The Leadership Development Committee is excited to announce monthly virtual book club gatherings featuring one of our favorites.  On the book club wish list for this year are a number of our favorites including Start with Why by Simon Sinek and The One Thing by Gary Keller.  We’re also looking for your suggestions.  Have a favorite that you’d like to discuss with your fellow PNCWA’ers?  Have one that you’ve wanted to read but needed the motivation to get to it?  Contact Mark Poling at [email protected] to share your title.  We’ll be reviewing them at our monthly Committee meeting.  We’d also love to have you join us!

We’re starting with Designing Your Work Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. The book introduces design thinking to living, learning, and succeeding in our work lives. The concept is thinking like a designer. What exactly does that mean?

Design Thinking Includes:

• Be curious. When you are interested in people and things, people are happy to engage with you.   

• Try stuff. This is a bias to action.  When you live in this mindset there is always something to do.  Didn’t work out?  You will learn things and be better able to plan your next move.   

• Reframe problems. The problem(s) you confront are rarely ever well-defined or even the right problem.  Once you get good at reframing, you will never get stuck again! 

• Know it’s a process. Sometimes you’ll generate lots of ideas, looking at all kinds of possibilities.  There are times when you will need to focus on the best of those ideas.  By following a process you’ll make real progress.   

• Ask for help. Get out in the world and talk to lots of different people who are doing interesting things that you are curious about.  You are not alone and improving your work life is a collaborative process.   

• Tell your story.  When you adopt a storytelling mind-set, you look for new ways to engage the world.  The world will start talking back to you with their stories.   Get good at telling your story and see what you’ll learn.