Book Review Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business by Patrick Lincioni

If you have anything to do with meetings and people, read this book. It really doesn't take that long to read and while I am still out on the entire 'fictional story to explain a business concept', this one has stuck with me since I first read the book a few years ago.

This book breaks it down for WHAT you should be expected to bring to each meeting and what you should expect to get out of each meeting. From an organizational perspective, it also has encouraged me to do two major time changing things in my life, a) I will not hold a meeting without publishing an agenda first and then following it up with a notes/action items email and b) I will gladly refuse to attend a meeting without a published agenda. I now recoup about 4-5 hours a week regularly because of this and am starting a behavior pattern that will hopefully improve the organization.

Book Review: The Hamster Revolution

The Hamster revolution by Song, Halsey & Burress

I want to say something good about this book, about how I have taken some of the core concepts to heart or maybe that it inspired me to start writing better emails but I can't. Heck, I would even like to tell you this book (being the 3rd of this kind I have read) was not the one that convinced me I do not need to read any more of these professional improvement books that boarder on manipulating story rather than conversation about the topic.

Here are the details in a nut-shell:

• Lead by example, write better emails and people will follow
• Kindly correct your colleague's emails, make subjects clearer and summarize their points
• Drop the crap, no more 'It would be our department's utmost pleasure to assist you' and other political crap. You know it is crap when you get it, others know the same. Help me be productive or you are really just a barrier towards my goals for the day.
• Provide & encourage private feedback on emails and pre-reading of drafts by an extra set of eyes.

This isn't world changing news, get the rose sunglasses off, realize the people you interact with would rather have things happen properly and efficiently than get their egos stroked. If there is a meeting at 2 PM tomorrow to discuss process improvement in our department that is all you need to say. I do not need to hear the inspirational essay that you want to base the new direction on or the epiphany you had that revealed all things wrong while vacationing with your family in some lake resort town 4 hours away. I need:

2 PM tomorrow we have a brainstorming meeting where we will identify:

1. Hindering processes that prevent us from being the best
   
2. New opportunities to serve our customers
3. Time frames for removal, change or implementation of these new processes.
4. Individual responsibility for driving each of these within the group.

Now onto the story format for professional books.

I can easily appreciate that you need to stand out in the market and being just another boring dead tree with page after page of a)fact b) discussion of fact is not going to get you written up as a breath of fresh air but these are getting goofy. I was with them on the concept of the newly hired executive because I always wondered what went on in those conversations at the top levels of management. I dug the idea of the film student, inspired by his craft, to reshape meetings. (If you do not know what books I am talking about, I will get the reviews out if they are not hear already.) But a stinkin' hamster walks into office? The is more an opening to a sad, politically correct joke to replace the 'A walks into a bar' of my father's generation than a motivational texts opening. Completely ridiculous and screams 'buy me and take me home, I am more than a book to scan at your local Borders while sipping your latte.' I almost want to do the library I borrowed this from a favor and use it to start my next bonfire with it. Three author's and this is the best opening they came up with? I hope your other works are better.

Comments on the current state of India in Time June, 2006

This is an old magazine that I finally pulled out of the drawers and read through. The information is now a year old so there were only a few things I wanted to take out of it.

Initiative represents Bombay's- and India's- advantage over its competitors "it's people who make countries, not governments".

The above quote sticks with me because it may very well be what gives any one group an advantage over another. If we think back on the history of America we had one advantage over the rest of the world, we took initiative and did things. This can be said too for just about anything from a high-school that invests heavily in its football team to an individual that suddenly finds themselves ahead of everybody they once associated with... the only difference is somebody took initiative and did it first.

So now the question becomes, can they keep it and how do we make sure we are able to ride their wave of initiative? Change, change what you do, change professions, find an open market and feed it. This is so important because taking a chance is what America has been known for (Think Wild West) and good or bad, we need to drive change, not just ride it. Act as an individual if you must but drive the society and have others help you move change through new initiatives.

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Globombed (by Wipra): Outsourcing of a job. I used to work for a NOC in California but it was globombed and I relocated my family here to Texas and I now work in a Data Center.

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We realized no one was going to descend from the heavens to solve our problems, and we were going to have to do it ourselves.

Anything I could say about this comment is already said in the first section.

Book Review: Leadership and Self-Deception

Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute

This is the best opener to a way of changing how you think about professional conflict and common goals. The only problem this book has in my opinion is the closing conversation talks about additional learning the lead subject must undergo. As the reader, I was rather disapointed these additional lessons are not in print anywhere.

I always struggle between the cut-throat 1980's image of American business and the Eastern philosophies that interest me so much. I look at some of the things we do on a regular basis and have to ask 'why?' Things this book is not saying:
Business needs more heart
Ill gotten gains will rot your soul
Getting ahead is not about leaving people behind

360 Degree Leadership

1. Lead yourself exceptionally well (emotionally, time, priorities, energy, thinking, few words, personal life)
2. Lighten the bosses load, do your job well
Tell others (upward) what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
Go the extra mile
3. Do what others won't
4. Do not manage, Lead
Facilitate change
5. Relationship/Chemistry
Know their priorities
Prep for meetings 10x
Clarify purpose to speed progress

1. Do the tought jobs
2. Pay your dues
3. Work in obscurity
4. Succeed with difficult people
5. Put your self on the line, not them or the company.
6. Make no excusses.
7. Do more than expected
8. Help others
9. Never say that is 'not my job'
10 Take responsibility.