We all attend too many meetings. Some are initiated by others and we attend to contribute. And some are our meetings, designed to further our team’s work. Some of them are productive and some are not. And, everyone I’ve talked to yearns for fewer of them.
Today’s Tuesday Reading, I Sit Too Much, should actually be titled “I Sit Too Much and So Do You.”
Researchers agree that we all sit far too much, about 10 hours per day – hours at the desk, focused on the computer screen, reading and writing emails, working on reports, eating lunch, in meetings, in front of the TV, surfing the web, playing video games, etc. For comparison, we sleep about 7.7 hours each day. The number of hours sitting is about 40% (4 hours) too large, and researchers argue that individual action is urgently needed.
Who hasn’t had one? No milk for the cereal. A tanker truck cut you off as you were driving to work. Joe wasn’t prepared for the meeting. Sam’s presentation wasn’t aligned to the audience. Stuff happens, and it usually leads to a foul mood.
And, as I’ve been told many times, you have to learn how to turn lemons into lemonade.
Our Tuesday Reading today is drawn from Robert Steven Kaplan’s new book, What You Really Need to Lead. Kaplan was recently named President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Previously he was the Martin Marshall Professor of Management Practice and a Senior Associate Dean at the Harvard Business School.
Today’s Tuesday Reading, The Balance of Planning and Spontaneity – What We Can Learn From Bilbo Baggins’s Journey Through Mirkwood, comes from the pen of David Kaplan – writer, software developer, and all around thinker of wacky thoughts. It was published on medium.com in their Life Hack: Your Story, Experience, etc. blog which shares the life story and experience of a number of writers.
In the weeks leading up to the 2015 MOR Leaders Conference, we invited 2,051 members of the MOR IT Leaders community to participate in a nineteen-question survey designed to gather their impressions of their IT organizations’ current levels of adaptability. We received a total of 589 responses.
Returning to work after our second session, I felt like I was coming back not just with new tools, but with new lenses and sharper vision. But would that have an impact? I think it has. Here are three mini-reflections focused around new things that happened in my leadership because of lessons and tools I acquired through MOR:
A couple of years ago I had my kitchen remodeled. During the process, I, along with my young boys, reveled in the tools the contractors had at their disposal, and their skill in using them. They had so many tools - some for general use (hammer) and others more specialized (router) – their truck looked like an aisle at The Home Depot.
Today’s Tuesday Reading “Leadership Happens Through Action and Behavior” first appeared as a Weekly Reflection for the University of Minnesota Advanced Leaders Program. It’s author, Chris Grantham is Chief of Staff to the Vice President and CIO at the University.
Many of you know I have a 19-month-old daughter, Iris, whom I adore absolutely and will talk about incessantly if you let me.
Today’s reading, IMPACT, was written by Bruce Barton, as a reflection in one of the Leaders Program cycles. Bruce manages the Shared Development Group of the General Library System at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Something I've been thinking about:
