About the Book
We are all racing to keep up with technology and the modern pace of business. A flood of information challenges our concentration and ability to identify what it takes to succeed. You can take back control by learning to stop, reflect and focus. You can develop resilience and navigate rapid change and stress. You can become more mindfully intelligent.
Focusing attention mindfully is an essential skill for leaders and their teams. It has an immediate impact on performance and accelerates learning. By employing techniques to ensure clarity of mind and proactively manage overload, leaders can develop more creative strategies and drive extraordinary outcomes. MindShifting provides a practical roadmap of where and how to focus in order to master critical leadership and professional skills.
This new second edition contains refreshed ideas, added tools, and expanded discussion of important principles.
The book is about learning to lead mindfully and with impact. Focusing helps us learn more rapidly and perform more effectively given the flood of information coming at us and the increasing pace of change around us. We can take back control using these essential mindful leadership skills.
The approach is based on the latest behavioral, psychological, and neuroscientific research. Case examples and inspiring stories come from successful leaders in a range of Fortune 500 companies. By clarifying our thinking and values we can transform our organizations and create extraordinary outcomes.
Each chapter covers key leadership and professional skill, along with practical exercises to build your leadership skills, including:
- Mindful listening and coaching
- Strategic thinking
- Team building
- Emotional intelligence
- Negotiating and influencing
- Relationship building
- Stress management and resilience
- Learning through reflection
- Innovation and creativityIn the end you will have a pragmatic action plan to guide your development and realize your potential.
About the Author :
Joshua Ehrlich is an organizational consultant, executive coach, supervisor, and accreditor of coaches. He advises CEOs and facilitates top teams to achieve complex objectives. He coaches executives in leadership skills including communication, negotiating/influencing, network and relationship management, team building and stress management. He also provides career management coaching to help individuals prepare for advancement opportunities and transition into new roles. Josh Ehrlich is the founder of the Global Leadership Council, an international network of experts in leadership and organizational transformation. He is passionate about helping clients leverage their strengths, accelerate their learning, and unleash their potential. His clients include more than 50 of the Fortune 100 across diverse industries.
Review :
"MindShifting is a powerful guide for people who want to break their self-limiting habits and build more effective relationships at work and elsewhere. In a very practical way, it shows you how to lead yourself better, which is the foundation for leading others. This is an insightful and supportive approach to better leadership." --Robert J. Lee, Managing Director, iCoachNewYork
"MindShifting provides invaluable insight, tools, and resources to address the central issues of our age. How do leaders show up effectively with all the demands on their time and attention? And how do they chart a clear course with the information overload, ambiguity, and speed of modern business? This book shows the way." --Diane Hessan, CEO, Communispace
"MindShifting transforms thinking to produce better outcomes. It encourages the reader to think about how we think. It includes practical 'experiments' to help the reader try new incremental approaches to learning and change. This intriguing 'how to' manual celebrates mindfulness. This book has the potential to be life altering. Every person interested in a more productive existence can benefit from MindShifting." --Rich Smith, Vice President, Human Resources, at Kaiser Permanente
"As we all strive to get more done faster, we actually achieve less. In this breakthrough book, Josh uses the full depth of his experience and expertise to show us how to look at the world from the inside out. His focus is more on who we are rather than what we do. More importantly, Josh describes a number of simple, easy to use tools and techniques that everyone can use immediately to become a better leader." --Paul J. Gallagher, Managing Director, TIAA-CREF
"Building our reflective muscles takes focus, time, and energy. It requires a willingness to be somewhat vulnerable and revealing, to examine ourselves in a way that may not be entirely comfortable." --Carey Bongard, Executive Vice President-Human Resources and Organizational Development, Assurant Solutions, Inc.
"Giving myself permission to stop and reflect is critical to my success given the challenges and sensitivities I face in cross-cultural settings. As a global executive living outside my home country, I now use this book as my 'go-to' reference for coaching my team, being a thinking partner to my colleagues, and keeping myself on track." --Susan West, Chief Human Resource Office, GS1, Brussels
"If you're one of today's overloaded, overstressed, and overfrazzled leaders who wants to be more effective without being more frantic, then MindShifting is the book for you. It's simple framework, engaging stories, and practical exercises will help you step back and take control over your life and your career." --Ron Ashkenas, Senior Partner, Schaffer Consulting and author of Simply Effective
"Joshua Ehrlich has taken the complicated concept of mindfulness and simplified it for busy executives. His ability to explain ideas clearly, and then offer ways to reflect and process them, makes this an easy to read and easy to apply book. His authentic and personal approach to storytelling brings his ideas to life." --Jose Davila, Chief People Officer, J. Crew
"Executives being coached are often asked to 'reflect' or 'be in the moment' as if it were as simple as that! Josh Ehrlich provides practical advice and wisdom on these mysterious practices and many others that underpin the success of learning anything." --Michael Molinaro, Chief Learning Officer, New York Life Insurance Company
"If the fast track you are on is taking you in circles because of your heavy workload, disappointing career progress, or intractable business issues, then do yourself a favor and give yourself permission to stop and read Josh Ehrlich's book. His incisive discussion, self-assessments, skill-building exercises, and case examples will give you what you need to refocus, reenergize, and reclaim control of your life." --Michael O'Malley, CEO, Promontory Financial Human Resource Solutions, and author of Leading with Kindness
"Josh Ehrlich has made a major contribution in MindShifting. The book does a terrific job of drawing on research and theory to build an extremely pragmatic and useful way of thinking about leadership and learning. Numerous cases and examples, combined with very effective tips and tools, make this a valuable guide for leaders. MindShifting provides a terrific roadmap for improving your leadership effectiveness in the context of the tremendously demanding environment of today's world." --David A. Nadler, Vice Chairman, Marsh and McLennan Companies and author of Champions of Change, Organizational Architecture, and Building Better Boards
"Josh Ehrlich's MindShifting offers a panoply of ideas to improve one's effectiveness, whether it is personal or professional. Anyone who picks up this book cannot help but find several approaches that will resonate with them. I have seen Josh's recommendations on the importance of sleep and the creation of your own personal board of directors presented as development initiatives for leaders in organizations in which I worked. When implemented, both drove leader effectiveness as well as improved quality of thought and decision making." --Liz Dunlap, SVP and Chief People Officer, Panera Bread
"The single most revolutionary act you can do these days is to find time to think. When you study successful leaders there are two major attributes that stand out--clarity of purpose and a heightened level of self-awareness. Both of these attributes directly relate to the fact that most successful leaders are self-reflective. They understand that to be their best it is important to slow down, and they give themselves the gift of time to pause, reflect, and most importantly take the time to think about the important issues in their lives." --Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science
"This book offers a banquet of ideas. Don't try to consume it all at once. Rather, savor each bite. You will get a great deal if you give yourself the opportunity to work with the concepts and practice the exercises over time." --Brian Lownds, Manager, Organizational Development, JetBlue
