Tuesday Reading

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, 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 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 […]

Today’s reading “If You Mess Up, Fess Up!” comes to us from Fast Company’s Expert Blog.  It’s author is Paul Glover, who founded the Glover Group, a management consulting firm focusing on improving workplace performance, after a long career as a labor/employment law attorney. Glover’s bottom line is very straight forward:  “Everyone makes mistakes.  It is how we deal […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Today’s reading – “How to Become an Effective Delegator” – takes us again to the subject of delegation.  Delegation is the fastest way for each of us to create space in our minds and on our calendar for more strategic work.  And, this, I dare say, is something that we all could benefit from. Today’s piece is by […]

Today’s Reading, “Never Duck the Tough Questions”, is an interview with Dawn Lepore, chair and CEO of Drugstore.com.  The interview was conducted by Adam Bryant and originally appeared in the Corner Office column of the July 18, 2010 New York Times. What impressed me from the column was the set of leadership lessons Ms Lepore learned over […]

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 […]

Today’s reading “How to Stop the Blame Game” is by Nathanael Fast, assistant professor of Management and Organization at USC’s Marshall School of Business.  It appeared in the May research blog of the Harvard Business Review. Fast points back to the recent “grilling” of three oil company executives by U.S. Senate committees.  He noted that the executives […]

Today’s reading comes from an Amy Gallo posting How to Handle the Pessimist on Your Team to the Harvard Business Review BLOG.  Gallo is a writer, editor, and business consultant.  Her writing on management issues regularly appears in the HRB BLOG.  Earlier she was a consultant at Katztenbach Partners, a strategy and organization consulting firm where she was involved […]

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 […]

No matter who we are, we will meet resistance on some matter every day.  And, according to Kevin Daley, founder of Communispond, Inc. and author of “Talk Your Way to the Top” and “Socratic Selling,” the way we handle that resistance is often counterproductive. In “Overcome Resistance with the Right Questions”, Daley notes that our default […]

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 […]