Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.
Thanks to my Slacker friend Bren, NeverWorkAlone is mentioned in the latest edition of Fast Company magazine, in the lower right corner of page 100. You da man, Bren!
I just posted the latest recap over there about the challenges of social networking for introverts, if you're interested: ...But what if I like eating alone?
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I've been reading interacting with Dick Richards' book "Is Your Genius At Work?" for weeks now. This book is not long and is very easy to read and understand. But man, is it deep.
When I say I've been interacting with the book, I mean that I've been doing (and repeating...and revisiting....) the simple exercises Dick provides in the book. The exercises approach the challenge of finding your genius from a lot of different angles, to enable you to get a glimpse of the essence of your power. I feel like I'm getting closer, but I haven't gotten the "buzz" that others in the book describe when they finally name their genius (I'm looking for that "tongue on 9-volt batttery" kind of buzz - I know it's out there).
Provisions for the journey
The book provides you with the tools to go through a personal discovery process to discover and name your "genius." Dick goes into lots of detail about genius, but I describe genius as: that special capability that you have that makes you special, and flavors all the other parts of who you are and how you interact with the world.
The whole concept was very intriguing, and Dick provides some vivid examples of how others have found and named their genius. If you want to see what the book is like, head on over to OnGenius.com and you can check out a sample chapter and sample exercises.
Here is a brief overview of what you'll find in this book.
Read MoreJust heard from my friend Lisa Haneberg that she's rolling out an all new version of her "2 Weeks To A Breakthrough" program. As you may recall, I was involved in the first round of this program earlier this year. I loved it and recommend it to you if you want to achieve a breakthrough performance on any big challenges, hopes, and dreams. Or, if you just want to stop doing the "same old same old," this will do it for you.
The new program features improvements like:
To me, that last bullet is the best part. Lisa rocks.
The course description and details are up on the breakthrough blog now - check it out here where you'll find details about the process, the benefits, and how to get started.
Read MoreI recently had the opportunity to review the book "Six Disciplines For Excellence: Building Small Business That Learn, Lead and Last," by Gary Harpst. As the subtitle implies, this book is geared toward small business that want to increase their effectiveness and results. I found the book full of practical tools, process outlines, and examples to help small business crystallize many aspects of their strategic and operating plans.
I was impressed with the breadth of tools provided, as well as the practical examples shown for many of the tools. The book takes you through various aspects of plan definition, tied to six focus areas:
Within each area (or "Discipline"), there are guides to help you flesh out risks, dependencies, expense plans, and a lot of great information on establishing meaningful metrics and providing dashboards to the teams to keep them engaged and focused on the right things. There is also good benchmark data as backup to the techniques.
One thing that was different about this book: in the reviewer's kit I received, there was some additional collateral that talked about "Six Disciplines Leadership Centers," coaching, and other resources provided by the Six Disciplines Corporation. This didn't feel like your typical management book, so I decided to find out more. I contacted Skip Reardon, the Director of Marketing for Six Disciplines Corporation, and began a dialog to feed my curiosity about them.
If you are seeking help with developing your small business's strategy (whether you've read the book yet or not), I would like to share what I've learned so you can make a more informed choice about whether this book and/or Six Discipline's services are a fit for you. Here is a summary of our conversation:
Read MoreOK, you caught me, I've got snow on my mind. In any case, if you haven't stopped by Never Work Alone in a while, check it out. I just posted a summary of great advice I received from the community on how to keep remote team members connected.
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