My 2020 Reads So Far…

In this article, I reflect on the books that I have read in 2020 or currently reading. I strongly believe that reading is the most fundamental way we can conceptualize new ideas or simply become better thinkers. So far, I have only read seven books which are very few, but I have always believed that quality matters and not quantity.

We need to read better instead of reading more but I am certain I could be on my tenth read if not for other work and personal commitments.

So which books have I read or currently reading? What are the definitive lessons I have learnt? And what are some of the compelling insights, arguments or opinions that they bear? I have excerpted most of the insights, arguments and opinions for purposes of originality.

“How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves from the Board to the Boardroom” by Garry Kasparov

I picked Garry Kasparov’s text since I needed to start the year on a high note; to reflect on personal and professional goals and ambitions. Kasparov is a Russian chess grand-master and regarded as the greatest chess player of all time. Additionally, he is a writer and political activist in Russia.

I love reading books authored by former players or coaches since sports offers insightful lessons on organization of teams, formulation of strategies, execution of plans, and significance of discipline and personality in winning. I also enjoy playing chess and related the game’s concepts to Kasparov’s thoughts.

What are some of the insights or lessons from Kasparov’s book?

“Aggressiveness is as much of an asset in politics, business, and other walks of life as it is in chess.”

“Every leader in every field, every successful company or individual, got to the top by working harder and focusing better than someone else.”

“Every step, every reaction, every decision you make, must be done with a clear objective.”

“Self-awareness is essential to being able to combine your knowledge, experience and talent to reach your peak performance.”

“If critics and competitors can’t match your results, they will often denigrate the way you achieve them.”

“As a politician I know that there is always a time and place for diplomacy, but I also know that you win more often when you negotiate from a position of strength. And sometimes that means playing the aggressor.”

It’s an insightful read especially for individuals who know how to play chess.

“The Company of the Future: Meeting the management challenges of the communications revolution” by Frances Cairncross.

Frances Cairncross is a British economist, journalist and academic. She previously headed Exeter College, University of Oxford, and was an economic columnist for 13 years at The Guardian and spent 20 years as a senior editor at The Economist magazine.

This book is a definitive guide to some of the fundamental management practices in a world that is rapidly changing as a result of technological development. Cairncross offers insights on how organizations can weather the storms of communication technology.

Cairncross outlines the “Ten Rules for Survival” in an era where disruptions occasioned by technology are rife.

1. Manage knowledge

“A company is the sum of what its people understand and know how to do well.”

“Getting intelligent people to share what is in their heads is vital, and takes more than mere money or clever software.”

“Ideas must flow sideways through a company and from the bottom up – not merely top down.

2. Make decisions

“Good judgment will remain a key skill. Managers constantly blitzed with new information require strong nerves if they are to build in the data that matters and set aside the rest.”

“Managers must accept that it is sometimes better to be roughly right than exactly wrong.”

“…a decision must be not just financially right, but ethically defensible too.”

3. Focus on customers

“Customers matter – but some matter more than others.”

4. Manage talent

“Like its customers, some of a company’s people matter more than others. That does not apply only to people at the top: Managing talent is also about capturing ideas from middle managers and those further down the line.”

5. Manage collaboration

“Teams may be separated by time zone or by geographic distance and increasingly will work for different employers. Effective collaboration between teams and between companies calls for similar qualities: trust and shared understanding, rather than the top-down, command-and-control approach of hierarchical structures.”

6. Build the right structure

“As costs of handling information in a company decline, so new opportunities open for redefining corporate shape. In general, companies will be less hierarchical, more modular, with more ways to arrange and rearrange structure.”

7. Manage communications

“Given the pace of change, bosses need more than ever to be able to communicate persuasively through many channels, with their staff and the outside world. They must also listen: The most valuable communications will frequently be bottom-up, and the folk nearest to the customer and the product now have new tools for explaining what they see.”

8. Set standards

“Ironically, Internet technologies, tools of freedom and decentralization, call for discipline, protocols, and standard processes.”

