Start with why (book review)

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Simon Sinek
Portfolio / Penguin, 2009

Some time ago, I presented you a TED Talk of the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek. Today, I'll review his book called Start with Why

Why review particulary this book about leadership as there are many of them? What makes this one different? Well, this publication won't teach you how to become a leader within a month or so. You won't either learn any tips or tricks. But what will it tell you instead?

This book is all about passion and intrinsic motivation. Sinek begins to  tell about planes. Samuel Pierpont Langley started the development of a plane in the early 1900's. He gathered a considerable budget and some highly educated people around him.

However, he was "beaten" by Orville and Wilbur Wright who created their aircraft in a bicycleshop along with some other people. Not a single one had an advanced degree or even a college education.

Why did they succeed? Because it was their passion to fly. The Wright brothers were able to inspire those around them and truly lead their team to develop the technology. In short, they started with WHY.

Subsequently the author explains his Golden Cicle which consists of three parts: WHAT, HOW and WHY.

Picture: Wikipedia

• WHAT: Every single company and organization on the planet knows WHAT they do.
• HOW: Some companies and people even know HOW they do WHAT they do. HOW's are often given to explain how something is different or better, for instance an unique selling point.
• WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. Not making money—that’s a result. By WHY Sinek means what is your purpose, cause or belief? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?

Furthermore Sinek tells his readers how great leaders inspire their followers which can be employees, customers, voters, etc. He explains WHAT to do and HOW. Just kidding. ;-) He talks about communication, which by the way is all about listening; not speaking.

I like Start with Why because of it's message. No X steps to success or something like that. Sinek explains the difference between focussing on WHAT or even HOW and WHY and the consequences thereof.

In the first situation a regular product, service or message ("me too") is created. People need to be manipulated to buy it. So a marketing campaign is launched.

In the second a (slightly) different item is developed. Manipulation is still necessary. The focus will now be on the product's features. "Great gas mileage", "X GB disc space".

In the latter the status quo - or even the world - will be changed. People get intrinsically motivated. Which will last, do you think?

Keep on reading!

In praise of slowness (video)

Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slowness, told his story at TED. The talked about the speed of our society, the slow movement and raising kids.

He enjoys speed in some ways, like squash and ice hockey. But he also understands that it is import to slow down to prevent burn outs and other health issues.

So, if you want to slow down quickly ;-) listen to his story.

Enjoy!

Low information diet (manifesto)

Everyday we're overwhelmed with information: e-mail, RSS, social and traditional media, television, radio, news papers, bill boards, etc. Our brains aren't able to process that much data. But how to manage this  mass of information?

Personally, I use two e-mail boxes: one of my employer and one of my own. I use them strictly for their own purpose. Therefore the information is separated and it prevents distraction. Furthermore I filter e-mail: incoming messages are sorted according to topic (project, hobby, etc.). I close my inboxes during work. A few times a day, I check my mail. But most of all: I (try to) sent short and clear messages only to people involved.

I gather a bunch of information about topics I'm interested in. Supply Chain Management, information management, ICT, innovation, lifehacking, non-fiction books, recumbent bikes, cycling and so on. RSS is a my channel of choice. It's easy to subscribe to RSS feeds (also on this blog) and read them in a feed reader, like Feedly. In fact it's so easy, my overload moved in no time to my feed reader. Now I filter the feeds with Yahoo Pipes so I receive only those messages, I'm interested in.

Tim Ferris wrote a nice manifesto about this topic and published it a ChangeThis.com. You'll find several nice tips and tricks to handle information overload. According to me, Tim is rather radical; my approach is less extreme. For those interested, Ferris wrote an interesting book with an intruguing title: The 4-Hour Workweek.

How do you manage your information?

Good luck!

What I use

Some time ago, a few (former) editors of Lifehacker exposed the gear they use daily. You may read about the hardware, software and desk setups of Kevin Purdy, Jason Fitzpatrick, Adam Pash, Adam Dachis and Whitson Gordon. As a bonus, they also added some productivity tips. Altough some of their tools may be somewhat outdated nowadays, their choices, ideas and tips are still refreshing. Here's what I use.

Desktop

At home I use an ordinary, nameless PC of a few years old.

• Debian Stable with the XFCE desktop environment. Together this makes a stable and lighweight system.
• LyX, my favorite document processor (see my article).
• LibreOffice, mainly Calc en Writer (for reading incoming documents).
• IceDove: a rebranded version of Thunderbird for backing up e-mails.
• VLC Media Player
• Rhythmbox for organising music and downloading podcasts.
• Calibre for organising e-books.
• f.Lux for ergonomic purposes (see my review).
• Cooler Master Quickfire XT mechanical keyboard.

Laptop

At work, I use a laptop of my employer, Ordina. By the way, Ordina is an abbreviation of ordinateur, which is the French word for computer. In addition to the installed software, I use some portable applications. I carry 'my' laptop, along my other work-stuff, in a backpack of HP.

• Windows 7 + Security Essentials
• Office 2010, including Visio and Lync.
• PDF Creator for printing to PDF.
• LyX, my favorite document processor (see my article).
• FoxIt Reader: lightweight PDF Reader (in stead of Adobe Reader).
• FreeMind: mind mapping software.
• Executor: an excellent and lightweight application launcher (see my article).
• WorkRave: anti-RSI software  (see my review).
• f.Lux for ergonomic purposes (see my review).
• MW Snap to create screenshots.
• VLC Portable Media Player.

