“optimism” – a short post, maybe a big lesson

News Item – New York’s MetroCards have the word “optimism” printed on the back of the card.

Artist Reed Seifer, whose work called Optimism is on the back of Metrocards

From the New York Times article The Days May Be Grim, but Here’s a Good Word to Put in Your Pocket:

On the back of seven million MetroCards distributed this fall is a single printed word: “optimism.” Composed in clean, bold, sans-serif letters, it floats in a sea of white just beneath the boilerplate fine print. Another seven million are on the way early next year.

Riders and reporters were not informed when the word began appearing on MetroCards in September. The point, Reed Seifer (the card’s designer) said, was for it to be intimate, a serendipitous discovery for the viewer. “It exists between the card and the person who receives the card,” he said.

As he designed the card, Mr. Seifer said, he did not take into account the small hole punched along the left edge of every MetroCard. In a happy accident, the hole lined up perfectly with the word, becoming a kind of period.

Mr. Seifer found this appropriate: “Optimism is about openings where people don’t expect to find them.”

I read this just shortly after I posted Accentuate the Positive — Johnny Mercer’s Anthem for Difficult Days, reflecting on the need to be a little more optimistic.

Maybe we are in need of just such an outlook in these difficult days.

KEEP LEARNING — there’s always the next new thing to learn

Peter Drucker -- The Man Who Invented Management

“The only job security is found in your own ability to keep learning!”
Peter Drucker

“Through learning, we re-create ourselves.”
Peter Senge

The jury is in.  The job you have today will not be the job you have tomorrow.

Yes, you might actually change jobs.  We are living in an age of job insecurity – not job security.  But even if the job title is the same, in the same office or cubicle, with the same responsibilities, how you do your job will change – possibly dramatically – in the blink of an eye.  The job you have/the job you perform will simply change — constantly, maybe dramatically.  If you do your job tomorrow the way you did your job yesterday, it may not be there the day after tomorrow.

So, there has never been a greater need to keep learning than there is today.  Peter Drucker was ahead of the curve on this one.  And Peter Senge is the one who introduced us to the concept of a learning organization.

Here are the five features of a learning organization:
• systems thinking
• personal mastery
• mental models
• shared vision
• team learning.

It’s the personal mastery that we have the most control over.  Either we work at personal improvement, personal development, and ultimately personal mastery – or we don’t.  The success, or blame, lies with each one us individually.

Peter Senge

Here is some major Senge insight: “People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, and their growth areas.”  (emphasis added)

Obviously, one way we attain personal mastery is by reading good books – and implementing what we learn.  In fact, you have not learned until:

You have learned:
when you can do,
and then you actually do,
the skills that are needed to take your next step.

In an earlier blog post, An Era Starved for Substance — Some Thoughts on the Value of a Good Book Synopsis, I quoted from a woman who attended a book synopsis that I presented.  She liked the event, and stated:  “I think we are really needing some content, some substance these days.”

I agree – we live in an era starved for content, because we all need to keep learning.

There may be a number of good ways for you to keep learning.  But the need to keep learning is really no longer debatable.  Keep learning, or fall behind — ever more behind by the year/month/week/day.

One way you can keep learning is to read good books.  And we try at the First Friday Book Synopsis, where we present two synopses of good business books, to make each of our sessions a true learning experience.  I think we succeed.

Keep Learning – there is always the next new thing to learn.

————-

Many of our past synopses, with audio + handout, are available at our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com.  Check it out.

Book Review: A Class with Drucker

A Class with Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World’s Greatest Management Teacher
William A. Cohen
AMACOM (207)

What we have in this volume is a wealth of Cohen’s memories of the years (from 1975 until 1979) when he was a student at – and the first graduate of – “probably the first executive PhD program in management in academic history” at Claremont Graduate School. His classroom teacher, mentor, and friend was Peter Drucker. “I have tried to come close to capturing his actual words, but in any case, I believe I achieved the spirit of what he said and how he said it. My aim is to put the reader in the classroom as if he were there with me at the time hearing Drucker and participating in every interaction I had with him.” Cohen succeeds brilliantly in achieving these and other objectives.

Among the several lessons that Cohen learned and shares, these are the ones that caught my eye:

“The first task of any business management is to decide what business it was in.”

“What everyone `knows’ is frequently wrong.”

“Outstanding performance is inconsistent with fear of failure.”

