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book club

Book Clubs Reimagined

by IPowerIdeas March 18, 2024

Book Clubs Reimagined

Yes, they can become reimagined! Try this approach, you will be surprised. The first time I used my new approach we went from only a few attending to standing room only. The latest time I used this method, 23 out of 26 people invited are participating and the feedback has been nothing but positive and enthusiastic energy.

A professional book club is a collaborative and enriching forum for individuals in similar or diverse fields to come together and discuss books relevant to their careers.

This unique platform encourages continuous learning, exposes members to new ideas and perspectives, and promotes networking in a relaxed, supportive environment. Attendees benefit from the shared wisdom and experiences of their peers, leading to personal and professional growth. Engaging with a variety of books can spark innovation, enhance problem-solving skills, and foster a culture of knowledge sharing.

By participating in a professional book club, members not only stay updated with the latest trends and insights but also develop a stronger sense of community and belonging. This experience enriches their professional journey, making it a valuable addition to their ongoing development.

Here is a simple summary sheet to utilize when explaining how the reimagined book club works.

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

Nothing more to say – just TRY IT!

Related Books and Resources

Original Article

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The Wisdom of the Bullfrog

by IPowerIdeas August 22, 2023

To keep with the theme of the I Power Ideas site, this will not be an in-depth review but rather selected highlights to pique your interest in the book, read it, and understand the concepts in more detail.

Leadership is:
“Accomplishing a task with the people and resources you have while maintaining the integrity of your institution.”

Integrity – right or wrong always knows what is right, not always easy to do it (I Power Seed: don’t let others change what you know and feel is right.

“When in command, command” – General Chester Nimitz

Be confident. You were given the job because you have talent and experience. Trust your instincts.

Measure the strength of your employees by their willingness to do the little tasks and do them well.

“Who dares wins”

“Hope is not a strategy” – Vince Lombardi

Higher Standards – want to be part of mediocre team? (resonated with me) – they don’t ask for mediocre results, they want higher standards – such as in the Olympics.

Trooping the Line –> Problems if not addressed, result in inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and low morale.

Get out of office and observe.

When in doubt; overload.

Conclusion worth the read?

Behind every great leader is a great partner.

“Do your best every single day.”

Wisdom from “this old bullfrog” is being a better leader.

Buy the Book

He put together is excellent summary sheet called “It’s Simple (But Not Easy). It’s worth printing and hanging on your wall.

Here it is: PDF

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

A few notes about the book:

This was a short and easy read. I highly recommend it. The content and examples are inspiring and resonate with strong and confident leadership.

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Books Management

The Layman’s Guide to Understanding Financial Statements

by IPowerIdeas August 22, 2023

To keep with the theme of the I Power Ideas site, this will not be an in-depth review but rather selecting highlights to pique your interest in the book and its concepts to then read the book and take a deeper dive into the details of these concepts. Enjoy.

To provide additional context, we included definitions and other pertinent information from other sources to provide a deeper understanding.

Basic Terms

Asset is any and all items of value owned by the company.

Current Assets are anything that can be converted within 1 year into cash (i.e. cash, inventory, AR, etc.).

Fixed Assets are anything that cannot be converted within a 1 year period (i.e. machinery, real estate, etc.).

Balance Sheet – summarizes the company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity within a given time frame.

Using it helps to determine the growth of a business over the years.

From Investopedia: The Balance Sheet refers to a financial statement that reports a company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity at a specific point in time. Balance sheets provide the basis for computing rates of return for investors and evaluating a company’s capital structure.

Cash Flow – AR and AP, where it all goes.

Diversification – allocate capital to various assets, possibly to reduce risks.

GAAP – Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

General Ledger – contains all financial transactions.

Current Liabilities – Debts that can be paid within 1 year, long term liabilities more than 1 year.

Profit and Loss Statement – profit and loss use to summarize a company’s performance by reviewing revenues, expenses, and costs overt a given period.

From Investopedia: The Profit and Loss (P&L) Statement is a financial statement that summarizes the revenues, costs, and expenses incurred during a specified period.

ROI – Return on Investment

Deeper Dive

3 Main Financial Statements
1. Balance Sheet
2. Income Statement
3. Cash Flow Statement

Financial Statements tell you how company is doing.

From Investopedia: The Financial Statements are used by investors, market analysts, and creditors to evaluate a company’s financial health and earnings potential. The three major financial statement reports are the balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. Not all financial statements are created equally.

5 elements of Financial Statement
1. Assets
2. Cash
3. Equities
4. Liabilities
5. Revenues

These two are what you most need to know:
• Balance Sheet – an overview of the assets and liabilities to determine the position of the company, its financial stability.
• Income Statement – focuses on the revenues and expenses.

