A Hands-on Plan for Managing Work and Balancing Time
by Steve Prentice
from the back... Cool Time doesn't focus on prioritizing and agenda setting. In the real world of interruptions, e-mail, and distractions, few people are able to organize their work in isolation from everything else. In fact, effective time management is more about human relationships and expectations than it is about making lists.
Amanda's note: While I did pick up some tips and insights from this book, for some reason I didn't have any flags. I think it's because I learned so much between the Covey workshops and Working Smart With Outlook, that my new nuggets weren't the loud 'ahas' that I typically experience when I read.
However, here is just a list of the stuff I remember picking up:
- schedule 55 min meetings
- check email at set times a day (I'm doing 9, 11:30 and 4pm and it's working great)
- the I-beam review
- keystone time
- opportunity time
- right not to answer if you don't recognize the number on call display
- out of office message on your phone - make it a good one
- a great deal of email is sent before it's really ready to be sent
- use effective subject lines
- alternate meeting strategies: stealth and pouncing and coffee shops
- May and October/November are peak times for energy levels, staff availability and work focus
- use a word document for your knowledge base (can assign bookmarks and hyperlinks within document)
http://www.cool-time.com/
18.12.07
17.12.07
Start Late, Finish Rich
A No Fail Plan For Achieving Financial Freedom At Any Age
by David Bach
I don't really think this book needs a 'from the flap' with a self-explanatory title like that!
Here are my flags...
pg 10 You may think this book is only about money, but you will learn that it's really about a lot more. My mission is to free you to be who you were put here to be - and my experience has taught me that what hold most people back from their purpose in life are financial challenges. Break the financial handcuffs of living paycheque to paycheque, worrying about debt, and losing sleep over how you are going to survive financially in the future, and you will be able to focus on what is really important to you. You are already rich inside - this book will help you reconnect with your born given gift.
This book may be called Start Late, Finish Rich, but I know that inside you are already rich in spirit. All we need to do now is help you become materially rich so you can live the life you were meant to live.
pg 15 The past will continue to be your future if you drag it along with you!
pg 29 Find your Double Latte Factor! It's not how much we earn, it's how much we spend! If there is one key concept on which everything else I have to say about finishing rich is built, it is this: how much you earn almost has no bearing on whether or not you can and will build wealth.
pg 74 Dead on last payment:
1. Make a list of the current outstanding balances on each of your credit-card accounts.
2. Divide each balance by the minimum payment that particular credit card company wants from you. This gives you the DOLP.
3. Once you've figured out the DOLP for each account, rank them in reverse order, putting the account with the lowest DOLP number first. You now know the most efficient order in which you should pay off your various credit card balances. Take half your latte factor savings and apply them to the card with the lowest DOLP rating. For each of your other cards, you make only the minimum payment.
pg 89 The question I'm asked most often about Pay Yourself First is, "How much?" I've always believed that to be fair to yourself and your future, you should Pay Yourself First at least one hour's worth of income every day. Say you make $50,000 a year. That works out to roughly $1,000 a week, or $25 an hour (figuring a 40-hour workweek). So paying yourself first an hour's worth of income every day means saving $25 per workday, or $125 a week, or $6,250 a year. With a 10 percent annual return, if you were to begin at 30, you'd end up with just under $2 million by the time you're 65.
pg 110 ... So knowing that you live in an insane world, what should you do with your money? ... I created the Perfect Pie Approach. ...draw a circle, divide into three equal slices: Stocks (mutual funds), Bonds (bond mutual funds), Real Estate.
pg 112 If you don't own a home - or the equity in your home doesn't equal one-third of your total assets - then you need to have real estate added to your portfolio. The single easiest way to add real estate to your portfolio is to invest in REITs. To be technical about it, a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) is a company that happens to be in the business of owning and operating real estate. First developed in Canada in 1993, REITs are generally publicly traded (though some are privately held) and they usually own income-producing properties such as office buildings, stores, hotels, apartment buildings, and shopping centres. There are also REITs that own hospitals and nursing care facilities, and some even own real estate loan portfolios. While there are more than 200 REITs in the US, there are only 20 REITs currently operating in Canada.
pg 11 I don't recommend that you buy individual REITs because it's too easy to pick the wrong one. The solution is simple: You should buy an index fund of REITs. (An index fund is a mutual fund that is designed to mirror the performance of a particular market indicator us as the S&P/TSX 60). In Canada, Barclay's Global Investors offers an ETF called the iUnits S&P/TSX REIT EFT. This REIT fund can be purchased through any brokerage and put into your RRSP; details are available at http://www.iunits.com/.