9. Foster openness

“Once standards have been set, then openness and freedom should reign. Discipline and openness are two sides of the same coin: Centralization of standards makes possible decentralization of decision making.”

10. Develop leadership

“Without the right organizational structure, culture, and staff, a company will not fully benefit from even the most sophisticated technology.”

“At some points in a company’s life, it will need a hero-leader who can rally staff to push through the trauma of disruptive change. At other times, the right style will be the manager-as-coach, a selfless talent scout who specializes in assembling and motivating great teams.”

“Always, the people at the top will set the tone in a firm. Their skills will determine whether it is a good company to work in and do business with.”

This is an effective read for organizational leaders and managers.

“Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy” by Noam Chomsky with David Barsamian.

Noam Chomsky is one of the world’s most formidable intellectuals. He is a linguist, philosopher, historian and political activist. David Barsamian is a radio broadcaster and writer.

This book is a collection of conversations between Chomsky and Barsamian and reflects on the continuous rise of imperialism and decline of democracy across the world.

What are some of the insights?

“The technology is available. You can use it for making money, and you can use it for controlling people’s attitudes and beliefs, directing them toward what you want them to do. So they do.”

“In Iraq, it was clear that the United States was basically defeated. Its war aims were unrealizable, and the Bush administration was starting to pull out. In Afghanistan, Obama actually expanded the war in the hope of achieving some kind of victory. It didn’t happen.”

“Why is the state executive granted the authority to capriciously decide you’re a terrorist? Why does the state have the right to say that Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, which they insisted on until just a couple of years ago? Why do they have the right to say, as Ronald Reagan did in 1982, that Saddam Hussein isn’t a terrorist, just because the U.S. government wanted to give him aid?”

“The basic principle was enunciated by the president of the Continental Congress, John Jay, later the first chief justice of the (U.S) Supreme Court. He said, “Those who own the country ought to govern it.” Or as (James) Madison put it, power has to be in the hands of the wealth of the nation, the more responsible set of men who sympathize with property owners and understand that you have “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” The rest of the population has to be tamed to make sure they can’t do very much.”

“The three countries that are most supportive of Israel are the United States, Australia, and Canada – all settler-colonial societies that virtually exterminated their indigenous populations. What Israel is doing (in Palestine) seems quite consistent with their own national images.”

“And Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were supporters of apartheid right to the end. In fact, Reagan was supporting terrorist groups in Angola – UNITA was essentially a terrorist gang…”

“…the ANC, the African National Congress, was condemned by the United States in 1988 – almost at the end of apartheid – as one of the “more notorious” terrorist groups in the world. That was shortly before Mandela was released. In fact, Mandela himself stayed on the terrorist list until 2008. It took special legislation in Congress to get him off it.”

“Imperialism basically means domination of others, and it takes many different forms. It can take the form of overt rule over the natives. It can take the form of settler colonialism, the worst kind, where you drive out the natives and replace them. There are other forms, too, such as economic domination. Take the so-called free-trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Uruguay Round of the World Trade Organization, the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. These have nothing much to do with trade, despite the name; they are largely investor-rights agreements. They give multinational corporations and investors substantial control over the resources, policies, and actions of other countries.”

This is a book worth reading especially if one seeks to gain an understanding of how the world operates.

“A Leap Into the Future: A Vision for Kenya’s Socio-political and Economic Transformation” by Anyang’ Nyong’o.

The good old professor and a renowned political scientist in Africa and currently serves as the second Governor of Kisumu County. He played an instrumental role in Kenya’s second liberation and formation of the NARC coalition that drove KANU out of power.

This book is a collection of his essays, articles and presentations. It is rich in Kenya’s political and economic history and economic recovery post-KANU regime. What are some of the insights?

“Lee Kwan Yew, then a senior cabinet minister in Singapore, after his retirement from being Premier and founding father of the nation, had just given us a lecture on “What Singapore Can Learn from Africa and What Africa Can Learn from Singapore.” At question time I asked him whether he could explain to us why Singapore was able to take off and become a modern developed nation from the late sixties while we, who were at that time at the same level with them, retrogressed. Then came the old man’s wisdom in reply to my question: “While we in Singapore decided to march forward together as a nation, you in Kenya decided to assassinate Tom Mboya.” What Lee Kwan Yew meant to convey to us was that leadership matters in development, particularly leaders with clear ideas and vision about the future of their nation, those who can fix their eyes on some distant star that guides their action towards clear developmental goals.”

