Food for Thought

Book: 12 Disciplines of Leadership Excellence: How leaders achieve sustainable high performance Authors: Brian Tracy, Dr. Peter Chee Summary The authors describe 12 principles to succeed as a Leader. These can be developed over time by practice and experience. These are listed below: 1.  The Discipline of Leadership Excellence Current age employees most of the times look for what is in-stored for them in any work. Thus in current era, two types of leaders are more valuable as per author - charismatic transformational leaders who inspire people to do their best and transactional leaders who possess the ability to work with and achieve through others. Great leaders connect their team with the larger purpose by articulating their vision effectively and adding meaning to their team's work. As a leader one should make decisions and take actions and be accountable for the results. Leader should be prepared for adversity by planning for the worst-case scenario. Open, direct

Book: 5% More: Making Small Changes to Achieve Extraordinary Results Author: Michael Alden "You can increase your productivity in virtually every aspect of your life by just 5%, and it will have long-term and life-changing benefits.” Everyone wishes for a better life; but, many fail in achieving this due to either unrealistic expectations or lack of action. The success comes by doing (acting) and not just day-dreaming about it.  The book suggests putting 5% more efforts in the direction of the goal one wishes to achieve. This may not bring-in 5% more results but will definitely take a step closer to the set target. To achieve 5% more, one must hold him/herself accountable. Start by writing down daily and weekly goals and be honest and realistic about it. (This can also be done for a team i.e. setting team goals and communicating them with the team). Incremental adjustments can be made eventually to the goals (targets). Author's colleague Brian encouraged him to

Book:  2 Second Lean: How to Grow People and Build a Fun Lean Culture Author: Paul A. Akers "A Lean strategy will always yield a simpler, safer and better product, and with happier, very involved employees." By adopting Lean thinking, one can reduce the stock and directly tackle two crucial maxims: cut waste and improve constantly. Running production in large batches requires lots of space, machinery and workforce, additionally, the means to move products around. Instead, if opted for ‘U-shaped manufacturing cells,’ each worker becomes responsible for producing only one item from start to finish. This process offers many benefits, such as, workers produce less inventory, make fewer mistakes and create less waste. One-piece production improves cash flow. The first thing that lean seeks to destroy is waste. As an organisation, your task is to eliminate it. There are eight sources of waste: Transport  (moving people, products & information), Inventory (storing parts,