20 books health IT leaders should read this summer

20 books health IT leaders should read this summer

Summer is a good time for healthcare information technology executives to emphasize professional improvement, as well as personal enrichment. Health Data Management queried board members and boot camp faculty members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives to find out what they are reading this summer. What follows is their personal selections for good summertime reading.

8 Things We Hate About IT: How to Move Beyond the Frustrations and Form a New Partnership with IT

by Susan Cramm

This book describes how readers can understand differences between operational and IT managers—in backgrounds, personality, pressures and incentives. Susan Cramm explains how differences prevent operational managers and IT from communicating what, why and how they do what they do.

Suggested by:
Myra Davis
Senior vice president/CIO
Texas Children’s Hospital

Theresa Meadows
Senior vice president/CIO
Cook Children’s Hospital

Democracy in America

by Alexis de Tocqueville

This book is a contemporary study of the early American nation and its evolving democracy, from a French aristocrat and sociologist. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will.

Suggested by:
Albert Oriol
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Rady Children’s Hospital

First, Break All the Rules

by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

This book documents a study of more than 80,000 managers in an effort to reveal what great managers do differently. They actually have vastly different styles and backgrounds. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They don’t hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom.

Suggested by:
Edward Marx
Executive vice president, Advisory Board
Interim senior vice president/CIO
NYC Health + Hospitals

The Gene

by Siddhartha Mukheejee

In writing a fascinating history of the gene, Mukherjee describes the centuries of research and experimentation—from Aristotle and Pythagoras to revolutionary 21st century innovators who have mapped the human genome.

Suggested by:
Albert Oriol
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Rady Children’s Hospital

Good to Great

by Jim Collins

Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least 15 years. After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in 15 years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric and Merck.

Suggested by:
Charles Christian
Vice president, technology and engagement
Indiana Health Information Exchange

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

by Angela Duckworth

Psychologist Angela Duckworth tells anyone striving to succeed that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” The hypothesis she puts forth is that what really drives success is not “genius” but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance.

Suggested by:
Carina Edwards
Senior vice president of customer experience
Imprivata

Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age

by Edward D. Hess and Katherine Ludwig

We are on the leading edge of a Smart Machine Age led by artificial intelligence that will be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution was for our ancestors. To stay relevant, we need to excel at critical, creative, and innovative thinking and at genuinely engaging with others—things machines can't do well. Hess and Ludwig call it being NewSmart.

Suggested by:
Edward Marx
Executive vice president, Advisory Board
Interim senior vice president/CIO
NYC Health + Hospitals

John P. Kotter on What Leaders Really Do

by John Kotter

The book is a collection of Kotter’s Harvard Business Review articles, to which he also contributes a new piece, a reflection on the themes that have developed throughout his work. Convinced that most organizations today lack the leadership they need, Kotter's mission is to help us better understand what real leaders do.

Suggested by:
Charles Christian
Vice president, technology and engagement
Indiana Health Information Exchange

Know your Customers’ “Jobs to be Done”

Clayton Christensen was the lead author for a feature that appeared last year in the Harvard Business Review on identifying customers’ driving forces. In November 2016, a book entitled Jobs to be Done was published. Written by Stephen Wunker, David Farber and Jessica Wattman, the book amplifies the HBR article by offering a roadmap for customer-centered innovation.

Suggested by:
Zane Burke
President, Cerner

Life is Good: The Book

by Bert Jacobs and John Jacobs

From Life is Good founders and brothers Bert and John Jacobs, this book discusses the power of optimism: the driving force behind their beloved, socially conscious clothing and lifestyle brand.

Suggested by:
Theresa Meadows
Senior vice president/CIO
Cook Children’s Hospital

Managing the Unexpected

by Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe

This book focuses on why some organizations are better able to sustain high performance in the face of unanticipated change. High reliability organizations—including commercial aviation, emergency rooms, aircraft carrier flight operations and firefighting units—are discussed as models of exceptional organizational preparedness. This text explains the development of unexpected events and guides the reader in improving an organization for more reliable performance.

Suggested by:
Myra Davis
Senior vice president/CIO
Texas Children’s Hospital

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn’t

by Robert I. Sutton

Stanford University professor Robert I. Sutton builds on his acclaimed Harvard Business Review article to show readers the best ways to deal with jerks ... and why they can be so destructive to your company.

Suggested by:
Edward Marx
Executive vice president, Advisory Board
Interim senior vice president/CIO
NYC Health + Hospitals

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

Sandberg and Grant discuss concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. They contend that people are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build. Option B combines Sandberg’s personal insights with Grant’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity.

Suggested by:
Carina Edwards
Senior vice president of customer experience
Imprivata

The Power of Meaning

by Emily Eshfani Smith

Many believe that the search for meaning is an esoteric pursuit. However, there are untapped sources of meaning all around us. Smith gathers insights from a variety of sources—from psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists to figures in literature and history. Drawing on this research, Smith shows us how cultivating connections to others, identifying and working toward a purpose, telling stories about our place in the world, and seeking out mystery can immeasurably deepen our lives.

Suggested by:
George Reynolds
Former CIO
Faculty, CMIO Boot Camp

Sprint

by Jake Knapp

Written by three partners at Google Ventures, the book offers a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at more than a hundred companies.

Suggested by:
Albert Oriol
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Rady Children’s Hospital

Superbosses

by Sidney Finkelstein

“Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent,” is based on 10 years of research and more than 200 interviews. Finkelstein—an acclaimed professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, speaker, and executive coach and consultant—discovered that superbosses exist in nearly every industry. While they differ in their personal styles, they all focus on identifying promising newcomers, inspiring their best work and launching them into highly successful careers—while also expanding their own networks and building stronger companies.

Suggested by:
Albert Oriol
Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Rady Children’s Hospital

Thank You for Being Late

by Thomas Friedman

Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them and cushion their worst impacts. The author’s thesis is that to understand the 21st century, you need to understand that the planet’s three largest forces―Moore’s law (technology), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss)―are accelerating all at once. These accelerations are transforming five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics and community.

Suggested by:
Richard Skinner
Chief Information and Technology Officer
University of Virginia Health System

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

by Sebastian Junger

The book explores what we can learn from tribal societies about loyalty, belonging and the eternal human quest for meaning. It explains the irony that—for many veterans as well as civilians—war feels better than peace, adversity can turn out to be a blessing, and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. Tribe explains why we are stronger when we come together, and how that can be achieved even in today's divided world.

Suggested by:
George Reynolds
Former CIO
Faculty, CMIO Boot Camp

True North

by Bill George

This best-selling leadership classic enables readers to become authentic leaders by discovering your True North. Originally based on first-person interviews with 125 leaders, this book became a must-read classic when it was introduced in 2007. The book posits that being a leader is about much more than title and management skills—it's fundamentally a question of who we are as human beings. The book offers a concrete and comprehensive program for becoming an authentic leader, and shows how to chart a path to leadership success.

Suggested by:
Kali Durgampudi
Vice President, Nuance Communications
Board Member, CHIME Foundation

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate

by Robert A. Caro

The author covers Johnson’s career during one of his most remarkable periods—his 12 years, from 1949 through 1960, when he became a powerful majority leader in the Senate.

Suggested by:
Michael Martz
Vice president/CIO
Ohio Valley Health Services & Education