Business Book Summaries

Emotions matter.

We cannot stop having emotions any more than we can stop having thoughts. The challenge is learning to stimulate helpful emotions in those with whom we negotiate – an in ourselves.

You negotiate every day, whether about where to go for dinner, how much to pay for a secondhand bicycle, or when to terminate an employee. And you have emotions all the time. These may be positive emotions like joy or contentment, or negative emotions like anger, frustration and guilt.

Beyond Reason offers straightforward, powerful advice for dealing with emotions in your toughest negotiations, whether with a difficult colleague or your angry spouse. You will discover five “core concerns” that lie at the heart of most emotional challenges. And more important, you will learn how to address these concerns to improve your relationships and get the results you want. The advice builds on previous work of the Harvard Negotiation Project, the group that brought you the groundbreaking Getting to Yes. World-renowned negotiator Roger Fisher teams with psychologist Daniel Shapiro, an expert on the emotional dimension of negotiation, to bring you this indispensable new classic.

BestSummaries.com is a book summary service that provides summaries of top self-help, motivational and inspirational books where you can learn–in minutes– what it takes to live life and live it well. BestSummaries sends out one book summary every week in PDF, PDA, audio and/or print formats.For more information, please go to http://www.bestsum.com

Beyond Reason

Using Emotions as You Negotiate

By

Roger Fisher & Daniel Shapiro

The Big Idea

Emotions matter.

Beyond Reason offers straightforward, powerful advice for dealing with emotions in even your toughest negotiations, whether with a difficult colleague or your angry spouse. You will discover five “core concerns” that lie at the heart of most emotional challenges. The advice builds on previous work of the Harvard Negotiation Project, the group that brought you the groundbreaking Getting to Yes. World-renowned negotiator Roger Fisher teams with psychologist Daniel Shapiro, an expert on the emotional dimension of negotiation, to bring you this indispensable new classic.

Why You Need This Book

This book will help you discover how to use emotions to turn a disagreement, big or small, professional or personal, into an opportunity for mutual gain.

Emotions Can be Obstacles to Negotiations

None of us is spared the reality of emotions. They can ruin any possibility of a wise agreement. What makes emotions so troubling?

They can divert attention from substantive matters. Your attention shifts from reaching a satisfying agreement to protecting yourself or attacking the other.

They can damage a relationship. Strong emotions can overshadow your thinking, leaving you at risk of damaging your relationship.

Careful observers of your emotional reaction may learn how much you value proposals, issues, and your relationship with them. In an international or everyday negotiation, positive emotions can be essential.

Positive emotions can make it easier to meet substantive interests. With positive emotions, you are motivated to do more. Things get done more efficiently as you and others work jointly and with increased emotional commitment.

Positive emotions need not increase your risk of being exploited. Avoid inhibiting positive emotions; rather, check with your head and your gut before making decisions.

Address the Concern, Not the Emotion

The core concerns are human wants that are important to almost everyone in virtually every negotiation. Rather than trying to deal directly with scores of changing emotions affecting you and others, you can turn your attention to five core concerns: appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status, and role.

You can use them as levers to stimulate positive emotions in yourself and in others. If you have time, you can also use them as a lens to understand which concern is unmet and to tailor your actions to address the unmet concern.

The core concerns are simple enough to use immediately, and sophisticated enough to utilize in complex situations. A negotiation that involves multiple parties and high stakes requires an advanced understanding of the five core concerns.

Express Appreciation

Appreciation is a core concern. If people feel honestly appreciated, they are more likely to work together and less likely to act hostile.

You can appreciate by:

Understanding a person’s point of view;

Communicating your understanding through words or actions.

Build Affiliation

With enhanced affiliation, working together becomes easier and more productive.

Structural connections. You can strengthen structural connections by finding links that you have in common with someone or by creating new links.

Personal connections. By talking about personal matters, you can reduce the personal distance between you.

Acknowledge Status

With a little self-preparation, you can identify your areas of high social and particular status and work to improve or develop new ones so that you can approach your negotiations with a sense of confidence.

Since every person has multiple areas of high status, there is no need to compete with others over status. Appreciate the high status of others where relevant and deserved, and feel proud of your own areas of expertise and achievement.

If you truly appreciate your own status, you need not worry about what others think of you. In turn, you can acknowledge the status of others without cost. and treating others with appropriate respect often makes them respect you.

Choose a Fulfilling Role

You are free to expand the activities within your conventional role. In almost any role, you can focus your attention on aspects that are boring, dull, frustrating, and time-consuming.

Time and again, you also are free to choose temporary roles that empower you and foster joint work.

Reshaping your role can take effort. Over time, you can modify your role to your liking.

Soothe Yourself: Cool Down Your Emotional Temperature

Here are some suggestions of things you can do to soothe escalating emotions:

Slowly count backward from ten.

Breathe deeply three times, in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Pause. During the break, relax. Think about how to move the negotiation forward.

Visualize a relaxing place like a sandy beach, a sunlit forest, or a symphony performance.

Change the subject, at least briefly.

Adopt a relaxed position: Sit back, cross your ankles, let your hands rest on your lap or the table.

Let upsetting or offensive comments fly by and hit the wall behind you.

Call to mind a good walk-away alternative that you have prepared.

On Being Prepared

Preparation improves the emotional climate of a negotiation. A well-prepared negotiator walks into a meeting with emotional confidence about the substantive and process issues, as well as with clarity about how to enlist each party’s positive emotions.

There are two important activities involved in effective preparation:

Establishing a routine structure of preparation. You want to prepare in terms of the process of the negotiation, the substantive issues, and the emotions of each party.

