Food as a glue

It's the night before Thanksgiving in the US, and our home is filled with the smell of pumpkin pie in the oven.  This has reminded me of food and its ability to bring people together.

I grew up in Louisiana and have come to appreciate the food even more since I've left.  Why?  Because it's so good?  Well, sure – but that's not what I mean.

What I appreciate about the food in Louisiana was its role as a "glue" for both social and business bonding.  When I think of people I hung out with, I often think of the meals we shared.  Sometimes they were crawfish boils, sometimes family dinners, sometimes business lunches – but food was always a good excuse to get together.

Another important aspect of our food was the sharing.  When someone had a death or illness in the family, their friends cooked for them and brought it over to the house.  We often took turns cooking for each other, and each of us jumped at the chance to bring your "signature dish" to someone else's food fest.  (Sometimes, there was a parallel between food and stories – just as my friend always brought her own special fruit salad every time we had a potluck, she always told pretty much the same stories).

We marked the seasons with food, too.   Gumbo when it was cold,  King cake from Epiphany through Mardi Gras day,  fish on Fridays during Lent, crawfish boils in the spring and early summer,  boudin in the fall, pecan pie at Thanksgiving, duck in the winter, etc.  And I'm just scratching the surface with this list!

Having a reason to connect makes it more fun to do so, and more likely that you'll actually do it.  I appreciate the role food has played in my life in helping me stay connected to others.  Sure the food's good, but it isn't really about the food – it's about the connections.

Get It Done, by the book

The other day I got my hands on Stever Robbins' book, "Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More (Quick & Dirty Tips)," which is a great collection of tips & tricks to be more productive.

When I picked up the book, I was wondering how this aligned with David Allen's "Getting Things Done."  Turns out it's very complementary - GTD is focused mostly on how to collect, capture, and organize the things you want to do so you can pick your activities based on context, energy, importance, etc - you still need that, even with Robbins' book.

So what is Robbins' book about, then?  While it does have some overlap in terms of defining life goals, priorities, and "purpose" stuff, much of Robbins' book deals with tactics to help you free up more time to be productive - how to overcome procrastination, how to get better at saying "no," how to block out distractions so you can focus, and those sorts of things.

Practical and fun to read

Robbins' style is very conversational, making it an easy read.  He also has a lot of quirky stories and memes going on (hint: zombies abound).  In the midst of the quirkiness, there are a lot of sound ideas - and he illustrates them with stories from his life.  For example, there is a section on "baby chunks" which is a strategy to break daunting tasks down into smaller, more manageable pieces.  He discusses how he used this approach in writing his book, and I found it easier to understand the techniques involved because of this concrete example.

Likewise, he illustrates most of his concepts with real stories you can identify with (except for the zombies, of course).

So, you may be wondering, "What are the 9 steps?"  Let me fill you in:

• Step 1: Live on Purpose, deals with identifying you top-level life priorities;
• Step 2: Stop Procrastinating, offers tips to get your butt in gear and do the things you're avoiding;
• Step 3: Conquer Technology, which helps you figure out ways to prevent technology from hijacking your productivity, as well as how to use technology to help you get through your tasks more quickly;
• Step 4: Beat Distractions to Cultivate Focus, is perhaps my favorite chapter, and it deals with how to establish an environment / habits that will help you focus more (you might also want to look at my post on how to focus in a cubicle environment, if you have trouble focusing on your tasks);
• Step 5: Stay Organized, which helps you implement systems to support a more organized life;
• Step 6: Stop Wasting Time, which is mostly about how to identify your leverage points - the 20% that's most important in your 80/20 life;
• Step 7: Optimize, which has some very interesting tips to help make time-consuming or mundane tasks more efficient, and even "outsource" them to others if you can;
• Step 8: Build Stronger Relationships, which is about doing the care & feeding of relationships to make your life more meaningful and create a network that can support your efforts when you need help;
• Step 9: Leverage, which is partially about automating things to give you more power over getting them done, but also a lot about how to use your skills to their best advantage to increase your personal value.  Leverage is also about how you can tap into the strengths of others to move past your own limitations.

In summary, I got a lot out of this book and found it to be very practical.  Through this book, I also discovered the "Get-It-Done Guy's Tips & Tricks" site, which is loaded with great ideas.

If you're looking for a good way to refocus your energy on being more productive, you won't go wrong with this book.

Advice: get some

I have been catching up on some old podcasts, and just listened to one from the Get-It-Done Guy about "internal advisory boards." In this podcast, he talks about creating a fictitious advisory board inside your head and using it to vet ideas.  Pretty novel concept, and he portrays it in an entertaining way - go give it a listen when you're done here.

That got me thinking about the use of external advisory boards, though.  I'm leading a project to define a very forward-looking product strategy, and I've come to realize I'm drawing too much on my own perspective and experience.  I don't want to limit my thinking so I've begun to engage with others as advisors, sounding boards, and contrarians to help me make my strategy stronger.

If you've never done this before, it can be daunting.  The first step is to admit you need help (pretty easy this time); the second step is to be open to others perspectives (again, fairly easy in this situation); and the third is to figure out who to ask to be your advisor.  That third one is a bitch, let me tell you.

I've been trying to make it easier by doing a couple of things:

1. I've written a list of the attributes I'm looking for (experience, perspective, type of input I'm looking for, etc.) for a number of advisor types;
2. I've begun to socialize this with some of my more connected friends who are most likely know someone or know of someone who can help;
3. I've written a document about the topic I want feedback on so I can get any potential advisors anchored in my topic;
4. I've begun talking to people more openly about their role as my advisor (interviewing, if you will).

This has worked pretty well - I have a couple of solid advisors on board, and a couple more in the works.  I am really looking forward to getting their input.

What about you - have you ever solicited outside advisors in any deliberate manner?  If so, do you have any advice you can share?

Looking for a job? Preparation can make a difference

A post from Jason Womack on "being ready" made me think of the importance of doing your homework before a job interview.  I've been interviewing a lot of candidates recently, and you can really tell the difference between those who take the time to not only become familiar with your company, but also spend time thinking about how they would integrate with your company.

This is more than figuring out what they key products are, what messaging is on the web site, or what recent press releases have hit the wire.

For me, the candidates that really stand out go beyond cursory research.  For example, I've encountered candidates who have prepared a document with their thoughts on our company's strategy versus our key competitors' - with recommendations for how to make our company more competitive.  I've also run across people who have called our company asking for information from our Sales team to see how we position ourselves, what business problems we solve, and how we engage with prospects.

The difference wasn't in what these folks knew or that they'd put forth the extra effort (though that tells you something about a person).  No, the key difference was in their ability to engage in a meaningful discussion during the interview process.  They behaved like informed members of my team, which made it even easier to envision what it's like to work with them.

So, if you are interviewing and want to stand out, get beyond a scan of the web site, engage with the company you want to work for, and bring informed passion to your interview.

Deja vu, all over again - are you guilty?

Ever notice yourself or others making the same mistakes over and over again?  I have seen this in a lot of the places I've worked, and a lot of the problem is that people tend to tolerate "emotional business cases" (latest, loudest, and most charismatic) over "real" business cases (logic, data, and well-thought out strategy decisions).

The root cause is that we like to do fun and exciting things, and real business cases are hard work and sometimes boring.  Then there is the fact that we often take shortcuts when analyzing ideas we like.

Know what?  This is not uncommon - take a look at this comparison of the current BP oil spill to one that happened in 1979.

It's eerie how similar they are, isn't it?  Are you guilty of repeating the mistakes of the past?  How can you break the cycle?