I like this quote by Walt Whitman:
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.
Speaking about multitudes, I came across Colin Cotterill’s Homepage ‘Welcome to the inside of my head’ where he lists three of his facets:
+ The writing chappy
+ The cartoon chappy
+ The normal, having a life chappy
The Tao of Coaching by Max Landsberg is an excellent book about coaching as a leader. The tagline on the book says Boost your effectiveness at work by inspiring and developing those around you which sums up coaching from the leaders perspective.
The books is described like this:
This book offers information on how to unlock the potential of people by applying the techniques of coaching. Coaching is the key to realising the potential of your employees, your organisation and yourself.
This book provides the techniques and tools of coaching that are vital for those who want to develop a team of people who will perform effectively and who will relish working with them.
The techniques and tools of coaching are integrated in the story about Alex and his career as manager. That makes it easier since you see them used in context.
The book lists these reasons why a manager shall use coaching:
• Create more time for yourself
• Achieve better results
• Build your interpersonal skills
If you want a great introduction to coaching as a leader, and a book you later can use as manual, I suggest that you buy The Tao of Coaching.
A great site about professional presentation design is Garr Reynold’s blog Presentation Zen. He has a beautiful style, an Asian touch, which is elegant and powerful.
I subscribe to the blog and will refer to several of Garr’s blog posts in my Presentation category.
I have bought his book ‘Presentation Zen’ and will post a review on it once I have finished it.
Update.
My review is here: Presentation Zen is a great book.
I really like Olivia Mitchell’s site Speaking about Presenting which has this introduction: The aim of this blog is to help you with your next presentation. You find:
– Helpful articles to help you with every aspect of your next presentation
– Reviews of books and blogs on presentations and public speaking
– Analysis of great speeches and presentations.
I will refer to several of her blog posts in my own posts in the Presentation category.
I am scheduled to speak at Øredev 2009, an IT Conference for Sharing Knowledge.
Øredev is the premier conference in Europe focused on the software development process. Nearly 1000 programmers, developers, engineers, educators, testers and managers gather to share their knowledge and experience.
My presentation is scheduled on November 5 in the track Aspects of Leadership and is titled Project success by helping project members realize their full potential. I intend to talk about how coaching can be used to improve collaboration in projects. A rough outline is in the program:
• Introduction.
• Laying the foundation and ensuring common definitions.
• Coaching the PM to develop him professionally and as an individual.
• Coaching a project team as a group, as well as the individuals within the group.
• How the PM can develop coaching skills and use them in his work.
This is my first major public speech which is somewhat horrifying. My own learning process will result in blog posts about presentation in this blog.
Update November 8, 2009.
The presentation went well and I realized that I really like the role of speaker, talking about a subject that matters to me. I had the benefit of working with a speaker’s coach and mentor which helped a lot.
Update April 3, 2010.
You can now watch Speaker at Øredev 2009, the video
Leo Babauta has another great post over at Zen Habits, Get Less Done: Stop Being Productive and Enjoy Yourself.
There’s too much emphasis these days on productivity, on hyperefficiency, on squeezing the most production out of every last minute. People have forgotten how to relax. How to be lazy. How to enjoy life.
Productivity is not good in itself, it’s very important to decide what we do. We need to manage our attention and our priorities.
It’s possible we’re trying to get more done because we love doing it — and if that’s the case, that’s wonderful. But even then, working long hours and neglecting the rest of life isn’t always the best idea. Sometimes it’s good to Get Less Done, to relax, to breathe.
We do need to relax and breathe. No one runs their car engine on full throttle all the time, why do it with yourself?
Leo lists some useful tips on how to relax and ends the post like this:
Step by step, learn to relax. Learn that productivity isn’t everything. Creating is great, but you don’t need to fill every second with work. When you do work, get excited, pour yourself into it, work on important, high-impact tasks … and then relax.
Now I’ll do what I do on a regular basis, it’s also in Leo’s list of tips, I’ll go for a walk.
Read more:
Start Managing Your Attention
An 18 Minute Plan That Keeps You Focused
Which Time Horizons Do You Use?
The jar of life – stones, pebbles and sand
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
I got a link to Be the change that you want to see in this world on Xing. It’s a great video about taking action and creating change. And it shows that anyone can start and then inspire others.
On Twitter I got a link to a great video by CreativityWorks, Busting the Mehrabian Myth (video is below). So, what is the Mehrabian Myth then? Olivia Mitchell writes about in Why the stickiest idea in presenting is just plain wrong:
The stickiest idea in presenting and public speaking is that the meaning of your message is communicated by:
* Your words 7%
* Your tone of voice 38%
* Your body language 55%.
These figures are based on a formula first proposed by Albert Mehrabian in 1967.
I think we have all heard these numbers in connections with presentations, that How (tone, body) is more important than What (words, content). But Albert Mehrabian makes a reservation:
Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable
Max Atkinson’s Blog: Body language and non-verbal communication has a great cartoon strip and raises these questions:
1. How come it’s much easier to have a conversation with a blind person than with someone who’s completely deaf?
2. How come we can have perfectly good conversations in the dark?
3. How come telephones and radio have been such spectacular successes?
4. How come we have to work so hard to learn foreign languages?
I had taken the formula more or less for granted (heard it often) and I am pleased to see that I was wrong. Words do matter!
Busting the Mehrabian Myth – video
Read more:
Albert Mehrabian’s studies in nonverbal communication : Speaking about Presenting
Create Your Communications Experience: The Visual Dominates – Mehrabian Revisited
Six Minutes – Best Public Speaking Tips and Techniques: Weekend Review [2009-06-06]
Albert Mehrabian – Wikipedia
YouTube – Mehrabian Myth! WORDS DO MATTER!
This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.
The post is also at my business site: Words Do Matter – Busting the Mehrabian Myth.
This post is copied to my new blog The Wise Owl.
The teacup story is around in different versions, here is one version:
Once, a long time ago, there was a wise Zen master. People from far and near would seek his counsel and ask for his wisdom. Many would come and ask him to teach them, enlighten them in the way of Zen. He seldom turned any away.
One day an important man, a man used to command and obedience came to visit the master. “I have come today to ask you to teach me about Zen. Open my mind to enlightenment.” The tone of the important man’s voice was one used to getting his own way.
The Zen master smiled and said that they should discuss the matter over a cup of tea. When the tea was served the master poured his visitor a cup. He poured and he poured and the tea rose to the rim and began to spill over the table and finally onto the robes of the wealthy man. Finally the visitor shouted, “Enough. You are spilling the tea all over. Can’t you see the cup is full?”
The master stopped pouring and smiled at his guest. “You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty. Come back to me with an empty mind.”
Here is another version:
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
Like this cup, Nan-in said, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?
I like the tea story a lot, it is a great reminder that in order to learn we have to be humble, to empty our mind and make room for the new.
Here are some quotes about learning, I love the one about beginner’s mind.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few. – Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn – Alvin Toffler
When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before. – Henry David Thoreau
Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting something go every day. – Zen Proverb
This was originally posted at Zen And More, another blog of mine.
Through Another Fantastic Full Screen Text Editor I found WriteMonkey. It says:
Zenware for full screen distraction free creative writing. No whistles and bells, just empty screen, you and your words. WriteMonkey is light, fast, and perfectly handy for those who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter but live in modern times.
I downloaded WriteMonkey and test it. It’s a great software with many features. I like the easy toggle between full screen (for no distractions) and small window to access other stuff. My only complaint so far is the progress or status bar that has very little information.
Read more:
WriteMonkey Text Editor where it says that WriteMonkey is the new king of full-screen distraction free text editing.
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