Columbia-Capstone was founded in 2009. We are a diversified group engaged in publishing, authoring, speaking, and consulting, always with our eye on effective communication. Our non-fiction titles seek to educate, illuminate, and provide our readers with an element of adventure.
Visiting Your Ancestral Town was written by Carolyn Schott, a travel expert who started her adventures just like you: not knowing where to start or what to do. Learn from her experiences and enjoy the entertaining stories that will either inspire you to try it yourself or wisely inform you to take some other path. Either way, you’ll enjoy the journey!
Yes-you yes-now leaders must realize that confronting a difficult challenge is the only way to grow and improve. Running away from the challenge is the worst thing you can do. Nearly as bad is staying within your comfort zone, to take on only what you have mastered and what you know to be well within your capabilities. This is the status quo, the steady state. You are flatlined.
When all is said and done, it is you and only you who are accountable for doing your job. Too many people seem to develop the habit of thinking that factors outside of their control give them excuses for poor performance. See how a recent college graduate lost her quarterly bonus by doing the right thing. Would you do it?
Emotions are an essential part of being human. We have them all the time, no effort required. Another part of being human is the ability to make choices, and the responsibility that comes from the impact of those choices. A yes-you yes-now leader knows how to make good choices. The story is about constructively confronting anger as well as how to decide which things to confront.
Duty helps us do incredible things not because we want to, but because we have to. It arises from the obligation that we must act in certain ways, in line with expectations. Recognizing the role of duty in your life helps you lead from where you are. You will do things to help your team achieve their goals. The remarkable life of David Rockefeller shows how it worked for him, and can work for you.
Leadership Basics: Power Distribution. People in a group share power. It resides within members of a team and shifts around constantly. It’s not just about power though, but also about shifts in power to help focus on the goals of the group. Single decision-maker or group consensus extremes can paralyze a team, as illustrated by a boss-dominated workplace and the slow pace of Seattle politics.
Research has shown that the hurt from loss impacts people more than the pleasure from gain. The leading idea is that it’s a survival instinct, so it would be easy for negative thoughts to slow progress towards goals. A yes-you yes-now leader compensates by making extra effort to accentuate the positive. The true story pits a student versus faculty at MIT -- and the student leads the way!
Leadership Basics: Active Engagement. In a group, active engagement can be hard because often no one is talking directly to you. It is easy to drift off and disengage. A yes-you yes-now leader has to make a special effort to stay engaged and focused, contributing where appropriate and understanding the dialogue as it unfolds. The story tells of a healthcare support team with pervasive apathy.
Effective yes-you yes-now leadership always focuses on solid execution of the fundamentals. Any number of fancy embellishments can’t compensate for poor basics and sloppy execution. Every profession and every hobby has its fundamentals. Make sure you know them, practice them, and execute them consistently in support of your personal and team goals. (great for iPhone reading)
Leadership Basics: Be Pleasant. Yes-you yes-now leadership can be trying at times, testing your ability to balance conflicting demands. When you feel team pressures, remember they are professional, not personal. The story is about Jane, a leader who behaved so badly that team members began to focus on her, rather their work. She was a screamer.
There is no simple recipe for being a yes-you yes-now leader, but it is not complicated either. By shaping your views from personal experience, you can distinguish yourself in ways that are uniquely yours. Great Followers Achieve Great Success is illustrated by the story of Presidential Medal of Freedom winner John Wooden’s simple principle of success.
It’s hard to be a yes-you yes-now leader without knowing your beacon for navigation. Throughout thick and thin, what keeps a person on course? It is often said and it is often true, that people are loyal to a leader. This is a fatal mistake that begs the question, to what is the leader loyal? A Beacon to Guide You is illustrated by a short story about two coaches at Indiana University.
Volume 1 in the series treats the reader with the definition of a Yes You! Yes Now! Leader including a real-life story, followed by one of the basic skills. Ask Questions, Seek Understanding describes what the title means with two real-life stories illustrating its applications: one of an apparently truant high school student and one of a man who saw the need to help a seriously ill friend.
50 Entertaining Short Stories about Leadership
The premier book for people who want to get things done at work, home, and play.
You can make things better right now, right where you are. Inspirational quotes and illustrated with colorful examples from music, business, politics, and sports, this book will help you reach your goals and achieve greater, more satisfying success.