New Business Book Summary Available for Black Hole Focus

The toughest decision a person will ever make is determining his or her ultimate purpose in life. Most people let life make this critical decision for them instead of making their own choices. The result is that they end up focusing on short-term objectives and frittering their lives away on endless streams of small, meaningless decisions that have no real impact. Black Hole Focusexplains how people can avoid this hollow fate, decide on a purpose, and align their lives around a chosen path.

Create a Culture of Learning

When something goes wrong within an organization, there is a tendency to focus on identifying who dropped the ball. While discovering the source of the problem is a logical starting point to prevent a reoccurrence, it can also demoralize employees.

Focusing on blame creates a culture of fear in which creativity is stifled and employees concentrate on avoiding punishment--whether public embarrassment, disciplinary action, or dismissal--at any cost. There are several examples of this type of culture, including doctors who are fearful of being sued for a missed diagnosis so they classify healthy patients as sickly.

On the other hand, creating a culture that embraces learning sends the signal that mistakes are an inevitable part of growth and success. For example, Children's Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis created a culture of learning by implementing an anonymous reporting system that allows any of the hospital's employees to report medical errors without revealing their identity.

Also, the organization has adopted an open communication policy that admits liability to patients for medical errors. Ironically, research involving drug-administration errors reveals that high-performing medical institutions and teams are more likely to admit errors, and these disclosures provide opportunities to learn from and avoid repeating the same mistakes.

However, the institutions that reported the least amount of errors were not rated as highly in performance and reputation. Their failure to acknowledge mistakes impedes opportunities for growth and improvement.

Leaders can create a culture of learning by rewarding responsibility over denying or shifting blame, and by creating a system of open and honest feedback. They can also shape a learning-based culture by admitting their own vulnerability to make mistakes.

Both leaders and employees can help to create a better environment by taking a rational approach to blame and credit. Most people are inclined to expect and accept praise while rejecting accountability and criticism.

Realizing the historical, cultural, and situational dynamics of credit and blame can help individuals to better understand themselves and others. Armed with this knowledge, companies can sidestep blame game triggers and focus on learning from the past while forging a successful future.

This article is based on the book "The Blame Game." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

Finding Recognition Everywhere

Effective recognition relies heavily on intrinsic motivation. Each employee has individual needs and expectations that motivate their actions.

Most people are intrinsically motivated by varying degrees of achievement, affiliation, or power/control. Supervisors present workplace goals based on these motivators.

Additionally, they must use extrinsic motivation properly by incorporating meaningful recognition into bonuses, incentives, contests, and prizes. Employees can also receive recognition that works by providing quality products and services to customers.

A workplace that allows people to contribute in a meaningful way will give their job purpose. Managers should find ways to help their employees take pride in their work and boost their team or organization's reputation in the community.

Creating an atmosphere of trustworthiness is a powerful form of intrinsic recognition. For example, Best Buy uses a system called ROWE ("results-only work environment"), in which employees chose how, when, and where their work is performed.

Supervisors only measure if the work is accomplished. This system demonstrates trust in employees and has reduced voluntary turnover and increased productivity 42 percent.

An organization can also show employees they are recognized by providing opportunities for growth. In-house vocational counselors are essential to helping employees find new areas of challenge and advancement.

People often leave a job to pursue growth opportunities in their career. By proactively encouraging and creating career furtherance from within, organizations retain valuable employees and foster company loyalty.

Fair pay, benefits, health insurance, vacation time, and a quality working environment also affect whether an employee feels recognized. People do not necessarily receive recognition from a fair salary and healthy work environment, but their absence will be perceived as a lack of recognition.

This article is based on the book 'Make Their Day!' The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

Anyone Can Have a Great Career

Having a great career entails making unique and useful contributions to an organization, in addition to instilling strong feelings of loyalty and trust within others. The unique and useful contributions make up the "what" of an individual's career.

The contributions themselves come from an individual's specific mix of passions and talents. The loyal and trusting relationships make up the "how" of an individual's career.

These flourishing relationships are the result of an individual's character and conscience. Because anyone can make unique contributions and maintain trusting and loyal relationships, anyone can have a great career.

Individuals need to practice and improve their skills to be able to contribute effectually to the organization, and they need to have a character that is worthy of the loyalty and trust of others. Career-seekers also need to maintain the right kind of ambition.

If someone is ambitious solely for financial success and is not willing to work hard for it, their ambition will likely destroy their career and make them miserable. However, if they are ambitious to make a positive and helpful contribution to their organization and the public as a whole, they will be much more likely to experience success and fulfillment both in their personal lives and in their career.

By committing to doing what is right, individuals will become driven to contribute more, feel better about themselves, earn more money, and have a wider range and greater number of positive opportunities. The landscape of the global economy is experiencing a shift from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age.

The Industrial Age used machines to increase productivity and required workers to fulfill specific roles and complete very specific tasks. In the Knowledge Age, however, people are expected to choose the problems they work on.

