Bamboo Innovator

You Can Get Some Big Things Done When It’s Not All About You

You Can Get Some Big Things Done When It’s Not All About You

by Justin Fox  |   9:00 AM December 13, 2013

There was a lunch held last week in New York to celebrate one of the most important American business leaders of the past half-century. It started off conventionally enough: the host and four prominent speakers recounted the deeds and impact of the honoree, at some length. When they had finished, the great man himself, who had been sitting at a table in the audience eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, walked to the front of the room. After a few jokes and preliminary remarks, he spent the next ten minutes detailing the accomplishments, in particular the writings, of the people who had just praised him, with specific reading recommendations (the ones I remember are Alan Blinder’s After the Music Stopped, James Grant’s Mr. Speaker!, and Cliff Asness’s “My Top 10 Peeves” in the next issue of the Financial Analysts Journal). Then 84-year-old Jack Bogle walked back to his chair and sat down. Read more of this post

A Formula for Happiness: Social scientists have determined three sources of supreme contentment: genes, events and values

December 14, 2013

A Formula for Happiness

By ARTHUR C. BROOKS

HAPPINESS has traditionally been considered an elusive and evanescent thing. To some, even trying to achieve it is an exercise in futility. It has been said that “happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” Read more of this post

Why Your Brain Can’t Handle An All-Day Schedule

WHY YOUR BRAIN CAN’T HANDLE AN ALL-DAY SCHEDULE

NEVER TAKING A BREAK IS THE SUREST WAY TO GET AHEAD, RIGHT? NOT IF YOU NEED TO DO ANYTHING CREATIVE, SAYS SCIENCE.

BY DRAKE BAER

Why do we work so many hours? You could say it’s because you need facetime with the boss. Or it’s a prison passed down from the Industrial Revolution. Or it’s because of a badge-of-honor-martyr-complex. Yet not everybody works all these hours: six of the world’s 10 most competitive countries–Sweden, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom–have bans on working more than 48 hours a week, to the point that the European Union passed policy to mandate such. So let’s ask some productive questions: What problems does the working-all-the-time mentality create–and how could we get around them? Read more of this post

The Case for Slacking Off

The Case for Slacking Off

by Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries  |   10:00 AM December 10, 2013

I recently asked an executive I coached how many emails she received each day. “Five hundred,” she replied.  ”But I don’t read any of them. If I did, I wouldn’t really be doing my job. Given the work I do, my challenge isn’t obtaining information but figuring out how to push information away so that I don’t suffer from information overload. I need time to think.” Read more of this post

Find Your Inner Mandela: A Tribute and Call to Action

Find Your Inner Mandela: A Tribute and Call to Action

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter  |   10:48 PM December 5, 2013

Don’t just mourn Nelson Mandela. Learn to be Nelson Mandela.

He was the consummate turnaround leader. As the first democratically-elected president of post-apartheid South Africa, he took on and reversed the destructive symptoms of decline, a larger version of what goes on in any organization or community sliding downhill – suppression of information, group vs. group antagonisms, isolation and self-protection, passivity and hopelessness. He began the turnaround with messages of optimism and hope, new behaviors at the top (he even cut his own salary), and new institutions that created more communication and accountability. He created a new constitution with a participatory process that included everyone. He reached out to former enemies, visiting the widow of a particularly odious apartheid leader for tea. He ensured diversity and inclusion of all groups in his Cabinet. He brought foreign investment back to South Africa and empowered the disenfranchised black majority to take positions in those enterprises. Read more of this post

The Three Pillars of a Teaming Culture; this starts with helping everyone to become curious, passionate, and empathic

The Three Pillars of a Teaming Culture

by Amy C. Edmondson  |   12:06 PM December 17, 2013

Building the right culture in an era of fast-paced teaming, when people work on a shifting mix of projects with a shifting mix of partners, might sound challenging – if not impossible. But, in my experience, in the most innovative companies, teaming is the culture. Read more of this post

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Paperback

by Carol Dweck (Author)

World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea–the power of our mindset.
Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success–but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn’t foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals–personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area. Read more of this post