“Selling and marketing are neither synonymous nor complementary. One could consider them adversarial in some cases. There is no doubt that if marketing were done perfectly, selling, in the actual sense of the word, would be unnecessary.”

“The first systematic book on leadership [i.e. Kyropaidaia] was written by Xenophon more than 2,000 years ago, and it is still the best.”

To them I presume to add my own personal favorite, from an article published in the Harvard Business Review years in 1963: “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”

Cohen notes that Drucker once asked two questions of Jack Welch that then guided and informed his leadership of GE after he succeeded Reggie Jones as its new CEO. “If you weren’t already in the business, would you enter it today?” followed by a second, more difficult question, “What are you going to do about it?” Today, other CEOs should carefully consider the importance of these questions, answer them, and then proceed accordingly. “Drucker taught what to do. He was very specific about this. However, he did not teach how to do it.” One of this book’s substantial value-added benefits is that, throughout his narrative, Cohen offers his own observations and suggestions as to how to achieve the various business objectives that Drucker recommends, accompanied by dozens of relevant examples to illustrate key points. Those who share my high regard for Peter Drucker’s life and work will be as appreciative as I am of what William Cohen shares in this volume.

Interview: William A. Cohen

Currently, Cohen is founder and president of The Institute of Leader Arts. He is also a retired major general from the U.S. Air Force Reserve. After graduating from West Point, Cohen flew 174 combat missions in A-26 aircraft in the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross with three oak leaf clusters, and the Air Medal with eleven oak leaf clusters. He has written 53 books, including The Stuff of Heroes, The New Art of Leader, The Art of the Strategist, A Class with Drucker, and most recently Drucker on Leadership published by John S. Wiley & Sons in 2009. He also has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and M.A, and Ph.D. degrees from Claremont Graduate University.

This interview of him was for Dallas-based Thomas Group and its KL@TG magazine in 2006. Here is a brief excerpt. The complete interview is also available.

Morris: In A Class with Drucker, you seem to shift your focus from your thoughts about leadership to memories of your close association with Peter Drucker, both during and following the graduate courses you took from him during a four-year period.

Cohen: Actually this isn’t really a change in either a focus or direction. While Drucker never wrote a book entitled On Leadership, the subject was interwoven throughout all his books, articles, lectures, and informal conversations. He believed it was a critical part of all management activities. I wrote about Drucker because he was a giant of our times and I had the good fortune to be his first executive PhD graduate. That relationship lasted three decades. Forty years ago Drucker predicted nearly every major change in business that later occurred, including the impact of information technology and the concepts of the Internet and cyberspace. He coined the term “knowledge worker” and predicted that these workers would dominate the workplace of the future. He was the first to view management as a profession, not simply as an activity. He invented management by objectives and showed executives how to approach problems with their ignorance and questions rather than by relying on their knowledge and experience. I wanted to ensure that those lessons which I received from him in the classroom or afterwards were preserved and made available to others. Many of the most valuable lessons, or sometimes the emphasis he gave to an insight in person, didn’t always appear in his writings. Peter was not only a genius but also someone who took a sincere interest in his students. He demanded respect, but never used either his celebrity or his genius to intimidate his students. He treated all almost as equals. He was loved and respected by everyone and he had a great sense of humor.

Morris: What are some of the most common misconceptions of Drucker? In fact, what did you find to be true of him?

Cohen: I’m not certain there were so many misconceptions. It may be that people were so in awe of his genius that those who didn’t know him personally focused on his achievements and status as an Icon rather than on his very human qualities and assumed. They incorrectly assumed that he was distant and unapproachable. On the contrary, he was very approachable, especially by his former students — and in my experience he always remembered each of them by name. He was truly a great teacher but never pompous nor pretentious. People were always amazed the first time they called him to hear him intone slowly in his still very strong Viennese accent, “This…is…Peter…Drucker.” He liked to be called “Peter” by his students, not “Doctor Drucker” or “Professor Drucker.” He considered his time an investment and he was always teaching, even in personal conversation. Revealingly, he described himself as a “student” or a “bystander.” I got the impression that he enjoyed lively telephone conversations rather than resent them as distractions of his writing.

* * *

If you wish to read the complete interview, please contact me at interllect@mindspring.com.

You are welcome to visit these Web sites:

http://www.stuffofheroes.com/Profile%20of%20a%20Peak%20Performance%20Expert.htm

http://www.pfdf.org/