From Zoho: An Income Statement is a financial statement that shows you the company’s income and expenditures. It also shows whether a company is making profit or loss for a given period. The income statement, along with balance sheet and cash flow statement, helps you understand the financial health of your business.

The Balance Sheet helps you gauge the net worth of a company while the Income Statement gauges the current performance in the terms of profits. The Income Statement will help determine the net income of the company after deducting expenses and taxes.

The Balance Sheet explanation:
Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity

Main Assets in Balance Sheet
• Cash accounts
• Accounting receivables
• Inventory

Main Liabilities in Balance Sheet
• Short and long term debts
• Accounting payables

Cash Flow Statement will help measure how the company generates funds to pay its debts, it mainly focuses on operational costs and expenses.

From Investopedia: A Cash Flow Statement provides data regarding all cash inflows that a company receives from its ongoing operations and external investment sources. The cash flow statement includes cash made by the business through operations, investment, and financing—the sum of which is called net cash flow.

Formula for Income Statement
Net Income = Revenue – Expenses

Gross Profit = Gross Revenue – Direct Costs

Gross Margin = Gross Profit / Gross Revenue

Benefits of knowing this info (the “why”):
• Level of debt of company
• How quickly customers are paying
• Decline of increase in short term cash
• Number of assets and long term
• Whether products returned or purchased faster or slower over time
• Number of days or months to sell inventory
• Is money invested in infrastructure and development is paying off (ROI)
• Interest rate on loans
• Profits used to invest or spend

Buy the Book

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

A few notes about the book:

Caught numerous spelling and missing numbers which you have to catch to fully understand the concept being presented.

Microsoft Excel was with upper and lower case “E”, not consistent.

Cost of Sale (COGS) – wrong acronym – should be COS, whereas COGS is Cost of Goods Sold.

But still a good overall book on financial terms.

Here is a link to a financial sheet guide that is incredibly helpful.

Financial Sheet Guide

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Books Leadership Team Building

Book Clubs Reimagined

by IPowerIdeas August 19, 2023

According to Wikipedia:
A book discussion club is a group of people who meet to discuss a book or books that they have read and express their opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. It is more often called simply a book club, a term that is also used to describe a book sales club, which can cause confusion.

When I hear “book club” my mental model initially thinks of a bunch of older people sitting around talking about a book in a casual way. But this is a professional site, so I will provide the context from that perspective.

Ready?

I was at company and the book club had been around for years and when I went to the first one, there were 3 people. The moderator, one other person, and myself. We had a good discussion but was lacking more depth and perspective within the discussion. The other challenge was we were all really busy so none of us finished the whole book.

So I asked to be the moderator for the next meeting and see what I could do. I took the perspective in the value of a good book and discussion about it so everyone learns.

I went big and bold and thought outside the box. This is what I did.

I asked for possible books to be read. Then created and emailed a survey of the possible books. We chose the one with the most “likes”.

I sent out an invitation to the entire team and asked them to respond if they wanted to attend. Based on those who responded, I divided them into 2-3 people paired groups. I broke down all the chapters and assigned each group to read and report on a single chapter. I know, is your mind blown yet? This was the most significant change anyone had seen. They no longer had to read the whole book, they just needed to read one chapter.

I created small attendance bags where I purchased small candles that were reading “inspired”, bags of candy, and a book mark. Each person who attended received one of these bags – it was a huge hit.

I started the meeting and it was standing room only – about 19 people in the room and 6 were on via Zoom. We started with Chapter 1 and that team gave a summary of the chapter in 2-3 minutes and then for 5 min opened it up to anyone offering their own thoughts and ideas. We did this for all chapters. And within about an hour we covered the book and everyone was inspired and understood a lot more about the concepts within the book and best of all, with little effort by just reading one chapter. I received incredibly positive feedback as well as so many wanted to be the moderator for the next book club.

Try it – I bet you will find success in this format.

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

Here is a PowerPoint slide deck I used for one book club I moderated.

Enjoy!

Original Article

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Books Leadership

Good to Great

by IPowerIdeas July 28, 2023

“Good-to-great companies became like Dave Scott. They rinsed their cottage cheese.”

Jim Collins

I Power Seed:
To keep with the theme of the I Power Ideas site, this will not be an in-depth review but rather selected highlights to pique your interest in the book, read it, and understand the concepts in more detail.

A list of “not to do’s” was more important than a list of “to do’s”.

Good is the enemy of great. People settle when they get good.

Good is not circumstance. Just does not just happen. Has to be consciously made.

Ferociously results driven.

CEOs are humble and gracious and are servant but not weak.

Example of Rubbermaid that went to great but once CEO left they went downhill.

Motivating employees is mostly a waste of time. If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivating. So the real goal is to not de-motivate them.

Want to go from good to great, get the best people on the bus.

