I feel the difference is substantial.

Another HR colleague is on a quest for an HR Generalist with a brain. I read that to mean someone with the capacity to think, research and solve problems beyond simple transactional tasks. A college degree is essential as it proves the commitment to learn beyond the rote.

More to follow.

Primal Leadership includes the best model that I have seen for self-directed learning. It takes and continues you the learner on a sustainable and circular path of life long learning. To get started, make these five discoveries.

1. My ideal self: Who do I want to be?

2. My real self: Who am I?

Pause to discern the strengths and gaps.

3. My learning agenda: Building on my strengths while reducing gaps.

4. Experimenting with new behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.

Practicing the new behavior, building new neural pathways through to mastery.

5. Developing trusting relationships that help, support, and encourage each step in the process.

This is the core of the Primal Leadership process. However, to get the full and feel the full authentic impact, get and read the book.

I still have one more piece of housekeeping to do. Find a great picture to replace the template picture in the blog header. I’m thinking Sunrise over America from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.

My takeaways include her quotes, “I can do this” and “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Both quotes I can learn from. I know much, need to know who more.

Also during this meeting, I was recognized for my SPHR and may have decided on my HR blog name.

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Collecting inputs from HR peers, will start posting the list here this weekend. Stay tuned.

Going on the premise that each book is one inch, five feet is sixty inches, thus 60 books will be listed. Each contributor will be credited.

2008.11.15 Update – Here is the list so far, 31 books. Do have some formatting issues to visit and resolve for simple copying/pasting. Also missing about 15-20 inputs received via email that were unintentionally purged.

I just now realized that I left off the inputs from another resource, BRB!

Critical Conversations (wbr sphr)
The Future of Human Resource Management (Losey et al) (wbr sphr)
Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People (wbr sphr)
The Path to Tranquility (Daily reflections) by the Dali Lama (wbr sphr)
Discipline without Punishment (Midwest HR)
Leader’s Legacy (Midwest HR)
Crucial Confrontations (Midwest HR & Dan Johnson)
Good to Great (HR-MO & Mark)
Making Your HR Dept a Profit Center (anonymous)
Getting Things Done (anonymous)
Management of Organizational Behavior by Hersey & Blanchar (RMSJr)
Primal Leadership by Goleman (RMSJr)
First, Break All The Rules by Buckingham et al. (RMSJr)
Leading Change – Kotter (HRD)
Break the rules yadda (HRD)
the Leadership challenge – Kouzez (HRD)
Take Back Your Life (using Outlook) – McGhee (HRD)
Pay People Right – Zingheim (HRD)
Human Resource Management – Mathis (HRD)
Hire with Your Head (HR-MO)
Getting to Yes – the Art of Negotiation (HR-MO)
The Inner Game of Work (HR-MO)
Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna (HR-MO)
The Skilled Helped (HR-MO)
Mandated Benefits (good reference guide for all states) (Midwest HR)
QBQ: Question Behind the Question by John Miller (Fargo)
Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Fargo)
Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell (Fargo)
Machavelli’s The Prince (Fargo)
The Oz Principle (Mark)
The 5 Dysfunctions of Team (Mark)

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My only comment on her I’d like to file a grievance, please.blog is that as a driver of Chevy Silverado 2500HD 4X4 with 8.1L V8 club cab gasser, my truck has enough under the hood that I don’t need to dangle anything else to make up for lesser manufacturer’s reality.

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Michael and I share a presence on Human Resource Bloggers. Although, my HR blogging remains elusively vague to nonexistent. But I do have an HR Category!

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Firstop Punk Rock HR, by Laurie Ruettimann.

I hope to learn more and discover my own style during this quest.

It started when I had to google my butchered spelling of bureacracy. First iteration was so bad that Word spellcheck wouldn’t touch it. Google, being smarter, guided me towards correct and orderly letter placement. Then tripped me into Wikipedia. Always a great excursion into knowing and learning more.

The Wiki page for bureaucrcacy, included the previous unknown term adhocracy. “Adhocracy is a type of organization being antonymous to bureaucracy. The term was first popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler[1], and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations (particularly online organizations), further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.” What a super & superbcool word and concept!

It got me thinking.

I was using the word bureaucracy in a fax to my supplemental insurance carrier while expressing my concern over repetitive and redundant claim paperwork. Except for the date of my signature, nothing in the form had changed over the past four months of three prior submissions. Seems like the duck is stuck on stupid.

I was still thinking. This time of the bureaucracy that had molded my professional experticse and experience. I resisted them too. For 21 years, I served in a global aersopace security and delivery service. 400,000+ employees, in two classes, commissioned and enlisted. Not to mention temporary contingency and supplemental contract workers, along with local nationals and third country nationals, scattered into part-time and near full time. Or to put it more simply and eliminate the bureaucratic baffle speak, I was a Senior Master Sargent in the United States Air Force. Status – active duty. Not Guard. Not Reserve. The USAF is a superb bureaucracy.

Since retirement, really transition to civilian status, I have worked for smaller employers. Neither over 100. Bureaucracy didn’t work. I struggle some about this to this day.

So my thinking led me to this conclusion. They were adhocracies! Small, nimble, collaborative problem solving, and all the best things that smaller businesses can become. Now, with this awareness, I can appreciate the need to temper my bureaucratic tendencies.

That is not to say that there is not the need for consistent applications of repeated processes and policies. Remain flexible and adaptive to the situation.

This is a good thing. Do you think I should thank the duck?

Now, on and back to other things – How to Think

Ed Boyden is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. His lab broadly invents new tools to engineer brain circuits, in order to treat intractable disorders, augment cognition, and better understand the nature of existence.

Briefly.
1. Synthesize new ideas constantly.
2. Learn how to learn (rapidl).
3. Work backward from your goal.
4. Always have a long-term plan.
5. Make contingency maps.
6. Collaborate.
7. Make your mistakes quickly.
8. write up best-practices protocols.
9. Document everything obsessively.
10. Keep it simple.

He concludes his blog entry with two practical notes, logarithmic time planning, “events that are close at hand are scheduled with finer detail than events that are far off”. And, conversational summaries, “useful to write and draw while talking with someone,”.

Thinking, think about it.

Citation: Boyden, E. S. “How to Think.” Ed Boyden’s Blog. Technology Review. 11/13/07. (http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/boyden/21925/).

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