Learning from past negotiations. Experience is of little future value unless you learn from it. After a negotiation, review the interaction in terms of process, substance, and emotions.

Conclusion

We all have emotions all the time. We become so busy thinking that we let our emotions take care of themselves.

Most negotiators treat emotions as an obstacle to clear, rational thought. As a result, we do not realize the opportunity afforded by positive emotions.

Although the Declaration of Independence emphasizes the “pursuit of happiness,” there seems to be remarkably little organized common sense about that pursuit.

Using the core concerns wisely will improve the quality of your relationships at work and at home. You can turn a negotiation from a stressful, worrisome interaction into a side-by-side dialogue where each of you listens, learns, and respects the other.

You improve your outcome.

And instead of inspiring resentment, the process inspires hope.

BestSummaries.com is a book summary service that provides summaries of top self-help, motivational and inspirational books where you can learn–in minutes– what it takes to live life and live it well. BestSummaries sends out one book summary every week in PDF, PDA, audio and/or print formats.For more information, please go to http://www.bestsum.com

Find the Power to Never Feel Powerless Again
By Guy Finley

The Big Idea
Open your eyes to the wise and gentle presence of a bright new power that already lives within you… enter its timeless kingdom where fear, doubt, and despair cannot tread.

The Essential Laws of Fearless Living is a step-by-step manual for all who aspire to realize their ultimate potential as a human being. In its seven chapters of forty concise essays, Guy Finley explores deeply personal and meaningful ideas, revealing the secrets of the universe itself; but he does so in a way that makes the journey fascinating, compelling, and comforting at the same time.

A great hope fills the heart that the untold mystery of human existence has not only been revealed, but solved.

Why You Need This Book
This valuable, step-by-step book brilliantly presents the most important key to the breakthrough life. This book will bring you multiple ways to awaken your potential with what you are today.

readers are given specific insights and practical exercises that empower them to make real and lasting changes in their lives. Loneliness, stress, anger, and fear are replaced by contentment, ease, compassion, and freedom that never fade away.

Welcome the Light that Makes Life Bright

Let Go and Grow Beyond the Limitation of Illusions
There is no brighter gift, no greater potential given to us human beings, than the presence of a timeless Light within us whose power makes all things possible. Its celestial character knows we have not been created to live as the captives of any fearful condition, let alone those we unconsciously create for ourselves.

Before we can hope to let go of all that is not our own – with all of the painful relationships attending these mistaken conclusions – we must be able to see them as much, beginning with this revelation: No fearful sense of limitation or inadequacy belongs to our True Self. We must begin the necessary work of welcoming the Light that leads to letting go; our soul task is to release ourselves from an unconscious relationship with a false self whose imagined conclusions – about how to find lasting peace – are the secret source of conflict on this planet.

Then, liberated by the Light of understanding, we will enter and know –  as our own – a brand new world in which happiness and wholeness are one and the same.

Special Key Lessons in Review
The main reason to hold our chin up whenever some negative thought tries to drag us down is that whichever direction we choose in that moment is the one we will follow. To flee the fight, or be the Light, that is the question!

Knowledge without Spirit is like finding yourself on a cold night with all the wood in the world and not a flame with which to light it.

If you will do what you are doing in the moment, you cannot undo yourself.

One thing that makes negative states so difficult to drop is the illusion they create within us that no choice exists other than to cave in to their punishing presence. But, in truth, it is not we who are without choice in such moments: it is the negative state that has no choice but to disappear once we remember that no darkness is greater than the Light.

Build the Foundation of a Fearless Life

Be Your True Self and Be Fearless
The following three insights are designed to help us look at our old, familiar fearful reactions in a whole new way. But taken altogether, these key ideas tell the story of a whole new kind of self-understanding powerful enough to penetrate fear’s protective shell – dispelling both the feared and the fearful at once. The Light that remains is freedom.

Self-awakening, and the new order of freedom that attends it, begins within seeing through what is not real, just as freedom from the terror of a nightmare begins with discovering you’ve been asleep, having a bad dream.

Start today, this very moment, to cut yourself loose from any fear that promises that freedom from its troubled presence will be found somewhere outside of you. Stop looking for an answer to what pains you; don’t try to resolve the presence of a fear with the same mind that creates it.

Special Key Lessons in Review
Fear is the bitter fruit that grows out of this unchallenged belief: Unless we struggle to satisfy our own desires, we shall never know fulfilment.

Fear and anger – as is true of all negative states – are “undercover agents.” Their “soul” task, in any moment of conflict with life, is to rush in and cover up any possible impression that would otherwise reveal that we don’t possess the “powers” to which we pretend.

Either we live in the freedom that we know is real – choosing to embody it in the moment, regardless of the cost – or we wave a flag called “liberty tomorrow” and suffer the indignity of serving what has already betrayed us.

Break Through the Illusion of Limitation

Here are two lists that not only will make these life-healing ideas more personal for you, but that will help you to make a higher choice when it comes to what you really want from life. It would be valuable to study and then compare the lists to each other. You are often nervous and anxious because life may not cooperate with your plans.

You are willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to get what you want, and this may include integrity.

You are unable to rest quietly when you need to.

Now carefully consider what happens when you want what life wants:

You are never disappointed with what happens.

You are always in the right place at the right time.

You are quietly confident no matter what the circumstances.

You are out of the reach of anger and anxiety.

You are awake and sensitive to your surroundings.

You are free of ever feeling as though you’ve missed out.

You are never thrown for a loss.

You are in total command of events.

You are mentally quiet.

You are eternally grateful.

Special Key Lessons in Review
The true source of abundance is the silent mind, for in its fertile quietude rests all potential, all power, and all promise.

