Jack Wanted to Help :)

Jack saw how much fun I was having reading The Facebook Effect and he wanted to join in:

Back after a LONG break :)

So it seems that I decided to take the summer off of this little blogging idea :) One might think that I took the summer off from my ambitious reading goal as well, but I can assure you that is not the case!

I took a lovely 3 week vacation to the Cook Islands, Australia, and New Zealand, and that gave me some much needed reading time. Made it through Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, Business Stripped Bare by Richard Branson, and Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan in my three short weeksglobe trotting. Hard to not be inspired with a surrounding like this:I aso read two books by Tom Peters over the summer. One of his newest - The Little Big Things - and a classic (his first book I think) - In Search of Excellence. I stumbled across Excellence in a used book store and was so glad I picked it up. Some of the case studies are a bit outdated now (it was first published before I was BORN!), but the content is tried and true and amazing how relevant is remains almost 30 years after it first hit the shelves.
The only other two that made up my summer reading were Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and Grande Expectations by Karen Blumenthal. Gladwell is (in my opinion) one of the great authors of this century, so I always love getting my hands on anything he writes. Then what could be more inspirin than reading about how Howard Schultz took starbucks from a dream and a tiny cofefe house into a global powerhouse?

The goal is to get "back on the horse" and start blogging again as I make my way towards my 2010 goal of 50 books. My schedule seems to get the best of me far too often, so I guess we'll see how it goes...

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Tribes

I just finished Tribes by Seth Godin. It’s a quick and easy read, but inspirational and eye opening all the same. The underlying premise of the book is that human beings are created (although I doubt he used the world ‘created’) with a need for belonging, and we naturally attach ourselves to not one but many groups of people within which we find a sense of identity. He defines tribe as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.” While it seems at first glance that the book will revolve around this concept of tribes and our continued movement towards greater connectedness, the book is really about leadership and how we are in desperate need of people to emerge from the status quo and dare to lead.

Seth uses case studies and a number of great stories of visionary leaders who have dared to change things, and the less than obvious point that he highlights more than once is that true leadership often does not come from the top but rather from what he called ‘heretics’ from within that dare to challenge the status quo and drive change around them. He says that leaders have three common qualities: they motivate, connect, and leverage, three qualities that are rarely dependent upon a title or upon a role. According to Seth, the primary reason that so few leaders ever step up is fear. He asserts “ordinary people dream p remarkable stuff all the time – but they are too scared to do anything with it.”

I thought a lot after this quick read about ways to create an environment where new leaders feel safe to voice their ideas and where curiosity and growth can really flourish. My team is so small, so that seems like it should be an easy task, but I find it one of the mot difficult pieces of what I do currently. One of the final quotes that stood out to me says “when you hire amazing people and give them freedom, amazing things happen.” I think that is the balance I don’t quite know how to create just yet, but lots of great concepts and inspirational ideas to digest.

How Remarkable Women Lead

Even in the early stages of my marriage and my career I am already constantly aware of the pull between the two and of the delicate balancing act that must take place a majority of the time. I picked up How Remarkable Women Lead by Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston because something on the back cover led me to believe it would address how some of the most successful women around the world have achieved this same balancing act, and hopefully I could take away some tips.

In reality, the book wasn’t about “achieving a work life balance” at all. The only real mention of the subject came in the introduction where the author stated, “Our women saw “work-life balance” for what it is – an unattainable goal. Instead, they have adapted to a life of managed disequilibrium – a fluid and dynamic approach. They love their children and they love their work. There was no either/or. Accepting “and” filled them with energy.” It is a book filled with remarkable stories of remarkable women, all of whom have accomplished the impossible on one level or another.

It is written around the concept that the author calls centered leadership. Centered leadership consists of five elements – meaning, framing, connecting, engaging, and energizing – and those five elements create the framework around which each case study is explored. There were keys I identified as strengths of my own, and most definitely keys I was able to quickly identify as weaknesses.