Bill Gates Shares The 7 Best Books He Read In 2013

Bill Gates Shares The 7 Best Books He Read In 2013

FARNAM STREET0DEC 14, 2013, 01.28 AM

Bill Gates presents his seven top reads in 2013. Commenting on the lack of novels on the list, Gates writes: “It’s not that I don’t enjoy fiction. I’ve read The Catcher in the Rye a bunch of times-it’s one of my favorite books ever (and I enjoyed Salinger, the documentary that came out this year). I did read Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, which was entertaining though it didn’t have as much science fiction as I expected. But I read mostly nonfiction because I always want to learn more about how the world works. And reading is how I learn best.” Read more of this post

Our Dangerous Obsession with External Recognition

Our Dangerous Obsession with External Recognition

by Daniel Gulati  |   8:00 AM December 10, 2013

Rebecca, a tech entrepreneur, would love you to equate her company’s expansive press coverage with real value creation. “Yesterday, we got written up in TechCrunch and LA Magazine, and we all had dinner at Nobu to celebrate!” She will, however, conveniently forget to mention that her startup has yet to settle on a viable business model and has zero paying customers. Read more of this post

An Unexpected Lesson from Mandela: Why Context Matters

An Unexpected Lesson from Mandela: Why Context Matters

by Bhaskar Chakravorti  |   3:48 PM December 11, 2013

During this time of global contemplation on the deep legacy of Nelson Mandela, I realized I have my own connection to this “giant of history,” which traces back to those heady days of South Africa in 1994. What did I learn from him? Business cannot be left alone to be just business, and, as I learned in Pretoria nearly 20 years ago, leaders ignore this bigger picture at their peril. Read more of this post

Family Businesses Shouldn’t Hunt for Superstar CEOs

Family Businesses Shouldn’t Hunt for Superstar CEOs

by Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer  |   9:00 AM December 6, 2013

It’s a dilemma that faces family businesses all too frequently.

We saw it recently when we worked with a $4 billion global manufacturing business in Hong Kong. The company was managed by the founder, who turned it over to his son when he retired. The two men had created distribution channels, built a supply chain, entered profitable new markets–and, just as importantly, held the family together, ensuring that family members were well taken care of and that family disagreements didn’t harm the business. Read more of this post

The Best Way for New Leaders to Build Trust

The Best Way for New Leaders to Build Trust

by Jim Dougherty  |   8:00 AM December 13, 2013

When I took over as CEO of Intralinks,  a company that provides secure web based electronic deal rooms, the company was hemorrhaging so much cash that its survival was at stake. The service was going down three times per week; we were in violation of the contract with our largest client; our chief administrative officer had just been demoted, and so on. Read more of this post

Even Gifted Students Can’t Keep Up

December 14, 2013

Even Gifted Students Can’t Keep Up

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

In a post-smokestack age, there is only one way for the United States to avoid a declining standard of living, and that is through innovation. Advancements in science and engineering have extended life, employed millions and accounted for more than half of American economic growth since World War II, but they are slowing. The nation has to enlarge its pool of the best and brightest science and math students and encourage them to pursue careers that will keep the country competitive. Read more of this post

How a former train driver dedicated 26 years to mapping Beijing’s hutongs

How a former train driver dedicated 26 years to mapping Beijing’s hutongs

Sunday, 15 December, 2013, 5:25am

Zhuang Pinghui pinghui.zhuang@scmp.com

Former train driver has dedicated his life since the 1980s to documenting disappearing homes

Shu Liao, 82, an ethnic Manchu, started out driving trains after dropping out of middle school. But he found his calling when he turned to documenting hutongs. For three decades, he has created hand-drawn maps, written essays and taken photographs of the traditional homes in Beijing, working against time to catalogue a disappearing way of life. Read more of this post

Why Michelangelo Was In A Class Of His Own

Why Michelangelo Was In A Class Of His Own

THE ECONOMIST0DEC 14, 2013, 07.49 AM

Michelangelo: His Epic Life. By Martin Gayford. Fig Tree; 662 pages.

LORENZO DE’ MEDICI, ruler of the Florentine Republic, was so taken by a statue carved by an adolescent that he proposed to make the sculptor a member of his household. The boy’s father was not impressed. He told Lorenzo that his family would be demeaned if his son were to become a stonemason. But the youth believed that he had been born to carve stone, and so the father relented. In the Medici court the young sculptor was given a violet cloak, paid five ducats a month and treated as an artist. As it turned out, the sculptor, Michelangelo Buonarroti, was also born to paint, write poetry and be an architect. He even showed considerable talent for military engineering. Read more of this post