A summary of things you should know about No-Drama Leadership according to Marlene Chism: Introduction In this episode Marlene Chism takes a deep dive into her book, No-Drama Leadership, whereRead More
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]]>In this episode Marlene Chism takes a deep dive into her book, No-Drama Leadership, where she discusses how enlightened leaders transform culture in the workplace.
In her book Chism provides you with the practical skills to become a more enlightened leader through real-time examples, case studies, and checklists from some of the most successful leaders in the world. The goal of the book is to teach you how to improve your leadership effectiveness, establish accountability in any workplace, communicate strategically, and increase employee engagement.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who manage a team of employees and are having trouble keeping their emotions aside when it comes to making hasty leadership decisions.
We start to work as leaders with the environment to change the identity of those even in the first level (Supervisors, new leaders) so that they more easily identified with being a leader. I think another differentiator is that I am a female writing about leadership, not from a feminine perspective, but rather from a universal perspective. At the core, leadership is as much about a way of being and not just a way of doing, especially in the world in which we are living today.
You can jump in to any chapter but I have designed it where it all works together and so there are a lot of different ways for a reader to engage with this book.
I want the readers to have the understanding that if today’s leadership, if it’s about anything, it’s about alignment.
The book is divided into three sections. The sections are The Will to Be, The Eyes to See, and The Power to Create.
In The Will to Be, the first section, I’m making the statement that the enlightened leader has the will to be aligned, aware, and accountable. In this section I talk a lot about will verses willingness, desire and so on because what I have learned is that you can’t want something for someone that they don’t want for themselves. If there is no desire to be a certain way, if a leader does not claim their values, there’s really nothing to align to. So alignment, awareness, and accountability all work together. Alignment being a major component that threads throughout the entire book with the understanding that before alignment comes clarity. I make the framework for awareness in a way that is really easy to grasp and divided it into four different types of awareness. The four types are self-awareness, other awareness, cultural awareness, and spiritual awareness. I make a big distinguish in this book between responsibility and accountability with the understanding that, until there’s real ownership, accountability just serves as a way for people to cheat and skew the numbers. When people truly accept ownership through responsibility, accountability becomes a wonderful tool to course correct quickly.
In section two, Eyes to See, the idea is that enlightened leaders have a sixth sense about how to see things and so they see communication differently. These leaders are very committed to their communication, they see it as a critical skill and they see it as a strategy understanding that from the bigger perspective it’s better to get along with people and be upfront about your intentions.
The last section is The Power to Create and the understanding here is that enlightened leaders see themselves as co-creators or creators. Enlightened leaders see other people that way as well so they work collectively to create the right environment, the right engagement, and the right empowerment.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 06:22
“If the company sees the employ as a cog in the wheel the employ sees the company as a paycheck.” – Marlene Chism
I am a consultant, an international speaker, and the author of three books which two have been commercially published, STOP Workplace Drama and No-Drama Leadership.
The inspiration came from my first book, STOP Workplace Drama, and the success of it. I was inspired to write this book for the upper level executives and business owners, not only for their own development but to see from the mountaintop why we need to change the definition of leadership.
The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
Buy No-Drama Leadership by Marlene Chism on Amazon today
Visit MarleneChism.com to learn more about Marlene and her book
Follow Marlene Chism on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Discomfort Zone by Marcia Reynolds
The Front-Line Leader by Chris Van Gorder
The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make by Hans Finzel
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Leading With Cultural Intelligence according to David Livermore: Introduction In this episode David Livermore takes a deep dive into his the secondRead More
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]]>In this episode David Livermore takes a deep dive into his the second edition of his book, Leading With Cultural Intelligence, where he reveals a 4-step model for managing across cultures.
In his book Livermore provides updated research, case studies, and statistics on the profitable benefits of developing a leadership role through the ideals of cultural intelligence. The goal of the book is to teach you how to boost your confidence when managing diverse people, adapt to any type of leadership environment, and understand employee differences when it comes to religious values.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who manage employees that come from many different backgrounds and need a guide to plan ahead for unfamiliar cultural settings.
We found that there was a need for a more sophisticated approach that said there wasn’t a one size fits all to leadership but there are some general models that can be used. We wanted to show how to lead across any number of different cultures without feeling like you have to be an expert everywhere you go.
I wrote this book thinking that it’s best suited to read start to finish but it can also be used as a guide book that someone can go back to.
The primary thing I want people to understand is unlike other forms of intelligence CQ is a developmental skillset and therefore anybody can improve their cultural intelligence.
