Showing posts sorted by date for query 7 habits. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query 7 habits. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Saturday, October 22, 2016

books: Robin Sharma

The Leader Who Had No Title Book Cover
Robin Sharma | Brian Johnson

The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma | PhilosophersNotes - OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson
  • "You Need No Title to Be a Leader:
    Commit to doing your absolute best and striving to be *the* best in the world at what you do
  • Turbulent Times Build Great Leaders: We just need to lean in, say “bring it on!  
  • The Deeper Your Relationships, the Stronger Your Leadership.  
  • To Be a Great Leader, First Become a Great Person. 
    The first person we need to lead is always ourselves. "

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari Book CoverThe Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma | PhilosophersNotes - OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson
"The fable shines light on these “7 Timeless Virtues of Enlightened Living”:
  1. Master Your Mind
  2. Follow Your Purpose
  3. Practice Kaizen (constant and never-ending improvement)
  4. Live with Discipline
  5. Respect Your Time
  6. Selflessly Serve Others"

Interview: The Game-Changers Blueprint with Robin Sharma - YouTube

  • Greatness: 
    • everybody is born with some greatness, that is lost if you try to become "average".
    • always start from yourself, what you think of yourself you become; 
    • "we don't see the world as it truly is, we see the world as we are"
    • no blaming, be response-able;
      it is our belief system that is causing us to behave certain way
    • don't think problems, think possibilities, opportunities; 
  • Leadership:
    • not confered only to heads of states and corporations
    • do thinks well and right to raise self-identity and self-image
    • words are powerful: shift from victim speak (blaming)
      to leadership language (positive)
    • conversations: be in circles where you are not the best to learn
    • learning: avoid busy distractions, invest 
    • leadership is about service; to lead is to serve
    • greatness is using your life no matter what you do to lift the world
      and other human being by your presence, your mindset, your work. 
  • Get daily habits right:
    • start each day ("5 AM club") with 20-20-20 minutes of glory:
      exercise, thinking (planning, journaling), learning 
    • commitment to fundamentals, daily improvements, consistency
    • "world class performance is less about complexity
      and more about optimizing simplicity"
    • 90-90-1 rule: for first 90 min of the day, for 90 days, do one most important thing
      (typically we get addicted to distractions and be average in many things
      instead of being great of one thing)
    • 60-10 method: science has shown that the best performers
      work in 60-minutes bursts, an  then have 10 minutes breaks
    • It takes 66 days to install new habits; have to stay with new habits long enough
    • "All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end"
    • Make sure you get enough sleep
  • Power of goals:
    • "Clarity breads mastery"
    • "Vague visions lead to vague executions"
    • World class performers have not gotten there by luck,
      they got there by strategy and execution. 
    • Great way to start is to get great clarity on what is important to you.
    • "Big 5 goals": for life, yearly 5, monthly 5, weekly 5, daily 5 goals
  • "Game-changers blueprint"
    • coming up even greater changes and challenges in the world
    • for leaders those will be exciting and inspiring times
    • best information from experiences of great leaders
  • One final message: 
    • less ego more service; humanity, decency, optimism 
    • everyone matters, there is a reason why you are in this world  
    • yes it is hard, if it was easy everyone would be world class
Robin Sharma : Official Site : Leadership Development Training & Consulting

Robin Sharma - YouTube

Robin S. Sharma (Author of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari) @ GoodReads
“When you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.” - Ancient Sanskrit saying



Sunday, September 25, 2016

books by Michael Hyatt

Excellent free ebook, how to optimize your time. A must read (or listen text to speech :) Michael writes (and podcasts) about "how to win at work and succeed at life"

Productivity Archives - Michael Hyatt
Shave 10 Hours Off Your Workweek:
4 Proven Strategies for Creating More Margin for the Things That Matter Most
.


HOW to GET YOUR TIME BACK:
  1. BOOST YOUR ENERGY ("Sleep, Move, Eat")
  2. GUARD YOUR TIME
  3. SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
  4. FLEX YOUR ‘NO’ MUSCLE

The book describes very practical techniques, 

Monday, April 20, 2015

== Business Ideas & Books (!)

