Tag Archives: Book Reviews

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TEAM – Is it?

I am a member of a team and I rely on the team. I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual is the champion. ~ Mia Hamm

Rowing Team

According to Patrick Lencioni, it’s not finance, strategy or technology that gives a company the ultimate advantage. It’s the people and their ability to subordinate their individuality for the greater goal of achieving team objective.

If done successfully, working as teams can be very rewarding both for the organisation and the individuals who make up the team. But teams are made up of people and the default nature of the human being is the individual. We live in a “I”, “me” and “my” world.

The more complex the work to be accomplished the greater the need for team effort. And that’s what make teams powerful. Together you can achieve more when everyone is moving in the same direction.

Examples of Team Accomplishments

  1. Building the Tower of Babel
  2. Building the Space Shuttle
  3. Building the worlds biggest passenger airplane
  4. Building the worlds tallest bridge
  5. Building the computer or mobile device on which you are reading this article.

People are your greatest asset and your greatest liability.

Its not all the time that you have the ability or luxury of picking who is on your team. For example, when you have been chosen to be part of a team at work or in other settings. However, should you have the opportunity to pick your team, take some time to think about it because your success can depend on who is on the team with you or who is not.

To grow your business beyond yourself, other people need to be a part of what you are doing.  Here are a few things to consider before setting out to find the right people for your team.

5 Things to Consider

1. How big is your dream?

John F Kennedy set the target of being the first nation to safely take a man to the moon and back. Bill Gates dreamt of a computer on every desk and in every home. You need to dream big and you need to be able to start small. If you can do it alone, there is no point in getting others on board.

2. Can you articulate your dream?

It doesn’t matter how big your dream is, if you can’t put it in words and paint a picture for some to see, you will find it difficult to attract the right people. You may attract some people who are desperate for work. If you had only one and a half minutes to talk about your idea to a potential investor, what would you say? Spend some time clarifying your ideas and craft your words.

3. Is there an opportunity for people to grow and develop?

Is there going to be any transformation in their lives as a result of being part of your team? Invest in the training and development of your team members. Ensure that your team members have the opportunity to acquire the new skills that will take your business to the next level. Give them the space and watch as they take your business to the next level.

4. What is the reward for joining your team?

This is such an important question because everyone will ultimately want an answer to the question “what’s in it for me?”. Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Beyond money, people want a sense of belonging, achievement and purpose. What have you got to offer? While team members may subordinate their individual ambition for team success, great teams are made of people who can achieve some or all of their personal goals while working on team goals.

5. Are you a team player yourself?

Do you know it all? Do your find it difficult to let go after you have assigned work? Are you pleasant to be around?

 One is too small a number to achieve greatness ~ John C Maxwell

To be a team player, you must be

  • Trustworthy
  • Comminicative
  • Commited
  • Accountable
  • Enthusastic
  • Result focused

TEAM – Together Each-one Achieves More.

Why not leave a comment by telling me your thoughts about Team

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Increase Productivity by Reducing Distractions

Productivity is meaningless unless you know what your goal is Eliyahu Goldrat

Increase Productivity by Reducing Distractions

For as long as I remember I have always had to struggle to maintain focus and avoid distractions. I still do battle daily against the things that take my attention away from what I have set my mind and heart to achieve.

Believe it or not, but productivity increases inversely with distractions. If you have no ambition or big goals you want to accomplish, it is unlikely that you will derive any benefits from reducing distractions. So what is a distraction?

A distraction is that which divides your attention or prevents concentration.

When I set out to write my blog posts, my mind wanders and my attention is divided between what I am doing and the many other things I want to do. I constantly have to fight to get back on track and complete the task. This for me is energy draining and a cause of low productivity. So I set out to increase my productivity, get more done and achieve my goals by reducing distractions.

Here are 5 changes I made to my working life that has yielded big results.

  1. Create A Personal Work Space.

Your personal work space includes your desk, your chair, the walls around you, access to day light, room temperature and any other thing you can think of that makes for a pleasant environment. The more comfortable you are in your chair, the less you would fidget and the longer you will stay and complete your work.