There is far too much good stuff in these 350 pages for me to even attempt to summarize or pull out key points, but for any woman that dreams of running her own company one day, winning a Pulitzer, leading a country, or simply accomplishing more than anyone ever believed possible, How Remarkable Women Lead is most definitely a worthwhile read. May you be as inspired as I was… ☺

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle



I’ve heard about Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for years. Now that I’ve read it I honestly can’t believe I never made it a priority to read before now. Covey describes the word “habit” as “the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire,” and the book is an honest look at seven habits that can help define not only an effective life but a fulfilled and balanced life. I could never do the book justice by trying to quickly summarize it or even pick out a few key points, but here is an outline of the seven habits:

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put the first things first
4. Thing win/win
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize

The book is filed with fascinating insights on everything from time management to fostering creativity to orchestrating trust within your teams to fostering deeper relationships to active listening to effective coaching to contract negotiation. I felt almost as thought I needed to read it through two lenses – the personal applications and the applications for me as a manager. Both applications have potentially revolutionary outcomes, so I am still in the process of digesting some of the information and creating clear action points.

How the Mighty Fall

Surprise, surprise…I’m a little behind in my reading list ☺

My most recent read – How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins – was a quick but inspirational read. You’ve probably read some of his more popular books. Good to Great is a personal favorite of mine, but I haven’t read his old faithful, Built to Last. I actually found a copy of it at a used bookstore last weekend, so it will make its way to my list shortly, but I was excited about How the Mighty Fall because it is recent and reflects some of the challenges that have emerged in business as a result of the current economic climate.

The book is primarily a case study of a number of companies that were, at one time, considered great and powerful organizations and how a sequence of events led to their eventual demise. Big name companies are picked apart – Circuit City, Motorola, HP, Scott Paper, and Zenith, to name a few – and it is ironic to be introduced to similarities between such diverse and unique companies that brought about grave ramifications.


One piece of the book that stood out to me was the chapter that talked about denial. Collins outlined a number of characteristics that define teams that are on the way up versus teams that are on the way down. Team on the way up are honest, even when it’s uncomfortable, use high question to statement ration, challenge people to discover their own answers, gives credit to other people for their success, and argue and debate not as a way to improve their personal position but to find the best answers to further the overall cause. Team on the way down, on the other hand, shield people in power from grim fact, assert strong opinions without providing back up data, avoid critical input, shut down questions, seek credit only for themselves, and argue to look smart or to improve their own interests rather than argue to find the best answers for the team. I found application in those statements as I look at my current role with my small team and think of ways to make sure we are indeed making an upward climb as opposed to getting stuck in a downward spiral.

The final chapter of the book analyzes companies that have successfully steered their way through a season of genuine crisis and emerged into greatness again. Collins asserts that the defining factor in such climbs is leadership. “The right leaders feel a sense of urgency in good times and bad, whether facing threat or opportunity, no matter what. They’re obsessed, afflicted with a creative compulsion and inner drive for progress – burning hot coals in the stomach – that remain constant whether facing threat or not.” Makes me hope I am taking the right steps to develop such resolve in my own journey into leadership – I think I have a long way to go ☺

1000 CEOs - my next endeavor :)

It's mid-February and I am only three and a half books into my goal of fifty for the year. I like to use the excuse that I didn't start until half-way through January - but not sure that is a good enough excuse for being behind so early in the game!

I’ve already admitted that I have trouble finishing what I start – hence the reason I am forcing myself to blog as I read. It creates accountability regardless of whether or not people are actually reading what I throw up here. I just started a book that no doubt will take me quite some time to complete, but I’m particularly excited about this one. After half an hour of wandering through Borders last weekend I came across a copy of 1000 CEO’s and was immediately intrigued. The byline is ‘Proven strategies for success from the world’s smartest executives’. Since the entire purpose of this little reading mission I am on is to learn as much as possible about business this year and to push myself beyond just being “good” at what I do into the real of having the possibility to be truly “great”, it seemed like a great choice. It is made up primarily of case studies of great business leaders from both past and present and broken down into categories like innovators, motivators, rebuilders, visionaries, and a few others.



