Strategy

Today’s reading is “The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (and Very Few Have)” <http://bit.ly/beWaWF> by Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project, a company that helps individuals and organizations fuel energy, engagement, focus, and productivity by harnessing the science of high performance.  This entry appeared in FastCompany’s Expert Blog on October 15, 2010.  (It […]

Today’s reading, “Getting to the Heart of a Disagreement – and Resolving It,” is from Roger Schwarz’s Fundamental Change Newsletter and is found below. Disagreements are natural and inevitable, and their resolution is often crucial to moving forward.  So, how do you resolve them?  Do you focus on developing common ground?  Do you try to minimize the differences?  Do […]

Tony Schwarts, CEO of the Energy Project, says a lot in this short piece “Six Ways to Supercharge Your Productivity”.  His key point is that as a result of the digital demands of the world we now inhabit, we are in danger of undertaking more and more tasks and creating less and less real value. He […]

I came across today’s reading, “Leaders Develop Daily, Not in a Day“, last week in John Maxwell’s GIANT Impact newsletter.  Maxwell is an internationally know writer — over 19 million books sold — and speaker on leadership. His’s thesis in this piece is very straightforward:  “Unless we set aside time to grow into the person […]

Today’s reading is about a particular form of relationships called “clicking,” the phenomenon of rapidly connecting with another person, either in the work environment or in our personal lives.  The article “The Importance of Connecting with Colleagues” is a discussion by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman of their new book “Click:  The Magic of Instant Connections.” “Click” is […]

The Leaders Program workshops have introduced all of you to the 4 I’s at one time or another.  Today’s reading introduces you to the four A’s, strategies from the Mayo Clinic staff – ”Need Stress Relief?  Try the Four A’s”– for coping with stress:  avoid, alter, accept, and adapt. Since the early August incident between a […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading comes via Jim Hall’s blog <http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jhall/blog/>.  Jim is an ITLP alumnus and is currently campus IT Director at the University of Minnesota Morris. The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article a few weeks ago, How to Run a Meeting <http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Run-a-Meeting/66237/> by Gary A. Olson,  provost and vice president for academic affairs […]

In today’s readings “Why Brainstorming Doesn’t Work”and “Better Brainstorming:  4 Ways to Generate Great Ideas“, Margaret Heffernan reminds us of several shortcomings in our brainstorming practices and suggests improvements.  Heffernan is visiting professor of entrepreneurship at Simmons College in Boston, CEO, author, and speaker. Referencing work by Nicholas Kahn and Steven Smith <http://bit.ly/cpRstq>, she notes […]

In today’s reading “Back from a vacation?”, David Rock, founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and CDO of Results Coaching Systems, reports on research indicating that we are more likely to solve really difficult problems when we have a fresh or quiet mind.  Specifically the research points out that when faced with a new problem we […]

Nancy Lublin, CEO of Do Something, is the author of this week’s Tuesday Reading, “How to Write a Mission Statement That Isn’t Dumb”.  Her article appears in the December 1, 2009 issue of FastCompany. Lublin argues that our mission statements don’t have to be dumb, that is, neither clear nor useful.  They should, she continues, “convey clearly […]