The past is as powerless to darken the present moment as is a shadow to reach up and drag down the form that casts it.

Work to connect yourself to the “allness “ of life, instead of identifying with the smallness of it, and you’ll awaken to a greatness already living within you that is no more bothered by the little things in life than a mountain is made miserable by the rain that falls upon it.

Your True Self cannot be made a captive of any dark condition any more than a sunbeam can be caught in a bottle.

Take Conscious Command of Yourself

Stop This Secret Self-Sabotage
As always, the best way to begin any journey of self-discovery is to gather the Light we’ll need to succeed. Your consideration of the two special insights that follow will start you down the path to a whole new kind of self-command.

Because anyone from whom you want something, psychologically speaking, is always in secret command of you.

If you doubt this finding, review the past interactions and results of your own relationships. If you’ve ever tried to raise children, you know this is true. So it makes no sense to try and change the way others treat you by leaning calculated behaviors or attitude techniques in order to appear in charge. The only thing these clever cover-ups really produce is yet another source of secret inner conflict, which, in turn, only fuels further self-sabotage. So what’s the answer?

Stop trying to be strong. Don’t be too surprised by this unusual instruction. A brief examination reveals its wisdom. Fawning before people to win their favor.

Expressing contrived concern for someone’s well-being.

Making small talk to cover up nervousness.

Hanging on to someone’s every word.

Looking for someone’s approval.

Asking if someone is angry with you.

Fishing for a kind word.

Gossiping.

Special Key Lessons in Review
Any concern over what others may think of you is a secret form of captivity, an unseen prison cell created by the false and painful belief that you are real – and your life worthwhile – only if others say it’s so!

If common social convention – with all its contrivance and hypocrisy – has one redeeming value, it is this: The happy day may come when we realize that our lives have been spent conversing with thieves, making plans with liars, and listening to promises of people, most of whom are incapable of a single act of integrity. This day of our awakening is the same as the delightful date of our departure from a bankrupt world filled with beggars dressed as kings and queens.

Realize the Invisible Heart of Happy Human Relationships

Here are friendly facts to help us let go and grow more spiritually independent:

No matter how it may appear on the surface of human events, self-interest governs individuals.

Even the typical display of human kindness or benevolence comes not from that person’s compassionate nature but from his unconscious desire to enrich himself with the intoxicating feelings of being a good person. Forget to thank him or acknowledge his generosity, and watch how quickly his goodness turns into repressed resentment or outward indignation.

There is a secret and miraculous part of yourself that only reveals itself when you are willing to stand in the light of the truth about yourself and others. Welcome this light and you will discover that a wise and uncompromised inner strength is patiently waiting for you to fulfil the laws that govern its entrance into your life.

Special Key Lessons in Review
The pretense of kindness, of being loving, does not make those qualities real in us any more than an actor who plays the role of a talking tree in a play by Shakespeare is endowed with the strength of an oak!

Our sole task is to be responsible for what is – and to allow this relationship with life to produce what it will.

Learn never to blame another for the pain you feel, nor to complain about anything that life brings to your door, but this doesn’t mean to be accepting of those who would see you ache, nor should you be apathetic in the face of anything that challenges your hopes and aspirations.

One reason that judging others so appeals to the level of self that sits in such judgment of them… is that the comfort found in sentencing others for their “defects” serves to convince us of our perfection.

Realize Your True Self in Stillness
It dwells in the center of us; it is our True Self. We plumb the unknown worlds within ourselves, and the lands we explore are reclaimed by the Light that reveals them.

Stillness is the path of revelation; no other path to the truth of yourself exists, because the freedom you long to be found is only in one place: within your awareness of the evergreen flowering of life endlessly releasing itself through rebirth.

Be still and be free.

Special Key Lessons in Review
Silence is that silver cup that life fills over and over again without ever filling up.

Self-surrender is not the acceptance of our limitations, but the only true way to transcend them.

The only strength that never turns into its unhappy opposite is the higher self-understanding that you are not, and never have been, your weakness.

Be One with the Light of Life

Solve the Mystery of Living in the Light
Here now are some ways to practice realizing the truth of your Self. Each case begins with remembering to make the new choice that follows:

Instead of surrendering yourself to its punishing presence, bring your loneliness into the Light of your Self. If you will remain there within your awareness of this “darkness,” here’s what you’ll see take place before your inner eyes: the fear of being alone will be transformed into the contentment of knowing that you have never been without the love that you long for. You will see that a tenderness beyond words lives within the Light you have embraced.

Bring your fear and worry about “tomorrow” into the Light of your Self. Remain there in your awareness of these frightening shadows, and here’s what you’ll see unfold before your inner eyes: you’ll watch these dark doubts dissolve into an unquestioned knowing that no time to come has power over the peace of being in the present moment. You will see that serenity is one of with the life of the Light you have chosen to be.

When visited by some sense of loss or emptiness, bring it into the Light of your Self. For your willingness to be inwardly watchful, you will see that the Light of your Self reaches everywhere in the universe… so how could you ever be alone? All that lives… lives within the Light of your Self.

Special Key Lessons in Review
Real fearlessness comes with knowing that you have everything you need to succeed in the same moment that it’s needed.

When it comes to “What should I do?” about the painful negative states we see in ourselves, here is all we need to know: what is condemned remains concealed; what is concealed never heals.

Into each of our lives comes some fight that must be made; however, the key to true self-victory is not that we “win” at all costs, but rather than we always choose in favor of the Light that ensures we remain true, kind, and innocent in spite of the cost.

Summary of a Story without End

What is Truth?
But the moment revealed.

What is Light?
But good concealed.