The book begins by dispelling some of the myths that are out there regarding what it takes to lead effectively across different cultures. One of the challenges that we say right at the begging is that if you think you can lead people the same everywhere that is not necessarily fair. On the other hand one of the myths that we dispel upfront is that somehow you have to become an expert in every culture you’re going to encounter because the more we get engaged in entrepreneurial activity, the more that we find we may be encountering dozens of cultures in a given day. So the front end of the book speaks of what is often said about what it takes to be a global entrepreneur and challenges some of the inadequacies of that and then shows you what makes someone effective working across cultures.
The book is largely oriented around answering what the difference between leaders, between entrepreneurs and between organizations that succeeds working across multiple different cultures and those that fail. And essentially what we found was that the leaders who can move in and out of any number of different cultures context, without necessarily being an expert, have four capabilities that consistently emerge and the middle section of the book walks you through these four capabilities. The first capability that consistently emerges among those who are culturally intelligent is CQ Drive which is the degree to which one is interested and motivated in different cultures and sees it as relevance to their entrepreneurial success.
This chapter goes into specific strategies of how you bear in mind the need to make your new idea something that would be appealing to different markets within the same domestic context or internationally. The second capability that the culturally intelligent leader and entrepreneur have is what we call high CQ Knowledge and that is that they have an overall grasp of the similarities and differences that tend to exist across different cultures. The third capability is the CQ Strategy piece which refers to some of the best practices for how one can lead strategically. The fourth capability is the CQ Action and this is the degree to which an entrepreneur figures out just how much to adapt, who should adapt to whom, and when to not adapt. We look at some organization examples that remind people that adaptation is a piece of it but we don’t want to go too far. The book primarily walks through that model. We have full assessments that allow people to assess where they are on those four capabilities along with intervention for Drive, Knowledge, Strategy, and Action.
The last part of the book answers the so what question, what ROI to anticipate as an individual leader, and the results that we can anticipate when others cultural intelligence improves.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:30
“It’s not that I have to agree with everything you say, but I should at least attempt to understand it, for the opposite of mutual understanding is, quite simply, war.” – Ken Wilbur
My role is to lead the Cultural Intelligence Center where we have the chance to work with organizations around the world to help them work more effectively across cultures. I currently live in Michigan where our center is based but I am originally from the east coast.
The inspiration for the original edition was after spending 10 to 15 years researching this phenomenon of cultural intelligence many of the practitioners, managers, and entrepreneurs we had talked to asked for a more practical user-friendly version of it.
The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd
Buy Leading With Cultural Intelligence by David Livermore on Amazon today
Visit CulturalQ.com to learn more about the book
Visit DavidLivermore.com to learn more about David and download a free chapter
Follow David Livermore on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Widgets by Rodd Wagner
Managing Whole People by Mark Herbert
The Culture Engine by Chris Edmonds
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Widgets according to Rodd Wagner: Introduction In this episode Rodd Wagner shares an in-depth preview of his book, Widgets, where he discussesRead More
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]]>In this episode Rodd Wagner shares an in-depth preview of his book, Widgets, where he discusses 12 rules for managing employees as if they’re real people.
In his book Wagner provides important and actionable insights into the behavioral drivers of employee engagement – what motivates them, how they think, how they learn, how they act. The goal of the book is to teach you how to use reciprocity as a key motivator in employee performance, adapt new employees to the work environment, and become the best manager you can be.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who want to run an organization with a determination to engage, motivate, and positively affect employees as well as people in general.
I think two things make Widgets different. One is that I questioned all the assumptions because so many things had changed. This is not just another engagement book, I really took stock using research, trends, friend’s research, and powerful stories to really help a leader, manager, or entrepreneur understand where we are right now. I think the other thing that makes it different is that I did begin my career as a police reporter so my writing style is not that of a typical business book. I call it as I see it.
I would suggest starting with the first two chapters that lay the foundation but from there if people want to jump around it’s not a problem at all. Actually, in the case of this book, at the very beginning we give the reader a web address where they can take the self-assessment that emerged from the research that was used to write the book.
The most important point that I tell leaders who I am advising is that your employees motivation is in your hands, not because you control them but because people are so reciprocal. I guarantee that if you follow the twelve new rules of engagement they will do for your company what you need them to do.
There are twelve central chapters, one about each of the new rules. And then there are two chapters at the beginning of those twelve rules and two chapters at the end. The first two chapters start by framing human nature and our current situation.
The number one rule is get inside their heads, individualize and understand that person to figure out where they are right now.
The second rule is to make them fearless, don’t freak them out or have them so consumed by what’s going to be happening with the business that they can’t do their job.
Third rule is to make money a non-issue. Make sure that you are paying them competitively and generously so that it takes money off the table and they can concentrate on their jobs.
The fourth rule is to help them thrive. Make sure that what you are doing at the company is not burning them out.
The fifth rule is to be cool. This is not a rule that would have come up ten years ago but people want to work for a cool company and have an enjoyable time at work.
