Do you listen with "The third ear, the heart"?

Stephen R. Covey in his book, Spiritual Roots of Human Relations (1975) discusses the importance of listening to others with "the third ear, the heart". On page 107 he writes: "A person needs to express himself freely and fully, without fear of ridicule or embarrassment or censure. He will likely then become open to influence and to reasoning. You may think you understand, and in fact even without listening you might actually understand what is going on, but the other person may not feel understood until he has expressed himself. To him, his problem is unique. It's different. And you just can't simply categorize and generalize."

How do you strike the root of the problem!

For every thousand men hacking at the leaves, there is one striking at the root of the problem (adapted from Henry Thoreau).

The last book I read, Spiritual Roots, touches on a topic that I use in my professional life every day called "Root cause analysis" (RCA). Covey also uses root cause analysis to sort out behavioral problems, although he never really calls it RCA. Basically the way root cause analysis works is that you keep asking the question "Why does this happen" over and over again until the last answer is repeated twice, then you have arrived at the very "Root Cause" of your problems. So in a family situation the analysis could go like this, for example: 1. "Why doesn't my son listen to me (this is the observed symptom), because (fill in the blank ............. with a direct cause). 2. Why does the direct cause happen (rember it is very likely just another symptom of an underlying problem or cause) fill in the blank........... 3. Repeat this line of questioning until you repeat the answer twice. When you get to that point, you have gone beyond just the symptoms and arrived at the very root cause of the problem.

This sounds very simple and it is in some ways. I hope this is something that can help you. This is a great tool to use in many situations in life, whether it's investing in the stock market, or trying to have better peace and happiness in home. A continuation of this discussion can be found at Linkedin. Read further...

BOOK REPORT: Spiritual Roots of Human Relations

Stephen R. Covey is best known for his writing Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which has sold a whopping 10 million copies according to Amazon. The book that was the seed for Seven Habits, probably was another less known book also written by Stephen R. Covey in his forties titled, Spritual Roots of Human Relations.

I recently made a study of his book, Spiritual Roots and found it to be very inspiring and thought provoking. The copy I read was the same one my Dad read when he was exactly my age and so it was neat to see the passages that he underlined. Spritual Roots introduces many of the "Self help" concepts covered in more detail in the Seven Habits, and it takes a more spiritual approach.

One line from the book, "Every interpersonal, leadership, and social problem is actually a spiritual or moral problem." In a day when talking about spirituality is overly-taboo, Spiritual Roots is a refreshing read and insightful in the way it links undesireable behaviors and the underlying or hidden spiritual problems. Great application to family life, work life, and just life in general. In upcoming posts, I plan to write about certain insights gained from reading this book. Read more...

How do you apply the 80/20 rule in life?

Leadership requires the ability to prioritize. One way to prioritize is to use the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule basically says, that 20 percent of what you do produces 80 percent of the results of what you do. So if you can figure out what that special 20 percent is, then you can prioritize your life a little better to achieve success.

I brought this question up on my favorite discussion forum and there were many insights presented. The best insight of all was Gerard Byrne, a business analyst at Meteor Mobile, who said that if you can find out the top of the top 20 percent or 20% squared, then you can get 64% of your current results from only 4% of your efforts. Of course this is a bit of a generalization but it's a fun way to think about prioritizing your time. Especially for a math geek like me. Please read further...

John Wayne acted like a Leader

What an icon of leadership. Wayne is good for a lot of leadership oriented quotations. I know after a great acting career, he spent many years giving commencment addresses at graduations and universities. I'm sure some of this material comes from those speeches, but some comes from his movies too. He is a great character that we can all learn from. The following are some great quotes attributable to this desparato:

• Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway. John Wayne
  

• If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?' John Wayne

• If you've got them by the ['pportant appendage] their hearts and minds will follow. John Wayne
  
  
• Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid. John Wayne
  
  
• Talk low, talk slow and don't say too much. John Wayne
  
  
• Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday. John Wayne
  
  
• Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday. John Wayne

Are you a Leader in Theory or in Practice?

Leadership development inevitably includes a discussion of both leadership theory and practice. But the past few weeks, I've observed a very interesting phenomenon in leaders that I work closely with: that many effective leaders tend to use primarily just one of the two skillsets, displaying very different styles of leadership. I've discovered that some tend to be what I call "Thinkerleaders" and others tend to be "Doerleaders".

To generalize, the Thinkerleaders seem to have the ability to communicate in terms of theories or "possibilities". These are the blue sky builders, idea-men; they are full of lots of insight and understanding about formulas and approaches I can take to help push the envelope of what is possible.

Doerleaders tend to be in-touch with the day-to-day challenges of execution and are very good at assessing risk in the execution of any given business plan, or strategy because they have hands-on knowlege and are willing to think about pros-and cons concurrently. Many times they've been in the trenches, and have sound knowlege of implementation steps and the ripple effects that result from a broken process and/or poor communication. They also often perhaps do not explore deeply, certain possibilities that they feel may include too much risk.

