Do you feel lost in your career? Do you need guidance navigating the politics of work? Have you ever wanted to have a life coach that sat down with you and told you how the corporate world really works without any of the BS? Then this book is for you. I had the opportunity to read Tim Cole’s, “The Compass Solution” and was pleasantly surprised and educated.

Tim Cole is a successful executive within the healthcare industry who has succeeded at staying and enhancing his career within a climate that is full of mergers, layoffs, and changes in direction. He did not get there by accident but he also did not have all the answers laid out before him.

This book is his attempt to educate the current and future generations of careerists on how to avoid the pitfalls and embrace the challenges that come with climbing the ladder of success.

If you have ever read a devotional or daily affirmation then this book will seem familiar. It is laid out in two parts that are broken into seven sections. Within each section are several small chapters that touch on different topics.

This is the type of reading where you can focus on one section a morning during your daily routine or consume several at once. Tim does a great job of keeping the lessons grouped in a logical order and allows you to focus on a topic or just read front to back.

I was immediately struck by the first lesson that speaks to the responsibility you have to yourself and your company by setting a personal compass.

We have all had those jobs or bosses where we don’t want to put forth our best efforts. I know I have in the past and, as I look back, I regret those times in my career where I wasn’t my best at work. The only person it truly hurt was me. Tim presses home the point that our life and our work is our responsibility, no excuses.

It was an easy lesson to retain and applicable to any role. He continues to press on lessons of personal accountability through the first section and covers topics ranging from workplace burnout to how to take ownership over your career.

Tim then leads into the people section which has some entertainment factor to it. I especially like the topic of toadies. We have all seen them, the people who crowd around the boss hoping to impress them. In fact, we have probably all been a toadie at some point.

And that is the lesson. We have moments when we are not our best self, but we can recognize it and move forward.

In my role, I do not receive a lot of feedback from my leadership. Sometimes that is good, but sometimes it can feel like a vacuum.

This book has been a great addition to my daily routine. You can read a section in five minutes and dwell on the lesson throughout the day. Tim does not sugarcoat the topics, but he is also not a pessimist. It is obvious that his goal is to enable others to succeed by reflecting on his own shortfalls and achievements.

Who needs this book you may ask?

If I was a professor I would make this book mandatory for my students. If I was a manager I would make it mandatory for my team. I say this with all seriousness, because the lessons contained within would enable them to live their best selves, as well as enhance the bottom line.

The idea of ownership can create immediate value for the team and should be embraced.

So if you’re looking for a book that takes less than five minutes a day of commitment, has some humor and has a lesson to further your career then I suggest you pick this up.

Image credit: goodreads

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

As I’ve said before, Steve Jobs may be a good role model for building a company, but not for building a culture.

Just think what would you could build if you combined the best of Apple’s culture with the best of cultural benchmarks — the way Pearl Automation is doing.

Founded in 2014 by three former senior managers from Apple’s iPod and iPhone groups, Pearl has tried to replicate what its leaders view as the best parts of Apple’s culture, like its fanatical dedication to quality and beautiful design. But the founders also consciously rejected some of the less appealing aspects of life at Apple, like its legendary secrecy and top-down management style.

Pearl’s cultural focus is totally inclusive, based on the idea that, since, every employee is contributing to its success, every employee has a “need to know.”

The start-up, which makes high-tech accessories for cars, holds weekly meetings with its entire staff. Managers brief them on coming products, company finances, technical problems, even the presentations made to the board.

Of course, the first thing you need to do is accept that you are not Steve Jobs.

The next thing is to understand that both creativity and failure are necessary to succeed.

Eswar Priyadarshan, who sold his mobile advertising company, Quattro Wireless, to Apple in 2010 and stayed for four years, said that he learned about design and aesthetics during his time there. But he noted that Apple’s high compensation, focused product mission and top-down decision-making tended to damp the risk-taking necessary to start a company.

Mr. Priyadarshan, who is now chief executive of BotCentral, a six-person start-up, compared Apple to a community of warrior monks. “Warrior monks don’t talk and do whatever is asked,” he said.

The actual question you need to answer is: do you want to lead a team of warrior monks or are you more excited about herding a team of innovative, quirky, creative cats.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Nucor has always played a prominent role when I cite companies where culture has been the major driver of its success and CEO Dan DiMicco is the poster boy for what a CEO should be/do.

Since 2000 DiMicco increased sales fivefold and gave shareholders a 464% return, but keeping and developing the culture put in place by Ken Iverson is his greatest claim to fame as well as the basis for Nucor’s phenomenal success.

Nucor is living proof of a mantra in which I totally believe, i.e., people are intelligent, motivated and honestly want their company to succeed, and that, given the opportunity, all employees, no matter their level or education, will use their brains and skills to make success happen whether they are told to or not.

Read this short overview to really understand the difference between Nucor’s approach to things like pay for performance, empowerment and ‘ownership’ vs. the emptiness of those words at most companies.

DiMicco is moving up to Executive Chairman and President John Ferriola is being promoted to CEO, but don’t expect the culture to change any time soon.

The CEO-in-waiting, Ferriola, has said “I consider myself an apostle” for the gospel of Ken Iverson.

Flickr image credit: Nucor

In 2006, before I took over Leadership Turn, Mary Jo Manzanares wrote a post called Team Building & Interpersonal Communication; Saturday, Steven J Barker brought up an interesting point and suggested that we explore it.

“I would be interested to hear your thoughts on differences between personal ownership and group ownership. From first glance those differences seem subtle, but I have a feeling that they are far reaching.”

I thought about that, not just in the context that Mary Jo wrote it, but in the larger one of companies and individuals with whom I’ve worked over the years and here is what strikes me.

I think the difference isn’t just far reaching, but of critical importance because they can be dangerous to the organization.

How so?

Think of group ownership as a form of nationalism with the company in place of the country.

Now think of personal ownership as an ideology.

As long as the nationalism and individual ideologies are aligned or, at the very least, synergistic, then the organization benefits.

But when they are in conflict disagreements become wars, whether overt or covert, energy is wasted, productivity lost and progress comes to a grinding halt.

You have only to look around the world to see how inflexible ideologies tear countries apart and set one part against the other.

The solution to this starts by hiring people that are good fits with the company’s culture. That doesn’t mean they always agree—the last thing you want is a homogenized team—but it does mean that they are flexible enough to put the company first, and their personal ideology second.

Another critical factor in keeping the various ownerships aligned is communication.

By providing complete understanding of the company’s goals, how each person can best contribute to their accomplishment and how those contributions will help achieve the individual’s own goals unites the team and helps it achieve more than any member thought possible.

What else would you do to increase ownership convergence?

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: dominiqs on flickr