BestSummaries.com is a book summary service that provides summaries of top self-help, motivational and inspirational books where you can learn–in minutes– what it takes to live life and live it well.  BestSummaries sends out one book summary every week in PDF, PDA, audio and/or print formats.  For more information, please go to http://www.bestsum.com.

~///~

People have just two choices when it comes to their emotions: they can master their emotions or be mastered by them. That doesn’t mean that to be a good team player, you have to turn off your feelings.

But it does not mean that you shouldn’t let your feelings prevent you from doing what you should or drive you to do things you shouldn’t.

A classic example of what can happen when a person doesn’t discipline his emotions can be seen in the life of golf legend Bobby Jones. Like today’s Tiger Woods, Jones was a gold prodigy. He began playing in 1907 at age five. By age twelve, he was scoring below par, an accomplishment most golfers don’t achieve in a lifetime of playing the game. At age fourteen, he qualified for the U.S. Amateur Championship. But Jones didn’t win that event. His problem can be best described by the nickname he acquired: “club thrower.” Jones often lost his temper – and his ability to play well.

An older golfer whom Jones called Grandpa Bart advised the young man, “You’ll never win until you can control that temper of yours.” Jones took his advice and began working to discipline his emotions. At age twenty-one, Jones blossomed and went on to be one of the greatest golfers in history, retiring at age twenty-eight after winning the grand slam of golf. Grandpa Bart’s comment sums up the situation: “Bobby was fourteen when he mastered the game of golf, but he was twenty-one when he mastered himself.”

People who often experience relational difficulties are tempted to look at everyone but themselves to explain the problem. But we must always begin by examining ourselves and being willing to change whatever deficiencies we have. Critic Samuel Johnson advised that “he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief which he purposes to remove.”

The human mind has a tremendous amount of power in our lives. That which holds our attention determines our actions. Because of that, where we are today is the result of the dominating thoughts in our minds. And the way we think determines what our attitudes are. The good news is that you and I can change that. You can control your thoughts, and because of that, you can control your attitude. The point is that your thinking prompts your emotion. Why is that important? Because your attitude is your emotional approach to life. It’s the framework through which you see events, other people, even yourself. That’s why you can believe in the saying, You are not what you think you are, but what you think… you are.”

Can’t get enough of leadership? If you’ve read any of John C. Maxwell’s books on leadership, you know that leadership is developed daily, not in a day. That’s why he’s created Go for Gold, a daily companion to Leadership Gold. It’s designed to help supercharge your growth as a leader.  For more book summaries, please visit http://www.bizsum.com.

Working Less and Making More
By Sam Carpenter

The Big Idea
There is nothing mystical in Work the System – no airy-fairy platitudes, no feel-good, unsupportable theories of reality that offer little more than immediate comfort. This book is not about right or wrong, religion or politics, or about turning our world upside down.

Instead, it aims to give its readers simple and dispassionate direction for finding freedom and wealth in the world they inhabit.

For small business owners, corporate ladder climbers, and nine-to-fivers, it’s a boots-on the-ground blueprint for breaking free.

Why You Need This Book
This book will help you make a few simple but meaningful adjustments to the way you approach your job or your business – and experience the freedom and wealth that come from working less and making more.

Changes in Your Life
Because this isn’t a mystery novel, and because preparation is at the heart of the Work the System method, here’s a summary of how it will affect you and what it asks:

First, here are general points about how the Work the System process will impact you personally:

You will undergo an elementary yet fundamental shift in perspective. This will come to you as an awakening in a moment of time rather than as a long, drawn-out learning experience.

The next point is a warning of sorts. Because of the obvious truth of it, this “systems-perspective” is something you won’t be able to shake.

You will not be swallowing unsupportable theories of reality. It’s just a matter of tweaking your perception of life’s mechanical workings.

It’s a superb investment, though, because the result will be freedom, a relaxed persona, and plenty of money.

Here’s the next part of this nutshell-summary, the steps of the Work the System method:

Documentation: Creating written goals, principles, and processes that are guidelines for action and decision-making. This is one-time heavy lifting. It won’t take long.

Separation, dissection, and repair of systems: The satisfying process of exposing, analyzing, and then perfecting personal, work, and relationship systems. This effort includes creating new systems from scratch as well as eliminating those that are unnecessary or are holding you back.

Ongoing maintenance of systems: Greasing the wheels. This is easy because the positive tangible results of the Work the System method are motivating.

The Steps to Working Less and Making More

STOP “DOING THE WORK.”
The reason a successful business owner can work a few hours a week, or an efficient department manager can take an extended vacation without stress, is because he or she has created systems, implemented written procedures, and has learned to delegate.

Successful people don’t work harder; they work smarter, so focus on what needs to be done to make your business or department successful, and delegate the “work.”

Lose the “I’m superman” attitude and focus on finding people who can take the weight off your shoulders. Plenty of hard working, disciplined, honest people are out there, quietly looking for a fair shake so they can put themselves on the line and show what they can do. And when they perform well, they want to be rewarded.

You just need to find these people and then give them black and white instruction, good pay, and the promise of a bright future.

So transform these great people into great employees. Give them opportunity, and turn them loose.

You may be like the majority of managers who dislike delegating because they believe the delegated task will “fall through the cracks” and never happen, or it will be finished, but not properly. So delegate. Consider making Microsoft Outlook’s task feature your best friend.

USE YOUR TIME WISELY.
Prime time is about maximizing productivity during the period brainpower is at peak capacity. It has two components. It’s called Biological Prime Time or BPT. The other component has to do with what you do with your time. This is Mechanic Prime Time or MPT.

It is important to determine precisely when your personal time prime time occurs, and then use that time period wisely.

