This is the first Simon Sinek book I’ve read. His stuff has been on my mental to do list for a long time, but never seemed to get to the top until now. This is about a book about how employee happiness and trust in their management directly results in better outcomes for employers, and how the best way to create happy employees is via mutual trust and empathy. In fact the book goes further and outright states that staying in a job that makes you unhappy, even if it also makes you feel safe, is bad for your health and eventually your life expectancy. I haven’t seen this stayed quite this clearly before and the book wastes no time in making this point.
Leaders Eat Last also has a section on the various chemicals in our brains and how they guide our behaviour. I felt specifically called out by this quote on the addictive nature of social media and how it interacts with our dopamine levels:
…if you wake up in the morning and the first thing you crave is a drink, you might be an alcoholic. If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is check your phone to read email or scan your social media before you’re even out of bed, you might be an addict.
How very aligned with Digital Minimalism. Now in my defense, the first thing I check in the morning is the state of outstanding GitHub pull requests so I guess I’m not a social media addict?
The book describes a variety of businesses who have tried to take the needs of employees into account, both when times were good and when they were bad. It also describes the history of layoffs becoming common practice in the 1980s, which I thought was timely given my previous recent reading about GE (here and here). Sinek argues that treating employees poorly has become more prevalent at least partially because a senior leader’s relationship with employees is abstracted — numbers on a screen, not actual living and breathing humans. Sinek asserts that the Dunbar number (about 150 people) is the magic size for an organization to function effectively because everyone can know everyone else.
I like how the book is also balanced with stories of organizations where leaders failed to build a trusting environment, although using Saddam Hussein as an example might be perhaps a bit extreme. Merryl Lynch on the other hand is definitely a telling anecdote.
Now, is this book a helpful read in this era of massive tech layoffs? Well, that’s harder. Certainly the book is good at outlining what is wrong with our corporations and what might be done to fix things, but on the other hand for the average worker these things are entirely outside their control and the book serves to reinforce that things are deeply broken in a way in which they’re unlikely to be fixed in the foreseeable future. So, if you’re seeking to understand how we got here and how we might get to a better place, this book is helpful. On the other hand if you’re looking to be cheered up, then not so much.
The book also has an ongoing thread around the difference in various generations’ responses to the workplace. While pigeon holing generations based on stereotypes of their behaviour might be common, I think the book does a reasonable, if not perfect, job at being fair. That said, if I was a boomer I think I’d be pretty upset at how scathing the book is about many of the decisions that boomer leaders made in the 1980s that are now causing us so much pain — the embracing of layoffs is just one, deregulation in the pursuit of quick profits is another. The version of the book I read has an expanded chapter on how to best lead millennials in the workplace, with a large element of digital detox through in for good measure.
Overall I think I’d say while the argument is compelling, the presentation in this book isn’t as good as some of the other business books I’ve read recently. The book relies heavily on anecdotes about the US military, which while relevant feel a little two dimensional compared to the discussion of corporate examples. That said, this is a book worth reading if you’re interested in the topic area.
Biography & Autobiography
Penguin Books
2017
350
Leaders eat last : why some teams pull together and others don't is the much anticipated sequel to the global best seller, start with why by Simon Sinek. This book talks about how great leaders sacrifice their own comfort for the good of those in their care. With the help of numerous intriguing examples, the author attempts to prove that the best organisations foster trust and cooperation. As the author points out, this book is not a management theory, but it actually a biological one. Individuals thrive only when they feel safe among a group.