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The Drive Workshop

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Dan Pink, bestselling author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and several other business books, has recently launched: The Drive Workshop: Using Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose to Transform Your Business and Yourself.

It’s a training workshop for organizations on how to move more effectively from the old methods of motivation (carrots and sticks), which typically create mere compliance, to more human forms of motivation that create engagement and develop employees — and organizations — more effectively.

It’s worth checking out.

The Virtual Assistant Solution

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The Virtual Assistant Solution: Come up for Air, Offload the Work You Hate, and Focus on What You Do Best is Michael Hyatt’s new e-book, and it looks great.

The concept of a virtual assistant was first brought to the forefront, it seems to me, by Tim Ferriss in his book The Four Hour Workweek. What Tim had limited space to talk about, Michael Hyatt now fleshes out for us in much more detail, going into why a virtual assistant is such a good idea and how to do it well.

Here is the table of contents:

1 Why You Need a Virtual Assistant

2 Why a Virtual Assistant Beats a Traditional One

3 What a Virtual Assistant Can Do for You

4 Answering the Most Common Questions

5 The First 90 Days with Your Virtual Assistant

6 Tools for Staying in Sync

And here’s a helpful overview from the introduction:

The term “virtual assistant” means a lot of things to a lot of different people. To be clear, I’m talking about someone who works remotely and with whom you contract for professional services like clerical work, meeting and event planning, project management and coordination, even marketing and social media. The idea is having help that fits your needs, your schedule, and your budget. And you can have it without the constraints of payroll, benefits, and recruiting.

Authors, coaches, consultants, creatives, doctors, entrepreneurs, executives, nonprofit leaders, lawyers, pastors, professors, and speakers— there’s a long list of people who could benefit from a virtual assistant.

But despite how many people could benefit, I’ve noticed that many are reluctant to take the plunge. As a result, they miss getting the help they need. Maybe that’s you. Maybe you think hiring a full-time, in-office assistant is your only option. Maybe you have no experience with virtual assistance (or have had a bad experience like I did) and don’t think it can work for you.

It can.

This book will clear up the misconceptions and allow you to be more effective with your time and talents. It will equip you to understand the dynamics of a virtual workforce, define how one or more virtual assistants can help you accomplish more than you ever thought possible, and offer practical advice on how to hire, integrate, and fully benefit from your new virtual staff.

(Hyatt, Michael. The Virtual Assistant Solution: Come up for Air, Offload the Work You Hate, and Focus on What You Do Best (Kindle Locations 96-106). Fleming House Publishers. Kindle Edition.)

You can also read more about the book in Michael’s post introducing it.

Remarkable Work is Often "Unreasonable"

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Seth Godin, in a post from about a year ago:

The false choice of mediocrity

Too often, we’re presented with choices that don’t please us. We can pick one lousy alternative or the other. And too often, we pick one.

I was struck by Apple’s choice to put a glass screen on the original iPhone. Just six weeks before it was announced, Steve Jobs decided he wanted a scratchproof glass screen. The thing is, this wasn’t an option. It wasn’t possible, reliable, feasible or appropriately priced. It couldn’t be done with certainty, and almost any other organization would have taken it off the list of appropriate choices.

It was unreasonable.

And that’s the key. Remarkable work is always not on the list, because if it was, it would be commonplace, not remarkable.

What's the Difference Between Mission and Vision?

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When reading on leadership, you very quickly come across references to “mission” and “vision.” Unfortunately, the meaning of those terms, and the difference between them, is not often made clear.

So, here’s the difference.

Mission: The ultimate purpose of the organization; it’s reason for existence. It’s why you do what you do. A mission is never “finished,” so a good mission is one that you would still be able to affirm 100 years from now.

Vision: Used in multiple ways. It is sometimes used just to mean a vivid description of what it will look like when you are fulfilling your mission in all the ways you want. More precisely, though, it is typically a large goal, usually 5-10 years out, that represents the chief focus and state of affairs you are seeking to bring about during that time period. Hence, it has a finish point and can be completed — but it is a stretch.   A good vision derives from and is aligned with the mission.

Here’s an example for a church:

Mission: To glorify God as a loving community of Christ-centered people.

Vision: To have a vibrant worshipping community of 1,000 people, from all age groups, who are active in the city for justice and mercy and loving one another, being built up by solid preaching, and meeting in regular fellowship groups.

Note, of course, that if you are a church you don’t need to make numbers central to your vision. I just did that here to help keep the example clear. A good vision is quantifiable in some way; but numerical growth doesn’t need to be central to how you define success for your church. (On the other hand, I don’t think it’s bad to care about numerical growth, either; in fact, I would argue we have a mandate to care about it in some sense, because every person matters.)

Go, Be Warm and Be Filled, and Be Unemployed

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This is an intriguing post by Tom Nelson, author of Work Matters, over at his blog by the same name.

Here’s one of the best parts:

Some social observers are starting to refer to a younger generation facing chronic unemployment or underemployment as the lost generation. Presently it seems the church’s response in these troubled times echoes the empty words decried by the apostle James, “Go, be warm and be filled.”  Have we settled in for a respectable appearing faith devoid of works? Are we not in effect saying to so many, “Go, be warm, be filled and be unemployed.”

Could we spend more time praying and thinking how to extend a hand up instead of merely offering a hand out? Could we point a way forward so that a lost generation might become the entrepreneurial generation? What if a new generation of apprentices of Jesus would not only lift up the banner of justice, but also bring the rich truths of the Gospel into the economic sphere of life? What if a rising generation would push back against a spirit of entitlement and class envy? What if a gutsy go-for-it new generation would embrace personal diligence, disciplined responsibility, self-sacrifice, risk-taking and creative entrepreneurship? What if more venture capital, economic opportunity and intergenerational mentoring were available both in our urban and suburban areas?

Read the whole thing.