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.