Extreme Ownership | Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin share hard-hitting, Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life. I have read an updated edition of the blockbuster bestselling leadership book that took America and the world by storm, two U.S. Navy SEAL officers who led the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War demonstrate how to apply powerful leadership principles from the battlefield to business and life.

It is a great read of the lessons on the battlefield and how they can be applied to everyday business efforts.

Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed "all but lost." In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three's Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.

Below you may find out my key take-aways from each part of this book. I hope you will enjoy and learn from my highlights.

The First 90 Days | Michael Watkins

"The First 90 Days" was a book that I was planning to read for a long while but I especially postponed it till I become a "manager". Just after learning that I got that title, I directly downloaded the e-book and read it. It includes many tactics for the first 90 days during your onboarding. Here are my highlights from the book:

The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself; you get 90. The actions you take during your first few months in a new role will largely determine whether you succeed or fail.

Transitions into new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of leaders.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time | Jack Covert, Todd Sattersten

Sometimes you prefer to gain the knowledge/know-how in a zipped format. This is a book that you look for: "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time". What I liked most in this book is it provides summaries for a hundred business books and also provides comments on the main messages of these books. Here are my highlights from this book:

Productivity comes from a quiet state of mental being.

Despite most people’s declaration that there is just not enough time in the day, time is not the issue; clarifying the actions needed is where people fall down.

Three common time sponges that need to be considered include: doing things that don’t need to be done, doing things that could be better done by others, and doing things that require others to do unnecessary things.

Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time

Effectiveness is, after all, not a ‘subject,’ but a self-discipline.

“I used to think life presented a five-page menu of choices. Now I think the choice is in whether to be honest, to ourselves and others, and the rest is more of an uncovering, a peeling away of layers, discovering talents we assumed we didn’t have.”

“The President Gets 100 Days to Prove Himself—You Get 90.”

How to Win Friends and Influence People | Dale Carnegie

Bernard Shaw once remarked: ‘If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.’ Shaw was right. Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity. If you don’t you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

It takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.

Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, at three hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft manoeuvring he managed to land the plane, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt. Hoover’s first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the aeroplane’s fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fuelled with jet fuel rather than gasoline. Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his aeroplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the loss of three lives as well. You can imagine Hoover’s anger. One could anticipate the tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn’t scold the mechanic; he didn’t even criticise him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man’s shoulder and said, ‘To show you I’m sure that you’ll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.

Creativity, Inc. | Ed Catmull

Great Management Tips from The Book Creativity, Inc.

I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay

Rather than trying to prevent all errors, we should assume, as is almost always the case, that our people’s intentions are good and that they want to solve problems. Give them responsibility, let the mistakes happen, and let people fix them. If there is fear, there is a reason—our job is to find the reason and to remedy it. Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the ability to recover.

The closing took place on a Monday morning in February 1986, and the mood in the room was decidedly muted because everyone was so worn out by the negotiations. After we signed our names, Steve pulled Alvy and me aside, put his arms around us and said, “Whatever happens, we have to be loyal to each other.”