“Creating wealth for the few without creating employment for the masses would not lead to a full recovery process for purposes of kick-starting sustainable growth. Such jobless growth models are many in developing economies, and Kenya would not be the first to try economic recovery through the easy way of a growing GDP without the requisite creation of jobs. Tough political choices needed to be made to meet the objectives of the recovery strategy, i.e. wealth as well as employment creation.”

“Empowerment does not simply mean being appointed to a position – although representation is a major aspect of the empowerment process: it essentially means making people have their destiny in their own hands as much as possible.”

“Thus, the Ndegwa Commission of 1972 that allowed Kenyan civil servants to engage in business provided a big loophole for corruption in Kenya. It was indeed after the Ndegwa Commission Report that corruption in public offices started to escalate.”

“Let it not be said that corruption is a uniquely African disease, now would it be correct to assert that it is an affliction of post-independence Africa. The white settlers in colonial Kenya made their fortunes through corruption. Without cheating in collusion with colonial officials, stealing from the coffers of the colony, appropriating land for which they paid next to nothing, sucking of the blood of poor peasants for labour not paid for and literally getting public transport for free for their farm products, the Blundells and Delameres of colonial Kenya would not have built their fortunes and “moved to better things” when the nationalists finally took over political power.”

“Thus, when KPU cited corruption as one of the ways by which KANU misruled Kenya, Kenyatta chided Kaggia in that famous speech at a rally in Nairobi in 1966 where he accused him of having failed to build a house for himself while he, Kenyatta, had put up a mansion in rural Gatundu. For Kenyatta, it was not corruption that was the issue, it was the inability of some “leaders” to make use of “opportunities” open to them within the state to improve themselves. In this public and dramatised setting, a tradition was set from the highest level of political authority that made public officials enjoy impunity against the law should they be accused of corruption.”

“Malaysian leaders told me that when they visited Kenya in the mid-1970s, they were similarly struck by the progress Kenya had made since independence compared to where they were at the time!…But what had struck the Malaysians most was that at the time, Nairobi (and Kenya) had better infrastructure than Malaysia, and it was also better managed…Kuala Lumpur was nothing like this. So Malaysian leaders decided they would make their capital as good as – or better than – Nairobi. They requested the Kenya Government to allow Malaysian planners and civil servants to take courses at the Kenya Institute of Administration, then Kenya’s premier public service training institution, and the Kenya Government obliged.”

Nyong’o’s book contains credible insights and hence worth reading.

“Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life” by Robert Reich.

Robert Reich is an American economist, professor, author and political commentator. He served as Secretary of Labor between 1993 and 1997 and as member of President Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board.

Although this book mostly gives an account of the American economy and polity, it resonates with the global realities of the political economy of capitalism. What are some of the insights?

“Some observers rightly point out that these gains (from capitalism) have been accompanied by widening inequalities of income and wealth. The gains have also accompanied other problems such as heightened job insecurity, and environmental hazards such as global warming. Strictly speaking, though, these are not failings of capitalism. Capitalism’s role is to enlarge the economic pie. How the slices are divided and whether they are applied to private goods like personal computers or public goods like clean air is up to society to decide. This is the role we assign to democracy.”

“Between 1945 and 1970, real incomes tripled around the world and world trade quadrupled. Not coincidentally, America’s foreign policy created new opportunities for America’s largest corporations – then larger, richer, and more technologically advanced than anywhere else in the world – to expand their markets abroad. With the dollar as the currency on which the world’s fixed-exchange system was based, America’s bankers and large corporations could extend the reach of American capitalism at minimal risk. Under a World Bank controlled by Americans, development assistance could be focused around the globe precisely where large American corporations saw greatest opportunity.”

