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Jan 11, 2012

Put more wood on fewer arrows

This theme of keeping it simple sweetheart; simplicity is the new complex etc has been around for a while but no one, no one - took this as far as Steve Jobs did with his products. Sir Walter Issacson in his biography on Steve Jobs mentions that Steve wanted to give back and was mentoring both Mark & Larry Page. I'm yet to see Facebook implement any Simplistic designs, but I was pleased today to see this write up on Google streamlining and getting back to start up mode.

Here are some key steps that google took --

  • Meaning full meetings - Every decision-oriented meeting should have a clear decision-maker, and if it didn't, the meeting shouldn’t happen
  • Bullpens aren’t Just for Pitchers - It’s amazing how fast things can get done – even in a large company – when you put so many key people together and don’t give them an agenda.
  • Use OKRs to Unify - Team by team, the leaders lay out their (Objectives and Key Results) and how they’ll measure success. Afterwards, they’re posted for anyone within the company to see.
  • Buck stops here - streamline the decision-making process. To do this, they adopted a ‘buck stops here’ approach that has been very effective
  • Make tough calls – closed more than half their products or Larry Page says, to “put more wood behind fewer arrows.” There are no companies that make good slow decisions.


With the takeaways above and its move to close a bunch of high profile products, im once again excited by this shop. 

Read the entire article -- 
http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/quarterly/speed/start-up-speed-kristen-gil.html




Jul 5, 2011

Best Books to Read on Personal Development

Best Books to Read on Personal Development: "

What are the best books to read on personal development, business, leadership, management, etc.?

How To Find the Best Books to Read
That’s a tough question to answer because it’s about context, relevancy, and your particular situation. That said, maybe a better question is, how do you figure out the best books to read? The approach I've used is three-fold:

  1. I've spent a few hundred dollars on books each month and I test them at Microsoft in terms of leading teams, driving results, personal growth, building leadership skills, improving time management, etc. (My pain can be your gain.)
  2. I've asked the most effective people I know, which books have changed their life or in some way helped them build skills or mental models and strategies to get results. (This has been the most surprising and effective way that I find the books to read that help the most.)
  3. I've focused on solving relevant and real-world problems, using both with timeless truths, and new books with emerging practices. I’ve found that the value of a book is the value of the problem solved.

It's been many years, blood, sweat, and tears, of cultivating a library of the world's best insight and action for work and life. It's all part of the path. Part of my staying power is that it's a labor of love -- I have a passion for reading, and long ago, I learned to embrace continuous learning as a success strategy for life.

One thing I do need to say is that while it might seem like a long and winding road, books have always been my short-cut. They are self-paced and, as a fast reader, I can learn the information and apply it very quickly to get results.

Best Books to Read
Here are some of my collections of best books to read:

Hopefully, this can help you find the books you've been looking for, or at least help you find new and interesting books to read that might help you in ways you didn’t expect. Hopefully, this also saves you a lot of time on your journey by providing a "book map" of useful books organized by key categories.

The landscape is always changing, so I'm always interested in hearing about books that I should read.

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