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.

 

My favorite books from 2005

A bit slow on posting this week, since I screwed up my back over the weekend and it's been hard to simultaneously a) lie on my back on the floor, while b) doing anything on the computer.

However, I would like to take a few moments to recap the 5 favorite "self development" books I read in 2005.

  • Managing with Aloha, by Rosa Say.
    • As I mentioned in my review earlier this year, this is a "why to" book much more than a "how to" book. It is about managing with values and principles, and is loaded with very poignant stories and words to live by. As I read the book, I was also fortunate enough to become a part of Rosa's "Talking Story" blog and her "Ho'ohana" community.

      Along the way, I've met lots of very interesting, genuine people through this process and made some great friends. For me, the magic extends far beyond the book. Read the book, visit the blog, and see if you find the same happens for you.
  • Mastery, by George Leonard.
    • This is one of my most-often recommended, and most frequently "given" books (I've given tons of copies away to friends). It is great for people making transitions (or trying to) such as graduates. As I summarized it in my review:
      "The essence of this book: On the road to Mastery, there are many plateaus where you may become frustrated because you aren't getting any better. True masters learn to savor the plateaus because they understand that they are building character and feeding dormant skills that will blossom later."
  • Is Your Genius At Work?, by Dick Richards.
    • I love books that take you on a worthwhile journey. Dick's book is one of those. It's a guided tour to find your Genius. In my review, I described "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." Isn't that worth discovering? I think so.
  • High-Impact Middle Management, by Lisa Haneberg.
    • As I assembled this list, I realized I hadn't really reviewed Lisa's book. I could've sworn I did, since I've mentioned it so often this year. As you may recall, I participated in Lisa's "2 Weeks 2 A Breakthrough" pilot earlier this year, which I found out about through her excellent blog Management Craft, which led me to this excellent book. The book, which is often called "H.I.M.M." for short, is an excellent toolkit to help you become a more effective middle manager. It combines solid theory, lucid examples, and practical tools to help you manage yourself and your team more effectively. It's ideal for anyone who manages.
  • Beyond Bullet Points, by Cliff Atkinson.
    • This book transformed how I do presentations. In the first review, I cover the essence of the book, the Beyond Bullet Points process, and describe my first results using this technique. In the second review, I describe my experiences with Netcentrics' powerful Beyond Bullet Points PowerPoint Add-In. Check them out if you do presentations.

Honorable Mentions:

Consciously Not On The List

By the way, before you ask - there is nothing from Covey or David Allen on the list because I read them all before 2005 started. Also, I'm in the midst of a few other good ones to give 2006 a great start.

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Here's to you, Mr. Rogers

"Of course, I get angry. Of course, I get sad. I have a full range of emotions. I also have a whole smorgasbord of ways of dealing with my feelings. That is what we should give children. Give them ... ways to express their rage without hurting themselves or somebody else. That's what the world needs."

--Fred Rogers

I spent a bit of time in Pittsburgh the other day. While I was waiting for a flight, I wandered past a display celebrating the life and works of Fred Rogers (1923-2003). I just had to take a picture.

For any of you who grew up watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, you know that he was no ordinary guy.

I remember how much I looked forward to seeing Mr. Rogers once I discovered his show. I watched every chance I got - my favorite thing was seeing the Trolley that took us to the Kingdom of Make Believe. I've always been a fan of trains, and that Trolley was so cool.

I remember Mr. Rogers' songs, and can still sing a lot of them from memory. I remember the tours he used to take the audience on, to show us how things were made - and how different people did different things in different parts of the world.

When he introduced us to his friends around the neighborhood, they seemed like my friends, too. I always wanted to go visit that neighborhood for real.

What I remember most of all is the consistent message he sent: We're all different, and that's OK because we each bring a unique value and perspective to the world. He seemed to maintain a child-like innocence throughout his life, and spread tremendous energy in a way that mattered somehow. Not just in the big things, but in the small things, too.

We need more people like Mr. Rogers.

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Moving forward along the Gulf Coast

My family and I just returned from a great trip back home for Christmas. My wife and I both grew up in Louisiana, and were a bit anxious about what we'd find back home after all the nasty stuff on TV about New Orleans and its post-Katrina, post-Rita craziness and despair.

The news is still bad down there...

Make no mistake about it - things are still bad back home. People in New Orleans are still without power and basic infrastructure in lots of areas. They are still living in campers and tents on their front lawns because they can't get into their mold-tainted, toxic houses. They're still finding bodies fairly regularly.

We visited my friend Paul last week while we were in Louisiana and got lots of first-hand reports. He knows families in his area that have an extra dozen or so people living with them because they have no place to go, no place to work, etc.

Paul maintains a blog -- check it out for some unvarnished, local perspective on what's happening in Louisiana.

And it's not just New Orleans - the bad news spreads across a huge portion of the Gulf Coast.

...but it's not all bad

But the news is not all bad. People are bouncing back and they are doing a lot to help each other. Christmas toy drives were going strong down there, people were giving like crazy to the local charities (and the national charities that help local people, like the Salvation Army), and churches and local service organizations are pitching in all over the place. In general, people are doing what they can to help each other regardless of race, religion, or whatever.

And it's not just New Orleans - the good news spreads across a huge portion of the Gulf Coast.