You can also participate in the REIT market through a real estate mutual fund, although you won't get the same benefit from one of these funds as you'd get by investing in the EFT. That's because... also invest in equities and other securities of Canadian companies that are involved in owning or managing real estate.
pg 285 Living to retire is not living... The fact is, you don't have to have a fully funded RRSP to have joy. What really matters is that you have consistent joy in your life right now, that you have some fun now, that you forget the idea that your supposed to wait until you retire to have those things.
pg 289 The purpose of your life is joy. This may sound far-fetched, but it's not. I believe you are here to have a life of meaning and joy - to do great things, to be a great person. To live rich. How do you find this fulfillment? You don't find it. You live it. Joy is not out there under a rock. It is not found in any one specific thing, like getting a new job, starting a new marriage, losing 30 pounds, or having a child. It is inside you waiting to come out. Joy comes from doing what you are meant to be doing with your life.
pg 292 If it's so easy to start late and finish rich, why do so many people think it's impossible? The answer is that most people are too busy to put time and energy into what matters most. We clutter up our lives with things we think are important instead of living what is really important. We major in minor things.
pg 300 (lessons to our kids) Lesson No 11: Teach them to dream big dreams. The world needs more dreamers. Let the adults be realistic. We need our kids to believe and know that they really can be "anything" and "anyone" they want to be. Our greatest purpose in life is to use the gifts our creator gave us to be who we were put here to be. For many of our kids, this means dreaming a life bigger than the one they are currently living.
Please, as an adult, be a dream creator and not a dream stealer. Your words of encouragement to a young person may shape not only the child's destiny but the world's. You don't know who you are talking to when you speak to a young person. You might be speaking to the next Dr. Martin Luther King, or Pierre Trudeau or Oprah Winfrey or Wayne Gretzky or Lance Armstrong. You don't know what the child you love can do. Only the child can know, and she or he might not know it yet. So encourage the dream!
by David Bach
I don't really think this book needs a 'from the flap' with a self-explanatory title like that!
Here are my flags...
pg 10 You may think this book is only about money, but you will learn that it's really about a lot more. My mission is to free you to be who you were put here to be - and my experience has taught me that what hold most people back from their purpose in life are financial challenges. Break the financial handcuffs of living paycheque to paycheque, worrying about debt, and losing sleep over how you are going to survive financially in the future, and you will be able to focus on what is really important to you. You are already rich inside - this book will help you reconnect with your born given gift.
This book may be called Start Late, Finish Rich, but I know that inside you are already rich in spirit. All we need to do now is help you become materially rich so you can live the life you were meant to live.
pg 15 The past will continue to be your future if you drag it along with you!
pg 29 Find your Double Latte Factor! It's not how much we earn, it's how much we spend! If there is one key concept on which everything else I have to say about finishing rich is built, it is this: how much you earn almost has no bearing on whether or not you can and will build wealth.
pg 74 Dead on last payment:
1. Make a list of the current outstanding balances on each of your credit-card accounts.
2. Divide each balance by the minimum payment that particular credit card company wants from you. This gives you the DOLP.