Six hours each day is not much, so, presuming you wish to reach your goals sooner rather than later, it is best you perform the tasks that contribute most to your success (“mechanical prime time”) during your biological prime time hours. Here is the crux of Prime Time: Enormous advancement comes from spending the most alert periods of the day doing the most important system-building tasks.

When you are not in BPT, if you feel like it, it’s OK to focus on MPT tasks – the tasks that have to do with improving and growing your business and your life. High energy or low energy, keep your work activities pointed toward primary business-building or career-advancing activities per your critical documents.

CREATE WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION.
Over 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first year, and 80 percent fail within the first 5 years, according to the U.S. Small Business Association. The single, major difference between a small, floundering company and a large, successful company is this: The large, successful business employs documentation.

It’s a simple equation: Documented procedures equal freedom and profit. If you already own a small business, and you don’t have documentation, carve out time today and begin developing a Strategic Objective for your business. It should define overall goals, methodology, and prescribe action. It should give direction for major and minor decisions.

Once you have the Strategic Objective, move on to your General Operating Principles. You should have a written procedure for every recurring action that takes place in your work environment, including how to answer the phone, handle a complaint, make a deposit, or call for repair of the copier.

The potency of documentation is that it is tangible. If you can garner the self-discipline to create your Strategic Objective, you will find new strength as you hold the single-sheet document in your hand. You have direction!

APPROACH YOUR BUSINESS AND LIFE FROM A “NON-HOLISTIC” VANTAGE POINT.
See the elements of your world as separate, linear systems. Separate subsystems can be perfected, one-by-one, by examining and then repairing their simple and uncomplicated structure. Understand that by perfecting a primary system’s sub-systems, the primary system will be perfected. Although you are taking a non-holistic approach, the end product – your business or department – will be a highly efficient, entirely holistic, “Primary System.”

For instance, if someone is unhappy, they visit a psychologist, are diagnosed in the first session as “depressed,” and are prescribed an antidepressant that will affect their entire mental and physical being. If a nine-year-old boy is rambunctious in school, the child psychologist wants him to take a “prescription stimulant.”

Too often we go after a holistic, bumper-sticker solution when it would be more sensible to simply examine the primary system’s context and fix a faulty component. In any case, it is difficult to dictate an overall solution to a problematic primary system and expect great results all around. We can’t take a fix-it pill, legislate social mores, or repair the car by washing and waxing it.

If there is a problem with a primary system, we must go inside to root out and fix one or more faulty sub-systems. Do that, and because of the increased efficiency of the contributing component parts, the end result is a cleaner working and entirely “holistic” primary system.

ELIMINATE TIME-WASTERS.
Your mission is to work hard but not long, to reduce the workweek by 95 percent, and to make more money than you require. If you have a job, the goal is to quickly ascend the management ranks until you can call your own shots. But no matter your situation, if you are going to work, then work!

Turn the radio off, get your feet off the desk, stop the pointless babbling with a coworker, and put your head down. Get in, do the work, and get out! Devise polite techniques to keep pointless conversations short. Yes, if you don’t have an agenda.

Here are two cognitive strategies for when the internal battle of procrastination rages:

First, rise above it and visualize laziness as an object, something tangible that is outside of you.

Second, when you “lean toward loiter”, it’s a bit of twisted psychology that rattles the cage and causes a passionate reaction. Procrastination – the lack of quiet courage – will ruin your life if you let it.

WORK FOR 98 PERCENT PERFECTION.
Time and money wasted is time and money gone forever. And a waste of time and money means some other positive thing that could have happened, didn’t. Apply a “good enough” rule to your work.

For instance, a 100 percent flawless document that took forever to create carries an imbedded imperfection: The extra time spent creating the masterpiece – the extra 2 percent – is lost forever, therefore the finished product carries an imbedded taint, and catch 22 – you can never call it “perfect.” Your work and your written procedures should be “good enough.”

So, make your procedures detailed but don’t make them too detailed. See it this way: In putting your procedures together quickly, you are reaching a kind of perfection – the perfection of a useful product created without waste.

A Vision to Cultivate
It’s a positive addiction.

Leaving aside the chicken-or-the-egg question, and while continuing to hone your particular passion, now extend that fire to the mechanical workings of the other facets of your existence.

Be outside the events of your day and treat those events as elements of an overall game, a game that your proper management will make perfect.

That game, of course, is your life.

Few people understand the magnificence of the systems around them – but now you do.

BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com

Developing Your Influence
From Anywhere in the Organization

By
John Maxwell

The Big Idea
What’s the number one question leadership expert John C. Maxwell is asked while conducting his leadership conferences? It’s “How can I implement what you teach when I’m not the top leader?”

People who desire to lead from the middle of organizations face unique challenges. How about if the person you work for is a bad leader? Welcome to The 360° Leader.

Why You Need This Book
Dr. Maxwell, one of the globe’s most trusted leadership mentors, debunks the myths, shows you how to overcome the challenges, and teaches you the skills you need to become a 360° leader.

If you have found yourself trying to lead from the middle of the organization, as the vast majority of professionals do, then you need Maxwell’s insights. You have a unique opportunity to exercise influence in all directions – up (to the boss), across (among your peers), and down (to those you lead).

The good news is that even if you are not a top leader, your influence is greater than you know. Practice the disciplines of 360° leadership and the opportunities will be endless… for your organization, for your career, and for your life.

