Believe it or not we finally concluded chapter 6 - People!  We continued our discussion on John’s various principles of people development.  The two major topics we discussed were "Care for people before you can develop them" and "Look for opportunities to build up people".  Many of John’s ideas were again common sense but very often overlooked. 

We went into great detail (again) about when is it appropriate to "add value" to your subordinate’s ideas.  According to Marshall Goldsmith, adding value almost always never makes sense.  The perceived increase value is always more than offset by the subordinate’s sense of losing the ownership.  We strongly felt this was an important discovery and decided to add it as a learning

Next time we will discussing the next chapter on Vision.  Stand by for a brand new mind map!

We discussed two topics under "Principles of People development" this week:

• It takes time
• People skills are essential for success

We focused mostly on some of the characteristics of great leaders including: they admit mistakes, they are able to get along with a wide variety of people, and they possess sensitivity & tact.

We dwelled in great detail on one specific area - "being able to get along with a wide variety of people".  We agreed that this skill is a necessary evil, especially in the workplace if one wants to grow in a leadership role.  We talked about some mutual friends who adamantly resist socializing with new people (or even with people from their existing social networks) because many people they come across do not share the same values or interests as their own.  This is a genuine and understandable concern.  We wavered for a long time whether the same justification holds good in a workplace as well?  We never came to a definitive conclusion but agreed that everyone, especially "leaders" have to make some compromises/sacrifices for the greater good and getting along with a variety of people is one of them (even though not everyone might share the same values, principles, interests etc.)

For more details about this chapter, please review the mindmap at: Chapter 7: People

As usual we had an exciting discussion around people and how the relationships factor into leadership.  We concentrated on the topic "Giving the right assistance to people"

We analyzed how our department rated on various areas of "people empowerment " including working on your peoples’ strengths/weaknesses, give them your entire self, giving them undivided attention, giving them complete ownership and giving them a great chance at success.

We delved deeper into the issue of giving unconditional ownership to the people around you.  We agreed that it is very hard for analytical and technical people to give up control/ownership and acknowledge the success of others.  I referred to a recent BusinessWeek podcast I was listening to titled "When should you keep your ideas to yourself?" where the legendary Marshall Goldsmith discusses how it is not always the best idea to "improve on" or "add value to" some body else’s idea.  Although that may add 5-10% quality/efficiency to the outcome, in all probability the other person might lose 50% or more commitment to execution of that idea.  This is very relevant to Mr. Maxwell’s theory of giving ownership to others.  100% means 100%  You do not want to claim any part of the idea, execution or the outcome of your team member’s plan.  You should not have to share the spotlight with him/her.

While discussing the need for having a vision and relating that to our own department’s vision/goals, we also brainstormed on a long-standing goals of ours.  I am very excited that we have a concrete plan of action to accomplish that goal in a methodical manner and we committed to the action plan as a team.  To learn more about that goal and other critical ideas we generate at these book club meetings, please join us next time.  We meet the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month!  Also, be sure to check out our new website section called "Learning" where we are trying to catalog all the actionable lessons we learn during the course of our conversations.

Yes, there was a long gap between the two meetings, but that actually served us well. I had a lot of time to mull over the diverse and frank opinions expressed during that night’s conversations.

For a change, there was a humongous opinion difference in every topic we discussed that night. Right from providing encouragement to understanding what motivates people. We extensively studied some of the characteristics of our colleagues in an attempt to understand what works and what does not. The conversation, by no means, came to a conclusion. Case in point: we covered only a fifth of the chapter that night!

Some take-away points from that night:

• We will soon be switching to afternoon meetings (same weekdays) because majority of the regular attendees are from Fiserv-Hillsboro anyway and there has been a growing demand to cater to the family folks
• We are going to focus more on actionable items while debating the pros and cons of the countless ideas that seem to spring during the conversations
• I will add a new section on the blog to collect these actionable items

Anyway, I loved the energy and opinion differences that night and hope to continue on that path for a long time to come.

