*The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People*

This is an old book that everyone knows.  I was drawn to it by the title.  Effectiveness continues to be a top priority.  Habits indicates hard work, no shortcuts; I'm a believer in practice making perfect.  Highly, as opposed to Super or Awesomely, is understated and again indicates realistic goals.

Also, the title is much better than How to Win Friends and Influence People.  Apparently, we've learned to be slightly less obvious in our ambitions.

I particularly liked the section on being more proactive.  I mentioned in an earlier post that he has the best definition of proactive, one that actually means something.  I don't know if he coined "proactive" or "win-win", but he might have been the one to popularize them.  Now, those words have been so overused that they barely resonate.

Covey also has a strong smell of authenticity.  You really get the sense that he lives what he's preaching, that he would be living that way even if he knew he couldn't package it up and sell it, and gives the whole thing credence.

This book is particularly good for someone who is in a funk, or maybe between jobs, and needs some direction.  He offers practical ways to implement what he's saying, though I found the "private" / personal changes to be more interesting than the "public" / interpersonal one, perhaps because the interpersonal ones have been re-done and re-stated so many times since then.

James Cameron, micro-manager?

Have you ever considered the difference between a "micro-manager" and a "genius that controlled every detail to make sure it was done perfectly"? It's more than the result; after all, you don't know the result until later.

This bio on James Cameron lays out the difference perfectly.

Micro-managers have their hand in everything and argue about the smallest details. That's exactly what James Cameron does.

Cameron has mastered every job on set, and has even been known to grab a brush out of a makeup artist’s hand. "I always do makeup touch-ups myself, especially for blood, wounds, and dirt," he says. "It saves so much time." ... Cameron inserts himself into every aspect of the filmmaking process.

People who work for micro-managers feel disrespected and despise them for it. Similarly, the crew of "The Abyss" came to refer to it as "The Abuse". Because of his abrasive nature,

Cameron has an uncanny ability to make people want to see him fail.

Yet, despite these flaws, big stars -- people who don't need the work -- will readily work with Cameron. In fact,

A small, loyal band of cast and crew works with him repeatedly

That quite possibly includes the makeup artists.

Cameron brings to the table shared vision and credibility. Without those two things, he would just be a micro-manager.

Cameron aims high.

"This film integrates my life’s achievements," he told me. "It’s the most complicated stuff anyone’s ever done." Another time, he said, "If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success."

Whether or not the film turns out to be any good, his lofty goals can inspire. You want to be a part of something like that.

But if you didn't believe he could get it done, then his goals would just be talk. Some credibility comes simply because he's had some success in the past. But, this is new ground, so he needs more that just his past.

What he has is massive amounts of conviction. This quote captures it perfectly:

Before beginning production on "The Abyss" (1989), the most ambitious underwater movie ever attempted, he went to see Leonard Goldberg, then the president of Fox, which was financing the film. "He said, 'I want you to know one thing -- once we embark on this adventure and I start to make this movie, the only way you'll be able to stop me is to kill me,'" Goldberg told me. "You looked into those eyes and you knew he meant it."

If you don't buy into the vision and didn't think Cameron could get it done, he would be just another unbearable tyrant. If he also worked in an office instead of on movies, he would just be a micro-manager.

But, he's got all those things, so instead, he's a visionary genius.

Become the expert

Lately, I've been reading several Ralph Kimball books on data warehousing. If you want to learn about data warehousing, you start and often end with Ralph Kimball.

Years ago, when you wanted to learn about Oracle PL/SQL, you had to read Steve Feuerstein. For advanced SQL knowledge, Joe Celko was the dominant guy.

When Java was being democratized, Bruce Eckel reigned for a while, at least in my neighborhood.

I remember them because they were the top experts in their niche, so their names came up constantly. Truly remarkable knowledge, excellent teaching techniques, and unremitting enthusiasm on their topics, which they turned into great careers.

Now think about you career. It might be tough to be the national leader on C# or real-time trading, but how about something smaller?

How about being the expert in your own department on your internal data feeds or reporting capabilities? Or even better, a business-facing issue, like how you've implemented risk calculations or the workflow tracker?

To get there, first you have to know so much on your subject that meaningful conversations about it can't happen without you. But second, and this is easily overlooked, you have to be able and willing to teach everyone else, constantly and creatively.