The Principles 360° Leaders Practice to Lead Up
Leading up is the 360° Leader’s greatest challenge. Influencing your leader isn’t something you can make happen in a day. Your underlying strategy should be to support your leader, add value to the organization, and distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack by doing your work with excellence.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 1: LEAD YOURSELF EXCEPTIONALLY WELL.
If I can’t lead myself, others won’t follow me.
If I can’t lead myself, others won’t respect me.
If I can’t lead myself, others won’t partner with me.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 2: LIGHTEN YOUR LEADER’S LOAD.
When you lift a leader’s load, your load certainly gets heavier. Know, however, that the lift you give for the leader often leads to the leader lifting you.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 3: BE WILLING TO DO WHAT OTHERS WON’T.
J.C. Penny said, “Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.” People who want to be effective are willing to do what others won’t. And because of that, their leaders are willing to resource them, promote them, and be influenced by them.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 4: DO MORE THAN MANAGE – LEAD!
Leadership is more than management.

Leadership is:
• People more than projects
• Movement more than maintenance
• Art more than science
• Intuition more than formula
• Vision more than procedure
• Risk more than caution
• Action more than reaction
• Relationships more than rules

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 5: INVEST IN RELATIONAL CHEMISTRY.
People can usually trace their successes and failures to the relationships in their lives. The quality of the relationship you have with your leader will impact your success or failure. It is certainly worth investing in.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 6: BE PREPARED EVERY TIME YOU TAKE YOUR LEADER’S TIME.
Leaders may not always be aware of a missed opportunity because you failed to push, but they will definitely notice if you ought to back off but don’t. If you push your boss inappropriately too often, your boss might push you right out the door.

LEAD-UP PRINCIPLE # 7: BECOME A GO-TO PLAYER.
Everyone admires go-to players and looks to them when the heat is on – not only their leaders, but also their followers and peers. Go-to players are people who always produce.

An investment in your growth is an investment in your ability, your adaptability, and your “promotability”. No matter how much it costs you to keep growing and learning, the cost of doing nothing is greater.

The Principles 360° Leaders Practice to Lead Across

To succeed as a 360° Leader who leads peer-to-peer, you have to work at giving your colleagues reasons to respect and follow you. By helping your peers win. If you can help them win, you will not only help the organization but will also help yourself.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 1: PUT COMPLETING FELLOW LEADERS AHEAD OF COMPETING WITH THEM.
The success of the whole team is more important than individual wins. Organizations need both competition and teamwork to win. When those two elements exist in the right balance, great team chemistry is the result.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 2: AVOID OFFICE POLITICS.
Becoming a statesman for your organization is an excellent idea. If you continually keep the big picture in mind, remain unselfish in your efforts, and try to be a diplomat with your peers, you will distinguish yourself, gain credibility, and improve your effectiveness and that of the team. And you will also increase your influence.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 3: EXPAND YOUR CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCES.
If you are not inclined to stretch yourself relationally, then think about this. People are like rubber bands. Your value as a leader in the middle will increase as you stretch and get out of your comfort zone relationships.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 4: LET THE BEST IDEA WIN.
When you think in terms of our idea my idea or her idea, you’re probably on track to helping the team win. That should be your motivation, not just trying to win friends and influence people. You’ll find that if you let the best idea win, you will win friends and influence people.

LEAD-ACROSS PRINCIPLE # 5: DON’T PRETEND YOU’RE PERFECT.
If you want to influence others, don’t try to impress them. Instead of impressing others, let them impress you.

The Principles 360° Leaders Practice to Lead Down
As a 360° Leader, when you lead down, you’re doing more than just getting people to do what you want. You’re helping them to discover and reach their potential.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 1: WALK SLOWLY THROUGH THE HALLS.
Take time to walk slowly through the halls in order to connect with people and give them an opportunity to make contact with you. As you see people in the parking lot, chat with them. Go to meetings a few minutes early to see people, but don’t start in on the agenda until you’ve had time to catch up.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 2: SEE EVERYONE AS A “10”.
If you desire to see everyone as a 10, help them by catching them doing something right. We are trained our whole lives to catch people doing something wrong.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 3: DEVELOP EACH TEAM MEMBER AS A PERSON.Don’t hold on to your people too tightly. When you continually develop people, there is never a shortage of leaders to build the organization and help you carry the load.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 4: PLACE PEOPLE IN THEIR STRENGTH ZONES.
When you place individuals in their strength zones, a couple of things happen. You change people’s lives for the better. Their jobs become rewarding and fulfilling. The other benefit is that you help the organization and you.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 5: MODEL THE BEHAVIOR YOU DESIRE.
Your leadership, if it is not continually growing, can be a lid to the potential of your people. Why? You can’t give people what you do not have. If you want to increase the potential of your team, you need to keep growing yourself.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 6: TRANSFER THE VISION.
People say that the bigger a ship is, the harder it is to turn. An organization is one big entity that has many small ones in it. If every leader in the middle of the organization is a 360° Leader who excels at transferring the vision to the crew in their area, then even a huge organization would be able to turn very quickly. It is not the size of the organization that matters; it is the size of the leaders within it.

LEAD-DOWN PRINCIPLE # 7: REWARD FOR RESULTS.
As a leader, you have a choice. You can try to push your employees to give more, hoping to swing the balance in your favor, or you can load up the rewards side – which is the only side you really have significant influence over – and wait for the balance to swing back to level as your employees respond by producing more. That’s what 360° Leaders do.

The Leader’s Daily Dozen
If you’re ready to revolutionize your organization, then every morning when you get up and get ready to lead your organization, make a commitment to these twelve power-unleashing activities.

Place a high value on people. The first shift for turning your organization into a leader-friendly environment must occur inside of you. You only commit yourself to things you value.

Commit resources to develop people. Whatever amount it costs to develop leaders, it won’t be as high as the cost of not developing your people.

