A summary of things you should know about Get Big Things Done according to Erica Dhawan: Introduction In this episode Erica Dhawan takes a deep dive into her book, GetRead More
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]]>In this episode Erica Dhawan takes a deep dive into her book, Get Big Things Done, where she unlocks the 21st century secret to getting things done through the power of connectional intelligence.
In her book Dhawan teaches you what is connectional intelligence, how to develop it, and reveals the secrets of how many well-known leaders have used it to achieve their own professional goals. The goal of the book is to help you creatively gain more supporters, drive more innovation, develop solid strategies, and solve problems on a large scale so you can achieve better performance.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who have a growing network of connections and needs a guide for making the most use of their network by building actionable connections.
The idea in the book is a concept called connectional intelligence and it speaks to the quality of the connections we build rather than just the quantity of networks. It helps readers understand that networks don’t easily translate into outcomes. This book teaches a game plan on why some people are better at mobilizing their web of relationships to actually get big things done. This book is about the human ability in a skill that we can all build that particularly 21st century innovators have to maximize all of our connections and put them to significant use.
The book is written in a way where there is a set of stories that walk through how to use connectional intelligence in action across many different industries. But then we have a guide called Putting it All Together and that guide has a quiz, manger guide, and work plans to help you actually use it. So you can start in the end, the beginning or in the middle of the book depending on what your goals are and how to apply the ideas of the book.
There is one major concept that we decoded in our book that I think is incredibly important. That concept is that there are three types of people that use connectional intelligence and the three types of people are thinkers, enablers, and connection executors. These are people that have different types of traits and in the book we have a quiz that you can take to figure out which type you are. By reading this book you can learn not only whether or not you are a connecter and how to use connections but what type of connecter you are and how you can partner with the right people in your community to get big things done.
The book Get Big Things Done has 10 chapters and I’ll give you a little walk-through of what each chapter encompasses and what it’s all about.
The first chapter is called The Big Wave and it answers the question what is connectional intelligence and where do we see it in work at the world. Most importantly this chapter answers how to harness connectional intelligence to get to places that we all want to go.
The second chapter is called The Roots of Connectional Intelligence. In this chapter we explore the historical roots of connectional intelligence and we explore what some of the essential questions are that we want readers to think about that are at the center of connectional intelligence.
After the first two chapters we move into Part two of the book which is made up of a series of chapters that highlight a set of stories of connectional intelligence in action.
Chapter three is called How to Get Big Things Done a Primary and what this chapter does is it explores a typography of connectional intelligence in the modern world. We talk about stories like how a pumpkin farmer in Rhode Island is changing agricultural practices in Indian.
Chapter four is called Connect Intelligently and this chapter continues to walk through a set of stories but it really looks through how the ever changing digital landscape typically now favors the brave, the quick, and the connectional intelligence to get big things done. We have stories in there of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and large businesses.
The title of chapter five is called Courage Builds On Courage and this chapter is where we talk about how connectional intelligence isn’t just about winning big in business or pursuing a big ambitious creative dream. Actually more and more people are using their own connectional intelligence to respond within minutes and hours to natural disasters, to violent aftermath of political events, and to tourist attacks. We look at powerful stories of connectional intelligence and we talk about how using courage is a key attribute of getting big things done.
Chapter six is called Connect and Make Change and in this chapter we talk about how you can use this idea to dramatically amp the reach and the influence of individuals. It’s about how anyone and everyone can tap in to what they care about most.
Chapter seven is called Problem Solving in the Power of Play and it’s all about how one of the most powerful forms of connectional intelligence is how individuals are designing problems in a way that actually attracts people to pitch in and solve them differently.
Chapter eight is called The Power of Difference and in this chapter we talk about one of the most important attributes of connectional intelligence and it’s that it allows people to come together but also stands strong in what makes them unique. We talk about how connectional intelligence actually enables what we call those that might consider themselves an outsider.
Chapter nine is called Why not? Reimagining what’s possible and in this chapter we have readers meet those who are changing the face of healthcare, education, and environmental change.
The final chapter is called Putting it All Together and it’s called Your Get Big Things Done Handbook. This chapter discussed how to apply connectional intelligence to your own life as an entrepreneur, as an initiator of change, and as disrupter.
This book is for everyone and anyone that see’s themselves as being able to use connectional intelligence in a way to get big things done.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 07:31
“Take a dream, add connection, dream bigger, get big things done.” – Erica Dhawan
I am the co-author of Get Big Things Done and I serve as a strategist for Fortune 500 companies, organizations, and small business owners, on accelerating the connectedness of their teams with their customers, their clients, and other stakeholders.