3. Once you've figured out the DOLP for each account, rank them in reverse order, putting the account with the lowest DOLP number first. You now know the most efficient order in which you should pay off your various credit card balances. Take half your latte factor savings and apply them to the card with the lowest DOLP rating. For each of your other cards, you make only the minimum payment.
pg 89 The question I'm asked most often about Pay Yourself First is, "How much?" I've always believed that to be fair to yourself and your future, you should Pay Yourself First at least one hour's worth of income every day. Say you make $50,000 a year. That works out to roughly $1,000 a week, or $25 an hour (figuring a 40-hour workweek). So paying yourself first an hour's worth of income every day means saving $25 per workday, or $125 a week, or $6,250 a year. With a 10 percent annual return, if you were to begin at 30, you'd end up with just under $2 million by the time you're 65.
pg 110 ... So knowing that you live in an insane world, what should you do with your money? ... I created the Perfect Pie Approach. ...draw a circle, divide into three equal slices: Stocks (mutual funds), Bonds (bond mutual funds), Real Estate.
pg 112 If you don't own a home - or the equity in your home doesn't equal one-third of your total assets - then you need to have real estate added to your portfolio. The single easiest way to add real estate to your portfolio is to invest in REITs. To be technical about it, a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) is a company that happens to be in the business of owning and operating real estate. First developed in Canada in 1993, REITs are generally publicly traded (though some are privately held) and they usually own income-producing properties such as office buildings, stores, hotels, apartment buildings, and shopping centres. There are also REITs that own hospitals and nursing care facilities, and some even own real estate loan portfolios. While there are more than 200 REITs in the US, there are only 20 REITs currently operating in Canada.
pg 11 I don't recommend that you buy individual REITs because it's too easy to pick the wrong one. The solution is simple: You should buy an index fund of REITs. (An index fund is a mutual fund that is designed to mirror the performance of a particular market indicator us as the S&P/TSX 60). In Canada, Barclay's Global Investors offers an ETF called the iUnits S&P/TSX REIT EFT. This REIT fund can be purchased through any brokerage and put into your RRSP; details are available at http://www.iunits.com/.
You can also participate in the REIT market through a real estate mutual fund, although you won't get the same benefit from one of these funds as you'd get by investing in the EFT. That's because... also invest in equities and other securities of Canadian companies that are involved in owning or managing real estate.
pg 285 Living to retire is not living... The fact is, you don't have to have a fully funded RRSP to have joy. What really matters is that you have consistent joy in your life right now, that you have some fun now, that you forget the idea that your supposed to wait until you retire to have those things.
pg 289 The purpose of your life is joy. This may sound far-fetched, but it's not. I believe you are here to have a life of meaning and joy - to do great things, to be a great person. To live rich. How do you find this fulfillment? You don't find it. You live it. Joy is not out there under a rock. It is not found in any one specific thing, like getting a new job, starting a new marriage, losing 30 pounds, or having a child. It is inside you waiting to come out. Joy comes from doing what you are meant to be doing with your life.
pg 292 If it's so easy to start late and finish rich, why do so many people think it's impossible? The answer is that most people are too busy to put time and energy into what matters most. We clutter up our lives with things we think are important instead of living what is really important. We major in minor things.
pg 300 (lessons to our kids) Lesson No 11: Teach them to dream big dreams. The world needs more dreamers. Let the adults be realistic. We need our kids to believe and know that they really can be "anything" and "anyone" they want to be. Our greatest purpose in life is to use the gifts our creator gave us to be who we were put here to be. For many of our kids, this means dreaming a life bigger than the one they are currently living.
Please, as an adult, be a dream creator and not a dream stealer. Your words of encouragement to a young person may shape not only the child's destiny but the world's. You don't know who you are talking to when you speak to a young person. You might be speaking to the next Dr. Martin Luther King, or Pierre Trudeau or Oprah Winfrey or Wayne Gretzky or Lance Armstrong. You don't know what the child you love can do. Only the child can know, and she or he might not know it yet. So encourage the dream!
15.12.07
Crazy Times Call For Crazy Organizations
The Tom Peters Seminar
From the back: "These bold ideas vault business people beyond reengineering, beyond total quality management, beyond empowerment, even beyond change - toward reinvention and revolution. The result, organized around nine such "beyonds" , is a timely, graphically exciting volume, loaded with "how tos."
Amanda's note: What I find interesting is that this book is from the mid 90's. Some of these ideas still sound innovative (just to me cause I'm new to this stuff?) over ten years later. Why is this? They didn't really work? Or is the business world really that slow - still too much focus on maintaining the old instead of playing a new game? (and guess what, it was Phil Knight of Nike that said "The target now is to invent a new game."