Place a high value on leadership. If you value leadership, leaders will emerge to add value to the organization.

Look for potential leaders. If leadership is on your radar and you value it, you will continually be on the lookout for potential leaders.

Know and respect your people. As you select people to develop, work to strike a balance between these universal desires and the individual needs of your people. Try to tailor the development process for each individual as much as you can.

Provide your people with leadership experiences. If we don’t delegate leadership – with authority as well as accountability – our people will never gain the experience they need to lead well.

Reward leadership initiative. The best leaders are proactive. Most top leaders are initiators, but that doesn’t mean that every top leader feels comfortable when others use their initiative.

Grow with your people. When people in an organization see the top leader growing, it changes the culture of the organization.

Draw people with high potential into your inner circle. The best way to develop high-caliber leaders is to have them mentored by a high-caliber leader.

Commit yourself to developing a leadership team. If you want your organization to reach its potential, if you want it go from good to great, you need to develop a team of leaders, people who can fill in each others’ gaps, people who challenge and sharpen each other. If we try to do it all ourselves, we will never get beyond the glass ceiling of our own leadership limitations.

Unleash your leaders to lead. If you become dedicated to developing and releasing 360° Leaders, your organization will change – and so will your life.

Isn’t that what we all want as leaders – for our people and our organizations to succeed? Legendary Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu said, “A leader is best when the people barely know he exists.” That’s what the best leaders do – help others succeed. If you create an environment that develops 360° Leaders, that is what you will someday be able to do.
BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com

10 Rules of Engagement for Winning Your War for Success

A summary based on the book by
David F. D’Alessandro with Michele Owens

The Big Idea
It’s not enough anymore to be smart, hard-working, and able to show results – because nowadays everybody is smart, hard-working, and able to show results.

What really sets you apart are the relationships you build with people of influence. These people can include your peers, your employees, your organization’s directors, reporters, vendors, and regulators – as well as the people directly above you in the organizational hierarchy.

In senior management, you no longer answer to just one boss. There is now a hazy matrix of hundreds of bosses both inside and outside the office, any one of whom can stop you cold or give you a tremendous push forward. “Executive Warfare” offers concrete advice for handling all of them, including:

YOUR PEERS: They can be either the most valuable allies or the most dangerous enemies.

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: They won’t judge you fairly if all they see of you are your PowerPoint presentations.

YOUR DIRECT REPORTS: These people are your vital organs, so treat them accordingly. And if you find a “blood clot” among them, excise that person before he kills you.

YOUR RIVALS: It’s not always wise to shoot at them, but if you do, do not shoot to wound.

Why You Need This Book
In his bestsellers “Brand Warfare” and “Career Warfare”, author David D’Alessandro offered sharp advice for building a brand and building a career. Now “Executive Warfare” is the advanced class for the truly ambitious.

Attitude, Risk, and Luck: They Are the Most Influential Bosses
To rise, you may have to broaden your horizons, and you may have to look for an employer who will allow you to broaden them. You’ll also need three things to make the most of the chances you are given: the right attitude, a willingness to take calculated risks, and dumb luck.

ATTITUDE: The Boss Within
It’s incredibly important to get your own head in the game if you intend to rise. If you are bossed around by your own greed, arrogance, or childish lack of discipline, you will give people reason to doubt you, and you will undermine yourself.

RISK: Slice It, Dice It, and If It Looks Good, Eat It for Breakfast
One of the most significant attitude adjustments you will have to make as you move into higher management is your attitude toward risks. Higher management is all about handling risks intelligently and in a calculated fashion.

LUCK: Smarter Than Reaching for the Brass Ring Is Letting It Slap You in the Nose
Nobody gets to the top without being lucky. Luck happens to the most deserving of people and some of the most undeserving.

Not even the most powerful or ambitious person can force lighting to strike.

Bosses: You Need a License to Cut Hair, but Not to Manage and Control Thousands of People
The first rule of your relationship with your boss is to understand that it’s a business transaction. If you are willing to give the boss the truth, you’re probably going to engage in some spirited debate with your boss as part of the decision-making process. It also is helpful to understand something beyond the immediate goal. The fourth thing you have to do is to assure the boss that you are both loyal and discreet. No matter how incompetent or unpleasant he may be, never tell stories about your boss. Never make the boss feel betrayed – unless, of course, you are ready to grab the boss’ job.

Peers: Understand That They Are Your Most Valuable Allies… or Your Most Dangerous Enemies
CULTIVATING THE “CONSIGLIERI” (ALSO KNOWN AS SUCKING UP)
You can identify the consiglieri by their unfettered access to the boss. These are the people able to walk into the office of the executive director or president or CEO on a moment’s notice and just glide past the assistant, with or without an appointment.

Cultivating the consiglieri is not just a smart defensive move. The key thing to understand is that such a relationship only works if you are willing to be generous with the credit for your great idea.

CAREFULLY REMOVE ALL TATTOOS
Be smart. Place some of your trust in people who will tell you when your face is dirty, as well as when it’s clean.

Do not have that second drink at an office function. Be discreet.

Anticipate cross-cut attacks that will make you seem sanctimonious or false.

If the rumor is a lie, calmly make the facts known. If there is a crumb of truth in it, though, be humble enough to admit it and see if you can’t improve yourself.

Rivals: Defeat Them with a Siege, Not a Coup
Your rivals aren’t under every rock, but they are behind an awful lot of desks.

ALLOW YOUR RIVALS TO BE SHORT-SIGHTED. A lot of short-term rivals wind up being short-term by doing dumb things. So time is on your side. Relax and behave like a leader.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE POINTED QUESTION. The truth is, with compliments and questions, what you are really doing is giving your rivals a performance appraisal in public. You are subtly demonstrating how terrific you would be as their boss – and hopefully, planting this idea in the minds of the decision makers.