Beyond the case studies, a huge number of important topics are covered. Whether it is ‘The Diversity Dividend’, ‘The Art of Confidence’, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’, ‘Driving Efficiency’ or any other number of key topics, the same movers and shakers provide bite sized input into very massive topics. And on top of all of that, it is FULL of bright colors and pretty pictures, which always helps keep my attention!

The introduction dissects the question of what it takes to be a CEO (a topic I dare say peaks most of our interest), and he highlights a few key topics:

• Get your team right
• Find failure fast (even going so far as to say that as a CEO there should be zero-tolerance for failure)
• Align your team
• Manage global emotions
• Communicate…and communicate…and communicate
• Invest in talent management
• Stock up on your emotional intelligence
• Avoid the self-destruct button

As a side notes, did you know that as of 2009 only 12 Fortune 500 companies and 25 Fortune 1000 companies have women CEOs or presidents? Who says a glass ceiling no longer exists...



Since this massive hard-cover book that showed up in my mailbox yesterday is more than 500 pages, I dare say it will be awhile before I write any type of summary of take-away. But again, vowing that I WILL read it in its entirety means I’m committed ☺

How to Influence - not the most 'influential' read :)

It took some work, but I managed to get through How to Influence by Jo Owen. I don’t quite know how this one made it onto my reading list. Actually, I do. It was cold when I was in London last month and the magical train station I was wandering through was warm and filled with interesting stores, one of which was a great little bookstore that happened to have this little purple book in the middle of a display of business books. They were also running a “buy one get one half off” sale, and since I was already buying one book – why not!

Needless to say, this little purple book did not turn out to be the highlight of my reading list thus far. I am fascinated by the concept of influence. It goes beyond leadership and certainly beyond management into a mystical sort of area that is hard to quantify and even harder to learn or teach. Maybe I should cut the author some slack, considering what an intangible concept he was attempting to enlighten me on ☺

Throughout the book the author constantly refers to influence as a “art”, and I am prone to agree. He talks about concepts like commitment and loyalty, building trust, creating strong networks, vulnerability, generosity, the principle of partnership, and even learning to understand the various personality types that make up your team in order to connect in a way that works for them as individuals. One section that I found particularly interesting was his discussion on building credibility. It’s easy to see how important it is to build credibility with people – whether you’re talking about sales, management, or virtually any form of relationship. The part that is less easy is understanding how to build it. In its essence, credibility comes from actions as opposed to works and is built slowly and incrementally. The challenge most leaders face is the necessity of building both credibility and trust quickly. If we want to influence our people, we rarely have the luxury of waiting five years to build up a track record of success with that person in particular We have to create environments and make decisions that make credibility and trust happen in the short term as well. A few keys that are pointed out are selflessness, active listening, asking smart questions, and capitalizing on crises and conflicts.

“Influence is like air: it is both invisible and essential. As the world shifts from traditional command-and-control hierarchies to networks which depend on each other, so influence becomes ever more important.”

The Tipping Point

I enjoyed Outliers so much that I decided to knock out another Malcolm Gladwell book that was on my list. The Tipping Point is on all kinds of reading lists, and after reading it I can understand why it became such a phenomena after its release in 2000. It is all about epidemics and the small things all around us that can make a very big difference. He spends a good bit of time digging through how we define epidemics, but more importantly how they are created (or where they start).



The premise that ideas, products, and messages spread the same way viruses do forms the foundation of the book, with three theme running through it:

1. Behavior is contagious
2. Little changes can have very big effects
3. Big things happen in a hurry

All epidemics can be traced back to a ‘tipping point’ – something that pushes people over the edge and into a dramatic, new direction. But determining exactly what causes such tipping points is not as simple. Two questions lie at the core:

1. Why do some ideas or behaviors or products start epidemics and others don’t?
2. What can we do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of our own?

