Sunday, May 03, 2015

Dare to Serve

I am loving this weather.  It is hard to restrain myself from planting a garden.  I know the hard way that that would be foolish.  May 24 is the earliest planting date for me.

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I read a great book today - Dare to Serve - How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others by Cheryl Bachelder.  Cheryl is the CEO who successfully turned around fast food company Popeyes.

I was not sure I would like it because of a predetermined biased against Popeye's.  I do not eat fast food and Popeyes does not mesh with my view of what wholesome good food is.  I daresay their chickens are not organically free range raised.    I worry about childhood obesity too.  CBC has a good article on  "the cure parents will hate".  But I digress...

So I started with a negative bias but the book is awesome and perfect for any leader.

I think that Cheryl is a good person just from reading the book.  I have never met her.  She just seems like a great person.

Cheryl talks about the power of leading through serving.  She expands on the Jim Collin's level 5 leaders.  They look out first for the good of the company.

Much of good leadership has to do with ego and humility.  The world tends to heap praise on leaders and it is easy for that to go to your head.  I often say I am very lucky.

I liked the chapter on principles.  They drive the organization.

She also wrote about purpose and the importance of having clarity of purpose.

Some other style things I liked about the book:

1 - it is short and to the point

2 - it is peppered with quotes which I love.  (one of the great ones was "So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work"  Peter Drucker)

3 - I liked the summary at the end.  You could actually just read that and get most of the gist of it.

There is very little about Popeyes in the book - it is all about leadership.

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I am not a royal watcher but it did come to my attention that Will and Kate's baby arrived.  Apparently she bears a great resemblance to my own grand daughter, Elizabeth.

Do I have to have a chat with my son in law, Mario?  Should I tell Jennifer?