Keeping a clutter free work environment will add to your productivity. Look around you. Do you like the look and feel of where you work? If not, come up with three things you can do to make yourself relaxed and comfortable.

  1. Turn Off Emails, Telephone and Text

I am one of those persons who checks his email as soon as it arrives. So I have lights that blink when I get an email, a buzzer that rings when I get a text and a phone that vibrates when on silent.

For years I couldn’t imagine life without a smart phone. However, after overcoming the withdrawal symptoms, I get more done in my day with the phone turned off.

If you have work to do that demands focus and attention, you may want to try having these things turned off.

  1. Take Some Time To Plan Your Day In Advance

If you start your day without a plan, you are more likely to end that day without achieving much. Take some time to plan your day in advance. The previous night is a good time to do this. Set goals and have targets for the day.

A list of what you want to do or achieve is a simple tool that can make you more productive. On completion of a task, you do not have to spend time wondering what to do next. You simply look at your list and tackle the next task.

  1. Use A Timer

When on social media, decide how much time you want to spend and then spend no more that the time you have allocated. A timer is a wonderful device which simply bleeps when your allocated time is up.

When writing, use your timer, when researching online, use a timer and when you go to sleep in the middle of the day, if you have that luxury, use your timer.

  1. Record, Review And Reward

Many years ago when I was struggling with money, I was given a sheet of paper to record and keep track of my spending. The result of that exercise was an eye opener. By tracking my spending I was able to review my actual spend against my planned spend. I had actual numbers that were always different from the plan. I didn’t need much prompting to make spending cuts.

What you track you can change. Keep track of how you spend your time. Record how many minutes in your day you spend doing actual productive work. Record how many minutes you spend watching television. Record how many minutes you spend on the telephone and on social media.

Review what you have recorded. Make necessary adjustments and reward yourself for good behaviour.

Why not add your own productivity tip by leaving a comment below.

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Book Review – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R Covey

to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know. ~ Stephen R. Covey

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is recognised as one of the most influential books ever written. This book has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages world wide. It must have more influence on me than I realised because I have a print and an audio copy.

So whats so special about the 7 habits?

Your habits will determine your future

You can live your life by design or default. To design the future you want, you need to be aware of the habits that take you towards and the habits that pull you away from your desired future.

Successful people have successful habits and unsuccessful people don’t ~Jack Canfield

In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey starts by introducing the concept of a paradigm. Using the analogy of a map, having a wrong paradigm is like trying to find you way around the city of London with a map of Manchester labelled London. You will experience a great deal of frustration and hardship because you have an incorrectly labelled map. We see things based not on reality but on our own version of reality.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.~ Albert Einstein

Steven Covey proposes a new and deeper level of thinking that will lead to the creation of 7 habits that can and will change your life. My top three are:

  1. Be Proactive – Principle of Personal Vision. – Take responsibility for your future. You have the ability to change many things about your life and future by proactively making newer and better choices that will lead you down your desired path. Proactive people according to Covey have the freedom to choose their response to external stimulus. There are lots of illustrations in the book about how you can take control of your life and influence the outcome.
  1. Synergize – Principle of Creative Cooperation. – Simply put, one plus one is greater than two (1+1>2). Synergy is more than working together. It is thinking TEAM (Together Each Achieves More). When we work together as a team, we must value our differences and combine our strengths to achieve much more than each individual can. This is about collaboration with an abundance mindset.
  1. Sharpen the Saw – Principle of Balanced Self-Renewal. Steven Covey identifies four dimensions of renewal
    • The body needs physical renewal though exercise, healthy eating and stress management
    • The mind needs a mental renewal via reading, writing, visualising and planning
    • The spiritual dimension is renewed by our continuous value clarification and commitment to study and meditation
    • Our relationships will benefit from a social and emotional balance through our own internal security, service to others and empathy.

This book is a classic that is worth reading or re-reading to reinforce your good habit of sharpening the saw and perhaps pick up one or two new habits.

The world we live in today may have changed from the time Covey wrote this book, but the principles contained in the seven habits are timeless in its application and they will certainly change your life if you make them habits.

