that can be done today.” Lincoln

One of the key’s to Lincoln’s success was his ability to break complex problems into their simplest elements.

Teddy Roosevelt: 
After his wife and mother died just hours apart in 1884, Teddy set off for the North Dakota where he would remain for two years, working on a cattle ranch and learning how heal, grow, and move past the trauma. He’d later regard this as “the most important educational asset” of his entire life. He built grit and cultivated his new identity as “a hybrid of the cultivated easterner and the hard-bitten westerner.” 

Franklin Roosevelt: 
Trial and error was fundamental to his leadership style. “In the Navy Department, he had flung ideas against the wall to see which ones might stick; during the New Deal he would experiment with one program after another, swiftly changing course if the present one proved ineffective.” DKG

Lessons in Leadership:

Lincoln: 
Team of rivals: Unlike James Buchanan who had chosen a cabinet of like-minded men who wouldn’t question his authority, Lincoln actively sought the opposite. “Lincoln created a team of independent, strong-minded men, all of whom were more experienced in public life, better educated, and more celebrated than he. In the top three positions, at the State Department, the Treasury, and the Justice Department, he placed his three chief rivals—William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates—each of whom thought he should be president instead of the prairie lawyer from Illinois.” Lincoln did this because he knew the country was in peril and these were the strongest men he knew. 

“Lincoln possessed a deep-rooted integrity and humility combined with an ever-growing confidence in his capacity to lead. Most of all, he brought a mind tempered by failure, a mind able to fashion the appalling suffering ahead into a narrative that would give direction, purpose, and lasting inspiration.” DKG

Control anger: When angry at a colleague, Lincoln would write out a letter with all his frustrations and gripes, then put the letter aside until he calmed down and could review what he had written. The act of talking through his frustrations with himself was always enough and he never sent the vast majority of these. 

Other key transformational leadership lessons from Lincoln:

• Gather firsthand information, ask questions.

• Find time and space in which to think.

• Assume full responsibility for a pivotal decision.

• Understand the emotional needs of each member of the team.

• Refuse to let past resentments fester; transcend personal vendettas.

• Shield colleagues from blame and don’t allow subordinates to take the blame.

Lincoln was a master of combining transactional and transformational leadership. He knew how to combine an appeal to self-interest to influence behavior of others while layering on an inspiring vision so people could also identify with something larger than themselves. 

Franklin Roosevelt: 
Make yourself appear confident in order to become more confident: “The remarkable thing about him (FDR) was his readiness to assume responsibility and his taking that responsibility with a smile.” FDR

Fireside chats: Communicated challenges facing the country by translating stories in a way that could be better understood by himself and the average citizen, rather than in highly specialized language of the legal and banking worlds. Used simple, direct communication and identified the questions people asked themselves so he could answer them. 

“Roosevelt’s gift of communication prove the vital instrument of his success in developing a common mission, clarifying problems, mobilizing action, and earning people’s trust.” DKG

Be open to experiment: “Roosevelt stressed the improvisational, experimental nature of the New Deal.” He was adaptable, willing to shift ground, revise, and accommodate changing circumstances, due to the entirely new problems the country faced.

Bias for action: “Do the very best you can in making up your mind, but once your mind is made up go ahead.” FDR

In victory know when to stop:
Theodore Roosevelt announced he would not run for a third term and instead backed William Howard Taft and set sail for a year-long safari. But when he returned he decided he wanted to challenge Taft for the nomination after all and lost. Later Roosevelt decided to run as a third party candidate and allowed Woodrow Wilson to win the election, hurting the progressive cause he stood for. 

Reboot – Jerry Colonna

Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up – by Jerry Colonna
Date read: 3/4/20. Recommendation: 9/10.

This one surprised me in all of the best ways. And it was a book that I just happened to read at the right time. Reboot focuses on self-inquiry and challenges us to consider the question: “What do I believe to be true about work, leadership, and how we may live our lives?” Colonna emphasizes that better humans make better leaders. But first, you must learn to lead yourself. That means looking at the reality of all that we are–not fixing blame to ourselves, but understanding with clarity what’s really happening in our lives. Colonna discusses his ideas on personal growth, stillness, purpose, self-worth and self-inquiry. The book also includes dozens of thought-provoking journaling invitations. Pick this one up when you feel like you’re at a point where you’re ready to have difficult conversations with yourself.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Focuses on the question: “What do I believe to be true about work, leadership, and how we live our lives?” Better humans make better leaders. 

