The eleven lessons
One book, one lesson, and what it means when the stakes are systems and data.
1. Atomic Habits: systems beat motivation
James Clear
James Clear argues that results come from the systems we run every day, not from goals or bursts of energy. Small improvements, repeated, compound into large ones.
Digital strategies usually launch with plenty of energy: a workshop, a steering committee, a well-designed slide deck. Eighteen months later, adoption is flat because nothing in the daily routine changed. The organizations that succeed build systems instead. A portfolio review that happens every month whether or not there is news. A data quality check that runs every week. One project template that everyone uses.
AI governance follows the same rule. A policy document on its own changes very little. A short AI review step built into every procurement and project gate changes behaviour across the whole organization.
For leaders: do not ask your team for more motivation. Ask which system would make the right behaviour the default.
2. The Psychology of Money: behaviour beats intelligence
Morgan Housel
Morgan Housel shows that financial outcomes depend more on behaviour than on intelligence. Patience, leaving room for error and avoiding ruin matter more than clever analysis.
Technology investment works the same way. Capable people make poor technology decisions under pressure. They chase the newest platform, buy licences before the use cases exist, or fund the build and forget the maintenance. None of these mistakes comes from a lack of intelligence. They come from fear of missing out and from short budget cycles.
Strong IT portfolios are rarely the most ambitious ones. They are run by people who avoid irreversible commitments, stay patient with adoption, and do not let a vendor demonstration set the agenda.
For leaders: judgement under uncertainty is worth more than technical brilliance. Leave room for error in every plan.
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad: what you keep matters more than what you make
Robert T. Kiyosaki
Robert Kiyosaki’s best-known idea is the difference between an asset, which puts value in your pocket, and a liability, which takes it out. Many of his specific financial claims have drawn criticism, but this distinction holds up.
Every system an organization builds becomes one or the other. An application with a clear owner, documentation and a maintenance budget is an asset. The same application without them becomes a liability the day it goes live. In the humanitarian sector this is common, because project funding often pays for the build but not for the years of running it.
The result is a growing estate of applications, databases and pipelines that someone must secure, patch and support.
For leaders: measure total cost of ownership, not launch cost. Value what you can sustain, and retire what no longer earns its place.
4. Ikigai: purpose needs all four circles
Héctor García and Francesc Miralles
The lesson on the graphic is the familiar four-circle test: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what can sustain you.
A note for accuracy: that diagram is not Japanese. It is a Western adaptation by blogger Marc Winn, likely inspired by a 2011 purpose diagram by Andrés Zuzunaga, with “purpose” replaced by “ikigai” (Wikipedia). The book itself is mostly about daily life and longevity in Okinawa.
The diagram is still a useful test for digital projects. The strongest initiatives sit where four things meet: what the mandate needs, what the team does well, what staff actually care about, and what can be funded beyond the first grant. A project that misses the last circle tends to die when the money ends. A project that misses the third circle is adopted on paper only.
For leaders: before approving an initiative, check all four circles. Most failed projects were missing one from the start.
5. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: focus is a choice
Mark Manson
Mark Manson’s point is that attention and energy are limited, so the real skill is choosing what deserves them. Caring about everything means caring about nothing well.
Every IT unit in the UN system receives more requests than it can deliver. A new dashboard, a new form, a new integration, a new AI pilot. Saying yes to all of them spreads people thin, and very little reaches completion. Teams burn out while the backlog grows.
A clear set of criteria solves much of this: mandate alignment, risk reduction, value to affected people, and cost to sustain. Published criteria let a team decline a request without it becoming personal.
For leaders: a portfolio is defined as much by what you decline as by what you deliver.
6. Surrounded by Idiots: translate, do not repeat
Thomas Erikson
Thomas Erikson sorts behaviour into four colours: red for drive, yellow for enthusiasm, green for stability and blue for analysis.
