Bono on Change: Value, Commitment, Transformation

(Rear Adm. Raquel Cruz Bono served as Command Surgeon J07, U.S. Pacific Command. This summer she was assigned to lead the National Capital Medical Directorate.  She provides a recommended reading list and reviews to Navy Reads this week. -- Bill Doughty)

By Rear Adm. Raquel Cruz Bono

I've always been fascinated by the challenges of adapting to change, making change happen and the responsibilities of leadership to be an effective agent of change.  In each of my jobs, I've observed and studied the various challenges that individuals, leaders and organizations experience as they anticipate, respond to and create change.  Not all change events were successful, but they have all been instructive. While electronic media have globalized the transfer of knowledge and access to information, reading is still required to assimilate novel thoughts, to maintain contemporary understanding of world events, and to develop insight into complex issues.

Rear Adm. Raquel Bono speaks at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Photo by MC3 Diana Quinlan.

The following books have shaped my approach to and appreciation for change.  While change is often anxiety provoking for the ambiguity it often represents and brings, change also offers a wide vista in which to make change happen -- an imperative skill set for today's leadership.  Leadership begins with the ability to influence the behaviors of others so that their collective actions are synchronized to a common objective.  I've found that the most effective leaders don't require a solid or dotted line on an organizational chart to be an effective leader.  Often times, their effectiveness starts with how they value and respect the people with whom they work.

Respecting and valuing the contributions of others is challenging even in communities who share common attributes, but it can be especially daunting when backgrounds, values and upbringing are distinctly unique from each other.  Valuing others' inputs often begins with developing cross-cultural appreciation -- both internationally and within the US.  The following books have been very helpful to deepening my appreciation of the richness and distinctive nuances of the Asia Pacific countries and cultures. 

“In Our Image” (Stanley Karnow) is an historical retrospective of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines through a journalist's observations.  He chronicles the shifting and sometimes inconsistent partnering between the US and the Philippines.  While not always flattering for either country, the Filipinos' fledgling efforts to develop a sense of nationalism was not only challenged by the influences of occupying countries and cultures, but sometimes clashed with the United States' efforts to introduce American ideals and values.

Another very insightful book is “On China” (Henry Kissinger).  This is a lengthy tome, but Mr. Kissinger's writing style makes for a very easy and informative read.  He has deep respect, insight and understanding of the complex and intricate society of the People's Republic of China.  His book serves to emphasize how achieving a successful, working relationship with the PRC demands patience, appreciation and sensitivity.  Both of these books serve to illustrate that relationship-building begins with valuing the unique and distinctive characteristics of a people and their societies.  Tremendous change is often possible when successful leaders demonstrate authentic appreciation for the subtle and diverse attributes among their staffs and within their own organizations.

Opportunities to advance goals and achieve progress abound.  Yet, often these occasions pass with little impact to an end state.  Making change happen begins with the commitment to change.  While the following two books are health-centered, they offer keen examples of how care given to others was elevated when a commitment was made to change the usual provision of care and concentrate on a patient's needs.  

“Rule Number Two” (Heidi Kraft, MD) is a heartrending account of a psychiatrist and the troops she cared for while deployed to a combat hospital in Iraq.  She brings to the forefront the psychological trauma that accompanies the very visible injuries of war while also reminding us that sometimes the greatest trauma is that which we cannot see or bandage or repair.  As our military and society collectively grapple with the repercussions of post-traumatic stress, Dr. Kraft reminds us of the importance of resiliency and caring and appreciating the sacrifices that all have made.

“In Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance” (Atul Gawande, MD) shares a series of vignettes that show how the commitment of the dedicated can have profound and sweeping impact to elevate the health and well-being of a country, as was done by eliminating polio in India.  In each story, there is a goal to make something better, a desire to reach beyond the status quo followed by the single-minded focus that creates the dedication and momentum to make change happen.  While set primarily in the field of medicine where the demand for mistakes are low and the stakes high, there are lessons applicable to any sector that is challenged to produce the very best product despite limited reserves, information or resources.

