It's been a long, strange week...
Category Book Reviews
With my wife being gone on a trip this week, it's been rather strange. Normally when I head off to work in the morning before everyone gets up, I don't have to think about home or the kids until I get back. This week, I had to make sure the kids weren't up to anything during the day. Overall, things went relatively well, but there were adventures and phone calls that didn't do much for my well-being...
Monday - I get home to find Ian (my 17 year old) with a messed-up lip. Turns out some friends were over and they were wrestling around in the backyard. He took a shot to the mouth which hurt his tooth. Had to keep an eye on him to see if we needed to go to the dentist...
Tuesday - he's up when I get up at 4:15 am, and he asks me to make a dental appointment for him. I end up working a 1/2 day from home so that I can coordinate that. Tooth seems to be OK, but we'll keep an eye on it.
Wednesday - I get a phone call from home... "You know the neighbor's garage? The side that faces our backyard?" I really didn't want to hear the rest. Turns out Ian was just calling to tell me there were some wasp nests near the roof there, and that I needed to spray them when I got home. Bullet dodged there...
Thursday - I call home to make sure they are up and moving. Cam (my 15 year old) says, "Oh, by the way, the toilet's broken..." Sigh... Turns out the chain between the handle and the stopper had fallen off. That's within my marginal home repair skills, so another bullet is dodged...
Friday - I wake up feeling less-than-wonderful, but I have a couple of meetings I need to attend. After meeting with a client, I decide to head home. While stopping at the store on the way home, I get a call from Cam. He's asking if it's OK for Ian to give him a buzz cut. Why me??? When Ian was around 8, he tried to give himself a haircut after a bubblegum incident. It wasn't pretty. There was NO way I was going to explain that to Sue when she gets back tomorrow...
I made it to the weekend, so let's hope the last two days just drift along with no surprises...
And of course, what would a weekend posting be without a couple of book notes?
The first book is Good To Great by Jim Collins. This book was recommended by the two top guys at Boom Vang Consulting. Collins studied eleven companies that outperformed comparison companies over a fifteen year period, and distilled some behaviors that were common to all these companies. These are covered in the following principles: Level 5 Leadership, First Who... Then What, Confront The Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith), The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within The Three Circles), A Culture Of Discipline, Technology Accelerators, and The Flywheel And The Doom Loop. I learned a lot from this study, and I'm impressed that we are trying to model these behaviors in our company. I'm not convinced that there is any single "right" program or business book out there. What I am convinced of is that it's very important to have some direction in mind, and to get everyone on the same page. Good stuff here...
And on the entertainment side, there was Janet Evanovich's To The Nines. I was able to get onto the hold list at the library very early for this one, so I didn't have to wait long. I'm man enough to admit I like the female detective/bounty hunter genre. Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton are two of my favorite authors. I was looking forward to this one, and it didn't disappoint. Stephanie Plum is sent out to track down a person who has apparently skipped out on a visa bond. The leads are pretty sparse, and there's no clear trace of the guy. But as she starts to follow up on what does exist, people start getting killed. Then she starts getting flowers and emails that point to her being the next victim. All the normal characters in her novels are there, and it's a good recreational read... Recommended.
With my wife being gone on a trip this week, it's been rather strange. Normally when I head off to work in the morning before everyone gets up, I don't have to think about home or the kids until I get back. This week, I had to make sure the kids weren't up to anything during the day. Overall, things went relatively well, but there were adventures and phone calls that didn't do much for my well-being...
Monday - I get home to find Ian (my 17 year old) with a messed-up lip. Turns out some friends were over and they were wrestling around in the backyard. He took a shot to the mouth which hurt his tooth. Had to keep an eye on him to see if we needed to go to the dentist...
Tuesday - he's up when I get up at 4:15 am, and he asks me to make a dental appointment for him. I end up working a 1/2 day from home so that I can coordinate that. Tooth seems to be OK, but we'll keep an eye on it.
Wednesday - I get a phone call from home... "You know the neighbor's garage? The side that faces our backyard?" I really didn't want to hear the rest. Turns out Ian was just calling to tell me there were some wasp nests near the roof there, and that I needed to spray them when I got home. Bullet dodged there...
Thursday - I call home to make sure they are up and moving. Cam (my 15 year old) says, "Oh, by the way, the toilet's broken..." Sigh... Turns out the chain between the handle and the stopper had fallen off. That's within my marginal home repair skills, so another bullet is dodged...
Friday - I wake up feeling less-than-wonderful, but I have a couple of meetings I need to attend. After meeting with a client, I decide to head home. While stopping at the store on the way home, I get a call from Cam. He's asking if it's OK for Ian to give him a buzz cut. Why me??? When Ian was around 8, he tried to give himself a haircut after a bubblegum incident. It wasn't pretty. There was NO way I was going to explain that to Sue when she gets back tomorrow...
I made it to the weekend, so let's hope the last two days just drift along with no surprises...
And of course, what would a weekend posting be without a couple of book notes?
The first book is Good To Great by Jim Collins. This book was recommended by the two top guys at Boom Vang Consulting. Collins studied eleven companies that outperformed comparison companies over a fifteen year period, and distilled some behaviors that were common to all these companies. These are covered in the following principles: Level 5 Leadership, First Who... Then What, Confront The Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith), The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within The Three Circles), A Culture Of Discipline, Technology Accelerators, and The Flywheel And The Doom Loop. I learned a lot from this study, and I'm impressed that we are trying to model these behaviors in our company. I'm not convinced that there is any single "right" program or business book out there. What I am convinced of is that it's very important to have some direction in mind, and to get everyone on the same page. Good stuff here...
And on the entertainment side, there was Janet Evanovich's To The Nines. I was able to get onto the hold list at the library very early for this one, so I didn't have to wait long. I'm man enough to admit I like the female detective/bounty hunter genre. Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton are two of my favorite authors. I was looking forward to this one, and it didn't disappoint. Stephanie Plum is sent out to track down a person who has apparently skipped out on a visa bond. The leads are pretty sparse, and there's no clear trace of the guy. But as she starts to follow up on what does exist, people start getting killed. Then she starts getting flowers and emails that point to her being the next victim. All the normal characters in her novels are there, and it's a good recreational read... Recommended.
| Permalink |
Comments
Posted by Gayle At 07:04:54 On 25/07/2003 | - Website - |
Posted by Tom Duff At 07:33:28 On 25/07/2003 | - Website - |
Posted by Ben Langhinrichs At 06:46:21 On 21/07/2003 | - Website - |