To Move Ahead You Have to Know What to Leave Behind

To Move Ahead You Have to Know What to Leave Behind

by Nick Tasler  |  12:00 PM August 7, 2013

Decisions are the most fundamental building blocks of successful change in our organizations, our teams, and our careers. The faster and more strategically we stack those blocks, the faster and more successfully we achieve change. Yet, change efforts often stall precisely because those decisions don’t happen. The question is why?

Avoid Changing By Addition. The Latin root of the word “decide” is caidere which means “to kill or to cut.” (Think homicide, suicide, genocide.) Technically, deciding to do something new without killing something old is not a decision at all. It is merely an addition. When an executive announces that her business will change to become a luxury service provider, technically it is not a decision until she also states that they will not provide low cost services to price-sensitive customers anymore. When a sales manager declares that his strategy this quarter will require his salespeople to spend more time strengthening existing customer relationships, he has only made an addition until he also declares that they should spend less time on something else like hunting for new prospects. Your palms might be sweating at the mere thought of telling your team to ignore some group of paying customers or to not spend time hunting for new business, even if you really want to see the change happen. Research has shown that making tradeoffs is so mentally exhausting that most people try to avoid them whenever possible. That’s why a manager who is no stranger to long hours and hard work will escape the discomfort simply by piling on new change objectives without killing any of the current priorities. But this change-by-addition approach can be a death blow. Read more of this post

Why Quitters Win: Decide to be Excellent

Why Quitters Win: Decide to be Excellent [Paperback]

Nick Tasler (Author)

Publication Date: September 10, 2013

What is your strategic direction?

Why are some necessary changes so hard to make?

Are you pursuing too many top priorities?

How do you avoid irrational traps without getting bogged down by over-analysis?

Why Quitters Win reveals why Nick Tasler s elegantly simple 3-part Strategic Behavior framework is already driving excellence for everyone from Fortune 500 executives and middle managers to busy moms, small business owners and church leaders.
Decades of research in social science and business strategy, as well as Tasler s own findings from surveying the decisions of hundreds of thousands of working adults reveal that the most successful people, teams, and companies are not those with access to the widest variety of opportunities or the steadiest supply of creative ideas. Surprisingly, the opposite is true. Too many exciting opportunities, good ideas, and top priorities erode our focus, confuse our teams, and keep us swirling around on a plateau of mediocrity.
Why Quitters Win addresses these critical topics with a brilliantly simple approach that has the power to profoundly change your life one decision at a time. Read more of this post

Monasteries decline as TV and smartphones grip Bhutan; monastic materialism also to blame for a decline

Monasteries decline as TV and smartphones grip Bhutan

Thursday, August 8, 2013 – 12:57

AFP

THIMPHU, Bhutan – Kencho Tshering, a red-robed Buddhist monk, takes a call from the King of Bhutan’s office, then duly dashes off to start a ceremony praying for a break in the monsoon rains. But while he may be on speed dial for royal requests, the clout of his fellow monks is on the wane in the remote kingdom as it absorbs the impact of technology and democracy as well as an abuse scandal. “Bhutan is changing. The monastic body is going down and down,” Tshering told AFP at Dechen Phodrang, the monks’ school where he is principal, which is perched with majestic views over the capital Thimphu. “Even for senior monks, there’s no respect in the city,” he sighed. Read more of this post

Many Americans have no friends of another race: poll

Many Americans have no friends of another race: poll

1:06am EDT

By Lindsay Dunsmuir

NEW YORK (Reuters) – About 40 percent of white Americans and about 25 percent of non-white Americans are surrounded exclusively by friends of their own race, according to an ongoing Reuters/Ipsos poll. The figures highlight how segregated the United States remains in the wake of a debate on race sparked by last month’s acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting of unarmed black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. President Barack Obama weighed in after the verdict, calling for Americans to do some “soul searching” on whether they harbor racial prejudice. There are regions and groups where mixing with people of other races is more common, especially in the Hispanic community where only a tenth do not have friends of a different race. About half of Hispanics who have a spouse or partner are in a relationship with non-Hispanics, compared to one tenth of whites and blacks in relationships. Looking at a broader circle of acquaintances to include coworkers as well as friends and relatives, 30 percent of Americans are not mixing with others of a different race, the poll showed. Read more of this post