He argues (rightly so, in my opinion) that social epidemics are almost always driven by the efforts of a handful of exceptional people, set apart by things like how sociable they are, how energetic, how knowledgeable, and how influential.

Context plays a huge role in the start and spread of epidemics. To illustrate this point, Gladwell takes us back to the Broken Windows Theory, which explains that crime is the inevitable result of disorder. Seemingly less consequential crimes like graffiti and broken windows create an environment of disorder, where more significant crimes flourish. These so called quality of life crimes seem to be the tipping point for violent crimes in most cities – again reminding us how much the littler things really do matter.

Once you understand that context matters – that specific and relatively small elements in the environment can serve as tipping points – our defeatism is turned upside down and we realize how much control we actually have. This leads us to believe that crime, for example, can be prevented. Your environment changes everything – your field of view, your capabilities, and your perception of what is in fact possible.

A case study on Gore & Associates (they make Gore-Tex and hundreds of other products in a multitude of industries) was particularly interesting to me. I am in the processes of seeing what other articles/books I can dig up on their organizational structure. It is an almost entirely flat organization – no titles, no chain of command, and no manufacturing facilities larger than 150 people. Bill Gore (founder) believed that people were not capable of building a sense of team and loyalty to groups larger than 150, so at that point of growth within any of his facilities they break off and form a new plant. Definitely an interesting concept that I’d love to read more about. Check out their website if you’re interested - http://www.gore.com/en_xx/aboutus/

A sentence near the end of the books seems to give a solid summary of what The Tipping Point is really all about: “What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or belief in the face of the right kind of impetus.”

One thing I've learned about myself during this journey towards 50 books is that I am great at great at starting new books - but that does not always translate into finishing them once I start! I am currently half way through The Partnership, How to Influence, and The New Art of the Leader. Let's see which one I get through next :)

1 down...49 to go :)

Only a few days in and I’ve made it through my first book. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell seemed (based on the back cover of course) to be an engaging read. I have heard good things about other books by him, but must confess I had never made it through one.



The book revolves around two simple questions:

1. Why do some people achieve so much more than others?
2. Can they really lie so far outside of the ordinary

Examples are pulled from a variety of places. He looks at geniuses, business tycoons, rock stars, programmers, lawyers, and pilots. The reader is taken on a journey of discovery, beyond the typical rags to riches celebration or the “it was all about how hard he worked to get there” argument and into a deeper level of analysis. What we discover is that there is one thing that virtually all impressive people have in common in one form (or more often in a multitude of forms): opportunity. There are always pivotal moments within a life that define it. A few of the examples used are Bill Gates being in one of the first schools with a certain type of computer at an early age. He was given opportunities to practice his programming skills at the age of 13, and by the time a handful of other high schools and universities in America had similar machines he had literally spent thousands of hours behind a computer learning to program. Another example was several trips that the Beatles to a small town in Germany while they were a young, struggling band. They were forced to play eight-hour sets for weeks solid. They played for almost nothing and didn’t gain much in terms of popularity, but this rigorous schedule taught them to work as a team and made each one of them into phenomenal musicians and performers. We all know what happened from there once they were literally forced to become great by an unexpected opportunity in Germany.


The author goes on to tell many similar stories, both about individual opportunities and the legacies that are left behind by cultures and people groups around the world. He examines the concept of “practical intelligence” and how deeply it is woven through our lives.

The most fascinating concept (in my opinion) that is discussed relates to class and education in our country. The reality is that a majority of children in America that come from low class families live a life containing very few of the opportunities that some of us are presented with. A group of children with IQs that were off the charts were selected at a very young age and studied in depth throughout their lives (check out the work of Lewis Terman for more – super interesting stuff). After literally a life’s work attempting to understand the consequence of “genius” upon individuals the results were surprising. There were various things used to measure success in the individuals, but in the end “success” seemed to have almost nothing to do with intelligence but everything to do with the family and culture environment that the children were raised in. The middle and upper class parents seemed to expect something different of their children. They were engaged in adult conversations, taught to ask questions and solve problems, and often emerged in a much more rigorous schedule filled with sports, music, and any host of other opportunities that the children from lower class families did not have access. Again, it seems that success can always be traced back to opportunity, which many children in our country and around the world do not have access to.


