Great article in today’s Globe & Mail called — Want a Better Life?  Follow a Flight Plan.  It provides tips from success coach, Brian Tracy, who has a new book out, Flight Plan, which “says you can reach the most important destinations in your life if you follow a deliberate flight plan.”  Rebecca and I have for years used a technique called “Standing in the Future” which is very much what Brian describes in a slightly different way.  Here are some of his tips:

Write a list of 10 goals you would like to achieve in the next year, with a deadline for each.  Use the “magic wand” technique and assume you have no limitations of any kind.  Wirte them in the present tense, as if your goal has already been achieved, since your subconscious mind will register such commands better.  Write them in a positive fashion rather than negative, emphasizing what you will achieve, not what you will stop doing.  Finally, write them personally, beginning each with the word I.  Example:  I earn $XXX ecah year.

Then ask yourself, what one goal on your list would have the greatest positive impact on your life in you were to accomplish it in 24 hours?  This now becomes your major ‘definite purpose’, your primary goal, and your most important destination for the next leg of your journey. 

Love Dave Snowden’s post today, Open Source is not the same as Freeware.   Certainly in this day and age transparency is very important, just as Don Tappscott said in his 2003 book, The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business.   With some of the intersting discussions that took place at Computers in Libraries 2008 last month, this post really hit the nail on the head for me.  Thanks, Dave.

Kathleen Delong, Associate Director, University of Alberta Libraries spoke to the Education Institute about developing leaders, an important .. today.   She talked about the distinctive differencs of leadership (leaders producing change, adatption) and management which involves making things work and often are talked about in terms of order, consistency, and stability.   Kathleen referred to the book, Leadership Theory and Practice wich talks about theories as well as applications.  She talked about leadership traits, skills, and styles as well as followers and transformation leadership which has been popular for the last number of years.  An interesing model is shared leadership.  Kathleen talked about IBM’s internship program called Extreme Blue where recruits are immersed in a system which focuses on group cohesision over “me first glory” and when these people left the program for other parts of IBM they received a publication called “Staying Extreme with tips on leading, do’s and don’ts, and the style that was expected from them. 

Kathleen talked about the 8 R’s committee of CLA which published the Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries.  Started with retirement and recruitment and expanded to repatriation, and other R’s.  Most libraries  require the skills of leaderhip, management and business roles and many were having difficulty meeting their staffing requirements for these.

How do new professionals engage with leadership?  Kathleen has been doing research in this area looking at leadership engagement factors — interests in and willingness to take up leadership roles.   She has found that new professionals are interested in general opportunities for leadership and taking leadership roles in organizations, in having mentor opportunities, and participating in leadership develeopment programs.   However, there does seem to be differences between willingness and practice (or ability to participate in these programs).

Google’s Earth Day scenario with the little turtle in front reminded me of a cool book that Rebecca and I used years ago in a creativity session with clients, Wheel of Wisdom: A Turtle & Hare Journey to Your Dream by Canadian author, Angelika Clubb.  The book is “for anyone who has ever had a dream or longs to find one” and helps you “tap into the energies of your inner turtle and hare to give your dream a plan and put a great plan behind your dreams.”   The inner hare is the visionary who spins out the dream and the turtle is the planner who grounds the dream and takes it forward, one step at a time.  Turtle teaches focus, discipline, patience and helps align the plan to the dream.  Hare teaches courage, thinking in possibilities, creative imagination and helps let go in order to seed a new dream.  Thanks, Google pic for reminding of this fun book.