Ken White
From the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. This is Leadership & Business. The podcast that brings you the latest and best thinking from today's business leaders from across the world. We share the strategies, tactics, and information that can make you a more effective leader, communicator, and professional. I'm your host Ken White. Thanks for listening. Well, as the new year begins, you might spend some time creating lists. Lists that include resolutions, goals, and maybe good books to read. That's where this week's podcast comes in. As 2018 kicks off, we spoke to some professors and professional staff members at William & Mary School of Business and asked them to recommend a book for you and other professionals to read in the new year. A book that can help you in your career. We spoke with three professors, the head of our Graduate Career Management Center, and the Executive Director of our Executive Partners and compiled a list of six books we think you'll find interesting and helpful in the year ahead.
Ken White
We'll begin with operations and information technology Professor Monica Tremblay. As access to information continues to be readily available in 2018. Professor Tremblay recommends Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy. The book's author Joel Mokyr examines the role information and knowledge played in the industrial revolution.
Monica Tremblay
His premise is that there's two types of knowledge: there's propositional knowledge and prescriptive knowledge. So propositional knowledge or what the people that create the set of knowledge he calls the knowers kind of the what is the discovery observation the laws of nature. And then there's prescriptive knowledge that are more the how-to. So how do you build an engine? And his claim is that, basically, the industrial revolution happened because suddenly, there was an intersection between propositional knowledge, so the what, and prescriptive knowledge, the how. Right. So previously, it was difficult to get access to propositional knowledge because of changes in technology, and technology doesn't have to be IT. It can be the printing press.
Ken White
Right.
Monica Tremblay
Suddenly the doers had access to propositional knowledge. So there was suddenly an intersection between proposition and prescriptive knowledge. And he described this as practical men gaining access to propositional knowledge. So in the past, knowledge was it was tacit, and it was oral. It was passed down, and specifically, the propositional knowledge was more for the elite. And so he claims that we started to codify knowledge, and we started to document propositional knowledge. And this created the industrial revolution and not necessarily the creation of new knowledge but the ability to allow knowledge to trickle down from the elite to the middle class.
Ken White
That's Professor Monica Tremblay. Her recommendation is Gifts of Athena by Joel Mokyr. Our next suggestion comes from Terry Shannon, Executive Director of the Executive Partners at William & Mary. The EPs, as they're known, serve as leadership coaches to the business school's MBA students. As a certified leadership coach, Shannon recommends the 2014 book Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence: How Extraordinary Leaders Build Relationships, Shape Culture and Drive Breakthrough Results by Chalmers Brothers & Vinay Kumar.
Terry Shannon
What he identifies is five fundamental leadership competencies the functional, technical, conversational, relational, and emotional. And if you think about it, it suits the frame that we work with and identify with our students very often. You know the technical skills and functional skills that you have, and resumé development will get you the interview. What gets you the job is the soft skills. That's your conversational skills. It's the relationship-building side of things. It's your emotional intelligence. How you come across and frame yourself in an appropriate fashion. So those are things that we work with the students on all the time from a focus standpoint. They're going to get all the technical and functional stuff that blocking and tackling in the classroom with our professors but from an EP standpoint and coaching standpoint, focusing on those soft skills are most critical.
Ken White
You're talking about students you also coach people who are quite experienced. Do you find this relevant to those folks as well?
Terry Shannon
Right. Because when it helps them do is create a framework of understanding because one of the areas that Vinay that the book dives into is what's referred to as speech acts, and he refers there's actually six of them assertions, assessments, declarations, requests, offers, and promises. And as a leader, understanding the distinctions between the different component those different components and how you come across in conversation, either in a group environment or in a one-on-one basis, can very clearly help drive awareness and activity and the culture of an organization.
Ken White
Leadership coach Terry Shannon's recommendation for 2018 is Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence by Chalmers Brothers & Vinay Kumar. The Executive Director of the Graduate Career Management Center, Phil Heavilin, also suggests a book on leadership for the year ahead. This book, though, offers a unique take on the subject. Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALS Lead and Win by Willink & Babin.
Phil Heavilin
This book intrigued me because, you know, here at William & Mary, we have a lot of military students, and so this book provides sort of a perspective from the military side in terms of leadership and leading teams and how they do it effectively. Cause, you know, the circumstances they're under are pretty extreme, to say the least, and certainly Navy Seals. You can't think of a group who works under more extreme conditions than that group. And so I was really intrigued in terms of what they had to offer from what they do and how it applies to business.
Ken White
Heavilin says the book's three laws of combat are especially interesting.
Phil Heavilin
The first law is cover and move, and this is all about teamwork and, most importantly, making sure that the individuals on your team understand what it is that they need to do and how it impacts the broader mission. The second law of combat was all about simplicity, and I really appreciate this because I think it's very common for us to overcomplicate things when we're looking at a problem and trying to think creatively about how to solve it. It's very easy to come up with a very complex solution to that problem. But they say keep it simple. Keep it simple so that your instructions to your team are easily understood, and they know exactly how it applies to the broader mission. The third law of combat is prioritize and execute. And this was great because it discussed the importance of knowing what it is your top priority is, what's your number one problem, not your top 50 your number one problem identifying that as a team, and then putting together they go through this step-by-step process of evaluating what that problem is. Making sure that you simplify it and then determine the solution as a team, and then put in place the solution that you need to execute to solve that problem. Then when it solved, you go back as a team and say, okay, what's number two? What's the next singular problem that we can tackle and execute?
