18 Minutes

Finished May 9
18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman

This very helpful business book outlines a process that helps you manage your productivity. Because we are living is a world of constant change, it is easy to lose focus and get caught up in expectations that can limit you.
The first step Bregman has you take is to pause briefly. This pause serves to refuel, refocus towards what is important to you, and create an environment to aim yourself at your goals more accurately. During this pause you need to look around, and see things in a way that is open to the unexpected, that lets you take a step back and include yourself in that examination.
The next things you have to do is look at the upcoming year and find your focus. This isn't always easy, and to get you started he has you start with four elements, The first element is your strengths, and to do things suited to those strengths. The second element is your weaknesses, and to embrace them and act in a way that these are an asset rather than a liability. The third element is your differences, what you bring to the game that is different from what others bring. Don't try to blend in. The fourth element is your passion, which again sometimes we have to stop to figure out. Pursuing something you desire, focusing on wants instead of shoulds to the extent that pursuit of that will persist through those times you feel you aren't making progress. For our passions, hard work will feel easier. Bregman suggests around 5 areas of focus with 3 work-related and 2 personal, and to aim at spending 95% of your time on them. These should be things that will make the most difference in your life. One line I really liked from this section is "The time to judge your successes or failures is never."
There are a few things to watch out for when doing this and Bregman gives some pointers in how to deal with them when they arise. These are: fear of failure, paralysis, tunnel vision, and a rush to judgment. Life will get busy and obligations will appear to distract you from these areas of focus, and this leads us to the next step.
Here, Bregman has us focus on the day, taking one day at a time. It is important to have a plan for your day to keep moving in the right direction. This means making an organized list of tasks, focused in those five areas you identified. Choosing what to ignore is important in this. For those things that are important, setting a time and place to do those tasks will help you to get them done. As he says, when looking at a task you have four choices: do it now, schedule it, let it go, or put it on a waiting list. He suggests never leaving things on a to-do list for more than three days without doing one of these things with it. It is easy for things to fall through the cracks; calls that we don't return, emails we don't answer, not really listening to others. Bregman says that many of us live in a constant state of dissatisfaction where we feel ineffective, insufficient, and so disappoint ourselves. One way he suggests tackling this is interrupting yourself on an hourly basis to refocus. Another tactic he suggests is taking a few minutes at the end of the day thinking about what you learned and who you should connect with. He supplies a few questions to ask yourself at this time.
This is where the next step comes in, the one referred to in the book's title, 18 minutes. Here where those minutes are: for the first five minutes of your day, before turning on your computer, sit down with your to-do list and decide what will make the day successful, then schedule those things into your calendar. For one minute every hour, refocus. At the end of your day, take five minutes, shut off your computer and review the day.
By building each day's plan on your annual focus areas, making choices about where to spend your time and energy effectively, paying attention to those things daily to keep yourself on track, you will get the important things done. Bregman could have ended the book here, but he knows human nature and so he included a section on dealing with distractions. The first set of distractions are those around getting started. Dealing with these, Bregman calls this "mastering your initiative." You need to create the right environment that naturally compels you to do the things you want to get done. You only need a few seconds of motivation to get started on a task, and being aware of when you need to turn this motivation on is key. One insight here is that we are not motivated by money, we are motivated by fun and by fear. Fear can be a catalyst to change, but pleasure is what keeps you going. Choose both. Tell yourself a good story that inspires you to move in the right direction. Venturing into a fantasy world in your mind can provide support.
The second set of distractions is those brought to us by others. Dealing with these, Bregman calls "mastering your boundaries." He provides a set of three questions to ask yourself when faced with these. In addition, he counsels us to mean it when we say no, to not wait too long once something arises so that others are aware of our boundaries, and to allow a few moments of transition time when changing tasks. Mastering boundaries involves paying attention and he offers several pointers here. He also discusses the issues around disconnecting when away from work, giving some strategies.
The third set of distractions are those we create ourselves. Bregman calls dealing with these "mastering yourself." Again he provides several strategies: use intentional distractions as an asset; don't multitask, don't be a perfectionist, and define the situation,
As he concludes, your next step in one thing. Do it.

Culture Without Accountability

Finished February 3
Culture Without Accountability by Julie Miller and Brian Bedford

This book looks at accountability starting with a well-written definition of accountability that applies to both business and personal interactions. The authors give real-life examples of what accountability done well looks like, and what the lack of accountability can lead to.
They show the connection between accountability and culture, and outline the 4 necessary elements to create a culture with true accountability.
As they clearly show, it is even more likely in today's world of constant monitoring and instant communication that denials of the truth will come out eventually. But while this is a good reason to follow the course to accountability, it isn't the only one. The benefits of a culture of accountability on an organization are shown, and the personal reasons why accountability would be a goal are laid out.
All in all, a good, easy-to-understand guide to gaining accountability for yourself and your organization are here. The hard part is doing it, at least at first. But it becomes more and more natural as it becomes a true part of your character and your organization's culture.
The cover acronym WTF stands for What's The Fix, and this acronym is used to stand for a variety of phrases in this book. While it may draw your attention, I really found it the one jarring element of the book, tasteless and unnecessary.

