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Thought for Food in the New Year

2014-12-24T14:25:20Z

Author Scott Anderson

We’re about to turn the page on another calendar year. That means you’ve probably already been thinking about “resolutions.” Though the practice of resetting for a new year can be healthy, I prefer to deal in terms like goal and purpose.

Where a resolution is a once a year deal that is seen as routine or even compulsory, goal and purpose are terms that have driving actions behind them, and require a hard and fast decision to be put into action. They have specific, stated intents, not just general hopes. Goals have deadlines and consequences built in rather than an almost implicit expectation of failure that comes with most New Year’s resolutions.

For this, my last blog of 2014 I want to simply ask a few questions about your goals for 2015 and your preparedness to meet the challenges of reaching those goals. Use this as an exercise for goal setting and mapping a plan to get there.

How happy were you at work today? How does that compare to most days?
Within your company, does it feel like you are swimming more with the tide or against it?
What would you do for free if you could, and how does that look compared to what you do now?
What three words would you choose to best describe your leadership style? What three words would your employees or coworkers choose?
Do you know who you would choose as your successor? How prepared are those below you to step into your shoes?
How well do you know your professional weaknesses? When was the last time one was in evidence and how did you deal with it?

Make notes as you think about these questions. Fold them up and put them in your pocket. Pull out the notes when you have a free moment and add something or just reflect. I hope these questions will help you as you set your goals for the New Year.

Categories: Planning for the Future, Self Improvement

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Three Tips for Holiday Wellness

2014-12-17T22:16:06Z

Author Scott Anderson

The holidays are upon us once again. It’s that once a year, week-long event, identified by its hallmarks of family, food, and cold weather. It’s a fun and important time to slow down and acknowledge the positive forces of friends, family, and community. Yet there can be an unmistakable pressure blooming in the mind during this time for various reasons. I want to talk a little bit about that and give a few tips for maintaining wellness during this holiday season.

First, a few words about “wellness,” what it is, and what it is not. Wellness is more than merely not being sick. It means being aware of the areas of one’s life that directly affect both physical and mental health, and then being proactive in cultivating healthy practices in those areas. So practicing wellness is not just knowing you have high cholesterol, for example, it’s consciously dealing with that reality in every choice you make throughout the day.

1. Step Away from the iPad

Or the iPhone, or the office. Though you might consciously want a vacation, it can be difficult to pull yourself away from work tasks and office routines, even for just a couple days when the time actually comes. Don’t check your email. Avoid checking your devices not just because no one expects you to (you’re not at work, remember), but because your attention is best served elsewhere. Whatever you’ve got in your inbox will be there when your family event is over. Relax as much as you can and keep all work-related activities between the ears.

2. Avoid Excess

The holidays are a time for exceptions and excess. Because the normal work-week gets disrupted, friends and family come in to town, there are plenty of parties and “good cheer.” Life is much the same, but the joys and the sorrows are amplified. We eat and drink more. Somehow we are more keenly aware of the delicacy of life and death, the wondrous give and take of relationships. Don’t take these disruptions in your routine as a free pass to excess. As the commercials say, enjoy responsibly and keep yourself in shape for number three.

3. Reflect

It’s a cliché, but the holidays provide a real opportunity for reflection. In reality, when surrounded by family and friends, some of whom we may not see very often, it’s hard not to reflect on life. I want you to make those reflections count. Avoiding unnecessary distractions like technology and work, as well as keeping your consumption in check, should help you keep a clear head during this time.

Use this as a time to discover answers to the questions you’ve been too busy to respond to during your busy weeks. These are internal questions for you, and you alone. If it’s not too cold, sneak out for a brisk walk by yourself. Whatever you have to do, find some time for yourself. Seeking the opinions of those within your inner circle, as well as those who aren’t as close to you can also be a great way to get some insight you may not normally have the chance to encounter.

Here’s hoping you have a healthy and happy holiday season.

Categories: Self Improvement, Thinking Differently, Work/Life Balance

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A Helpful Nudge Toward the Cliff

2014-12-11T16:38:11Z

Author Scott Anderson

I often help my clients find answers to difficult questions in their lives. But what I think I mostly do is strengthen the inner muscle that makes action based on these decisions nearly automatic. As difficult as it can be to see our problems clearly, it can be even tougher to know what path of action to take, and even more difficult yet to actually act.

I’m referring to Big Decisions, here. These are the kind of decisions that when made, affect every part of your life; from your family and social interactions, to your time and financial commitments, to the quality of headspace you’re in during typical, everyday moments. The tricky decision that I deal with most often is in the workplace: should I stay or should I go?

Even if your situation is not ideal, there can be a million reasons not to leave a job you aren’t happy with. Whether it’s logistical concerns like paying bills and providing for your family, or fear of cultural or societal reprisal, it can be overwhelming to even consider a change of such magnitude. I want to help you balance the pros and cons as accurately as possible so you make the decision that will be best for you in the long run.

First, read this list of ten statements and make a tally for every statement that applies to your feelings about your career. How many tallies do you have? If you’ve felt some twinge of recognition at two or more of these statements, it’s time to take a long hard look at your relationship with your workplace and consider your next step.