Ken White
Phil Heavilin, Executive Director of our Graduate Career Management Center, recommends Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Willink and Babin. If 2018 is the year for you to closely examine your career and life. Marketing Professor Dawn Edmiston has a recommendation for you. She likes Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well Lived, Joyful Life by Burnett and Evans of Stanford University.
Dawn Edmiston
What these authors have done is they've taken the basic principles of design thinking to include the need to define ID8 prototype and test concepts, and then they've applied them to the process of designing your life or designing your career. And essentially, the authors want readers to get curious, talk to people, and try stuff. And they give us plenty of practical advice and exercises to use the phrase that they often use. We frame our thinking. So as an example, very often, individuals believe that my dream job is out there waiting. Instead, we could reframe that thinking whereby it would be you design your dream job through a process of actively seeking and creating it.
Ken White
Very different approach.
Dawn Edmiston
Very different approach.
Ken White
To most people are looking at work and life. So why is it you like this?
Dawn Edmiston
I like it because it provides us with practical concepts. So it's very applied, which I think is important. For being a book out of Stanford University, one of the most renowned universities, and out of their D School to take these really tried and true academic concepts to be able to apply them to our daily lives at such an important part of who we are to understand what we can contribute and what we value and where we have purpose. And this book helps you do just that.
Ken White
That's Professor Dawn Edmiston and her recommendation Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well Lived, Joyful Life by Burnett and Evans. Well, regardless of your profession, job, or role, or your goals for 2018 being more influential can help you succeed. That's why Organizational Behavior Professor David Long is recommending Robert Chaldini's his book Influence.
David Long
One of the fundamental things that any leader, communicator, manager, business person tries to do is try to get others to say yes, or to move closer to his position, or to conform to your opinion. Just you're trying to nudge and move someone along to get them going in a certain direction that you hope that they'll go in. And this book has done a great job of surveying the literature for decades and distilling down just a few principles that can guide others behavior. And it's based on fundamental drives and needs that others have. And if you can understand these principles, you can kind of capitalize on those on someone else's drives and needs to get them to move in your direction or say yes to your requests. It's really useful, practical, applied book for any person.
Ken White
Can you share some of those?
David Long
Sure.
Ken White
Yeah. Great.
David Long
Some of the principles that are identified in this book, for example, the principle of liking. People like and want to say yes to other people who they find appealing and attractive. So any way that you can do to get someone to like you, and this whole book is based on ethical practices, there's a lot of kind of manipulative and deceitful ways to do this. But if you can stay. Use your moral compass stay in the ethical realm. They're the most effective and appropriate ways to use these tools. But some of the most practical suggestions that Chaldini has for the principle of liking is uncover similarities. So if I know you're from Pittsburgh and if I've been to Pittsburgh and had food from Pittsburgh or I happen to like a sports team from Pittsburgh, uncover those because the person is probably going to start liking you more just because they feel closer and connected to you. And once you establish that relationship, they're going to see things the way that you hope that they'll see them and then maybe say yes to a request of yours.
Ken White
Organizational Behavior Professor David Long recommends Robert Chaldini's Influence. And lastly, if you don't mind, I'll share a recommendation for the year ahead. I like Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte. I especially like Duarte's approach to communication, which has an audience-centered approach, and that's what we teach here. Making it all about the audience are always about the other person. And this book focuses on the audience, and it helps the reader create stories and presentations that truly connect with that other individual. Also, Duarte makes sure through the book that your presentations cause others to take action, and that is effective communication. So to review our good reads for 2018, our professors and colleagues recommend the following books The Gifts of Athena by Joel Mokyr, Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence by Chalmers Brothers & Kumar. Extreme Ownership by Willink and Babin, Designing Your Life by Burnett and Evans, Influence by Robert Chaldini & Resonate by Nancy Duarte. We encourage you to read any or all of these to help make your 2018 your best year ever.
Ken White
Well, that's our podcast for this week. Leadership & Business is brought to you by the Center for Corporate Education at the College of William & Mary's Raymond A. Mason School of Business. The Center for Corporate Education can help you, and your organization meet and exceed your goals. With business and leadership development programs that fit your needs and get results. If you're interested in learning more, visit our website at wmleadership.com. Also, if you have any feedback or suggestions pertaining to the podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at podcast@wm.edu. Thanks to all of our guests this week, and thanks to you for joining us. I'm Ken White. Until next time have a safe, happy, and productive week. And from all of us here at the Mason School of Business in William & Mary. Happy New Year.
As the new year begins, you might spend some time creating lists—lists that include resolutions, goals, and maybe good books to read. That's where this week's podcast comes in. As 2018 kicks off, we spoke to some professors and professional staff members at William & Mary's School of Business and asked them to recommend a book for you and other professionals to read in the new year—a book that can help you in your career. We spoke with three professors, the Head of our Graduate Career Management Center, and the Executive Director of our Executive Partners and compiled a list of six books we think you'll find interesting and helpful in the year ahead.