Suggested books for Company Level Leaders

**Cavguy** · 07-31-2009

Great suggestions so far, but I am hearing crickets chirp from a lot of our normally vocal members.

I am particularly interested in additional suggestions for team/organizational leadership and management, military or civilian. OIF and OEF are fairly well covered in multiple lists, but I'm always trolling for a gem there too.

Suggestions of books and articles on how to build effective organizational culture while experiencing a great deal of temp-related stress (read deployment) would help a lot.

**Hacksaw** · 07-31-2009

Best book I read in grad school and a very easy read...

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Rather than my review... I found the following that states the arguement better than i might...

Let me describe some of the many levels on which this novel is valuable.

First, the book explains how to see businesses (or any endeavor) as systems as well as any other book on this subject. It compares favorably in this area to such important works as The Fifth Discipline and the Fifth Discipline Handbook. The metaphor of how to speed up a slow-moving group of boy scouts will be visceral to anyone who has done any hiking with a group.

Second, the book helps you learn how to improve the performance of a system by providing you with a replicable process that you can apply to analyzing any human or engineering system. The primary metaphor is improving a manufacturing process, but the same principles apply more broadly to other circumstances.

Third, you will experience the power of the Socratic method as a way to stimulate your mind to learn, and to use Socratic questions to stimulate the minds of others to become better thinkers and doers.

Fourth, the authors also use problem simulation as a practical way to help you experience the learning process they are advocating.

Fifth, the book is unusually good in bringing home the consequences of letting your business process run in a vicious cycle: Your family life may also.

The pacing of the book is especially good. You are given time to stew with issues and come up with your own ideas before sample answers are provided by Alex and his staff in the novel.

Then again, I had already told you to read the book...

Live well and row

**Entropy** · 07-31-2009

One book I continually turn to is, "The Thinker's Tookit." It's not a leadership book, but it's a great aid for general analysis and problem solving. I'd also consider it a bit of a "self-help" book because I believe it aids instrospection.

**Kiwigrunt** · 07-31-2009

I’m not sure if this is the sort of material you’re after. This article I think is quite interesting. It’s about how to get from a 30% solution to an 80 % solution rather than focussing on achieving an 80 % solution from the outset and never getting there.

Who moved my cheese could be an interesting read. It does not directly pertain to what you asked for but it may still be insightful with regards to identifying what may be blocking processes at a personal level.
Dr. Spencer Johnson
2000 Vermilion UK, Random House Group Ltd.
ISBN 0 09 181 697 1
96 pages
Here’s a little write-up:

Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life – whether it is a good job, a loving relationship, money, or spiritual peace of mind. Cheese is what we think will make us happy, and when circumstances take it away, different people deal with change in different ways. Four characters in this delightful parable represent parts of ourselves whenever we are confronted with change. Discover how you can let change work to your advantage and let it lead you to success!

Then there are ‘The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery’ and ‘The path to leadership’ by Montgomery. I bought the latter at a market for a few bucks. It is signed by Monty with the following words (can’t resist sharing it):

It is not the countries which lack the atom bombs or the big battalions which should be called “second-rate” powers, but the countries which lack the big ideals.
Our young people must be taught to make their country mean something more than just a welfare state. They must learn that the privileges and benefits conferred upon them involve complementary obligations.
Montgomery of Alamein F.M.

**Schmedlap** · 07-31-2009

Originally Posted by Cavguy

I am particularly interested in additional suggestions for team/organizational leadership and management, military or civilian.

The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall, and the Battle for the Supreme Court. This is a pretty quick read. The takeaway for a junior officer would be to observe how Chief Justice Marshall walked the fine line between a confrontation with President Jefferson that could undermine the Court's power and issuing a ruling that could appear to bow to the President's power and thus undermine the rule of law by making it malleable to the prevaling political winds. He took a very awkward and controversial case (Marbury v. Madison) at a time when the Court was politically very weak and most people could not even agree on the role of the Court. Despite the position of weakness, he delivered a decision that was revolutionary at the time, but that we now take as an obvious given: the Court's power of judicial review. In doing so, he avoided a significant confrontation with the President and also expanded the power of the judicial branch.

It is a good lesson in how someone in a position of weakness can prevail and influence significant change if he focuses upon creatively using the tools available rather than just griping about not having enough money or firepower or whining about overly restrictive ROE.

**Brandon Friedman** · 07-31-2009

How come no one has mentioned Heinlein's Starship Troopers? Every junior NCO and officer should read that.

**jmm99** · 07-31-2009

Marshall's military career, captain and deputy judge advocate on GW's staff, is well-known enough; but this little snippet came as a surprise:

Physically, he was gifted. Evidence of this physical prowess became obvious during the war years. As he traveled from the battle sites of the Revolution around Philadelphia, to his home in Richmond, VA, it was customary for him to walk the 250 miles, usually taking three weeks for the journey.8 As a competitor in camp contests, Smith says, Marshall was outstanding: “He excelled as a runner and according to numerous accounts he was the only man in the Continental Army who could high jump over six feet — a remarkable achievement in any era.”9 Standing six-feet-three-inches tall, he could have been, according to Marshall house docent E.L. Butterworth, an Olympic athlete in two sports.10

8 Smith, p. 68. [Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall — Definer of a Nation, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1996]

9 Smith, p. 74.

10 E.L. Butterworth, in a tour lecture at the Marshall home, June 28, 2002.

Walking was probably a good way to decompress.

**Spud** · 08-01-2009

Probably hard to get now but a fantastic 'issues as a company commander' book is a fiction based on fact book concerning an Apache Company in the lead up to, during and after the first Gulf War.

Desert Skies

Pretty much covers off on every conceivable issue including some that I'd never seen (what happens when those pics of you dressed in drag at a function come out later in your career etc.)

Disclaimer: The author is someone I've known for a long time. I consider Mike one of the reasons I got into this whole IO business in the first place.

**slapout9** · 08-01-2009

Courtesy of Colonel John Warden this is the full Prometheus Process Training Manual in a PDF file. It is a slightly older version (but not much). It is copyrighted so give appropriate credit where due. This is the whole enchilada from start to finish on how to get Strategic all over them Bad Guys

Don't just read it....use it...it works ask Pepe Escobar

http://publications.campaignroom.com...%20w-Cover.pdf

**davidbfpo** · 08-01-2009

(From Niel's original post)

2) The best civilian leadership/management/teambuilding book you would recommend.

.

From a non-SWC member friend who is into these issues:

1) Not Bosses but Leaders, John Adair http://www.amazon.com/Not-Bosses-but...9128874&sr=1-1
2) The Art of Problem Solving, Russell Ackoff http://www.amazon.com/Art-Problem-So...9129165&sr=1-3

davidbfpo