I want to challenge you to make this decision with your fears as silenced as they can possibly be. Our fears exist to keep us safe, but really they are meant to operate on a more elemental level (lions and tigers and bears, etc). Though the anxiety of leaving a job, especially if you've been there for an extended period of time, might seem like more than you willingly want to go through, you will not die or come to any bodily harm as a result.

What you open yourself up to is the possibility of truthfully making statements that directly mirror those you read in that list of ten: I’m excited to go to work. I feel valued and surrounded by likeminded people. I can see a future for myself here and the possibilities excite me. If you don’t feel this way now, ask yourself why not. Is there anything you can do to alter your perception? What trade offs would you have to make to feel that way? What, if anything, would you miss about your current situation?

If it’s time for you to make a Big Change, you’ll see that light blinking in your mind’s eye now. I hope this blog might be the helpful nudge you need not to send you over the cliff, but to get you close enough to the edge to see the view and encourage you to pursue your Big Dreams.

Categories: Fear, Self Improvement, Thinking Differently

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Playing Big: Chapter 8: Leaving a Big Legacy

2014-12-04T22:01:59Z

Author Scott Anderson

“Never, never, never give up.” - Winston Churchill

In this blog I will offer a summary of the final chapter of my book, Playing Big. It’s about the positive consequences of Playing Big for yourself and those around you. If this is your first engagement with this series on my blog, go back to the Playing Big section of the blog and get caught up on the previous chapters.

We’re all born into different sets of circumstances. Amelia Earhart once said that if you were lucky enough to have a runway built for you, you should go forth and take flight. If you were not fortunate enough to have a runway waiting for you, you should grab a shovel and start building. And it’s not just so that you eventually, through hard work and dedication to your purpose, will take flight. It’s so that you will leave a legacy of flight that encourages those who come after you.

I saw Rasheen Coleman building his runway and knew I could and should be doing more with what I had. Rasheen was a young man at the Omaha Boys & Girls Clubs where I was on the Board of Directors. His upbringing was so fraught with challenges of the most serious kind that one might be forgiven for not pegging him for great success. But he had other ideas, and against what society might expect, he succeeded and flourished at every turn. The process that got him there had two big steps: a Big Dream and a Big Plan.

A Big Dream: There’s something about having an outrageous goal that pushes you farther than a reasonable one can. What kind of goal is truly “big”? It must literally send chills down your spine when you think about it. It must be shocking and awe-inspiring to those around you. The presence of this Big Dream inside you must act like its own gravitational force pulling you away from those little agents of fear we discussed in earlier chapters.

A Big Plan: On the heels of a Big Dream must come a Big Plan. In Rasheen’s case, he had a team of supporters to help him solidify and execute his plan. Be humble in the face of your Big Dream and it will be easier to ask for help, and indeed, people will come out of the woodwork to help you because your Big Vision inspires them. Here is where what previously felt like an “outrageous” plan becomes doable in a simple, committed, step-by-step way.

After your Big Dream and Big Plan are in place, the most important step for achieving success comes along, and that is your Big Commitment. While your step-by-step plan has the power to turn the impossible into the possible, the actual, even, you will not face this journey without resistance. You need to commit to seeing this through. You need to commit to never saying, “I didn’t think the runway was going to be so long.” You need to commit to what Churchill advised, never, never, never giving up.

If the rock you throw into the pond is big enough and you throw it with every bit of strength you’ve got, the ripples go out and out and never stop. Talent only gets you so far. By choosing to Play Big in your life you accept the responsibility to lift yourself up and to let that gift be extended to others through consistent reaching after your Big Dream.

Playing Bigger:

Your Big Dream: If you’ve had one in the back f your mind, now is the time to write it down. Say it out loud. How does it feel? Now that you’ve expressed it, what fears come up as you think about pursuing it?
Tracking a Legacy: Identify a person, either living or from history, that left a significant legacy. Can you identify a ripple effect—unintended consequences of Playing Big that this person could not have imagined? Based on your Big Dream, what would you like your legacy to be?

If you found these last few posts insightful and want to learn more, Playing Big is available from Amazon in print or ebook.

Categories: Playing Big

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Playing Big - Chapter 7: Playing Big in a Small Culture

2014-11-26T00:37:20Z

Author Scott Anderson

“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” - Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard

If you are not familiar with the concept of Playing Big now would be a good time to go back through my blog archives and read the introduction to the book, as well as posts on the first six chapters here.

Today I want to address Chapter 7, “Playing Big in a Small Culture.” Once you realize that your desire to Play Bigger and the realities of your current situation are not matching up, you have a decision to make. Do you make a change in your life or try to alter the situation around you? One of the first steps I will take with a client is to ask them to list their top four values — morally, what’s most important to you? Then I will ask them to list the activities they spend the most time on daily. How much overlap between the two? In a stifling environment, there won’t be much.

