Archive for the ‘General’ Category

The Fred Factor by Mark Sanborn is a book about how passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. I liked the format of the book. It was broken down into simple steps and points. Points were often supported with quotes (which I love). Each chapter actually started with a quotation as well which I’ve always enjoyed in books. The book was small (119 pages) and I was able to read it in a night. Below are various quotes from the author and quotes that he mentions by other people that I related with in the book.

Make each day your masterpiece. Joshua Wooden, father of John Wooden

Whatever you are, be a good one. Abraham Lincoln

Principle #1: Everyone Makes a Difference

There are no unimportant jobs, just people who feel unimportant in their jobs. Mark Sanborn, the author

There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive. B.C. Forbes, founder of Forbes magazine

Faithfully doing your best, independent of the support, acknowledgement, or reward of others, is a key determinant in a fulfilling career. Mark Sanborn, the author

Principle #2: Success is built on relationships

Service becomes personalized when a relationship exists between the provider and the customer. Mark Sanborn, the author

…relationship building is the most important objective because the quality of the relationship determines the quality of the product or service. Mark Sanborn, the author

The 7 B’s of Relationship Building

1. Be Real.
2. Be interested (not just interesting).
3. Be a better listener.
4. Be empathetic.
5. Be honest. Say what you’ll do and do what you say.
6. Be helpful.
7. Be prompt.

Principle #3: You must continually create value for others, and it doesn’t have to cost a penny

The object is to outthink your competition rather than outspend them. Mark Sanborn, the author

Sanborn’s Maxim says that the faster you try to solve a problem with money, the less likely it will be the best solution. Mark Sanborn, the author

There are two types of people who never achieve very much in their lifetimes. One is the person who won’t do what he or she is told to, and the other is the person who does no more than he or she is told to do. Andrew Carnegie

Principle #4: Reinvent yourself regularly

IQ = Implementation Quotient. It’s the difference between having a good idea and implementing it.

Practice one a day. If you had to do everything in an extraordinary manner, you’d barely make it to work in the morning. Focus on doing one extraordinary thing per day. If you do that 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, your life will soon be a record book full of extraordinary.

Compete with yourself. There will always be people who accomplish more or less than you. It’s more productive and fun to compete against and benchmark yourself.

Becoming a Fred

You change the world of another driver when you allow her to change lanes abruptly without blaring your horn, recognizing that she too is human and fallible. Of course you alter her world in a different way if you blast your horn, yell and gesture obscenely.

You also change the world of a coworker, a customer, a vendor, or a cafeteria worker with your smile or your frown.

No these aren’t dramatic changes. They won’t alter the course of world affairs or bring about a cure for AIDS. But whose to say these little changes don’t have a cumulative, profound effect in the lives of others and, ultimately, in your own life. Mark Sanborn, the author

The fact is that everybody is already making a difference every day. The key question is, What kind of difference is each of us making. Mark Sanborn, the author

Developing Other Freds

There is something that is much more scarce, something finer by far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. Elbert Hubbard

When people feel that their contributions are unappreciated, the will stop trying. And when that happens, innovation dies. Mark Sanborn, the author

You teach what you know but you reproduce who you are. John C. Maxwell

You can preach a better sermon with your life than your lips. Oliver Goldsmith

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

At the Day of Judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done. Thomas A Kempis

So we are pretty busy right now at Notre Dame. Both sides of the agency (print, web) are swamped. The thing I’ve noticed is when you have too much work to get done, there are two ways of catching up and getting ahead.

Work Harder or More Hours

The first is to work harder. Working harder is easy. Anyone can do it. All you have to do is increase your intensity or work more hours. I can promise you this, it won’t get you anywhere. Chances are you’ll keep getting more and more busy as higher volumes of work come in, which will make it harder to ever work more efficiently. Working hard might inflate your hours logged but it turns you into another cog in the machine. You can boast your dedication and hard work but you are tying your worth to the amount of time you have available.

Work More Efficiently

Stated as the opposite option of working harder and more hours, this seems like the obvious selection. However, because working harder is easier, it is often the first choice and, like learned helplessness, becomes a mainstay as the pressure continues to mount.

So why don’t more people attempt to work more efficiently? I believe it is because they can’t see the patterns. Think assembly line for a moment. Henry Ford noticed the pattern that is building an automobile. Mass production was made possible for Ford Motor Company not because Ford told his employees to work harder, but because he taught them to work more efficiently. Wait a second you might be thinking? By turning your task into an assembly line, aren’t you turning yourself into a cog just like Mr. Hard Worker? My answer to that question would be another question. Was Henry Ford a cog? Absolutely not.

