Many managers have an unspoken expectation that employees are responsible for motivating themselves. Their idea goes like this: since the company pays them, they should do what they’re told, and happily complete any task put in front of them.
Category Archives: Speed Reading
Why [brief]? Communicate with power
We live in a fast-paced world. We never have enough time to complete the agenda. The more we accomplish, the more the work seems to pile up. It gets overwhelming.
How do you deal with mounting stress? How do you keep your wits about you when the pressure to deliver intensifies? One method is to be brief in your communication.
Great books
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had taken a speed reading course and was amazed at how much it has helped me to read faster and comprehend better. Consequently I have read a lot more books in the past few months than I ever had in such a short amount of time. Many of the books I’ve read recently focus on leadership and I’ve learned much that is helping me better understand the traits of true leaders.
In the spirit of sharing what I am learning I will post my reviews—of several of my favorite books—over the next several days. As I mentioned in a post last week, great leaders study successful people. I do not consider myself a great leader, but I am putting a lot of focus on studying great leaders.
I thank you for reading my blog. I am eager to find out what books you love, what you’ve learned from them and how they have impacted your life. Please leave a comment and let me know what books you recommend.
Letting go
I’m a firm believer that knowledge is power. Learning and gaining knowledge is a passion of mine. One of my favorite quotes is by Eric Hoffer: “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”
There are so many great books, articles, blogs, newspapers and other sources of knowledge that it’s easy to become overwhelmed. During the past year the pile of books I want to read has been growing much faster than what I’ve been able to read.
I recently signed up for a speed reading course with Abundant Reading Systems. I’m about half way through the course and I’m already seeing improvements. My instructor, David Hinton, continues to press us to “let go” of comprehension while we learn techniques to increase our speed. That’s a difficult thing for me because understanding what I read is incredibly important to me. I’m finding, however, that as I let go at higher speeds (10-15k words per minute) I can comprehend much better when I slow down (1-2k wpm). Letting go is ultimately helping me to hang on.
It’s the same way in leadership settings. We cannot make other people do things we want them to do. We can lead with persuasion, by example, or with an iron fist, but we cannot force people to do what they do not want to do. Next time you find yourself in a situation where somebody will not do what you want them to, try letting go and see how things end up.
Lead on Purpose 