First of all I would like to apologize for not posting to my blog in a while. I have been busy working and reading. I have had the joy of reading Dr. Rao Srikumars book: “Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies to Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life” – This book has taken me on a journey within myself. This has been very interesting for me. I define leadership skills in levels, and I always urge to define what level I am on, and to what level am I going. The problem is that I do not know what the next level brings or what it contains. I do not define levels in promotions, but in skill and knowledge. When I heard Dr. Rao speak at google, I felt that this was my next path. I have not just read his book, but I have also done the exercises it provides. The result is interesting. Although I am by nature quite like the person Dr. Rao want me to be, it provides me with more awareness of myself and my mental being.

It might be hard to describe the effect the book have on me, because it provides me with no tools on how to become a better leader, but still it makes me a better leader as I am more aware of my mind and my inner dialogue.

The book is very interesting and it appeals to me because I agree with a lot of what he writes in the first place. If you really really badly desire something in life, the universe will work with you to get you there. I have experienced it myself many times. Why is it like this? The book will give you some hints.

Being positive.
I am a positive person; I do believe the best about people. I hear people on a regular daily basis talk negative about others, and I see how people are affected, even about people they have never met, suddenly they think less of the person. I do not think less of a person if other people talk negative about them, I think; “This is not my view of this person” – “I have not had any negative encounters with this person” – “Why do you feel you have the right to influence my opinion of a person in a negative matter?” – And it backfires on the person talking negative. This also helps me to prevent me from talking negative, because it is not in my right to give an opinion that can influence other people’s relationships in a negative way. This book point out that mental chatter (This is your inner dialogue) is negative by nature. It does judge people all the time, just think about it. You have a huge bad and ugly critic sitting inside your head. It does not only judge others, it also judges you. This book provides a guard post in your head. It teaches you to identify what is negative, and alert you. It helps you to be more positive.

Sit on a chair.
This book got me to sit on a chair for 30 minutes to try to do nothing. It was an interesting experience. I absolutely recommend you to read this book, not only if you are a leader, but also if you want to be more positive and happy. But I would rather say that you need to do the book, not just read it. It has a lot of exercises that needs to be done in order. And you must follow it step by step.

What did it do for me?
Not so much yet? I still do a lot of the exercises in the book on a daily basis, I do feel happier, and I do feel more aware of my own senses and mental statement. I do feel stronger after events that might be considered negative. My landlord called me the other day, saying that I need to move, because they need the space for themselves. I really like it here. Bad thing, and I need to do the hassle of moving. I did find a new place, with a better standard than this, with a great kitchen, with better location between my son’s kindergarten and my job. And it turns out that his best friend from kindergarten has just moved in next door to the new place. So is this a bad thing? Good thing?

And lately I have gotten a proof that the book is changing my life…

101st floor please!
I have been having a dream lately, two times just this week that I am in an elevator and going up high to 101st floor. I tried to Google dream and elevator today and found out that this dream means;

“Dreaming of riding upwards in an elevator may symbolize an easy upward
climb with no obstructions. As you move up in the world, you may feel that you
have the support of someone or the universe. Rising in an elevator may also
symbolize spiritual development or an increase in awareness with an ability to
rise above and view the world from an elevated standpoint.”

And after reading this book I do feel an increase in awareness, maybe I am suddenly standing on the next level of my development ladder? The dream interpretation does match my feelings. I do strongly recommend this book.

I have just finished reading Seth Godins Tribes: We need you to lead us. This book is basically trying to convince us that there is an enormous need for leaders all around the world, and that everybody can be a leader. Seth Godin do firmly state that there is a difference between a leader and a manager, and while a manager follow the rules, a leader might be more of a rebellion. At first glance I am intrigued by this book, it looks very interesting, as I believe that the workspace are more and more like a tribe or like a small society or the new village.

The book is 150 pages, and the 80 first is a waste of time, as the book does not make any progress, and just keep going on and on about tribes that need leaders. The last 70 pages do make more sense and he gets more into his message. There are some interesting aspects in the book. He compares a bit with religion and faith, and uses the thermostat and the thermometer as images of leadership, both gives a different view about leadership.

I think he tries to write this book to provoke a bit, but that does not quite work. He defines leaders as persons that change status quo and breakers of new ground. I do think leaders also can lead to enhance and not turn a company upside down at every chance.
There are a lot of stories here about leaders with enthusiasm that have created great dynamic tribes. This are the stories of leaders extraordinary and we all should hear more about them for inspiration.

To summarize this book did not lift me to the next level of leadership, and the stories of great unknown leaders are interesting reading. I would rather read about this in several short posts in a blog than spending money on the book. This book does not bring anything new to those of you that read a lot about leadership in the first place. If you want to start some kind of internet movement this book might be something for you.

The book might be great for jobs not requiring opening hours. As for me, working in a call centre it is not possible to allow people to work whenever they want, as long as they answer 250 calls per week. If they all came at eight did a great job, and left at 2 in the afternoon, there would be six hours with no employees at work. This does work for web designers, authors, architects and for other people on projects. The flaw to this plan as to that you can do whatever as long as your job is done. If you work as a cashier at a grocery store you cannot stand up and leave if you severed you customer nr 100. There is still more customers coming through, and they will not understand your need to leave. So first of all this book is not for everybody, it is not for bus drivers or anybody else where customers depend on their availability. It might demand a certain amount employees also. If you are a small attorney’s office and a client can’t reach you at nine in the morning it might not look good.

I do believe that there is a small niche of who can have the privilege of controlling their hours this way, but the authors fail to comment on who this book is suitable for, and assume that this is the solution for all.

On the other hand the book gives good pointers on time consuming activities that just is a waste of time and does not help focusing on achieving results. I might not care why people are late for work anymore as it takes time away from them actually getting to work, explaining me why.

All in all this is a book that opens your eyes to alternatives, and it might work for you. Nevertheless there are still issues in this book worth reading about negative talk and time wasting meetings and how to move work out of the office.

And by all means I myself have experienced managers expecting me to work a certain amount of hours even if I had a clean desk half way into the day. I know I work fast, and here I got punished with boredom half the day, the ROWE model would fit me perfect then. On the other hand I also believe that if you manage to finish your work two days before deadline, it does not mean you can take two days off. It means that you can start your next project two days earlier.

I also question the pay per hour. Maybe you should rather get paid by amount of work and quality? That could work even at a call centre, but this again could de-motivate new employees that are less effective = less pay? This is an issue that is vaguely discussed in the book as a solution. Today you get paid for 40 hours a week, if you can do twice as much in this time it is great. I feel that the book fails to address the solution of this. If you work twice as effective, should you get twice the pay? Or do your job in half the time and do whatever you please with the other half of the time? I feel this book fails on convincing me about this. The book fails to address the quality of work, and seems to have an understanding that the quality is high. My experience is that high quantity does not equal high quality. If I give greater pay to those high performers it might trigger other to cheat their way to a higher performance on the cost of quality. It is not hard to finish a project on time; it might be harder to make it great in time?

This book gets me thinking, and it does give you alternative solutions to your everyday look at work. It is recommended reading; if this ROWE concept works for you it might give you a change for life.