The world is made up of two kinds of people. Those who can do a job and those who invent new ways of doing that job. Both are necessary, but the latter creates value that is greater than the hours they have available. This means you work less and get more done.

Putting it into Practice

So how do you avoid becoming another cog? Below are some tips that will help you on your way to efficiency land.

1. Look for new ways to do each task. Don’t always do something the way you did it last time. After each timely task, reserve time for thinking about how you could have completed it faster. This might seem like a waste of time but will ultimately lead to more speed. The first few times it will take longer as you analyze the patterns and attempt to automate more, but each time after that you’ll start seeing results. A side effect of this is increased knowledge in what you are doing as often the only way to get faster is to know something intimately.

2. Look for patterns. Practice makes perfect. Look for patterns in everything–letters, numbers, road signs, commercials, etc. Awareness will go along way in discovering patterns. Anything that you find yourself doing that feels repetitive is prime for automation. Find ways to do similar tasks together. For example, for quite a while I was doing 4-5 flash spaces in the nd.edu carousel per week. If I did all 4 together, it only took 2 hours but if I did them separately it would often take 3 or 4.

3. Look for others to share the efficiency gains with. Like they say in most sports, the great ones are not just great by themselves, they also make the others around them better. There is also something educating about teaching others. You really have to know your stuff to teach it. Also, you sometimes notice things when teaching that you don’t when learning.

I guess that is all I have. Did I connect the dots? Was I talking gibberish? I’m curious if others have noticed the same.

I remember my dad proudly showing me pictures of his first muscle car when I was young (I believe a Plymouth Barracuda). The pictures were from the 70’s so they had that faded, worn look. He bragged of the cement blocks in his brother’s car placed there to keep the backend from hopping when goosing it off the line.

My first car, a 1996 Geo Metro, wouldn’t have been able to take off with cement blocks in the back. “The Turd”, as it was affectionately known, served me well through high school and college, but was not something to proudly show a son in an effort to prove you were once cool.

I have always had a thing for Mustangs, especially red. Thursday, I became a proud owner of a red Mustang, which from now on will be referred to as Sally, on this blog and other corners of the interwebs. It’s been crummy weather so I haven’t taken all the great photos that I want to have yet but hopefully this week I’ll get a chance. Here is a shot from Thursday that I took with my iPhone.

Aww…snap! I just added a sexy iphone webclip icon for this site. I put a photograph below for those who don’t own the greatest device in the history of the world. You can also see the nd.edu icon if you haven’t had a chance to check it out.

I also added a hover to the logo that makes it look like my eyes and mouth are open. At some point, Oak and I are going to make a sweet and fun flash piece out of the logo but for now that will do. Oh, and lastly, I added a favicon, which addicted to new has never had. Woohoo!

I’m a big fan of quotes so as I read books, I keep track of the lines and paragraphs I like in a tinye moleskin book. The other day I was reading through some of the things I’ve stored in it over the past year and found the notes I took from the book “Good To Great” very interesting. FYI: Several of them below are paraphrased and not direct quotes.

Celebrity leaders from outside the company didn’t lead to greatness. Leaders promoted from within did (10 of 11 of the CEO’s of good to great companies were promoted from within).

Great companies did not focus on what to do, but rather what not to do and what to stop doing.

Greatness is not a function of circumstances. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice. You must maintain an unwaivering faith that you can, and will prevail in the end.

The right people are your most important asset.

3 Simple Truths: 1) If you focus on who rather than what, you can more easily adapt to a changing world. 2) If you get the right people on the bus, the need to motivate and manage goes away. 3) Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

Those who build great companies know that the ultimate throttle on growth is the ability to get and keep the right people.

When in doubt, don’t hire–keep looking. When you know you need to make a people change, act. How can you tell if someone should get off the bus? Answer these questions. Would you hire them again? If they took another job would you be sad or relieved.

Put the best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

Members of good to great teams tended to become and remain friends for life.

Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow seeds of problems when people filter the brutal facts.

One of the single most de-motivating actions you can take is to hold out false hopes, soon to be swept away by events. Leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts are confronted. How do you create a climate where the truth can be heard? 1) Lead with questions, not answers. 2) Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion. 3) Conduct autopsies without blame. Openly discuss failures. 4) Build “red flag” mechanisms. Turn information into information that cannot be ignored.

The Three Circles of Greatness. 1) What can you be the best in the world at? 2) What drives your economic engine? 3) What are you deeply passionate about?

A hedgehog concept is not a plan or strategy on how to be the best, it is an understanding of what you can be the best at.