Circumference of Me

Just when you thought you had seen the latest and greatest missive about what steps people need to take to become great managers, along comes the Circumference of Me.

If you have read other books on management theory or practice, fine, but you need to read this one. Consider yourself warned: This is not your typical management book. The Circumference of Me is about you. It does not present the safe-at-all-costs practical side of corporations, management practices, and expected behaviors for employees. There is no business theory included, nor is there pull-it-out-of-an-orifice management truisms speckled with visual word-posters designed to build Spirit, Enthusiasm, Motivation, Optimism, or Team Building.

Most management books are chockfull of clichés; the clichés presented here are only meant to show how dumb clichés can be. The authors aimed to invent clichés, not recycle them. Circumference of Me is intended to make you think along new pathways, not amble alongside the well-traveled How-To-Succeed-In-The-Corporate-World Highway.

It does not take an all-nighter or mini-readathon to complete the book; a reader is encouraged to take succulent lessons from its contents with a five-minute read. The chapters are short and the lessons are digestible in easy-to-remember chunks. Life lessons that mix the practicality of management with the hilarity of the management experience are included within its pages.

Circumference will give you a view of the various steps necessary to rise to the challenges of being a manager . . . and make you realize your potential through its unique presentation and content.

If you read it and come away without a single Eureka! moment, then you need to buy another copy and read it again.

Excerpts and illustrations:

The unique drawings by Steve Burnett are the inspiration for chapter characterizations in a unique management book -- Circumference of Me.

Eye-catching whimsy drawings, grabber headlines, short chapters chocked full of original ideas and examples of how to become a better manager and succeed when others stumble, and memorable exit lines are the backbone of "Circumference of Me."

Three unspoken wishes

This chapter has absolutely nothing to do with how to position yourself to be a great manager and leader.

It does, however, have everything to do with being happy. Being happy in what you do will positively affect your performance as a manager and leader.

Remember when you were a kid and had dreams and aspirations. One executive of a non-profit organization confessed that as a teenager he made a list of a hundred things he wanted to do during his lifetime. Over time, he has accomplished more than sixty of those original goals, with several more within his grasp.

Many of the goals were simple in concept: Visit all fifty states; swim in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; raft a wild river in Central America; drive the Autobahn at top speed; see a bear in the wild; hike the Grand Canyon; relax along a snow-fed stream in the Alps. The dreams of the child became the realities of the man.

At this writing he has reached all those goals, with the exception of visiting all fifty states; he has visited forty-seven but there is no doubt he will hit all fifty within the next few years.

He is goal-oriented, and goal-oriented people are driven by the best of all motivation factors: Personal satisfaction.

Some of his early goals – go down the Amazon River, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, walk along the Great Wall of China, photograph headhunters in Borneo – may not be realized. But, honestly, it doesn’t matter. The fact he set goals and met many of them over his lifetime is what counts.

If you don’t have personal goals, make a list. Write them down. Revisit the list  from time to time and adjust the goals as you experience life changes.

At the very least, think about setting three unspoken goals. They are your goals. They are personal. Hold them close and set this mantra:

Make three goals. Nurture them. Reach them.

It’s not a childish exercise. It’s a key to having a balanced life.

Dream the dreams others wished they had dreamed. Create realities from dreams where others fail to do so.

Strength in all things

To be strong is to be prepared. To be strong is to be steadfast. To be strong is never giving up. To be strong is to stand up for your beliefs and standing shoulder to shoulder with those whose beliefs you embrace.

Be strong. Be a shoulder.

You are going to succeed on your merits, assuredly. But stop and give homage to those whose shoulders carried the load before your arrival. Remember the shoulders you leaned on in your life and pledge to be a strong shoulder to those that follow.

Be a shoulder and you are an army of one.

Add a shark to the tank

As noted, your company, any company, has to change, evolve, go through a cultural metamorphosis in order to continue to grow and be viable in the marketplace.

Many companies distain “change for change’s sake,” but constant, controlled  change – which is decidedly different from corporte turmoil – can be helpful; it can keep a company fresh. Then, change is not recognized as “change,” but as a important foundation of the corporate culture.

How much change is good change?

In the mid-1970s, venerable television newsman Walter Cronkite told the nation about an interesting group of Mexican fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico.

In his patented been-there-done-that competent manner, Cronkite report that a group of live-catch fishermen would go out for three days and then have to head back, even if their live wells were not full.

That was the limit of how long the fish could survive the boat’s “aquarium.”

Regardless of what precautions they took, there was an average attrition rate of twenty percent.. Temperature, water quality, oxygen, numbers . . . it made no difference; with everything just right they lost one-fifth of every boatload.

Twenty percent: That’s pretty much the high-end of the profit ratio for even the most price-aggressive companies.

As with most great ideas and inventions, an accident solved the problem.

One day a fisherman accidentally dropped a small shark in the tank with his catch. And when they got back to shore there were no dead fish. It seems having a predator kept the fish swimming, the threat of death kept them alive.

Cronkite’s report could just as easily have been about business. In your job, in your business, what would happen if you tossed a shark in the tank?

Disruptive, heretofore counterproductive measures might just keep the company moving, and alive.
You know the chapter above is not an advertisement for “Shark Week,” right?