Genuine Curiosity

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.

 

WWCD - What would Churchill Do?

Stuart Finlay sent me a copy of his book, "What Would Churchill Do? Business Advice from the Man Who Saved the World" a couple of weeks ago, and I just carved out the time to read it. The book focuses on Churchill and how we managed things during the heat of World War II -- the period of the Greatest Tests for the Greatest Generation.

In this book, Finlay takes examples of Churchill's leadership and applies their principles to daily management and leadership. He does so with great effect, and the result is a very useful book on business improvement. There are 17 chapters, each focusing on a different lesson (and the reading is easy - these bite-sized morsels are each about 6-10 pages long).

Patterns for success

As I sometimes point out here on the blog, I'm naturally a "pattern seeker" and I look for models in one area of my life that I can apply in other areas. This book feel like a perfect fit for me since, throughout the book, Finlay identifies patterns of action, strategy, and philosophy from Churchill's life and discusses how we can apply those notions in the context of our everyday lives.

But it's more than just a "here's a lesson - learn it and do it" kind of book. I found that Finlay's portrayal of Churchill's unconventional solutions to difficult problems, and the way he was open to hearing and accepting the ideas of others was very inspiring.

For example, one chapter called "Stay Passionate for Things you Don't Agree With," deals with examples of something I've heard referred to as "disagree and commit" in which you support ideas that you don't agree with in order to support the greater good - this can sometimess be difficult due to ego, but Finlay's examples illustrate the importance of being willing to do this.

I think my favorite chapters are:

  • "Dealing with the Stalin's of This World," which discusses how to successfully deal with the difficult customers (literally and figuratively) we all encounter all the time, and
  • "Entities Can't Show Loyalty," which illustrates why you can't get a team engaged without engaging the individuals on the team - groups don't embrace a cause or mission, people do.

And there are more where those came from. And, speaking of more, Finlay refers to this book as "Volume 1," implying that there are more coming. I hope so - I want to learn more from Churchill.

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Tame the wild chaos

I was just reading an article from Dave Crenshaw's latest newsletter about organizing your clutter around the office. It's about creating (and labeling) "homes" for all your stuff and committing yourself to stick to only putting things in their homes.

This is a tough one for me, and I know it. I have my sprints of success (generally every time I do an overhaul of my GTD habits) but I find that I eventually go back to my disorderly tendencies.

How about you? Have you found a way to conquer this yo-yo organizing syndrome? And "just do it" (apparently) is not enough for me to overcome my chaos inertia.

Anyway - check out Dave's article - it is a good reminder that "a place for everything, and everything in its place" can make your life a lot easier.

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Your vision can change the world

I just watched the movie "Bobby," a movie about the assasination of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) and it's put me in a philosophical mood. The movie was pretty good, but what struck me was the intermingling of actual speeches by RFK. He was truly an idealist and a visionary. The brought hope and a vision of a better future to the people he touched, and is famous for the quote:

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"

This kind of thinking is what success is made of. By envisioning wild success for ourselves and others, we set in motion a stream of events that changes outcomes. By acting on our beliefs and visions, their power increases.

This is why so many "self help" books start with coming up with an aspiration, vision, or mission, and why so many of us are encouraged to repeat positive affirmations to support our visions.

RFK was a visionary when it came to civil rights, and RFK said a lot about this subject. If your vision is big enough and positive enough (and you share it with enough people), it will live on just as RFK's vision did.

Look for the good

Coincidentally, I re-watched my favorite movie ever with my family Friday night: Pollyanna. It's about the positive impact of one person on an entire town, and it is a wonderful movie.

A great quote from the movie is something from Polyanna's locket:

"When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will."

I've heard it put another way by a friend of mine who always says, "Inspect what you expect - you might be getting exactly what you're looking for."

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GTD - Great Scott!

Scott Karstetter is keeping it real for the Getting Things Done (GTD) crowd.  Here are a couple of examples:

GTD all over the wall

Scott has created (like the one at the right) and aggregated a number of good GTD-related desktop wallpapers to help keep you motivated and enthusiastic throughout the day.  My favorite is the one with the clouds and the workflow diagram, which you can see in Scott's post - that's what currently graces my Vista desktop.

Smart To-Do List gets even smarter

Scott also recently updated his free, Smart To-Do List software to version 1.2, adding more features to help you improve your GTD skillz.  Among the new capabilities:

  • Re-ordering project tasks via drag and drop
  • To-Do list items can be moved between projects via drag and drop
  • To-Do list items can be re-ordered alphabetically
  • An additional filter has been added that allows you to sort the current view by priority. This filter will list the high priority items first, followed by the medium, and then the low priority.

For more info and an overview of the functionality, check out Scott's blog post about the new version.

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Make your luggage stand out

My "Make It Great!" pal Phil Gerbyshak pointed out a company called "UBrand" that makes 3D, self-stick decorations to help you customize your luggage, gear, etc. to make it stand out from the crowd.

I think this is a great idea - how many similar pieces of black luggage do you see on the luggage carousel at baggage claim in the airport? How can you tell your laptop, phone, or music player from someone else's? UBrand provides you with a way to personalize your stuff in a way that reflects your personality. They also sell some professional-looking monogram letters if you want a more dignified look.

Sure, you could use regular stickers, but these are designed to be tough and (as they say) "semi-permanent."

Check them out and see what you think - and if you want a chance (through September 25) to win 3 monogram letters, check out this post at the Business Opportunities Weblog.

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