“The effect was not uniformly benign. With uncanny precision, the Central Intelligence Agency uncovered communist plots just where America’s largest corporations wanted to ensure stable supplies of natural resources. When in 1953 an anti-colonial Iranian nationalist movement led by Mohammed Mossadegh challenged the power of the shah and seized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the CIA secretly channeled millions of dollars to Iranian army officers dedicated to returning the shah to power. Once that objective was met, American oil companies were granted generous access to Iranian oil. The next year, Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, initiated land reforms that, along the way, confiscated the United Fruit Company’s plantations. The CIA then bankrolled right-wing revolutionaries who, helped by CIA pilots and aircraft supplied by Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, spared United Fruit an otherwise dismal fate. Also in 1954, the United States became quietly involved in Indochina, another area rich in natural resources. In Latin America, Vietnam, and the Middle East, America’s foreign policy sowed the seeds of profound problems for the future.”

This is certainly a good read for understanding the global political economy system of capitalism.

“The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” by Malcolm Gladwell.

Malcolm Gladwell is a Canadian journalist, author and public speaker. Gladwell’s book is interesting on the account that it explores three fundamental ways of understanding social epidemics but still applicable in other facets of life; the law of the few, stickiness factor, and the power of context.

The law of the few refers to very few individuals who spread epidemics or can be able to orchestrate change. Gladwell categorizes such individuals into connectors, mavens, and salespeople.

Connectors are individuals who seem to know very many people and help to spread epidemics or change.

Mavens are individuals who seem to know everything and they read more and often use the information they possess to help others. Mavens are usually passionate about new ideas and concepts and this creates a contagious effect among other individuals.

Salespeople are individuals with great interpersonal skills and effectively use their body language to enhance change or social epidemics.

The stickiness factor refers to a unique quality of a product or event that easily sticks in people’s minds and lasts for a considerably longer period of time.

The power of context refers to the environment within which an event takes place or a product coexists.

“The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World” by Jonathan Powell.

This is my current read and I’m aiming to finish it in the course of the month of May. I have cleared chapter one and two and found it a very interesting book which the author contextualizes Niccolo Machiavelli’s texts, The Prince and The Discourses with his own experiences while serving as Chief of Staff to former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Here are some of the insights.

“In The Discourses, Machiavelli repeats the old saw that ‘he (Prince) is of a different opinion in the market place from which he is in the Palace.’ He explains that, once a man has risen to the highest office, when he gets there he looks ‘at things more clearly and so has come to recognise the source of the disorders, the dangers which they entail, and the difficulty of putting matters right.”

“Machiavelli advises that a new leader ‘must keep his mind ready to shift as the winds and tides of Fortune turn’…But leaders also need to have a plan if they want to change things rather than being hijacked by events or by the agendas of others.”

“Over time opposition will build up and it is harder to be radical. A leader should spend his political capital early rather than hoarding it.”

“In the words of Isaiah Berlin, Machiavelli’s advice was: ‘if your action must be drastic, do it in one fell swoop, not in agonising stages.’

“According to the Machiavelli scholar John Plamenatz, Machiavelli ‘valued above all the two qualities which enabled a man to assert himself, courage and intelligence’, and these are the two qualities at the heart of leadership in any field. What Machiavelli meant by courage is self-evident, but by intelligence he did not mean intellect but rather judgement or instinct – what we would now call emotional intelligence. This is the mysterious ingredient that allows great leaders to have sense of where Fortune will lead and how best to take advantage of it.”

“Unlike wisdom, for example, which cab be acquired with experience, these qualities of courage and intelligence cannot be learned. A leader has to be born with them.”

“Machiavelli believed that, in addition to the ability to make difficult decisions, successful princes need to be born with good political instincts.”

“These innate qualities of courage and political instinct, while essential, are not enough by themselves to make a great leader. Leaders also need to acquire five other skills: competence, the ability to communicate, charisma, perspective and charm.”

Powell’s book would require one to read The Prince in order to clearly understand its content.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” – Cicero

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” – Charles W. Eliot

Sitati Wasilwa is a consultant on governance, geopolitics and public policy. Twitter: @SitatiWasilwa