Goals & Practices

Among the attributes that all leaders need is confidence – not too much so as to be blinded by benign overly confidence and not too little to feel inadequate. This week’s Tuesday Reading, “To Strengthen Your Confidence, Look To Your Past” <http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/04/to_strengthen_your_confidence.html>, comes from the pens of Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins.  Su and […]

Most of us have experienced team members taking the discussion at a meeting off-track.  It could be to a topic not on the team leader’s agenda, either the written one or the one in only the lead’s head.  Or, it could be to an aspect of a topic on the agenda that has already been addressed, etc. The […]

“Your life doesn’t get better by chance. It gets better by choice.”                                                – Author Unknown Do you hold resentments from your past? Do you tend to blame others for positions that you […]

Justin Rhodes, associate professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, tells us that excercise can be the answer.  The essay appeared in the Scientific American. Rhodes says that there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that we think and learn better after we exercise.  Part of the reason that cognition […]

In “Forget The Mission Statement:  What’s Your Mission Question?”,  Warren Berger challenges us to consider responding to a set of mission questions instead of writing a mission statement that is so general it can apply to almost anything.  He argues that mission questions provide a reality check on whether you are staying true to what […]

A key theme of the 2013 MOR IT Leaders Conference was that we are entering a time when disruptive change is the norm. Given that change will happen whether one participates or not, those who actively resist it will hinder their organizations’ progress and imperil their careers.  For the conference participants, the message was clear: […]

Making progress toward a goal increases motivation and performance.  In today’s reading, “3 Motivational Mind Tricks Designed to Power Progress” <http://www.fastcompany.com/3012545/dialed/3-motivational-mind-tricks-designed-to-power-progress>, Janet Choi, Chief Creative Officer of iDoneThis, provides advice on how we can use our mind to power further progress. Choi notes that as you think about a goal, you really need to know where […]

Joe Bajek, Director of Enterprise Cloud Services at the University of Colorado and an Advanced Leaders Program participant, submitted this reflection on leadership.  I would add that you should look for opportunities to help those around you.  Both you and they will benefit.   . . . jim     One Handby Joe Balek, Director […]

This “reading” is a short video presenting the idea that having courage enables you to say NO to something so that you can say YES to something that really matters.  Its author is Michael Bungay Stanier, a senior partner at Box of Crayons, a Toronto-based organization with the slogan “do less Good Work in order […]

Grant Halvorson, associate director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School, notes that everyone who is a professional in today’s workplace experiences bouts of extreme stress.  So, it’s not whether you are going to experience stress but what you are going to do about it.  His Harvard Business Review blog essay offers nine […]

Paul Hammerness and Margaret Moore, authors of Organize Your Life, Organize Your Mind point to three ways to improve our focus. Hammerness is assistant professor of psychiarity at the Harvard Medical School and Moore is founder and CEO of the Wellcoaches Corporation and co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital. Their original essay appeared […]

  There’s a rule you really have to make New Year’s Resolutions.  Today’s Tuesday Reading, “10 Resolutions to Make 2013 Your Best Year Ever” http://www.fastcompany.com/3004179/10-resolutions-make-2013-your-best-ye…, will help you get started.  It’s from the pen of Shawn Parr, CIO of Bulldog Drummond, a San Diego based consultancy focused on innovation and design. Parr notes that we […]

The essay “How Being Unreachable Makes Me More Productive” comes from a Craig Jarrow post to the lifehacker.com blog.  Jarrow is author of Time Management Ninja. Chris Jarrow has a secret:  He’s not always reachable.  And, he gets a lot more done because of it.  He notes, importantly, that our communication devices, as important as they are, are not there so […]

The Tuesday Reading today is “Don’t Sabotage Yourself” by Susan David, founder and co-director of the Harvard/McLean Institute of Coaching.  She is also a member of the Harvard faculty.  This essay appeared in the HBR blog. The essay begins with David telling a story about her friend first identifying a dream job and then not applying […]

Today’s reading “What Successful People Do With the First Hour of Their Work Day” by Kevin Purdy, a freelance writer, first appeared in FastCompany.  It’s not a new message – you heard it during your IT Leaders Program sessions – but it is presented in new voices. Purdy points out that many leaders do, and […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a recent reflection from Jim Phelps, ITLP alumnus and Senior IT Architect at the University of Wisconsin Madison.  His thoughts do cause one to pause as we have (or really take) so little time to think that we have forgotten how. You have to imagine the space first.  The space is […]

Today’s reading is “The Simplicity Thesis” by Aaron Levie, CEO and cofounder of Box. Levie begins his piece with the provocative statement “A fascinating trend is consuming Silicon Valley and beginning to eat away at the rest of the world:  the radical simplification of everything.”  He continues by noting Jeff Bezos’ “rallying cry against gatekeepers […]

Today’s reading “Olympic Games” is a reflection from Julie Shuttleworth, member of the 2012 Leadership@Penn cohort.  She is Director of Administrative Affairs in the Provost’s office at the University of Pennsylvania. She writes: With the 2012 Summer Olympics having just ended, I am reminded that it takes vision, hard work, dedication, presence and some natural talent […]

Today’s reading is “How to Get Feedback When You’re the Boss” and is from Amy Gallo’s pen.  She is a contributing editor at the Harvard Business Review. Gallo observes that as you move up in an organization you receive less constructive feedback on your ideas, performance and strategy.  The point is no one wants to offend the […]

For today’s Tuesday Reading, I thought we might revisit the topic of email.  The piece, “How to craft an email that gets a reply”, which appeared at the cbs.com business blog, arrived along with a batch of email that seemed to violate its principles and reminded me of the importance of taking the time to write […]