Tag Archives: Leadership

Lead As If You Meant It

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Inspiration and Values

WHAT MATTERS NOW—HOW To Win In A World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation  BY Gary Hamel

 I started to read Hamel’s book, and in the first chapter he gives impressive advice on how to lead (paraphrased):

 “These assumptions, if acted upon, will help nourish the seeds of stewardship in your business life, and, by example, in the lives of others.”

I fully agree with Gary that this is What Matters Now.

  1. Treat investments as if all of it came from your widowed mother, and it was your responsibility to ensure her secure and happy retirement.
  2. Treat your boss as your older sibling, with respect and no hesitation to offer frank advice when needed.
  3. Treat your employees as childhood chums—give the benefit of doubt and smooth their path. Never treat them as human “resources”.
  4. Treat your primary customers as your children. Please and delight them, don’t deceive or take advantage of them. Never exploit a customer.
  5. Treat yourself as if you’re independently wealthy. Work because you want to, not because you have to. Never sacrifice your integrity. Quit before you compromise.

 

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Thoughts on Words: Project

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Thinking is shaped by the words we use. Management thinking is shaped by the words managers use and are used to. If we want people to change their mindset, we must stop to use words that carry a history of bad meaning with them. Let’s start to create a new language to talk about development that explicitly avoids mistakes made in the past.

Project

Project as a concept was devised in a time when management still thought they could execute an endeavor according to a detailed plan. This worked in the times of Henry Ford, when employees were glad to be paid, and customers accepted that their cars were black. Both is not true anymore. Employees seek mastery and purpose, and request autonomy instead of detailed plans. Customer value today is rather discovered than simply produced. Uncertainty is the only thing you can be certain of.

A project is a temporary organisation formed by people working on a sufficiently identified goal. As long as projects were few, changes infrequent, this paradigm had its use. Now, changes are the norm, and every enterprise runs multiple projects. These don’t function as temporary organisations anymore when each member is belonging to multiple organisations at once. I don’t see the concept adding any value anymore, yet it brings this whole history of misconceptions to the table… Continue reading →

Beautiful Waterfall (by robbieredball)

Thoughts on Words

7 Replies

Thinking is shaped by the words we use. Management thinking is shaped by the words managers use and are used to. If we want people to change their mindset, we must stop to use words that carry a history of bad meaning with them. Let’s start to create a new language to talk about development that explicitly avoids mistakes made in the past.

Resources

People are human. They are not interchangeable. Don’t call them resources, because this term suggests they are.

Beautiful Waterfall (by robbieredball)

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The FirstFollower is what Transforms a Lone Nut into a Leader

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Yves Hanoulle pointed me in his blog to a concept that I think he has heard about from Chris Matts. I love inspirations from awesome coaches :-)

First Follower

To create a movement, someone has to start and become the leader. But as long as this someone stays alone, s/he is not yet a leader, s/he’s a lone nut. There’s a specific person who transforms the situation: the lone nut becomes the leader when the First Follower joins hir and they start forming a movement or tribe. Derek Sivers did an amazing, 3min TED talk on this:

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