ITLP Tuesday Readings

This Tuesday, we turn to excerpts from a conversation with Jim Collins, "Good to Great Expectations - Jim Collins on getting to the next level" that appeared in BusinessWeek Online on August 14, 2008.

The aim of the conversation was to have Collins translate some of his popular concepts to today's workplace. And, he does. Read the article and you'll find seven thoughts that might have value for you:

1. A "personal board of directors" for insight when wrestling with tough questions

2. Make the choice to have a work-life balance.

3. Manage your time, not your work.

4. Build into your calendar time to think.

5. Create a climate where truth is heard.

6. If you produce exceptional work, your ability for influence is very high.

7. Find a way to have younger people in your face all the time and learn from them.

Take some time and think about how you might put one or two of these into practice.

. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 10:09 AM | Permalink

We encounter a lot of comments about "pace and pressure" and the 24/7 life of technology workers. Today's Tuesday Reading, which ITLP alumnus Ken Hallinan suggested, is "When 110 Percent is Too Much" by Anthony Balderrama, a CareerBuilder.com writer.

What caught Ken's attention, and mine was the quote from Victor Cheng, president of Bookmercial Productions, a book publishing company: "As the chief decision maker of my company, getting out another e-mail rarely makes or breaks a company ... but blowing a big decision because I was continually getting interrupted by a [BlackBerry] is stupid. Achieving big results is about getting a few important things done right -- not about getting more little things done."

Think about your pace and pressure and the too-many interruptions and really consider doing something about them.

. . . . . jim

Advice from a San Francisco farmer's market shop stall: "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" It speaks to big dreams, innovation, challenging yourself, and pushing to create what's next; and it's the kind of advice that urges you to take some risks.

Posted by Jim Hall at 10:07 AM | Permalink

Today's reading is an excerpt from John Kotter's most recent book "A Sense of Urgency" which appeared in the September 15, 2008 issue of Business Week.

Kotter's fundamental thesis is that if the sense of urgency is not sufficiently high at the beginning of a project, complacency will take over and the project will falter and may fail. His observations lead him to conclude that intellectual arguments alone will not generate the urgency that is required. To get the urgency required you have to engage the heart with the mind.

He outlines four "heart-head" approaches:

1. Bring outside reality into groups that are too inwardly focused by creating emotionally compelling experiences involving other people, information, etc.

2. Leaders personally behave with urgency making their deeds consistaent with their words.

3. Leaders look carefully for upside possibilities in crises. As Shel Waggener, CIO at Berkeley, has said: "Never let a crisis go unused."

4. Leaders do not accept the idea that an organization must put up with the people who work to kill urgency.

I found even this short excerpt to yield a lot of useful information and to really get me thinking. I suspect that you will as well. You may want to ask: Are you instilling the right level of urgency in the work you lead? If not, as a leader you may want to ask what you need to do to step it up.

. . . . . jim

Posted by Jim Hall at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Over the past few weeks I've run across a number of pieces with titles in the form of "leadership lessons from ..." Today's piece is one of them: "Opinion: Leadership lessons from my daughter". This piece, suggested by John Walsh an ITLP alumnus from Indiana, is by John D. Halamka, CIO at CareGroup Healthcare System and CIO and associate dean for educational technology at the Harvard Medical School. [For more information about John, see his blog.]

I think that you will find the leadership lessons John learned from Lara to be right-on, similar from the lessons you have learned from your children or even from ITLP.

Posted by Jim Hall at 10:05 AM | Permalink

This week's Tuesday Reading comes from the August 2008 issue of Triple Creek Association and focuses on a leader's role in building community. In the piece, "Building Community as a Leadership Attribute", Randy Emelo notes that "Building community is not just a nice side benefit of a good work environment; it is a critical and primary activity of leadership." He goes on to note that "Leaders who build community are able to inspire others to share, support, collaborate and communicate with one another in a voluntary fashion in order to achieve something meaningful."

Through the piece, you'll come to understand what community really looks like and what steps you might take to build community in your work environment. Take the self-evaluation at the end of the piece and begin work now to improve your community.

Posted by Jim Hall at 10:03 AM | Permalink