Learn from experts

Want to be successful in business (and otherwise)?
Best advice: "Learn from experts,"
or to quote Isaac Newton: "Stand of the shoulders of the giants."

A good idea, "point of view," from an expert could help enormously.
On the other side, a wrong idea may be very detrimental.
To quote Alan Kay, inventor of GUI and Object Oriented programming:
"Point of view is worth 80 IQ points" so it helps to be +80 IQ (smart), not -80 IQ (dumb).

Here is a collection of a few powerful business ideas from experts,
usually in form of popular books and video presentations.
I wrote blog posts about them separately, here are the links somewhat organized.

Future is predictable

Leading business requires "predicting future" and acting pro-actively.
To predict and avoid guessing, just use things you can be certain about, avoid other "information"

DraganSr: ideas: Flash Foresight - Daniel Burrus (!)


Future: Creator Economy

After "Producer-driven" economy (100-50 years ago), and "Consumer-driven" economy (50 years ago to now), a new "scarcity" is "attention" and new value is "engagement" to create.

DraganSr: ideas: Future "Creator Economy" by Paul Saffo (!)



Innovation vs. Improvement

Thanks to 50 years of Moore’s Law technology is improving exponentially, 
and new is replacing old every few years. This is very powerful, and very disruptive trend. 

A good business that just follows current demands of its customers

becomes a victim of disruptive businesses that starts small and improve quickly.
This is like gravity, a natural law, you can ignore it on your peril only.


DraganSr: book: The Innovator's Dilemma



Key concept: Users Awesome vs. Product Awesome

So when disruption of stable business is imminent, how to run business with so much competition?
Here is a powerful and success-creating insight: 
users / customers don't really care how good is your business product or service;
users only care about themselves becoming more successful, by using your product or service! 

And this is a beautiful fact: rather than competing to make a better product or service
we can focus on how to help users improve their "big picture" desires.
We don't need a best product, we need to be a good help to our users to be successful!

DraganSr: book: Badass: Making Users Awesome: Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates
DraganSr: Kathy Sierra: User Awesome vs App Awesome

Significant business research elaborates value of focus on
creating and capturing new markets and new demand. 
Apple growth since creation of iPod, then iPhone, iPad is 75 times (!)
vs Microsoft flat business by owning Windows market but not creating new. 

DraganSr: ideas: Blue Ocean Strategy
Red-Ocean-vs-Blue-Ocean-Strategy

Be 10x better, brand, network, and avoid competition (again)

So how to create a new market category?
Look experiences of those who did it repeatedly, in billions of dollars.
Startups are not just in Silicon Valley garages, every business can try something new. 
But there are good and bad ways to do that, so learn from the experts.

DraganSr: book: Zero to One (Peter Thiel)
DraganSr: Zero to One: 7 key questions for innovation
DraganSr: Stanford class: How to Start a Startup


How to be 10x better: Focus on Essentials!

In the modern economy it is not sufficient to be "average."
As a business and as a person you need to "stand out" in a crowd
by being 10x better in something useful than anybody else: your essentials!

That needs to be in area that you really care about not just for money,
it is your (business) core competence, and where there is a potential market. 

DraganSr: ideas, book: Essentialism - The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Learn from data: great people make great business 

There are smart analytic-oriented people that could derive value from data,
including by analyzing business performance, decision making, etc. 
Many business ideas come from Stanford and Harvard. Some are good read
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Others are also interesting and practical:
DraganSr: Book "Decisive" by Chip and Dan Heath
Chip & Dan Heath - NYT bestselling authors of Made to Stick and Switch Heath Brothers

First things First

A journey to be successful needs to be efficient,
and to be efficient it needs a good "mental map".