The inspiration starts with my personal story; I am a first generation daughter of two Indian immigrants here in the US and as you can imagine my goal since childhood was to check all the boxes of success. In the 2008 recession I witness firsthand confusion and burnout of my generation and I saw how many dreams and passions were being squashed every day. After the financial collapse I completely switched gears to find more meaning in both my work and to better understand how the next generation and leaders that wanted to stay in Corporate America could leverage our passion and purpose and all of the resources available to us. And what I found through that research was that many of the struggles were similar and the struggle was around how to work intentionally to get big things done. This is what led to me co-authoring research with a renowned business strategist named Saj-nicole Joni.
Choose Yourself by James Altucher
Buy Get Big Things Done by Erica Dhawan on Amazon today
Visit GetBigThingsDone.com to learn more about the book
Visit EricaDhawan.com to learn more about Erica
Follow Erica Dhawan on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Getting Results The Agile Way by JD Meier
Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden
Do Less Better by John R Bell
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 Getting Results the Agile Way according to J.D. Meier: Introduction In this episode J.D. Meier takes a deep dive into his book,Read More
The post A Preview of Getting Results the Agile Way with J.D. Meier appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode J.D. Meier takes a deep dive into his book, Getting Results the Agile Way, where he shares a simple, effective guide for achieving long-term and short-term personal goals.
In his book Meier provides a very flexible, step-by-step time management system that offers you enough planning to get you going, but simple enough to change it up as need be. The goal of the book is to help you prepare your life from daily to yearly, find your true motivation, improve upon your productivity, and feed your energy with daily habits to move you forward every day.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who sacrifice their personal life for their work life, constantly live with to-do lists, and are looking for a way to make their daily lives less stressful yet more meaningful.
It’s a couple of things. I think that it’s the fact that it’s about simplicity; I really wanted to create a system that was easy to fall off but then very easy to get back on. I didn’t want people to feel intimidated by the system but I also wanted to be more than just a doing task kind of a system. I wanted it to be a system that focused on us as a person.
This book is designed that you can read it all the way through but I also wanted it to be a really quick reference book. I know that people are starved for time and looking to get quick insights so I also made it so that you can dive in and just get the pieces that you need.
If there is one thing to walk away with it’s the idea of thinking in three wins; thinking in terms of three win for your day, three wins for your week, three wins for your month, and three wins for your year. When you think about winning it adds the fun factor and brings you alive.
In the making of Getting Results the Agile Way the idea was to have it been more than just a book, I wanted to create a system for people and it’s a simple system.
In the first part of the book it introduces you to the system in a very simple way by stepping into the values, the principles, and the practices. It’s about giving you the foundation so that when you look at it you are not trying to break yourself against the system. Instead what you are doing is learning how to tweak the system and make it work better for you.
There are three key things upfront that the book lays out that are the big ideas which are the idea of the rule of three, the idea of hotspots, and the idea of a pattern that I call Monday Vision Daily Outcomes and Friday Reflection. I really focused on the idea that if you could get a day right, you could get a week right and if you could get a week right you could get a month right and if you can get that right you can get your year right. The idea of The Monday Vision Daily Outcome Reflection is meant to be very simple. It’s about focusing on what we could do with the time we’ve got, the energy we got, and the results that we want to accomplish. When you get to Friday you want to be able to list the three things that are going well and the three things that need to improve on.
So that’s the system in a nutshell when you look at it from a week’s standpoint but I wanted to dig a little bit deeper. People can get that very simple frame but I wanted to help them design a day, design a week, design a month, and design a year. So when I designed the day the idea was that you don’t have to design your day every day, instead you have to look for the patterns. The idea in designed your day was to improve your startup routine, your shutdown routine, and find the better times in your day where you might be more productive or creative. In designing your week it was a similar idea but in this case we look at what we actually want out of that week and design accordingly. In designing your month we have a lot of opportunity for course correction so we need to step back and figure out what the three wins we want are and target those wins. I find that designing a month can be a really powerful way of getting a big block of time that ends up working in our favor. When it comes to designing the year I find that it helps to first step back and know the three wins that you want out of it.
The whole middle part of the book is about becoming the whole architect of your life. It’s about what you want your days to look like, your weeks to look like, your months to look like, and your years to look like.
Towards the end of the book it gets pretty hardcore and it’s more of a drill down. Now that you know what your want out of your days, weeks, months, and year, we drill down into some of the key results, patterns, and strategies, the things that we can do that help us spend our time more effectively.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 05:16
“Where the life is a bowl of cherries and you get the pits or the world is your oyster and you look for the pearls, you decide. So choosing your mindset in metaphors is one of the most powerful things you can do to shape your everyday experience and ultimately your life.” – J.D. Meier
I work at Microsoft and been here several years but what I’m really focused on is helping businesses change. I’m in the business of business change but I also help people thrive in work and life.
The big thing was that I saw too many people living in pain and not doing the things that made them come alive. I saw people that simply didn’t flourish when I knew that they could and I want people to be all that they’re capable of. I really wanted people to be able to think, feel, and do their best.
