Recent Reads
I love reading!
Most of the time I read non-fiction, business books and biographies. As for business knowledge, much of what I’ve learned, especially in regard to working in a growing business, has been gained from reading books. There is a vast amount of insight and information available on the subject and there are some incredible writers that masterfully simplify complex issues and processes.
Back in January of 2018, I published a blog about some influential books that I have read. Since that time, I have read quite a few more and thought I would share some of them with you. Here are three:
Ray Dalio, the author of Principles, started Bridgewater Associates out of his two-bedroom home when he was 26 years old. Over the next 42 years, he built the investment firm into one of the most important private companies in the US. As the title suggests, Dalio shares principles for life and business that he learned over the span of his career. He operated his company using decision trees, complex software, and a culture of the idea meritocracy” to better inform all the decision making within the organization.
This is a somewhat lengthy book and some of the principles are difficult to grasp on first read (I am going back and re-reading the entire book). Elegantly written with an aesthetically pleasing appearance, this is a book I would recommend to business leaders everywhere.
As a student of business processes, I found this book to be quite helpful. A well-constructed, simple checklist can dramatically improve processes, minimize mistakes, and even save lives. The book is written by Dr. Atul Gawande, a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He researched checklists from the construction of skyscrapers, to the aviation industry, and, of course, the operating room. Dr. Gawande worked with the World Health Organization and was involved in developing the process that in the OR is called “The Timeout”. Whatever industry you are in, you will probably find this book helpful to improving processes and minimizing errors.
This is another book I’m going to need to read again. It is, as the title implies, a book about measuring activities and focusing on the things that truly matter. John Doerr worked at Intel for Andy Grove, the father of Objectives and Key Results (OKR’s). An objective is the direction, while the key results are specific measurable tasks that, when carried out, culminate to help achieve the objective.
In Measure What Matters, Doerr discusses how OKR’s supercharged results for Google, Gono, and Bill Gates. Many of the principles from this insightful book will be implemented at Medworks.
Darrell Shires, Medworks President & CEO