Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Silence is moldin'

Skip's observations in his recent post of "No news is good news" were both intriguing and troubling to me.  I think his points are spot on, but I can't help but recognize my own tendency to hold back news, particularly good news.

It's not a part of some nefarious plan - it's more a side effect that I do so much internal processing and "self talk" that I often forget to communicate out to others.  I am beginning to develop some techniques to help me improve in this area such as:Silence

scheduling (publicly committed) status updates to people I want to keep in the loop,

calling meetings with key people to create a "forcing event" to remind me to update them and ask for their help and input

adding "Update Jim on xyz project" to my agendas for 1-on-1 meetings

I've also added a tickler item to my weekly review process to remind me: Create actions for updates on top 5 projects.

What about you - are you running a bit too silent?  Have any tips to share on this topic?

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Not what, or how - but why?

If you read yesterday's post and thought, "Hey, that guiding principles thing sounds good - what's that look like?" I have just the resource for you: Rosa Say's book "Managing With Aloha."Mwacover 

This book is all about guiding principles, and Rosa relates her personal experiences as a manager in the context of Hawaiian values.  She goes through 18 different values, relating personal stories along the way and providing helpful advice on how to manage with integrity, openness, respect, accountability, camaraderie, and love (yes, love is compatible with business).

For me, some of the most valuable stories are those about situations where she missed cues from her employees and made management mistakes.  She then goes on to discuss what she learned from the experience, and how she tried to make it right.

For example, she tells a story about "unintentional neglect" in which she reassigned one of her employees to a new job, with the intent of recognizing her past contributions.  However, the employee was demoralized because they felt they were no longer part of the "inner circle" of Rosa's organization after the reassignment.  In the book, you can clearly feel the turmoil Rosa went through to try to resolve this and repair the relationship.

She also relates a number of stories about employees who made poor or self-destructive choices, and how she dealt with them in a way that respected them, held them accountable for their personal choices, but helped them get through it (like I said, love is compatible with business).

For example, there's a story about how she fired two of her staff for coming to work intoxicated.  However, because she felt a responsibility to help them rather than wash her hands of them, she arranged for both of them to enter rehab programs (and somehow got the company to foot the bill for it!).  You should read the book to find out how that turns out - very interesting.

The bottom line? This is not a management "how to" book - this is a management "why" book.  I recommend it highly to anyone, managers or not, but I think it's a must-have for any leader who wants to create more cohesiveness and sense of purpose within their organizations.

If you want to get a taste of Managing with Aloha before you pick up the book, head on over to Rosa's blog, Talking Story with Say Leadership Consulting.  You'll find that Rosa not only talks a good story - she lives a pretty good story, too. 

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A good metaphor for strategy

Over the past several years, I’ve worked with a wide variety of companies on IT best practices.  One of the things I’ve noticed is that some organizations are more adaptive than others, particularly in times of stress or crisis.  I think it has a lot to do with whether the business emphasizes instructions or strategy.

The businesses that run based on instructions often do quite well during normal operation, but always seem to have trouble when the unexpeced happens.  That’s because they are biased toward specific guidance (policies and procedures) reliant on the premise that they have anticipated everything and have it documented somewhere.

In contrast, organizations that have a bit less formal process but strong core principles and explicit strategies tend to be more adaptive, more agile, and more innovative.  They are able to distribute responsibility more broadly, react to new conditions fairly quickly, and spend a lot less resources on unplanned activities (aka “fire drills”).

Imagine that a giant labyrinth is before you.  Labyrinth

  • If someone gives you a set of directions to get through the maze, you’ll do fine in that maze but your directions are useless in the next labyrinth.  And, if you lose the map, you’re in big trouble.
  • In contrast, if someone gives you a strategy like “Keep your right hand on the right wall and follow that wall until you get to the exit.” you might take a bit longer to get through, but that principle will work on any labyrinth.

Does your business run on instructions or strategy?  Ideally, it isn’t just one or the other.  As with most things, the key here is balance.  However, if you are going to emphasize one end of the spectrum over the other I’d recommend you invest more in communicating the core principles and strategy of your organization.  A strong grounding in these areas across your company will allow you to leverage the best your people have to offer.

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Connectors

This is one of those days when I can't help but think that everything happens for a reason.

One of the high points of my last visit to the UK was catching up with Adrian Trenholm, who I met through Rosa Say and her (our?) Ho‘ohana community.  Rosa is a "maven" in the truest spirit of "Tipping Point" and she has a habit of connecting people like me and Adrian.  And Adrian brought along his friend James from Redmonk,  who's an analyst in the industry I work in, and we delighted in sparring over a few bottles of nice wine.  Loved it.

As I listened to Keith Ferrazzi's "Never Eat Alone" on the drive home last night, I couldn't help but think how influential the "connectors" of the world have been on my life, and how I would like to develop my skills in this area.  One of the blocks I have to being a better connector is that I am naturally introverted, which means I gravitate toward analytical, internal thought more than outward communication and collaboration.

As I pondered how I could become more like the extroverts I admire, I stumbled across Steve Pavlina's excellent post on "How To Go From Introvert To Extrovert."  Wow - that was cool.

In my "everything happens for a reason", it feels like I'm being nudged toward changing my habits to act more like a connector.  Thanks, mavens.

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On the road with David Allen

This week, I was a part of  David Allen's seminar "GTD | The RoadMap" in San Jose, California.  In this session, there were over 140 people - all fellow travelers on the path to higher productivity with less stress. 

After my last post, I got an email a couple from my friend Phil Gerbyshak of "Make It Great!" asking what I thought of it, and what I came away with in terms of the value of the seminar.  I sent him a reply, but thought some of it was worth sharing here.

As you may know, the Getting Things Done books cover specific activities you can engage in to get your life in order, improve productivity, and "get things done."  As an adopter of the methodology, one of the challenges I've faced is making enough of the habits stick to realize ongoing benefits from the GTD process. 

"One of the biggest inhibitors to maintaining GTD is your addiction to stress.  Once the stress is gone, your subconscious sometimes does things to bring it back." 

The focus of this seminar is to ground (or re-ground) you in the basics of GTD, and it builds on this foundation to provide lots of additional color to help you personalize, adapt, and embed the methdology into your own work style.

Prior to the seminar, I was doing a lot of the right things with GTD and have been using it for about 18 months.  Although I have been realizing lots of benefits from this methodology, I felt like there was something missing. 

The seminar helped me realize where some of my gaps are and identify some actions to bring my productivity, focus, and clarity to the next level.  There is also the benefit of meeting others at the seminar that can act as a sort of support group to keep each other's activities 'on the rails' - and maintain a forum to share tips and tricks.

OK, so you've read the books - is the seminar worth attending? Short answer: Yes. 

I think it's a lot like golf - the only way to get better is to keep playing and work on your technique.  If you want to get *way* better, sometimes you need to buy a few sessions with a pro, who can help you fine-tune your game and smooth out the rough spots in your technique.  This seminar is just that - a session with a pro.

David also provides some guidance at the end of the day for making this stick once you get back to the hectic world of work.  No magic bullets, but there are some tricks to help you re-learn habits that are more effective and return to your 'zone' when you fall off the wagon.  This includes some voodoo using a paperclip that shows the power of belief and the impact of negative self-talk.

Over the next few days I'll share some other things I learned during this seminar.  You can also find some interesting perspective on this from Buzz Bruggeman who was in the row ahead of me taking notes on his PC.

Official definition of "GTD"

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