Sixth rule is to be boldly transparent and tell people everything you can possibly tell them. We live in an age of social media and they are going to find out anyway so you should be the one to tell them.
Number seven is to not kill the meaning. People come to your company because there is something about your organization that they already find meaningful.
Number eight is to see their future. We are future oriented people and you need to be as deliberate about where your employees will be in five years as where you want your company to be in five years.
Rule number nine is to magnify their success. Help your employee know when they’ve done a good job. Rule ten is to unite them and set up the conditions where they can be a solid team. Number eleven is let them lead. And the last rule is to take it to extremes.
The second to the last chapter of the book is a cautionary tale about all the dumb things that get done in an employee engagement work and how they can backfire on you.
And the final chapter is about what I call the Profitable Pursuit of Happiness. There are a lot of people in the engagement industry that say don’t make your people happy, just make them engaged by which they really mean shut up and get back to work. This is something employees won’t put up with.
If you want people to work as hard as they can for the company they are going to expect happiness in the bargain. (highlight to share)
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 06:58
“It’s not that corporations are bad and people are good. Corporations are powerful and people are reciprocal. How an enterprise wields its power determines how its employees will deliver.” – Rodd Wagner
I began my career as a newspaper reporter covering police and the courts and so I developed a very direct business writing style. I was frustrated by the way I saw my newspaper at the time being managed and so I went to business school and got a MBA. From there I migrated to a couple research jobs on the business side of media companies and eventually joined Gallup where I was a principle for twelve years. I’ve been a practice leader at BI World Wide for the past three years during which my colleagues and I have been doing the research that lead to the book, Widgets.
The Good Jobs Strategy by Zeynep Ton
Buy Widgets by Rodd Wagner on Amazon today
Visit WidgetsTheBook.com to learn more about Rodd and his book
Follow Rodd Wagner on Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Make It Matter by Scott Mautz
Managing Whole People by Mark Herbert
The Hidden Leader by Scott Edinger
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make according to Hans Finzel: Introduction In this episode Hans Finzel takes a deep dive into hisRead More
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]]>In this episode Hans Finzel takes a deep dive into his book, The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make, where he shares the common mistakes leaders need to overcome.
In his book Finzel provides newly updated stories and strategies from very successful leaders who have once made continuous mistakes when it comes to effectively leading others. The goal of the book is to teach you what effective leadership looks like, how to overcome typical bad habits that come with being a leader, and how to take your leadership skills to the next level.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are emerging leaders and wish to prevent or improve upon common bad habits that many leaders continue to struggle with.
I think one of the biggest differences is that I have done leadership for 30 years and so I write from experience. This book is very practical, simple, and useable.
You can easily jump in and jump out. Each of the ten chapters are standalone ideas.
The one principle action item that I would want the reader to take away is to learn to be a servant leader, not a top down leader. A servant leader puts the good of the team in front of their own selfish desires.
Firstly, I want the reader to know that I have personally made all 10 of these mistakes and learned from them all. I chose these top 10 because as I went on my journey as a CEO of a 35 million dollar international nonprofit and I began to conclude that these were the top 10 of all the mistakes that I see leaders make.
Of all the leadership sins the number one mistake leaders make is the top down attitude. Most think that they are on top because they are the smartest, they founded the company, and they know best. This is the worst mistake a leader can make and I talk to people all the time that work under these leaders and they get very, very frustrated.
The second mistake is putting paperwork before people work. 90% of effectiveness in leadership is people skills, the software of working well with people. But the higher you go into leadership there is more paperwork and technology that stands in the way of giving yourself to people.
The third mistake is the absence of affirmation. What could be better than a pay raise? It’s been proven that people praise affirmation and sometimes this is a blind spot for leaders. People desperately need affirmation and it’s a huge piece of leadership.
The fourth mistake is that there is no room for mavericks. A leader makes a mistake if they don’t allow mavericks to thrive and a maverick is just an entrepreneur that doesn’t follow rules. This chapter will show you how to cultivate people who think outside the box.
Chapter five covers dictatorship and decision making, Getting Beyond I Know All the Answers. This whole idea of being a dictator in decision making frustrates people so much because they want to have a part in the big decisions of the company.
Chapter six is what I call Dirty Delegation, Refusing to Relax and Let Go. When I ask an audience what is it the most that frustrates them about their boss, I get this response all the time. In this chapter I go into all the reasons why really gifted and high power leaders don’t delegate well.
Chapter seven is Communication Chaos and this is just about clear lines and clarity in the organization.
Chapter eight covers missing the clues of corporate culture and a leader has to understand this if they are going to lead through it.
Chapter nine is Success without a Successor, Planning Your Departure the Day You Start. One of the final acts of great leadership is to cultivate the people who will replace you. I don’t think you should see that at a threat but a really great leader can go on vacation because they have trained other people to step in. If you can never go on vacation because the place will fall apart without you, you’re not cultivating successors.