They sincerely appreciate the help they are getting

By the way - food, money, and other types of aid are still coming from all over the place. Up here in the greater Portland, Oregon area I've learned about (and participated in) all kinds of grass root projects to gather useful items and send them down south to people that need some help right now. And it's not going unnoticed down there, even though CNN seems to have moved on.

The people in Louisiana who are getting help from strangers around the world appreciate it very much. Really. So, even though the news coverage has died down a lot and is focusing on politics, the blame game, etc. -- there are a lot of people across the Gulf Coast who can use any extra prayers, charity, and good works we can spare.

If you're looking to drop in a last-minute donation while there is still time to take advantage of it on your 2005 taxes, check out my earlier post about how to make sure you're giving to a reputable, efficient charity and not a bunch of con artists.

Related Posts:

By the way - for those of you who like data, I read an interesting article from Knight Ridder's news service today about the myths and realities of who was affected in New Orleans. It talks about how the death statistics just release are inconsistent with claims we've been hearing that Katrina's death toll was racially biased against minorities. Turns out, it was actually older people who died in disproportionately high numbers. Maybe Kanye West will start saying "George Bush hates old people," now.

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What if the world slept polyphasically?

I recently followed Steve Pavlina's journey into a polyphasic sleep routine, and have found myself wondering what it'd be like if a majority of the world operated in this way. He just posted his "60 day update" on polyphasic sleep, raving about the productivity gains he's seen.

In case you haven't followed Steve's experiement, he describes polyphasic sleep this way:

"Polyphasic sleep involves taking multiple short sleep periods throughout the day instead of getting all your sleep in one long chunk. A popular form of polyphasic sleep, the Uberman sleep schedule, suggests that you sleep 20-30 minutes six times per day, with equally spaced naps every 4 hours around the clock. This means you're only sleeping 2-3 hours per day."

I have been thinking about some of the implications, were this ever to catch on across the majority of the world:

  • Would we change the length of our work days? What about the school day?
    • Maybe we could spread out the congestion of "rush hour" by having staggered shifts around the clock?
  • Would all business begin staying open 24 hours?
  • Would this create more jobs, or just create the expectation that we should do more at our current jobs?
  • Would we all consume more?
    • We'd leave our lights on a lot more (at home and at work)
    • We probably wouldn't turn down our heat at night during the winter
    • We'd probably drive more
    • We'd be awake more and eat more
  • Would the hotel and leisure industry change? How?
  • When would they play those infomercials on TV?
  • Would bars and restaurants change how they operate?
    • After all, when would it be "time for breakfast?"
  • Would we still get jet lag?
  • Would our joints and organs wear out faster because we'd make them work more?
  • Would we get sick more or less often?
  • Would the murder rate (or crime in general) go up or down?
    • If more people were awake for more of the time, and you didn't have everyone away from their neighborhoods at the same time every day, what would that do to crimes of opportunity?
  • What about the suicide rate?
  • When someone said they needed to "sleep on it" would they really be ready to answer about 15 minutes later?

And I could go on, of course. This is fun and intriguing to think about, but I don't think the majority of the world will every sleep polyphasically. A few years ago, I heard claims that the "Atkins diet" would cause all kind of negative impacts on the market for sugar, potatoes, corn, and all kinds of things like that. Of course, that didn't happen - and I think polyphasic sleep is much less of a phenomenon than Atkins was.

Sometimes, I consider doing the polyphasic sleep thing and have even discussed it with my wife. She is also intrigued by it, especially after hearing some of Steve's stories about how much more he is getting done with all of his extra time.

At the end of it, my wife usually says, "Wait until Steve's done it for about 6 months to see if he has some big problem." And then there's the fact that on cold winter mornings like this morning. As I reached over, hit snooze, retreated back into my warm, comfy bed, I decided I'll just consider it a bit longer.

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Spreadsheet to help decision-making

Back in the late 20th century, my team and I needed to do a lot of hiring as I staffed up a call center. We needed to fill about 80 slots, so we had to interview a lot of people. This brought many challenges to the fore, such as:

  • How do you keep track of all of them?
  • How do you know which ones are the best fit for the job according to your selection criteria?
  • How do multiple people apply consistent evaluation criteria to the candidates?
  • How do you compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of candidates in an objective fashion?

...and so forth.

Recently, I had another multi-dimensional decision to make and (thanks to MSN Desktop Search) I was able to dig up an ancient copy of some Excel-based selection tools I developed over ten years ago. After some minor tweaking, they worked perfectly for my 21st century selection task. I decided to share the tools here in case they come in handy when you have multi-factor, multiple choice decisions to make.

The spreadsheet contains tabs with three different styles of selection matrices. Each one has different "features" so figure out which one fits your purpose and tweak from there. Basically, you decide the key factors or attributes you're evaluating, and the relative weighting of each factor. Input that stuff into whichever matrix you decide to use, and save it to a meaningful name.

Then, as you go through the selection process, score each person after you've interviewed them according to how well they compared to your ideal for each factor. At the end of the process, you can quickly and easily rank them based on the factors, or on an overall score based on the composite score from all factors.

These matrices can be used to help evaluate just about any multi-choice, multi-factor decision - not just hiring decisions.

You can download the spreadsheet here. (28.5K) (right click the link and select "Save target as..." or "Save link as...")

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