Change

Six months ago, Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science at Stanford University and author of a new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, had a blog entry “12 Things Good Bosses Believe. ”  You can find that entry at <http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/05/12_things_that_good_bosses_bel.html>. Today’s Tuesday Reading is Sutton’s effort to delve into one of these issues:  “If You’re the Boss, Start […]

Today’s reading, suggested by Chris Paquette, Senior Consultant for Survey Services at MOR Associates, comes to us from the September 2, 2010 issue of the Economist – “Declining by degree”.  The author is an anonymous Economist consultant, Schumpeter, who generally writes on individuals and ideas behind the latest trends in business and management.  (Presumably the pseudonym refers […]

Today’s reading, which focuses on the topic of personal productivity, comes fromDavid Allen’s August 3, 2010 Newsletter, and can be found at <http://www.davidco.com/newsletters/archive/0810.html>.  A number of you know David Allen from his Getting Things Done book as well as the GTD website. He begins this piece by reminding all of us that “productivity is not […]

I found today’s Tuesday Reading in yesterday’s New York Times.  Matt Richtel had a wonderful piece “Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain” that reports on a five day trip by five neuroscientists plus Richtel, and a guide, rafting, hiking, and camping along the San Juan River in the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area […]

Dan Heath in today’s Reading – “Want Your Organization to Change?  Put Feelings First” – points out that typically when we want people to change, we try to teach them something.  Sounds good, right?  WRONG!  According to Heath and John Kotter, knowledge rarely leads to change. Heath observes that we know that obesity causes significant health problems but people don’t […]

Today’s reading is a short essay, reproduced below, by Roger Schwartz in his newsletter Fundamental Change.  He makes two significant points that caught my attention:  First, accountability is a two-way street.  Not only do your staff have accountability to their manager, but the manager, you, have accountability to them.  And, second, all feedback needs to be timely.  Said differently, it […]

Chip and Dan Heath, authors of “Made to Stick,” released a new book in February – “Switch:  How to change things when change is hard.”  Today’s reading is a review of the book by Keith McFarland which appeared in BusinessWeek. McFarland is founder of McFarland Strategy Partners and author of The Breakthrough Company, and BOUNCE. In Switch, the Heath […]

After my June 1st Tuesday Reading “Drilling for Certainty” – which made the point that our world has become extremely technologically complex and that the possibility for catastrophe is imbedded in the fabric of day-to-day live – I received several emails making the same or similar points. One, today’s reading – “The Real Cause of […]

A couple of months ago, Gary Augustson posted a BLOG at the Leaders Community Site which has a powerful message for all of us:  “Life is full of ‘wins’ and ‘losses’.”  In the end, how you deal with both will be one of the keys to your success as a leader.”  Given the importance of […]

David Brooks’ May 27, 2010 Op-Ed piece in the New York Times was titled “Drilling for Certainity”which is today’s Tuesday Reading.  The piece also appeared in the May 29th Pittsburgh Post Gazette and was seen by Annie Stunden, Former CIO, University of Wisconsin and IT Leaders Presenter and Coach.   Annie wrote pointing me to the […]