Writing:
“Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you that there is magic in it.” Dorothy Allison

“To speak of such things without being willing to reveal your own actualization, your own journey to adulthood, would be hollow and empty.” JC

“To live well is to see wisely and to see wisely is to tell stories.” Pádraig Ó Tuama

“I am living with aliveness when I write, regardless of whether my words are published.” JC

Self-inquiry:
“Slowing down the movie of our lives, seeing the frames and how they are constructed, reveals a different way to live, a way to break old patterns, to see experiences anew through radical self-inquiry.” JC

Trace forward to reframe these beliefs. But choosing a new path forward requires an awareness and knowing. 

“Listening opens that which pain has closed.” JC

“Listen and don’t fix.” JC

“To be free, each of us must come to understand the causes and conditions of our childhood. For these gave rise to the rules by which we, as adults, live.” JC
^Rules that kept you safe as a kid, like stay small, don’t stand out, careful now, don’t make mistakes.

Strong back, open heart:
“The back of the warrior is strengthened by knowledge of knowing the right thing to do. The soft, open heart is made resilient by remembering who you are, what you have come through, and how those things combine to make you unique as a leader.” JC

“Learning to lead yourself is hard because it requires us to look at the reality of all that we are—not to fix blame on ourselves but to understand with clarity what is really happening in our lives.” JC

“The call to lead well is a call to be brave and to say true things.” JC

Growth:
“Growth is painful; that’s why so few choose to do it.” JC

The goal is to buy low and sell high, not buy lowest and sell highest.

“We forge our truest identity by putting our heads into the mouths of the scariest demons, the realities of our lives.” JC

“When we fail to grow, we hold back others.” JC

Stillness:
“The forest knows / Where you are. You must let it find you.” David Wagoner

What are you not saying that needs to be said?

“Slow down. Stand still. Breathe. Let the first find you. Then you can begin to ask yourself the hardest questions: Who am I? What do I believe about the world? What do success and failure mean to me (and not to everyone else)?” JC

“When we stand still, we run the risk of remember who we are. When we stop the spinning, we run the risk of confronting the fears, the demos who have chased us all our lives.” JC

“You might as well show up, as you are.” 

Jerry came to this realization during a conversation with his son when his son noticed something was off. Son said, “Dad, you might as well tell me what’s going on, because if you don’t. I’m going to make shit up and it’s gonna be negative about me.”

What’s within your control?
“All beings own their own karma, their happiness or unhappiness depends on their actions, not my wishes for them.” Sharon Salzberg

The path towards purpose:
“The path to a purpose-grounded life is messy, muddy, rock-strewn, and slippery.” JC

Those in their 20s hold themselves to an unrealistic standard of a non-messy, straightforward unfolding of their lives. This is not how things play out. 

“Discovering your purpose, feeling your way into that aliveness, requires clambering up rocky cliff faces, leaping chasms, tucking oneself deep into clefts and deeper and deeper into the Earth. It demands the willingness to dip into the crack of the tree as well as the bravery to step out of it.” JC

“Aliveness comes from living a life of personal integrity in which our outer actions match our inner values, beliefs, wishes, and dreams.” JC
^Similar to Naval Ravikant’s, “Self-esteem is just the reputation that we have with ourselves.”

“I can’t think of a sadder way to die than with the knowledge that I never showed up in this world as who I really am. I can’t think of a more graced way to die than with the knowledge that I showed up here as my true self, the best I know how, able to engage life freely and lovingly because I had become fierce with reality.” Parker Palmer

What You Do Is Who You Are – Ben Horowitz

What You Do Is Who You Are – by Ben Horowitz
Date read: 11/14/19. Recommendation: 8/10.

“Culturally, what you believe means nearly nothing. What you do is who you are.” Horowitz’s latest book is all about leading and creating a purposeful culture at work. He defines culture as a set of actions, rather than the beliefs or corporate values that might be taped on the wall. While he pulls relevant case studies in the modern era – Uber, Netflix, McDonald’s – the book is built upon historical accounts of Toussaint Louverture, Genghis Khan, and the samurai. Each highlights a key lesson in culture, leadership, and how to create meaning. Horowitz reminds leaders that their perspective on the culture isn’t relevant – that’s rarely what your people experience. The real question is what employees have to do to survive and succeed? What behaviors get them ahead?

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Why culture matters:
Startups who outsource engineering almost always fail: “It turns out that it’s easy to build an app or a website that meets the specification of some initial idea, but far more difficult to build something that will scale, evolve, handle edge cases gracefully, etc.” BH

“We at Apple had forgotten who we were. One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.” Steve Jobs

“Culture begins with deciding what you value most.” BH

Culture = a set of actions, not beliefs. 

Virtues vs. Values:
Virtues are what you do. Values are what you believe.

Corporate values are worthless because they emphasize beliefs instead of actions.

