Management

Choosing to be great

Posted in Event Review, Leadership, Management on February 3rd, 2012 by Paul McArdleBe the first to comment

The summer break was a good time for a bit of rest and reflection, especially given the down-and-up year we had in 2011.

Naturally for me, part of this time was spent with a couple of books borrowed from the growing office library – a couple others much harder going than this one here:

The Book

What we thought

Great-by-Choice
Great by Choice
Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All”

by Jim Collins and
Morten Hansen

Thumbs up
More food for thought
I’ve posted separately about why we read, and review, so many books (and about the links above)…
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Having previously read Built to Last, “Good to Great” and “How the Mighty Fall” by Jim (and others) I was not disappointed with a few more points of insight the authors have added with this latest piece of analysis. read more »

Personal Peak Performance

Posted in Management, Motivation, Personal Development, Recruitment on February 25th, 2011 by Paul McArdle1 Comment

A whirlwind trip interstate this week to see some existing clients, and some potential new clients, provided a few hours on the plane to catch up on some reading.

Amongst the things I read was “What brain science tells us about how to excel” by Edward M Hallowell in the December 2010 issue of HBR.

Given we have set some ambitious goals in terms of where our bus is headed, and that I have learnt (the hard way) the value of getting the right people on the bus, and in the right seats, I read this article with great interest.

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One view of Strengths

Posted in Management, Personal Development, Recruitment on December 23rd, 2010 by Paul McArdle4 Comments

We’ve had these books in the library at work for a couple of years.

Some time ago some of the guys who were working with us at the time had a read and gave their reviews. Unfortunately the core message was lost in translation – hence, I did not (at that time) form a favourable opinion of the books.

More recently I’ve started reading through them, and found they are well worth a read.  In my view they don’t form the whole picture of what needs to be considered (more on that later), but they do provide valuable insights.

Rather than review each separately I have grouped them together here.  I’ve only read two currently, and so might update this post later, whenever I have had time to read the others.

Buckingham-FirstBreakAllTheRules Buckingham-NowDiscoverYourStrengths

Buckingham-onethingyouneedtoknow

Buckingham-GoPutYourStrengths

“First break all the rules”
by Buckingham & Coffman
“Now Discover your Strengths”
by Buckingham & Clifton
“The One Thing you Need to Know”
by Buckingham
“Go put your Strengths to Work”
by Buckingham
Thumbs_Up Have not read it yet Thumbs_Up Have not read it yet

Frequent visitors to the blog might be asking yourself “Why so many book reviews”? – if so, see here…

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