BLAB's New Year's resolutions

I am currently away from tiny Malta having a 1-week long break. There is so much more to revisit before the end of the year, but it'll be done in 2009. Before closing off the 2008 BLAB chapter I'd like to recommend the 'Top 50 Have-Yous' as a good start to some reasonable and useful new year's resolutions. I stumbled upon the free download on the Tom Peters website. The document is only 5 pages long and contains 50 questions in my opinion any team player, at the top or very bottom should question. Tom defines them as “practical stuff,” which is more important to the short- and long-term health of the enterprise, tiny or enormous.

My favorite of them all is the following:
44. Have you in the last … two hours … stopped by someone’s (two-levels “down”)
office-workspace for 5 minutes to ask “What do you think?” about an issue that
arose at a more or less just completed meeting? (And then stuck around for 10 or
so minutes to listen—and visibly taken notes.)

Locally, we could be more open to sharing ideas, whether or not they fall within or outside our primary area of responsibility. Sharing may end up in having your idea 'stolen' by some other guy in the office, but more often, discussion leads to a clearer picture of where we want to get to. To some extent, it is worth risking giving away your idea because the benefits out weigh the risks.

I hope, this BLAB, and others which should follow in 09, provide a discussion starter for many other ideas which we have stocked safely in our brain.

Best wishes for 2009.