Aaron U. Bolin, Ph.D.

Blah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't Work by Dan Roam (List Price: $29.95; 2011 Portfolio/Penguin) This book actually delivers on the title promise. Dan Roam provides an application-oriented structure to turn weakly-presented ideas into really elegant communication tools. If you've read the Back of the Napkin  or Beyond the Back of the Napkin , then you'll recognize his engaging style that mixes text with oddly compelling simple drawings. In Blah Blah Blah, he extends his earlier work and reinforces the same basic message: words go better with pictures. I am a fan, and I really liked the overall book. In terms of criticism, the presentation felt a little padded in some parts -- saying in 5 pages what could be said in 5 words. I also missed the exercises that Roam included in his other volumes. In this book, readers are more passive; the text was less interactive. This book would be useful to anyone who routinely presents information: teachers, executives, stu

The Primes: How Any Group Can Solve Any Problem by Chris McGoff (List Price: $29.95; 2012 Wiley). Would you pay for a list of generalities that described the way groups operate? Groups sometimes need a leader. Groups sometimes must choose between competing priorities. Groups sometimes experience interpersonal conflict. If such a list of generalities is useful to you, then The Primes delivers. If, on the other hand, you want practical and application-oriented instruction in group problem solving, then The Primes misses the mark. Don't get me wrong, Chris McGoff's commentary on his list of group generalities is very insightful. His accompanying pictographs adds real value to the discussion. I liked the book, but I am struggling a little bit with who would benefit from reading it. For a very experienced change practitioner, I think The Primes would be useful as a way to stimulate thought and reflection. I think most other audiences would find that the book does not deliver o

I had the opportunity to attend an executive leadership conference recently as a fly-on-the-wall. That is, I was not a participant, but I was present for the extended discussions. From those discussions, I culled the following quoted words of executive wisdom. 1. Truth has a date-time stamp. Shared as an explanation of why direction and guidance from leadership sometimes change. Implication: get over it and get on with it. 2. The ball that you stop looking at is the one you drop first. Shared as a counter to a request from subordinates to identify what the priorities are (and thereby eliminate non-priority tasks). Implication: tactical priorities are not static. 3. Better is the enemy of good enough. Shared as a counter to the suggestion that a plan should not be executed until perfected. Implication: waiting for a perfect plan kills momentum; it is better to move forward with a partial solution now. 4. Slow down to go fast. Shared as a counter prem

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers by Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Oglivie (List Price: $29.95; 2011 Columbia Business School Publishing). My expectations for this book were quite high -- I wanted the promised thinking tool kit for managers in a fun-to-read package as advertised in the book title. I was a little disappointed. It is a good read, and the authors did a nice job of making the book visually compelling. I was disappointed in the depth of the content though. The authors presented what I felt was a very surface-level explanation of the design process. The primary "tool" was a phased approach to design that separated creativity from concept development from sales pitch: not exactly a revolutionary design strategy. I am struggling a little bit with the question "who would I recommend the book to?" It is generally well-written, and the illustrative stories are also kind of interesting. In all fairness, some of the organizing outlines