Without the first, you're not an expert. Without the second, you're not someone others really want to confer with regularly. Combine the two, and you can discuss your subject at 14 different levels, from intern to senior management. Powerful.

The subject, of course, has to be somewhat deep and difficult, otherwise there's no need for your expertise. If there's a subject / business module / set of jobs that comes up a lot, and when it does, other developers try to deal with as quickly as possible (throw a patch at it and get out), that could be a good place to start.

The lesser of two evils

Managers at all levels often feel obligated to say something when things are going badly. Part of the job description is to get in front of the troops and rally. They commit to being a positive source of energy only because they feel obligated to, and not because they truly feel they can live up to it.

But what about managers and executives who are feeling equally demoralized? Feeling equally uncertain about the future? Have lost their loyalty to the company and the cause? Wondering what the strategy is and whether it makes any sense?

This is surely a common situation these days. The reality in many of these situations is likely that the company is actually in trouble, senior management has no clue or has suffered too much turnover, and the future is as bleak as it seems.

I think the worst thing leaders can do is to try to bluster their way through it. Because if they can't convince themselves of any glimmers of hope and commit to it 100%, either they will do a terrible job and spread their own ill feelings, or they will do a predictably mediocre job and everyone will see right through them.

If they keep your mouth shut and hide away, everyone will just think they're lousy managers. "Doesn't he know he should visible, trying to calm the crowd? What's wrong with him?" But taking a personal reputation hit is serving the company's cause better than trying to BS through some crap they don't believe.

You did what you could

You yelled and threw furniture, but couldn't convince anyone. Or, you cajoled people until you ran out of breath, but no one was swayed.

Who's fault is it, then, when that thing you said would happen -- the database crashed, the big feature didn't work, version 2.0 came a year late, whatever -- actually happened? Not your fault, right? How could it be? You did what you could.

Still, the blame rests partly with you. Not entirely you, of course, but still partly you. You were part of the team.

More to the point, clearly you weren't effective. Your own ineffectiveness comes back to only you. Unless you believe (and surely you don't) that not a single person in the company or on the planet could have made a difference -- gotten the right people to listen, convinced a few people to act differently -- had they known what you knew, then it comes back to you.

A bit harsh, perhaps. But not unreasonably. We see it everyday. Here's a recent example involving former President Bill Clinton.

Wirth noted the recent momentum on climate change, then turned to his former president.

“Why did this take so long?” Wirth asked Clinton pointedly. Clinton looked a little peeved. “We didn’t have the votes before,” he explained.

Later in the program, Podesta returned to the subject. “I want to come back to the question you posed to President Clinton, which is what’s different than the last 35 years,” said Podesta, who most recently served as Obama’s transition chief. “And I’d say after this beginning, it’s that we have new leadership to move the issue forward.”

...some Democrats blame Clinton for being too tactical and hope that Obama will achieve what his predecessor failed to do in remaking health care and reining in climate change. “So why didn’t more happen?” Wirth asked, repeating his own question when I tracked him down after the forum on climate change. “That’s the first question that has to be looked at. It was not very high on their political list, and I think they were somewhat afraid of the issue politically.” Clinton was right that he did not have the votes, Wirth said. “But they didn’t try to get the votes,” he said. “When we were doing Kyoto, they weren’t really helpful in driving the issue at all, the White House. We were sort of hung out there on our own at the State Department. So we lost all those years.”

Failure to convince is still failure. You'll feel more comfortable and look better owning up to it.

Leadership comes from the top (it would be nice)

Morale at my company is getting crushed. Everyone has to work to fix that, but senior management plays the biggest role. So, how are they doing?

My boss's boss: MIA. I haven't seen or heard from him or saw his name on an email or in an email in months.

My boss's boss's boss: disaster. He had a video conference call with us (he works in London). First, he postponed it 2 times. On the call, he had no message to impart, just went straight to Q&A. Then, he answered every question with evasiveness and generalities. He looked defeated and energy-less. Some commented that they felt more optimistic before the meeting.

He clearly felt that just showing up was all that he had to do. Frankly, we'd have been better off if he'd taken the same approach as my boss's boss.

My boss's business face-off: mediocre. Kudos for providing beer, traveling an hour out of the way to meet the team in person at their work site, and imparting how much he appreciated the hard work. Unfortunately, the meeting was preceded by 3 cancellations. He also didn't bring much energy and offered no vision for how business might proceed.

All told, the message was: please look elsewhere for leadership.