In honor of our pending family vacation to Disney World, here’s a book review by someone who knows a little bit about the Magic Kingdom. Lee was the Executive VP of Operations for Walt Disney World Resort. Lee wrote this book from the perspective of his leadership experiences at other companies and how he used those learnings to craft his leadership style at Disney and how it helped to shape the culture at Disney. He boils his learnings down to 10 common sense principles. This book is a great leadership read. Most everyone can relate to the excellence and “magic” of Disney and this book gives you a real insiders perspective into how the organization uses common sense principles to create a culture of magic. Here’s some highlights:

• It’s not the magic that makes it work; it’s the way we work that makes it magic.
• Creating magic requires that the outsiders never see the effort required to deliver the product.
• Products and services can easily be replicated. So if your company’s competitive advantage is based on products and services alone, you are at risk.
• The three-legged stool: the Guests, the Cast Members, and the business metrics.
• When you do something really well, the word tends to get out.
• All business problems boil down to leadership problems.
• The true work of a business leader, like that of a mother, is to help others to be the best they can be.
• In times of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.

There is a lot of good content in this book. If you’re a fan of Disney, leadership, common sense, continuous improvement or good stories, this book is worth a read.

I saw this book on someone’s desk a while ago. The title was provocative so I really wanted to check it out. I finally got around to reading it. This isn’t the best book I’ve read by Hybels, but the content supported the premise. Here’s an overview and some highlights.

The premise of Holy Discontent is that in the lives of people who are investing joyfully of their time, their money, and their energies into something [a passion], they can always link it back to a single spark of frustration that fueled what is now a raging fire in their souls. And that this attraction to a specific cause or purpose is irresistible. One example Hybels uses is the example of Moses and the frustration he felt over the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt. Here are some of the highlights:

-       I believe the motivating reason why millions of people choose to do good in the world around them is because there is something wrong in that world. In fact, there is something so wrong that they just can’t stand it.

-       I’ve come to refer to the powerful, spiritual congruence that connected Moses’ priorities to the priorities of God as his “holy discontent,”

-       Still today, what wrecks the heart of someone who loves God is often the very thing God wants to use to fire them up to do something that, under normal circumstances, they would never attempt to do.

-       The most inspired, motivated, and driven people I know are the ones who live their lives from the energy of their holy discontent.

-       Your ability to detect and then act on that which makes you discontent can actually catalyze freedom-based living in the hearts of your friends and family members!

-       Martin Luther King Jr. became famous because of what he couldn’t stand.

-       I think you know the question I have for you. What can’t you stand?

-       A bad day lived from the energy of your holy discontent is far better than the best day lived anywhere else.

-       Figure out what you can’t stand. Channel your holy discontent energy into helping to fix what’s broken in this life.

Communicating For A Change by Andy Stanley is the first book I completed on my Kindle 2. It’s a great book for anyone who spends any time in front of others speaking. It’s written from Andy’s perspective as a pastor, but a lot of the practical tips he’s shares translate to any speaking context. I enjoyed this book because it is practical, and Andy shares everything he does to prepare and deliver a message. If you’ve never heard Andy preach, he really is one of the greatest communicators I’ve ever heard. I love listening to his stuff. You can checkout his podcast on iTunes or at NorthPoint’s website.

If you decide to checkout this book (and you should for the sake of your audiences and your messages), it’s divided into 2 parts. The first part is a fictional narrative that tells a story of a pastor learning Andy’s principles from a gifted communicator. The first part was good, but the second half is way better. The entire book revolves around 7 Keys to Irresistable Communication and a relational outlining approach (ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE) that Andy uses. (By the way, I listened to Andy to see if he followed his outline approach at Catalyst West. He nailed it.)

Here’s some highlights that I clipped via my Kindle 2:

- Every time I stand to communicate I want to take one simple truth and lodge it in the heart of the listener. I want them to know that one thing and know what to do with it

- Every sermon should take the audience somewhere

- Until you can deliver it with no notes, from memory, then it’s not your message.

- Until you can stand up and tell a story, you’re not ready to preach. You see, people connect with a story, and a story takes people on a journey

- Speaking from memory isn’t difficult to do if you’re telling a story. People make it difficult when they try to communicate points instead of telling a story. If you have four or five points you’re trying to drive home, then you get focused on not forgetting any of them.

- Have a one point message

- How can you expect your listener to care enough to remember what you’re saying when you can’t?

- At some point we’ve got to begin caring more for the people in the audience than the person on the platform. When we do, our presentations take on real significance. Until we do, communication is really all about us.

- Preaching for life change requires far less information and more application. Less explanation and more inspiration.

- If you decide to preach for life change you won’t be satisfied until the behavior of your audience is transformed; and you will be willing to do just about anything to see that transpire.
- You need a sticky statement.

- People ask me all the time how I preach without looking at notes. Now you know.

P.S. – This review took 5 minutes since the Kindle 2 already had my notes and excerpts organized.