Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category

Leading Beyond Change: A Practical Guide to Evolving Business Agility

Posted: Apr 6, 2023 in Book Reviews, Business, Leadership, Psychology
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I absolutely loved this book. Sahota provides a practical guide on how you can evolve your leadership skills to influence change within a business by developing others, focusing on the people, and having a growth mindset. Every single page is golden, and I found myself glued to the content and context behind the credible approaches, which are focused around the concept of Evolutionary Leadership.

Evolutionary Leadership is the choice to evolve oneself and develop the capabilities needed to evolve an organisation.

It’s common to hear in the business world that it’s leadership’s fault for specific problems, but the book focuses on how you can instead use that energy to focus on improving your own skills and behaviour to drive the necessary changes by taking responsibility, setting a good example, having courage, low ego, and ultimately influencing throughout the business which as a side effect drives change.

During my career in business, one of the most impactful leadership behaviours I’ve experienced is having the courage to do the right thing even if it’s hard and to set a good example, which proves to be one of the quickest ways to driving positive change and a healthy culture, so it’s been thoroughly enjoyable and thought  provoking reading a whole book about it.

“The most valuable learning is unlearning-replacing low-fidelity models of reality with more accurate ones.”

“The person who can reform themselves, can reform the world.”

“Anyone in the organisation can be leader-not just management. The only requirement is the choice to evolve oneself and have passion for success.”

“Understanding reality is a critical key ingredient for success.”

“All we can do to really learn the truth of reality is to constantly test our models and seek new ones.”

“The production capability will only evolve to the extent that organisational learning takes place.”

“Evolve people to evolve the organisation.”

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Posted: Jan 28, 2023 in Book Reviews, Leadership, Psychology
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Brene Brown combines stories from her personal journey with years of research which reveals the benefits of swapping feelings of not being good enough, shame, and the need for armour with having the courage to be vulnerable which will lead to a more purposeful life.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and short-coming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…” -Theodore Roosevelt

The Daring Greatly Leadership Manifesto by Brene Brown

To the CEOs and teachers. To the principals and the managers. To the politicians, community leaders, and decision-makers:

  1. We want to show up, we want to learn, and we want to inspire.
  2. We are hardwired for connection, curiosity, and engagement.
  3. We crave purpose, and we have a deep desire to create and contribute.
  4. We want to take risks, embrace our vulnerabilities, and be courageous.
  5. When learning and working are dehumanized-when you no longer see us and no longer encourage our daring, or when you only see what we produce or how we perform-we disengage and turn away from the very things that the world needs from us: our talent, our ideas, and our passion.
  6. What we ask is that you engage with us, show up beside us, and learn from us.
  7. Feedback is a function of respect; when you don’t have honest conversations with us about our strengths and our opportunities for growth, we question our contributions and your commitment.
  8. Above all else, we ask that you show up, let yourself be seen, and be courageous. Dare Greatly with us.

The Art of Resilience: Strategies for an Unbreakable Mind and Body

Posted: Jan 22, 2023 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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Ross swam around the whole of Great Britain in 157 days and gives a step-by-step account of how he achieved such a remarkable feat, breaking down his story into 22 lessons.

I didn’t expect this book to have this story, but it was a pleasant surprise! Edgley went into grave detail about the body and mind, how even after being stung multiple times by jellyfish, swimming with sharks, and whales, with cuts, scars, bruising and bleeding, he never missed a day’s swimming or even a single tide, this is because he built up a resilient body and mind with a bulletproof immune system using his understanding of a nutrient-dense diet.

A truly remarkable story.

The Joy of Work: 30 Ways to Fix Your Work Culture and Fall in Love with Your Job Again

Posted: Jan 15, 2023 in Book Reviews, Business, Leadership, Psychology
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Our satisfaction at work comes from having autonomy, mastery, purpose, and a voice. Daisley provides 30 ways and a summary at the end of each chapter to help you refocus on these areas, create actions to make work more enjoyable, make teams closer, and some secrets of energised teams.

This book not only has tips on how you can fall in love with your job again, but it’s also for leaders to help them create a culture where people can thrive, love their job, and be happy, where people can stimulate their intrinsic motivation – making those nerve cells tingle, rather than throwing unhelpful and destructive rewards into their motivation systems.

