Tag Archives: Max DePree

BOOK IT: Make Time For Your Write Stuff

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you write your book. Reading time: 3:11.

You’re smart. You’re thoughtful. You’re insightful. Your colleagues tell you that you should write a book. But you’re too busy –even with the services of a ghost writer to prod you. You just don’t have the time.

Me neither. That’s why I had to find the time to write my book and now I want to help you find the time to write yours.

Here are a few examples from other leaders who converted their excuses into excursions and booked their own flight into the publishing world.

They wrote their books despite overwhelming odds. They found their Write Stuff despite challenging obstacles. And they reinforced their leadership role –one chapter at a time. So can you.

EXCUSE No. 1. “I just don’t have the time.”

Wayne Dyer wrote Your Erroneous Zones in 18 days; Voltaire wrote Candide in four weeks and Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks. In two months, Winston Churchill wrote his first book Savrola. Continue reading →

What’s Your YQ –Your Yield Question?

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to increase your creativity and imagination. Reading time: 2:54

Leaders answer questions. Better leaders question answers. And the best leaders I have found question questions. In fact, the best leaders are always striving to raise their YQ –their Yield Questions.

No wonder. Yield questions yield more meaning than mere answers.

Like the farmer who seeks a greater crop yield per acre, so too the leader leverages his or her YQ to yield more meaningful ideas per thought: creative ideas that spark discovery, insightful ideas that spur innovation and productive ideas that spearhead achievement.

Questions probe new paths of self-discovery. When you question yourself, you think. When you question input, you judge. When you question output, you evaluate. When you question systemically and systematically, you improve.

Yield questions enhance leadership. In his book, Leadership Jazz, Max De Pree writes: “The quality of our work as leaders and the quality of our lives depends significantly on the questions we ask and the people about whom we ask the questions.” Warren Bennis, in his book Why Leaders Can’t Lead , writes that truth begins with questions. Continue reading →

Leaders are Lovers On and Off the Battlefield

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to inspire exemplary performance in yourself and others.

“I shall always love you. I will never, ever, ever forget you.”

No that isn’t a line out of a sexy movie or an excerpt from a sensational tabloid, even though those words of love fell gently from the lips of a giant of a man. So passionately. So poignantly.

General Norman Schwarzkopf

Significantly, those words gushed from the heart of a General in the United States Army during a public speech he delivered so personally in front of his soldiers and a national television audience. The General pledged that he would always love and never forget his soldiers that he had led to victory in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. General Norman Schwarzkopf was retiring from the army after 31 years.

I was surprised to hear the word “LOVE” expressed so passionately by a General in the United States Army to his troops. But I learned a lot about leadership that day from General Schwarzkopf. I learned that the most effective leaders love and respect their followers and consequently bring out the best in them. Continue reading →