Finally, Chapter 10 is Failure to Focus on The Future. We have to be listeners and learners because the future where we are going to sell our business is so very different from the past or the present.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:20
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men and women to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” –Theodore Roosevelt
I was born and raised in Huntsville Alabama. My father was a rocket scientist and a part of NASA. I have spent my career mostly in the nonprofit world and became more and more interested in leadership after 20 years as a CEO of one of the nonprofits. I eventually left to start my own work fulltime helping leaders and managers do a better job. My passion is to really help leaders take their leadership to the next level. Today I do a lot of podcasting on leadership and I keep turning out books because I love to write about leadership. Lastly, I am a father of four kids and married to a wonderful wife.
The inspiration came after working under a bad leader. I worked for a guy that just totally frustrated me and stood in the way of my visions and dreams for what I wanted to do. He crushed my spirit to the point where I lost respect and finally left. When I became a leader I wanted to study how to be a good leader, not a bad leader and how to empower people instead of frustrating people.
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Buy The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make by Hans Finzel on Amazon today
Visit HansFinzel.com to learn more about Hans and his books
Follow Hans Finzel on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Make It Matter by Scott Mautz
Everybody Paddles by Charles Archer
The Culture Engine by Chris Edmonds
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Strategy Rules according to David Yoffie: Introduction In this episode David Yoffie takes a deep dive into his book, Strategy Rules, whereRead More
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]]>In this episode David Yoffie takes a deep dive into his book, Strategy Rules, where he unveils 5 five timeless lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs.
In their book Yoffie and his co-author, Michael Cusumano, share the successes, failures, commonalities, and differences of world famous leaders like Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs. The goal of the book is to teach you 5 new strategic rules for doing business, the best practices that come with high-tech entrepreneurship, and how to take your leadership to the next level.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who own or plan on owning a high-tech company and want to learn strategy techniques from the best leaders in the business.
The thing that makes this book different from others is most people write biographies on these particular individuals or they write histories of the companies. There is no book, that I am aware of, that dives deep into looking at three CEO’s, comparing and contrasting them, and trying to understand what they were able to do in similar ways that produced such extraordinary performance. We think that by looking across companies and across great leaders you get a deeper insight. It’s not about the individual personality traits; it’s about the ways they think and the ways they deliver performance.
Like many books we have an introduction and concluding chapter which gives you the high level overview of everything you might want to know. Then we go into and talk about each of the five rules in great depth. For each rule we have a single chapter so you can jump in where needed if you want.
The idea of what we call Look Forward Reason Back is the critical idea that ultimately determines what makes a great strategist. It’s that ability to look ahead, to have a vision, and then figure out what you need to do today to get to that particular end game. It’s also about anticipating what customers are going to need tomorrow, not what customers are needing today and then figuring out what they capabilities are that you have in your organization today that will deliver those customer needs of tomorrow.
The way we begin the book is by trying to first understand how these individuals were different and how they were similar. At a very basic level they could not be more different as individuals. Bill Gates was the classic nerd but grew up in a wealthy family, Andy Groves was a holocaust survivor and made his way to get a PhD in the United States, and we all know about Steve Jobs. But beyond that these individuals had some incredibly important similarities which we think are important for any entrepreneur who wants to be successful. Number one they were incredibly ambitious not just to make money but to build great companies and to change the world. Number two they worked incredibly hard and they also provoked incredible debates inside the company. Finally, they were all slightly paranoid and never took success for granted even when they were doing extraordinarily well.
All three of these individuals were able to build the most valuable companies in the world and the question is how did they do it and this is where the five rules come in. The five rules are what we call Look Forward, Reason Back, Make Big Bets Without Beating the Company, Build Platforms and Ecosystem not Just Products, Exploit Leverage and Power, and Shape the Organization Around Your Personal Anchor.
The first three deals with strategy and the last two deal with tactics and execution. If you want to be a great strategist you have got to be able to do things at a high-level as well as at a much more micro level and ultimately be able to execute. The idea of Look Forward Reason Back is that you got to be able to think several steps ahead into the future and then think about what you have to do today in order to reach that position.
We then break that down into a number of different activities that a great CEO is going to do if they follow these rules. The first one is that you have to start with some vision of where you want to go. This vision becomes critical in driving the success of all of these organizations which we define in great detail.
The second idea is that you got to be able to think big and make big bold bets that could potentially change the game but you have to do it without beating the company.
The third big idea is that you have to build platforms and ecosystems not just products. This is the notion that ultimately its great platforms that win, not great products that always win. The fourth idea is about the tactics and this is the notion that when you’re an entrepreneur you’ve got to be clever, you’ve got to stay under the radar, and you’ve got to employ tactics.
