Very actionable. I liked the format of the book being a progression of realistic scenarios building on top of each other and the research insights as the book unfolds.
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February 2026
If a nuclear submarine could gain leadership at all levels by giving control, building competence and achieving organizational clarity, your enterprise has no excuse to continue exploit people in a command & control environment like it's still 1900's.<br/><br/>Great book with inspiring stories, illustrating the leader-leader model step by step. Highly recommended to read for people who are in charge of other people, as well as people who have other people in charge of them.
Awesome introduction to systems theory. The book is well structured, containing definitions, introductions of system parts and patterns, principles, and ways of approaching systems change. Author's approach is holistic, rather than mechanistic, and examples are interesting and engaging.
Warning: this review is based on the pre-released leanpub version of the book with some chapters still missing. I'll check out the released version and update my review when it's ready.<br/><br/>I'd rather gave the book 5 stars as its subject is indeed relevant and its ideas appeal very much to my agile and lean taste. This book will definitely help you approach software architecture in a lightweight manner avoiding rework in the near future, analysis paralysis and big design upfront. I highly recommend it to anyone working in software development.<br/><br/>I gave the book only 3 stars though because I didn't like 2 major points about the way those ideas are delivered.<br/><br/>First, the book is a series of essays. Though they are logically ordered, I missed the storyline throughout the book. I know it's a non-fiction, but the book in my opinion is too much about making the case for the method it presents, rather than actually describing and guiding the reader through the method. Essays also contain a lot of repetition, I've encountered some passages like three or four times in the book.<br/><br/>Second, I didn't like how the book tries to position itself against Agile. Though the book actually promotes quick feedback loops, iterative and incremental delivery, it in my opinion misrepresents agile as lacking any design activities. I think how the work stream is managed and what activities it contains is completely orthogonal. That's why the book would appeal much better to me if it focused itself on integrating architecture activities in management practices rather fighting them (it equally fights waterfall to be fair).
Good introduction to how statism contributes to economic and social inequalities with detailed historical and contemporary examples. The core argument that large corporations and wealth accumulation would not be possible without state subsidies made convincing and consistent.<br/><br/>It is a recommended read for anyone thinking that regulation will make the world more just. History shows time and time again how even the best intentions get corrupted in the coercive state system. A particularly nuanced argument made by Kevin Carson is that deregulation (as preached by most free market proponents) can be unjust too if approached without addressing the roots of systemic inequality.<br/><br/>I enjoyed writing style of some of the contributors much more than others. Maybe editors could emphasize readability over originality and academic writing style more.
Personal anecdotes from author's life with his wise advice in the end. I didn't disagree with most of the advice, but it's just not what I expected from the book's title. I would rather title the book "52 things Peter Bergman wants to teach you about life". "4 seconds" was only one chapter of the book, not connected to anything else. Excellent books "Power of Habit" and "Willpower" cover habit forming and transforming with much more structure, in my opinion.
Entertaining and helpful tips. Very hard to follow as an audio book without a visual summary. The Digital Editions companion leaflet wasn't helpful at all.<br/><br/>Probably need to read a paper or ebook version.
Nice, short and concise book describing a simple, but whole leadership model that encompasses five dimensions: leader within, leader in front, leader behind, leader beside, and leader in the field. I liked how Co-Active model emphasizes dynamism of the relationship between Co and Active (called <i>dance in the moment</i>). Co-Active Leadership, in particular, emphasizes continuous shift in balance between five dimensions, when leaders e.g. step in front to create a vision, then immediately step behind and champion others to step up, while constantly sensing the environment and field of energy to tap into their intuition and instinct.<br/><br/>I sometimes struggled to encourage my team members to take ownership and step up into leadership at their level without giving them formal authority. I can see now how I can use Co-Active model to coach them better.