Tuesday Reading

Today’s reading is a Matt Richtel piece “Growing Up Digital, Wired fro Distraction” which first appeared in the New York Times on November 21, 2010.   This piece caught my attention for three reasons: 1.  The picture it conveys of teenagers’ use of technology today.  While my kids, three decades ago when they were  teenagers, were distracted and, in […]

Some people seem to be born full of confidence, while others have difficulty speaking up about their ideas.  Is confidence, then, something you are born with and therefore that those of us less gifted, just have to muddle through? No!, say both Jessica Stillman – London-based free-lance writer with interests in green business and technology, and […]

Today’s Reading, “How to Handle Surprise Criticism”, focuses on feedback that comes as a surprise, even as a shock, from out of nowhere, about an issue you haven’t even perceived. In this piece, Peter Bergman, speaker, writer, and consultant on leadership, says that to take such surprise criticism productively, you need a game plan.  He […]

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 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 […]

Today’s reading, “Introverts:  The best Leaders for Proactive Employees“, is a piece by Carmen Nobel that appeared in a recent issue of the HBS Working Knowledge newsletter.  The article reports on the research of Francesca Gino, associate professor in the negotiations, organizations, and markets unit at the Harvard Business School. The key takeaway from Professor […]

Yesterday, EDUCAUSE released its 2010 study of undergraduate students and information technology.  The study’s ROADMAP, prepared by Judith Borreson Caruso and Shannon Smith, the study’s authors, can be found on the EDUCAUSE site at <http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215> (click on ROADMAP at the bottom of the page) or downloaded directly from <http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ECM/ECM0906.pdf>.   I believe that this document is must […]

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 […]