“Culturally, what you believe means nearly nothing. What you do is who you are.” BH

Create shocking rules:
Should shock people and force them to ask why and must be something they encounter on a daily basis. This helps program the culture. 

Tom Coughlin (New York Giants): If you are on time, you are late. Meetings would start five minutes early. Fined players who failed to be there by that time. It was memorable, forced people to ask why, encountered daily, and helped build discipline.

Leadership:
“When you are a leader, even your accidental actions set the culture.” BH

Emphasize the “why” behind your values and the vision with every chance you get. That’s what gets remembered. 

Act right: “As a leader, you can float along in a morally ambiguous frame of mind until you face a clarifying choice. Then you either evolve or you wall yourself up in moral corruption.” BH

“Your own perspective on the culture is not that relevant. Your view or your executive team’s view of your culture is rarely what your employees experience…The relevant question is, what must employees do to survive and succeed in your organization? What behaviors get them included in, or excluded from, the power base? What gets them ahead?” BH

“Good intentions, pursued without meticulous forethought and follow-through, often lead to catastrophe.” BH

What you do must matter:
Above all else, employees want to know that they matter, they’re making a difference, there’s meaningful work to be done, and they’re moving the bigger picture forward. Without this, it’s impossible to get people to care. 

If a culture can’t make quick decisions or has a void in leadership, it becomes defined by indifference.

Disagree and commit:
As a manager, the worst thing you can do is undermine decisions made above you – creates cultural chaos, makes your team feel marginalized and powerless, and end result is apathy and attrition. 

The way you get to the place of being able to articulate a decision you might not agree with is by asking why. It’s your job to understand the reasoning behind a decision, otherwise you have failed your team. 

Telling the truth isn’t natural. It requires courage. The easy thing to do is to tell someone what they want to hear.

You might not convince everyone you’re right. But everyone must feel heard and that you’ve acknowledged their concerns. This is the path towards disagreeing and committing. 

Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Extreme Ownership – by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Date read: 11/2/19. Recommendation: 9/10.

One of the best books on leadership that I’ve ever come across. And this is one of those books that I happened to read at the perfect time when I needed these lessons the most. Willink and Babin, two Navy SEALs officers, recall their time leading the most highly decorated special operation unit of the Iraq War. Each chapter highlights one of their leadership principles in action before relating it back to the business world. I found the most relevant section to be on the laws of combat: cover and move, simple, prioritize and execute, and decentralized command. If you want to win, teams must not only know what to do, but they must also know why. As a leader, your job is to ask questions until you understand why. There are also great lessons in empowering yourself by accepting total responsibility, no matter your position, and the importance of being aggressive (not overbearing). As Willink and Babin suggest, there are no bad teams, just bad leaders.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Leadership:
A team’s performance hinges on its leader. The leader’s attitude sets the tone for the team and ultimately determines success or failure.

“There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” LB

“Leaders must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems.” LB

Victimization is the opposite of ownership and leadership. Place blame on externals, instead of turning attention towards what’s within your control and areas you can actually make a measurable difference. 

Unless it’s a matter of ethics, take the blame. “It’s my fault because I wasn’t as clear as I should have been with X. You’re a talented Y. It was up to me to make sure you knew Z.” Disarms ego. 

Be aggressive, not overbearing. 

The Laws of Combat:
-Cover and move
-Simple
-Prioritize and execute
-Decentralized command

Prioritize and execute:
This is about building a systems mentality. It’s easy to become overwhelmed if you lack a sense of priorities and you’re facing too many tasks at once. Pick the top priority, execute, then move on to the next problem. Same thing holds true for individual product teams. 

Decentralized command:
If you want to win, teams must not only know what to do, but they must also know why.

Alignment comes only when leaders at all levels understand and believe in the vision so they can pass the same understanding to their teams. 

If you get direction you don’t believe in, as a leader, your job is ask questions until you understand the why. Otherwise you’re letting your team down. Why helps get you to a place where you can believe in what you’re doing. 

For your teams to make the best decisions and for you to operate in complete trust and confidence with them, they need to have a fundamental understanding of the mission, the strategy, and the ultimate goal of that mission (Commander’s Intent). Without this, they will not be able to confidently execute.

Maximum number of people anyone can directly manage is 6-10. 

“Junior leaders must know that the boss will back them up even if they make a decision that may not result in the best outcome, as long as the decision was made in an effort to achieve the strategic objective.” JW

Planning:
“A broad and ambiguous mission results in lack of focus, ineffective execution, and mission creep.” LB

Talk through each phase of the mission in plain English, stop at key points and ask questions, have individuals brief back portions of the plan. 

Decision making:
Always evaluate decision in terms of reversibility. Be aggressive with decisions that can be easily reversed. Be deliberate with those that cannot. 