Thinkerleaders talk, and Doer leaders walk. Do you agree with this generalization -in general? Please read more....

How do you develop yourself as a leader?

Planting the seeds of success consistently in ones life eventually leads to a discussion of leadership development. Ron Hurst, a fellow engineer and networking acquaintance of mine, posed this question recently, "How do you develop yourself as a leader?". I provided Ron my point of view on it, and he decided to publish part of my answer on his blog.

Several other professionals joined in the conversation and there seemed to emerge a common theme that leadership development requires real life leadership experiences and learning to use the faculties of the heart in everthing we do. Success begets success. Please read more...

Planting the "Seeds of Success"

Some of the best metaphors/analogies/lessons for life can be learned while working in the garden. I remember as a boy having to pick rocks out of the family garden, racking and weeding and finally planting seeds. I say "finally planting seeds" because that is where my work usually ended.

As an adult, I've come to learn there is a lot more work involved than just planting seeds if you want to enjoy the fruits of success. Just like a garden, you have to nurture and protect those seeds from intruders. Like the weeds in a garden, we need to be able to identifty early threats that would try to thwart our success.

Spring cleaning -and another job hunt.

As a father for four growing kids I am finding that the monthly outflow of money seems to be growing faster than normal pay raises can keep up with. So now I'm in the process of "upgrading" my employment.

For me this usually means searching for jobs or getting promoted in my current function. Searching for jobs can be tough work all by itself, especially when there's a layoff involved. Fortunately, there's no layoff this time and this is about the fourth time I've been through the process so I've learned to use some good principles like networking, resume building, and marketing myself.

EMPLOYMENT RECIPE

My complete employment recipe explains the job hunt process I go through in detail. It comes from my own experience, which has resulted in at least two substantial raises during my career including one that was 27% one year.

STANDOUT RESUME
In addition to following the recipe mentioned above, having good resume. I found an excellent online tutorial for writing a standout resume.

In addition to the tutorial above, there are three things to make sure is communicated through your resume.

1. I am the perfect candidate for THIS particular job


2. I possess the right mix of skills/attributes to be successful in THIS particular job


3. And most overlooked....the resume should demonstrate that you have invested a tremendous amount of resources into my preparation for this job...which will also prove that you are a good investment.

JOB WEBSITES & RESOURCES:

I've compiled my own personal database of sites on the web where I can find good engineering jobs. I hope this list can help some of my friends in the Northwest area.

Do you have a well defined "Take it easy policy"

Do you have a 'Take it easy Policy'? Being a Father of four, I find that I must continually review my "Take it easy Policy". When the storms of life are gathering, it's important to remember that you're not defined by what happens TO you but by how you handle it. At times like this, it becomes very important how we excercising our freewill.

Part of success in reaching goals is understanding how to deal with storms and discouragements that inevitably come along the way toward success. We must "See the light" behind the mountain in front of us.

"Free will" a hard obligation or inspiring challenge?

In Feb, I wrote about how to preserve our Freedom by understanding and upholding our US constitution.

Approximately one month after I posted that story, I was asked a very stirring question by a friend, whether "Free will" is a difficult obligation or inspiring challenge. I pondered on this one for a while and realized some things about free will that I never thought of before. Please read further...

Book Report: Genius of America

Look at the titles of some of the book reviews of Genius of America.

1. Required reading (the quiz? look around you)
2. An Excellent Introduction to American Constitutionalism
3. Should be required reading for all
4. Urgent and Enjoyable
5. A timely and fascinating reminder
6. Required Reading (this book is so important, there should be a quiz)
7. A guidepost and a wakeup call - that needs just one more chapter!

This last title is my book review. In short it was excellent and I encourage my friends and fellow citizens to seriously study this book. I have already begun re-reading this with my wife.

Eureka! -Archimedes would have liked LinkedIn.com

On Jan 25th as part of the Mastermind topic, I discussed networking on http://www.linkedin.com/. Linkedin has a great discussion forum where you can ask and answer other professional's questions. I know I've been talking about it a lot lately but I really like this site. It's a great way to expand and share your knowlege base with others in a given skill area and it's also a great place to brainstorm and get those "Eureaka" ideas from others.

How many ways to say "Good!"

Have you ever thought of how many ways there are to say good? I found a site called http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ that helps you figure out all the ways that you can say good. The nice thing about Visual Thesaurus is that you are able to search for synonyms in a visual display that allows you to engage your whole brain. Awesome!!!