Whilst there’s a lot of talk across the business world around inclusiveness and collaboration, there’s generally not a lot of talk about the inefficiencies of having too many people involved in projects, multiple teams, or big teams. Daisley looked at studies covering 3,800 different projects which showed that when you allow for complexities of teams, discussions, presentations, status chats, emails and reviews, he discovered, the time spent on a badly organised project seemed to increase exponentially. In one study it took the bigger team 2,000 weeks to get done, yet the small team one week with both reaching the same quality of outcome.

“Learned helplessness pervades the modern workplace. We’re overwhelmed with demands and expectations placed on us by others, but we have come to accept it all because we assume that that’s the way it is and has to be.”

“Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity.”

“It’s certainly hard to reach the Buzz state, but when a firm can achieve the combination of psychological safety and positive affect the results are breathtaking.”

Flow: The Psychology of Happiness

Posted: Jan 2, 2023 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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With so many extrinsic factors and your unconscious mind trying to pull you into tasks that don’t align with your purpose or goals, it can be easy to give into temptation, but Mihaly provides a fascinating overview of how you can take back control of your mind and what life is like when you liberate yourself by living a life in flow.

Flow is the state in which you are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that you will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

This book is a great companion to Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman which I’d recommend reading before Flow, since your mind is unconscious when thinking fast and conscious when thinking slowly, so it’s beneficial to have a good base understanding before reading Flow.

“In normal life, we keep interrupting what we do with doubts and questions…but in flow there is no need to reflect, because the action carries us forward as if by magic.”

“People who learn to enjoy their work, who do not waste their free time, end up feeling that their lives as a whole have become much more worthwhile.”

“The control of consciousness determines the quality of life-has been known for a long time; in fact, for as long as human records exist.”

“Once the fruit is plucked from the tree of knowledge, the way back to Eden is barred forever.”

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

Posted: Dec 19, 2022 in Book Reviews, Leadership, Psychology
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Brene’s leadership approach is focused on authenticity and vulnerability – less robot/command and control, more leadership from the heart, having tough conversations and creating a safe environment for people to feel confident that they can bring their authentic selves to work.

In this book, Brene shares the impact of leading with a body of armour and the benefits of stripping it and sharing your authentic self, full of courage, confidence, curiosity, empathy, and value-driven.

It’s common to think that Brene’s approach to leadership is a weakness in a leader, but Brene exposes these myths beautifully. Daring Leadership is ultimately about serving other people, not ourselves. That’s why we choose courage.

“It’s very hard to have ideas. It’s very hard to put yourself out there, it’s very hard to be vulnerable, but those people who do that are the dreamers, the thinkers, and the creators. They are the magic people of the world.”

“Daring Leadership has changed the way I work with my team. It’s made me a better listener and given me the tools to be brave enough to deal with the stuff that’s always easier to avoid. Choosing what’s right over what’s easy has become my mantra.”

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” – Joseph Campbell

“When we have the courage to walk into our story and own it, we get to write the ending.”

“Time can wear down our memories of tough lessons until what was once difficult learning fades into ‘This is just who I am as a person.'”

“In the past, jobs were about muscles, now they’re about brains but in the future they’ll be about the heart.” – Minouche Shafik, director, London School of Economics

Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions

Posted: Dec 3, 2022 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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Backed up by quality research and stories, Decisive focuses on four techniques to help you and others make better decisions:

1. Widen your options – avoid a narrow frame and think outside of the box. Use the Vanishing Options Test where “You cannot choose any of the current options you’re considering. What else could you do?”

2. Reality-test your assumptions – taking a step back by zooming out and then zooming back in. Using experiments to test your assumptions.

3. Attain distance before deciding – overcome short-term emotion and focus on your core priorities/values.

4. Prepare to be wrong – consider a range of outcomes from very bad to very good, and question your own past decisions as it’s easy to be on autopilot.

This book compliments Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman very well!

Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living

Posted: Nov 2, 2022 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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This intimate memoir opens your eyes to the impact of letting society dictate your life rather than living your life authentically.

Anyone is capable and deserves to live a successful, happy life and Glennon tells an inspiring story of how she transformed from numbness to happiness and contentedness.

On reflection, the same applies to business when we think of empowerment and servant-leadership – people are capable of great things given trust, autonomy, and support.

An enjoyable read which gives an interesting insight into how tough it can be growing up as a woman from the age of 10 to 40.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Posted: Oct 1, 2022 in Book Reviews, Business, Psychology
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Enjoyed reading this book about the science behind what motivates us and how it’s changed leading up to modern times – published in 2018, it’s relevant more now in a remote/hybrid world than ever.

