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SYNOPSIS The Art of War was written by a Chinese general named Sun Tzu more than 2,500 years ago. Revered for its practical advice on warfare, the lessons here apply to anyone who leads others. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of war, along with practical advice for leading effectively. Three of the more important elements of success in battle, leadership, strategy, and tactics, are critical for victory. SUMMARY Leadership The first chapters focus on leading effectively, not just in regards to strategy and tactics, but in how to instill confidence and purpose in followers. The focus here is on being strong and confident, but also on caring and being responsible for the well-being of others. There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general: Recklessness, which leads to destruction. Cowardice, which leads to capture. A hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults. A delicacy of honor, which is sensitive to shame. Over-solicitude for his men, which ...

SYNOPSIS This book divides work into two categories: 'Deep Work' and 'Shallow Work.' Shallow work is meetings, emails, phone calls, and the all those other daily tasks. The internet and social media have added even more distractions, creating more problems in time management. Getting these constant interruptions under control allows more time for deep work. Deep work is the tasks that need undivided attention and a distraction-free place. The book offers a simple formula for understanding how it works: High-quality work produced = (Time spent) x (Intensity of focus). “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” SUMMARY The need for uninterrupted concentration has become more important than ever because of the amount of information and the never-ending digital distractions. While social media and...

SYNOPSIS Design firm and idea factory IDEO has developed ten personas for innovation. These talents, or roles, help teams focus from different points of view to create more useful solutions. These ten “faces” are not just theories on the advantage of seeing things from different viewpoints. They are practical, tested methods that help create better solutions, more insightful team members, and a culture of innovation. Each persona represents a unique approach to looking at innovation and solving problems. The ten “faces” are categorized into three categories: learning, organizing, and building. These three categories are the basic building blocks of the innovation process, and the personas fine-tune the approach to take with each phase. SUMMARY The Learning Personas The first three personas are learning roles focused on the continuous need for new information. Each of these roles is designed to avoid the stagnation that plagues many organizations. Their focus is typically ex...

SYNOPSIS “Good companies embrace a culture of mini-failures.” A tour through the systems used by design firm and idea factory IDEO provides an insider's view of how innovation works and why it's a necessity for any business. The sometimes vague concepts that are a part of innovation, like brainstorming and creativity, are broken down and explained clearly enough to make them more practical to use for start-ups and established companies alike. Real-life examples and applications help bring insight into how seeing things from a fresh point of view can result in better services and products that help companies stay competitive. SUMMARY “It’s not about just coming up with the one genius idea that solves the problem, but trying and failing at a hundred other solutions before arriving at the best one.” Innovation at Work LEGO was nominated in 2015 by Forbes as the most powerful brand in the world. But just over ten years earlier, in 2004, the toy company was on the edge...

SYNOPSIS Most leaders and managers are familiar with meetings that aren't as productive as they should be. By using “parallel thinking,” where participants focus on one part of a discussion at a time, productivity is increased. This method uses the analogy of different colored hats to represent six modes of thinking. By having everyone wear the same color “hat” at the same time, it creates a group focus with a single point of view. “A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.” By moving from hat to hat, the group is able to focus more specifically on each part of the issue individually. These switches from hat to hat are also effective in keeping things moving when roadblocks pop up. At times, individuals or individual groups may wear a particular hat, focusing on a specific point of view. This allows people to step into unfamiliar roles and helps them to look at things differently, understand other roles better, a...

SYNOPSIS The leader of one of the most successful design companies, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, shares what he has learned about how to make “change by design.” Tim draws from his years of experience to present the fundamental principles of the design process, from idea to realization. These principles apply not only to products, but to services, procedures, and virtually any other kind of problem. Change By Design isn't a “how-to” book, but rather an introduction and explanation of the methods used successfully by design thinkers. These methods aren't just for creatives and designers. The principles here are practical ways of thinking for anyone who needs solutions for problems. SUMMARY “Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself.” Design Thinking When most people think of “design,” they think of creative types working feveri...

SYNOPSIS “You see, genius is a path, not a gift. Studies of history’s greatest geniuses have shown that there is a 'genius code,' if you will. A combination of very specific traits that we can develop in ourselves, and thus, operate at a genius level.” This book is based on research from a variety of sources and proposes that genius is not some mystical, elusive trait, but a combination of many personality characteristics. Genius is not innate; it is a goal that can be achieved by developing separate traits or behaviors to create the “genius code.” Becoming a genius certainly isn't easy, but it is achievable. The concepts are the results of attempts to discover the common traits of “geniuses” from all walks of life, throughout history. Initial research attempts provided few results and did not identify common genius traits. This lack of common ground among the likes of Edison, DaVinci, Socrates and even Ted Williams, uncovered the notion that genius may actually be ...