As change management becomes an imperative with the evolving and rapid challenges of today, the following books articulate helpful reminders and strategies.  

“Leading Change” (John P. Kotter) reminds us of the various challenges that hinder efforts to transform an organization.  At the root of change management is creating a sense of urgency that propels an alteration in behavior -- at the personal and the company levels.  Kotter does a nice job of describing those cultural and institutional habits that tend to get in the way of transformation and create resistance to change.

On the other hand, Malcom Gladwell's book, “The Tipping Point,” describes the birth of a fad or new idea and how it takes hold in our society -- i.e., how it reaches the tipping point and becomes popular.  It starts with the premise that little things can make a difference and by changing the behavior of small groups, a change is set in motion that attracts larger groups of people who now behave differently and are in concert with others.

I like to put the above two books together to understand how to overcome some of the barriers to change by recognizing where the resistance to change is resident, guiding  change to happen in incremental steps first (individual behavior) and then allowing momentum to transform an organization.

However, an important aspect of change is being able to effectively message the need for change and describe what specific changes are required.  “Made to Stick” (Chip Heath & Dan Heath) looks at what makes an idea "stick" and become memorable.  It's an insightful look into what makes communication effective and describes the attributes that make a concept easy to grasp, to assimilate and then to act upon.  There are some helpful suggestions, but a critical aspect of “Made to Stick” is understanding how a receiver's framework for receiving information is a powerful filter that can undo an otherwise compelling transmitter -- i.e., in order to be heard, you have to know how your audience listens.

Two additional books about transformation and change management are written by Daryl R. Conner.  “Managing at the Speed of Change” and “Leading at the Edge of Chaos” describe how change agents need to be rapidly adaptive and creatively resilient as progress and change are happening nearly instantaneously.  

Rapidly evolving global issues require leadership that is agile and anticipatory rather than plodding and reactive.  The themes in these books show that change happens regardless of any effort to prevent it and shaping an organization's response to change is an effective strategy for influencing outcomes while optimizing choices.

Finally, as a parent, one of the most challenging changes to manage are the transformations that happen to your children as they transition from childhood, through teens and into adulthood.  While “Ten Best Gifts for Your Teen” (Patt & Steve Saso) is primarily written for parents of rising teens, I again found application to the challenges of leadership and managing change.  Of the ten gifts that they describe, the most effective ones I've found are respect and reconciliation -- both at home and in the office.

Respect is at the heart of any relationship and begins with accepting another's thoughts and feelings.  Respecting a teen's privacy and emerging social interests is just as important as respecting a colleague's expertise and opinion on a topic.  However, the more challenging gift to give anyone is reconciliation - the ability to apologize and admit to being wrong.  The transformative power of an apology is enormous, and at the heart of effective leadership is maintaining one's humanity through the sustainment of your relationships.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FARAH, Afghanistan (Jan. 18, 2013) Operations Specialist 1st Class Megan Garcia, a tactical operations watchstander for Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Farah, reads a book to her children as part of a United Through Reading Read-a-thon. Participants in the program were encouraged to read to children in their families or to students at Birch Elementary in Idaho, to promote childhood literacy. United Through Reading is a non-profit organization that enables deployed service members to share their love and support with their children by reading books aloud on DVD. PRT Farah's mission is to train, advise, and assist Afghan government leaders at the municipal, district, and provincial levels in Farah province Afghanistan. Their civil military team is comprised of members of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Matthew Stroup/Released)

Book Ban or Legitimate Political Discourse?

Review by Bill Doughty––

When some parents and politicians moved to ban Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” from school curricula and libraries, it moved me to read her award-winning novel about an escaped slave family and the nearly unimaginable horrors they endured.

“Beloved” contains references to explicit sex, violent rape, child murder, and bestiality. It’s definitely not a book for very young and immature readers. Some call it a “dirty” book. Others consider it a masterpiece of American literature by a Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winning author. 

The book is based loosely on a true story. According to essayist Walter Johnson, it is set in “the moment when the Indians were removed, the woodlands stripped of trees, and the Lower South put under the dominion of a single plant –– king cotton.” 

