Leader’s Kitbag – July 2019
Hi and welcome back to the 4iGroup monthly Leader’s Kitbag – our compilation of items to help leaders learn, lead better and thrive themselves.
This month as usual we divide our recommended intake across various mediums so you can immediately head toward the area which is both most accessible to you, and best suits your learning style.
Also a welcome mention to some new subscribers to our community who have joined us since last month’s note;
– Kate, great to see you with us here and looking forward to talking soon,
– Graham, it’s been years! Great to see you joining the community and hope to touch base for a catch up soon
– And Vanessa, I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting or speaking with you as yet, but welcome and hoping you enjoy the content here.
To everyone, thanks in advance for reading, as always I welcome your comments so do reply if you’ve got any thoughts or suggestions on this month’s recommendations.
All the best,
Tim & all at 4iGroup
To Read
Articles/Blogs
This was shared by one of our Associates, Melina Lipkiewicz, and interesting review of organisational structural experimenting by Google, the hypothesis “Do we need Managers?”. The answer, yes, but the question is, what makes a great Manager – Click here for the article on Inc.com
From our man in America, Tom Allen-Livernois, here’s great article on the 7 key skills he has identified will be vital to develop in order to succeed in ‘The Great Transition’, as more and more of leaders roles involve teams composed of both human and AI contributors – Click here for the article on 4igroup.com.au
Ever worked with, or for, someone who was always convinced they were right? Yes? Ok good, me too! This article popped up in my HBR feed earlier this week, and whilst a longer read than some of the articles I list here, I thought it worth sharing as I very much related to this topic and some of the advice provided, especially around the way to speak up in challenge to this type of ‘certainty’ in authority – Click here for the article on hbr.org
Books
Two here that I’m devouring at the moment, I’ll circle back via the Leader’s Bookshelf (Click here for previous recommendations) with further commentary, but to share what I’m enjoying right now…
This is Marketing by Seth Godin, both a great distillation of pretty much all the key themes that Seth has written and spoken about over the last few decades, but also and most significantly for me, a framework for all of us to position our values, vision and mission at the core of how we think about our work, tell our story to others and ultimately market ourselves so that the great opportunity to serve others finds us – Click here to view ‘This is Marketing’ on Booktopia
Everything is F*cked (A Book About Hope) by Mark Manson, not everybody’s cup of tea I know, but the one thing I find refreshing about Mark Manson, and a key alignment with one of our primary values, Integrity, is his ruthless honesty and frank refinement of what should be most integral to all our endeavours. To make the world better. Which also happens to be at the heart of our vision. If you managed to miss his first book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, I recommend that too! Click here to view ‘Everything is F*cked’ on Booktopia
To Listen
If last month’s recommendation of Cal Newport’s ‘Digital Minimalism’ struck accord, or it sounded interesting but you’ve not had a chance to explore further, these two may be an interest –
i) An interview on Brian Koppelman’s podcast. Brian certainly isn’t a “yes man” to all Cal’s suggestions, so it makes for an interesting dialogue as they explore the virtues and complexities of our socially connected world, both at work and for friendship – Click here for the In The Moment podcast
ii) A somewhat longer discussion on the Rich Roll podcast. Whilst Rich certainly is more of an appreciative audience than Brian in someways, the discussion is longer and goes into the significance of the Digital Minimalism approach for both work and life in general – Click here for The Rich Roll podcast
iii)This one is for more general listening, especially those of you who as athletes as well as leaders, play with the pain barrier as you push performance. There’s a link back to Cal’s work also, as there’s a segment towards the middle of the podcast on attention, how this works from a neurology perspective, and how significant focus is to us in producing our best work – Click here for The Ready State podcast
4iGroup Update
We are underway with our first engagement in America, a Talent engagement on the East Coast, and also rolling our a new ‘on demand’ tier to our Coaching practice. In final stages of construction are the initial Learning programs for Emotional Intelligence, Productivity for Knowledge Workers and Leading in the Virtual Environment. We hope soon to be inviting you, our 4i leadership community, to take part in the final testing phase of these. Next month I’ll also look forward to bringing you news of new Associates in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, watch this space!