IF YOU CAN’T RESIST A SHOW OF AGGRESSION, MAKE SURE IT’S LETHAL. If you must shoot, do not shoot to wound. Finish the person off as a rival.

HANDLING A SNAKE IN YOUR OWN NEST. People like this are too impatient to wait for their turn, and it is tough enough trying to watch your back against attacks from outside enemies.

IF YOU ARE THE SNAKE IN THE NEST, STRIKE QUICKLY. Act quickly, before your boss’s paranoia has a chance to flower, because dawdling is dangerous. Your boss has more access than you do to the CEO and the board. She could easily plant so much kindling wood under you, it would make Joan of Arc look like a marshmallow roast.

IF YOU LOSE TO YOUR RIVAL, EITHER LEARN TO LIKE EATING CROW, OR GO. If you do stay on as a loser, you generally either have to find another place to go within the organization that offers you another chance to rise, or wait out your rival’s tenure – five years, seven years, ten years – for a second shot at the job you wanted.

WITH FORMER RIVALS, IT’S KISS OR KILL. If you win the race, you either embrace your rivals or kill them. There’s nothing in between, because nothing is more dangerous than allowing the defeated to remain rivals.

That’s the thing about real rivals. Don’t forget it when you’re running against them, and don’t forget it when you win.

The Team You Assemble: You Risk Your Reputation with Every Hire and Fire
The truth is that when you are the boss, it’s really hard to hire people unlike yourself, either in personality or in expertise. Why? Do it anyway if you think they are right for the job. Otherwise, your performance will suffer.

Hire for candor. Look instead for seasoned, confident people, courageous people who will take the personal hit of telling you the truth rather than feeding you pleasant lies.

Develop a reputation as somebody who not only can build a strong team but also can bring in people who can build strong teams. You will make personnel mistakes. How you handle the actual firing is extraordinarily important. By definition, it should be a closed-door session.

The People You Have to Motivate: You Are a Fool if You Think They Love You
You can get people to work very, very hard because they are proud of your organization or because they want your organization’s prestigious name on their resume. But relying on a blind salute to the logo to motivate people will get you just about as far as relying on their love for you.

You build loyalty by helping each member of your team, individually, get where they want to go.

Sometimes what people need most is respect for the fact that they have personal lives. They are far more effective if they feel respected that way. You are winning people’s loyalty in action. You are not intruding on their lives; you are making a deal that recognizes that they do have lives separate from the office.

Treat the people who work for you with respect and start building that loyalty today.

Outsiders with Influence: Be Wary, Be Right, and Be Prepared to Prove It
When a client’s unhappy, it’s a bit like the running of the bulls – and you’re wearing white with a red scarf wrapped around your waist. You may well get skewered. You have to layer your clients and donors and concentrate on the important ones. Make sure your people understand that if there is any hint of a problem, you’re to know about it. And if there is a serious problem, be prepared to get on a plane in order to soothe the savage beast.

Be accessible at the drop of a hat. If the client really counts, make sure that she has your home phone number, not just your cell phone. Say to that client, “If there’s a problem, call me any time.”

Part of the transaction is that they get your time and advice in return.

Help them solve problems, not just in their businesses and careers, but also in their lives. Treat them as human beings, and use your influence to help them.

Never lie to them. If your company has screwed something up, tell them you screwed it up.

Everywhere you go, there is a chance that you will run into somebody who has some influence with the powers that be in your organization.

Random strangers to you are not always strangers to the people who hold your career in their hands. So it is smart to conduct yourself, in public at least, as if there is always somebody in the audience who matters.

Position: Get into Place, Whether You Are a Hunter, Skinner, or Diner
Don’t expect people to come around and hold out a Halloween basket for you so that you can pick whatever revenue-generating job you want. Put yourself into position. Make it known that you want a revenue-gathering job. Don’t just raise your hand when a job comes up, when people are already thinking of other candidates. Raise your hand in advance.

Then dive right in. if it turns out that you have no appetite for the hunt, you can always come back to the staff job later.

There simply are not that many mid- to high-six-figure kinds of jobs out there.

Work out a plan in case you lose your job.

Make sure, as you develop your skills as a general manager, that you also develop some particular marketable skill. Build a reputation as an expert in some area. Write articles. Give speeches.

If you’re good, at least one of those organizations will eventually decide that they are paying you too much as a consultant and offer you a big job with them.

Culture: Before You Sign on, Make Sure it’s a Culture, Not a Cult
Whether the “culture” of your organization is a real way of behaving and thinking that brings out the best in people or nothing more than organized hypocrisy, you must pay attention to a few things when you move into senior management.

You must know the unwritten rules of your organization’s culture so that you don’t break them unwittingly.

To be a leader, you have to try to influence the culture in positive ways.

Keep your eyes open to the culture in which you are working, and make sure that it won’t reject you unjustly. Be sure also that the culture of your organization allows for forward motion – that it will give you the opportunities you deserve. If not, make a deft exit as soon as you can.

The New Bosses: It’s Not the Same Old Twentieth-Century Game
The new world is more analytical, more numbers-focused, more aggressive, more skeptical, and more unforgiving than ever before. If you want to rise, you have to demonstrate leadership to many different audiences. These include the people above and below you in the organizational hierarchy, the people who are competing with you for the next job and those resentful because they cannot compete for it, the outsiders and insiders and shareholders and donors and disinterested observers only looking for a juicy story to alleviate the tedium.

In today’s world, you have to be alert to win.

BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com