The last critical idea is the idea of how you execute when you have an organization that’s trying to do all these things. Ultimately this is about the CEO figuring out what they really do that is special, what it is that they have in their own capability set that enables them to do things that give them a comparative advantage to help their organization understand what will be successful. The notion here is that if you are going to be a successful CEO or entrepreneur first you have to know yourself and exactly what you can do well and don’t do well. All of these rules were quite similar across all three CEO’s and helped them start as entrepreneurs and ultimately build three of the most valuable companies in the history of the world.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 04:27
“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” – Andy Grove
“Here’s how it’s going to work. I’m going to teach you electronics, you’re going to teach me retail. Let’s go walk the mall.” – Ron Johnson
I have been a professor at Harvard for 34 years and my co-author, Michael Cusumano, has been a professor at MIT for about 30 years. I have been involved in trying to understand the world of strategy and specifically the world of strategy and technology since the mid 1980’s. I had the fortunate experience of joining the Intel board of directors in 1989 which gave me an opportunity to meet Andy Grove and then Andy introduced me to Billy Gates and Steve Jobs. Today I continue to work broadly in this field and it has been the core of my research for most of my career.
I wanted to try to understand how an entrepreneur could develop into a leader of a great company and also think about what would lead to great performance. Ultimately when you think about companies that have done extraordinary well, the leaders who have done it better than anybody else have been Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs. And all three of them we know their history from beginning to end and know they have done a really great job. This was an opportunity to dive deep into three extraordinary individuals.
Judo Strategy by David Yoffie
Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter
Buy Strategy Rules by David Yoffie and Michael Cusumano on Amazon today
Visit HBS.edu to learn more about David, his book, and his profession
Follow David Yoffie on LinkedIn
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
Winning the Long Game by Steve Krupp
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Make It Matter according to Scott Mautz: Introduction In the episode Scott Mautz takes a deep dive into his book, Make ItRead More
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]]>In the episode Scott Mautz takes a deep dive into his book, Make It Matter, where he shows you how managers can motivate by creating meaning and personal significance.
In his book Mautz shares years of research, case studies, and techniques in an all-in-one how to guide for energizing, motivating, and encouraging employees to put in the most effort. The goal of the book is to help you add meaning to any organizational mission, find the internal significance of every employee, eliminate negativity from the workplace, and create unique opportunities of personal growth.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who run an organization of 5 or more employees and are looking for the best ways to create a work environment that mimic the best places to work.
I am pretty certain that I am the first author to ever put data to the concept that creating meaning at work is a great way to motivate. I also include dozens and dozens of practical tools that you can apply the very minute after you finish reading the book.
I suggest reading it once through and then go back and use it as a reference guide.
If I had to pinpoint one thing it’d be the concept of what I talk about in that book of what I call profound performance. I’ve learned that when you facilitate meaning it not only drives the employees to engage, it takes them beyond engagement to elevate a performance in true fulfillment. There are so many things that can capture an employee’s time and attention very temporarily but meaning holds the engagement of the employees at the deepest and most fulfilling level that sustains over the long haul.
The book is divided into ten chapters.
In the first chapter, Why Meaning Matters, I really paint the case for just that. The truth is that way too many of us feel a lack of true significance and meaning in how we spend our precious hours at work. In this chapter I lay the case out and put hard data to how the creation of meaning can serve as a competitive advantage in what I call compassionate advantage.
I dive into chapter two, The Markers of Meaning, and things get really interesting here because I have found through my research that there are seven distinct markers of meaning that when you intentionally meet them you can drive meaning and fulfillment. The markers are divided into three sections, when you yield a calming and clarifying sense of interdiction, when you create conditions that lead to a satisfying sense of self-discovery and growth, and when you create conditions that engender devotion to ones work at a deeper connection between the employer and employees in a greater good. And I get really specific within that.
In chapter three I start to dig deeply into each marker meaning. This chapter, The potency of Purpose, I walk through very specifically how as a manager you can carve for yourself or carve out for your people a six step path to purpose. If you follow these six steps I can promise you that by the time you’re done you will have identified what you want your purpose at work to be.
I move on to the fourth chapter where I talk about how to leave your legacy behind. This chapter is broken into two pieces and the first part is called the five footprints of legacy. Then I round out this chapter with what I call The Five Step Footpath to Leaving Legacy Worthy Results at Work.
In chapter five I talk about the power of learning and personal growth at work. I spell out seven very specific ways you can craft an environment that’s rich with learning and personal growth.
In Chapter six I talk about the next core marker of meaning and way to create a sense of Significance at work which is to create a meaningful decision making and influence based culture as well. When people feel like they are a part of making decisions it is incredibly motivating and I spell it out as well as eight things you can do to create autonomy as a manager.
