Getting Results the Agile Way: A Personal Results System for Work and Life


J.D. Meier - 2010
    Meier introduces Agile Results(R)-a simple system for meaningful results! It's a systematic way to achieve both short- and long-term results in all aspects of your life-from work to fun. It offers just enough planning to get you going, but makes it easy to change your course as needed. It also provides fresh starts for your day, week, month, and year. Even if you already use another time management system, Agile Results can supplement it to increase your impact and sense of fulfillment. In today's world, change happens quickly; learn how to be flexible and responsive to new opportunities. Don't just check off tons of stuff from your to-do list; do the things that make a difference. Stop trudging your way through life; bolster your energy with habits that will carry you forward each day. Quit sacrificing your personal life for your work life (or vice versa); give each facet of your life its due and find balance. In other words, learn the skills to go the distance in an ever-changing world. The beauty of Agile Results is that you don't have to adopt the entire system to see the benefits; just start with the following three basic tenets. First, adopt The Rule of 3 and you avoid being overwhelmed and become mindful of your results. Second, adopt the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Refection pattern and you set the wheels in motion for weekly results while giving yourself a fresh start each day and each week. Third, set up boundaries for your Hot Spots and begin to experience work-life balance. When you're ready for more, flip through the chapters to learn how to use stories to design your day, week, month, and year; how to find your motivation; how to improve your productivity; and many more. Agile Results is a time-tested system that J.D. Meier has honed through his years at Microsoft: learning from some of the best minds, leading virtual teams, and mentoring people around the world. It is a system he can bet on time and again. This guide is the playbook for getting results that he wishes somebody had given to him so many years ago. Now, he's sharing it with you.

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal


Jim Loehr - 2003
    This groundbreaking New York Times bestseller has helped hundreds of thousands of people at work and at home balance stress and recovery and sustain high performance despite crushing workloads and 24/7 demands on their time. We live in digital time. Our pace is rushed, rapid-fire, and relentless. Facing crushing workloads, we try to cram as much as possible into every day. We're wired up, but we're melting down. Time management is no longer a viable solution. As bestselling authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz demonstrate in this groundbreaking book, managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance. The Power of Full Engagement is a highly practical, scientifically based approach to managing your energy more skillfully both on and off the job by laying out the key training principles and provides a powerful, step-by-step program that will help you to: * Mobilize four key sources of energy * Balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal * Expand capacity in the same systematic way that elite athletes do * Create highly specific, positive energy management rituals to make lasting changes Above all, this book provides a life-changing road map to becoming more fully engaged on and off the job, meaning physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned.

Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart: A Systems Approach to Engaging Leaders with Their Challenges


Mary Beth A. O'Neill - 2000
    Novices are provided a path while seasoned practitioners will find affirmation."--Daryl R. Conner, CEO and president, ODR-USA, Inc. "Mary Beth O'Neill's executive coaching gave me the tools and clarity to become a far more effective leader and change agent. The bottom line was that we succeeded with a monumental organizational turnaround that had seemed impossible to accomplish."--Eric Stevens, former CEO, Courage Center "O'Neill writes in a way that allows you to see this experienced coach in action. What a wonderful way to learn!"--Geoff Bellman, consultant and author, The Consultant's Calling "Mary Beth brings a keen business focus to coaching by not just contributing insights but through helping me and my team gain the insights that we need to solve our own problems. She has the ability to see through the sometimes chaotic dialogue and personalities in order to help a team focus on the real issues and dynamics that can impede organizations from achieving their goals."--John C. Nicol, general manager, MSN Media Network "Effective leaders require courage, compassion, and initiative. O'Neill's systems-based coaching serves as a guide for both coaches and executives to better enable good decisions and good decision-makers."--Paul D. Purcell, president, Beacon Development Group "With Mary Beth O'Neill's coaching, I've become the kind of leader who balances both the needs to get results and to develop great working relationships.?Since I started working with her, I've won accolades as the Top Innovator for my company, and as Professional of the Year for my industry.?More important, I've been able to scope my job in a way that allows me to learn and contribute at the same time, all the while delivering great results to the bottom line."--Lynann Bradbury, vice president, Waggener Edstrom

Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work


Bill Burnett - 2020
    They have answers" --The NYT)--a job-changing, outlook-changing, life-changing book that shows us how to transform our work lives and create a dream job that is meaningful without necessarily changing the job we have.Dysfunctional Belief: I'm stuck in a lousy situation (and there's nothing I can do about it).Reframe: I'm stuck in a lousy situation (and I'm finding the problems and the solutions).Bill Burnett and Dave Evans successfully taught graduate and undergraduate students at Stanford University and readers of their best-selling book, Designing Your Life ("The prototype for a happy life." --Brian Lehrer, NPR), that designers don't analyze, worry, think, complain their way forward; they build their way forward. In Designing Your Work Life, Burnett and Evans show us how design thinking can transform our present job and our experience of work in general by utilizing the designer mindsets: Curiosity. Reframing. Radical collaboration. Awareness. Bias to action. Storytelling.Dysfunctional Belief: Good enough isn't good enough.Reframe: Good enough is GREAT--for now. Burnett and Evans show us how, with tools, tips, and ideas, to enjoy what we have and to live in a state of "good enough, for now," one of the strongest, most effective reframes there is, and how this idea, once understood and accepted, can make new possibilities available, giving us the energy to enjoy the present moment and allowing us to begin to prototype possible futures. And if we want to quit? Burnett and Evans show us how to use the job we have to get the job we want (in another company), and show us as well, the art and science of quitting (leave the campsite better than we found it), using the power of the quit design to reframe how we finish our current job and get a better one. They write, as well, about how the work world is changing as the automation of work increases (hello Alexa, artificial intelligence, drones, and robots); how thinking like a designer can make us flexible, and ready to adapt to change . . .

Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom


Matt Tenney - 2014
    In fact, Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom will train you to make this a reality. Although it’s not an easy process, it is a worthwhile one.By making a shift in your approach to leadership, you can become a highly effective leader who enjoys your work and makes the world a better place. The shift is simply a matter of gradually becoming more focused on how you can serve others and increase your capacity to do so.Matt Tenney introduces us to the principles in this book through the story of going from selfish to servant while on his journey from prisoner to monk to social entrepreneur. He also cites numerous business case studies and research that demonstrate how putting serving first results in: - Attracting top talent - Increased engagement and lower turnover - A more innovative team culture - Better customer service - A better ROI on marketing efforts The book also offers practical, actionable guidance for making the shift to becoming an extraordinary leader who is devoted to serving and inspiring greatness in others.All of the author proceeds from the sale of this book are donated to charity.

The Snowball Effect: Communication Techniques to Make You Unstoppable


Andy Bounds - 2013
    That's the point of it. So, what do you want to achieve following your communication? Do you want someone to answer 'yes'? Do you want to improve your relationships? Do you want people to understand exactly what you're talking about, first time? Whatever you want to achieve, you'll need decent communication to get there, and expert and bestselling author Andy Bounds shows us exactly how to nail our communication. Using the same conversational style that made "The Jelly Effect" so popular, "The Snowball Effect" is packed with short, rapid fire sections complete with visuals and special features to help us get serious results from our communication.The "Snowball Effect" explains how to: - Persuade people to say "yes" more quickly, more often - Enjoy your job more - because you'll be calling the shots for a change - Remove the communication frustrations you feel all too often - Get more done, more quickly - because you're getting people on your side faster (these techniques have saved people at least one month every year).