Tuesday Reading

We all experience pressure, almost daily.  Sometimes the pressure is generated by the schedule and expectations we set for ourselves;  sometimes from the expectations others place on us.  Rick Brenner’s Chaco Canyon had three (short) columns last December that focused on several aspects of pressure associated with projects: Communications and Expectations  <http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/061213.shtml> The Unexpected <http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/061220.shtml> […]

This week we return to Rick Brenner’s Chaco Canyon newsletter for the column “Asking Brilliant Questions“.  Throughout the leaders program we encourage participants to ask questions:  You do that as you are being present, you do it in meetings to draw out information from your colleagues, you do that as you coach.  In this column, […]

Today, I’m sending along references to two pieces from Rick Brenner’s Chaco Canyon Consulting email newsletter on empathy. The Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary tells us that empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having […]

David Storm, in the January 2007 issue of InformationWeek calls our attention to “Five Disruptive Technologies to Watch in 2007“.  In the piece, Storm calls our attention to RFID, Web Services, Server Virtulization, Advanced Graphics Processing, and Mobile Security, all technologies that have been available to one extent or another for a number of years.  […]

In a recent issue of Engineering Our World, the electronic newsletter of MIT’s School of Engineering, Thomas L. Magnanti, Dean of Engineering at MIT wrote about the difference that technology makes in education.  In The Promise of Technology-Enabled Education — which you will find at <http://mit.edu/engineering/enews/vol4no1-feature.html> — he discusses a recent symposium held at MIT entitled […]

In the March 3, 2007 issue of The Wall Street Journal’s Journal Report there was an interesting piece by James Kelly and Scott Nadler titled “Leading From Below.”  They note that CEOs — and I would add leaders in general — cannot change organizations on their own.  They suggest that the secret is to foster a […]

Several weeks ago I was pointed to UBS’s Knowledge Center and a short piece True Leaders Must “Walk the Floor.”  This piece reinforces the importance of communicating with staff.  It notes that many leaders have found that interacting with their staff by walking around can build relationships, help staff understand their leader’s goals, and provide […]

Today’s reading, Seven Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Top IT Talent, which comes from the January 4, 2007 issue of CIO, is just as applicable to other fields as it is to IT.   Business 2.0 reports what seems to be an amazing data point:  For every two baby boomers who retire in the next […]

The title “Talking to People is Great – Listening is Priceless” says it all.  You’ll find this piece at the Unique Business Solutions Knowledge Center, http://www.unique-solutionsinc.com/knowledge/article_20061004_105.html.    Enjoy………………jim

Today’s reading is the Work-Life Balance column from the December 19, 2006 issue of The Economist.  The column, which can be found at,  http://www.economist.com/business/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8450071 has two short notes:  “Consumer technologies are invading corporate computing”  and “Executive toys.” In these pieces, the question is raised as to whether it is time to begin using publicly available web […]

Happy New Year!  I trust that you successfully rang out the old and in the new, perhaps made some resolutions (or goals) for the year, and are now ready to address what is before you with new energy and excitement.  Today’s reading comes from Rick Brenner of Chaco Canyon Consulting.  Rick notes that throughout the […]

It’s the day after Christmas and many of you are still on holiday.  However, I thought I’d send a quick note along. We have all learned about the importance of asking the “right” questions, questions that help us get at underlying issues, questions that help us think, and questions that help others move issues forward.  […]

Today, we welcome the participants in Group VI of the IT Leaders Program who are starting their first workshop.  Welcome to the Tuesday Readings, gleanings from my readings that I hope you might find interesting, provocative, and otherwise useful. Today’s reading is a review of Eric Bonabeau’s “Hunch Engine” which appeared in a recent Technology […]

Today’s two-part reading takes the once-common practice of communal barn-raising where everyone in a community worked together to benefit a single farm family.  Given the right task, good planning and organization you may find a community approach gets the right result and has the benefit of generating new relationships that represent a real added value. […]

Many people have observed that journaling will change the way that you go about your work and your life.  In today’s reading, Rick Brenner of Chaco Canyon Consulting observes that you record what you did and why you did it.  And, you record what you didn’t do and why you didn’t do it.  You record […]

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 […]

Who’s Sorry Now? http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16816&ch=infotech Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief of MIT’s Technology Review, reviews Pip Coburn’s “The Change Function:  Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn.” Coburn was managing director of the technology group of UBS Investment Research during the technology run-up of the late 1990s.  While his focus in on customer’s […]

Today, I turn to Rick Brenner’s Chaco Canyon Newsletter for a piece — If Only I Had Known — that spans two issues: 1.    http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/060531.shtml 2.    http://www.chacocanyon.com/pointlookout/060607.shtml In this piece Rick asks whether you have ever regretted saying something that you wouldn’t have said if only you had known just one more little fact? He […]

Most of us, I suspect, don’t pay much attention to “trust” until we get smacked in the face because there is an absence of trust and that absence of trust is stopping progress towards our goal dead in its tracks.  Rick Brenner, in two April issues of his newsletter Point Lookout focuses on the costs […]

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 […]