A friend sent me this link to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday – How to make money without trying – a new slant on success based upon an interview with John Kay on his new book Obliquity: Why our goals are achieved indirectly. I haven’t read the book and this is the first I have heard of it but the points in the article rang true with me.

What I took away was this – have a passion for creating something, anything, making money isn’t creation, it is a by product of being really good at whatever it is you do, whatever you spend your time creating. If your passionate about what you do the reward (money?) for being so good at it will find it’s way to you. If you spend all of your time on the “reward” rather than your passion, forget it, the reward will slip away. Makes complete sense to me!

Creating awesome goals, that with a stretch can be done, and that everyone is inspired to sign up for
Reaching consensus on the reality of where you are at as compared to that goal – the truth!
Identifying every discrepancy between the goal and reality
Creating actions to eliminate the discrepancies and
giving each action to someone who is committed to getting it done
testing best fit and most efficient assignment
giving each someone everything they need to make it happen
getting out of the way
All, share daily, share their journal, share where they are at, where the world is at, and test the goal, does it still fit?
adjust and move forward
No panic, pressure, wild swings, moments of the day or death marches
just creative tension to make something awesome

Thought provoking article on leadership, my favorite quote:

“The humble hound [leader] is a stagehand who happens to give more public presentations than most.”

Definitely worth a read.

via Op-Ed Columnist – The Humble Hound – NYTimes.com.