During some recent travelling, I used it as an opportunity to re-read (power read, you might say) fellow author and Speakers Spotlight brother Simon Sinek’s book “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Others To Take Action“. The fact it was first published in 2009 still gives me goose bumps. Simon was — and continues to be — ahead of his time. If you haven’t done so already, watch his TEDxPuget Sound Talk to get a condensed 18-minute version of his fantastic hypothesis and theory centered (literally) on The Golden Circle. But you really should buy the book. (support those authors – we need new ribbons for the typewriter) Aside from a man-crush on Simon and being highly influenced by his book, I was struck
flat army Archive
It’s hard to think of myself as an author. I mean for the entirety of my life, I’ve always known what I was … be it a son, brother, husband, dad, friend, educator, leader, Manchester United supporter, scotch drinker, Star Wars fan, pain in the ass, etc. But I’ve never been a published author before. I don’t have a playbook or a manual that I’m following either. I’m making it up as I go along. The back cover of Flat Army is one of those examples. While I understand the industry typically defaults to having quotes from famous people waxing lyrical about the contents of said book, I refused and ultimately balked at this approach. My idea at first was to simply have a QR
I’m not a very political man. You may even call me apolitical. I always vote, but I often vote based on the issues versus being tied to a political party. I’m politically Neapolitan. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you about a good story that involves Government, regardless of your or my political stripes. In my home province of British Columbia, Canada, there has been a program in place now — called IDEAS2ACTION — where citizens have been asked to get involved, submit ideas and help shape opportunities for skills development across the entire province. The process the Provincial Government followed is best summarized by the graphic found below: There have been over 125 ideas submitted and vetted, with a fantastic accompanying dashboard that
There are a lot of fools in our organizations today. Why else is employee engagement at deplorable levels? Why else do we see senior leaders failing to adopt social collaborative technologies inside (or outside) the organization? Why else do we see authoritative, autocratic, fear mongering and controlling leaders still operating in vast numbers? Why do we see information and knowledge hoarding? It’s because the people who act this way are fools. They have a fear of open leadership. They are the FOOL. (It’s an acronym) Work with me. In my book Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization I define open leadership as follows: “the act of engaging others to influence and execute a coordinated and harmonious conclusion” There are some key words and