The Executive in Action: Self-Management Book Review

December 27, 2024: The holiday season is a natural time to reflect on the past year and consider adjustments for the year ahead. A few themes emerge in reviewing my list of over 115 books read in 2024. One new category emerged on the reading list this year as I read several books on self-management with my sons, who are increasingly focused on professional development early in their careers. Self-management is a category that I have long dismissed but was surprised to find several thoughtful and well-researched books written in the past decade. This book review may be useful for those who are new to the category and early in their careers or, like me, have not recently revisited this category.    

Management has three dimensions: managing oneself, exploiting current assets and exploring future opportunities. Peter Drucker, the leading management thinker of the twentieth century, included a book on self-management in his trilogy The Executive in Action. The Effective Executive on self-management remains equally relevant today as when first written in 1966.

Personal development books are a popular but uneven category that has produced libraries filled with light weight, winsome books expounding on seemingly self-evident topics. Yet Drucker justifies his treatise on self-management noting that executive effectiveness is learned, not innate, and self-management is a prerequisite for managing and leading others.

All benefit from better self-management while only some aspire to leadership. Thus, it is not surprising that self-management books are more widely read than those on leadership. Annual readership of top personal development books is four times higher than top leadership books.

Self-management has multiple aims. Among the books listed in Table 1, several self-management categories emerge. Dale Carnegie launched the self-management field with How to Win Friends and Influence People (#5), which has sold over 80 million books. Four other top-selling books focus on networking and relationships (#6, 14, 16 and 17). Personal productivity is now the most widely read self-management category as the top two books and four of the top eleven (#1, 2, 8, 11) focus on developing good habits. Wisdom follows as the second largest category in which Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow leads a group of five books focused on good decision making (#3, 4, 14, 17, 20). Persistence and perseverance are common themes in several books and the focus of three (#10, 12, 15). In addition to these foundational categories, many books cover skill development in specific areas. I include one here on negotiations (#9, 18).

Table 1: Popular Self-Management Books on Goodreads and Amazon

Among the above books, several have influenced my approach for decades. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People taught me to prioritize important over urgent tasks. Getting to Yes has guided my negotiating strategy since the beginning of my career. Kahneman’s work in behavioral economics has influenced my investing strategy for three decades long before he wrote Thinking, Fast and Slow. Drive influenced my eldest son and I as we read it together when it first appeared as he entered high school. Similarly, Emotional Intelligence balanced IQ nicely as we considered effectiveness at work and in the community.

The self-management category has had several well-researched recent contributions as nearly half the books in Table 1 have been published within the past decade. As we read most of these books together in the past year, there were several I wish were available early in my career. It was useful to review these books together in the past two weeks to see consistent themes that emerged across the genre. We have organized the top ten booklist in the order a new reader may wish to read them. The books discussed early in the list are foundational for topics later in the list.

You may consider this a top ten list by focusing on the headline book in each category or a list of 25 books, including additional books for further reading. This is a live list that may expand or change as new books are published or read. Your comments and additional book recommendations are welcome.

1. Atomic Habits, James Clear

• Why Read It: We are the sum of our habits. Clear offers practical strategies to improve performance by forming and improving good habits.     
• Key Insight: You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Small, incremental (“atomic”) habits compound over time to produce remarkable change. With his Four Laws of Behavior Change: make it obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying – Clear creates a positive feedback loop to inculcate good habits and expunge bad habits. 
• Noteworthy: “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken” (Samuel Johnson). Habits control our lives, often without our permission. That the top two self-management books focus on habits speaks to their power and our desire to form good habits.          
• Further Reading:
  • The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Habits form subconsciously in response to cues and rewards. Willpower can alter behavior only for short periods. To alter routines permanently, Duhigg formulates a ‘keystone habit’: forming habitual responses to new cues or rewarding ourselves for altered behavior in response to established cues.
  • 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey. An early classic on habits. Effective people distinguish between the important and urgent. A to do list is clutter, a not to do list is discipline (Jim Collins). Buffett focuses on the top 5 of his much longer priority list.

2. Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World, William McRaven

• Why Read It: Admiral shares ten life lessons from Navy Seal basic training. A sequel to Atomic Habits as basic training instills habits required for military effectiveness and personal disciplines foundational for leadership.     
• Key Message: Start each day with a task completed. Find someone to help you through life. Respect everyone. Measure people by the size of their heart. Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often. But if you take risks, step up when times are tough, lift the downtrodden, and never give up— then you can change your life for the better… and maybe the world. 
• Noteworthy: Expansion of speech watched over 50M times. See YouTube. Military and business books risk oversimplifying with exuberant checklists. McRaven shares clarion, uplifting messages but acknowledges the hard thing about hard things.
• Further Reading:
  • Grit by Angela Duckworth. Complements McRaven as ‘Grit Score’ predicts who survives basic training. Grit measures effort, passion and perseverance. A ‘Growth Mindset,’ the belief that ability emerges from effort and learning, is essential for cultivating grit. Grit ‘counts twice’ toward success: Talent x Effort = Skill and Skill x Effort = Achievement.
  • Drive by Daniel Pink. Intrinsic motivation is more sustainable than a system of rewards and punishments. The key elements of intrinsic motivation are autonomy, mastery and purpose. The military builds a sense of purpose over time after basic training.

3. Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman

• Why Read It: Introduces the role of emotional intelligence (EI) which often surpasses IQ in determining personal and professional success.        
• Key Insights: The emotional brain existed long before the rational one and can overtake reason. Emotional intelligence involves knowing both yourself and others. Ability to read nonverbal cues, which is 90% of emotional messaging, makes one more popular, outgoing and a better manager. Optimism is a great motivator enabling persistence and grit. Flow state harnesses emotions to improve performance and learning.   
• Noteworthy: Generals and coaches illustrate the value of emotional intelligence instilling loyalty, motivation and high performance. The “Prudent Man” investing principle emphasizes reason, yet biases are rooted in emotions – Goleman silent on this. Read alongside Kahneman and Duhigg.
• Further Reading: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Bradberry and Greaves. A practical, hands-on guide helping to improve EI in four core areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Less theoretical than Goleman.

4. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie

• Why Read It: Presents 30 timeless principles on how to win friends, instill loyalty and motivate people. With 30+ million copies sold, Carnegie created the personal development category. Carnegie offers Emotional Intelligence in action.      
• Key Insight: The greatest gift is the ability to arouse support and enthusiasm from people. Carnegie’s formula, which has worked for a century, is to sincerely appreciate and praise others, be a good listener, appeal to their nobler motives, sympathize with their ideas, avoid criticism.
• Noteworthy: Updated in 2022, the book doubles as a history lesson with examples from Presidents Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson and Roosevelt; business leaders Carnegie, Schwab and Wanamaker; and artists Charles Dickens and HG Wells.        
• Further Reading:
  • Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. Current rendition of Carnegie in networking today. Success is built through collaboration and connections Be proactive, host events, help others, follow up and stay connected, build an authentic, clear personal brand.
  • On Brand by Aliza Licht. Guide to building an online brand from the DKNY PR GIRL. Includes exercises to shape your narrative with pro tips in online marketing.

5. Hidden Potential, Adam Grant

• Why Read It: Potential is not fixed but can be developed through deliberate practice, embracing discomfort, and fostering a growth-oriented environment. Like deliberate practice, Hall of Fame baseballer Cal Ripken said, “perfect practice makes perfect.”  
• Key Insight: Become a freak of nurture, not nature. Redefining success as personal growth encourages uncomfortable learning – improving faster through experimentation and failure.
• Noteworthy: A tolerance for failure is essential for innovation. Failing fast, early and often promotes adaptability and improvement. Grant wrote two top-selling books (see also #7). 
• Further Reading: Grit by Angela Duckworth (see also #2). Her growth mindset parallels his emphasis on character over innate talent.     

6. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein

• Why Read It: Illustrates the advantages of being a generalist in a specialized world through examples ranging from sports to innovators.   
• Key Insights: Polymaths, or T-Shaped individuals, who combine breadth with expertise in one area perform best over time. Teams of generalists and specialists outperform expert teams. Inventors increase creative impact with knowledge from different domains. Serial entrepreneurs are ‘professional outsiders’ – seeing problems from outside the box. Not Invented Here syndrome: experts can become so narrow-minded that they get worse with experience, even while becoming more confident—a dangerous combination.
• Reflection: Artificial intelligence erodes benefits of specialization. In Moravec’s paradox, machines and humans have opposite strengths and weaknesses. Our greatest strength is our ability to integrate broadly. Augmented intelligence combines human breadth and AI depth. 
• Further Reading: See The Mosaic Principle by Nick Lovegrove, who advocates for both breadth and depth within the business context.  The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance was a go-to guide when raising young children and remains close on the bookshelf.     

7. Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

• Why Read It: Nobel laureate Kahneman founded behavioral economics. His strategies to improve decision making despite bounded rationality and endemic cognitive biases apply to any leader, entrepreneur, manager or person in their daily lives.
• Key Insight: Understanding two modes of thinking – fast, intuitive responses and slow deliberate thinking – helps leaders make better business decisions.  
• Noteworthy: In his Nobel acceptance speech, Kahneman mourned the loss of his intellectual partner Tversky. Their book Choices, Values and Frames more deeply explores the foundations of behavioral economics and showcases their work together over three decades. Thinking, Fast and Slow is an instant classic as it builds on their work since 1971. 
• Further Reading:
  • Think Again by Adam Grant. In a turbulent world, wisdom requires mental plasticity to rethink and unlearn is a vital cognitive skill. Conviction trumps the discomfort of doubt yet calcified ideologies tear societies apart.   
  • Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock. The Good Judgment Project found those who continuously revise forecasts based on new information outperform experts. Teams of generalists and experts outperform expert teams by synthesizing breadth and depth.     

8. Deep Work, Cal Newport

• Why Read It: Advocates focused, undistracted work in an age of distraction, improving productivity and mastery in creative fields. In an innovation driven economy, the ability to focus deeply is increasingly rare but highly valuable.    
• Key Insight: Mastering deep work allows one to learn complex skills and produce exceptional results in less time. To master deep work, (1) create rituals that reinforce focus; (2) embrace downtime; (3) quit social media; and (4) prioritize deep work over shallow tasks. 
• Noteworthy: In a flow state, productivity increases over several hours. Productivity declines quickly in shallow work. Mastering deep work is about achieving and maintaining a flow state.
• Further Reading: Quiet by Susan Cain is a tribute to introverts, who think deeply enabling creativity and exceptional results in areas requiring thoughtfulness an persistence.        

9. Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss

• Why Read It: Practical negotiation strategies based on Voss’s experience as an FBI hostage negotiator. Negotiations are often essential to get what we want and achieve our full potential.
• Key Insights: Countering traditional negotiation theory, uses active listening with open ended questions to identify and influence emotions. Welcomes ‘No’ as start for negotiations and source of information. Avoids compromise focusing on creative solutions that meet both sides’ needs.
• Noteworthy: People make emotional decisions then justify them with logic. Understanding and influencing emotions is key to successful negotiation. Refers to EI (#3) and latent biases (#7).
• Further Reading: Getting to Yes by Fisher & Ury. Groundbreaking treatise from Harvard. Rational approach separates emotions from the problem. Focus on interests to cooperatively generate win-win solutions. BATNA – best alternative to no agreement. ZOPA – zone of possible agreement based on reserve prices of both sides. Voss praises book but eviscerates its approach.    

10. Visual Intelligence, Amy Herman

• Why Read It: Sharpens readers’ observation, analytical and communication skills to help make better decisions.    
• Key Insight: Seeing is not the same as observing. We see things differently even when looking at the same picture. Art of Observation: slow down and notice subtle details to assess critically and avoid biases. Effective Communication: use precise language to describe observations without adding interpretations. Connect the Dots: synthesize data, draw conclusions based on evidence.   
• Noteworthy: Art historian Amy Herman has led training programs for the FBI, Department of Defense, State Department and Fortune 500 companies. At NGP Capital, Amy showed a picture in which half saw a blue dress, the other half a yellow dress. Perceptions differ, reinforcing the need to explain fully ideas and probe further to better understand others.