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Posted April 30, 2007 8:39 a.m. by todd-sattersten
In Lists - 800 CEO Read Blog
First time author Vince Thompson last month released Ignited: Managers Light Up Your Company and Career for More Power More Purpose and More Success. This afternoon, I posted a podcast I did with Vince.
After the interview, I asked him to follow-up with list of books he would recommend to middle managers:
- Love is the Killer App – Tim Sanders
- Never Eat Alone – Keith Ferrazzi
- 7 Habits To Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
- Less is More – Jason Jennings
- Think Big Act Small – Jason Jennings
- How to be CEO – Jeffrey Fox
- The Articulate Executive – Granville Toogood
- Networking with the Affluent – Thomas Stanley
- Leading at a Higher Level - Ken Blanchard
Hot Spots spark innovation
Posted March 28, 2007 3:58 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In Innovation - 800 CEO Read Blog
A few days ago we posted an excerpt from the book Ignited. Here's an excerpt from a February Financial Times article that reviewed Lynda Gratton's new book, Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, And Organizations Buzz With Energy - And Others Don't, another "hot" title this spring:
But, if you are lucky, you may also spot the occasional flash of orange or red. These are "hot spots" - "a moment when people are working together in exceptionally creative and collaborative ways . . . Hot spots occur when the energy within and between people flares - when mundane everyday activities are set aside for engaged work that is exciting and challenging. It is at times like these that ideas become contagious and new possibilities appear."
Gratton has not branched out from her distinguished career studying management to dabble in meteorology. The "hot spots" are an extended metaphor, but one that is soundly based on a body of academic research into networks, teams,culture, collaboration and creativity.
The author brings up examples like the communities that build Linux, Nokia, and Goldman Sachs to illustrate the fact that even groups with far-flung members can feed on one another's energy to spark innovation.
Gratton has written a succinct and utterly compelling book. She is really a kind of one-woman hot spot in herself.
Check out the article: "Creative sparks warm up a business ice age" by Stefan Stern.
www.ft.com, February 28 2007.
Excerpt from Ignited
Posted March 26, 2007 10:25 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In Misc. - 800 CEO Read Blog
Ignited
Managers! Light Up Your Company and Career
This excerpt is taken from Ignited: Managers! Light Up Your Company and Career by Vince Thompson.
Chapter 9
Ignition Point 4: The Landscape
The Power of the Scout
One of the most common tendencies of any business is to become inward-focused. It's also one of the most deadly. "Navel-gazing" may be all right for Zen students who want to tune out the world and become more connected with their inner, spiritual essence. But companies that spend too much time navel-gazing are so enamored with and fascinated by themselves--their brilliantly-designed processes, their wonderful corporate culture, their admirable history, their fabulous products and services--that they gradually
lose sight of the purpose of it all: serving customers.
It's understandable that this should happen. As a company grows, an increasing degree of self-consciousness is necessary and important. Managers need to take time to reflect on how the company operates, to develop systems that are adaptive and flexible, and to massage the culture so that positive traits are encouraged and negative traits are squashed. All of this requires some self-analysis. A company that can't perform such inward-focused analysis is doomed to grow willy-nilly, ending up with structures that
make little sense and often don't work.
Furthermore, with increasing size comes growing complexity, which inevitably requires rules, standardization, and internal systems of communication. When a company has 6 or 12 or even 50 employees, ideas, strategies, plans, and methods can be shared by osmosis. Get much bigger, and you need ways of making sure that everyone is in the loop and on the same page. Such dreaded phenomena as the weekly staff meeting, the company newsletter, the procedures manual, and even (horrors!) the Human Resources department all
come into being. Software systems to organize and link the multiplying parts of the company become increasingly complicated and important.With these phenomena comes a staff of people--small at first, but growing over time--to create, administer, and maintain them.
Here is where the risk of navel-gazing arises. As soon as internal systems become important elements in your company's functioning, one or two or a handful of your people will get the mistaken impression that they are the most important elements. These people become “keepers of the systems,
New Excerpt on Excerpts Blog!
Posted March 26, 2007 9:58 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In Uncategorized - 800 CEO Read Blog
We have a new excerpt up on the ol' excerpts blog. It's Chapter 9 from Ignited by Vince Thompson.
There comes a point when it's time for those in leadership to light a fire under every uninspired and discouraged group. Ignited is for middle managers who need an outline of clear, realistic steps to promote change within an organization.
In Chapter 9, Thompson talks about the common tendency to become inward-focused. He suggests that one step toward reshaping an organization is scouting The Landscape--the external influences on our world, customers, and competition.
Here's a direct link to the excerpt:
http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/archives/006854.html
