Ubuntu! (Stephen Lundin, Bob Nelson)

 

This reminds me of Steven R Covey....understanding how situations affect how people act....changing paradigms. This book teaches a concept through story and does so very powerfully.

Goodreads says:

A powerful story about the African philosophy of teamwork and collaboration that has the power to reshape our workplaces, our relationships with our coworkers, and our personal lives, written by the bestselling coauthor of Fish! and the bestselling author of 1001 Ways to Reward Employees.

John Peterson, a new manager in the credit department at a major big-box retailer, is struggling in his job. The people under him are not working as well or effectively as they need to, and his department is falling behind in meeting its goals. His only solution is to take on more work himself, burning the midnight oil and coming in most weekends to pick up the slack and keep his department above water.

When one of the employees stays behind to help him—a young man who came to America from a small village in Africa—he learns of the ancient wisdom and hidden power of the African philosophy of Ubuntu. Before long, it begins to change the way he thinks about the people he works with, about himself, and about how he runs his department and his life.

In an engaging and completely fresh narrative that holds a unique message for today’s business world, Ubuntu! shows us a way to overcome our fears, insecurities, and the “me-ism” that so often permeates our workplaces, and replace it with a culture of genuine respect and collaboration. It promises to take its place alongside Fish! and other business parables as the next bestselling classic in the business category.

Originals (Adam Grant)

 

Thinking out of the box, not worrying about being like everyone else or what is acceptable - this book has great ideas for thinking out of the box and being original. Great read. It's one to go back to again and again, especially when you feel like you're in a rut.

Goodreads says:

In Originals the author addresses the challenge of improving the world from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?
 
Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.

Before Happiness (Shawn Achor)

 

Notes:

The author says that we can create positive realities...and when we do that, we are happier. Happiness actually comes before success, not from it.

His TedTalk is worth watching.

1. Reality Architecture

- Realize that multiple versions of reality exist. Some will always see the negative and a few will see the positive. 

- Whichever one you choose to focus on, you can dramatically reduce the affects of stress.

- If you change your viewpoint, you can see different advantages
- Pursue the most advantageous reality

2. Mental Cartography

- Highlight meaning markers along the way

- Find many meanings and different ways to look at how you can achieve success - this is called reorienting your map for success

- Map your success routes before you look for escape routes

- Don't start at zero. Show yourself some progress you've already made and start there.

- Find points of progress you can celebrate along the way

3. Cancel the Noise - boost the signal that points to greater

- Noise check your life: is information coming in unusable, unpractical, hypothetical and distracting - cancel it out!  

- Do the 5% experiment. For two weeks, try to decrease your information intake by 5%. Cut out information that fits some of the information on "noise"

- Keep a car radio off for the first five minutes of your commute, limit TV news, and limit articles that report on negative events half a world away

- Create active noise canceling by posting a sign next to your desk listing the 3 waves of positive energy

    - I will keep my worry in proportion to the likelihood of the event

    - I will not ruin 10,000 days to be right on a handful

    - I will not equate worrying with being loving or responsible

- Fact Check - keep your worrying in proportion to the likelihood of the event by asking these two questions:

        1. How often has this negative event happened in the past?

        2. How often has this negative event occurred to me personally?

- Do a 5-minute writing exercise. Anytime you hear doubting voices, take 5 minutes to write about things you feel passionate and positive about (your children, your sports, your values, your faith). By actively canceling such noises, you can increase your performance by 10-15%.

- Exercise! Add exercise to your routine. It decreases anxiety by as much as 20%. 

4. Creating Positive Inception - transfer your reality to others

- The person who speaks first is often perceived to be the leader. Set the tone by saying something helpful first.

- The social script has to be written by someone. Why not you?! 

- Make your tone and look fit your words. Nod and smile when others are sharing to make your non-verbals positive.

- Change the script from tragedy to comedy. Humor wields more social influence.

- Share stories from people who have benefited from what you do to inspire others.

- Start each conversation with a compliment or encouraging comment

- Add 3 smiles: flex your powerful positivity muscle 3 times a day

- Write down funny things you hear and find a way to share it in the next 24 hours (but not with a FWD email or post!)

- Create a narrative - develop a shared positive narrative about a time you or your team overcame something. Write out a real story with climax, conflict and resolving action.

Working on your humor

- keep lists of jokes and funny stories

- watch comedy shows to work on your timing

Goodreads says:

Why are some people able to make positive change while others remain the same?

In his international bestseller, The Happiness Advantage, Harvard trained researcher Shawn Achor described why happiness is the precursor to greater success. This book is about what comes before both. Because before we can be happy or successful, we need to first develop the ability to see that positive change is possible. Only once we learn to see the world through a more positive lens can we summon all our motivation, emotion, and intelligence to achieve our personal and professional goals.