My flags...
pg 39 "You don't do brainwork in groups of a thousand...you do it in quartets, octets, groups of ten..." anonymous exec.
pg 47 "All good work is done in defiance of management." Bob Woodward
pg 51 The problem ultimately boils down to cold, statistical considerations. If everybody thinks alike in a so-called decentralized operation, then 14 new-product tries from 14 "autonomous" divisions aren't statistically independent. It's really one try repeated 14 times. Autocorrelation. Low variation.
pg 57 "People think the president of an outfit has to be the main organizer," Quad/Graphics CEO Harry Quadracci told me. "No, the president is the main disorganizer. Everybody 'manages' quite well; whenever anything goes wrong, they take immediate action to make sure nothing will go wrong again. The problem is, nothing new will ever happen, either."
pg 59 Successful change comes from creating "self-inflicted catastrophes," says Symmetrix CEO George Bennet. "The idea is to build a greenhouse in which to nurture the new order - to test the new organizational forms and the creative use of technology - to break the rules and invent the future. The greenhouse is then encouraged to cannibalize the customer base and staff of the old organization over time."
pg 60 Set the tone for recruitment and people development (people of imagination, anarchists who may lead you down the bumpy but gold-paved path to an exciting future)
pg 75 To inject fun and simplicity into cost-analysis training, financial education director Chuck Mayhew calculates labor, materials, overhead, cost, and sales figures based on a Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe. By adjusting pricing, ingredients, and profit margins, employees can fiddle with the model and test various sales and cost-saving techniques. The intent, Sheppard says, is to teach employees to "manage hour-to-hour activities for improved profitability."
pg 78 "The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." Henry Stimson
pg 81 At the information-systems firm Scitor, CEO Roger Meade has made challenging management part of the corporate creed:
Utilize your best judgement at all times. Ask yourself: Is it fair and reasonable? Is it honest? Does it make good business sense in the context of our established objectives? If you can answer yes to all of these, then proceed. Remember, you are accountable against this policy for all your actions.
pg Think resume. T-h-i-n-k r-e-s-u-m-e. What does this mean? It means frequently asking yourself six questions:
1. What the hell do I do?
2. What have I actually done?
3. Who among my customers will testify to it?
4. What evidence is there that my skills are state of the art?
5. Who new do I know, far beyond the company's walls, who will help me deal with an ever-chillier world?
6. Will my year-end resume look different from last year's?
pg 98 ...Harari's advice to all bosses: "Pretend you are leaving the company in six months with no replacement, overhaul your organization and train your people to take over your job, and then find a new way to add value. And be prepared to repeat the cycle, over and over again (maybe with different employers) until your retire". Scary? Yes. But imperative. (University of San Fran management prof Oren Harari)
pg 100 Support for this "Just Do It" mentality, to borrow a phrase, comes from an intriguing study at Bell Labs reported in the Harvard Business Review. The research analyzed differences between average and top performers. Both types of Bell Labs employees agreed that taking the initiative was the most important thing in getting ahead. Interestingly, both said they regularly took the initiative.
The difference boiled down to two disparate views of what "taking the imitative" meant. The average performer told the researchers that it meant dealing in information - for example, "writing a memo to [a] supervisor about a software bug." The stars, on the other hand, said that taking the imitative meant "fixing [the] bug yourself."
pg 108 The lessons learned from the Sewells and Millikens of the world might be a tough one to swallow. Whether you're a new B-school graduate, rising marketing exec, or CEO, you need to ask yourself: Am I on the road to towering competence that can become the basis for startling moves in my industry? If not, precisely what do I plan to do about it? (And when do I plan to start?) ... In an age where all value is cerebral, it's high time to take a look at whether or not we're developing an unfair share of gold medalists (who are in hot pursuit of towering competence).
pg 112 ... former Apple boss John Sculley succinctly described what I call "the new loyalty." He said, in effect: Look, Apple can't promise you a job for life. Not even for five or 10 years. Maybe not even for a couple of years. But what Apple can - and does - promise is that, whether you're aboard for three months, six months, six years, or unlikely as it may be, 16 years, you will be constantly learning, constantly challenged. At the end, you will be demonstrably better positioned in the local or global labor market than you would have been had you not spent the time with us.