Why not leave a comment if you have read this book or read the book and then leave a comment.

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Book Review – The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

THE LEAN STARTUP

THE LEAN STARTUP

Start up success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Start up success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught. ~ Eric Ries

There are many who will believe that startup success is about having the right products and being in the right place at the right time. Eric Ries in the Lean Startup agues that business success can be engineered by following a set of principles that get you to start small, start quick and go through several iterations.

Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. Its about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before its too late.

Eric Ries introduces five principles of the lean Startup. You can read about them in the book. I would like to talk about five keys I have leant from the book.

Key #1. Experiment

Every stage in your product or business development cycle is an experiment. You define your hypothesis, that is what is it you want to find out?  Then you build the product, version or implement the business process. You measure your results and you learn.

The Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop as Reis calls it is the core of the Lean Startup Model.

Key #2. Develop a Minimum Viable Product MVP

I like the concept of a minimum viable product. This would be the no frills version that allows you to test your hypothesis. Because every stage of your product or business development is an experiment, you need to get your product in front of your customers in a real market and not a test market as quickly and at as low a cost to you. This Is good because you don’t need all the money in the world to do this. You just need to have a clear idea of the minimum features to have.

Key #3. Be Prepared To Pivot or Persevere

Every business person at some point will come to this crossroad. I have had to ask myself the simple question “am I making sufficient progress to justify my continuing on this path. Or do I need to make a major change. The Lean strartup method advocates a more scientific and objective approach to this decision. Innovation accounting according to Reis helps you measure your startup progress and you will have to decide if there is any real progress. This helps take out the emotions involved in your decision to continue on the current trajectory or to curse correct on a major basis.

Key #4. Identify Your Engine of Growth

This is a reality check for all businesses. You cannot remain a start up forever. You need to find your engine of growth and then ride it. Reis talks about three engines of growth. You will need to get the book to read more about these three.

    • The Sticky Engine of Growth
    • The Viral Engine of Growth
    • The Paid engine of gGrowth

Key #5. Innovate

According to Reis, to grow and thrive, businesses will need to evolve into organisations that learn how to successfully balance the needs of existing customers with the challenges of finding new customers to serve. You will need to effectively manage the existing lines of business while experimenting with new products.

You cannot continue experimenting with your product since you already have established customers who are happy with the look and feel of your product. You cannot however rely on this. You have to make the shift into portfolio thinking and always have new products in the pipeline. Constant innovation will help you maintain create a product portfolio.

Not a How to Manual

The Lean startup is not an how to manual so you will not find in it the seven steps to a perfect startup. And the lean start up approach does not guarantee startup success. It just helps you find out if your assumptions are wrong as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

The book is filled with examples and stories from Reis’s life experience as an entrepreneur and from the experience of many others who have employed the lean startup approach to business development.

Whatever you believe about business startup success, this book is worth your time and money.

Leave a comment if you have read this book.

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Book Review: Do The Work by Steven Pressfield

Reading is an important part of my growth and development as a leader and entrepreneur. Much of my reading comes from recommendations from blogs I follow, friend and books I am currently reading or have read.

Where do you get your reading list from?

Do the work by Steven Pressfield.

On the field of the self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon ~ Steven Pressfield

“Do the Work” is a book that helped me move from my position of inertia to completing my first blog and many other projects. The book is designed to coach you through a project such as writing a book, starting a new business venture or a philanthropic enterprise from conception and seeing it through to finish.

Resistance

Steven Pressfield gets strait to the point of telling you that you will need to overcome resistance and get out of your own way if you want to accomplish anything as an artist or an entrepreneur.

According to Pressfield, there are three forces aligned against you in your pursuit of your dream as an artist or entrepreneur. These are:

  1. Resistance, which is fear, self-doubt, procrastination, distraction, timidity, perfectionism and the list, goes on.
  2. Rational thought.
  3. Friends and family.

And I quite enjoy reading through the list of eleven activities that commonly elicit resistance as see myself engaging in these activities and actually feeling the resistance. I will only mention the first three, as you will need to read the book for a comprehensive list.