In Before Happiness, Achor reveals five actionable, proven strategies for changing our lens to positive:

· The Most Valuable Reality: See a broader range of ideas and solutions by changing the details on which your brain chooses to focus
· Success Mapping: Set goals oriented around the things in life that matter to you most, whether career advancement or family or making a difference in the world
· The X-spot: Use success accelerants to propel you more quickly towards those goals, whether finishing a marathon, reaching a sales target, learning a language, or losing 10 pounds
· Noise-Canceling: Boost the signal pointing you to opportunities and possibilities that others miss
· Positive Inception: Transfer these skills to your team, your employees, and everyone around you

By mastering these strategies, you’ll create an renewable source of positivity, motivation, and engagement that will allow you to reach your fullest potential in everything you do.

His TedTalk is great:

Supercommunicators (Charles Duhigg)

 

I read another book by this author called The Power of Habit. It was really good.

I had to do some reframing with this book. I know people that he describes. I have often labelled them as manipulators. They're good at working people and "getting them on their side". People who laugh a lot (and loud) with people seem fake to me. I'm aware that laughter is a social construct. 

When phones first came out people thought no one would have REAL conversations on the phone. Teenagers proved that wrong! Talking on the phone requires more annunciating. 

Online communication is tricker because there is no voice. For example, a winking emoji after sarcasm helps improve communication. Rules of good online communication: Over emphasize politeness. Express more gratitude, deference, greetings, apologies and hedges.

"The right conversation, at the right moment, can change everything."

p. 112 Less than 20% of the laughter in our sample was a response to anything resembling a formal effort at humor. Rather, people laughedbecause they wanted to connect with the person they were speaking with. The vast majority of laughs, Provine wrote, "seemed to follow rather banal remarks," such as "Does anyone have a rubber band?"; "It was nice meeting you too"; and "U think I'm done." Mutual playfulness, in -group feeling and positive emotional tone - not comedy - mark the social settings of most naturally occurring laughter," Province concluded. Laughter is powerful, he wrote, because it is contagious, "Immediate and involuntary, involving the most direct communication possible between people: Brain to brain."
We laugh, in other words, to show someone that we want to connec twith them - and our companions laugh back to demonstrate they want to connect with us, as well. ....and so it follows that we exhibit emotional intelligence not just by hearing another person's feelings, but by showing we have heard them. Laughter, and other nonlinguistic expressios such as gasps and sighs, or smiles and frowns, are emobidiments of the matching principle, which says that we communicate by aligning our behaviors until our brains become entrained.

But how we match other people matters...If we chuckle only slightly at someone's joke, while they laugh uproariously, we'll both see it as a sign that we're not in sync - or worse, that one of us is trying too hard, or the other is not trying hard enough.

p. 118 One of the reasons supercommunicators are so talented at picking up on how others feel is because they have a habit of noticing the energy in others' gestures, the volume of their voices, how fast they are speaking, their cadence and affect. They pay attention to whether someone's posture indicates they are feeling down, or if they are are so excited they can barely contain it. Supercommunicators allow themselves to match that energy and mood, or at least acknowledge it, and thereby make it clear they want to align. They help us see and hear our feelings via their own bodies and voices. By matching our mood and energy, they make it obvious they are trying to connect.

p. 142 In a conflict, we draw out emotions by proving we are listening. We prove we are listening by looping for understanding (1. ask questions, 2. Summarize what you heard. 3. Ask if you got it right and repeat until everyone agrees we understand.)

p. 163 In a conflict, everyone craves control, but trying to control someone is destructive. Focus on controlling yourself, your environment and the conflict's boundaries.

p. 193 How to talk about who we are:

1. Draw out multiple identities
2. Put everyone on equal footing
3. Create new groups by building on existing identities

Podcasts about this book:
Art of Manliness (ugh for that title) 

Articles about this book:

Time Magazine How to Have More Meaningful Conversations

Financial Times Super Communicators are Made, Not Born

Linked In A Useful Concise Summary of Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Videos:
Four Minute Book Summaries

---

1. The Three Conversation Types

Duhigg argues most interactions unfold within one (or a mix) of these:

Conversation Type	Central Question	Dominant Mode
Practical (Analytical)	“What’s this really about?”	Logic, evidence, decision-making
Emotional (Feelings)	“How do we feel?”	Emotions, vulnerabilities, empathy
Social / Identity‑based	“Who are we?”	Group roles, identity, self‑perception

2. The Matching Principle

Match others’ tone, pace, body language, and emotional energy to build rapport—and even entrain brainwaves in group settings.