Daniel Pink provides a balanced overview of the value of upgrading from external motivators (carrot & stick) to serving more intrinsic motivations (autonomy, mastery & purpose).

Balanced because Pink explains that some jobs which use more of your left brain (logical, rule-based routine tasks) are suitable for external rewards, but sticking to this when jobs need to use your right brain (creativity, handling uncertainty/ambiguity, intuition, emotional intelligence) is when it can actually do more harm than good and instead you need to switch to the ‘Drive’ approach of serving three elements:

1️⃣ Autonomy – the desire to direct our own lives

2️⃣ Mastery – the urge to get better and better at something that matters

3️⃣ Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

“The value of a life can be measured by one’s ability to affect the destiny of one less advantaged.”

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Posted: Aug 14, 2022 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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Absolutely loved this read! The book is broken up into three parts focusing on what grit is and why it matters, growing grit from the inside out (interest (passion), practice (perseverance), purpose, hope), and outside in (parenting, culture).

An easy read, full of interesting stories and experiments, with the majority of the book resonating with my journey which made it hard to put down!

“Eighty percent of success in life is showing up.”

“As soon as possible, experts hungrily seek feedback on how they did. Necessarily, much of that feedback is negative. This means that experts are more interested in what they did wrong-so they can fix it- than what they did right.”

“Those who dropped out of training rarely did so from a lack of ability. Rather, what mattered, Mike said, was a “never give up” attitude.”

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Posted: Aug 6, 2022 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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I found this one to be a complex and slow read, but fascinating and very well timed – a couple of weeks before I started reading it I was introduced to the four stages of the competency model with unconscious and conscious playing a big part of it, then the following week I discussed with my coach the dynamics of conscious and unconscious thinking when answering questions. The following day and a chapter into the book I realised that there’s a whole book on this very subject, this book!

This book is full of case studies and experiments demonstrating the difference between thinking fast (unconscious (intuition (system 1))) and slow (conscious (more considered (system 2))) with the impacts that thinking fast has as it’s shaped by bias and what you’ve experienced, how unaware we are when we’re using system 1, but also how common it is.

Reflecting on the book it made me realise that there’s a deep connection with the psychology behind thinking fast and comprehending different approaches to solving complex problems – if you haven’t experienced a specific approach or method, it’s often an unknown unknown and only the current situation will be comprehensible (thinking fast state (bias, system 1)), with some common examples of inconceivable changes Waterfall to Agile, Project to Product Ownership, Command & Control to Servant-Leadership, Working Harder to Working Smarter, Building to Learning….it can be easy to judge that the reason for a current fixed approach is intentional, when actually it’s often an experience gap, so an effective way of influencing change is to empathise and speak up by asking great questions and being curious because the reason why something is like it is (archaic), is often because they haven’t experienced that difference and they just need a little help making the unknown a bit more known in an impactful way….making diversity and collaboration important in the workplace to get different points of views on the table.

My Mental Health Journey

Posted: Jun 7, 2022 in Product Management, Psychology
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This is the first time I’ve shared my mental health journey with anyone, so I’m grateful to Betfair / Flutter for giving me this opportunity to contribute to The Gameplan Podcast series on Mental Health.

Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Posted: Jan 30, 2022 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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Fascinating book full of stories about how athletes, scientists, inventors, technologists, teachers, and musicians have needed ‘range’ to succeed.

Having ‘range’ is essentially having a variety of different skills. David Epstein explains throughout the book that by experimenting across different experiences and sectors you’ll learn different skills along the way, helping you to develop range, which means you’re less susceptible to bias, more likely to find your true potential, and able to handle complex and unpredictable situations with more success.

It wasn’t an easy read, but a unique, thought-provoking and interesting one.

“…exposure to modern work with self-directed problem solving and nonrepetitive challenges was correlated with being ‘cognitively flexible’.”

“The more confident a learner is of their wrong answer, the better the information sticks when they subsequently learn the right answer. Tolerating big mistakes can create the best learning opportunities.”

“A person don’t know what he can do unless he tries. Trying things is the answer to find your talent.”

“Struggling to generate an answer in your own, even a wrong one, enhances subsequent learning. Socrates was apparently on to something when he forced pupils to generate answers rather than bestowing them. It requires the learner to intentionally sacrifice current performance for future benefit.”

