I just read a great article on Success Begins Today about how to become a better (more effective) listener. Check it out - and there are a few more follow-on articles related to listening, including how to become a better marketer by listening.
Read MoreGenuine 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.
Can you trust your gut?
In Malcolm Gladwell's 'Blink' we're exposed to the concept of "rapid cognition," which describes how people often make very accurate, snap decisions based on very little input. This is a concept known as "thin slicing."
Of course, I was curious so I've been reading up on the subject. I discovered that this phenomenon has been the subject of a number of 'thin slicing' studies in which subjects are exposed to tiny snippets of information and measured on how accurate their snap judgements were. It seems that, in many cases, our rapid cognition works remarkably well.
In the article "Thin slices of life," Lea Winerman describes a 1993 study at Tufts University in which researchers videotaped 13 graduate teaching fellows as they taught class. They then took 3 random 6-second clips of each teacher, and combined them into one 18-second silent video clip. They showed the 18-second clip to students who did not know the teachers, and asked them to rate them on 13 different variables (such as "accepting," "active," "competent," etc.)
These scores were then compared to the end-of-semester ratings on the same 13 factors from the teachers' actual students. The researchers were shocked at how accurate the test subjects were at predicting how good the teachers would be, based on these small, random video clips.
This is interesting data, and indicates that you should really listen to your gut. However, this is an area where I think the principle of "trust, but verify" applies.
Consider this: I also read another study in which a bunch of hiring managers were asked to select the best candidates for positions based on standard interviewing techniques. The applicants were also put through structured testing to evaluate their "fit" based on a number of criteria. Some applicants were hired based on test scores, and some were hired based on the managers' traditional hiring tecniques.
The hiring managers were all experienced, and all thought they could do a better job than some structured test in selecting the right people. However, a year into the study, the group hired based on test scores was significantly outperforming the group hired using traditional interviews (as measured by job performance, team fit, results, and whether or not they were still employed by the hiring company).
In the article I read, they summarized it by saying that people often hire on "gut" but end up firing on things that may not be apparent at the gut level. These things tend to be persistent personality traits, work ethic issues, and other aspects that may not be apparent in short, structured interactions.
So, to sum it up, I believe you can trust your gut, but your gut feel may not be sufficient for some decisions. When you're making a major decision like hiring people to join your team, verify that gut feel. If structured testing is an option for you, use it. If not, spend more time checking references, use team interviewing, probe for experience and situational "stories" which might indicate issues that will surface over the long term.
Trust, but verify.
Pretend you create everything that happens to you
Are you familiar with victim mentality? I was talking to someone the other day who epitomized it - no matter what the topic, he claimed that other people were to blame for all of his problems. I tried all my voodoo about envisioning how it could be different, taking responsibility for your own well being, and all that jazz. Nothin' doin'.
This episode prompted a nice little flashback for me:
I was hanging out with an ex-Microsoft guy named Jim McCarthy about 10 years ago at a software development bootcamp, and he threw something out that has stuck with me to this day.
Jim used this notion of "trying on beliefs" a lot, which means you basically pretend that you believe something even though you may not. Sort of like putting yourself in the other guy's shoes.
Anyway, one of the beliefs he'd get people to try on was to "Pretend that you create everything that happens to you. When you find yourself in a situation you don't like, ask yourself what you did to make it happen to you."
If you flip your perspective on its head, you can inevitably come up with something in the past that contributed to your undesirable present. And, more than likely, you can think of something you could've done differently that might have prevented it.
OK, you ask, how does that help me now? For some people, it may not. For others, it might put you in a reflective mood, and you may be able to get to the next step:
Ask yourself what you can do today that will
a) keep it from getting any worse;
b) make up for the past error;
c) make it better
There's almost always something, but it's hard to see unless you look at the problem from a different perspective.
Got problems? Go ahead - try on the belief. Pretend you create everything that happens to you...
Timeless leadership lessons
I've mentioned in the past that I'm a big fan of Audible, and I have been sprinkling audio books in with my 'normal' reading fare. As part of my 2-book-per-month credit as an Audible Premium Listener, I recently downloaded an audio book called "The 21 Most Powerful Minutes In A Leader's Day" by John Maxwell. It's available in audio via Audible, or in print form or on cassette from Powell's.
When I initially downloaded it, I thought it was going to be another take on the "start your day by planning what you want to do or you'll end up doing a bunch of random stuff." Boy, was I surprised, and pleasantly so.
If you have something against the Bible, this one may not be for you. Otherwise, read on.
This book is a series of short chapters that take stories from the Bible and relate them to leadership lessons that are very thought provoking, and quite poignant. The "21 Minutes..." in the title refers to the suggestion that you listen to one chapter a day and reflect on it. That process should take about 21 minutes a day.
For the last week or so, I've been listening to one of these chapters each day during my morning commute (on my lovely iPod Shuffle, of course, which is connected to my car stereo). I really look forward to the chapter each morning now, and the thinking about the concepts have already helped me out at work. The first chapter, for example, is about courage and breaking through your current limitations as a leader, and uses the contrast between the leadership styles of David and Saul to illustrate its points.
If you don't mind getting a bit of business teaching from stories written thousands of years ago, I recommend this one. Even if the Bible isn't your thing, why not give it a try? After all, I'm not Hindu, but I have learned a lot from Ghandi.
One other thing I realized after the fact: this book is published by Michael Hyatt's company - if you haven't checked out his "Working Smart" blog, please do. He has some great productivity tips over there.
Read MoreDusting off a classic procrastinator's toolkit
I just re-read a book on how to fight procrastination. It's called "The Now Habit" and it is really cool. I think I started reading it back in the late 20th century, but never got through it (figures).
I was recently re-introduced to it by a friend of mine, and read it on my flight to Atlanta this morning. There are some very interesting variations on some of the other themes I've seen in other works on personal productivity, including some of the ones I commonly mention here.
I obviously can't do it justice in a short post, but here are some tasty morsels, by way of example:
The Unschedule (time logging with a twist)
The Unschedule involves time logging as a first step, often repeated. Just like all the other time logging techniques, this one is geared to help you become more aware of how you spend your time, so you can improve your effective use of time.
With the Unschedule, you start off by scheduling play time first, then you monitor how you work on projects. You only give yourself "credit" for 30 minute (or longer) blocks of uninterrupted work, and you build in rewards at the end of those blocks.
Another twist: If you complete something at the end of one of those blocks of work, don't stop there even if your 30 minute timer as dinged. Instead, start another task and work on it for 10 minutes so you a) make progress on another task, and b) create a sort of psychic "tension" that will bring you back for the next block of work.
Three Dimensional Thinking
This is a concept on using a "reverse calendar" which is similar to the 'break it down into smaller bites' approach, all the way back to next actions you can take today. Nothing new here, but it's very well-presented.
The Work of Worrying
This part was a lot of fun. You're taken through a process to tease out all the "well, ok, but something bad might happen" scenarios. You come up with all the worst-case scenarios on the nastiest projects on your list, then use those to build a plan to mitigate as much of the risk as possible.
And, of course, there is more. This book hits all of the demons of procrastination head-on: fear of failure, fear of success, no life balance, etc.
This one's worth checking out if, like me, you need tools and techniques for dealing with procrastination.
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