7-habits model is a beautiful and elegant story of 
growth from "dependence" to "independence" to "inter-dependence". 
Start from Vision and Mission, Begin with the end in mind, and do "First things first".
Then "Think Win-Win", "Listen first", and "Work together." 
And keep learning. 


First, most important, things are those that are important but not urgent
By doing less of other, non-important things, we free most critical resource: time for "first things". 

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Quote: "Always take your job seriously, never yourself" - Eisenhower

Thursday, March 05, 2015

7 Habits of Highly Effective Software Developers (The Simple Programmer Test)

The Joel Test Updated For Programmers by John Sonmez @ SimpleProgrammer
(The Simple Programmer Test)
  1. "Can you use source control effectively?
  2. Can you solve algorithm-type problems?
  3. Can you program in more than one language or technology?
  4. Do you do something to increase your education or skills every day?
  5. Do you name things appropriately?
  6. Can you communicate your ideas effectively?
  7. Do you understand basic design patterns?
  8. Do you know how to debug effectively?
  9. Do you test your own code?
  10. Do you share your knowledge?
  11. Do you use the best tools for your job?
  12. Can you build an actual application?"
(podcast interview with John Sonmez Soft Skills - MS Dev Show Podcast)

The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code - Joel on Software by by Joel Spolsky
  1. "Do you use source control?
  2. Can you make a build in one step?
  3. Do you make daily builds?
  4. Do you have a bug database?
  5. Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
  6. Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
  7. Do you have a spec?
  8. Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
  9. Do you use the best tools money can buy?
  10. Do you have testers?
  11. Do new candidates write code during their interview?
  12. Do you do hallway usability testing?"

Could those 12 recommendations be mapped to "7 habits of highly effective programmers?"
Here is my attempt...

Independence
  • Be Proactive (anticipatory, responsible, response-able, not just "reactive")
    • use source control, name appropriately, 
  • Begin with the End in Mind (envision future)
    • know algorithms, design patterns, 
  • Put First Things First (urgent / important quadrants)
    • use good tools, testing, debugging,
Interdependence
  • Think Win-Win (mutually beneficial agreements)
    • do teaching, 
  • Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
    • communicate effectively,
  • Synergize (combine the strengths)
    • create apps,
Continuous Improvements
  • Sharpen the Saw (learning, physical and mental renewal)
    • keep learning, multiple languages, 

image/svg+xml 1. Be Proactive 3. FirstThings First 4. ThinkWin-Win 5. Seekto Understand 6.Synergize 7. SharpenThe Saw 2. Begin with the Endin Mind Source ControlClean Code Design PatternsAlgorithms Tools, Testing, Debugging Keep Learning,Languages Sharing,Teaching CommunicateEffectively CreateApps

As most of the tings on internet, similar ideas are already presented before, but not this simple and visual :)


Friday, July 18, 2014

IoT: 7 Habits of Highly Effective Things on Internet (!)

The CompuServe of Things: by Phil Windley @ Technometria
"On the Net today we face a choice between freedom and captivity, independence and dependence."

Online 2.0: Return of the Silos Each of these online service businesses sought to offer a complete soup-to-nuts experience and capitalized on their captive audiences in order to get businesses to pay for access.

A Real, Open Internet of Things If we were really building the Internet of Things, with all that that term implies, there'd be open, decentralized, heterarchical systems at its core, just like the Internet itself. There aren't. Sure, we're using TCP/IP and HTTP, but we're doing it in a way that is closed, centralized, and hierarchical with only a minimal nod to interoperability using APIs.



To follow the metaphor, besides "dependence" and "independence" there is also "interdependence", an ultimate level of collaboration
as defined in "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by  Stephen R. Covey
This could be an effective template for building IoT:

wt ch5 b covey seven habits 7 Habits of Highly Effective People


"Things on Internet", similar to people, start as "Dependent",
that is they need others to take care of them,
then progressing to be "Independent", self-sufficient,
and finally "Interdependent", working well with others.