pg 137 On the other hand, they see that a previously internal-only service has profit potential outside (Kennametal, Lane).
pg 141 Can somebody handle any of your "service packages" better than you can? If the answer is yes, seriously consider outsourcing. ... Can you extend your staff services (Kennametal inventory management, Lane Group training, IBM employee benefits) to a customer's or competitor's shop?
pg 143 ...1994 television ad for MCI, recited by 11-year-old Anna Paquin:
There will be a road
It will not connect two points.
It will connect all points.
Its speed limit will be the speed of light.
It will not go from here to there.
There will be no more there.
We will all only be here.
pg 145 Once more, to say it is not to do it. That's for sure. Time spent, language ("outpartnering" for "outsourcing"), and hierarchical importance (EVP of strategic relationships) help. But much more must be done on working with "outsiders" as trusted comrades in arms. For a first-rate discussion of this classic and novel topic, you'll do no better than "The TeamNet Factor" by longtime networkers Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps.
pg 216 (Amanda's comment: this is Po's theory, years before his book!) Alan Webber wrote in the Harvard Business Review, "In the new economy, individuals at all levels of the company and in all kinds of companies are challenged to develop new knowledge and to create new value, to take responsibility for their ideas and to pursue them as far as they can go. People who manage in the new economy must tap into the emotional energy that comes from wrestling with their own destiny. In the end, that's a job description that most people would welcome."
pg 216 The spirit of Nintendo is best captured by a simple exchange. A game designer, Gunpei Yokoi, asked his boss, "What should I make?" Nintendo chief executive Hiroshi Yamauchi replied, "Something great." ... Has any boss, in your career, ever said to you, 'Do / make something great'?
pg 234 Imagine the first focus group that gathered to review Post-it Notes prototypes. "Folks," the suave marketer began, "what I have here are little squares of yellow paper. They have glue on one side. Not very good glue. I mean, it doesn't stick very well. It sort of sticks, but , you know, then it doesn't. Well, this thing is going to replace paperclips. We think it will be a $1 billion market someday". Would you have bought that act? Don't be silly. Can you live without Post-its today? Maybe, but would you want to?
"When I meet a friend who has just returned from a visit to the hospital, clinic, or doctors office," wrote the respected health-care futurist Leland Kaiser, "I ask, 'Did you have a good time?' This is the same question I might ask a friend if she or he just returned from a trip to Disneyland. A visit to a health-care facility should be a great experience." ... I love Kaiser's question because it's beautiful, because it's surprising, breaks all the rules, and because it's TGR (things gone right) to the core. .. "Did you have a good time?" That's a challenge, that's a rallying cry I can imagine building a hospital around. I just plain love it.
pg 278 Sam, the cautious division chief, is the patient professor conducting a tutorial; he loves to chew on ideas, asks good questions, and is a pleasure to talk to. Gwen, in contrast, is often abrupt and, not infrequently, even rude. She doesn't mean to be, but part of her can't figure out why the hell you're there giving the presentation in the first place. If she were you, she already would have recruited some supporters in the field, scraped up some dough, and built something. From the moment she walked through the door as a 21-year-old junior marketing assistant, Gwen has subscribed to the "It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" school of subordinate behaviour.
pg 282 Put the pedal all the way to the metal ("organizations are capable of taking on more..." - Mike Walsh). Action ("put our heads down and engineer like mad" - Ed McCracken). Embrace failure ("he doesn't give a f---" - John Brown on Richard Branson). No tepid responses ("make something great" - Yamauchi). Focus amidst the mayhem ("you've got twelve minutes" - Roger Milliken). These are the five cardinal virtues of the most effective leader-revolutionaries, at all levels, including the front line, that I've met.
From the back: "These bold ideas vault business people beyond reengineering, beyond total quality management, beyond empowerment, even beyond change - toward reinvention and revolution. The result, organized around nine such "beyonds" , is a timely, graphically exciting volume, loaded with "how tos."