As a default, be aggressive – proactive rather than reactive. Need to be seen as someone who is decisive and can make tough decisions.

Remember, teams are far more willing to forgive a wrong decision than indecision. 

Legacy – James Kerr

Legacy – by James Kerr
Date read: 2/1/19. Recommendation: 7/10.

A detailed look at the principles and strategies of history’s most successful rugby team, New Zealand’s All Blacks. There are some great quotes in this book and at its core, it’s all about leadership. Kerr examines the things that set apart the All Blacks, including: discipline, self-awareness, culture, adaptation, storytelling, and purpose. It’s an insightful read that will provide immediate takeaways which you can use to become a better person and a better leader.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Personal Discipline:

• Post-game the All Blacks debrief and everyone is given a chance to speak. Once they break, something unexpected happens, two players grab a broom and begin sweeping the sheds, cleaning up after themselves. 

• No one looks after the All Blacks, they look after themselves. They don’t expect someone else to do their job or things to be handed to them.

• Strong personal discipline translates to discipline on the field.

Self-knowledge:

• “Only by knowing yourself can you become an effective leader.” Vince Lombardi

• Self-knowledge helps develop character and integrity. Character and integrity help develop leadership.

• “What is my job on the planet? What is it that needs doing, that I know something about, that probably won’t happen unless I take responsibility for it?” Buckminster Fuller

Culture:

• Force multiplier: Any lasting organization has a fundamental set of principles…a values-based, purpose-driven culture. Challenge is to bring that to life and into the lives of those on your team.

• “My army won because they knew what they were fighting for and loved what they knew.” Oliver Cromwell

• Establish a higher culture than your opposition and you’ll win.

• “It’s better to have a thousand enemies outside the tent than one inside the tent.” Arab proverb

• Multiculturalism - ever-changing sense of what it means to be a New Zealander or an All Black: “Successful cultures are organic and adaptive, they change and flow, yet always just under the surface is a bedrock of values, smoothed by the current above, but unyielding.” See Shane Parrish interview with Shopify founder Tobi Lütke.

Adaptation:

• Sigmoid Curve: Learning, growth, decline.

• Outwitting inevitability and hijacking the curve: “The key, of course, is when we’re on top of our game, to change our game; to exit relationships, recruit new talent, alter tactics, reassess strategy.” JK

• Growth comes from allowing yourself, your skills and your sense of authenticity to evolve. Tiger Woods changing his golf swing. Bob Dylan altering his sound. 

Leadership:

• Leaders create leaders.

• “Move rapidly into a commanding position, assess your unfolding options quickly and clearly, attack with absolute and ruthless commitment – assess, adjust and repeat.” JK

• Empower your people: “The competitive advantage is nullified when you try to run decisions up and down the chain of command…Once the commander’s intent is understood, decisions must be devolved to the lowest possible level to allow these front line soldiers to exploit the opportunities that develop.” General Gordon R. Sullivan

• “Leaders are teachers – our job is to lead people through uncertainty and confusion into self-knowledge and self-possession.” JK

Power of Storytelling:

• “Using vivid storytelling techniques, including themes, symbols, imagery, rituals, mantras and metaphor, and bringing them to life with imagination and flair, leaders create a sense of inclusion, connectedness, and unity.” JK

• “We learn best – and change – from hearing stories that strike a chord with us…Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies or themselves.” John Kotter

• “Metaphors are where we recognize ourselves in stories.” JK

• “The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblance.” Aristotle

Authenticity + Integrity:

• “Authenticity allows us to author our own lives; to make our own original imprint and to write our own story in a voice that is true to our values.” JK

• Integrity means being able to count on yourself (and others being able to count on you) to deliver. It’s about honoring your word. 

Pressure:

• Red head: tight, inhibited, results-oriented, anxious, aggressive, over-compensating, desperate.

• Blue head: loose, expressive, in the moment, calm, relaxed concentration, clear, accurate, on task.

• “In the heat of battle, the difference between the inhibitions of the Red and the freedom of Blue is the manner in which we control our attention.” JK

• To get out of your own head, shift your attention to something external. 

Impact:

• Whakapapa - Maori term for genealogy, our place in the ascending order of all living things. Sun slowly moves down this chain of people, signifying life. When the sun is on us we inherit the tribe’s stories, values, transitions. We help advance that, then pass it on to the next person in the chain.

• Whakapapa is similar to the Stoic term sympatheia (interconnected whole). 

• “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Sean Fitzpatrick

• “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never see.” Greek Proverb

• “Character is also the mark left on you by life, and the mark we leave on life.” JK

• “If we value life, life values us.” JK