Peter's Top Book Pick

Do you like reading? We do! And there are some really interesting books around, like this one; Syntheism - Creating God in the Internet Age.

This is a book that dares to describe individualism as a religion and paint a reality that is primarily virtual, rather than physical. While the authors don’t mind challenging the reader’s view of the self and the world, their main intention is to induce passive receivers of the future to become more active participants. Engaging observations and perceptive interpretations of contemporary society. Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist are Swedish philosophers and authors of the internationally successful Futurica Trilogy. They lecture the world over about the current global internet revolution.

Bard & Söderqvist are regarded as pioneers in the literary genre futurica, where philosophy, social theory and futurology merge. After joining forces in the late 1990’s, Bard & Söderqvist argued that the interactive revolution is the most profound and radical of all technological revolutions in history, that it completely transforms society, politics, the economy and the culture, social power structures, the collective world view and the whole concept of being human. They demonstrated the effects of digital dynamics on various levels of a globalized world. They not only made controversial predictions in the early years of the new millennium (and cleverly foresaw both the dot.com crash and September 11), they have since then been proven right in virtually every aspect and even in the most minute of details. Not only did Bard & Söderqvist foresee revolutionary innovations such as Google, Facebook, Al-Qaida and Wikileaks; they also went deeper and looked into the very power struggle of the on-going revolution itself.

Peter Håman,

Core Team Consultant @ Lorensbergs

peter.haman@lorensbergs.se

My Favourite Resources!

I have been foolishly promising the delivery of my favourite resources to the good leaders of Spotify for some time now. And when I finally sat down to do it all I could think was... well, what are they then?

Some of you may have noticed my fascination with neuroscience. :-) I do indeed love the addition of the brain into conversations about leadership. It puts words to why we do what we do, what drives us and what causes us pain. Many of my chosen books or links here reflect that.

Here are the top 10... and then some. In no particular order:

1. To Sell is Human: the Surprising Truth about Moving Others
2. Mindset: the New Psychology of Success
3. Anything about neuroscience... like this goodie
4. Amy Cuddy and her power-posing (this finds me standing Wonder Woman style in many a meeting)
5. And speaking of Ted Talks: How great leaders inspire action: Simon Sinek
6. The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers and Blink by Gladwell are fascinating as well)
7. Drive- by Daniel Pink (or A Whole New Mind)
8. The Power of Habits
9. The Advantage: Peter Lencioni
10. The Fifth Discipline: Senge
11. and another: Sivers' Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy

For Team-Building

1. The Big Book of Virtual Team-Building

2. Gamestorming (a must)

I have a pile of other favourites around learning and how the learning organisation will adapt in the future... but I take those at another time! 

Chris- over and out!

Idea: Use a "10 Minute Tidy" in your virtual meetings!

Lives are hectic. True. And I am sure that at least once or twice a week you wake up to find your house in disarray... a half-emptied suitcase sitting open, a stack of open mail or advertisements sitting around, or wine-stained glass unwashed. No? Is that just me? :-O

It is hard to start a day working from home in those conditions. That's why when I read about the 10 Minute Tidy, I thought 'GENIUS'. Every night before getting ready for bed, do a quick 10 minute tidy and feel less cluttered in your head when you wake up the next morning. Simple.

Then the question, why don't we start implementing this rule in our virtual meetings? Save 10 minutes at the end of the meeting so everyone can reflect on the processes that have happened during the meeting or during the week. Instead of complaining about the meeting or about working from a distance, a team makes a point to tidy up loose ends, give feedback, and raise the bar for next time.

I worked with a group last month that had such a practice. They didn't call it that.. but now they do. They expressed how everyone was expected to participate. If Joe needed to leave at 11.50 instead of 12.00, the ten minute tidy started at 11.40. If they couldn't be flexible like this, Joe was expected to prioritise his team's meeting. If there was little to add, they spent time getting to know one of their team members better by sharing stories. And all of them mentioned how quickly they were able to jump into their next meeting together. Less start-up time and talking about the weather.

As research is showing us more and more, trust needs to happen quickly when meeting from a distance or our little silos become even bigger silos and since we cannot make others more trustworthy, we need to be more trustworthy ourselves. The Ten Minute Tidy gives you the opportunity to demonstrate trustworthiness. Are you honestly sharing feedback about the meeting with the team? Are you contributing with credible information? Are you reliably participating every time? These 10 minutes are an investment in trust. Anyone have a simliar practice to share? 

#Getyourtidyon!

Christina Hogan