Chapter seven moves on to teach you how to create cultures of consequence and those are cultures that are built on a core of caring, authenticity, and teamwork.
In chapter eight we talk about meaning making leadership very specifically. I talk about how as a leader you can create meaning more so than any of your competitors and I go over four traits of meaning making leadership.
In chapter nine I go the other way and talk about cutting off corrosive behaviors or behaviors that can destroy a sense of certainty, confidence, or community.
I round off the book in chapter ten on how to weave all of the concepts together into a meaning making plan and I provide a couple of options for how to do that.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:29
“We are all at a pivotal moment in life; we just may not know it and you have to live as if you did.” – Scott Mautz
I am an author as of March 4th, when Make It Matter hit the streets. I am also a keynotes speaker and have a fulltime job as a director at Procter & Gamble where I run the company’s largest business. And over my 20 plus years at Procter & Gamble I have run a number of different businesses all multimillion dollars in size.
I have been studying the field of motivation for almost a decade and about seven years ago I discovered a stunning statistic that has been proven over and over again. Which is that almost 70% of us may actually be coated as disengaged at work and even if you’ve heard that statistic before, what’s stunning is that is doesn’t get any better. Year after year the data will show you it keeps declining so whatever we are doing to motivate clearly cannot be working. That has been haunting me for the last half dozen years and I really started working hard at trying to find a way to crack this code. I came across this concept that it’s not pay, it’s not perks, and it’s not promotion, it’s really meaning where you can bring significance into your work and make it matter more. That’s what kept me going and was the inspiration behind this book.
Good to Great by Jim Collins
Buy Make It Matter by Scott Mautz on Amazon today
Visit ScottMautz.com to learn more about Scott and his book
Follow Scott Mautz on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Everybody Paddles by Charles Archer
The Hidden Leader by Scott Edinger
The Best Place to Work by Ron Friedman
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]]>A summary of things you should know about Everybody Paddles according to Charles Archer: Introduction In this episode Charles Archer takes a deep dive into his book, Everybody Paddles, whereRead More
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]]>In this episode Charles Archer takes a deep dive into his book, Everybody Paddles, where he reveals an effective leader’s blueprint for creating a unified team.
In his book Archer provides a leadership roadmap with problem-solving tools that are designed to remedy the consequences and issues that come with dysfunctional organizations. The goal of the book is to help you develop an organization based on camaraderie, increase engagement between employees, and improve your facilitation skills as a manager.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who run a business with 5 or more employees where team work is essential to the business and need a strategic framework that produces highly effective teams.
The one thing that makes my book unique is that I’m a practitioner and not writing a book based on theory but based on practice.
There are six chapters in the book and each can be read individually or collectively.
I would want the reader to go to work and understand the whole principle that everybody matters. You matter regardless of what your position or title is at work.
Upon reading Everybody Paddles the reader will get a practical experience about how leadership works.
The book starts out with a great forward by a very good business leader and friend, Peter. What we’ve done throughout this particular book is after each chapter you will get an experience from another business leader about that particular chapter and principle.
Principle one is Unity Stabilizes the Boat and discuses about what separates us and what brings us together. When you think about stabilizing anything it’s about the acknowledgement of what works and what doesn’t work and a lot of time in business we are a little afraid to discuss the things that cause us to be uncomfortable.
Principle two is The Purpose Provides Propulsion which is about the vision and mission of whatever your business is about. When the people connected to your business understands your vision and purpose then you are able to propel.
Principle three is The Caption Sets the Course and the Whole Crew Paddles. There are a lot of things I love about this book and this is one of the principles I concentrate on the most. Everyone wants to be in leadership but there are only a select few in that club and if you’re not a member of that club you are a contributor and should be paddling.
Principle four has to do with communication and doing it clearly to stay on course.
Principle five is Problem Solving, Course Correction. In my organization we have a rule that you get 60 seconds to tell me about the problem but you can take an hour to discuss the solution. I think when you understand it’s about course correction you will not spend a significant amount of time discussing the problems.
Principle six is Every Crew Member Matters and the whole concept throughout our culture is that there are people who matter and people that don’t matter. Throughout everything I do I create a culture where it’s understood that everybody matters and as a leader you have to find a way to make sure that people understand that.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 06:47
“I decided to find books that provided realistic guidelines for someone like me or for that matter any executive charged with providing leadership.” – Charles Archer
I’m an attorney by license, I have a masters, I’m a writer, and an advocate for people with developmental disabilities. Twenty years ago I started a nonprofit to help people with disabilities live a productive, fantastic, and fulfilling life. Over the last 20 years we’ve been able to touch people throughout New York City and New Jersey.
