Disclaimer; the term ‘effortless’ does not suggest lack of grind but rather stands as a metaphor to indicate reduced struggle. Furthermore, the review is an understanding and opinion of the author and shall not be construed as any criticism for the content or endorsement for the source.
Just as the HBR must read series, this book is a curation of top 10 impactful HBR articles. Although I am unsure about the internal working used to derive ‘top 10’, I believe that a curated set of articles better serves a manager or non-academic reader. Since the book is a curation of articles, each with its own author and takeaway, the reader will encounter different tones and nuances unlike the singularity of single author books. Hence, the best way to read this book is one-article-at-once, taking pauses to imbibe the takeaways.
The articles not only focuses on improving your self management, often extending beyond, but also covers team management aspects to address demands of your upward career trajectory. Given the spectrum of ideas suggested in this book, it may not be possible to imbibe and implement all suggestions giving individual constraints as well as relevance concerns at given phase. Hence, I would suggest re-visiting this book once a year to assess your progress on selected aspects and also decide upon your next initiatives.
Now if you’re curious to know about the contents, I will merely enlist the articles along with one liner takeaway to avoid spoilers and rather convince you to read the book. As my purpose of writing book reviews is not substitute the full read but rather serve as a snippet of its content, helping you decide for yourself.
#1 How will you measure your life?, Clayton M Christensen
We sometimes lose the holistic approach to life; and this article serves as a pleasant reminder to re-consider while adopting strategic approach to life as we do with business and careers.
#2 Managing Oneself, Peter F Drucker
Before managing oneself, one must be self-aware; elaborating the basics of understanding how we function as individuals – whether you learn by reader or listener – putting this to practice.
#3 Management Time, Willian Oncken Jr, Donald L Wass
Elaborates managing priorities that ‘matter’ while reminding that delegation works both ways and one must consciously avoid taking on unwarranted-work and becoming bottlenecks.
#4 How Resilience Works? Diane L Coutu
Only tested ‘resilience’ is true resilience! Although some are more resilient, just like leadership – resilience can be adopted; and this article elaborates the step-by-step approach.
#5 Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time, Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy
This is perhaps my favorite; as over time I have realized that the ones who are most productive or utilize every possible minute are not always the most wealthy or successful. And perhaps its how we prioritize and channelize investing our energy!
#6 Overloaded Circuits, Edward M Hallowell
The top quartile and percentile mindset fosters and encourages the grind culture; however, as we are humans, we must cool off from time-to-time. And this article suggests such means not through reactive vacation breaks but through proactive routine interventions.
#7 Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life, Stewart D Friedman
Most of us know that most leaders do not receive a prior notice! And this applies to newbies as well as vets looking for successors. And this is a reminder to how leaders must foster leaders along with creating the intangible elements of a desired workplace.
#8 Reclaim your Job, Sumantra Ghoshal, Heike Bruch
As most start frittering away our time and energy on numerous low value items that seep into our schedule; and this article serves as a wake up call and suggests ways to connect our routine activities to long term strategic goals.
#9 Moments of Greatness, Robert E Quinn
All days are not equal; although its is okay to accept this fact, one must understand what makes the other days great! And tame the driving forces to recall your inner superhero at free-will; just as Dr Banner manages to transform into Hulk.
#10 What to ask the Person in the Mirror, Robert S Kaplan
This reminded me of the Satya Nadella’s response when David Rubenstien asked him what did Steve Balmer and Bill Gates suggest while taking over as CEO of Microsoft, his response was ‘Just be you, its too late to change!’; or as the Oscar Wilde quote ‘Be yourself, everyone else is taken’. This article is a reminder that leadership styles has to be intuitive and natural to personality and beliefs as one cannot pretend in the long run!
#11 Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, Annie McKee
Leaving this for you to guess or find out after you read the book.
As mentioned previously, this review is meant to serve as a source of comprehensive information to help you pick your next read. And if you are curious about more, you can quench your thirst by reading more topics on the blog, take a course on Udemy, or watch my YouTube Channel.
Feature Image Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
Savvy Munshi 