The books that shaped how I think—Jimmy Nilsson
I’ve always loved reading fiction, visiting other worlds. During gymnasium, our English teacher told us that if we wanted to improve our English, we should read books in English. That advice helped me become better at English and has been helpful ever since, no matter what I wanted to improve in.
This is not to say that I only ever learn by books, or even prefer to. I also have to try things out. The mix of reading and doing is very powerful for me, but it often starts with reading. Here are five formative books that have shaped how I think.
The Choice – Eliyahu M. Goldratt
This book shares a mindset for clear thinking:
- Every situation is exceedingly simple
- Every conflict can be removed
- People are good
- Every situation can be substantially improved
- Every person can reach a full life
- There is always a win-win solution
But it’s not easy! When all excuses are gone, you have to take full responsibility for your life!
You choose whether you would like to drown in all the details or focus on the important parts of the situation. It’s inspiring to see examples of how the author applies the bottleneck theory to achieve s-curve after s-curve in really large business situations. It’s not a matter of improvement by 2%, each s-curve represents a very large revenue improvement.
Read more about The Choice on BetterWorldBooks.
Extreme Programming Explained – Kent Beck
In software development projects, what happens if we only do what we by experience know works, but we do it to the extreme?
This is what agile was meant to be. This book was totally revolutionary when it came out, and to this date I think it’s so helpful so often in so many ways. It’s not the case that we all do it all. I would rather say most of it is quite rare in the wild. Just to take one example, do you have a ten-minute build on your current project?
Connecting this book to Goldratt’s talk about a full life, Kent strives to help geeks have full lives. Of course, why on earth shouldn’t we?
Read more about Extreme Programming Explained on BetterWorldBooks.
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture – Martin Fowler
A treasure trove of helpful architectural solutions to problems we very often face in large-scale business applications. And, as is so often the case, they are helpful in other situations too.
The pattern format—a named, general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in many contexts—is one I find very pleasant and helpful.
On a personal note, I think Martin referencing my first book in PoEAA, was an important reason for me to write another one. That second book was also very much influenced by PoEAA.
Read more about Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture on BetterWorldBooks.
Domain-Driven Design – Eric Evans
The language we speak and evolve is a crucial aspect of how we think and collaborate.
This is a handbook for learning so many different things, such as dealing with dependencies and tackling complexity (in the heart of software 🙂). But it all starts with (is driven by) the business/domain!
My second book is about applying DDD. As you would guess, Eric’s work made a strong impact on me since I decided to spend two years writing about it. :)
Eric’s book reads like poetry. If you haven’t read it, I’m envious of you having it on your list of books to read!
Read more about Domain-Driven Design on BetterWorldBooks.
You Can Make it Happen: How Breakthroughs in Neuroscience Can Transform Relationships (“Att leva istället för att överleva” in Swedish) – Eva Berlander
You choose how to deal with tricky relationships. Unfortunately, the more important the relationship is to you, the harder it is. But it’s up to you to choose how you will behave.
Staying married takes work, and my wife and I needed to do this work 20 years ago. I did as I always do when trying to solve problems, I started reading and learning. After a while, we found Eva and she helped us to get on a positive life journey. We're still married, so I'd say it was a success. If you are serious about wanting to change a relationship, this book is good preparation.
I do realize there are situations when we actually *are* victims. But whenever possible, that’s not something we would like to be. It might start with Eva’s phrase “let’s put a heart around that” to calm down our thinking and be able to move forward with a solution mindset.
A reflection
Argh, this was horribly hard for me. I was asked to pick 3-4 books, but I just had to add one more. The fifth one was as formative for me as the other books, but probably surprising even to my closest friends.
Reading through the list now, it occurs to me that all these five books are full of concepts that I use on a daily basis many years after I read about them. I envision that will be the case for the rest of my (work)life. As much as I like to learn new things every day, that doesn’t mean that the old has to go, on the contrary!