The greats

Every so often, it's good to break up the blog routine and remember the "Greats". Those inspiring people in our life that help us to dream big. People Like:

Pavorati
Horowitz
Karah (my wife)

Book Report: Here's My Card

If you want to build a Master Mind, you're going to need some business cards. And before you spend a ton of money on business cards, you need to read: Here's My Card. It's a book about selling as much it is about business cards. Bob Popyk gives a ton of strategies to networking yourself with the help of business cards. It also contains a nice section in the back about business card design. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

VIZ Think Conference '08

I think I speak for many when I say I wish I could be in attendance at the VIZTHINK conference going on this weekend in San Francisco, CA. My friend, Jamie Nast will be speaking there and she has featured some idea maps that relates to my business on her blog. Thanks Jamie!

With interest rates at 5.25% and an ambassador like Jamie Nast, 2008 is starting off to be a great year for mortgages!!!

Book Report: It's not about the Bike

I finished Lance's 2001 edition of It's not about the Bike this past summer. The book was an inspiration to read from the stand point of overcoming health obstacles and also remembering to stay passionate about your work. In his book, Lance portrays himself as the quintessential underdog, fighting against great odds to become somebody important, a goal that would materialize in the form of winning the largest bicycle race in the world seven times -consecutively.

I give it 5 out of 5 stars. ...(read more)

Book Report: 747, a Lesson in Leadership

I recently finished 747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation. The book details some of the history, engineering challenges, and leadership challenges from the life of Joe Sutter, Chief Engineer for the worlds largest and profitable aircraft currently in Production (at the time of this writing) the Boeing 747 Jet. This is a great book for any aspiring engineer or aspiring engineering manager. 5 out of 5 stars. See my detailed book review.

Top Ten websites from 2007

In my last post, I discussed the important role of recent innovations on the web. To add to that, the following is a collection of web sites that helped me stay connected to important information and trends on the web in 2007. Most of these are buisness, networking, or productivity related but also a few fun ones. Please add your's to the list by adding a comment to this post and provide a short statement that explains why you like your site or what you use it for.

1. http://www.snap.com/ - "Picture in Picture" web browser -awesome!!!
2. http://www.linkedin.com/ - professional networking site.
3. http://www.lds.org/emp/network - LDS networking group.
4. http://blogsearch.google.com/ - Blog search engine
5. http://scholar.google.com/ - Scholar search engine
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR85o0-8sRA&watch_response
7. http://www.google.com/reader - best RSS Reader
8. http://citilend.vlending.com/officers-detail.aspx?LONum=8 - my page
9. http://www.zillow.com/ - real estate trend & mapping data
10. http://www.google.com/analytics/ - the best website reports counter
11. http://www.amfam.com/agentlocator/myHomePage.do?agent=JPOPE The number one producing insurance agent for American Family Insurance (my brother-in-law)

Additionally, I've included a few blogs that I like:

1. http://www.ldscio.org/ - Joel Dehlin
2. http://www.themortgagereports.com/ - Dan Green
3. http://www.larryhendrick.com/motivate/ - Larry Hendrick

These are just a few real good ones. Please add your own. I will update this list in the next blog entry.

2008 -The year of professional networking & wikis

Well 2007 was definitely a year of radical innovation on the Internet. It seems that almost everyone I know has a web presence, such as a blog or website. As I reflect back on some of the new Internet trends that are beginning to take shape including social and professional networking, wikis, RSS feeds, RSS readers, and even the new Google Blog search engine, I am struck by two major epiphanies.

1. There is so much STUFF to learn through these new Internet tools that you can literally get lost in all the information.


2. In a world of increasing connectivity and traffic, the key is not trying to stay well connected to all of it by yourself, but rather to keep in touch with about six to ten OTHER people who are well connected themselves.

I came to this realization through a series of steps that started with reading an article written by sociologist Mark Granovetter entitled, The Strength of Weak Ties. Granovetter helps to see how broad social network have more value than narrow and deep ones. But as I began expanding my network, I realized there is some redundancy of information among the various outlets. This led to a surprising conclusion, that I can stay just as connected through a few quality contacts as I can through scores of mediocre contacts. Napoleon Hill explains this in his timeless book, Think and grow rich. Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, all maintained what Hill calls a "Matermind", made up of about 6 to 10 trusted busines associates.

It's a powerful concept once you see it, but just as 90% of the wealth of the United States is owned by the top 1% of the wealthiest citizens, so too I believe that 90% of the best knowledge out there is also possessed by a relative minority. Finding that upper crust knowlege, and linking to it through blogs, wiki's, emails, and any communication is going to be a huge benefit for personal innovation. So what I have done is connected with people who are highly specialized in one discipline or field that I am interested in but who also have broad interests outside their field. In this way, I have expanded by knowledge base vicariously through others. It's awesome.

I'm really looking forward to 2008.

Book Report: Power NetWeaving

Last week I recommended Crucial Conversations. This week I have found the next level, after crucial conversations, you are ready for "Power Netweaving" by Robert S. Littell. The book contains an innovative way of professional networking that can be mostly understood by reading the first chapter. Bottom line: Playing the role of match maker with business people in your network indirectly enhances your image in their eyes and contributes to your own succes. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.