Amanda's note: What I find interesting is that this book is from the mid 90's. Some of these ideas still sound innovative (just to me cause I'm new to this stuff?) over ten years later. Why is this? They didn't really work? Or is the business world really that slow - still too much focus on maintaining the old instead of playing a new game? (and guess what, it was Phil Knight of Nike that said "The target now is to invent a new game."
My flags...
pg 39 "You don't do brainwork in groups of a thousand...you do it in quartets, octets, groups of ten..." anonymous exec.
pg 47 "All good work is done in defiance of management." Bob Woodward
pg 51 The problem ultimately boils down to cold, statistical considerations. If everybody thinks alike in a so-called decentralized operation, then 14 new-product tries from 14 "autonomous" divisions aren't statistically independent. It's really one try repeated 14 times. Autocorrelation. Low variation.
pg 57 "People think the president of an outfit has to be the main organizer," Quad/Graphics CEO Harry Quadracci told me. "No, the president is the main disorganizer. Everybody 'manages' quite well; whenever anything goes wrong, they take immediate action to make sure nothing will go wrong again. The problem is, nothing new will ever happen, either."
pg 59 Successful change comes from creating "self-inflicted catastrophes," says Symmetrix CEO George Bennet. "The idea is to build a greenhouse in which to nurture the new order - to test the new organizational forms and the creative use of technology - to break the rules and invent the future. The greenhouse is then encouraged to cannibalize the customer base and staff of the old organization over time."
pg 60 Set the tone for recruitment and people development (people of imagination, anarchists who may lead you down the bumpy but gold-paved path to an exciting future)
pg 75 To inject fun and simplicity into cost-analysis training, financial education director Chuck Mayhew calculates labor, materials, overhead, cost, and sales figures based on a Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe. By adjusting pricing, ingredients, and profit margins, employees can fiddle with the model and test various sales and cost-saving techniques. The intent, Sheppard says, is to teach employees to "manage hour-to-hour activities for improved profitability."
pg 78 "The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." Henry Stimson
pg 81 At the information-systems firm Scitor, CEO Roger Meade has made challenging management part of the corporate creed:
Utilize your best judgement at all times. Ask yourself: Is it fair and reasonable? Is it honest? Does it make good business sense in the context of our established objectives? If you can answer yes to all of these, then proceed. Remember, you are accountable against this policy for all your actions.
pg Think resume. T-h-i-n-k r-e-s-u-m-e. What does this mean? It means frequently asking yourself six questions:
1. What the hell do I do?
2. What have I actually done?
3. Who among my customers will testify to it?
4. What evidence is there that my skills are state of the art?
5. Who new do I know, far beyond the company's walls, who will help me deal with an ever-chillier world?
6. Will my year-end resume look different from last year's?
pg 98 ...Harari's advice to all bosses: "Pretend you are leaving the company in six months with no replacement, overhaul your organization and train your people to take over your job, and then find a new way to add value. And be prepared to repeat the cycle, over and over again (maybe with different employers) until your retire". Scary? Yes. But imperative. (University of San Fran management prof Oren Harari)
pg 100 Support for this "Just Do It" mentality, to borrow a phrase, comes from an intriguing study at Bell Labs reported in the Harvard Business Review. The research analyzed differences between average and top performers. Both types of Bell Labs employees agreed that taking the initiative was the most important thing in getting ahead. Interestingly, both said they regularly took the initiative.
The difference boiled down to two disparate views of what "taking the imitative" meant. The average performer told the researchers that it meant dealing in information - for example, "writing a memo to [a] supervisor about a software bug." The stars, on the other hand, said that taking the imitative meant "fixing [the] bug yourself."
pg 108 The lessons learned from the Sewells and Millikens of the world might be a tough one to swallow. Whether you're a new B-school graduate, rising marketing exec, or CEO, you need to ask yourself: Am I on the road to towering competence that can become the basis for startling moves in my industry? If not, precisely what do I plan to do about it? (And when do I plan to start?) ... In an age where all value is cerebral, it's high time to take a look at whether or not we're developing an unfair share of gold medalists (who are in hot pursuit of towering competence).
