Two books, three audiobooks, and a website are presented. The Power of Less offers ideas on achieving simplicity in one's life while The Ice Cream Maker presents an approach to instilling quality in what you do or produce. The audiobooks and website are focused on leadership and leaders. Each item is different but all are worthwhile.
Leo Babauta wrote The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential....in Business and in Life in 2009. This 170-page book costs between US$17.00 and US$7.99 and is available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook. The premise of this book is that one can achieve simplicity in one's life by identifying the essential and eliminating the rest. To be honest, when a few of my colleagues, on different occasions, sang the praises of this book and this premise, I was skeptical at best. That being said, let's look at some of these ideas.
The Power of Less has two parts. Part 1 presents the six guiding principles and part 2 offers practical tips on how to implement these six principles in key areas of life from work to personal life. The six principles are as follows: set limitations, choose the essential, simplify, focus, create habits, and start small. Each of these principles is discussed in detail in the first six chapters of this book. Chapter 1 is why less is powerful. Babuta posits that there is only so much time each day and by setting limitations, we must choose what is essential to maximize your time and energy. Babuta suggests to do fewer things but have a greater impact through choosing what you spend your time on in a conscious manner. He offers ideas as to make your selection.
Babuta offers a great analogy to begin Chapter 2, The Art of Setting Limits. He compares living without limits with shopping without limits. If you have unlimited funds, you buy whatever you see and thus become overloaded with stuff you don't need or really want. However, if you have a budget, you are forced to choose only those things that you really want and need and thus end up with less "stuff." He discusses not only how limits can help but also what to set limits on (e-mail, daily tasks, time on the telephone, the number of projects, the number of objects on your desk, etc.) and how to set limits. Chapter 3 is about choosing the essential and simplifying incorporating the second and third principles. Using a series of questions, the reader is guided to choose their essential goals. Babuta states that once the essential has been identified, "the task of simplifying is theoretically easy-you just have to eliminate all the nonessential" (p. 23). As the author states, "the hard part comes when others want you to get something done, but you don't think it's essential" (p. 24).
Chapter 4, Simple Focus, states that "Focus is your most important tool in becoming more effective" (p. 25). Ideas are presented for how to use focus to improve your life and how to focus on one task or single-tasking as Babuta advocates. He offers some suggestions on how to single-task such as each morning work on your Most Important task, to turn off other distractions, only check your e-mail at designated times, and so on. Babuta also suggests to focus on the present, instead of the past or future. In Chapter 5, the emphasis is on the need to create new habits to make long-lasting improvements. As in previous chapters, practical suggestions are offered to facilitate this occurring including "The Rules."
Chapter 6 begins with the acknowledgment that if you only followed the first 5 principles, you would do just fine. Principle 6, start small, is seen as the way most likely to ensure the greatest likelihood of success. Babuta details out the reasons why he believes this to be the case.
Chapter 7 begins Part 2 of the book, the "in practice" part. Babuta's premise is that simplifying your focus allows you to accomplish more. So, the remainder of the book looks at how to structure your time and actions. Some of the suggestions (turn off e-mail notifications) are much easier to do than some of the other suggestions (don't schedule appointments) but they all offer food for thought. The final chapter is about motivation. He discusses how motivation works, ways to motivate yourself from the start, and how to sustain motivation when you are struggling.
This book is an easy read but offers some meaty content. This book can serve as a way to change your approach to life and as a guide to keep you on your chosen path. In addition, Babuta blogs at ZenHabits.net, which I enjoy reading.
The second book is also short, only 109 pages, The Ice Cream Maker by Subir Chowdhury in 2005, and costs between US$16.95 and US$10.95. This book uses a story to illustrate how to instill quality in every product or service provided. The protagonist of the story is the manager of an ice cream-manufacturing plant with shrinking profit margins and an unhappy owner. The manager is focused on sales and profits and forgets that quality is what results in sales and profits. The story follows the manager as he learns how to instill quality in the product.
So how does this have anything to do with healthcare? Approximately halfway through the book, the manager first learns about LEO. LEO is an acronym for Listen, Enrich, and Optimize. "It has to do with listening to your customer, enriching the products or services you offer, and optimizing the customer experience" (p. 43). The ice cream plant manager is slow to understand that everyone has customers and if the plant is to continue, the most important job he has is to take care of the customers.
This is the same message many in healthcare are hearing from the customers, be they patients, families, or insurers. This book presents important principles in an accessible and engaging manner. Throughout the book, there are key statements (next to an ice cream cone, of course) that highlight the point being made. Although this book is focused upon manufacturing, the substitution of the words healthcare, hospital, clinic, patients, families, and insurer can easily be made. One example of this is "Most companies in America are better at delivering 'excitement' than they are at providing customers' 'basic' needs" (p. 51). Imagine what you would substitute in this sentence and how that reflects healthcare today. Numerous examples are given as the story proceeds that illustrate how not listening to what customers need results in poor outcomes.
After the ice cream plant manager begins to understand the need to listen to his customers, he learns about enrichment. Enrichment of the customer experience is a result of new ideas and innovations; ideas and innovations that come from employee ideas. As a key statement on page 62 says, "Great companies are built on a thousand great ideas. To get the best ideas, you've got to ask your employees." A few pages later, the plant manager learns about continual improvement and how employees are key to this improvement. However, the owner is not happy that results, meaning more sales and profits, as slow in coming. But finally, the intrepid plant manager learns the final key principle, that of optimization. Or, as the key statement on page 80 says, "It is not enough to simply 'do your best.' You must strive for perfection." As these principles are applied at the ice cream-manufacturing plant, the manager begins to see the results of this different way of instilling quality.
I highly recommend this book because it presents important principles in an accessible and engaging manner. I find myself thinking about the phases of quality described in this book as I encounter similar issues. The examples are easily remembered because they are framed within this interesting story line. This book would serve as an excellent basis for a group discussion.
Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girl Scouts of America, is a widely recognized expert in leadership. Hesselbein is best known for her book, Hesselbein on Leadership, (2002) which is available in libraries and for purchase for a nominal cost. After leaving the Girl Scouts, she established the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute. The institute offers workshops, produces publications, and offers a website http://www.hesselbeininstitute.org/. The website provides free access to leadership videos, interviews, and articles for quick inspiration or deeper discussion. In addition, select articles from the quarterly journal, Leader to Leader, are available. The publications reviewed included three audiobooks, Frances Hesselbein Leader to Leader Volumes I, II, & III. These audiobooks contain interviews by Frances Hesselbein of leaders in diverse industries on various topics such as risk-taking, sharing power, learning from mentors, and many others. These interviews are interesting and inspiring as you learn where and how these important leaders learned to lead and how they view leadership. The audiobooks and the website have much to offer and I highly recommend spending some time exploring what is available.
The reviews presented focus on three different topics. I strongly recommend these titles and the website as providing useful content in an engaging manner.