Beach Haven

​Bibliography
Rumsfeld, Donald. 2018. When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, New Delhi: Free Press.

Review by Michael Beach

As one might surmise by the title, this book is Donald Rumsfeld’s homage to Gerald Ford. When I first saw the title, being this was likely a political book, I assumed ‘the center’ was a reference to a centrist political position. That was an incorrect assumption. Gerald Ford played college football in Michigan in his younger days. His position was that of the center. This player hikes the ball to the quarterback, then holds the line of large opponents attempting to get past him to tackle the quarterback.

Rumsfeld recounts Ford’s lifetime of service in the military and in politics. He describes his calm demeaner and plain speaking that some took as weakness, but for Rumsfeld, political players in Ford’s day mistakenly underestimated him.

The culmination of the book, and Gerald Ford’s political career, was about his service as vice-president to Richard Nixon. Ford was not the first vice-president to Nixon. He replaced a scandal-ridden Spiro Agnew. This meant that Gerald Ford was not elected to the position. Nixon also made it clear to Ford that he was not his first pick to replace Agnew. After taking office, the Watergate scandal became widely known and led to Nixon’s resignation. Ford found himself moving from an unelected vice-president, to an unelected president.

One of his first acts was to pardon President Nixon. Rumsfeld recounts the Ford administration policies and the historical fallout. Then he reviews the election where Ford actually ran but lost to Jimmy Carter. Rumsfeld recounts likely reasons for Carter’s win. His obvious assumption is that Ford suffered from guilt by his association with Nixon.

Like any political history work, one should consider the perspective of the author who was a Ford administration insider. He also later served with President George W. Bush.  Despite some reflexive influence on the part of Rumsfeld, for those of us who remember the period, the book rings true. 

Bibliography
​Stark, Peter. 2018. Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America's Founding Father. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

Review by Michael Beach

Like so many who interest themselves in the Revolutionary War period of United States history, I find biographies on the ‘founding fathers’ fascinating. Washington may be considered the quintessential example. In this work, Peter Stark takes the reader through George Washington’s immediate ancestry and his own childhood. The work then transitions through his colonial experiences, his love interests, and his decision to embark on a military career.

In his early military experiences, Stark makes an argument for Washington’s role in reigniting war between England and France. In what is called either The Seven Years War or The French and Indian War, Washington does learn some harsh lessons and is directly involved in a number of battles. Aside from his hardening as a wartime leader, Washington is keenly interested in becoming an officer in the regular British army. Time and again he is snubbed, along with all American militia. When the war ended, he resigned in frustration and begins his career as a plantation owner. This snubbing comes back to haunt the British years later when the future General Washington directly confronts some of his previous peers and superiors as part of the revolution. This particular work does not take us beyond his resignation and settling into Mount Vernon.

Stark shares excerpts of correspondences to, from, and about Washington that give insight into his early mistakes and how he begins to mature. Stark also shares his romantic interest in a married member of the Fairfax family. Eventually he realizes the pointlessness of the pursuit and his relationship with Martha comes into play. Peter Stark makes it clear that it is not so clear about George’s romantic inclinations toward Martha. His motivation may have been as much financial and cultural as romantic. In either case, the two become an early ‘power couple’.

Peter Stark writes this history in an engaging format that keeps the story moving along. I personally take all histories with a grain of salt, but Stark includes a significant number of contemporary sources, including Washington’s own writings. The content rings true and is probably as close to reality as is possible. 
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​Bibliography
Covey, Stephen R. 1990. Principle-Centered Leadership. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore: Simon & Schuster.
 
Review by Michael Beach

This is a follow-on publication to Stephen R. Covey’s 7-Habits work, which I reviewed some time ago. Many of the principles noted in this book were referred to in the earlier work, but here they are the focus and are better organized.

Covey describes alternate life centers as “work, pleasure, friends, enemies, spouse, family, self, church, possessions, money, and so on” (Covey 1990, 21). Our principles will be grounded on our focus. These alternate centers he groups in four areas: security, guidance, wisdom, and power. Our principles influence our life centers and vice versa.

