I have been reviewing books on Amazon for years and when I went to explore this new book by an author whose poetry book I am supporting, I found that I could write a review, post the review and then virally (or so I hope) spread the review immediately! This is BIG and I wanted to share it with you.

For any of you who have books you loved to read then here is a great way to support your favorite authors!

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This little boy is a twin. He is a grandson of one of my dearest friends. He is also one funny young man. He tickles my heart and I hope he will tickle yours too.  His name is Ryan.

Ryan is already an innovator. Here, according to him, he has “customized” his piece of bacon by adding chocolate to it. He is at the new restaurant just opened on Randolph off of Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It’s Wildberry, known for its awesome breakfasts.

Consider these three social media innovation tips:

• Social media innovation can happen anywhere where you least expect it. For example, online innovation flourished during the Thailand floods, as the people of Thailand turned to social media for everything from sharing information to comic relief to serious calls for help.
• Social media in companies has a long way to go. If companies would honor their employees and share more personal stories and showcase more about who they are rather than what they do, they will connect more in the cyberworld which is what bringing in the social in the media world is all about.
• Explore social innovation in places like among children, in schools, on streets and write or video your unique self into the fabric of your work.

Finally, the greatest gift you can give to others is the gift of you. I know you’ve got something to offer. We ALL do, something that is all you, something from your heart. In your  effort you will find true innovation.

Saj-nicole Joni

Saj-nicole Joni is president and CEO of the Cambridge International Group, Ltd. As well as an internationally known business strategist and Third Opinion adviser to senior executives and high-potential leaders, providing insight into high-stakes issues at the intersection of strategy, action and complexity. She is a leading pioneer of Third Opinion counsel and has championed its place in the halls of corporate power. The impact of her work is to enable her clients to successfully lead their organizations and tackle risk, identify and capitalize more effectively on important revenue and market opportunities, and make better decisions around complexities that yield sustained financial performance. Joni’s clients include a cadre of C-level executives at the Global 200 firms, including category leaders in such sectors as finance, technology, software, information, professional services, telecommunications, oil and gas, pharmaceutical and media companies. She also works with CEOs of smaller, more entrepreneurial companies. Joni is a former Microsoft and CSC Index executive with several prestigious board memberships.

She is the author of The Third Opinion: How Successful Leaders Use Outside Insight to Create Superior Results and, more recently, of The Right Fight: How Great Leaders Use Healthy Conflict to Drive Performance, Innovation, and Value. She has also authored articles for a variety of publications and has served on the faculties of MIT, Carnegie Mellon University and Wellesley College for more than ten years. Joni earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at San Diego.

Here is an excerpt from Bob’s interview. To read the complete interview, please click here.

*     *     *

Morris: Before focusing on two of your books, a few general questions. First, when and why did you found Cambridge International Group, in 1997?

Joni: I founded the firm so that I could serve as a confidential adviser to CEOs who need a sparring partner when they are confronting their thorniest questions and toughest problems. To me, this is a way of giving back, helping them to raise their game.  The kind of work that I do is very different than services provided to CEOs by other experts, such as professional coaches, communications specialists, or experts in M&A or supply chains. In most cases, a CEO can avail him or herself of many different kinds of experts, but it’s hard to find a business executive and strategist who will help them wrestle with the most difficult issues of leading a company. Another person who does this kind of specialized work is Ram Charan, who has worked with people like Larry Bossidy and Jack Welch.

Morris: To what extent (if any) has your  mission since changed?

Joni: Oh, the mission has not changed at all! I have done this for so many years now, and my commitment to the work just continues to grow. There is such a huge need out there. It’s quite lonely at the top!

Morris: In The Opposable Mind, Roger Martin discusses what he characterizes as “integrative thinking,” perhaps best exemplified by Abraham Lincoln as portrayed by Doris Kearns Goodwin in Team of Rivals. That is, Lincoln possessed “the predisposition and the capacity to hold two [or more] diametrically opposed ideas” in his head and then “without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other,” was able to “produce a synthesis that is superior to either opposing idea.” Throughout his presidency, Lincoln frequently demonstrated integrative thinking, a “discipline of consideration and synthesis [that] is the hallmark of exceptional businesses [as well as of democratic governments] and those who lead them.”  Here’s my question: Isn’t this the mindset that one must have to appreciate the value of what you characterize as “the third opinion”?