Work from the Inside Out by Nancy O’Hara
Buy Getting Results the Agile Way by J.D. Meier on Amazon today
Visit GettingResullts.com to learn more about the book and exclusive content
Visit SourcesOfInsight.com to check out J.D.’s work and life blogs.
Follow J.D. Meier on Facebook and LinkedIn
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden
Do Less Better by John R. Bell
Relevant advice and tips:
7 Morning Routines of Very Wealthy People
10 Bad Habits That Successful People Avoid
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 Do Less Better according to John R Bell: Introduction In this episode John R Bell takes a deep dive into his book,Read More
The post A Preview of Do Less Better with John R Bell appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode John R Bell takes a deep dive into his book, Do Less Better, where he explains why sacrifice in the right places cuts through complexity and clears the way to competitive advantage.
In his book Bell provides a tool-kit of road-tested strategies for keeping companies lean, creating cultures of innovation, and knowing when to expand and yet, remain streamlined. The goal of the book is to teach you how to “think smaller,” when everyone around you is firmly entrenched in the “do more” strategy in order to become more agile, adaptable, and resilient than your competitors.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who are struggling to outweigh the competitors in their market and need a new yet effective approach to reinvent their current strategy.
It’s certainly not the first book on focus and nor will it be the last but I think the element that separates it from the rest is how people can successfully cut through complexity and achieve focus.
I’ve written it to flow as a beginning to end read and I think that will benefit every reader.
The most important takeaway is the fact that leaders and managers don’t have to keep doing more and more to be affective and successful. Doing less and doing it better is a viable strategy at all levels within the company.
I begin the book by establishing the breadth and depth of complexity, the fact that it’s pervasive. Complexity in business is a cancer that stifles and if you leave it unchecked it can bring a company to its knees so I establish that as the main problem. The other thing is that companies have chosen diversification as the means to grow and these seem to be the ones that suffer the most.
The second chapter I call The Steel and Steal of Strategic Sacrifice. The whole idea here is that the strategy is a steal because good strategies cost no more to develop than bad ones.
None of this happens without leadership so I move to a leadership chapter. It certainly helps when top management buys into the idea of doing less better and if top management does it can become the culture of the company.
From there we go into The Urgency for Action chapter. I suggest that it doesn’t matter whether you’re entrepreneurial or not, success comes from those who think like entrepreneurs. And until the digital age innovation was the way of the entrepreneur. Giant corporations have a habit of gobbling up competitors and dominating markets and in the process many of them have lost their competitive edge. I go through the reason for the complexity; I talk about the strategy being important and leadership leading the way.
Chapter six is for marketers but it will benefit every reader because I reiterate the power of differentiation and I titled this chapter KISS is not a Rock Band. If you want differentiation you have to ask yourself this question. What are you prepared to sacrifice to get it? You have to be prepared to give up a benefit or two or three.
That leads into branding which everyone knows is big business today and my chapter on it is about those who do it well and explains why others have lost their way.
Towards the end of the book I make it clear that there is more to clarity and coherence than cutting back product lines, markets, and projects. I make the point that coherent companies align every function and every aspect of their organization with their capabilities.
The last book is titled Regrets: I’ve had a few. In this chapter I share with the reader some of the regrets and mistakes I’ve made along the way so that you can learn from my mistakes.
NOTE: That was just a summary. To get the full deep dive, play the audio clip at 7:35
“20% of the new initiatives deliver 80% of the rewards. Choose carefully and you save money, reduce complexity, and ride the fastest race horses to the future. “- John R Bell
I am a retired CEO of a consumer packaged goods company that was sold to Kraft back in the 90’s. After the sell to Kraft I decided to become a management consultant and I did that until I retired about two years ago. By the time I hung up my hat I’d helped a couple dozen companies including Campbell Soup, Starbucks, and Interbrew. I love to write and still like to play games such as golf and tennis.
Earlier in my career I was faced with the challenge of turning around a near bankrupt company. This company had too many products, too many brands, and too many categories. So by closing or selling the majority of the brands we trimmed that company down to a shadow of its former self. We decided that we were going to be an expert in one category and at the time that happened to be coffee. By focusing on coffee and nothing else we were able to swim out of the raging river of red ink and we called that means to the end the do less better strategy. I describe that as the opposite of doing more with less or even doing more with more and that whole idea stayed with me for the rest of my career. So when I became a consultant I saw a similar pattern of unnecessary complexity in both troubled and successful businesses and I think today business complexity has reached pandemic proportions and there has never been a greater need for simplicity and focus.
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Buy Do Less Better by John R. Bell on Amazon today
Visit DoLessBetter.ca to learn more about the book and download a free chapter
Follow John R Bell on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here (coming soon)
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books:
The Road to Reinvention by Josh Linkner
Aligning Strategy and Sales by Frank Cespedes
Invent Reinvent Thrive by Lloyd Shefsky
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
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