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products

Posted: Jan 16, 2022 in Book Reviews, Business, Leadership, Product Management, Psychology
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Absolutely loved this read. In essence, Marty Cagan talks about the value of empowering product teams (several engineers, product manager, product designer) to serve customers with products that customers love, yet work for the business (by collaborating with stakeholders to come up with solutions that work). I particularly loved the fact that the majority of the book focused on coaching.

“Empowered product teams are all about giving teams hard problems to solve, and then giving them the space to solve them.”

“..this is really what I see in so many of the companies I visit. They have product teams that are more accurately feature teams, and they’re slaving away-pounding out features all day-but rarely getting closer to their desired outcomes.”

“Regardless of the reason for reviewing your topology, you should optimize for the empowerment of the teams by focusing on the dimensions of ownership, autonomy, and alignment.”

“Your highest-order contribution and responsibility as product manager is to make sure that what engineers are asked to build will be worth building. That it will deliver the necessary results.”

“Coaching is no longer a speciality; you cannot be a good manager without being a good coach.” – Bill Campbell

“Moving the product teams from the subservient feature team model to the collaborative empowered product team model begins with trust”

Finding Time to Read Books

Posted: Jan 3, 2022 in Guides, Psychology
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One of the most common situations/questions I was asked last year was around not having time to read books and “how on earth do you find time to read so many books?”, so I’ve published this article to help others wondering the same thing.

So how do I find time to read any books, let alone so many?

  1. We don’t have a tv at home, so there are fewer distractions.
  2. We don’t have any kids yet.
  3. I make it a priority because I enjoy reading about other people’s experiences, the subject of books I read I have an interest/passion in, and learning from books make a positive impact on me personally and professionally.
  4. I only ever have one book in progress at a time, always have the next one lined up, and use an Amazon wish list to manage my backlog of books. Also, I only buy physical books, nice to escape from the screen and having a book lying around is a motivator to pick it up and read it.
  5. I seem to have a thirst for learning from books since I only started reading non-fiction books at the end of 2019 for the first time since leaving college over 20 years ago, so I’ve had a lot of practical experiences to make sense of and huge amounts of wisdom to learn from. Because of this, I tend to be able to relate to what a lot of books say, which helps me absorb the content easier and makes me feel immersed in the experience.
  6. Other people reading (especially my wife) and those that share their book reviews inspire me to read more.

It ultimately comes down to priority. Anyone can find time to read books if they make it a priority and reduce time on less productive habits. Also, as you start reading and experience the impact, you’ll naturally want to increase the priority of reading books and therefore find more time to read.

If you’re reading this article, the below books will get you off to a flying start:

  1. Indistractable by Nir Eyal
  2. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
  3. Atomic Habits by James Clear
  4. Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins
  5. Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results

Posted: Nov 9, 2021 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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“Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.”

This book by James Clear has to be the best book I’ve read on continuous improvement. James’s approach is to just focus on making one tiny change, continuously, which in itself will yield positive results and in time a powerful outcome.

The content is structured around the Four Laws of Behaviour Change (obvious, attractive, make it easy, satisfying) and gives you some good tools and strategies that can help you build better systems and shape better habits.

Throughout the book, there are dozens of stories about top performers, who have faced different circumstances but ultimately progressed in the same way: through a commitment to tiny, sustainable, unrelenting improvements.

“There is a version of every habit that can bring you joy and satisfaction. Find it. Habits need to be enjoyable if they are going to stick. Choose a habit that best suits you, not the one that is most popular.”

James also talks about some common pitfalls to avoid when creating habits, one of which “is that they can lock us into our previous patterns of thinking and acting-even when the world is shifting around us…

…a lack of self-awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote.”

Over a million of these books have been sold, so if you haven’t read it yet and are interested in self-improvement, psychology or wanting to take control of your habits, I’d recommend this book.

Link here to the book on Amazon.

Human Powered: Supercharge Your Digital Product Teams with Emotional Intelligence

Posted: Oct 7, 2021 in Book Reviews, Leadership, Product Management, Psychology
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“85% of job success comes from well-developed people skills.”

“70% of team issues are caused by people skills deficiencies.”

It’s becoming increasingly more common for Product Management and therefore product managers, who are generalists, to sit at the centre of the business surrounded by specialists, making collaboration with everyone in your team and stakeholders across the business a fundamental part of the job in order to manage the product and product business effectively. How you handle these relationships will contribute significantly to the success of the product and your role as a product manager.

