Nicholas Bate

What are you reading?

Especially if you are on the technical side, I think you will enjoy this book. Don't be put off by the title: it's not just cliches on out-sourcing. Matt does a nice summary here if you are un-sure. See his Sunday entry.

Chocolate

I've learnt many things from running many workshops. And one thing is a lot of people love a lot of chocolate. If that's you, here are two great sites to check out. Mrchocolate. And Artisanduchocolat.

Great Writing

I love great writing. There are so many forms, of course: blogs, novels, poetry, presentations, non-fiction. One of my favourite fiction authors is Michael Connelly, especially his character Harry Bosch. If you haven't yet read him and you do a lot of travelling and like to have a book for the airport, he's a stong possibility.

On my recent trip I discovered a book by Thomas Perry: The Butcher's Boy. Not only is this a good book in itself, it has an introduction by Michael Connelly where he gives one of his rare insights into writing. Here are some thoughts of his you might like:

"Over the years and millions of words, I have come to learn that it is all about character and velocity. A book is like a car. It pulls up at the curb and the passenger door swings open to the reader. The engine revs. Do you want to take a ride?

Once you get in, the car takes off, the door slamming shut and tire rubber burning in its wake. Behind the wheel the drivers's got to be highly skilled and heavy on the pedal, and most of all, oh man, most of all, somebody you want to be with. He's got to drive near the edge of the cliff but never over. He's got to turn sharply just as you think you know where you are going. He's got to gun it on the final lap. And he's got to tell you a story all along the way."

So-there you have it!

Less is More?

Sometimes less is more.

A perfectly pulled espresso is sometimes all you need;
Just two relevant slides in a greatly assembled presentation;
Just 100ml containers if you want less hassle at security at the airport;
A perfect quotation: Make a dent in the universe. Steve Jobs;
A wink across the room from the girl you've been thinking about for days;
That comfy sweat-shirt;
Ten perfect pull-ups at the gym.
A sugar-axe rather than a tea-spoon.

Sometimes less is certainly more.

The Weekly Tutorial: Work/Life Blance

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Some practical tips for improving work-life balance:
Draw it and put the picture somewhere where you see it on a daily basis.
Zone: create 'zones' which are sacrosanct and not to be disturbed. Try (1) your zone; your own time (2) You+partner zone. No Kids, no admin: just your time. (3) Family zone: time with all the family.
Batch activities: don't mix them. Eg do your evening e-mail, then forget about it: don't keep checking it. Play Lego with your daughter and do it fully.
Keep talking. If things get difficult in relationships, then talk and talk until it is resolved. Remember: it is possibly the deepest human desire: to be understood.
Allow: give yourself permisssion to not work all the time, to not have to be perfect, to do some of your stuff. too.....

See you at 0700 tomorrow.

The Weekly Tutorial: each week, Monday to Thursday at 0700. Coming up in March & April 2007.
5 March: How to become an entrepreneur (inside an organisation, too).
12 March: How to overcome the only barrier to what you want to do: fear
19 March: How to become a great leader.
26 March: Cooking quickly, easily and healthily. And often for one person.
2 April: How to get fit v2.
Don’t forget to check the archives.

The Weekly Tutorial: Work/Life Blance

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So what is perfect work-life balance for you? More time for golf, for the children, to sleep, to start your gardening business? Write them all down, one per line. Make sure alongside each one you have got something specific. Not just 'more sleep', but 'eight decent hours per night'. Not just 'me time', but 'two evenings a week when I can just go out with friends..'
Write it all down.
Now go back down that column and against each one, put what is stopping you. Again: we need precision. Not just 'no time'. You do find time for some things, so why not for your friends? Write down the blocker against each one.
Do this now, please.

Tips
Precision is vital. The clearer the goal, the more likely we are to achieve it. The clearer the blocker, the more likely we are to remove it.
Allow yourself to dream: don't negate something before you have even explored the idea.

See you at 0700 tomorrow.
The Weekly Tutorial: each week, Monday to Thursday at 0700. Coming up in March & April 2007.
5 March: How to become an entrepreneur (inside an organisation, too).
12 March: How to overcome the only barrier to what you want to do: fear
19 March: How to become a great leader.
26 March: Cooking quickly, easily and healthily. And often for one person.
2 April: How to get fit v2.
Don’t forget to check the archives.