Everybody Paddles came out of my ability working in business and all of the things I’ve seen as an attorney and entrepreneur. The one thing that inspired me was that there were people who didn’t want to add value at work. There were people who came to work and because of whatever number of reasons the culture became hostile and wasn’t motivating. I really was inspired to create something unique based on teamwork and team building that really got people understanding that every day at work you must add value.
The Shack by William Paul Young
Buy Everybody Paddles by Charles Archer on Amazon today
Visit EverybodyPaddles.com to learn more about Charles and his book
Follow Charles Archer on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Hidden Leader by Scott Edinger
The Culture Engine by S. Chris Edmonds
The Discomfort Zone by Marcia Reynolds
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Everybody Paddles with Charles Archer appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about The Objective Leader according to Elizabeth R Thornton: Introduction In this episode Elizabeth Thornton takes a deep dive into her book, TheRead More
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]]>In this episode Elizabeth Thornton takes a deep dive into her book, The Objective Leader, where she shows you how to leverage the power of seeing things as they are.
In her book Thornton reveals years of research on the concept of objectivity and how it will open your world to new cultures, new markets, and new opportunities. The goal of the book is to help you improve your management skills, make decisions faster than normal, avoid bad decision making, and eliminate the fear of failure when it comes to life and business.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who typically overreact to negative situations, judge people too quickly, and let their insecurities get the best of them.
My book talks about the entrepreneur themselves, their mindset, and how to keep them clear in their mindset so that they can make better decisions along the way.
I would suggest the reader read the book from front to back.
I would say that the world is in your mind and we all have the power to change our minds.
The first chapter of the book is all about how I lost a million dollars and I take you through my whole experience from beginning to end.
From there we jump right into chapter two which is all about setting the context for objectivity and subjectivity. I define objectivity as the ability to see and recognize things as they are without projecting your fears, your background, your past experiences, and your mental miles on to whatever it is and responding thoughtfully, deliberately, and purposefully to everything you experience.
The first step in being objective is about understanding how we relate to the world and I call that The Subject Object Relationship which we go into in detail. What we experience through our senses is an object of our awareness and we respond to whatever that is which means you are responsible for and drive your response to everything that you experience. And then we go through what I call Drivers of Subjectivity and all these things that we can project onto what is that may color our ability to see things as they are.
Chapter four is about applying all of that to leadership and lays out a framework for increasing objectivity.
Chapter five is all about being objective under pressure and I give the key tactics, tools, and tips you can use to be objective in the moment.
Chapter six goes over mental models. We all have mental models which are one of the things that we project onto what it is that keeps us from seeing things as they are. One of the things I talk about in this chapter is some of the limiting and unproductive mental models that we have and I share research that I have conducted that points to five mental models that most of us have. In order to transform a mental model you have to think about it differently because mental models are deep rooted ideas and beliefs about the way things are and the way things ought to be.
The last two chapters of the book are devoted to the entrepreneur completely.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 08:00
“The world is in your mind.” – Elizabeth R Thornton
I have been with Babson College as the professor of entrepreneurship since 2006.
I lost a million dollars in an international fruit juice business and it taught me so much. Getting back on my feet I realized it wasn’t the business decision I was making along the way, it was how I framed my world and my inability to see things as they were. As a result of that I started studying psychology, neuroscience, and entrepreneurship and just trying to put it all together. I started learning about objectivity and developed a course around it that I wanted to share with others.
Leadership and Self-Deception by Arbinger Institute
Buy The Objective Leader by Elizabeth Thornton on Amazon today
Visit ElizabethRThornton.com to learn more about Elizabeth and her book
Follow Elizabeth R Thornton on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Seeing What Others Don’t by Gary Klein
Anticipate by Rob-Jan de Jong
Fairness is Overrated by Tim Stevens
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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]]>A summary of things you should know about The Hidden Leader according to Scott Edinger: Introduction In this episode Scott Edinger takes a deep dive into his and Laurie Sain’sRead More
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]]>In this episode Scott Edinger takes a deep dive into his and Laurie Sain’s book, The Hidden Leader, where they reveal a unique way to develop greatness within a company.
In their book Edinger and Sain provide a systematic blueprint of a new style of leadership called Reverser Mentoring where senior leaders are mentored by their employees. The goal of the book is to show you how to recognize true leaders within your company, effectively utilize highly talented employees, and build valuable, long-lasting relationships with any employee.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who lead their organizations with a creative mindset and are looking for a way to effectively make the most of under-utilized employees.
There are thousands of books on leadership but the majority of them all seem directed at people who are in positions of leadership but there are very little directed at people who are your average citizen.
I designed the book to be read from front to back but if you want to cherry-pick information along the way you can do that too.
I want the reader to know that leadership has nothing to do with position or title; it’s what your actions are.