They need to make unique and effective contributions by using their own skills and talents to solve the issues at hand. And because of the dependence on skill and knowledge rather than machinery, there is no limit to the number of contributions an individual can make so long as they continue enriching themselves.

While it is true that the current state of the economy is resulting in a decrease in job security, it is also true that organizations still face a wide variety of problems, and by making oneself useful by posing solutions to those problems, they can ensure the security of the position they already have or obtain an entirely new position. Many employees feel as though they are just going around in circles, getting nowhere with their career.

They feel imprisoned by their job description, they limit themselves and their abilities to so that they can fit within the constraints they've imposed upon themselves. These employees need to realize that their jobs are no longer defined by their job descriptions, and that if they truly are dissatisfied with their line of work, it is never too late to reassess themselves and their career and begin the search for a position that melds better with what they have to contribute and what they would like to achieve.

In the Knowledge Age, individuals can challenge old assumptions and bring new insight to the table, they can stop pigeon-holing themselves into unsatisfying jobs, and they can address problems with a ride range of easily available informational resources. Individuals need to ask themselves what their actual contribution will be, not what their job description says.

Those stuck in the Industrial Age believe that they are their function, that they are a job seeker, or that they are simply a gear in the organization's machine, while those moving into the Knowledge Age know that they should make significant contributions, that they are a problem solver, and that they are a human being with a unique and useful set of strengths.

This articles is based on the book "Great Work, Great Career." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

Success in the Training Industry

While organizational leaders understand the importance of training, they often wrongly assume that training automatically results in improved performance. The training industry has struggled to demonstrate success in the past because organizations measure the quality of training and not the resulting impact on performance as the indicator of training's effectiveness.

The training industry borrowed its fundamental concepts from higher education. The industry boomed in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of corporations hiring externally to meet their growing training needs.

In response, training companies watered down their models to a "one-size-fits-all" approach. Training models fail when the training does not align with business goals, and misguided measurement processes do not represent return value--the primary benchmark for which training should be measured.

Measurement should focus not on the training itself but on the resulting impact on employee performance. True corporate learning can only occur when employees take ownership for their learning, an internalization that distinguishes learning from training.

In order to reach employees and influence such ownership, corporate trainers must connect with employees through experiential instructional methods, allowing trainers and employees to find a common ground. As a result, employees will feel ownership of their new skills and motivation for continued learning.

Malcolm Knowles, the father of adult learning theory, advocated for learner-centered instruction, where the instructor is a facilitator instead of a lecturer. He believed ownership of the learning process was central to learning, a departure from traditional instructional theories of "leading the learner."

Knowles's theory evolved into the action learning model, resulting in a learning system that begins with a shared experience, engages employees with corporate strategy, and leads to reflection, learning, and new application. The new application, which ends in a new experience for learners to share, completes the action model.

Trainers are called to recognize learning research, realize that adults have different learning styles, and adapt training models to interactively engage and motivate employees. Additionally, they are encouraged to take responsibility for transforming their traditional models of training into learner-centered models to extract a greater ROLI.

This article is based on the book "Corporate Learning Strategies." The book summary is available online at Business Book Summaries.

Respecting Employee Diversity

It has been previously mentioned that the larger the organization, the more diverse the workforce and the more varied the type of personalities that are present. In addition to ethics training, a highly-effective and complementary practice is to offer diversity training as well.

By recognizing employee differences, celebrating them, and teaching individuals how to respect them, it is more likely that teams will be more collaborative and employees will be able to work together more effectively.

There are two primary goals for diversity training:

1) eliminate values, stereotypes, and managerial practices that inhibit the personal and professional development of diverse employees, and

2) allow diverse employees to contribute their best efforts for achieving superior organizational performance.


As with ethics training, there are a wide number of exercises and workshops that organizations can hold to encourage more effective diversity management. When individuals within a company are able to respect each other for the behavioral choices they make, as well as for the cultural differences they may have, a more cohesive unit can be formed for greater efficiency.

The Essentials of Business Ethics by Denis Collins takes an in-depth look into the many ways companies can incorporate an ethical mindset into their business. To access the full book summary, please visit BusinessSummaries.com.

Organize According To Your Priorities

Living a clutter-filled life requires no particular skill – anyone can get the hang of it. Who is the most likely to be unorganized?

It’s those who have not identified their priorities and established supporting goals.

To organize effectively, it helps if you identify your priorities. Otherwise, you’re organizing without a goal.

Priorities are broad elements of life.

They are so basic that you can often misplace them somewhere in your go-go schedule. Start identifying
your priorities, and you’ll realize that much of the clutter you have collected does not serve you or support what you have deemed to be of importance.

Much of what you have assembled in the places and spaces of your life is useless!

The five-step procedure that follows is simple and direct and will help you to establish priorities.

1. Write down everything that is important to you, assigned to you, or that you seek to achieve. Feel free to make this list long and involved.

2. Several hours later or even the next day, revisit your list. Cross out those things that, on second reading, are not that crucial. Combine any items that appear similar to each other. The object of this second encounter is to dramatically pare down your list. If you have too many priorities, you are likely to feel anxious and frustrated. We can’t all be Superman.