The Man who Mistook his Laptop for his Life

The story so far: read The Man who Mistook his Laptop for his Life category….

Susan. Oh, hi sweetheart, how'd it go with your parents? Oh, OK. Look our account is apparently not in order according to the bank; what's going on? Well, I did try and talk it through with you Allan. I had a feeling you weren't really listening. It's the cancelled holidays-that's a lot of lost deposits. The house extension because we're not managing it properly: you're never there to make the decisions we need to give to the builder. And the grocery bills: there's a lot of drink we buy. We're living beyond our means in all honesty, especially now I'm just doing part-time. We can sort it, but we do need to talk.

I had no idea: we do need to talk.

By Saturday evening, Allan had flu. Locking himself away from wife and son he stuck to his objectives. Tuesday am, THE presentation. Plus now he needed separately to get a robust service levels proposal sorted.

By Sunday night the PowerPoint slides and many argumentative phone calls to senior decison makers in the organisation had got him what he needed. But his voice was going and his body felt drained. Just Monday to get through for rehearsal.

Hitting bed at 7pm, he looked forward to feeling refreshed in the morning. For a fleeting second he let go; it felt good. It was good. At 0545 his first buzzer went. He felt terrible. Absolutely terrible.

Join us at 3pm next Monday. In the meantime: Get a Life.

The weekly Tutorial: Work/Life Blance

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This is the most important of this week's four tutorials. If you are seeking better work-life balance, you must decide what that is for you. Because, one reason you haven't got it yet is that you are not absolutely sure what it is you want. Take 10 minutes today with pencil and paper or fingers and key-board, to define: what would be perfect work-life balance for you? Make it as detailed as you can. Perhaps leave it a while and come back to it and refine it again. We can do no more serious work until you have this.

Tips
Don’t expect the definition to come to mind immediately: that's the problem we’re addressing. You have possibly wanted it so long, you don’t really know what it is anymore!
Get away from other people’s definitions: it is not necessarily being home every evening if you travel a lot. But it is maybe about having sufficient energy that when you are home you have energy for your relationships.
In writing your description, get deeper. You want more time? For what? For you? For what? To relax? What sort of relaxation…..

Go to work!

See you at 0700 tomorrow.
The Weekly Tutorial: each week, Monday to Thursday at 0700.
Coming up in March & April 2007.
5 March: How to become an entrepreneur (inside an organisation, too).
12 March: How to overcome the only barrier to what you want to do: fear
19 March: Becoming a great leader.
26 March: Cooking quickly, easily and healthily. And often for one person.
2 April: How to get fit v2.
Don’t forget to check the archives.

BLOG round-up

In one of my favourite sites, Garr Reynolds articulates a growing trend I have noticed: the dreaded PowerPoint deck as a document. I'll leave you to digest his own very useful thoughts. I first became aware of this trend when a senior manager at IBM was lamenting how all meetings he went to now lacked discussion: people simply either showed slide-decks to each other or e-mailed them to each other. It simply re-inforces how for so many people PowerPoint=communication. IT DOES NOT! Communication is many, many factors one of which might be the use of a slide or two. PowerPoint ironically can hinder and slow communication, not least because it is often trance inducing.

Gapingvoid gives an up-date on getting bloogging to work for you. While Michael Wade has some useful stats on Business Schools. And check out David Maister if you are a leader and somethimes you think: I'm just not that interested in people!

A lot of sickness around: what do bloggers do?

The A to Z of Great Parenting

E is Emotionall Intelligence

In an increasingly competitive global economy where once proud skills are turned into commodities, ensure your children realise the importance of Emotional Intelligence and work hard to develop it. It will be their secret weapon. They cannot increase their IQ (they have your genes to blame for that!), but they can their EQ (Emotional Intelligence).

And according to Daniel Goleman, EQ= 2 x IQ.

Worth thinking about, worth developing. And given that your behaviour will have the biggest influence on your child's behaviour, worth modelling.