Joni: Yes, of course. It’s the mindset any good leader must cultivate if he or she wants to lead their company to greatness. And it’s a particularly important mindset to have in these increasingly complex times.

The challenge for most leaders is in learning to think integratively. Most top businesspeople aren’t born with this skill, so it helps them to be well partnered with a great team of rivals, or people like Professors Charan, Martin or, me who can introduce them to alternative ways of thinking. When a leader is able to make good use of a third opinion by a qualified outsider, he or she develops “muscles” that can be used to apply this kind of skill in a practical way. And beyond that, the leader can push integrative thinking down into the organization, so that the next generation of leaders also raises its game.

Morris: In fact, in The Third Opinion, as I re-read it recently, it seemed to me that you were urging decision-makers to obtain as many authoritative and independent opinions as possible, whatever the total number of sources proves to be. Many times a fourth, fifth, or even a sixth opinion may be necessary. Is that a fair assessment?

Joni: What I am saying is that if you want to become a really effective leader, you need to build the right kind of brain trust. You want to develop a comprehensive inner circle of people who will ask the right questions. You don’t need to seek an endless number of opinions; that in itself is not helpful. Instead, you need your inner circle to help you get out of your own bubble, break you free from your patterns of thinking and your cognitive biases, and supplement your strengths. You need people around you who help you keep your mind fresh, supple and open, and who will help you deal with discordant data.

Morris: For those who have not as yet read the book, please explain what the Habit of the Mind, the Habit of Relationship, and the Habit of Focus are and why developing each is so beneficial.

Joni: These three habits are like interlocking rings. They work together. A leader who cultivates all three of them will be better able to anticipate problems, understand what is happening and choose the right course of action. The leader will not only be able to help his or her firm avoid disaster, but create a new kind of intellectual and social capital for the firm, so that it’s better positioned to face the uncertain future.

To cultivate Habit of Mind, you need to master three types of thinking. The first is “application,” by which I mean the ability to identify the characteristics of a problem and find a solution so that you get replicable results. (This kind of thinking is the one that demands the most mental energy from managers.) The second is “expert thinking,” which means that you need to develop a deep understanding about a specific subject; this expertise allows you to diagnose a problem.  The third is what I call “exponential thinking,” through which you develop your curiosity about the unknown. An exponential thinker is able to break away from mental models and hidden assumptions. He or she is able to discern patterns, and develop different scenarios of the future. An exponential thinker is able to see all sides of a problem, and to deal with complexities. This kind of thinking is the most difficult kind of thinking to master.

Part of being a good exponential thinker is the ability to listen and learn. That’s where the Habit of Relationship comes in. This has to do with how you work with team members and thinking partners. When you develop this habit, you are willing to be wrong and to ask for help when you need it. You create a safe environment where people feel that they can express candid opinions, and you share the spotlight with others. You think about yourself as part of a larger whole.

Finally, Habit of Focus is really about zeroing in on what is essential, as opposed to what is just urgent. This means that you must to see past the mountain of distractions coming at you. When you have a habit of focus, you are able to move forward with important but non-urgent issues. What will give your firm a strategic advantage? What market should you enter, or not? What competitive threats are on the horizon? How productive are your employees? When you really focus, you can make truly unique contributions to your company and create value.

Morris: In my opinion, the most effective decision-makers are results-driven. These three habits may be separate but are interdependent and essential to avoiding “paralysis by analysis.” Do you agree?

Joni: I would agree that results – as defined by accomplished financial and achievable strategic goals – are important. But focusing too much on narrow “results” per se can lead to tunnel vision. Too many people focus on the end without paying close enough attention to what the end should be in service of, or what the company is really about. BP, for example, was full of results-driven people who lost track of the big picture, and who ended up producing catastrophically bad results. In fact, I would argue that if your organization has too many narrow-minded, results-driven people in it, they can drive your firm right into disaster.

I believe good leaders focus on much more than expedient results. They care about big questions, and about developing a flexible perspective. If you, as a leader, frame an important question correctly and are able to help people to produce a good result, that’s terrific. But you had better make sure that the results your organization produces are greater than the sum of all the parts.