Johnson adds, “Morrison presents her readers with the terrifying excesses of violence imposed upon enslaved people.”

Essayist Tiya Miles writes, “‘Beloved’ is a spiritual and psychological drama about the lasting wounds of cruelty and the wrenching difficulty of holding together damaged selves and human relationships in the aftermath of unspeakable tragedy.”

The book depicts the depravity of slavery: “White wardens treated these black men worse than chattel, locking them up nights in wooden pens dug into a trench, forcing them to perform unwanted sex acts, humiliating them with caustic words of defilement, and working them in an unrelenting grind,” according to Miles.

In “Beloved,” Morrison describes how one chained man, Paul D, felt locked in one of those pens in a trench, along with 45 other slaves:

“A flutter of a kind, in the chest, then the shoulder blades. It felt like rippling –– gentle at first and then wild. As though the further south they led him the more his blood, frozen like an ice-on for twenty years, began thawing, breaking into pieces that, once melted, had no choice but to swirl and eddy.”

“All forty-six men woke to rifle shot. All forty-six. Three whitemen walked along the trench unlocking the doors one by one. No one stepped through. When the last lock was opened, the three returned and lifted the bars, one by one. And one by one the blackmen emerged –– promptly and without the poke of a rifle butt if they had been there more than a day; promptly with the butt if, like Paul D, they had just arrived. When all forty-six were standing in a line in the trench, another rifle shot signaled the climb out and up to the ground above, where one thousand feet of the best hand-forged chain in Georgia stretched. Each man bent and waited.  The first man picked up the end and threaded it through the loop on his leg iron. He stood up then, and, shuffling a little, brought the chain tip to the next prisoner, who did likewise. As the chain was passed on and each man stood in the other’s place, the line of men turned around, facing the boxes the had come out of. Not one spoke to the other. At least not with words.”

Morrison further paints the scene, within nature but unnatural: “Chain-up completed, they knelt down. The dew, more likely than not, was mist by then. Heavy sometimes and if the dogs were quiet and just breathing you could hear doves.”

Those who seek to ban Morrison’s book(s) and other works of art base their opinions on alleged "sexually explicit language,” "LGBTQIA+ content," "anti-police messages,” "divisive language,” and themes of race, according to the American Library Association. 

Another of Morrison’s books, “The Bluest Eye” is on the ALA’s top ten list of challenged books. So are Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” Mark Twain’s works have long been “canceled” before “cancel culture” was part of the vernacular.

Last month Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” a graphic novel about the Holocaust, came under attack. And last week, a Christian pastor led a book burning in Tennessee. Books thrown into a bonfire included young adult fantasy fiction including from J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series.

Book burnings: Germany 1933 and Tennessee 2022.

‘Beloved’ Found Haiku

On my Navy Reads blog I've featured unintentional "found" haiku from Senator John McCain, President Abraham Lincoln, Coach Mike Krzyzewski, and others. I found this Toni Morrison haiku from “Beloved”:

Who would have thought that

a little old baby could

harbor so much rage

That quote is used as an epigraph to a chapter about Morrison’s novel in the funny and rewarding “25 Great Sentences: And How They Got That Way” by Geraldine Woods (Norton, 2020): Woods picks apart the words and focuses understandably on the phrase “little old baby.” The baby and its spirit is at the heart of Morrison’s magical and “impossible” realism.

After reading “Beloved,” I turned to a relatively recent book of essays edited by Davîd Carrasco, Stephanie Paulsell, and Mara Willard titled “Toni Morrison: Goodness and the Literary Imagination” (University of Virginia Press, 2019). The collection contains the Walter Johnson and Tiya Miles quotes at the beginning of this review.

Another “found haiku” by Toni Morrison comes from the "Goodness" collection. It is from Morrison herself, captured in her Ingersoll address of 2012, and it happens to be a pivotal point arguing against book banning and for teaching about slavery, racism, and other evils of America’s past:

Thinking about good-

ness implies, indeed requires, a view

of its opposite

The argument for studying the past while not wearing rose-colored glasses is this: confront what was wrong in order to do what is right. Reject racism, misogyny, and imperialism; embrace equality, respect, and freedom. Repel hate; stick with love.