Here’s a link to the MindMap for our all important chapter: Chapter 7: People

We discussed the importance of “Attitude” in our daily lives, especially for leaders.  As with many of Mr. Maxwell’s principles and ideas, this topic was inspirational and the stories he used were relevant.

Rajeev brought a very unique perspective to many of the principles through his association with Chinmaya Mission Study Group.  Through his opinion, he instilled some much need humility and spirituality in me

We agreed that reinforcing any of these principles was one of the most important tasks for them to be most effective and long-lasting.

Happy reading and we hope to see you all on February 20th as we explore chapter 7: People.

Here’s the link to yesterday’s MindMap one more time: Chapter 6: Attitude

Since only Ram and I were in attendance, we thought we could talk about Problem Solving again.

We had a great discussion and stayed on course with the help of the Mindmap I created last week. We really enjoyed all the great (funny) stories that Mr. Maxwell referred to in this chapter. ClearContext came up again as we were talking about step 2 of the Problem-Solving process, “Prioritize”. Mr. Maxwell insists that one should face one and only 1 problem at a time to make sure it gets your complete attention. I strongly believe that with the awesome filing and organizing features available in ClearContext, the dream of focus is achievable (at least in Outlook for now). Ram is going to give it a shot.

We ended the conversation on a philosophical note as we tried to dissect and understand the “Socrates method” of problem-solving/analysis/conversation. I plain admit that I don’t understand it completely, although it sounds exotic. I will definitely research further into it and if you are passionate about Socratic communication, please join us next time so we can have a healthy debate.

Here’s the MindMap for chapter 5, Problem Solving. Enjoy!

We will be meeting every 1st and 3rd Wednesday from today (instead of the original 1st and 3rd Tuesdays).  Venue and time remain the same;  Corillian Campus Center from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.

See you all tonight!

We had some new members today that I contacted via Meetin.org.  We had a great conversation about integrity, values, honesty and a whole array of other related and unrelated stuff.  We started off with a healthy debate about what constitutes integrity.  We all agreed that we tend to confuse INTEGRITY with HONEST.  Although honesty is a major component of Integrity, and one of the core values everyone should measure themselves against, one should not make the mistake of confusing one with the other.

The lively chat also turned to a number of “taboo” topics like religion and, politics :)  Towards the end the talk even turned into a personal therapy session for me where I started disclosing my long-term dilemmas with values including: using company cell phone for personal use (I never checked with the company but I strongly believe that this should be OK because I cannot lug around two different phones just so that I can keep my personal stuff different; all the other members agreed 100%) and my desire to switch to a more fuel-efficient, greener car in order to more closely align with my value of environmental-friendliness.  You see I want to switch to a hybrid car, but I am closely attached to my SUV and I would incur a pretty big financial penalty if I decide to sell that car now.  Nobody had a silver-bullet solution and this value of mine is still a work in progress.  One day in the near future I will proudly proclaim that I went “green”.  But until then, I have to live with the dilemma.

We talked about meeting at a downtown location and changing the format a little and for now I want to continue the focus on leadership…

Next time (October 16th) we will discussing chapter 4 of Developing the Leader Within You and the topic is “Creating Positive Change”.  Please stop by and I promise you will go back to your workplace as a much better leader!

Do you like to read business and personal development books?

Are you looking for ways to become a fearless entrepreneur?

Are you passionate about your personal and team efficiency?

Do the words “business”, “management”, and “personal development” excite you?

If the answer to any of these questions is “YES“,

then look no further!!!

We are a group of motivated individuals forming a

Business Book Discussion Group

at the awesome Hillsboro Main Library campus.

We are planning to meet every other week

starting June 26th 2007.

Subject : Business Book Discussion Group

Venue : Hillsboro Main Library

2850 NE Brookwood Pkwy,

Hillsboro, OR 97124

June 26th 2007

6:30 pm to 8:00pm

Next Book:

The 4-Hour Workweek

by Timothy Ferris

(Available at all major bookstores and on amazon.com)

*For more details, contact 503-419-7097