Perspectives

Throughout my life I have been amazed at what people have been able to accomplish and often equally stunned at the damage we can do, often to each other. I have always strived to understand how we can come together to achieve great things and how to prevent things from going poorly. This journey has allowed me to successfully complete one project after the other with a very difference groups of individuals and in very different circumstances. Below are some resources and perspectives on this that have been important to me.

Readings - Personal Growth

The following books were important in my growth and in understanding my self - I believe understanding your self must come before understanding others.

• The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People
• Emotional Intelligence
• Tao of Pooh
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Readings - Management and Leadership

Over the years I have been in leadership and management positions from a patrol leader in Boy Scouts to a middle level manager in the corporate world and now running a research team. I have found that being a good manager is really hard. Good managers need to not only run projects (i.e. make schedules, task lists, and reports) but need to motive their teams and help them to work together. This involves a lot of listening, being really open to hearing new ideas and concerns, and not reacting to situations in an emotional way that will pull the project off-track. The last one is the hardest because manage4rs are people too, we get frustrated and tired but we have to constantly monitor our emotions to make sure they don't adversely effect others on the team. Over the years I have learned that it not helps to share many of my emotions (if I'm tired and my team know it, they will kick in and help me out, otherwise they won't) but also that how I share them can make a big difference in how others treat me. The following books have been critical to my becoming a better manager:

• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• One Minute Manager
• The Fifth Element (the book, not the movie)

I consider the following books to be more advanced management books. Each deals with a point in history where how people were managed made a huge difference in the outcome of the situation.

• The Last Place on Earth - This is about Scott and Amundsen's race to be the first people to reach the south pole. I had know before I read the book that Scott did not make it and died on the way back. What I did not know is that Scott ordered his men to slow them down so he could keep up while Amundsen always "led from the rear" and let his men go first. When Amundsen's men neared the south pole, they stopped and asked Amundsen to go first. The book is an amazing account of how Amundsen regularly made good decisions and came up with creative solutions to help his team reach their objectives. Amundsen was interested in achieving the goal - not in personal recognition. If this is the kind of manager you want to me, and you want to achieve great things (or even a lot of small things), this good is a great model for success - just look beyond what Amundsen did and see why and how he did them.
• When Titan's Clash - I grew up reading about World War II and watching old war movies with my father. I knew about the technology and strategies of the war. What I did not know is at the start of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, Hitler had an largely experienced and respected officers in his military while Stalin had killed 1/3 of his officers and imprisoned another 1/3. Stalin's officers would not make a move without checking with Stalin for fear of retaliation while the German officers had a high level of independence. The result was that the German's took over 1 million square miles of territory in less than a year. By the end of the war the situation had revered itself because Stalin had released his imprisoned officers and started trusting those that won battles while Hitler had become paranoid and was taking personal control of actions on the battlefields. The result was that German lost the territory they had gained and eventually lost the war. We'll never know whether technology, strategy, or "management style" was the crucial factor in the war but I think all were critical and management style is definitely under appreciated in the history of World War II. Read this book to find out how important good management can be.