Archive for January, 2007

• Goal Setting Toolkit
  9 simple cards for recording your goals
  (tags: Goals resolutions)

One of the highlights of 2007 in my Personal MBA program was to finish it out with an eye opening book from Tom Rath. Entitled, “Vital Friends“, Tom takes us on an interesting journey through the lives of many people on their jobs and ties in how friendships have made all the difference in job success.

This book takes on a very controversial subject to many managers, the question of friendships at work. With so many corporate policies prohibiting interaction between employees off the job or managers having any interactions with subordinates this book will certainly stir the pot. With Tom’s easy listening voice, he draws you in to each story and paints a very convincing story that we should all have friends at work.

And his team’s landmark discovery — that people who have a “best friend at work” are seven times as likely to be engaged in their job — is sure to rattle the structure of organizations around the world.

Drawing on more than five million interviews conducted by The Gallup Organization, some of the true research highlights of the book include…

• People with at least three close friends at work were 46% more likely to be extremely satisfied with their job and 88% more likely to be satisfied with their life.
• Friendship is the silver lining in a marriage, accounting for approximately 70% of overall marital satisfaction, and was found to be more than 5 times as many people ranking it as more important than sex or “intimate relations.”
• Friendships may affect your waistline. If your best friend has a very healthy diet, you are more than five times as likely to have a very healthy diet yourself.

This book made a lot of sense and from personal experience, most of the things listed in this book are true in my life. Some quick points that came to light through the chapters…

• We need a friend who “Expects us to be somebody”
• We all need friends to add meaning to our lives
• We eventually become like our best friends
• We have different friends for different needs in our lives
• The best friendships are not well-rounded  

Successful friendships are the ones in which friends play a specific role in your life. Tom Rath clearly illustrates the “Eight Vital Roles” that friends play: Builder, Champion, Collaborator, Companion, Connector, Energizer, Mind Opener and Navigator. The fatal mistake in friendships is forcing one person to fill every role.

The book comes with a personal code that allows you to access the Vital Friends website. Here you can discover and track your own personal friends and the roles that they have in your life.

This book ranks in my top 10 audio books for 2006. It will open your eyes and help you see the vital role that friendship plays in all of our lives. Make sure to add this to your Personal MBA reading list.

Technorati Tags: Audio books, friendship, MBA