I’m excited to announce President’s Picks, which will give me a chance to share some of the most valuable insights and business wisdom I have gained over the years from books I’ve read. This project has been years in the making. For those who don’t know, I played soccer through the end of my college career. That required a lot of travel: first in the car, then on team bus rides and long flights. And that downtime led me to pick up the habit of reading. I always packed a book for the road, typically leaning toward leadership, autobiographies, or finance-related stories. And I have continued to read, long after I hung up my cleats and gloves.
Many of the business books I’ve read are forgettable. Far too often, the themes are tired and the leadership advice repetitive. But there are some books that still really speak to me. One of these is Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World.
One of the things I like about Nine Lies is that it’s written for busy professionals. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall take a storytelling approach, which makes for an easy read. They also incorporate tangible, actionable steps you can apply when interacting with your teams or thinking about your career. Even though it was published pre-COVID in 2019, I’ve found Nine Lies to be more valuable than ever as time goes by.
Nine Lies debunks several myths about leaders and leadership, especially the storybook view that leaders are supremely competent and confident individuals who are well rounded and great at all aspects of the job. In real life, no one can achieve this standard. A leader can be amazing at managing a group very effectively but have a terrible tendency for making small talk at happy hour. Trying to achieve this standard is a recipe for disappointment. It distorts how you should work and what you should strive for.
Some of the other myths Buckingham and Goodall highlight concern goals and plans, specifically the notion they often are outdated as soon as we have them on paper so there’s no point in making them. While change is inevitable, it doesn’t mean we should throw our annual goals and models out the window. There is a great deal of value in taking time to reflect each year and putting into writing what you’re working towards and how it fits into your larger strategy. But the authors also point out that you should not blindly stick to a plan when the world has moved in another direction. You should always be open to taking new data from markets and responding in the moment. I found Nine Lie’s approach to how you can be nimble and accepting of change – in part by enabling employees to organically align their unique strengths with the needs of the organization – to be illuminating.
I also found their approach to the elusive work-life balance refreshing. Buckingham and Goodall stress that it’s really up to you to create the work-life you want. There’s no balance that works for everyone. Your task is to figure out what you love about your work and find ways to do more of that. We all must love something about this business, or we wouldn’t be here. Making it work for us is what keeps us going.
I hope that this brief discussion of Nine Lies gives you a taste for some of the insights it offers, encourages you to pick it up, and apply its lessons. And I’m not the only one who likes it. Nine Lies has a 4.6 review on Amazon with more than 1,000 ratings!
President’s Picks is a book review and leadership advice column written by Tyler Griffin, president of mortgage banking at Lument. Email tyler.griffin@lument.com with any suggestions, comments, or questions.
