Achieving What Matters Most

This article is part of our Mentor-Coach Reading List series. Join the mailing list to receive this and more.

Achieving What Matters Most is the focus of this reading list selection, exploring if we can achieve and master something we choose, if the work we did had significance, if we could tap hidden potential, if we could smooth the friction, if we could make the right things easier and the wrong or pointless things harder.

SETTING THE SCENE

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.-Michelangelo

Mastery, I learned, was not something genetic, or for a lucky few. It is something we can all attain if get rid of some misconceptions and gain clarity as to the required path.-Robert Greene

Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject.-Thomas Mann

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.-Helen Keller

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.-Benjamin Franklin

Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.-C. S. Lewis

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.-Franklin D. Roosevelt

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

What if we built an organisation people would genuinely miss if it were gone?
How much better would our work be if the work we did made things better?
How do masters learn their skill?
How could anyone become so good at anything?
Is it possible to unravel why some people can achieve or master something that they choose?
How can we improve at improving?
What is the process of achievement?
How do we handle the frictions and what makes a friction-fixer effective?
What could happen in your life if the easy things or pointless distractions became harder and the essential things became easier and enjoyable?

Happy reading and stay curious!

Here is more information about the Series 21 selection of books.

The Song of Significance - A New Manifesto for Teams. (Penguin, June 2023) by Seth Godin. In The Song of Significance, Seth Godin argues that we need to build organisations that empower and trust employees to deliver their best work, no matter where they're working. If you want your employees to live up to their full professional potential, you must give them the respect and autonomy they deserve as humans. Godin offers a series of commitments leaders must make, and a list of organizational milestones on the way to significance. It's time for leaders to make and keep a new promise, and to recognize that, as Godin says, "Humans aren't a resource. They are the point."

The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery (Liveright Publishing Corporation, March 2023) by Adam Gopnik. By looking at masters of their craft: a classical painter, a boxer, a dancing instructor, a driving instructor, and others, he shows that the top people in any field share a set of common qualities and methods. For one, their mastery is always a process of breaking down and building up--of identifying and perfecting the small constituent parts of a skill and the combining them for an overall effect greater than the sum of those parts. For another, mastery almost always involves intentional imperfection--as in music, where vibrato, a way of not quite landing on the right note, carries maximum expressiveness. Gopnik's simplest and most invigorating lesson, however, is that we are surrounded by mastery. Far from rare, mastery is commonplace. After all, each of us relentlessly seeks to better ourselves.

Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things (Virgin Digital , October 2023) by Adam Grant. We can all improve at improving. Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess-it's about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.

The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder (St. Martin's Press, January 2024) by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao. Has lessons for being a ‘friction fixer”, leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process (while still trying to clean it up). Every organization is plagued by destructive friction--the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get anything done. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast and frenzied people and teams.

How Big Things Get Done: Lessons from the World's Top Project Manager (Macmillan; Air Iri OME edition, February 2023) by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, new reality. Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures can help identify the errors that lead projects to fail, and the research-based principles that will make yours succeed: - Understand your odds. If you don't know them, you won't win. - Plan slow, act fast. Getting to the action quick feels right. But it's wrong. - Think right to left. Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there. - Find your Lego. Big is best built from small. - Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can't, so they fail. The examples range from the building of the Sydney Opera House to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, and reveals how to get any ambitious project done ― on time and on budget.

Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most (Virgin, May 2021) by Greg McKeown. This paragraph from the book sums up why this is worth reading: “What could happen in your life if the easy but pointless things became harder and the essential things became easier? If the essential projects you've been putting off became enjoyable, while the pointless distractions lost their appeal completely? Such a shift would stack the deck in our favor. It would change everything. It does change everything. That's the value proposition of Effortless. It's about a whole new way to work and live. A way to achieve more with ease to achieve more because you are at ease. A way to lighten life's inevitable burdens, and get the right results without burning out.”

Coaching Conversations THAT Are WORTH READING

FOCUS SHAPES CONTRIBUTIONS Coaching Conversation: whether you are part of an executive team, in the c-suite or have joined the boardroom, one thing is certain, where you focus your attention and what you listen for, shapes your contributions.

FOR THE CROSSROADS Coaching Conversation: while performance counts and the right performance counts even more, technical and functional expertise is not enough when facing the career crossroads.

EXECUTIVE RESILIENCE Coaching Conversation: lead others through trust and manage self through resilience. Resilience requires adaptiveness. Above all, it requires being kind to yourself while caring for the wellbeing of others.

LEADER AS STRATEGIST THE DIFFERENT FACETS OF THE LEADER AS STRATEGIST The ‘leader as strategist’ fine-tunes how to apply strategic thinking to strategic process and strategic choices; to articulate and link back to the core purpose for the management of change. They understand the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of strategy.

Achieving What Matters Most

SETTING THE SCENE

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

Coaching Conversations THAT Are WORTH READING

OUR CLIENTS SUCCESS TELLS OUR STORY FOR US >>

/ THE TALENT ADVISORS - THE NED ADVISORS /

Trusted Mentor-Coach, Guides Directors, Clarifies NED Capability, Advises Next-Level Executives, Facilitates Board Sessions, Program Mentor for Leadership Development. Clients are in Australia and Virtually.