Executive compensation had absolutely no impact on company performance. None at all.

Don’t need good employees, need great. Good employees are not your best asset, great employees are.

Great employees do not need any management. They need to be taught and led.

3 circles.

Might be competent but not going to be great at it. Such as might get good math scores on SAT but does not mean you would be a great mathematician.

Hedgehog concept, keep it simple by having a laser focus on a simple concept and ignore everything around it. Walgreens having a cluster concept, 9 stores within a mile of san Francisco. Hedgehog concept was increase revenue per customer per visit.

Example of wife winning iron man.

Technology does not take companies good to great. Look at internet companies that have gone out of business. Walgreens kept to hedgehog concept and surpassed them.

Vietnam we had tons of technology and still lost. North Vietnamese kept to hedgehog concept.

Failures stem from management and leadership failures. Where they are weak. Where is VisiCalc, innovated spreadsheet? Did apple create the pda, no palm pilot did. Did Boeing create the passenger jet, no piper did. Look up rest of them.

5,000 lb. fly wheel. How hard to get it going? Once it goes it moves. Physics, mlm once in motion… asked which turn was pivotal? None, it was an accumulation of all of them.

Key to hedgehog is understanding on how to be the best. Cannot be goal. Have to fully understand what we do and how to be best at it.

Buy the Book

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

A few notes about the book:

This is a valuable and classic leadership book with incredible insights and concepts and how to focus on being great.

So go be great!

Enjoy.

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Books Leadership

Radical Candor

by IPowerIdeas July 19, 2023

I Power Seed:
Much like concepts in the book, “The Truth About Employee Engagement”, it’s not easy to tell someone they are messing up, but maybe they don’t realize it and need help. Or they need some direction or support.

They want to be part of it as well as you don’t want them around to spread to others or push others away. Feelings of why should I work harder when they don’t. These feelings drag positive and productive culture down.

The number of these types of individuals will increase when managers hire similar team members which decreases chances of positive change.

The negative behavior when accepted and allowed says management is accepting sub-par behavior. As well as tells the team it is ok to be a weak link. Lastly, they have to pick up the slack and that won’t last long.

Similar stories, employees feel deceived if they don’t get positive feedback or areas of opportunity. And not just once a year.

As a manger, once you lose the confidence and trust of your team, it is exceptionally hard to get it back.

Apple hires those to tell them what to do, not the other way around.

Listen, it is our jobs as managers to make hard decisions and toe the line.

Like the book, “5 Dysfunctions of a Team”, the very top piece is Results. Bosses are supposed to produce results.

1. Abence of trust
2. Fear of conflict
3. Lack of commitment
4. Avoidance of accountability
5. Inattention to results.

She used examples on how to keep employees motivated. Motivation is good, but thinks it could be just short term. She likes employees who are engaged as that lasts and produces longevity and loyalty.

Trust, she says, is important, like 5 dysfunctions.

You have to start by giving a darn.

Care Personally.
Challenge Directly.
Radical Candor happens when you put these two things together.

I Power Seed:
These two concepts reminds me of my short time at Intel where meetings were direct and heated. But it kept the presenters on their toes as well as it encouraged them to prepare significantly more as their proposal will be picked apart for any gaps or issues and in a heated way. However, it produced some incredible results.

Use humility.

Your colleagues appreciate the candor. Shows them that you care. That you will take the time to do it.

Labeling hinders growth.

She provides a story of sounding dumb during a meeting. Made the comment immediately, did it candidly, and did not make it personal. Very smart in the presentation but sounded stupid. Want to lose credibility with team – this was on way the author says it will.

Free culture to offer ideas and feel they are heard. And if they get legs, then it will get running.

Like the book, “Stengths Based Leadership”, focus time and energy on strengths. Her book says she put people into positions around their strengths.

Ultimately showing you care, provides significant motivation for the employee.

Andy Grove said Steve Jobs always gets it right. He is not always right, but allows his teams to tell him how to do it right so he always gets it right. Get it right vs being right.

Steve Jobs, had his team prove him wrong or he proved them wrong.

More quiet listening.

Give feedback right at the moment. Don’t wait to make it formal. Like your personal life, you don’t wait to tell someone something, do the same in your professional life.

Don’t defend criticism. Makes it feel like you don’t care or listen.

Acknowledge what they are feeling or frustrated at. Don’t tell them to not feel that way.

She provides an excellent example of a new system to increase efficiencies in the air by allowing pilots to get immunity for sharing data to help prevent further issues.

Debate not decide. Let those know we will debate but make no decisions. There will be no winners or losers.

Focus on behavior not character.

If it is in your way, move it out of the way.

Buy the Book

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

A few notes about the book:

A good book on how to find ways to be effective in being an example and coaching those around you without delay while being professional and genuine.

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