A slave cabin in Barbour County, Alabama (LOC)

On Feeling Uncomfortable

Book-banning groups want to protect children’s self-esteem and not make them uncomfortable: White children should not be made to feel bad that their ancestors may have been oppressors, and children of color should not be made to feel like victims. Children (even, apparently college advanced-placement literature students) should be protected from what they consider obscene “dirty” books.

But, isn’t it necessary to know where the real dirt is in order to become clean?

Jonathan L. Walton explores the Morrison concept of "dirty" in his essay “Luminous Darkness.”

“…Morrison refers to the dirtying process of slavery in her novel 'Beloved.' Black Folk are dirtied, first by the racial imagination of white supremacy. Racial visions are then transformed into laws, statues, and cultural practices that dehumanize and dirty their targets. These are the conditions from which those on the underside of freedom and autonomy, and power seek to break free. These are the conditions from which Morrison seeks to reconsider goodness by reframing who and what we deem as inherently evil.”

The institution of slavery, itself, was a dirty shame. Some could argue that we didn’t start to live up to the ideals in the Constitution until the mid-1960s with the passing of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, which were brought about by President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson (both U.S. Navy veterans).

      From Civil War to Civil Rights (NPS)

Parents and politicians who want to ban books say teaching about slavery will divide people along racial lines. But studying the truth of the past can show how much progress we’ve made in the past hundred years –– which can be a uniting force.

Tenured Professor of Women and Gender Studies Brittney Cooper appeared on Ari Melber’s “The Beat” on MSNBC on January 28 and spoke about slavery, book banning, and what makes people uncomfortable. She notes that black people were kidnapped and brought to America to make white  people “more comfortable.”

Brittney Cooper

Cooper says, “Sure, racism –– learning about racism –– is perhaps uncomfortable. But you know what`s more uncomfortable? Racism. Learning about slavery might be a bit uncomfortable. But you know what was more uncomfortable? Slavery.”

Fighting the Civil War to end slavery was more than uncomfortable. Marching for civil rights and voting rights was uncomfortable.

Cooper adds, “Learning that one is ignorant might be a bit uncomfortable. But you know what`s more uncomfortable, ultimately? Remaining ignorant, even as these problems continue to encroach upon our lives.” Legislating against books and learning, she says, “is nothing but a return to the very history we fought to get out of.”

Shouldn’t the freedom to read and discuss literature be protected as truly “legitimate political discourse?” Choosing to learn more about Toni Morrison and her books is especially legitimate during Black History Month.

McRaven & Russell on Fear, Hope and Beginning of Wisdom

by Bill Doughty

Retired Adm. William McRaven, former commander of the United States Special Forces Command, published a list of recommended books in 2013, the year before he retired. The list included some familiar Navy Reads favorites: "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, "The World is Flat 3.0" by Thomas Friedman, "Made to Stick" by Chip and Dan Heath, and "Eleven Rings" by NBA Coach Phil Jackson.

McRaven's book and author recommendations were presented to special operations warriors as a way to "understand contemporary issues, develop a strong appreciation of our history and heritage, and stimulate creative thinking to confront complex challenges." The complete list was published on "War on the Rocks."

When he promulgated his list McRaven said he valued critical thinking and analysis, and he expected his SEALS and other warfighters to confront challenges head-on. He suggested the same approach to new college graduates.

McRaven was a guest on this past Sunday's This Week show on ABC TV where he discussed his civilian job or "new mission" as Chancellor of the University of Texas system. Guest anchor Martha Raddatz played clips from his viral world-famous commencement address from last year at the UT with advice about what to do if you want to change the world. McRaven explained what he'd learned from SEAL training, starting with "make your bed."

McRaven challenged graduates, just as he challenged his warrior readers, to face their fears and embrace hope.

"If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person — Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala — one person can change the world by giving people hope," he said to University of Texas graduates.