Hidden leaders look for what the outcome is or how success is defined in any given endeavor and then they figure out how they are going to do something. I am not saying they are renegades to the process but they are willing and able to look for the result that we are seeking and understand it. Another thing I see a lot of from hidden leaders is that they lead through relationships. They can’t boss anyone around or tell people what to do so they are really good at leading through relationships and that does not mean they are the popular person. Usually these hidden leaders have some kind of great technical expertise. They secondly understand the organization broadly and know way more than just their function and are able to knit teams together when they need to get things done. Thirdly, they are able to make a connection with people. The last thing that I wanted to share that I think is the heart of everything is the idea that hidden leaders demonstrate integrity.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:47
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and become more you are a leader. “ – John Quincy Adams.
Companies like AT&T, Lenovo, and Los Angeles Times hire me to work with their senior leaders. I start with senior leaders because as the senior leaders go so goes the organization. I work with them on creating growth strategies and how to create differentiation in their business as well as how to lead effectively.
A few years ago I was talking with a former colleague of mine and he was telling me about a project he was working on called Reverse Mentoring. The notion here was that instead of senior partners mentoring, the associates would mentor the senior partners. And those senior partners learned a great deal not only about technology but also about client services and some new ways to approach that. I thought that was such an interesting idea and then the next day I read an article about reverse innovation. I ended up thinking about it all when the hidden leader concept was born and then I found my publisher.
High Performance Sales Organizations by Darlene Coker and Ed Gaizo
Buy The Hidden Leader by Scott Edinger and Laurie Sain on Amazon today
Visit EdingerGroup.com to learn more about Scott and his exclusive content
Visit TheHiddenLeader.com to learn more about the book
Follow Scott Edinger on Facebook and Twitter
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Prosperous Leader by Jacob Engel
The Discomfort Zone by Marcia Reynolds
The Best Place to Work by Ron Friedman
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of A Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of The Hidden Leader with Scott Edinger appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Anticipate according to Rob-Jan De Jong: Introduction In this episode Rob-Jan De Jong reveals all his insights on his book, Anticipate, whereRead More
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]]>In this episode Rob-Jan De Jong reveals all his insights on his book, Anticipate, where he discusses the 2 skills that are key to mastering the art of leading others.
In his book De Jong provides a guide with practical techniques and inspirational stories that are designed to show you how to expand your visionary capacity when it comes to leadership. The goal of the book is to help you see things more clearly, rejuvenate your imagination, and manage from a birds-eye view in order to develop a strategic advantage on your competitors.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are managing the operations of a business and need help realigning their management strategy to predict the future of an organization.
My book not only tells you how important having a vision is in a leadership role but more important I explain how you go about developing that vision.
You can read the book straight through or jump in and out where needed.
The core takeaway is that vision is not something you are born with, it’s something you can develop.
The book is broken down into four areas.
The first area is your visionary content – how you go about trading ideas.
The second area is your visionary development – how you go about growing that capacity. Here I propose a developmental framework that really consists of two different dimensions, one is your ability to see things early and the other is how to in a responsible way put that together in a big picture story. I talk about the importance of envisioning multiple futures as you’re developing your big picture through techniques such as scenario planning.
The third area is about yourself and the productive behaviors that you must master in order to make this work. So there are things that you need to reflect on in terms of what builds my capability of doing this from a behavioral and mindset point of view. As you are reflecting on yourself it is equally very important to understand what it is that you stand for as a leader and the things that you truly believe in.
We bring it all together in the fourth area of the book and look at what it requires in order to make your vision fly as you communicate about it. In order for a vision to become powerful you have got to look at three different dimensions which you will find in the book.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 07:06
“Everything is the same until it is not.” – Ellen Langer
I am the father of twin 10 year old boys to whom I am also their soccer coach so I do a lot of work with leadership and put it to practice with 10 year olds. Professionally I work a lot with leadership teams and trying to get them to engage with their strategic agenda. The second thing I do is teach about this subject and I am involved in various executive education programs.
My inspiration comes from about seven or eight years ago while I was doing a lot of work in the field of leadership and at some point I asked the audience what’s the one word you find in the definition of leadership. Immediately they fired back the word vision. From there I asked all these leaders what their vision was and nobody could raise their hand and tell me because they didn’t have one. I didn’t understand how it could be that something we all know is important to have as a leader but yet we don’t have one. That fascinated me and was what inspired me to look into this subject and I wanted to share my discoveries of what I found over the eight years.
Mindfulness by Ellen Langer
Buy Anticipate by Rob-Jan De Jong on Amazon today
Visit RobJanDeJong.com to learn more about Rob-Jan and his book
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Prosperous Leader by Jacob Engel
Winning the Long Game by Steven Krupp
Own Your Future by Paul B Brown
Relevant advice and tips:
5 Characteristics of a Great Leader
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Anticipate with Rob-Jan De Jong appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
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