Choosing Change

Finished September 19
Choosing Change: How Leaders and Organizations Drive Results One Person at a Time by Walter McFarland and Susan Goldsworthy

This book has two parts. Part I is The Change Focused Leader and Part II is The Change Focused Organization. Both have the base relationship of the 5 Ds: Disruption, Desire, Discipline, Determination, and Development.
For the individual, Disruption is the event or experience that triggers a conscious choice to change.
For the organization the Disruption is more threatening and the natural reaction can be more of a entrenchment as the disruption is usually a revolutionary change that has come about due to external forces.
The Desire is what the person or organization wants to achieve, how much it believes in the possibility, and how serious it is about making the change happen.
Discipline is applying those small, consistent and frequent steps that are required to build the momentum that delivers sustainable change. Discipline is necessary to manage the many demands and still keep the pressure on the process of change.
Determination is having the resilience to focus on and deliver change, even when faced with setbacks.
Lastly, Development covers the continuous improvement, reexamination, and learning that is needed.
There were many things that were aha moments for me here, and I found this book really useful in giving clarity to the process of change. Here are some of my ahas on the individual side:
* "We are not afraid of the unknown, because, how can we be afraid of something we have no idea about? Instead, we are afraid of letting go of the known."
* the 5 attributes of the learning person: self-knowledge, self-acceptance, self-respect, autonomy, and seeking of both solitude and company.
* the opposite of play is depression
Here are some of the ahas on the organizational side:
* make organizational change a formal part of organizational strategy, learning is correlated with performance
* integrate change into the business so that change becomes a routine part of doing business
* develop people continuously, ensuring organization-wide learning as well
* model collaboration in everything
* develop a change leadership competency and integrate it into the overall leadership model
* take time to reflect: you learn more from reflecting on your experiences than you do from the actual experiences themselves
This book gives the reader much to think about and a guide to how to make change a part of your life and a part of your organization.

Emotional Vampires at Work

Finished April 5
Emotional Vampires at Work: Dealing with Bosses and Coworkers Who Drain You Dry by Albert J Bernstein

This self-help book takes a look at personalities, behaviours, and culture in the workplace. Rather than look at why people behave the way they do, this book emphasizes how to recognize certain behaviours as potential problems for you at work, and offers ways to deal with these behaviours.
First, the author offers a quiz that helps you to identify your own behavioural tendencies so that you know your weak points and can modify your reaction to others' behaviour to allow for these, or at least think about them before you act. The author encourages slow thinking, rather than the fast thinking that is more reactive in nature. By taking the time to look at a situation, think about who certain actions benefits, why someone is telling you something, and what your options are, you can act smarter and more productively.
He categorizes five types of emotional vampires. These are more extreme than difficult people, often because they have strong personalities that can draw you in. These five types are Antisocials, Histrionics, Narcissists, Obsessive-Compulsives, and Paranoids. He acknowledges that many people may show some aspects of these behaviours, including yourself, but the key is that most of us recognize those behaviours in our selves, and thus have a level of self-awareness that protects us from acting to an extreme. The emotional vampires do not. They have several aspects of one of these types of behaviours, but don't seem themselves in these descriptions, and react badly if you try to show them how they do. For each of these types, the author describes traits, shows how these might manifest themselves in different general senses, and talks about strategies to still have a productive workplace while dealing with these people. He also talks about how an organizational culture can take on these traits if the people at the top are emotional vampires.
All readers will recognize some people they have worked with at some point in their lives, or that they know in their personal lives. They key to dealing with these people is not to take things personally, but think with care about who benefits from their actions, protect yourself, and leave the organization if necessary.
An interesting read.

The Chaos Imperative

Finished January 5
The Chaos Imperative: how chance and disruption increase innovation, effectiveness and success by Ori Brafman and Judah Pollack

This book looks at how, despite what people often think, chaos can actually help you achieve success. The authors use lots of examples and take us through the processes they work through when consulting on this subject. These examples bring things to life in a way that theory cannot and shows how a variety of elements workings together can introduce this element of chaos in a way that brings new ways of thinking, new ideas, and new processes that move an organization forward.
The examples range from medieval history to video game development, showing that these ideas work across vastly different situations. There are several elements than can bring this controlled chaos into an organization. One is creating white space, time to step back and let people or groups stop working full-tilt at a problem so different connections can be made. This works the same way that solutions come to you in the shower, overnight, or while doing some unrelated activity. A second one is unusual suspects, which is bringing people with different experiences, different backgrounds, different methods, different ways of looking at things, into the mix. A third is planned serendipity, setting up a culture that encourages spontaneous interactions across the organization between all levels and all departments. This encourages the flow of new ideas.
A book that offers a lot to think about.

The Advantage

Finished February 20
The Advantage: why organizational health trumps everything else in business by Patrick Lencioni

The Globe and Mail said this was one of the top business books of 2012, and since I am interested in continuously improving our organizational health, I was interested.
Lencioni lays out the process clearly here, giving short examples where appropriate and referring to his own experiences, good and bad. The process uses a mode with four disciplines, each building on the one before. They are: Build a Cohesive Leadership Team; Create Clarity; Overcommunicate Clarity; and Reinforce Clarity. Interestingly, we had already been doing some of the steps in each discipline at my work, and have been particularly finding ourselves beginning to gel as a management team. I took copious notes while reading and shared a detailed summary with the team, hoping to initiate discussion. The book also includes a great chapter on meetings, some of which I can definitely use (harder in an environment such as mine where there is shift work). In short, I can definitely see why this made the top ten and look forward to applying the things I learned from it.