Nearly 100 years ago, in 1917, the year the United States entered World War I, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote this about the subjects of fear and hope in an essay, "Education":

"No institution inspired by fear can further life. Hope, not fear, is the creative principle in human affairs. All that has made man great has sprung from the attempt to secure what is good, not from the struggle to avert what was thought evil. It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves a great result. The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young. Education should not aim at a passive awareness of dead facts, but at an activity directed towards the world that our efforts are to create. It should be inspired, not by a regretful hankering after the extinct beauties of Greece and the Renaissance, but by a shining vision of the society that is to be, of the triumphs that thought will achieve in the time to come, and of the ever-widening horizon of man's survey over the universe. Those who are taught in this spirit will be filled with life and hope and joy, able to bear their part in bringing to mankind a future less somber than the past, with faith in the glory that human effort can create."

Russell, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 and author of "A History of Western Philosophy," is sometimes quoted in commencement ceremonies, too.

The excerpt above from "Education" was published in an anthology of nonfiction, fiction and poetry titled "The World's Best," edited by Whit Burnett (The Dial Press, New York, 1950).

Russell himself introduced the piece, "because reverence for human individuality and mental initiative are, in my opinion, of the utmost importance, and are increasingly threatened ..."

Russell was a pacifist who believed that a strategy of reason and cooperation was better than tactics of killing and conflict in dealing with complex challenges. An opponent to the First World War, he later came to support Britain in war against Germany in World War II when he saw there was no reasoning with Adolf Hitler.

Among Russell's famous quotes are: "War does not determine who is right – only who is left" and "To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom..."

A Search for the Truth

by Bill Doughty

Who or what is the North Star, the Pole Star, of leadership?

Those who are educated in the West often rely on philosophers from ancient Greece, Judeo-Christian faith, Renaissance, and modern science to provide ethical, moral and practical principles on leadership.

A depiction of Master Kung - Confucius

What can the East, particularly Confucius ("Master Kung") – who influenced much of Asian thought and culture – say about leadership? Getting past the chauvinism and arguable misogyny of ancient times, there may be great value in learning advice from Asia's Pole Star on what it means to be a good leader.

In "Confucius: The Analects" translated by Arthur Waley (Alfred Knopf, 2000, first published 1938), "Master" refers to Confucius, and "gentleman" can be interpreted for our purposes as "leader" or "commander" or "CO."

From Book II:

1 The Master said, He who rules by moral force is like the pole-star, which remains in its place while all the lesser stars do homage to it.

2 The Master said, If out of the three hundred 'Songs' I had to take one phrase to cover all my teaching, I would say, 'Let there be no evil in your thoughts.'

3 The Master said, Govern the people by regulations, keep order among them by chastisements, and they will flee from you, and lose all self-respect. Govern them by moral force, keep order among them by ritual and they will keep their self-respect and come to you of their own accord.

Book IV:

2 The Master said, Without Goodness a man
Cannot for long endure adversity,
Cannot for long enjoy prosperity.

16 The Master said, A gentleman takes as much trouble to discover what is right as lesser men take to discover what will pay.

17 The Master said, In the presence of a good man, think all the time how you may learn to equal him. In the presence of a bad man, turn your gaze within!

Book XII:

16 The Master said, The gentleman calls attention to the good points in others; he does not call attention to their defects. The small man does just the reverse of this.

Book XIII:

1 ... Lead them; encourage them! ... Untiringly.

2 ... Get as much as possible done by your subordinates. Pardon small offenses. Promote men of superior capacity ...

Statue of Confucius at Yushima Seido, Tokyo

6 The Master said, If the ruler himself is upright, all will go well even though he does not give orders. But if he himself is not upright, even though he gives orders, they will not be obeyed.

Book XV:

17 The Master said, The gentleman who takes the right as his material to work upon and ritual as the guide in putting what is right into practice, who is modest in setting out his projects and faithful in carrying them to their conclusion, he indeed is a true gentleman.