3. Now, restructure, redefine, and rewrite your list if necessary; seek to streamline it. When in doubt, toss it out. If you’re unsure if an item belongs on the list, chances are, it doesn’t.

4. Put your list away and take it out the next day or the day after that. Now review it as if you are seeing it for the first time. Can any items be combined? Can anything be dropped? Should anything be reworded? As always, if something seems as if it is not that important, it probably isn’t, so feel free to drop it!

5. Go ahead and make a working list of what you feel are your priorities at this time. Yes, things will shift and change as time marches on, but this is your list for now.

The 60 Second Organizer is a valuable resource and a daily action guide to help you become a more organized person in your workplace and make it a total and effective lifestyle. To read a book summary of 'The 60 Second Organizer' please visit BusinessSummaries.com.

Maximizing Personal Productivity

The author notes that success in business planning and execution relies heavily on personal productivity skills. These skills help individuals get organized for implementation, improve their time utilization, present ideas effectively, and increase their ability to delegate work.

The most common time-wasters that plague managers are crisis management, procrastination, ineffective meetings, interruptions, and lack of plans and priorities.

Individuals who are successful at time management work on priorities that are both mission-critical and time-sensitive. According to Capezio, there are three primary types of meetings in the workplace: informational meetings, advisory meetings, and problem-solving meetings.

To make meetings more productive, Capezio recommends using the TOO Method, which stands for Topic, Objectives, and Outline.

The first step is to identify the topic. A best practice is to allow only one topic to be covered per meeting.

The second step is to establish the objectives. These are the expected outcomes from the meeting.

The final step is to prepare the outline. This contains the steps that the meeting leader and attendees will follow to accomplish the objectives.

Another important skill is making effective presentations. To communicate effectively with audiences, it is essential to analyze oneself, the audience, and the situation.

After conducting this analysis, it is possible to begin formatting the presentation. Work should focus on three key components: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.

During the presentation, managers should consider how to create a presence through appearance, language choices, pacing, and volume. After the presentation is complete, a Lessons Learned Analysis should be conducted.

When developing business plans, negotiation will inevitably occur. This type of discussion can be used to resolve a dispute, to reach an agreed-upon direction, or to satisfy diverse interests.

The negotiation style that is used will often determine the outcome of the discussion. There are three major types of negotiation styles: competitive, avoidance, and accommodating.

The competitive style focuses on winning at all costs. In contrast, the avoidance style seeks to avoid conflict and any engagement in a substantive discussion. The accommodating style focuses on pleasing the other party, but it can easily develop into a competitive style.

The most effective negotiations incorporate the interests of both parties. While this approach may be more time-consuming, it tends to create more enduring agreements.

The last way to enhance personal productivity is to strike a balance between work and one’s personal life. Capezio recommends assessing whether one’s current balance is appropriate.

It may be necessary to set explicit goals to free more time and to create a better balance. Other suggestions are to create a more flexible work schedule and to integrate work and family wherever possible.

Looking for more articles and resources on personal productivity? BusinessSummaries.com is a book summary service that provides succinct summaries of today’s business bestsellers in an easy-to-read format. For more information, please visit http://www.bizsum.com.

Get It Done

What happens when you create vitality, energy, and buzz in an organization? Well, you are certainly more visible, and you have more of a voice than others.

Your ideas will carry more weight and have more influence on the business. That means you have a better shot at getting other people to rally around your ideas.

Whether it’s calling to check in from a different time zone in the middle of the night, going the extra mile to research an issue, filling in when you are short staffed. Or connecting you to significant others in their network, people will give you more of their discretionary time and energy.

The best of the best will want to work with you, because thoroughbreds like to run with other thoroughbreds. People seek out people who energize them.

That means you have a better shot at putting together project teams that win. Do this enough and BOOM – you will build a reputation as someone the organization can trust with bigger or more important assignments.

Do you bring the same level of energy and passion to the game as those you admire – or envy?

Here are some things to consider if you want to become a “buzz agent” and bring more life to others and infuse more energy into the organization.

Give people a voice. When you create room for people to “weigh in” with their ideas, you value them – even if you disagree with them. When we are valued, we feel more vital to the organization. One of the greatest ways we can energize people is by asking for their insight, listening without distraction, and acting upon what we learn.

Build momentum. Have you ever arrived at the end of an extremely busy day and felt as though you accomplished nothing? We all want to know that we are making a difference. People get energized when they are going somewhere. You can help this along by being action oriented – by creating a sense of urgency.

Break the back of entitlement – banish it from your thinking. Entitlement is grounded in the belief that if I make a sacrifice for you or for the organization – guess what? – you owe me, baby! At some point each of us has to wake up to the fact that society is better served and we are better served when we stop claiming rights that we haven’t earned and step up to the plate of meritocracy.

You stand a much better chance of making a difference when you recognize that you earn your way into more responsibility, more autonomy, higher visibility, bigger jobs, more important roles, and better pay.

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