Book it: best bets for board reading.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - Reprint

From a roundup of new books, insights on talent management, notions of leadership, taking risks, ROC (return on character), a fair and decent CEO ... and 'standing for goodness.'

Of 'thermostats' and 'thermometers'

From The Open Organization by Jim Whitehurst. Copyright [C]2015 by Red Hat Inc. Published by Harvard Business Review Press (https://hbr.org).

At most companies, everyone knows who the "A-players" or "superstars" are, even if their title doesn't necessarily convey how much influence they have within the company. When I worked at Boston Consulting Group, we used the terms "thermometers" and "thermostats" to categorize people in an organization. Thermometers are people who reflect the temperature (hot, cold or lukewarm) of the organization; the thermostats are the ones who set it. When it came time to create change in an organization, we knew we needed to get the thermostats on board to help drive those changes by setting a new temperature that would be quickly reflected by the thermometers.

The challenge for most companies, though, is that while everyone knows who the thermostats are, it's very rare that anyone takes real advantage of his or her potential influence. The challenge and the opportunity for companies and organizations, therefore, are to find ways to not just openly recognize the thought leaders, but also to leverage the thermostats to drive innovation and decision making forward. When it's time to make big decisions or get people on board with new initiatives, you need to find ways to get the thermostats involved in the action as early as possible. That's how you can help ensure your best chances at success.

Edited by James Kristie. Excerpts reprinted with permission of the publishers. All rights reserved.

Jim Whitehurst is president and CEO of Red Hat Inc., the world's largest open source software company (www.redhat.com).

The kind of leaders we wanted to be

From Dare to Serve by Cheryl Bachelder. Copyright [C]2015 by the author. Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc. (www.bkconnection.com).

Picture eight members of the Popeyes leadership team stuffed in a small conference room at an Atlanta facility called the Buckhead Club. Our job for the day? To make a conscious decision on how we would lead Popeyes to sustained success.

We started talking about our favorite leadership philosophies. One person mentioned a book that had been influential in his life, Leadership Is an Art by Max De Pree. Published in 1989 by the then-CEO of Herman Miller, the...