Hey everyone, here we go. . . . . .
IN OUR WORLD
Sorry about missing last week’s blog posting and thanks for all the emails wondering what went wrong. I had some problems posting from the internet at my New York hotel. I seem to have been suffering from hotel internet problems lately, but no more as I invested in a portable Wi-Fi device to solve the issue.
Last week I had the absolute honor of working with a new client in New York. It was the introduction of the Repeatable Successful Acts platform to the architectural industry. Architects have the challenge of selling ideas and were looking for new strategies. I traveled with star agent Chris Ryan and had a fantastic time in the Big Apple.
Today I am coming to you from La Jolla CA where I am presenting a completely customized program to key financial portfolio managers and facilitating a panel discussion.
I am back to Dallas with a quick trip to Austin to end the week.
Next week it’s time to design and work on a number of projects that are both on the drawing board and getting ready to start.
HEY, YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER –CREATIVEVENTURE
AND ON FACEBOOK – STEPHEN HARVILL!
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW
THE LAW OF EVERYTHING – Despite your skills, knowledge, confidence
and experience – YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING.
Attempting Everything Leads to Nothing
Nothing gets really talented people in trouble faster than THE LAW OF EVERYTHING. It’s hard to let go, to delegate, especially critical tasks and projects.
The reality is that any successful project turns out to be the sum of a lot of peoples work.
Leaders need to recognize the fact that to lead is a process of social influence in which a person enlists the aid of others to accomplish a goal.
Entrepreneurs are particularly susceptible to this problem. Early on in their development of their business they do everything. They are the marketing, personnel, sales and manager of their idea. Then as they gain success THE LAW OF EVERYTHING comes into play. Growth dictates the allocation of time.
Learning to become a good leader is all about being able to understand that you can never DO EVERYTHING.
This is easier said than done. The success is to start small. Begin assigning tasks that create accountability and an ease of monitoring.
Moving your thinking and actions towards only the impactful and critical with regard to the allocation of your time is the key step in developing leadership skill sets.
ENTERTAINMENT
MOVIES: Thor: Oh, Yea! Here come the summer blockbusters and I am ready to rock and roll!
NetFlix Fans: Dances with Wolves: One of my Top 10 of all time.
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TV: Game of Thrones: I am really enjoying this new HBO series…
BOOK: Partnership – Segil: I thought this was a good idea and fit with THE LAW OF EVERYTHING.
MUSIC: Most of you know that I am huge Bob Dylan fan. Here is a haunting version of The Chimes of Freedom flashing…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3tB3PsViAc
WEB SITES: People ask where I hang out for fun on the web. I love this site, but there are some language issues so beware.
SOUTH OF NORMAL
Really interesting from the Wells Fargo Daily Advantage.
There’s been a proliferation of Ph.D.s in the sciences. According to a great article in Nature titled “The Ph.D. Factory,” the number of science-related Ph.D.s granted each year jumped 40% between 1998 and 2008 in countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development—the OECD. At 34,000 a year, the absolute number of science Ph.D.s produced globally is still relatively small, but the jobs still aren’t there to soak them up. Most people who embark on a Ph.D. ultimately want to perform academic research at a university, but those jobs are much scarcer than they once were. Every year the nation’s universities crank out a new round of Ph.D.s, but it’s not like there are boutique university start-ups to give them jobs. The next preferred alternative is using their degrees in the private sector, like a chemistry, biology, or life sciences Ph.D. working at a pharmaceutical firm. But those jobs aren’t there in abundance either.
The end result, according to Nature, is that many Ph.D.s end up working at jobs that don’t require the advanced degree in the first place. That’s a lot of time, effort, and money that’s wasted on an education that can take five to ten years after college. Some U.S. researchers say we need to focus more on placing existing Ph.D.s and actively discouraging new ones. But that sentiment isn’t shared by China and India, which have made huge investments in trying to produce as many Ph.D.s as possible. And for China, it’s worked: It now produces more Ph.D.s per year than the U.S., although there are questions about how China’s Ph.D. programs stack up against their U.S. counterparts.
So we say we want more people with advanced degrees to lead the world to new technological frontiers, but globally we don’t produce the jobs that would make those degrees worthwhile. One of the downsides to spending all your time studying physics, for example, is that you’re not spending any time learning about business and what it takes to start your own company and thus create the jobs that aren’t there now. Of course, this general principle has a corollary: One of the downsides to studying only business is that you’re launched into the corporate world knowing how to manage things but not how to create anything new in the sciences that need to be managed (there’s a further corollary for us lapsed philosophers: You can spend all your time studying philosophy and know how to neither create scientific things nor manage them).
Drop me a note with your comments at steve@creativeventures.com
Thanks for stopping by and until next time, Adios and Aloha.
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