After a brief review of the 7-habits and an explanation of this life-center framework, the rest of the book in general is an expansion of each of the ideas in the framework. He divides the book into two large sections. The first he calls Person and Interpersonal Effectiveness. The second he calls Managerial and Organizational Development. Toward the end of the second section he reviews another popular framework known as Total Quality Management (TQM). One prominent author of this movement was W. Edwards Deming. Covey maps Deming’s '14 points' of TQM onto his 7 habits and his principles framework. This book is a useful companion to Covey’s earlier work, and as before, includes practical examples from different parts of life, not exclusively business.

Bibliography
​Weintraub, S. (2014). A Christmas Far from Home: An Epic Tale of Courage and Survival During the Korean War. Boston: Da Capo Press.
 
Review by Michael Beach

The Korean War was my father’s war. To be honest, it's a war I personally know little about. To be technical, the political powers of the west didn’t want to call it a war to avoid what inevitably happened, involvement by China. Instead, they called it a ‘police action’ that involved countries that signed on as United Nations forces. In this book, Stanley Weintraub looks at the beginning engagements, the rout of American forces from the Chosin reservoir, and the military leadership decisions that seemed to bungle the whole thing.

It was late fall in Korea and the weather was turning cold. General Douglas MacArthur (yes, the one from WWII) was in charge of all the forces in Asia. He conducted Korean operations from a comfortable hotel suite and offices in Tokyo. At first, spirits were high in his offices, and initially with troops on the ground as well. Everyone heard that the whole thing will be over by Christmas. The armies of North Korea seemed to be a pushover. There was no reason to think the Chinese would involve themselves. Unfortunately, there was plenty of intelligence to the opposite. The intelligence was ignored. The result was that American troops pushed north toward the Yalu River with little resistance, then found themselves nearly encircled by Chinese regulars and plummeting temperatures.

Weintraub’s work is a combination of historical facts about what happened, and editorial perspective on why things went the way they did. His descriptions of the war that wasn’t a war, the first war America didn’t win, are well written. The reader can see the whole thing play out both from the perspective of generals who rarely joined the ground troops, to the forces themselves dodging death as they made their way back from the Yalu to the relative safety south. The reader gets both the grit of up-close warfare, and the confusion and assumptions at upper levels that reflected an 'alternate reality’ as events unfolded.

Bibliography
Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore: Simon & Schuster.

Review by Michael Beach
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First, I find it interesting that I read this book at what is likely the winding down of my professional career. I had always assumed it was targeted at professionals seeking ways to improve their work performance. It is true that much of what is discussed incorporates ways to be better at our jobs. What I had not known is that many examples used to explain the habits are also depicted in non-work environments such as within the family or other groups (communities) we interact with every day. In later editions the subtitle changes from ‘Restoring the Character Ethic’ to ‘Powerful Lessons in Personal Change’. The later subtitled version includes a 3rd-person forward and some updated appendices from the author’s son.

In describing the seven habits, Stephen Covey often shares personal experiences within his immediate family. He shares early feedback as the ideas in this book formed over time through published academic papers or professional coaching presentations were critiqued by his consumers. In this way, Covey takes the reader along with his own learning journey.

Each of the habits has its own chapter. The habits make up the chapter titles (there are additional contextual chapters before and after), and are described in a command format. They are: Be Proactive; Begin With the End in Mind; Put First Things First; Think Win/Win; Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood; Synergize; Sharpen the Saw. If the reader recognizes some of these, Covey acknowledges these ideas are not unique to him. He sees himself as a consolidator of ideas. It’s also true that the popularity of this particular Covey work has caused some of these titles to work their way into common speech, even if those who quote them have never read this, or any other Covey book. 
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Payne, Stanley G., and Jesus Palacios. 2014. Franco: A Personal and Political Biography. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Francisco Franco rose to power just prior to World War II. He became a de facto dictator in Spain until his death in 1975. His rule was nationalist, and took on the trappings of Hitler’s Nazi party, but instead of exterminating Jews, Spain under Franco protected them. Spain did not become engaged in Hitler’s European war at any scale. Hitler sent little help to Spain, and Spain committed few troops to Hitler’s campaigns. In a way, the two nationalist governments kept out of each other’s way.
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Franco came up through the military ranks quicker than his peers. When political strife that led to the Spanish civil war intensified, his extended family were on both sides. His brother was a famous military pilot but became anti-regal or pro-socialist during the civil war. Francisco Franco remained loyal to the traditional government, then the republican leadership until it began to crumble just before the civil war began.

