Can hardly believe how many things I’ve forgotten, since the last blog………. e.g., passwords, how to navigate on this system…….coming back slowly. I’ll be 86 in a few more weeks. Expecting to live much longer, I’m caught-up by the idea of other changes, perhaps each year will bring?! Unless I work to slow it down, with reasonable focus. Hopefully that answer will be apparent to quick observation, right here on this website.
We’ll see
A longtime friend, Allan Alter, used to be editor @ DataMation, and also spoke for me @ several Leadership Learning Forums. He accepted a position @ WEF to study/forecast the not yet much talked about Artificial Intelligence. Of course the study focus spread, linking to more of today’s disruptive trends. The resulting document goes to Davos in Jan., 2020, then more public [not available to me or most of us yet]. But much is reviewable, and provocative on WEF’s website -[ go there please and ponder the impact on you/yourposition]………… including….AI… Future jobs [displace 75 million, create 133 million] ….digital surveillance…….personalized education…..Board level responsibility….focus in China…..etc. Much to adjust for…….
wef’s website
I have been considering, and talking with others, about changing/updating some of my Leadership Learning Forum Process, with those who are currently facilitating the program in their own best way. I want to focus on books!. I believe we intended in the beginning 25 years + ago, to mean “reading”…..but it was primarily books…along with a few articles or speeches. From the beginning “books”, both number, selection and handling, have been a foundational pillar of the program. along with speakers, exercises, discussions, breakout working sessions, meditation and round-tables. I have kept a master list containing c. 500 selections, 25 labeled integrating, 25 more labeled “core”, plus c. 300 ” most often used successfully”. Very many are still chosen /reviewed..
What are other options….T.V., Radio, Podcasts, people, WWW, magazines or subscriptions, newspapers, you own thinking!………..?!?……What would you use and why?
A strong consideration is to use some of these, but only focus on “part”…passages…don’t buy the book. concentrate on a theme or perspective….a growth opportunity! I’ll write more about this, and why, in this website, in the section on LLF Changes. Join me if you like
I have now started re-writing, updating, & expanding my website, making it a key part of my remaining years [ well, I hope ten more @ a minimum!!] in this last phase of my life. The other phases are listed in my long essay bio , under the section “My Work”. Hopefully all having grow from each other and now accumulated!!….where one of the main focus points will be sharing my materials and some of my direct connection when useful to those with access.
Just a month or so ago I blogged [below] my view re. this book’s importance and ordered a copy to mark up….a”learning technique” that works for me———underlining… using arrows from one thought/expression to another…bending pages in several ways for quick reference….. making my own marginal notations. etc., etc. Am now doing so happily…and also proud that I was “early”, publicly, pushing that evaluation….for all the reasons stated below. But now, because IT IS worth every bit of my time/energy, reading fully…carefully. I am clear already about the value to me of re-reading it several more times. I will add it to my “core book” list – covered as part of the Master Book List for Leadership Learning Forums, on this website. Max Tegmark is very optimistic, while being deeply aware of the challenges and un -certaincy we face. His last sentence says it all…..”Our future isn’t written in stone, just waiting to happen to us—-it’s ours to create. Let’s create an inspiring one together”
I hope using the protected part of this website will help some do that!!
Always a struggle. Usually a tendency to change too much or too fast…to keep up with all the disrupting events, or new opportunities seemingly easily absorb-able in any organization. Poster 218 Geodesic Selection process [click here] is a framework for such consideration…Actually it’s an ongoing, every day management technique when running a LLF, since by design it shifts with the need and future of the actual participants. but in great moderation. AND I argue strongly, ONLY by a practiced, superbly alert, facilitator. Even these few facilitators must study the list, it’s implications, and the possible “magic” lost. Like
“Trust”, once lost, the “magic is very hard, perhaps impossible to regain!! Of the handful [ c. 4 of c. 250-300 I have run or helped run]. I have yet ever seen it “regained”. Only stopped. Thus the great care!!
Alan Alda’s new book [ yes, he’s from the TV show M*A*S*H], “If I Understood You, Would I have this Book in my Face – My adventures in the Art & Science of Relating and Communicating” ...especially the part just italicized, is fundamental today for all existing & aspiring I.T leaders. When he was acting [ now writing & teaching], he learned a lot about “Improv”,and shares that professional journey, its deep impact and broad applicability, for us all to benefit from. I’m on my 2nd careful read! Its relevance is essential, and often missing, in our currently fast changing set of I.T roles.Brace yourself for tons of insight, from voices not heard much in our profession. I will incorporate this in my Leadership Learning Forum Process. It adds clarity to needed shifts in every I.T. organization I am aware of!!
A very crucial organizational theme, in mt mind. Comes from another book about leadership and change…..”The Art of Change Leadership: Driving Transformation in a Fast Paced world” Cheryl Cran 4.8 of 5 multiple ranking comments in Amazon. I’d strongly suggest getting it for your own reading/reference/making it come alive. I am. Am also recommending it, quoting it, discussing the full meaning of the book title, in it’s macro implications, especially in micro/specific situations with clients, and graduates of my Leadership Learning Forum programs [perhaps 300 or more such groups now!!]
Recently while establishing several new customized cycles of the Leadership Learning Forum Process, in specific organizational settings, the 8 selection processes/discussion points [Post 280] modating increasing requirements to adjust. Hopefully that will continue amidst all the disruption/competitive pressure abound today.
I just updated, actually changing very little, the full description of “My Work” as I head into my 85th year…doing more by phone,email or virtual arrangements, with clients I know well/who know me well!
Less Travel. Often more effective,!!
The basis for the 7th phase of my life!!!
Very fulfilling…. to all.
Last week I was honored @ the 50th anniversary of the Society of Information Management [SIM], in Dallas Fort Worth, 4/11-13/18. Of the 11 SIM founders I was the “kid”, but the only one with $ and staff. All the others were authors, government officials, full professors, etc., except my boss, who was also a founder, and simply said “Get this done”. So I ran SIM for three years in my budget with two very competent young female analysts, and he approved every thing we decided to do. Twenty five years later a program I designed and implemented in my own business, I re-designed and started for SIM. It was their first program of leadership development, which they multiplied and still do today, now called Regional Leadership Forum [RLF]. There are c. 7 RLF’s in chapter areas, that produce the lion’s share of SIM revenue. Now very many of the Chapter and National leaders are graduates of that program. The 50 & 25 anniversary celebration in DFW, was generously and tastefully done, including two other long standing friends/collaborators, Bart Bolton and Darwin John, both of whom were basic in bringing The Society plus RLF, to it’s impactful position today!! Importantly ready for the challenges of the Future, SIM members face, in every profession!!
Real design, rare in most organizations, is well beyond just putting things together…which is hard enough sometimes. It requires more than a little of basic creativity…..starting almost from scratch…..or what seems like it. That is, a new market, or abrupt shift in organizational culture, a vastly different leadership style. Into such a context, the LLF process has been successfully, not easily, implanted often over the last 25+ years. Two beginning documents [recently updated] are linked here as a combined basis for starting such a design. I’ll follow these “poster” expressions with some audio ramblings….hopefully helping deepen effective understanding!
