Results

In ITLP, we talk a lot about meetings.  Greg Anderson, senior director for General Services at the University of Chicago, recently called my attention to a January 18, 2009 New York Times article “Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time”.  The author is Reid Hastie, Robert S. Hamada Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago’s […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading “How New Leaders Can Achieve Quick Wins” is an interview with Mark E. Van Buren and Todd Safferston who looked at how quick wins affected the success and futures of new leaders.  (A full article on this subject, The Quick Wins Paradox,“ appears in the January 2009 of the Harvard Business Review.) […]

In today’s Tuesday Reading “It’s Not About You”, Robert Joss, Phillip H. Knight Professor and Dean, Stanford Graduate School of Business, recalls a Jack Welch talk about leadership and Welch’s book, Winning.  As Joss recalls, Welch’s most profound comment was that leadership is not about you;  it’s about the people who work for you.  “The day you become a […]

Today’s reading is “The Success Delusion — Why It Can Be So Hard for Successful Leaders to Change” from the Marshall Goldsmith Library.  Goldsmith’s thesis is straightforward:  The more successful we become, the more positive reinforcement we get, the more difficult it will be for us to make the changes we need to make to continue […]

A number of you are fans of David Allen and follow many of the recommendations in his book, “Getting Things Done.”  Our reading this week is “The Curse Of The Eternally Urgent” which you will find at <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-allen/the-curse-of-the-eternall_b_96512.html>. In this piece Allen argues that many of the fires and crises that we find on our desk […]

In my reading not long ago I found a pointer to a short piece by Sean Silverthorne – “The Power of the Humble Checklist“.  As the author points out, and as I will confirm, having a standard checklist for complex, but nevertheless, routine tasks – e.g., the pilot’s pre-flight checklist or the hospital’s safe-surgery checklist – […]

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen a number of pieces about how email is disruptive, how some companies are suggesting ways to that staff might step away from the constant flow of interruptions, how IM, blogs, and wikis can be effective in reducing your email load, etc.  So, there seems to be even more […]

Today’s reading is “The Hiring Manager Interviews:  Harvard Business School’s CIO Builds Trust and Respect Among His IT Staff by Involving Them in His Hiring Process” which you can find at  <http://www.cio.com/article/358465/The_Hiring_Manager_Interviews_Harvard_Business_School_s_CIO_Builds_Trust_and_Respect_Among_His_IT_Staff_by_Involving_Them_in_His_Hiring_Process>. Here, Amanda Brady, associate director of executive search firm The Alexander Group, reports on a recent discussion with Stephen Laster, CIO at the […]

Dan and Chip Heath, who wrote “Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,” are two of my favorite authors.  Recently, they wrote a column titled “Make Goals not Resolutions” which appeared in the February 2008 issue of Fast Company. The Heaths note that we often make resolutions;  like New Year’s resolutions, like the […]

Here’s the “Tuesday Reading” I sent out today to everyone who has been in the IT Leaders Program over the past several years.  Based upon the discussion Saturday, I’m sending it along to you as well. As society has become more and more connected with technology, we feel compelled to be always on – 24/7/365.  […]

 John Baldoni, in “Questions to Make You a Better Leader” argues that asking good questions is a practice that all leaders need to have.  He suggests five: 1.  What about your work motivates you?  If it’s not motivating, what can you do about it?  What changes can you make to increase satisfaction? 2.  What challenges are […]

John Baldoni  is one of my favorite writers.  In today’s reading “Saying Something Important?  Three Questions to Ask Yourself First” which you will find at      <http://www.cio.com/article/104802/Saying_Something_Important_Three_Questions_to_Ask_Yourself_First>  he reminds us that “its not what you say, it’s what people hear.”  In the piece, he quotes Frank Luntz, pollster, commentator, and author:  “The onus of understanding falls […]

In  “Five Bad Habits to Lose on the Road to Success“,  John Baldoni highlights several bad habits — from Marshall Goldsmith’s newest book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There — that leaders need to abandon: •  Stop winning too much. We all want it our way, but sometimes it does not add value to […]

In this piece, Becoming a Change Leader, May 8, 2007 CIO  <http://www.cio.com/article/108351/Becoming_a_Change_Leader>,  Maya Townsend, founder and principal consultant of Partnering Resources, introduces four key factors which she argues are crucial to successful change initiatives: 1.  Active, committed leadership — if you are not committed why should your staff commit? 2.  A clear, compelling business (not technical) […]

Most of the time we interact with others — fellow members of a team, colleagues assembled for a particular issue, individuals we meet by happenstance — to get work done.  In “We Are All People,” Rick Brenner of Chaco Canyon Consulting reminds us that we are all people, different people, and that we have one common […]

In the April 1, 2006 issue of Business 2.0, Jeffrey Pfeffer,  Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of  Business, argues that it pays to invest in leaders who blame  themselves when things go wrong.  His focus is on CEOs and he uses  the metric of stock prices in his argument.   However, the […]

Good morning!   I found this short piece on time management last week and thought that I would share it with you.  Most of the points are straight forward but he does offer some new insights.   Have a great week…………….jim FINDING TIME Top Five Time Management Mistakes BY : Dr. Donald E. Wetmore 12/22/2004 […]