As the title implies, there is much of the public biographical history shared by the authors. In addition, they include many details documented by various Franco family members and associates. At times, he drives history. At other times he is driven by the greater society and events surrounding him. Like many national leaders, his ideas and actions are both enigmatic, and change over time. 

​OVERCOMING THE FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM      
By Patrick Lencioni
Jossey-Bass, 2005, 155 pages

​ 
This book is a companion to one I commented on earlier. The original was about the author’s definition of the dysfunctions and how to identify them. This book is full of specific tools to help teams improve in problem areas once identified. The subtitle is A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators.
 
Most of the tools assume the team take part first in an assessment tool such as the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. Though that specific approach is not required, the author often suggests a team could use another tool, yet it is clear the exercises lined out are designed with the Myers-Briggs approach in mind. There are tools and activities that can be used without taking any such assessments, but these are limited.
 
The book offers exercises that can be done within a team and require no outside facilitator. After reading through them, it seems best to use someone external to the team with the experience to run the activities. Over the years I’ve sat through a number of similar approaches and tend to agree with the author on use of a facilitator. At the same time, I wonder how useful these sort of activities can be. As noted in many places, success requires full buy-in by the leader and all participants. That’s difficult to achieve. The other obstacle is the need to revisit regularly on the topic or it can be one of those things discussed in the past and not fully implemented. The ideas have to become how the group thinks, not just something the group does.
 
Despite the challenges to making these practically apply, the book gives some good insights to how we think individually and as a group. Teams would do well to consider using this approach with the earlier caveats in mind. I’ve used a few of the tools with my team at work in a less-overt way and have seen some positive results. 

THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE
By Tracy Kidder
Back Bay Books, 2000, 293 pages

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The work is a tale of an upstart computer company taking on the big boys. Specifically, in the early 1980s Data General Corp (DGC) created a minicomputer as the market was just taking off. Giant IBM was left in the lurch as they concentrated on large-scale super-computers. This book traces the conception, design and build of the Eclipse model (internally called the Eagle). Kidder also speaks to the technology that led to the possibility of a minicomputer, the microchip.

Internal politics, the cult of personality, and subterfuge are just a few of the story lines traced in this work. Just as fascinating is what happens after the model becomes a hit. Sales and Marketing take over and the engineers based in Massachusetts who created the asset suddenly have no direction in their careers. Along the way there is an interesting combination of cooperation and competition between the hardware chip designers, and the micro-code firmware writers. Aside from this mini-competition, and the strategic competition with the likes of IBM, there is an intermediate layer race as well. An entirely different group of engineers at DGC in South Carolina were working on a different model. The other group was well funded while the Eagle group were scraped together by a few tenacious leaders.

​The work is a fascinating look into an industry and culture most of us only vaguely aware of. Despite how much technology is discussed, Kidder is able to make it understandable for the rest of us.

​​THE FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM
By Patrick Lencioni
Jossey-Bass, 2002, 229 pages
​Reviewed by Michael Beach
 
The work, subtitled A Leadership Fable, uses a fictitious company CEO replacement based on poor company performance to show common leadership issues. The new CEO brings in a fresh approach to how strategic decisions will be made going forward. Some of the leadership adjust, some don’t. Those that can’t adjust to the new approach leave, or are asked to leave.
 
The dysfunctions center on trust and honesty among members of the C-suite. They are depicted as a pyramid. The list starting from the bottom of the pyramid and ascending to the top are: Absence of Trust, Fear of Conflict, Lack of Commitment, Avoidance of Accountability, and Inattention to Results. Lencioni makes the argument that each item in the pyramid links to, or fosters, the one just above it. The “fable” depicts attitudes, reactions, and interactions among the various C-team members and the positive and negative effects that result.
 
The last section of the book gives some suggested ways to approach the five dysfunctions. There is a follow on volume that more deeply addresses how to overcome them. That’ll likely be a future read for me.