Independence (self-mastery):
  • Habit 1: Be Proactive
To be "responsible", response-able, not just "reactive".
In a way, to be "smarter" things, adaptable, not just hard-coded.   
  • Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
"Things" should start with well defined "purpose",
features and characteristics in context of usage. 
  • Habit 3: Put First Things First
Focus on performing most relevant function very well.
With so many "things", even "smart" toaster should be a good toaster first. 
This starts from clear description , and then solid implementation.

Interdependence (working well with others): 
  • Habit 4: Think Win-Win
"Things" that are well focused can be combined with other "things" to mutually support each other. Clearly defined interfaces, "API"s, help avoid combining incompatible "things" and avoid problems. 
  • Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
This is related to Internet (TCP) Robustness principle
"Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept"
  • Habit 6: Synergize
Combine the strengths of "things" through positive collaboration,
to achieve solutions no one "thing" could have done alone.

Continuous Improvement
  • Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
People need to keep learning, "things" (and "services") need to keep upgrading.
Hardware, firmware and software upgrades are an essential feature. 

OK, that is it, "solid design principles" for IoT :)

Friday, July 20, 2012

Stephen Covey's 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People

RIP Stephen Covey. Here are his famous '7 Habits Of Highly Effective People' - Business Insider

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  1. Be Proactive
  2. Begin With The End In Mind
  3. Put First Things First
  4. Think Win/Win
  5. Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
  6. Synergize 
  7. Sharpen The Saw

Levels of development:
  • Dependence
  • Independence
  • Interdependence
Habit 3: Put First Things First (focus on quadrant II)
First Things First (book) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 



Stephen R. Covey speaking at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania - YouTube

Saturday, August 21, 2010

SW Paradigms: Waterfall, Agile, Craftsmanship

Software Manifesto Paradigm Shifts:
Waterfall, Agile, Craftsmanship

I have combined "Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship"
with "Agile Manifesto" (see both at the end of this text)
to present natural evolution of software development processes.

WaterfallAgileCraftsmanship
3. comprehensive documentation2. working software1. well-crafted software
1. following a plan4. responding to change2. steadily adding value
4. processes and tools1. individuals and interactions3. community of professionals
2. contract negotiation3. customer collaboration4. productive partnerships


In addition, I have extended the evolution metaphor
to "maturity models" (you => I => we), well known in psychology,
and popularized by book "7 Habits of highly effective people".
"Agile" principles are described in contrast with pre-Agile ("Waterfall"),
and "Craftsmanship" principles are described in contrast with Agile.

The order of principles has changed, I have added numbers in the table to show original priority. For "Waterfall" order of priorities, I am sure pre-Agile practitioners would have opinion of their own.

Now, those "levels of thinking" could be related to paradigm shifts well known in psychology, and described by Dr. Stephen Covey in his seminal book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"
that represent maturity level of an individual or an organization.

Dependence Independence Interdependence
YOU I WE
take care of me can do it myself can do it better together

  • At the beginning, a developer behaves as a child, dependent on a bureaucratic organization to do planning, monitor every step.

  • By accepting Agile principles, a developer becomes independent, able to solve problems on his/her own in efficient way.

  • Finally, at Craftsmanship level, it accepts ultimate response-ability for Quality of the work, and is able to work in interdependent effective teams to produce worthy results in a synergistic way!
This progression is natural, and requires focused effort. It applies to all fields of human development, including software! There are no shortcuts, and focused practices help produce real professionals in the field.
By extending the metaphor, we can describe "7 Habits of Highly Effective Software Developers", almost as a tutorial how to improve on Jurney from Novice to Expert described in excellent book Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt, one signers of Agile Manifesto.



Manifesto for Agile Software Development
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:


Individuals and interactions  
over processes and tools
Working software  over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration  over contract negotiation
Responding to change  
over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. 


Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship "Raising the bar.
As aspiring Software Craftsmen we are raising the bar of professional software development by practicing it and helping others learn the craft. Through this work we have come to value:

Not only working software, 
but also well-crafted software
Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value
Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals
Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships

That is, in pursuit of the items on the left we have found the items on the right to be indispensable."