18 The Master said, A gentleman is distressed by his own lack of capacity; he is never distressed at the failure of others to recognize his merits.

19 The Master said, A gentleman has reason to be distressed if he ends his days without make a reputation for himself.

20 The Master said, 'The demands that a gentleman makes are upon himself; those that a small man makes are upon others.'

22 The Master said, A gentleman does not
Accept men because of what they say,
Nor reject sayings, because the speaker is what he is.

23 Tzu-kung asked, saying, Is there any single saying that one can act upon all day and every day? The Master said, Perhaps the saying about consideration: 'Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.'

Book XVI:

10 Master K'ung said, The gentleman has nine cares.

• In seeing he is careful to see clearly,
• in hearing he is careful to hear distinctly,
• in his looks he is careful to be kindly;
• in his manner to be respectful,
• in his words to be loyal,
• in his work to be diligent.
• When in doubt he is careful to ask for information;
• when angry he has a care for the consequences,
• and when he sees a chance of gain, he thinks carefully whether the pursuit of it would be consonant with the Right.

Right Matters

How do we know what "the Master" taught? Like Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha, Confucius had disciples who carried on, interpreted and reinterpreted his teachings about what is right.

Evidence of those teachings are found on ancient manuscripts on bamboo strips once buried in history, according to Yale lecturer and author Annping Chin.

In 1993 archeologists and scholars came into possession of two batches of "manuscripts" written on bamboo strips, some "pilfered by grave robbers and then sold on the Hong Kong antiques market before the manuscripts were bought, a few bundles at a time, by the Shanghai Museum," Chin writes.

"The texts were written around Mencius and Xunzi's time, 300 BC or earlier, before China was unified in the period known as 'the Warring States.'" What can the words on these bamboo strips tell us about life, moral cultivation and political thought in China before the Imperial Age?

From "The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics" by Annping Chin (Scribner, 2007):

"One Chinese paleographer I got to know told me about the risks of removing the ancient mud from the bamboo. As the strips lie in their cleaning solution, he said, and the words begin to emerge, some of the words literally rise from their bamboo surfaces, seeking flight or freedom in their demise. This is the closest I have come to thinking of words as alive. Sometime after, I made a wish. Even as I accept the impermanence of life, I said, I want words to be the exception – not all words, but surely words in the classics and histories, words of the early poems, philosopher's words, and the words of Confucius. I want them to stick around so that we can taste them again and again and play with their flavors in our head."

Anchored in Tradition

Author Michael Schuman – "Confucius: And the World He Created" (Perseus, 2015) – finds relevance for Confucianism for the world in general and China in particular – not to mention for leaders in the United States.

"The Confucius I have come to know over the course of researching this book ... was not a pawn of autocrats or a tool of suppression. That Confucius, though far from perfect, was a voice of boundless humanity and unswerving determination. He was a man who refused to compromise his principles for fame, wealth, or status. He would not submit to the will of immoral men or abusive regimes. He told the most powerful people of his day that they were wrong, directly to their faces. He judged men not by their riches or birth, but on their sincerity and benevolence. He could laugh at himself. He envisioned a society in which everyone fulfilled their responsibilities and placed the welfare of their families and communities over their own. He strove to transform a world convulsed by selfishness and war into one of selflessness and peace. He thought our society could be perfected if we first improved ourselves. Most of all, he thought that any one of us who took the time and made the effort to become a better person held the power to change the world."

Like the traditions of the U.S. Navy, the traditions of Confucianism promote rituals, manners, duty and "love of learning."

Schuman interprets "the Master's" position on authority and power: "No one, not even a person in a position of great power, is permitted to abuse that power," he writes. "The Confucian idea that people ought to blindly submit to anyone in a position of authority is beyond the Western mentality."

According to Confucius's Analects anchored in Schuman's book, "Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety – then all within the four seas will be his brothers." Just as the Pole Star guides good leadership, an anchor can secure it.

Every Sailor a Leader, Each a Communicator

Review by Bill Doughty

Just as every Sailor is empowered and expected to be a leader, each is also a communicator, especially now in the Information Age, where the world is flatter and getting smaller and more connected.  Whether on Kindle, iPad or Nook or between hard covers and on paper, reading is a key to being better at both leading and communicating. 