pg 112 ... former Apple boss John Sculley succinctly described what I call "the new loyalty." He said, in effect: Look, Apple can't promise you a job for life. Not even for five or 10 years. Maybe not even for a couple of years. But what Apple can - and does - promise is that, whether you're aboard for three months, six months, six years, or unlikely as it may be, 16 years, you will be constantly learning, constantly challenged. At the end, you will be demonstrably better positioned in the local or global labor market than you would have been had you not spent the time with us.
pg 137 On the other hand, they see that a previously internal-only service has profit potential outside (Kennametal, Lane).
pg 141 Can somebody handle any of your "service packages" better than you can? If the answer is yes, seriously consider outsourcing. ... Can you extend your staff services (Kennametal inventory management, Lane Group training, IBM employee benefits) to a customer's or competitor's shop?
pg 143 ...1994 television ad for MCI, recited by 11-year-old Anna Paquin:
There will be a road
It will not connect two points.
It will connect all points.
Its speed limit will be the speed of light.
It will not go from here to there.
There will be no more there.
We will all only be here.
pg 145 Once more, to say it is not to do it. That's for sure. Time spent, language ("outpartnering" for "outsourcing"), and hierarchical importance (EVP of strategic relationships) help. But much more must be done on working with "outsiders" as trusted comrades in arms. For a first-rate discussion of this classic and novel topic, you'll do no better than "The TeamNet Factor" by longtime networkers Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps.
pg 216 (Amanda's comment: this is Po's theory, years before his book!) Alan Webber wrote in the Harvard Business Review, "In the new economy, individuals at all levels of the company and in all kinds of companies are challenged to develop new knowledge and to create new value, to take responsibility for their ideas and to pursue them as far as they can go. People who manage in the new economy must tap into the emotional energy that comes from wrestling with their own destiny. In the end, that's a job description that most people would welcome."
pg 216 The spirit of Nintendo is best captured by a simple exchange. A game designer, Gunpei Yokoi, asked his boss, "What should I make?" Nintendo chief executive Hiroshi Yamauchi replied, "Something great." ... Has any boss, in your career, ever said to you, 'Do / make something great'?
pg 234 Imagine the first focus group that gathered to review Post-it Notes prototypes. "Folks," the suave marketer began, "what I have here are little squares of yellow paper. They have glue on one side. Not very good glue. I mean, it doesn't stick very well. It sort of sticks, but , you know, then it doesn't. Well, this thing is going to replace paperclips. We think it will be a $1 billion market someday". Would you have bought that act? Don't be silly. Can you live without Post-its today? Maybe, but would you want to?
"When I meet a friend who has just returned from a visit to the hospital, clinic, or doctors office," wrote the respected health-care futurist Leland Kaiser, "I ask, 'Did you have a good time?' This is the same question I might ask a friend if she or he just returned from a trip to Disneyland. A visit to a health-care facility should be a great experience." ... I love Kaiser's question because it's beautiful, because it's surprising, breaks all the rules, and because it's TGR (things gone right) to the core. .. "Did you have a good time?" That's a challenge, that's a rallying cry I can imagine building a hospital around. I just plain love it.
pg 278 Sam, the cautious division chief, is the patient professor conducting a tutorial; he loves to chew on ideas, asks good questions, and is a pleasure to talk to. Gwen, in contrast, is often abrupt and, not infrequently, even rude. She doesn't mean to be, but part of her can't figure out why the hell you're there giving the presentation in the first place. If she were you, she already would have recruited some supporters in the field, scraped up some dough, and built something. From the moment she walked through the door as a 21-year-old junior marketing assistant, Gwen has subscribed to the "It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" school of subordinate behaviour.
pg 282 Put the pedal all the way to the metal ("organizations are capable of taking on more..." - Mike Walsh). Action ("put our heads down and engineer like mad" - Ed McCracken). Embrace failure ("he doesn't give a f---" - John Brown on Richard Branson). No tepid responses ("make something great" - Yamauchi). Focus amidst the mayhem ("you've got twelve minutes" - Roger Milliken). These are the five cardinal virtues of the most effective leader-revolutionaries, at all levels, including the front line, that I've met.
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