*     *     *

Bob Morris

Bob Morris is an independent management consultant based in Dallas who specializes in high-impact knowledge management and accelerated executive development. He has also reviewed more than 2,200 business books for Amazon’s US, UK, and Canadian websites. Each week, we will add to the Networlding Business Bookshelf abbreviated versions in which he discusses a few of his personal favorites. To contact him directly: interllect@mindspring.com.

When Threadless was started in 2000 it began with just $1,000 in seed money. Co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart had a simple idea: let the online community design, vote and buy apparel that was creatively submitted by its own users. They redefined consumerism by pushing away big label brands and and acknowledging that creativity doesn’t always have to come from without: more often then not it’s found from within.

That could be the theme of our city’s social media ventures, actually, because Chicago doesn’t need to look outside of its land to find entrepreneurs who are shaping today’s market through social media. Crowdspring is also a Chicago-based company that offers users the chance to pick and choose solutions from hundreds of designers. The money is shelled out to the one that you think did the best job.

Companies like 37 Signals, a web-based apps company that offer collaboration options, are why the excitement continues to grow for Social Media Week Chicago, September 19-23. Don’t be left on the sidelines while the world is tuning in to discover the unique role our city can play in the future of social media.

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Image via Wikipedia

I just finished our first “Worlds Biggest Book Club” with our first book, and still free on Kindle for 18 more days, called “Do the Work” by Steven Pressfield whose credits include a number of movies including “The Legend of Baggar Vance.” In that movie we are inspired by the following dialogue:

Bagger Vance: See, the trick is… to find your swing…
Rannulph Junuh: What’d you say?…
Bagger Vance: Well you lost your swing… We got to go find it… Now it’s somewhere… in the harmony… of all that is… All that was… All that will be…

In Steven Pressfield’s new book, “Do the Work” you will just as powerfully get inspired by statements like, “The ‘Real You’ Must Due the ‘Resistance You’” and

“The Opposite of Resistance is Assistance.” There are so many amazing ideas and suggestions in this book that you MUST go read it, NOW, TODAY.

This is where a reference to my son comes in. Please read on and see if you see the connection:

If you had a second chance at life, would you recognize it? Would you do everything in your power to live as if there were no tomorrow?

Last year the threat of “no tomorrow” was very real for me, but the universe offered up a gift, an opportunity to learn the true nature of acceptance and gratitude. Although disguised as a malicious malady, it was no less rewarding to receive, and I am a better person because of it. I learned so much about myself, the world and my relationship to it. Cancer is increasingly becoming a household name and will continue to touch our lives as all things get harder, better, faster, stronger.

It’s been one year and I’m well. In fact, I haven’t felt this strong since college, so I thought this is as good a time as any to ride my bicycle from Chicago to the Panama Canal. That’s 3,000 miles, 6 weeks, 9 countries. I’ve been training for the last 4 months, and even got a job as a bike courier during the day for efficiency’s sake. I will take off Sunday May 8th at 9am from The Bean at Millenium Park. If your in the neighborhood, stop by and see me off.

I’m going to maintain a travel log throughout the trip, documenting the unique and curious experiences I encounter along the way. If you have experience in places on the route, or know of anyone/anything I simply must see, don’t hesitate to let me know! I can use all the support I can get. I’m getting incredibly excited as my departure draws near and I’d like to invite you to follow me on the Interweb. You can visit www.onegraham.tumblr.com for more info. Click the links at the top of the website for details.

I look forward to seeing you when I return on June 24th. Until then, don’t stop ’til you get enough.

All my best,
Graham Lee Giovagnoli
www.onegraham.tumblr.com

———As a mother, as a coach, mentor, speaker and advocate of young people trying to get a good start in life, I hope you can take some inspiration away from Graham. . . . I know I did.

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Bob Morris is an independent management consultant based in Dallas who specializes in accelerated executive development. Over the years, he has also reviewed more than 2,200 business books for Amazon. Each week, I will add to the Networlding Business Bookshelf abbreviated versions in which he discusses a few of his personal favorites. If you wish to share any comments and/or suggest any specific titles, please contact him directly at interllect@mindspring.

