Behind every able man, there are always other able men.
Chinese proverb
Image source: Flickr – Paul Domenick (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Month: April 2016 (Page 1 of 2)
On December 2014 Bob Sutton, Professor at Stanford University, published the long-awaited list of 12 books (or 13…) recently published books that every leader should read.
This is the list:
1. The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer.
2. Influence by Robert Cialdini.
3. Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.
4. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
5. Collaboration by Morten Hansen.
6. Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie.
7. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull.
8. Leading Teams by J. Richard Hackman.
9. Give and Take by Adam Grant.
10. Parkinson’s Law by the late C. Northcote Parkinson.
11. To Sell is Human, by Dan Pink.
12. The Path Between the Seas by historian David McCullough.
Sutton suggests also to add a 13th book published in April 2015: Work Rules by Laszlo Bock.
Do you want to know more? Click here
Image source: Flickr – Jonathan Kim (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Quick Diplomatic Response is one of the few existing comic books on diplomatic activities. This booklet was written by Jovan Kurbalija, illustrated by Vladimir Veljasevic and published by Diplofoundation in 2007. It can be consulted here.
This comic book aims to explain the crucial role of diplomacy in the contemporary world. It also shows how diplomacy can be improved through the use of modern tools and approaches.
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Percy Shelley
Image source: Flickr.com – Alicia Rissler – (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Successful leaders continue to grow and learn on the job. In fact, an essential leadership attribute is the ability to remain open to new ways of thinking and to continuously learn new skills.
According to the research Learning About Learning Agility by the Center for Creative Leadership and Teachers College, Columbia University, the willingness and ability to learn throughout one’s career is increasingly important as changing technology, markets and methods require new skills and behaviors.
Over the long term, your ability to learn new knowledge, skills and behaviors will equip you to respond to future challenges more than your current skill-set.
Researchers found five tips that enable one’s learning agility:
- Innovate: Challenge the status quo
- Perform: Remain calm in the midst of adversity
- Reflect: Take time for reflection
- Risk: Purposely seek challenging situations
- Defend: Be open and avoid defensive thinking
Read more here
Image: Flickr – Bestinindia.com (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Which are the nine most important things that it is possible to learn in our life? In an interesting article mixing numerology, wittiness and common sense, Maria Popova, the founder of “Brain pickings”, tried to create her own personal list.
Here’s the result:
- Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. In a world where everyone has an opinion, sometimes being incoherent and changing our minds could connect us with our hidden self.
- Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. The best incentive is to do what makes you happy.
- Be generous with your time and your resources and especially, with your words.
- Build pockets of stillness into your life. Finding the time for a walk or for yoga allows you to stay centered, to generate ideas and to entice your creative thinking.
- When people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. The assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.
- Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity for. Look for what makes life worth living.
- Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time. At odds with the culture of immediacy, let’s enjoy the period of blossoming “where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny”.
- Seek out what magnifies your spirit. Who are the people, ideas, and books that magnify your spirit? Find them, hold on to them and visit them often.
- Don’t be afraid to be an idealist.
Image source: Flickr – duncan c (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Mañana es el dia mas ocupado de la semana (Tomorrow is the busiest day of the week)
Spanish Proverb
Image source: Flickr – Max Wheeler (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
On August 9th, 1940, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of UK, sent a Memorandum to the War Cabinet . He asked his staff to write shorter Reports and to avoid those useless phrases which could be replaced by one word.
In particular he wrote, in the final part of the Memorandum:
The saving in time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real point concisely will prove an aid to clearer thinking.
Copy of the original document is available at UK National Archives http://www.ukwarcabinet.org.uk/documents/345
In his short talk at TED@NYC, Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Hogan Vice President of Research and Innovation, examines the relationship between confidence and competence. Most people, according to his researches, are overconfident. He urges the audience to take a more self-aware approach to confidence, and to embrace the power of negative thinking.
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