Human Powered by Trenton Moss will give you a better understanding of yourself, increase your empathy to help forge better relationships and provide you with the tools you need to inspire those around you, setting you and your product up for success.

Throughout the book, there are short realistic stories with characters as examples to explain situations and resolutions making them easy to digest and relate to.

They don’t teach you how to handle conflict at school, but Trenton does a great job of setting out a framework to help you resolve conflict. The book covers 5 other key areas, with a framework for each including:

1. Conflict resolution
2. Strong relationships
3. Leading and influencing
4. Facilitation
5. Storytelling
6. Outbound comms

I’d recommend this book for all product directors and product managers/owners.

EQ is the new IQ!

You can order the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1781336067/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_4ZFMT00SGSVD473E0K56

The Power of Now

Posted: Sep 12, 2021 in Book Reviews, Psychology
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Rewiring your brain to avoid your mind crippling your energy as it obsesses about past or future events is difficult, but it is absolutely possible, and this book makes it much easier.

It gives you tools on how to do it written in an easy to understand question-and-answer format to show you how you can silence these thoughts and use that energy more practically.

Essentially once you’ve made the journey into the Now, you will no longer have problems (only situations) as nothing exists outside of the Now. It is here you will find joy, are able to embrace your true self, and feel comfortable in the present.

“The energy form that lies behind hostility and attack finds the presence of love absolutely intolerable”.

Over 7 million people have read this book, it’s a best seller on Amazon, and I can understand why.

Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz

Posted: Aug 24, 2021 in Book Reviews, Business, Leadership, Psychology
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In this book, Frank Barrett writes remarkable stories on leadership, learning, and innovation from a range of industry settings-from Jazz performance to automotive manufacturing.

Saying ‘Yes to the Mess’ ultimately means accepting as a management team that you don’t have control over how the teams on the front line get to the end goal or get a detailed plan on how they’re going to get there, and Instead, you can see how the team navigate through the uncertainty by learning along the way, being curious, creative, innovative, driven to succeed no matter how many experiments fail, and having fun along the way…aka improvisation.

Whilst there is no mention of product management in the book, there are clear lessons that can be learnt from jazz, which are also covered in other Lean product development books on how to handle uncertainty – by providing a vision and empowering the team to decide how they are going to get there, which as a result yields creativity, ownership, autonomy, learning, loyalty, speed, and value.

Jazz is a ‘risky business’ and the mindset of jazz would work in a multitude of environments with high uncertainty such as a product innovation hub, a new product that hasn’t been validated in the market, or a brand new feature for an existing product. Everything is an experiment to a jazz player, which reminds me of the hypothesis-driven product development approach.

After reading this book I definitely have a greater appreciation of jazz because of the level of risk and improvisation that takes place.

This wasn’t an easy read, but I enjoyed it, as it provided a unique angle on leadership from different perspectives.

The Mindset of Success

Posted: Jul 20, 2021 in Book Reviews, Business, Leadership, Product Management, Psychology
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After 17 years of researching leaders around the world, Jo Owen shares the secret sauce to what a successful mindset looks like at different leadership levels and how you can unleash it.

Seven mindsets that consistently came out of the research which the book focuses on:

1. High aspirations
2. Courage
3. Resilience
4. Positive
5. Accountable
6. Collaborative
7. Growth

This is the best book I’ve read on management and leadership as it compares the different mindsets you need across each leadership level, allowing you to build a crystal clear picture of what mindset you need to focus on to get to the next level of your leadership journey.

Owen includes a multitude of tables, with the most impactful showing how the nature of leadership and management changes at each stage of a career, along with what mindset you need at each stage and details of behaviours/expectations. This makes it easy to find the gaps allowing you to make an immediate impact on your mindset.

The book is packed with advice on how to get the most out of yourself and your team along with some common pitfalls for example:

• High aspirations: should not be about self – focus on the mission and gain buy-in from the team.
• The prison of performance: focus on learning, not just achievements.
• Positive thinking: ensure it doesn’t crowd out reality.
• Leadership: it’s not about authority, power or position, but taking people where they wouldn’t have got by themselves.

“High aspirations will accelerate your career: you will succeed fast or fail fast. More likely, you will fail several times, learn from your setbacks and then succeed to a greater extent than anyone thought possible.”

To paraphrase Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.”

This book will help you make sense out of the nonsense you might experience, and give you insight that will help you to accelerate your learning and career.

“The most important mindset for a successful career is learning and growth. If you stay still, you will fail.”

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