Permission to Screw Up
Kristen Hadeed
“This is the story of how Kristen Hadeed built Student Maid, a cleaning company where people are happy, loyal, productive, and empowered, even while they’re mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. It’s the story of how she went from being an almost comically inept leader to a sought-after CEO who teaches others how to lead.”
My wife listened to this book as an audiobook on long car rides, and I listened to some of it with her. This book was narrated to great effect by the author. This was amazing because although there was the standard business techniques that you get in any book, they were told as part of an enthralling story. It was told in such a way that the reader felt like they were there with Kristen, and wanted to know what would happen next. There were no bits where I was bored!
I felt like it was a longer than normal talking book that I would listen to, but it didn’t feel that long. [Rose notes that it clocks in at 5.5 hours(as opposed to Get to the Point, which was only two hours)]. I don’t normally like reading things twice, but there were some parts that I HAVE read again, such as the techniques of how to FBI (it’s a feedback technique).
Anyone in a leadership role, not just owning your own business (also middle manager, team leader etc) should read this book. There are business books out there that contradict themselves but this book tell you that even if others say that this is the ‘best way’, if it doesn’t suit your team, don’t push something that isn’t working.
The book by itself was 4 stars, but with the reading it’s 5 stars. The author helped. It sounded as if it wasn’t a book, it was a story. I’m not sure if the author had put in side notes that weren’t in the text, but it sounded like it. It felt like even when she ‘renamed’ characters, it was real in the story.
Some of the techniques that she uses and decided as really good should be highlighted more – like shit sandwiches, but FBI is better than that. They were explained equally, but more emphasis should be put on the FBI. The FBI method stands for: feelings, behavior, impact. It starts with saying how you feel, and then your feedback-ee can’t argue that and get off topic. What is the impact on the relationship, company, team, client etc? Feedback shouldn’t be an ordeal and a sit down session. Everyone in a team should be able to give FBI.
The take home message from this book is that team company culture is important and how to give feedback using the FBI method. Always keep trying different things, and if that isn’t working for you in those circumstances, try something else.
This is the first time I have forced myself through a book of poems / short sentences. It looks like a thick, impressive book, but every page only has a couple of sentences on it. I found that while I connected with the characters, I just didn’t find it as immersive as a ‘regular’ book.
Maggie Stiefvater – The Raven King
Un-su Kim – The Plotters
I didn’t feel very strongly about this novel. It all pretty much boiled down to ‘it was all a dream’. Not exactly, but that was the feeling I had – in that everything that had happened before actually didn’t have any impact or was anything that mattered. I knew she would survive everything thrown her way, and that she’d end up being happy regardless of the challenges.
I requested this novel because it reminded me of another that I had read with a similar concept – delinquents taken to a bush setting and let loose to sort themselves out. But this novel is nothing like that. Daniel is guided without having known he was guided, and treated without having really known what was wrong. His search for a descriptor of what is wrong with him seems futile when his friendships are changing him.
You won’t see the twists coming in this novel. I feel like even mentioning that there is a twist might give things away. In addition, I liked the idea that magic could be aided or changed by adding clockwork elements, and I think more could have been done with this.
I really liked the concept and entry to this novel – VR being used to camouflage the ugly and dead real world, and yet Eila still being pulled back by the simple method of someone chasing her! However even though this novel was fast-paced, or perhaps because of it, there were too many loose ends for me to feel properly satisfied.
This is a very. serious. novel. Literature people, literature. Which I can enjoy and appreciate some of the time – 
This is a sweet little novel that will hopefully help primary school aged children understand how it can feel to be different in a new place. The character of Jamila could be slipped into by anyone at a new school, not just refugee children. I could empathise with Jamila wanting to make a good impression.