In 2012 Navy Reads has offered lists of suggested reading by such notable authors and thinkers as James Hornfischer, Mary Roach, Eric Foner and Rear Adm. Kate Gregory, among others.  Today’s list comes from professors who facilitate and coach at the Center for Executive Education at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Here’s a suggested top ten reading list for leaders and communicators from Professors Gail Fann Thomas, Rebecca Weintraub, Patricia Riley and Thomas Hollihan and NPS research associate Anita Salem:

“Leading Up” by Michael Useem is a “call to action” toward macrothinking and good communication, where giving courageous advice from the bottom up can prevent problems.  This book opens with a compelling discussion of Lincoln and his generals.  It is a natural fit with “The Courageous Follower” by Ira Chaleff.

“Leading Change” by John P. Cotter, who encourages a sense of urgency, a promotion of good ideas, and a need for lifelong learning in individuals and organizations, where ideas and teams who build together as a coalition are more important than egos and uncooperative “snakes.” 

“Moneyball” by Michael Lewis, the baseball book brought to film starring Brad Pitt as Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, with Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman, shows the importance of statistics and metrics used in rational thinking, communicating and decision making. 

“Talk, Inc.” by Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind shows the importance for a boss to be a good listener as she or he communicates and to be willing to engage face-to-face and via social media to align the organization.

“Speed of Trust” by Stephen M. R. Covey was brought up in discussion and is on the reading lists of several top Navy commanders.  From the Speed of Trust website: “We believe that a powerful, global renaissance of trust has begun. Sparked by recent world events, business ethics, and the transparency of conversations enabled by the worldwide web, this call for a renaissance of high trust leadership is reverberating around the globe.”

“The Third Wave” by Alvin Toffler, a futurist who literally spans generations, from “Future Shock” published in 1970 to world changes he predicted in the past four decades.  Toffler reveals the value of innovation and integration.  According to the Associated Press, "Toffler has imagination and an ability to think of various future possibilities by transcending prevailing values, assumptions and myths."  

“If Mayors Ruled the World” by Benjamin R. Barber, also author of the prescient 1995 book “Jihad vs. McWorld” (another pre-2001 must-read to explain how and why we arrived at 9/11 and experienced the Arab Spring ten years later). “If Mayors Ruled the World” recognizes the importance of cities as a new paradigm in leadership, moderation and cooperation.

“Intrinsic Motivation at Work” by Kenneth W. Thomas, a book that fits in well with Covey’s “Seven Habits” and  Levitt and Dubner’s “Freakonomics,” proving that the best motivation comes from within.

“Made to Stick” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, is all about memes, urban legend and truth “stickiness.”  With so much information flowing and so little time to ingest and analyze, how can leaders get to the core of a message, ensure credibility and verify their message was successfully communicated and remembered?

“Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications” by Paul A. Argenti and Courtney M. Barnes is promoted as “a corporate survival guide for the Web 2.0 world.” It’s written for leaders who want to understand and engage in a rapidly networking flattened world of blogs, wikis and transparency.

The Naval Postgraduate School’s Dudley Knox library is rich with books about strategy, history, technology, science and engineering, as one would expect.   Also in the stacks, three copies of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos,” several copies of Thomas Friedman’s “The World Is Flat,” Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner,” and books by Steinbeck and Eudora Welty. Students from dozens of countries, in a wide diversity of uniforms, come to read and learn and think.

Adm. (ret.) Mullen at NPS's Center for Executive Education.

According to former CNO and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. (ret.) Mike Mullen:

"The Naval Postgraduate School is a national - and international - treasure. With its rigorous curriculum, talented faculty and a diverse student body that includes students from all the U.S. armed forces, other federal agencies and more than 60 nations, NPS contributes greatly to enhanced joint, coalition and interagency effectiveness. Knowledge and imagination are the keys to dealing with the challenges of this new era, and here at NPS those keys are forged."