A note for accuracy: the model comes from DISC, and it has weak scientific support. In 2018 the Swedish Skeptics Association gave Erikson its satirical “Bewilderer of the Year” award for the book (European Skeptics). Use it as a conversation tool, never as a diagnosis.
The underlying lesson still matters. Digital transformation is largely a communication problem. The same AI proposal has to land with a finance director who wants evidence and risk, a field director who wants results this quarter, staff who want to know what changes in their day, and a donor who wants a clear story of impact.
Technology leaders who send one message to everyone are often surprised when only one audience responds.
For leaders: write the same proposal four ways before the meeting, one for each audience in the room.
7. Surrounded by Psychopaths: learn to recognise the signs
Thomas Erikson
Erikson’s follow-up warns that not everyone has good intentions, and that manipulation follows recognisable patterns: flattery, urgency, isolation and pressure to skip normal checks. The clinical label is less useful than the behaviour patterns. The same patterns are set out in more detail in the summary of How to Outsmart a Manipulator.
Those patterns show up in technology work every week. A phishing email that demands an urgent payment change. A vendor who promises an AI product will solve problems it was never tested on. A request for a dataset with no clear purpose. In humanitarian settings the stakes are higher, because data about refugees and other vulnerable people has real value to people who would misuse it.
The defence is process, not suspicion of individuals: vendor due diligence, data protection impact assessments, zero trust access, and a culture where anyone can question an urgent request without fear.
For leaders: make verification normal, so that checking a request is never treated as an accusation.
8. Master Your Emotions: control the response, not the event
Thibaut Meurisse
Thibaut Meurisse writes that we cannot control what happens to us, only how we respond. Emotions are signals to examine, not orders to follow.
Incidents are part of running technology in fragile settings. A registration system fails on the morning of a distribution. A cyber incident takes email offline. A security situation forces staff to relocate with a day’s notice. In each case the leader sets the emotional temperature, and the team mirrors it.
Calm is easier when it is prepared. A rehearsed incident response plan, clear roles and a simple communication template turn panic into procedure.
For leaders: pause before you react, then communicate early and plainly. Your team will copy whatever you show them.
9. The Art of Being Alone: solitude is where strategy happens
Renuka Gavrani
Renuka Gavrani presents time alone as a source of strength and clarity rather than something to fear. Solitude is where people hear their own thinking.
In large organizations, calendars fill with meetings until no time is left to think. Yet the hardest parts of digital leadership need quiet: writing a strategy, untangling an architecture, deciding which of twenty projects to stop. Writing in particular forces clarity. If you cannot explain a strategy on two pages, the strategy is not ready.
For leaders: block time alone with the problem, protect it like a meeting with your director, and come back with something written.
10. The Mountain Is You: the biggest limits are internal
Brianna Wiest
Brianna Wiest argues that self-sabotage usually protects us from something, and that real change starts by understanding what that is. The obstacle is often inside, not outside.
Organizations sabotage themselves in the same way. They ask for data-driven decisions, then react badly when a dashboard shows bad news. They ask for innovation, then require zero risk. They buy AI tools, then give staff no time or permission to learn them. Budget and technology get the blame, but the barrier is often a habit or an incentive.
Naming that barrier openly is uncomfortable, and it is usually the first real step of any transformation.
For leaders: before you blame funding or systems, look at what your own processes reward and punish.
11. The Diary of a Young Girl: kindness and courage still matter
Anne Frank
Anne Frank kept her diary between 1942 and 1944, while her family hid from Nazi persecution in Amsterdam. Her writing holds on to hope and humanity in circumstances that should have destroyed both.
It belongs on this list because humanitarian technology exists for people living through the hardest moments of their lives: families displaced by conflict, communities recovering from floods, children whose schooling has been interrupted. Every record in a database is a person who trusted an organization with their story.
That trust creates obligations. Collect only the data you need. Protect it as if it were your own family’s. Design services that respect dignity, including for people with poor connectivity or no digital skills.
For leaders: technology is the means. Dignity, privacy and kindness are the purpose.