  • The first is the pursuit of any calling in writing, music or creative art.
  • The second is the launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise for profit or otherwise.
  • And finally any diet or heath regime.

Solution

The fear of failing will hold you back. Rational thought will paralyses you as you over analyse, over plan and over research your project. Friends and family will offer well-meaning advice clouded by their own vested interest at maintaining the status quo.

The bulk of the book is all about Pressfield’s solution, which is to “Do the work”, just get on with it. Of great value for me are his tips on the need to:

  1. Start before you are ready
  2. Suspend all self judgment
  3. Pull the trigger and ship it.

The book is filled with stories and personal experiences, “Do the Work” is a must read for you budding entrepreneurs, artists and anyone with a dream of making a change in his or her own life and in the lives of others.

Challenge

Here is my challenge for you this week. What project have you been thinking about doing for a long time? What is holding you back?

I doesn’t matter up to this point what has been holding you from getting started on your ideas. All that matters now is for you to get on with it. Do the work. Decide on your next step and get on with it.

Make the effort to overcome resistance at every stage and see the project through to finish. You need to know that its not just about starting, its also about finishing. If you can’t finish, all your work is for nothing.

Have you read this book? Why not leave a comment on its impact on you.

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Book Review: Management in 10 Words by Terry Leahy

There is no silver bullet that will hit the bull’s-eye of a successful life or business. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. But there are simple truths which, combined with hard work, increases the chance of success. ~ Terry Leahy

Management in 10 Words

Tesco is the largest supermarket chain in the UK. For every £1 spent on groceries in the UK, £3 is spent in Tesco. Terry Leahy spent fourteen years as CEO of Tesco and oversaw its expansion from groceries into everything from electrical goods, clothing and mobile phones. As at the writing of this review, he is no longer CEO but he has taken the time to put down his thoughts on management into a book

Humble Beginnings

I find  ‘Management in 10 Words‘ to be an inspiring, simple and practical book because Leahy takes me on a journey that starts from his humble beginnings in a council estate in Liverpool. We pass through his early days in Tesco as a marketing man. He ends up as the chief executive and proceeds to grow the company into the largest retailer in the UK and the third largest in the world.

This gives you and me hope. With plenty of heard work, persistence and a bit of luck you can achieve success in your carer or business. Yes luck. You do need the lucky breaks to get ahead. But being in the right place at the right time is not enough. Luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity. Preparedness is you playing your part in readiness for the opportunity that will surely come your way.

Success Princples

Success depends on what lies deep within us. If you spend your life never daring to go where your hopes and dreams might take you, you will end your days deep in a dark valley of frustrated hopes, looking at what might have been. ~ Terry Leahy

There are a lot of success principles to learn from Management in 10 Words. Here are a few

  • Embrace failure as an opportunity learn. Misfortune and mistakes may knock you back, but keep on moving.
  • Deliver value that exceeds what your customer or client is paying for.
  • Welcome competition. It brings the best out of you.
  • Keep things simple. It will make you more creative and innovative.
  • Be a person of your words because, Trust is the bedrock of leadership.

Be Ambitious. Do not be trapped by your past.

This book very much encourages you to be ambitious, and to persevere in the pursuit of your ambition. Terry has a clear message to those who think or say to themselves ‘I can’t achieve my ambitions’, or believe that they have a disadvantaged background or up bringing. Do not be trapped by your past or be a prisoner of your background.

The past is just that – Don’t let it limit your future ~ Terry Leahy

Most of the book is made up of the 10 guiding principles that helped Terry on his way to the top. These principles are simple enough to be applied by you and I to our small or large teams, small or large businesses or simply as guides to live by.

Management in 10 Words

  1. Truth
  2. Loyalty
  3. Courage
  4. Values
  5. Act
  6. Balance
  7. Simple
  8. Lean
  9. Compete
  10. Trust

Set down your bias against the largest supermarket in the UK that is probably responsible for the closure of many small businesses. Read this book and learn from a true leader and business giant. Well done Terry.

Question: Have you read this book? if not why not get a copy and tell me what inspires you in the book? If you have read it why not let me hear from you by leaving a comment below.