Year of the Tiger

Here is our second guest blog from Blaire Palmer, MD of Taming Tigers.

 

I have been doing a lot of reading lately. I am writing my third book and I have a stack of fat tomes to get through before I start putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). It is always valuable to be up to date with what your competitors are thinking and saying and, of course, I get a lot of useful ideas and support for my own views by reading the work of authors I admire (and others I find “challenging”).

 

One of the best authors I have come across in my research is Patrick Lencioni, the author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” and “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job”. A client recommended the latter when I explained that my new book is about the difficulties of the typical work environment – the tolerations such as meetings, poor leadership, silo working and long hours – and what you can do about it as an individual and as an organisation.

 

One of the aspects of Lencioni’s work I like best is that he tells a story. When you are reading 20 or 30 books in a short space of time you discover how many are forgettable. One has twenty-five messages, another has fourteen, another has seven. Who can remember them all?

 

But Lencioni helps you to remember his Three Signs by telling a fable drawn, I expect, from real life experiences he has seen. It is one of the elements of Jim’s “Taming Tigers” book that I think really works too. He tells us a story of his own journey, weaving the Rules throughout.

 

Whilst our “story” can be limiting and negative in parts, it always has highlights and successes in it too. And it is a story we keep writing throughout our lives. You might review your life story today and think it reads more like a tragedy! But the good news is, we’re not finished yet. The final chapter has yet to be written. Maybe we haven’t ridden a racehorse on live TV. Maybe we haven’t run a major corporation. Maybe we haven’t climbed the world’s highest peaks or volunteered to help homeless children in India.

 

But we’re all writing our story and that story can help us understand ourselves better, just like Lencioni’s fables help us to understand and remember important lessons.

 

As we are about to embark on a new year (2010 is the year of the Tiger, by the way) many people will be talking about their hopes and ambitions for the new 12 months. So it is a great time to review your story before you set out on the next chapter.

 

What are the lessons life has taught you over the past twelve months? How have you been able to re-write your rulebook in 2009? Are there potential negatives you will be taking in to 2010? How can you re-write those so they support and enable an exciting new chapter rather than undermining your efforts to make a change in 2010?

 

Jim and I, and the rest of the team here at Taming Tigers, are spending some time doing this over the next few days and weeks. In our blogs we’ll be sharing our own journey as ever. We would love to hear what you have discovered too.

Blaire