Posted on by Helene Johnson

Book Review: Wild Courage

Book: Wild Courage, Go After What You Want And Get It

Author: Jenny Wood, a former successful executive at Google, and a speaker and writer on leadership development

Key message of the book: “Wild Courage” is an easy-to-read book, written with a clear purpose to fuel your personal and professional growth ambitions. With a lot of anecdotes and funny stories from her own life and career, the author is reframing nine negatively labeled traits into skills to develop to achieve success.

Each of these nine traits is defined by the author with the word “courage”:

  • Weird is “the courage to stand out”.
  • Selfish is “the courage to stand up for what you want”.
  • Shameless is “the courage to stand behind your efforts and abilities”.
  • Obsessed is “the courage to set your own standard”.
  • Nosy is “the courage to dig deeper”.
  • Manipulative is “the courage to influence others”.
  • Brutal is “the courage to protect your time and energy”.
  • Reckless is “the courage to take calculated risks”.
  • Bossy is “the courage to listen and lead”.

Courage is presented as key to success: “Successful people take action despite their fear. They muster the courage to do what’s necessary to succeed before it’s encouraged by others -or even considered socially acceptable.”

Each trait is defined in a new perspective, a constructive and positive one, in a way that makes it clear why such trait is necessary to get what we want in life.

  • Weird is owning your greatest strengths and being authentic about them “instead of second-guessing yourself out of desperation to fit in.”
    • “It’s about being yourself and revealing that self appropriately, both in your resume and everywhere else.”
    • “Figuring out who you are – how you think and solve problems, what you enjoy and dislike, the values that matter most -is essential in (a) deciding what to chase in life and (b) actually catching in.”
  • Selfish is the courage to “champion your agenda at least as strongly as you champion the needs of others.”
    • “Fighting for yourself just as enthusiastically as you fight for your friends and colleagues.”
  • Shameless is “no more apologizing for who you are and what you can do”. While shame is “a normal and healthy reaction”, “applying shame’s energy to finding a solution brings relief. Taking action tells your brain that you’re solving the problem. It’s the lingering shame that has to go.”
    • “Shame doesn’t care what you’re saying or asking. It just wants you quiet, inoffensive, invisible -“safe”. Opening that big mouth habitually builds that shameless muscle.”
  • Obsessed is having the inner drive to excel. “When you’re obsessed, you find the discipline to get out of your own way” and adopt a growth mindset where everything can be learned: “I’m not the leader I need to be yet”, while taking care of your physical and mental health and having proper boundaries.
    • “Obsession derives from two convictions: (1) that what you want matters and (2) that you can achieve what you want with sufficient effort.”
    • “You will never grow and evolve without pushing yourself to do the hard, careful and deliberate work that tests the limits of your capabilities.”
  • Nosy is letting curiosity be a compass, without being too aggressive, obnoxious or disrespectful in interactions with others.
    • “Ask [questions] politely, prioritize the mutual win and act on what you learn”.
    • “Answer questions with the same degree of vulnerability, authenticity and candor you expect from others.”
  • Manipulative is not about using others but “being influential, inspiring, motivating and persuasive” by adding positive energy in any room – in a truthful and authentic way.
    • “Warmth isn’t being complicated. It can be as simple as framing a neutral message in a more positive way.”
  • Brutal is being “direct, clear and consistent with your words and actions.”
    • “To achieve your goals, you must commit to spending your time and energy in accordance with your true priorities, no matter how painful it sometimes feels.”
    • “Brutal frees up time, energy and mental bandwidth”.
  • Reckless is to “err on the side of action”.
    • “You can seek perfection or progress. Not both. And, unlike perfection, progress is possible.”
    • “To the fragile ego, any failure is unacceptable. Successful people fail far more than most people do.”
  • Bossy is about being a “genuine boss: an empathic, supportive, yet decisive leader who knows when to speak up and when to listen, when to let the team figure a problem out themselves, and when to step in with help and a fresh perspective.”
    • “Use your power responsibly”.

This book review by Growth Is A Journey is an invitation for readers to discover the book in its entirety.

Posted on by Helene Johnson · 1 Comment

Book Review: Helping People Win at Work

Book: Helping People Win at Work, A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get An A”

Author: Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge

Key message of the book: Performance review systems can be burdensome, and managers are often compelled to assess employees on a normal distribution bell-shaped curve – with poor, good and high-performance levels. The book describes a different approach to performance review, one that stands out as effective, transparent and a catalyst for high performance for ALL employees.

The proposed framework is rooted in a business philosophy called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get An A“. The approach is compared to a teacher who, instead of grading his/her students at the end of the course, he/she supports students by sharing the final exam at the beginning of the course, then supports their learning with the aim that all students get an A, with teaching, coaching and ongoing assessment throughout the semester. For leaders in an organization, this philosophy for performance review translates into:

  • Managers sitting down with their employees to set expectations and goals at the beginning of each year
  • Consistent coaching, feedback and re-direction in day-to-day and weekly interactions and execution plans – while affirming or re-affirming the employee’s potential to get an A
  • Regular (quarterly if possible) reviews to assess gaps, confirm progress and goals and values alignment

In this system, an employee’s performance level is the direct responsibility of his/her manager – and manager is bound to provide regular feedback – “with candor and care” – to help his/her employee get an A at the final performance evaluation. This approach puts more responsibility on the manager helping his/her employees and making sure feedback and support are provided first, before concluding if an employee is ready to be shared with competition as he/she cannot get an A: “If our culture of candor, caring, accountability and responsibility doesn’t work for you, let’s share you with the competitor.“

This framework enhances what true leadership is as the book authors highlight: “At its best, leadership is a partnership – one that involves mutual trust and respect between two people who work together to achieve common goals. When that occurs, both leader and direct report have an opportunity to influence each other. Both parties play a role in determining how things get done. In other words, it’s all about we, not me.”

The book overall reinforces what many high performing leaders and managers do and believe: a successful performance review system is one that incorporates clear communication of and alignment in goals, values and expectations from the beginning (Q1 of a year for instance) and is followed with regular feedback and touchpoints throughout the year for an employee to successfully meet his/her performance goals.

One specific learning from the book:  “Candor and caring” are needed for feedback to be effective. Caring is defined as “behavior that demonstrates your concern about the person’s development, professionally and personally” while candor is about being honest with a person about his/her performance. “With caring, you get to make deposits in your emotional bank account with a person“, while negative feedback always hurts, acting as a withdrawal in the emotional bank account with that person. The authors point to how such pain is short lived and turns into a “Learning moment” if the emotional bank account is balanced.

One favorite quote from the book: 

“The key to developing people is to catch them doing something right.”

Bonus resource: Another book review of the book

This brief book review by Growth Is A Journey is an invitation for readers to discover the book in its entirety.