* * *

Notes from the Future

• Table of Contents
• Prologue
• Introduction

Networking Through Time

• Mary Cassatt
• Marco Polo

Networlding & More

• 30 Questions to Ask Any Organization
• The Seven Steps of Networlding
• LinkedIn Scripts

Also, check out my full collection what I’ve authored and co-authored on Amazon including bestsellers:

• 50 Ways to Better Social Media: Making Solid Connections that Create Dynamic Opportunities
• 75 Cage Rattling Questions to Change the Way You Work: Shake-Em-Up Questions to Open Up Questions, Ignite Discussion, and Spark Creativity

Leadership 12-29

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Fortune 500 Series: FedEx delivers success through social media …
By Jennifer Leggio

Blogger, Jennifer Leggio showcases The FedEx Citizenship blog that provides insights from their employees into FedEx global citizenship programs and the The FedEx Cares Week blog is an internal blog that chronicles the annual global philanthropy event by having team members share their stories about the community service projects. …

Hill and Knowlton’s New Blogging Code of Conduct

Hill and Knowlton publish their blogging “Code of Conduct.” This is a nice model for other organizations to use.

The Top Six Reasons Companies are Still Scared of Social Media

This article showcases the reasons why companies are afraid of social media. Whereas they are typical reasons that make sense, the article is good at aggregating the most common reasons. The hurdles for companies are getting lowered by organizations like SAS who take on the risk, trusting and encouraging their employees to blog and prove that it is still better to be “out there” than to hide behind corporate walls.

My Take

I spoke with a couple of social media experts this week and found that, once again, myopia is still alive, well and living in peoples’ minds still. By this I mean that many see social networking as their ticket to great success. They think that because there are so are confused how to make social networking work that there is a huge market out there and that they can just put a shingle out that states they are social media experts overnight. Recently someone shared they had a construction worker friend who is now teaching LinkedIn.

I’ve been teaching people social networking for more than a decade and up until last year many still didn’t understand the basics of business networking. Now there are five times the number of experts on the subject than there were even three months ago. What a strange time this is! It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out in the next couple of years. I remember when I use to hold networking events and there was an over abundance of bankers; then came the plethora of coaches. Now everyone is a social networking and new media expert. Hmmmmm.

• people to network regularly to create new jobs, new products and services, new connections and ideas, new ways to create and grow a green environment.
• daily live and virtual events that teach people how to leverage the many online tools available to them at no cost.
• facilitated support for those want to connect with others to “co-develop” new products and services.
• harvesting of huge amounts of wisdom (the 20% that can yield up to an 80% return) that will grow from the thousands of weekly conversations, brainstorms and planning that will occur in the center.

I have been working on a center for over ten years. Three years ago I was gifted a pilot center at 401 N. Michigan Avenue compliments of Regus Shared Office Space experts. I am now forming a coalition of people who want to be some part of this initiative. Here is what we need:

1. One, two or three top companies in Chicago that will take monies from promotional budgets (all of those products that are disposable and just go into landfills after they are used anyway) and put just a portion of the millions spent into a physical center that can yield them highly loyal customers.
2. A star team of thought leaders who have influence with major companies who, first, want to introduce us to their connections and, second, fully support the center, providing their thought leadership for startup and growth.
3. Support from local universities. I have sat on a board at The University of Chicago. I have also been involved with Northwestern.
4. Verbal commitments from vendors for special rates for services and products once we have the team assembled to open the center.

Note that although it would be good to have a non-profit center, I now believe after 22 years in business that it would be better to open a for-profit business. I am convinced that a for-profit, socially responsible initiative is the best way to grow this center which needs to go up faster.

Let’s start something, first, in Chicago. Then let’s share this around the country and the world. Let’s not wait to revitalize our economy. We need to make something happen now.

Please comment, below, if you have ideas or want to offer support!

There is no question that selling today bears no resemblance to selling a year ago. At the same time there has been one area in business that has realized a decided growth–the development of social networking. Social networking most simply defined as online networking has grown and will certainly continue to grow perhaps even more so during these fearful times. So what can you be doing as a business owner to capitalize on these low-cost, no-cost marketing and sales tools that are like super express trains helping accelerate top line sales success? Following are three key strategies you can implement immediately to capitalize on a real “Network Effect” for your sales initiatives.

First, choose just one social networking platform to master. Why? Over the last twenty years I have worked with some of the best companies–Motorola, CNA, American Express, Hewitt, UBS and so on with leaders who were constantly searching for the best and most successful tools to grow their markets.  When they asked me to offer my suggestions, the successful results I have seen kept leading me back to social networks and social networking strategies, but more specifically, the strategy I have found even more successful is to master just one platform rather than try to learn and then leverage mutiliple platforms.

