8 words or less is a new series where, on each episode, James and Samie select a leadership or management book that has inspired them and, drawing on their own experience and insights, distil some key themes from the book into a central message of 8 words or less.

In this episode Samie and James talk about Matthew Syed's excellent book - Black Box Thinking. In this book Mathew compares the approach to failure in the airline industry with that of the healthcare industry and, through the use of well researched and fascinated examples, illustrates the surprising truth to failure and how crucial it is to ultimate success.
Samie and James share some of their favourite anecdotes from the book, some insights and key takeaways and, of course, distil this into 8 words or less.

In this episode Samie and James talk about Margaret Wheatley's book - Who Do We Choose to Be? The themes running through the book - Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity - are very relevant for the challenges we see around us with the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode we discuss some of the key themes from the book, understand its relevance in the current climate and, of course, distil this into 8 words or less.

In this episode Samie and James talk about Peter Hinssen's book - The Day After Tomorrow. It is a title that probably resonates with a lot of us as we look through the challenging times to hopefully a more positive 'day after tomorrow'.

A serial entrepreneur and one of the most sought-after thought leaders on radical innovation, Peter's book provides an interesting insight into how companies can react to the exponential world we are living in, how culture impacts innovation and how to reach the 'day after tomorrow'.

In this episode Samie tells us his central message from 'Great by Choice' written by the bestselling author Jim Collins.

Samie reflects on how it is important sometimes to 'go slow to go fast' and shares some insights around the need for discipline and vigilance as well as discussing the relative benefits of being 'one fad behind'.

Essentially this book asks the question of why some organisations survive in periods of chaos while others don't - a very valid question for our current times.

Are we currently living through a black swan event? Taleb, in recent articles, argues this is actually a 'white swan' event but either way it is an interesting time for James and Samie to talk about Nassim Taleb's groundbreaking book (described by The Sunday Times as one of the twelve most influential books since World War II) 'The Black Swan'.

James and Samie discuss Taleb's views on the 'Scandal of Prediction', his insights around why our inbuilt biases make us more susceptible to Black Swans and how to maximise our exposure to positive serendipity. James explains why his central message from this book is 'don't become the Turkey'.

Cialdini opens his best-selling book on Influence with the words 'I can admit it freely now. All my life I've been a patsy.' These are words that resonated for both James and Samie and, throughout this book, there are 'lightbulb moments' which help explain how we have fallen for people using the six rules of influence outlined by Cialdini.

In this episode Samie outlines his Central Message and we discuss some of the different examples outlined by Cialdini as well as instances from our own experiences.

"Negotiation is a fact of life" and in their classic book ‘Getting to Yes’ the authors Roger Fisher and William L. Ury suggest that, despite its importance, many of us are still not that good at it!

In this episode James and Samie talk about the difference between the way we traditionally negotiate, referred to as positional bargaining, and the approach proposed by the authors called ‘Principled Negotiation’. Through four key elements (1. Separating the people from the problem, 2. Focusing on interests not positions, 3. Looking for mutual advantage and 4. Using objective standards) there is the potential to achieve better outcomes, more efficiently and with improved or, at least, maintained relationships between the parties.