What you want to be known for?

"You reach a point in your life when you start recognizing that your time is limited. And you realize that what matters is more than just your own achievements. Its the legacy. And the legacy in itself is the achievement and what you want to be known for."- Kathy Mazzarella, Graybar


You could reach this point when you lose a loved one.

Coaching in TImes of Crisis and Transformation

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name - Chinese Proverb.

Writing with insistence on knowing the names of the animals, plants specific aims at making you wiser about the world you inhabit.

Key Performance Indicators for Dummies

Key Performance Indicators for Dummies is a good book to get your rookies knowledgeable on what is KPI and what KPQ (KP questions) will get you to the performance you want. The difference between leading and lagging indicators is a good one to know, even the focus on the word indicator in KPIs is essential. While the author does these kind of highlighting and contextualizing well, the dos and dont when it comes to KPIs, the book starts to feel like many booklets put together, trying to reel in different departments together. Yes finance is where all the numbers are but it is this cross functional jump, that makes the book look like a motley. I was very interested with terms like KPQ, EVA- Economic Value Added but after a while there were too many terms (I remember reading about NPS - Net Promoter Score, but cant recall which book), that made it seem like KPI should have been a small section under an umbrella title that would tie the book all in one. Something to appreciate in this varied terms definition are the examples, which make all the acronyms very easy to understand. Keep this book under the 'Basics of Business' folder.

The Other "F" Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work

"Bad companies are destroyed by crisis; good companies survive them; great companies are improved by them." - Andy Grove.

In "The Other "F" Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work" by John Danner and Mark Coopersmith, you get to see what the crises can be and how your company size will change your reaction to it, what you can learn from it and how you can remember that to learn from failure as an individual and team.
With Edison and WD-40, we have learnt how taking more risks, we increase our chance of success. But to keep on going ahead like King Bruce, we have to know that we are not going to build that web the first time, learn and improvise from each attempt.
The Failure Value Cycle is about how to mine gold from your crash and burns. With its 7 step process, you create an environment where you accept the ubiquity of failure in a venture, prepare for it, be on the lookout for it, respond, avert and get back on track.
The authors have referred to the latest security debacles of great companies. After each chapter, there is a summary of what are the keypoints. There are questionnaires about how failure is treated in our organisation. There is an encouragement to show off not just your laurels but your albatrosses too.
The best I like are the 3 Rules of learning - from others, by play and thinking and by doing, 'What has to be true' exercise.

You are your worst competitor

Do the Kind thing

bars that are under weight and we have to give those bars away for free as samples

systemigrams are wonderful

 


Starting with the power shutdown case known to everyone an analysing it after the situation cools down a bit to get into the details of what went wrong is a great hook into the book. Although the book seems very geared toward specific clients of the author and the work done with them, the idea of systemigrams of making pictures of different systems in your organisation and synthesising it into the big picture is easily adaptable for anyone. I think systemigrams will be most helpful when you are going through some transformation, so you can easily see it in the picture - the before and after, if they are as you envision.

The Right Who

The topics brought up in the book about successful 'whos' are relevant in any industry. You will find yourself reviewing different examples from scenarios at your workplace. How do you find the best people? What to ask the references? How many people to interview for a position? What is the mark when you are done knowing the pool and decide already. Holding interviewers responsible.
With many examples from interesting studies, the author will load you up on technqiues to find the right people and keep them.
I am motivated to do an anonymous 360.

Egon Zehnder
Join a board
Unconventional resumes

Rookie Smarts

The Young and the Perceptive

Uplifting Leadership

Josephine Cochrane 1839-1913 invented the dishwasher