The Hidden Leader - Scott Edinger & Laurie Sain

Category:  Leadership, Management

Summary

In this book, Edinger and Sain make a compelling case for identifying those individuals who are the true influencers of your company (or teams).  They spend a great deal of time explaining their research and come to the conclusion that you have key people and if you lose those key performers and leaders, your company will suffer.

Top take away for me: 

Leaders and managers are, sometimes, different people.  If the hidden leader remains undiscovered and leaves, the whole organization will suffer.  

If you're in a leadership or management role in your company and have a culture of teams functioning well and suddenly disintegrate, you may have a culture that supports conditions that result in the loss of hidden leaders. In this current climate of competitive recruiting, it's worth taking some time to ensure hidden leaders are identified and suitably rewarded.    

That wraps this one up.  

Shoot an email and let me know what you think - admin@habitstance.com

Enjoy, good reading and good learning.

Category:  Personal Development, Leadership, Management

Summary

Good, short read.  John Maxwell does a fantastic job laying out several leadership characteristics.  This book is almost like a small handbook of areas you can focus your personal growth and leadership growth.  

Top 3 characteristics from my perspective:

1) Trust - a Leader's most important characteristic 

2) Vision - know where you want to go

3) Problem Solving - make things happen

That wraps this one up.  I believe this one is worth a read!     

Shoot an email and let me know what you think - admin@habitstance.com

Enjoy, good reading and good learning.

Category:  Communication, Personal Development, Leadership, Management

Summary

You have less than 8 seconds to engage with your receiver:  Customer, Boss, Employee, Friend, ...  If not, they're off to the races in their mind - digital distractions abound!  Gentle head nods and phone checks.  You've lost them.  This book provides practical insights and tool for capturing individual's attention and getting your message across.  As a leader, presenter, manager, student, etc, we need succinct messages.  

Top 3 Ideas from my perspective:

1) Use stories and pictures

2) Employ mindmaps

3) Engage in conversation

That wraps this one up.  I believe this one is worth a read!     

Shoot an email and let me know what you think - admin@habitstance.com

Enjoy, good reading and good learning.

Category:  Personal Growth and Personal Development

Summary

Unlimited is the story of Jim Kwik's life and how he made discoveries and overcame challenges from childhood injuries.   The overall focus of the book is mental capacity/ability and goes into many memory techniques that are widely taught and written about.  

Like many other folks as they age, I wish I could roll back the hands of time and find an interest in subjects like:  personal growth, how the mind works, self-learning, and the joys of reading.  With that in mind, This book would have help revolutionize my learning and understanding throughout my life.  At least I have been blessed enough to learn about and find these treasures now.

One of my favorite quotes from this book, "Don't let school interfere with your education."  Please don't think I'm saying school is not beneficial, quite the opposite.  School can provide a proper foundation for life-long learning.  Unfortunately, many people experience "bad" teachers which can devastate their desire to learn beyond passing a test.  I think this is a sad fact of our current education system.  

OK, with all that in mind.  My favorite techniques he talks about:

1) Learning with the "FASTER" method:  Forget, Act, State, Teach, Enter, Review

2) Limiting thoughts vs. limitless thoughts

3) 7 Lies of Learning

That wraps this one up.  If you get a chance, I believe this one is worth a read.     

Shoot an email and let me know what you think - admin@habitstance.com

Enjoy, good reading and good learning.

Category:  Personal Development, Note Taking

Summary:

As part of my journey of personal development, reading and note taking have become essential.  Consequently, I performed a quick search on note taking and thought this book would be a good start.  Well, that's on me.  I could have and should have researched more and understood more specifically what I was looking for.  So, part of my insights for this book review are a bit tainted.  With that context, here we go...

This book seems to have been written by an academic and for academia.  The system reviewed was the "zettelkasten" (German for "slip box").  This system is a dynamic approach that allows the user to link ideas and notes together across all the different topics a person might read or study.   This idea was intriguing to me, but in the end, the system just didn't work with what I already had in place and where my notes and note taking habits were headed.  

So, the main take-away for me was the concept of the slip box and how the system identified notes and linked notes.  While I can see the benefit for academics, I found it had less utility for me and my current system and uses.  

If you are just starting with note taking and organization, I believe this book might be worth a read.  Otherwise, I would skip this one.

If you've read this one, what did you think?  Shoot us an email - admin@habitstance.com

Good luck and good reading!  

Category:  Business Reading, Leadership

Summary:

Really, the only word for this book in my opinion is, "WOW!"  Pretty intellectual, huh?

Where to start????   I have listened to this audio book 3 times in a matter of months, now.  There are interesting and unique ideas I gathered from this book.

Top 3:

1) Types of games.  Infinites vs. Finite.  We live in a world of both games.  Know which one you are engaged in before you start playing.  Rules are for finite games.

2) Business decisions.  The 3 things businesses focus on - Wall Street, Customers, Employees.  How a company orders these when they make statements is how their priority.  Interesting idea!

3) Have your vision and cause.  These are intrinsic, personal motivators.  People engage in and get behind visions and causes.  Find both yours and know each of these for those you follow.

That's it for this one.  If you've read this one - what do you think?  

Enjoy

Dean

Full Disclosure on this one - I am certified in the John Maxwell Team (JMT). 

John Maxwell is one of the primary leadership thought authors and speakers.  In this book, he details the 27 laws of leadership.  

Category:  Leadership

Summary:

This was the first leadership book I read years ago, and this book in particular launched my interest in leadership as a study area.

Not to go into each of the laws, that's too much for this type of review.  But in general the laws provide a great outline and guidance for how an individual can start moving and improving his/her leadership ability and skill.  Whether a particular law is a natural strength of yours or not, there are tips, hints, and nuggets embedded in almost every topic.

The 5 most useful laws to me are:

1. Law of Influence
2. Law of the Process
3. Law of Solid Ground
4. Law of Empowerment
5. Law of Reproduction

This is a constant go to in my library for research and expanding my personal leadership capacity.   Highly recommend this one for a full read and reference.  

Enjoy.

Dean