Sunday, November 05, 2006

You're in Charge - Now what

I am beating yself up for not being productive today. No work out. Although I did run 12K yesterday in 58 minutes. Last night I attended the wedding of one of my staff. High attention to the smallest detail. Very well planned event. It was a great party. Lots of SYNNEX people attended so it was a bit like a SYNNEX party which I always enjoy.

I read a great book that is of interest to anyone who is starting running a company called, You're in charge – Now What? The 8 Point Plan, by Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin.

The book is a how to guide for first time presidents and CEOs who are taking over a new position. It goes through eight steps to take; however, I am not trying to do a book summary here so I will let you buy the book if you want to know the eight steps.

One thing the book emphasizes is having a 100 day plan. I find this very interesting because I always believed in having 90 day plans and have been a big advocate and used them for a long, long time. I would tend to break a 90 day plan into a three 30 day segments and when I completed the first 30 day segment, I would add another segment so I always have a 90 day rolling plan.

The gist of the message in the book is the first 100 days is for a new leader in the organization to set the tone for the rest of the leader's tenure so they become the most critical. During the 100 days, the leader needs to study well; set and align proper expectations; shape the management team; craft the strategic agenda; start the transformation process.

I strongly recommend the book for anyone who is a new leader in an organization. I question if the audience is large enough to have a book written specifically for new leaders of organizations.

I may have been more interested in it than others because of my position.

I wish I had read this before I started at SYNNEX two years ago.

Although it is interesting that many of the ideas in the book are ideas that I already use.

1 Comments:

At 12:58 PM, Blogger steven edward streight said...

That's why I like your blog being titled "...Time Leadership" since everyone, not just CEOs, needs to improve time usage.

I need to schedule time to read this blog more often, since you nailed my biggest weakness: time management.

I spend too much time on computer, so my neck is messed up. I have to micro-manage my time: spend 30 minutes (with egg timer) on, 30 minutes off (on the floor, resting my twice broke back, reading Tom Peters, Drucker, Godin, Harvey Mackay, Jakob Nielsen, Jacques Derrida books).

I have never been a big fan of saying "In 6 months my business will be at such and such level". I'm adverse to it. I don't know why. I guess because in my work, as web usability analyst and ecommerce consultant, things happen so fast, and big changes of direction occur randomly.

It's like Agile processes in office work, the small module, always releaseable product, micro-perfectionism that I utilize in my work as consultant.

I multi task, but I also can focus very minutely, as when working on HTML code, or when micro-managing sound paths in computer music tracks on Audacity audio editor.

So you give me much to ponder, and I will be a better man because of this blog.

 

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