Have you ever stumbled upon something and instantly known it was going to be impactful? I ran across a new book today, and cannot wait to read it (I went to Amazon and read the introduction and part of the first chapter).
The book is called “The Critical Path Manifesto: How “Knowing-What-To Do” Separates Winners from Losers” by Robert E Kelley, PhD. I discovered the book on Instagram when the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University posted information about the release of this new release (The author is a professor at CMU). Dr. Kelley is posting one chapter each week on his “Critical Path Blog“, but after reading the early parts, I may have to go to Amazon and buy it now…. as I do not want to wait months to read the whole book.
I have already reached out to Dr. Kelley to see if he will appear as a guest on my podcast “Making Waves at C-Level”. I do not know if he will reply, but I hope he will agree to be on the show, as the thesis of his book about how getting employees to know what to do (vs. doing busy work, or the wrong projects) will help both the individual and the company find more success. The opening story of the book talks about how one employee passed up being part of an important project to do work that would impress his boss. This happens so often, people choose to do things that are not in the best interest of the company or the customers, because of the metrics they are judged on at their review encourage other actions.
There is also a quote from the author’s high school economics teacher about the definition of a job. I really liked where this went, and think that few people who have a career working for others see their employment definition in this manner:
A job is: “the opportunity to create more present or future value for the employer than it cost the employer to keep you employed“
This definition got me thinking about my own solopreneur efforts as a speaker / trainer and as a podcast host (in addition to my podcast, I host three shows as the paid host for associations and companies). My critical path is to make sure that the value my clients get from having me speak at their meeting or to host their interview podcast creates more value than if they hired someone else or used internal resources. Thus all my actions should keep that in mind. The Critical Path Manifesto seems to be a road map to doing the right things.
I look forward to reading the rest of “The Critical Path Manifesto” to really digest the theory the author has put forth (right now I feel I have just been teased by a tid-bit of the concepts that Dr. Kelley has researched and written about.
If Dr. Kelley agrees to be a guest on my podcast I will add a link below. For now check out his blog or buy the book on Amazon.