My number one prediction since its inception has been that LinkedIn would become a leader in social networks for business.  Now with more than 35 million users, the average age being 41, with all Fortune 500 companies represented with literally hundreds of employees going up to the C-Level, LinkedIn is a platform that can help cut sales cycles by 30% or more. For the last six years my organization has used LinkedIn to help more than 3000 professionals use  how to use LinkedIn to grow their sales and recruit top talent.

Second, because networking at its core is based on building trust, I have seen that social networking strategies can help with not only generate new leads, prospects and customers but also upsell new account opportunities. The real question to ask when growing your network today would be, “Who are the super connectors who my company’s sales professionals can build trust with to create continuous introductions into new and existing accounts?”

With the many leaders I have met over the last two decades it was not until the development of online social networking sites that any of us discovered there would be millions of people who have top-level networking skills and be  “ready, willing and able” to make introductions to key decision makers, or at the very least, are people who are Two Degrees or just one person away from the key decision makers at almost any company. Semi-conductor companies, insurance , high tech–you name it, all industries have top-level networkers who are accessible. Why are these people so willing to help others? They see the networking as “opportunity expansive” instead of “opportunity limiting.” Another name for these people is “Open Networker.” ,The good news is that anyone can build a base of connections to these professionals who will make valuable introductions. And now an introduction has become the new referral. And the cost? Nothing. And the time? Well if a cold call would be considered a Six-Degree Connection what would be the time savings to realize, instead, a Two-Degree Connection?

Third , perhaps the most interesting reality is that social networks are just hitting their stride. As business professionals move from becoming aware of social networks for top line sales to a recognition that they are relevant to building trust faster to acquiring and taking ownership of new accounts to leveraging even more new sales as your customers begin to see you as a leader in your market and then choose to leverage your brand out to even more new potential customers, you will be well on your way to realizing your top line sales vision through your relationships.

Social Networks are here to stay. The only real question is will you be one of the early adopters who leverages their usefulness or will you be one of the Laggards (a company who progresses slowly and falls behind the others)? It’s really as simple as that.

Top Learning Point: Know the Four Stages of Branding to Take Optimum Advantage of Top Line Sales

1. Brand Awareness – Your market needs to first be aware you are out there before they can begin to recogize that you have something that might be of value to their business.
2. Brand Recognition – Once your market is aware you are out there they need to recognize that you offer products and services can help their business become more successful.
3. Brand Ownership - Once your market recognizes your value they are willing to engage you as a vendor partner. Youare first, more of a vendor than a partner perhaps, but, if you know how to continuously listen to your customers’ needs and respond sometimes even create new products and services to serve them, you will quickly turn into a partner.
4. Brand Leverage - And when your customers become real partners with you, you will then find even more opportunities such as co-creating with them through joint ventures and, most certainly, realizing the very real benefit of them naturally spreading word-of-mouth endorsements for you fine work. In other words you will realize the best top line sales opportunities.

I do call a lot of us in this country “consumptionholics.” I also found myself playing this role at times. But not today. Not this month. Not in the near future.

What would you do? If you don’t have an answer I’ll give you some of my own.  For those executive at AIG and, in fact anyone who gets a bonus this year, think of giving some to those in need. There are so many food pantries that need extra food. There are so many children who need clothing. There are so many places to volunteer.

And if for some reason the bonus monies have not left the corporate coffers yet . . . stop. Don’t give out bonuses for “retaining top talent.” As one of my colleagues said, “Why would these companies be afraid that these people will go elsewhere? Where is there to go? Who is hiring?”

So, Tom Peters. I’ve watched you over the years. I always said I would like to be more like you. I appreciate your thoughtfulness in this time and there is no question you have a great heart. Now, even though this economic bust has already occurred, please continue to use your influence next year to help people wake up and walk out on the craziness that this year has seen. Keep promoting the idea of giving and social responsibility–especially to companies that don’t seem to get that consumers CARE what goes on inside the corporate walls–between cubicles and departments and inside and outside of boardrooms. Keep promoting strategies that show companies how to “do well by doing good.”

In the end, the more people who speak out against greed like you have done the better off we will all be. Thanks Tom.