This is a list of readings (and watchings) for technology executives.
As time passes, sometimes technical people (such as software engineers and data scientists), (either explicitly or implicitly) take on management or leadership roles.
Some technical people even start off with hybrid roles, that combine the technical with management or leadership; even if it is implicit and "unofficial".
And while management and leadership are not the same things (desipte many managers inaccurately asserting that they are) engineering & science and management & leadership are different skills.
But those are skills that can be learnt.
This is a curated list of readings (and watchings) that (in the opinion of the curator of this list) can help one in learning some of those skills.
Of course, not everything can be learnt by reading.
Some things you need to learn through first-hand experience. Through making your own mistakes. And sometimes through suffering.
The purpose of this document is not to present you with a list of everything you need to know.
This document is an opinionated list from someone who became very very technical, but who has also (both explicitly and implicitly) took on management and leadership roles.
YMMV.
This document is targeted at technical people who take on management or leadership roles.
This includes technical people who are not "officially" recognized, as taking on that role, with a title.
But when it is "officially" recognized with a title, titles such as the following are the ones I am aware of being sometimes used: chief technology officer (CTO), chief science officer (CSO), chief information officer (CIO), senior vice president (SVP) of technology, senior vice president (SVP) of engineering, senior vice president (SVP) of data science, vice president (VP) of technology, vice president (VP) of engineering, vice president (VP) of data science, director of technology, director of engineering, director of data science, technical director (TD), engineering manager, staff software engineer, staff data scientist, lead software engineer, lead data scientst, etc.
There are many topics that are of interest to those who are engaging in management or leadership.
It can benefit you to understand humans. Both because you will work with them; and because they will be your users or customers.
In some ways this (understanding humans) is a hard thing to do for many. And not necessarily because the topic is hard.
But more because you have to try to make yourself see the world as it actually is, rather than how you might prefer it be; regardless of how that makes you feel.
It can also benefit you to understand how learning happens.
The following is a list of topics of interest, in alphabetical order.
(And note, I don't necessarily agree with everything claimed in every paper, book, article, or video listed here. But something being listed here means I find at least part of it relevant.)
- Adaptation Executors
- Campbell's Law
- Cardwell's Law
- Coalitional Behavior
- Cobra Effect
- Complex Systems
- Conway's Law
- Culture
- Entrepreneurialism
- Forecasting
- Goodhart's Law
- Handicap Principle
- Peer Effects
- Principal-Agent Problem
- Social Learning
- Systems Thinking
- The Psychological Foundations of Culture, by John Tooby, Leda Cosmides
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Assessing the impact of planned social change, by Donald Thomas Campbell
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See also: Cobra Effect, Goodhart's Law.
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The Cobra Effect, by Stephen J. Dubner
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See also: Campbell's Law, Goodhart's Law.
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Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior by Christopher Boehm
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Footnotes on Things I’ve been Reading: Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest by Xavier Marquez
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Victimization of high performers: The roles of envy and work group identification by Eugene Kim, Theresa M. Glomb
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Hot Shots and Cool Reception? An Expanded View of Social Consequences for High Performers, by Elizabeth M. Campbell, Hui Liao, Aichia Chuang, Jing Zhou, Yuntao Dong
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Leadership in an Egalitarian Society, by Christopher R. von Rueden, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jonathan Stieglitz
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The Biology of Moral Systems, by Richard D. Alexander
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Why Complexity is Different, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
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When Systems Engineering Fails --- Toward Complex Systems Engineering, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
- How Do Committees Invent? by Melvin Edward Conway
- Psychology beats business training when it comes to entrepreneurship
- Teaching personal initiative beats traditional training in boosting small business in West Africa, by Francisco Campos, Michael Frese, Markus Goldstein, Leonardo Iacovone, Hillary C. Johnson, David McKenzie, Mona Mensmann
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The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't by Nate Silver
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Failure at the top: How power undermines collaborative performance, by John Angus D. Hildreth, Cameron Anderson,
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Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, by Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner
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Identifying and Cultivating Superforecasters as a Method of Improving Probabilistic Predictions, by Barbara Mellers, Eric Stone, Terry Murray, Angela Minster, Nick Rohrbaugh, Michael Bishop, Eva Chen, Joshua Baker, Yuan Hou, Michael Horowitz, Lyle Ungar, Philip Tetlock
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Tiny Nails, by (pseudonym) "Biologically Determined"
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Government Guidelines and Unintended Consequences by Elaine Schwartz
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See also: Cobra Effect, Campbell's Law.
- The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle, by Amotz Zahavi, Avishag Zahavi
- Peer Effects in Education: A Survey of the Theory and Evidence, by Dennis Epple, Richard E. Romano
- The Criminal Justice System Creates Incentives for False Convictions, by Roger Koppl, Meghan Sacks
- The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, by Joseph Henrich
- Systems Thinking Speech by Dr. Russell Ackoff, by Russell Lincoln Ackoff