Sports stars are encouraged to play to their strengths. Companies are similarly encouraged to "stick to their knitting" and focus on their "core competencies". We can mistakenly carry that advice over to managers and tell them as well to play to their strengths. Except with managers and business owners there is a trap - Our strengths become our weaknesses.
This story is an amalgam of three actual companies.
Joseph was a pretty good programmer. OK, let's be honest, he was brilliant. One of the best in the world. He loved getting behind the keyboard and cranking out code for clients or just his own enjoyment. Over time he built a reputation with corporates throughout Asia as the best for logistics and supply chain. His algorithms were innovative and gave corporations large savings in transportation and logistics costs.
Effective managers read. They read broadly and regularly. Here are some tips to guide your own reading.
Join a library
If you are in Singapore, then you have no excuse. Singapore's public libraries are excellent, well stocked and easily accessible. You can go online to reserve items, you will be notified when they are ready for collection, and then collect from the closest library.
Read the books you want to read, not the ones you should read.
The books you should read are still sitting on your shelf collecting dust.
We often use 360 Assessments during our organisational coaching engagements. While organisations are considering these tools we often receive numerous questions about the 360 assessments and how they should be applied. To make life easier I pulled a number of the answers together into this article.
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