August 2023

As I continue my tour of classic books that I haven’t previously reviewed, this week I come to Every Good Endeavor by pastor Tim Keller with Katherine Alsdorf.

With Keller’s passing earlier this year, it seemed like the right time to pick this book back up and read it from beginning to end. Keller was a talented and accomplished writer, but he was really a pastor at heart. At times, the content comes across as sermons on specific passages of scripture. At other times, the pastor seems to be encouraging his flock as a trusted counselor. The book as a whole tells a complete story that follows the Bible’s complete story. 

Every Good Endeavor provides a gospel-centered framework for understanding why work is good, why it is challenged, and how it can be redeemed for the glory of God. For Christians, the book provides fresh insights and encouragement. It doesn’t provide simple checklists for how to “connect your work to God’s work” but will cause you to think deeply and differently about why your work matters and how you can approach it with a new perspective.

Read my complete chapter-by-chapter review here.

Going on Offense is the third book that Behnam Tabrizi has written on the topic of establishing innovation and agility as how organizations operate. This book is subtitled a “playbook” and leans heavily on studies of five companies that have done so: Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Starbucks, and Microsoft, along with references to 21 other companies more or less successful in sustaining innovation. The result of their research is the identification of eight elements common to companies that are successful at perpetual innovation. The book is structured into a chapter on each of these characteristics along with a closing chapter providing a five step process for establishing those elements.

Read my full review here.

For the next stop on my tour of classic books I hadn’t yet reviewed, I revisit Good to Great by Jim Collins.

Good to Great is one of a very small set of classic business books that has fundamentally changed how leaders think about and talk about their businesses. In just over 20 years, the terminology and concepts introduced by the book have become so ingrained in business thinking that, in writing this review, I stopped several times to Google a phrase or idea to try to figure out who, before Collins, had originated it. If you’re a business leader and haven’t read the book, you’ve undoubtedly been influenced indirectly by it.

Read my full review here.

The new book Madison Avenue Makeover by Michael Farmer effectively documents the transformation process that ad agency Huge has followed in defining a new operating and business model.

What it does well is describe how ad agencies work and the challenges in the industry. It does a good job of documenting the specific meetings, decisions, and personnel changes made throughout the journey from July 2021 to the end of 2022. It clearly documents the new operating model for Huge and how this new model is expected to overcome the business model challenges facing the industry.

However, the author admits that it’s still too early to know whether or not it’s going to work. The new model is a collection of hypotheses that are still being tested and are expected to be tweaked over time. It’s also not a very exciting story for those outside the industry. For those in the industry (especially those at Huge), the book may provoke some important questions or uncover some meaningful insights.

Read my full review here.