Netbook

Furthermore, I own a Acer Aspire A110 netbook. My software of choice for this machine is Puppy Linux. This is a very light weight operating system completely running in RAM. I use the netbook mostly for surfing the internet.

Browser and web apps

Both at home and at work, my browsers of choice are Iron and Firefox. The fox is heavily tweaked. Adblock Plus and HTTPS Everywhere are added to both browsers. At work I use Readability about which I wrote earlier. As mentioned elsewhere, I use bookmarklets, for instance to share articles or to translate them.

On the web I use GMail along with Rapportive, Feedly (since Google Reader stopped), Blogger and Diigo. And ofcourse, the social media mentioned on my profile.

Phone

Although my employer gave me a smartphone, I still like... the Nokia 6310i. It's reliable, easy to use, has a good battery life (even after years of intensive usage) and... enables me to call and to be called. Apart from work, it's the best choice for outdoor and sporting activities, like randonneuring.

What about you? Which gear do you use?

The Peter principle (book review)

The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull

William Morrow & Company, 1969

Among the other books on my blog, there's one that really belongs here. I'm talking about The Peter Principle by Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull which I'll review today. Although it's written in 1969, I'm afraid it's still actual. ;-) Anyway, it's still funny.

The authors noticed many things go wrong everyday. A bridge collapses, a new baseball stadium isn't fit for playing baseball and so on. Prof. Peter asked himself how this could happen and started a new science: hierarchiology. His conclusion became known as the Peter Principle:

"Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence."

In many companies and organisations, it's practice to offer well performing employees a promotion. However, their results at their current position doesn't guarantee success at a higher position. People get as many promotions till they reach a postion they aren't competent for. Supercompetent employees however, call up resistance and... get fired. How tragic is that!

Peter identified this mechanism not only in companies but also in schools, medical institutions and politics. He questions if we are governed by vicious people sitting on our skin or well-meaning imbiciels (...).

But how to prevent reaching our level of incompetence? Peter explains there are two options: resist promotion (not recommended) or fake incompetence. ;-)

Despite of its funny tone of voice, The Peter Principle has a deep undertone. Many failures in modern society are unnecessary. They are caused by people functioning at the wrong level. The book is an easy read with enteraining examples.

What about you?

Happy reading!

Golden circle (video)

A few weeks ago, I joined a training Business Case Management at Ordina. Being a Project Manager, I've lead many projects. Most of them (more or less) according PRINCE2. Therefore I'm used to business cases. However, the quality of these justifications of our efforts, differ from project to project.

Often, a business case is formulated and discussed at the start of a project and never reviewed or evaluated later anymore. I know, that's not how it's meant to be. But unfortunately, it's practise in many organisations.

During our training, we discussed Business Case Management. Not just defining costs and benefits and writing them down. No, think about the Why of a project. Simon Sinek explains in a wonderful TED Talk his golden circle.

You may also be interested in my book review of Start with why.

Enjoy!

The cathedral & the bazaar (video)

A few weeks ago, a review of The cathedral & the bazaar by Eric Raymond.

Interested in the book but no time to read it (now)? Here's a nice video by karlpalmas of it.

Enjoy!

The cathedral & the bazaar (book review)

The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary

Eric S. Raymond

Feedbooks, 2000

Open source software is increasingly popular these days. As I got interested in this phenomen, I decided to read some books about this topic. In this post, I'll review The Cathedral & the Bazaar by Eric Raymond.

The author (co-) developed Unix and open source software since the early 1980's. In the Unix tradition, these applications were small and single purposed. Till Linux was released, he believed there was a certain complexity above which a more centralized, a priori approach was required. It needed to be built like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation. However, he found out the Linux community works different, despite its complex product. It releases software early and often. Its founder, Linus Torvalds delegates everything he can and he's open to the point of promiscuity. It seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles. And it works!

How could this be possible? Raymond found out by doing. He met a problem with his e-mail client and started working on a piece of software called popclient which later became fetchmail. As internet access became cheap, it was easy to reach contributants all over the country and even abroad.

Many open source projects, are initiated by a problem of a software developer. He (or she) starts engineering and releases an early version through the web. Others - many call themselves hackers - get interested and start testing and co-developing. If the code isn't good enough, they throw it away and start again. The result is often good and simple software.

From a social point of view, a community initator attracks people e.g. with a nice puzzle. He interests them by discussing and designing possible solutions. During the project, he keeps them happy by rewarding them. These rewards can be honouring their ideas or code, features added or removed (!), etc. It's not about money. An attitude of egoless programming is needed. There are no territories and collegial reviews are strongly encouraged.

The author mentions some differences according to the development of proprietary software. First of all the open source community doesn't meet strict deadlines. Furthermore there's almost no budget. Lastly he discusses the role of project managers in traditional development. It's their job to claim and defend resources, to motivate project members and to keep an eye on the progress and scope of the project. Good project managers, like a friend of Eric, are busy with these tasks. However, in open source projects these are obsolete as people contribute voluntary.

In The cathedral & the bazaar, Raymond explains how open source software is created. He became aware of the way Torvalds and the Linux community developed their operating system. He took over their way of working. He guides his readers through the process of (re-) engineering an application explaining the lessons he learned. The book is not technical in a sense of detailling software code and so on. Therefore, it's readable for a broad adience. According to the open source principles, the book is available for free. There's also a short video of the book.

For me, the book was interesting to read. I learned a lot but there's one question left. What about developing open source software not initiated by a problem of a software engineer? E.g. for business applications. Or what about open source development at companies like Canonical, IBM, Oracle and RedHat? What are their drivers to create useable and reliable applications?

Happy reading!