Michael N. Dundas

I was recently given via Michael Hyatt at Thomas Nelson Publishing a copy of the book Derailed.  The book was written by Tim Irwin.  In the book, Tim discusses what he feels are the reasons why leaders fail as leaders and gives insight into how to avoid these situations.

The first part of the book profiles 6 CEOs of major companies that failed as leaders.   Each leader is analyzed and what Tim feels are their weaknesses and the reasons why they were asked to resign from their position.  While one can argue that the opinions are subjective (and they are), I found his rational to be sounds and made sense.  Regardless of the subjectivity, anyone can learn from the mistakes of these profiled individuals and help themselves be a better leader.  I found myself identifying with the character flaws of these individuals.  I have seen them in many people I have worked with and even myself at times.

The rest of the book discusses the derailment process.  Finally, based on the profiles and the derailment process, Tim Irwin identifies and discusses five lessons that can be learned by anyone in a leadership role and ways to implement these lessons and keep yourself ‘in check’ as a leader.

I found Derailed extremely valuable for myself.  It was well worth the time to read and would suggest it to really anyone that interacts with other people at work.  Although the book profiles CEOs of large organizations, it is very applicable to anyone, even those not in an ‘official’ leadership position.

This is my first book review, so please bare with me as I learn and improve.  For anyone that views this blog, it has nothing to do with networks, security and is not technical.   In reviewing the book, I agreed to post a review on my blog.  I have also posted it on Amazon.

The X and Y of buy attempts to explain how male and females are different in the way they think and feel and how this affects companies ability to sell if they are not aware of and adjust their marketing and selling strategies to these differences.  The book is divided into 2 main parts.  The first part explains these differences and offers reasons for these differences.  Then using the information on the differences used by males and females to make decision in part I, Part II takes you though how to sell to male and females.  It outlines a 6 step process, as well as some typical sales scenarios. In each phase it gives pointers and steps to use for each gender.

While I liked the first part of the book, I found it to be too black and white.  For example, one concept was the men prioritize and women synthesize.  While it offers reasoning for it’s statements using Paul MacLean’s triune brain theory, this is but one explanation.  While I found some of the concepts in the book to be very useful, I do not believe that male and females are as black and white as this book professes.

If you are looking for a quick book to give you some theories and logic as to how genders make decisions and apply them and are not interested in the many variations that may occur in males and females this book is for you.  If however, you want to dive deeper into how to market and sell to genders this book is merely a very quick introduction.