The premise really lies in the fact that there are a handful of people that are born at the right time, into the right family with the right set of circumstances around them (all of which are much more complex than simple economics), but if we as a society could identify and help to create more of those circumstantial opportunities then our society would look vastly different than it does today. Of course that premise led me to look at my own life. I feel as thought I have been given so many “golden opportunities.” I have a very rich set of circumstances, if you will. But what can I do to create similar opportunities for others? From there I thought about the team I work with every day. Is it possible that I can, in some small way, orchestrate the type of opportunities that could open a multitude of yet unimagined doors for them? How can I help them tap into the opportunities that surround them every day and make the most of the circumstances they have been given? Very challenging question…

My 2010 Mission Begins...

One of the goals I set out to accomplish in 2010 was reading more. More specifically, I wanted to read more business and leadership books. I have spent the last two years toying with the idea of going back to school and the overwhelming awareness that I am not pushing myself to learn at the rate that I know I am capable of. My job teaches me immense amounts about business and leadership on a daily basis, but it seems very obvious that the people that make themselves truly great at anything are bullish in their pursuit of knowledge and understanding and push themselves miles beyond what is simply thrown at them on a daily basis. I have known since that first grand plane ride across the Pacific just over ten years ago that I wanted to be one of those people, someone that lives beyond the ordinary and accomplishes something legendary.


That being said, one of my major focuses in 2010 is going to be reading. I feel like it is a major piece that is currently missing if I am going to develop into the type of businessperson I want to become, but like any goal or “resolution” it must be both defined and specific in order to be attainable. I considered how many books I should read in 2010, what topics I should focus on, and whether I should have a specific order. Considering the laziness in this area that seems to have developed since finishing school almost three years ago, I didn’t want to be unrealistic. My initial thought was that twelve would be a good accomplishment, giving each month a specific target. I had almost settled on that goal until I read about a prominent business author and consultant that read 200 books each year over the last decade. Is it any surprise that he has accomplished fairly spectacular things in both business and in the literary world? Since 2000 this man has consumed 2000 books in their entirety. That made my goal of twelve seem a bit trivial and un-ambitious.


After a bit of thought and analyzing what I would like to learn over the course of the year I have settled on 50. That means I will need to read roughly one book each week, which, while lofty compared to my recent track record, seems attainable. Of course, it is quite likely that I will get either bored or simply pre-occupied over the next twelve months, so putting my goal in writing online and committing to updating it with each book along the way seems like an excellent step towards holding myself accountable to actually follow through with my plan.


I have outlined 20 books so far that I want to read this year, so I will begin tackling this list immediately as well as do some research into other business classics that would help build the knowledge base I am looking for. The initial list is as follows:

1. Outliers by Malcolm Galdwell
2. How to Influence by Jo Owen
3. The Partnership:A History of Goldman Sachs by Charles Ellis
4. Love Leadership by John Hope Bryant
5. Strategic Negotiation by Brian J Dietmeyer
6. Creativity Today by Ramon Vullings
7. To Big to Fail by Ramon Vullings
8. False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World by Alan Beattie
9. The Wisdom of Crowds by James Fried
10. Rework by Jason Fried
11. The Little Big Things by Tom Peters
12. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
13. The Radical Leap by Steve Farber
14. The Story Factor by Annette Simmons
15. How to Become a Rainmaker by Jeffrey Fox
16. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
17. The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander
18. Up the Organization by Robert Townsend
19. Viral Loop by Adam Peneberg
20. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

Wish me luck :)