The first area in the book that affected me the most was the chapter on planning and decision making. It is imperative to plan before you can make a good decision. Your decisions in your job effect others and should be well thought out and planned. While I was accomplishing most of the concepts in the section, I had never thought about the individual tasks required to be an effective decision maker. This chapter has helped me identify a goal and find a way to achieve that goal. It has helped me focus my effort, maintain my persistence, and stay focused on achieving the goal. This also has helped me with reviewing and challenging strategies commonly used by my company. It has also taught me to watch out for potential pitfalls common to planning. These pitfalls are inflexible to change, assumptions about the future, and detachment from implementation of plans. A commitment to using smart goals and creating effective plans to complete them is vital in the decision making process. Tracking the progress of the smart goals is significantly easier if they were made with the smart goal system and a solid action plan.
Another section that I found very informative was the chapter on innovation and change. Since technology cycles have a definitive life span, constant vigilance is necessary to understand where the discontinuity line falls between old and new technologies. This significantly helps with determining dominate design, solve practical problems, and meet the needs of independent standards bodies. Unfortunately innovation is something that just doesn’t happen; it requires a special form of management, proper work environment, and a high degree of freedom. From a leadership standpoint, innovation is greatly enhanced when clear goals are presented, open interaction with subordinates, and supporting development teams work and ideas. With innovation, change is required. Unfortunately, most people are intolerant of change. This may be due to self interest,...