Secrets from an Inventor’s Notebook: Advice on Inventing Success – from the creator of SKYY Vodka, the D-Fuzz-It sweater comb, and scores of innovative products

Secrets from an Inventor’s Notebook: Advice on Inventing Success – from the creator of SKYY Vodka, the D-Fuzz-It sweater comb, and scores of innovative products Hardcover – Illustrated

by Maurice Kanbar  (Author) , Phil Baechler (Author)

When the fuzz from his sweater was pulled off by a brick wall he was leaning against, Maurice Kanbar had a brainstorm. Soon he had patented, produced and successfully promoted the D-Fuzz-It sweater comb, and made his first fortune at the age of twenty-two. In this engaging “master class” Kanbar’s real world hits and misses illustrate the concrete steps every inventor must follow to successfully take his product to market. Read more of this post

Should a business invest in growth, or save money for the next economic crisis? Lessons for small businesses from the bacteria living on wounds in France

Lessons for small businesses from the bacteria living on wounds in France

By Christopher Mims @mims 8 hours ago

Should a business invest in growth, or save money for the next economic crisis? In any given economic environment, is there one best strategy or is it ok to be doing something different than your competitors? And just how much power do business leaders have to predict the consequences of making one choice over another, especially as conditions change? These are among the most basic questions of microeconomics, and their mathematical answers—production possibility frontiers and opportunity costs—can be difficult to grasp in the abstract. But for the first time ever, scientists have demonstrated that the same tradeoffs faced by small businesses are also faced by bacteria, which solve the challenge of scarce resources in a way that matches what economists have long predicted for small business owners. Read more of this post

Building Middle-Manager Morale: Training sessions for middle managers tend to be part leadership lesson, part pep rally and part strategy session. Here’s a glimpse into how some companies do it

August 7, 2013, 7:17 p.m. ET

Building Middle-Manager Morale

Inspiring the Ranks With Trips, Computer Simulations, and Roller-Coaster Rides

RACHEL FEINTZEIG

It is 8 a.m. on a summer Friday and AT&T Inc. T +0.31% vice president Ken Fenoglio is trying to pump up a crowd of 400 at the convention center in downtown Dallas. “Who runs this company?” he asks. “We do, right here.” The men and women in the audience aren’t executives, nor are they on the front lines dealing with customers. They are in between: middle managers on the corporate ladder of a vast organization. And Mr. Fenoglio wants them to feel like that is a good thing. “You’re right in the middle,” he says. “You’re right where the action is.” Scenes like AT&T’s training session are becoming familiar at companies from telecom to health care to retail—especially those attempting rapid change. According to a study by research and consulting group Bersin by Deloitte, 50% of midlevel leaders received formal leadership development in 2012. The average spending per midlevel leader across the U.S. was $2,700 in 2012, up from $1,000 in 2009. The hope is that managers will attend talks and tackle problems, learn negotiation skills and become better leaders. And if managers walk away with a rosier view of their company, that is a plus. Read more of this post

Best-selling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell’s eight-figure, two-book deal underscores the continued appeal of major brand-name authors at a time when discovering new writers online and digitally remains difficult for consumer

August 6, 2013

Patricia Cornwell Leaves Publisher, Strikes Deal With William Morrow

Crime Novelist Strikes Eight-Figure Deal with Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

Patricia Cornwell has struck an eight-figure deal with William Morrow. Best-selling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell has left her longtime publisher and struck an eight-figure, two-book deal for world English rights with William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The move underscores the continued appeal of major brand-name authors at a time when discovering new writers online and digitally remains difficult for consumers. Ms. Cornwell is best-known for her long-running series featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, but she has also written two other series, a nonfiction work about the identity of Jack the Ripper, and two cookbooks, including “Food to Die For.” Read more of this post