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So…

How do you remember names and faces?

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In what areas do you have systems that you might not actually need? Here are some of mine:

• Tracking parts of my finances that aren’t tax or business-related, and that I never go back and look at. (E.g. tracking daily expenses but never actually printing a report to find out how I spend my money.)
• Sorting socks.
• Elaborate TO-DO management software.
• Labeling my bookshelves by subject but not actually filing my books that way.
• Scheduled “let’s discuss house finances” days that don’t happen.

What about for you?

This job is incredibly exciting. The new Babson president, Len Schlesinger, has been a colleague, friend, mentor, and originally professor of mine since 1989. He’s one of the most visionary people I have ever met, combined with a firm grasp of data and execution. In short, he dreams big dreams and has what it takes to make them happen.

He came to Babson to build on its strength in entrepreneurship (we’ve been #1 in entrepreneurship for the last 15 years), to take Babson to its next level. What that next level is will be defined by the community in our next four months of conversation.

This should be incredibly exciting! I will continue to produce the Get-it-Done Guy podcast and, of course, will be finishing the Get-it-Done Guy book as well. I hope to continue posting to this blog, though until the book is done and I have more time on my plate, my entries will likely be relatively fewer and farther between.

To hear Len discuss the tension between business pressures and the ethical dimensions of business leadership, listen to (1 hour) Leadership and Ethics Series: “Organizational Leadership in Search of the Triple Bottom Line: The ‘Victoria’s Dirty Secret’ Campaign.

One of the biggest problems seems to be that when I have a conceptual framework, I can write about it, apply it, and generate lots and lots of interesting content. In this book, though, I have lots and lots of random tactical tips. They aren’t linked by any framework or underlying concept, so each chapter, though short, feels like writing a whole separate book. My brain is not happy about this.

For example, if I’m writing an article on how to give feedback, there’s a mental framework I use about saying something positive, giving clear measurables, etc. I can write a chapter about it by giving examples, telling stories, and going deeper into each point. I can then write follow-on chapters by going even deeper into subtle variations on the basic situation, times when feedback is tricky because there are political or romantic implications, etc.

But when I’m writing two pages on giving feedback, followed by two pages on how to write an email subject line… I go to all the work of creating framework and examples for feedback, skim the surface, and then have to purge my brain and start all over with the email chapter.

I tried conversationally creating chapters by just talking about individual tips, but even in that context, I find myself needing to pull together a framework while I talk. My dialog comes out incoherent.

This very blog post is a great example. it’s taken me all of five minutes to write, and it has one underlying concept: writing this book is hard because it’s a mismatch for my cognitive style. I could keep going, most likely, with more examples, exceptions, and possible suggestions I’d give a coaching client who had this same problem. If I could sustain this rate, I could have the book done in three days.

With no underlying concept, though, this would be two sentences long.

Gotta run. The book chapter I’m working on … is currently just two sentences long.

The way I’m thinking about it, the book is me writing to my 5-year-old nephew, giving him lots of tips about life. (Though it’s being written for adults.) Roughly speaking, the book flow is:

• A discussion of productivity and why we should focus on happiness and success, not just productivity.
• The idea that to master happiness and success, we must develop skills about ourselves, people, organizations, and a few other areas.
• Then each major section of the book is a collection of tips for dealing with those areas. One area will be lots of tips about managing relationships and people. Another wil be about dealing with organizations. etc.

Most chapters will be very brief, 2-3 pages. This is very much a book of tips that will improve your life in ways to increase your happiness and your success. And occasionally…help you get organized. Like my podcast, however, many of the tips will cover how to deal with people, effectively lead organizations, say “No” to your kids, stuff like that…

This is what we call a “learning opportunity.”

If you have visited and decided not to buy, would you be willing to share your reasons? (If you would like to share them privately, mention that in your comment and when I moderate, I won’t make the comment public.)

Thank you!

Will these work in the same book? Would someone looking for “happiness and success” tips be that interested in the “file folders” category? And vice versa…

Shelle Rose Charvet points out that most people already know the method. Now, when they hear positive feedback, they simply bypass it and wait fo the shoe to drop (then they ignore the final piece of positive feedback, which is obviously just there to soften the negative feedback). She advocates giving feedback in a way that avoids direct negative statements yet still accomplishes the goal, to stimulate behavior change. You can read Shelle Rose Charvet’s “The Feedback Sandwich is Out to Lunch.”

What do you think? If I were to include a “giving feedback” method in the Get-it-Done Guy book, which do you think would be best to include?