List of books which I read on 2025 ordered by reading order.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber

Would recommend this book to any parents, specially to parents of small kids. The chore ideas I took from this book are: was to treat children as adults, listen to them, respect them, work together with them, show them their strenghts. The book explains how to work together dealing with common situations.

The Rules of Programming by Chris Zimmerman

The following points were resonated with my working experience.

Dont overengineer:

Keep it simple stupid
Dont optimize if it is not needed
Avoid adding state if possible
Keep future proofing to a minimum

Keep things organized:

Localize complexity, use abstraction to make things easier to understand

Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson

The book focus on four personality traits and explains how to deal with them. I could identify with some of those traits and recognize the traits of some colleagues. Applying some of the tips explained in the book I have improved the relationship with coworkers which I thought could never improve.

The Mythical Man-Month. Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Brooks

This book has received a lot of praise and I understand why. For a book written decades ago it is amazing how well it holds.

Some points which I relate to:

Bringing more people to a project makes the project slower
To improve communication create a product manual
Have a clear separation between architecture and implementation. Give freedom to everyone on their tasks
The first version of a product will never be the final version

Turn the ship around by David Marquet

Probably the biggest surprise of all the reads of this year. I am not a big fun of the military in general but this book hooked my up. The author approaches management as a one to one relationship with subordinates. This book is a must if you are into management or would like to get there. I am not interested in a management career but when leading projects I have to assume a management role to some extend. I have been applying some of the ideas to the relationship with my manager, which has improved considerably.

Takeaways:

Trust in people competences. Give them the power, knowledge and resources to achieve their objectives
For someone to be proactive it has to come from themself
Ask questions to learn, never to judge
Listen to what the people says
Focus on achieving excellence vs not avoiding errors. Mistakes will happen, learn from them, improve the system so they dont happen again and keep focus on the future.
Sorth and early feedback makes the process more efficient
Don’t empower, emancipate

Never split the difference by Chriss Voss

The author has a very interesting background negotiating on life threatening situations. I have always avoided negotiations but this book helped me seeing the processes with different eyes. I cant say if my negotiating skills have improved, is not something I use often, but I do not dread the negotiation process anymore.

Takeaways:

To deal with peoples negativity observe it, dont react, dont judge
We all like to be listend to, that is actively listened to
No is the start of the negotiation
No deal is better than a bad deal
Loss aversion. This is a cognitive bias which makes us go greater distances to avoid losses than to realize gains.
Get others to help you by askling calibrated questions. These questions aim to use the other person intelligence and knowldege to achieve a common goal
Treat others how they need to be treated, not how you would like to be treated