3. Looping for Understanding - builds trust and ensures clarity

A three-step listening technique:

1. Ask a probing question

2. Repeat in your own words what you heard

3. Confirm accuracy with the speaker....ask if you got it right. 
   

4. Four Rules of “Learning Conversations”

To align conversations and deepen connection, follow these guidelines:

• Identify the conversation type

• Share and request goals

• Ask about feelings and share your own

• Note if identities or roles matter to what’s being discussed.

5. Navigating Conflict & Identity Safely

• Recognize conflict often stems from emotional or identity-based conversations.

• Prepare for tough conversations by listening first, acknowledging identities, avoiding generalizations, and using personal stories—not lectures.

6. Digital Communication Cues (Online Etiquette)

For online messaging and forums:

• Err on the side of politeness, limit sarcasm, express appreciation and deference, and avoid criticism in public threads.

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Pause and Reflect: Before speaking, ask yourself what kind of conversation you want to have and what the other person might want.
• Ask Open-Ended Questions: Encourage others to share their values, beliefs, and experiences.
• Listen Actively: Pay attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues, and ask follow-up questions to show you're engaged.
• Express Empathy: Validate the other person's emotions and show that you understand their perspective.
• Share Your Own Vulnerabilities: Build trust by sharing your own experiences and feelings.
• Acknowledge Social Identities: Be aware of how social identities might be influencing the conversation, and create a safe space for diverse perspectives.
• Practice Looping for Understanding: Summarize what you heard and ask the speaker if the summary was accurate.

Goodreads says:

Who and what are supercommunicators? They're the people who can steer a conversation to a successful conclusion. They are able to talk about difficult topics without giving offence. They know how to make others feel at ease and share what they think. They're brilliant facilitators and decision-guiders. How do they do it?

In this groundbreaking book, Charles Duhigg unravels the secrets of the supercommunicators to reveal the art - and the science - of successful communication. He unpicks the different types of everyday conversation and pinpoints why some go smoothly while others swiftly fall apart. He reveals the conversational questions and gambits that bring people together. And he shows how even the most tricky of encounters can be turned around. In the process, he shows why a CIA operative was able to win over a reluctant spy, how a member of a jury got his fellow jurors to view an open-and-shut case differently, and what a doctor found they needed to do to engage with a vaccine sceptic.

Above all, he reveals the techniques we can all master to successfully connect with others, however tricky the circumstances. Packed with fascinating case studies and drawing on cutting-edge research, this book will change the way you think about what you say, and how you say it.

How To Be A Positive Leader (Jane E Dutton Gretchen M Spreitzer)

 

There are actually many many authors of this book:

Oana Branzei
Kim Cameron
Jane E Dutton
Karen Golden-Biddle
Adam M Grant
Erika Hayes James
Shirli Kopelman
Ramaswami Mahalingam
David M Mayer
Christine Porath
Robert E Quinn
Gretchen Preitzer
Laura Morgan Roberts
Scott Soneshein
Anjan V Thakor
Lynn Perry Wooten
Amy Wrzesniewski

They authors are  all PhDs and leaders in business and leadership research.  The forward is by Shawn Anchor, who is well known for writing The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness

They're all really great and wise people!! I can see that this could be a group book study to do over a year and work on implementing many of their suggestions. I can see how the organization I work for has many of these things in place. There are things I could do though to make my work life better. I decided first to focus on high quality connections. I'm tracking my efforts each day in May.

Table of Contents:

1. Foster Positive Relationships

    1. Build High-Quality Connections
    2. Outsource Inspiration
    3. Negotiate Mindfully

II. Unlock Resources From Within
    4. Enable Thriving at Work
    5. Cultivate Positive Identifies
    6. Engage in Job Crafting

III. Tap Into The Good

    7. Activate Virtuousness
    8. Lead an Ethical Organization
    9. Imbue the Organization with a Higher Purpose

IV. Create Resourceful Change

    10. Cultivate Hope: Found, Not Lost
    11. Create Micro-moves for Organizational Changes
    12. Treat Employees as Resources, Not Resisters
    13. Create Opportunity From Crisis

Goodreads says:

Positive leaders are able to dramatically expand their people’s—and their own—capacity for excellence. And they accomplish this without enormous expenditures or huge heroic gestures. Here leading scholars—including Adam Grant, author of the bestselling Give and Take ; positive organizational scholarship movement cofounders Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn; and thirteen more—describe how this is being done at companies such as Wells Fargo, Ford, Kelly Services, Burt’s Bees, Connecticut’s Griffin Hospital, the Michigan-based Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, and many others. They show that, like the butterfly in Brazil whose flapping wings create a typhoon in Texas, you can create profound positive change in your organization through simple actions and attitude shifts.