This is status quo. There’s a notion that who we are is in some way separate from what we do for money. As if we expect to be absolved for working mind-numbing jobs we don’t like because we have to, as dictated by the laws of society. Good news! Society has no rules requiring working a job you hate. In fact, it’s my firm belief that more people wholeheartedly committed to work they love is exactly what society needs.

We need to look our fears right in the face and see them for what they are. This is the perception/reality disconnect. We imagine that getting fired, or even being reprimanded at work, as being tantamount to death. (Albeit a small, ego-based death. Anything that brings instability is bad so don’t rock the boat.) In reality, some instability will be required if we are to eventually find a new balance. So what options do you have?

Leaving: Though it probably feels like inviting death into your life, if your work environment is stifling your creativity and values, you drift further from your true purpose every day you choose to stay. By habituating yourself to a small culture, you become less and less employable in environments that are Playing Big.

Picking Your Battles: Like tiptoeing into battle, this option is a tricky proposition. Playing Big is really an all or nothing commitment so proposing to Play Big at times straddles a gray area where an excuse for doing nothing is never too far away. Choosing to do this can have you finding that you use too much energy on the “if’s” and “when’s” that should really just be “do’s.”

Create Your Own Subculture: Whether working in a team or by yourself, you can hold yourself to a higher standard and set additional goals for yourself and your team that are potentially above and beyond the company’s own. This is a more tenable alternative than picking your battles since it allows you to maintain a Big mindset consistently.

Finding Allies: While the above option might leave you feeling like you are still swimming upstream, this tactic should give you a bit more leverage, provided there are allies to be found. Again, dependent on the size and unique makeup of your company, allies will help you not feel crazy pursuing your Big vision.

Entrepreneurship: Sometimes unhappy people from big companies leave and start something newer, fresher, and smaller. These startups have the ability to be more nimble, take more risks, and ultimately disrupt the industry they were previously wallowing in.

Playing Bigger:

In Sync: Make a list of the values that are most important to you, (e.g. “honesty,” “sense of humor,” etc.). Then look at your reality, including work life, family life, etc. Are the two in sync? In what areas? Are there other areas where your cherished values and your daily reality are miles apart?
Getting Unstuck: If you feel that you're a Big Player who is stuck in a small culture, use this discussion of options to brainstorm ways to get yourself unstuck.

Categories: Playing Big

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Breaking Routines: A Personal Challenge

2014-11-20T16:29:08Z

Author Scott Anderson

We’ve all heard the cliches about getting out of your comfort zone, doing things “outside the box,” and breaking bad habits. But how much do we hear beyond these catch-all sound bites and how much real life experience do we actually have in successfully breaking routines? If we each had a pie chart of data representing how much of each day is spent performing daily (or weekly) routines vs. how much is spent on “out of the box” activities, I’d venture to guess that the vast majority of us would have a solid one color pie representing the cozy realm of routine.

While it’s true that routines help us compartmentalize and make room for our daily tasks, it would be wrong to think of them as the sole reason we get things done. Breaking routines does not mean eliminating them. It does not exchange a routine for chaos. Before we determine what actions to take we need to try to understand the ideas of “routine” and “comfort zone.” They seem simple enough but they are fraught with psychological complications that make them harder to identify and parse.

Your comfort zone is a behavioral space that you ritually create to have minimum stress and risk associated with it. It’s a way for us to unconsciously design a place of homeostasis where our deepest and most prevalent fears are mitigated. While far too many people have to live in constant fear in today’s world, it is not a condition for optimum human performance of any kind. The sweet spot for human performance on this scale is somewhere between this zone of constant fear and the slothy comfort of couch-bound routine. This is called the zone of optimal anxiety.

The zone of optimal anxiety (ZOA, why not) puts you on edge enough to have a kind of heightened awareness while still landing well short of any kind of panicky adrenal overload. The brain is more active than normal so it’s making connections more accurately and quickly. We are more receptive to new and unfamiliar challenges than we otherwise would be. So how can we get ourselves into a routine of regularly being in the ZOA?

It starts small. Try doing some basic parts of your day differently and see how these changes make you feel in the moment. Wear an outfit that you haven’t put on in a while. How does it make you feel as you notice it throughout the day? Eat at a restaurant you’ve never been to before. When you look at the menu, will you order something you’ve never had before? Why or why not?

You also may have some unhealthy habits that need to change. Ultimately, you need to ask yourself about this right now. As I always say, absolute honesty is the foundation for this and all life-changing exercises and behaviors. Sometimes the most harmful behaviors we have are the most difficult to eradicate, for one reason or another. Ask yourself if there are any parts of your routine in particular that are holding you back from breaking out of your comfort zone and achieving your goals.

Sometimes it’s hard to break a well-worn routine even if you fully and consciously intend to do so. Routines are routines because they aren’t made up of conscious decisions. Of course most of your routines won’t change. What’s important is identifying parts of your routine that are stagnant. Shuffle the deck a little bit and see what it does to your thought process. My personal challenge to you is to start today towards breaking one stagnant routine.

Categories: Thinking Differently, Self Improvement

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WHY MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS TO BE A TOP PRIORITY FOR YOUR COMPANY

2014-11-12T21:01:21Z

Author Scott Anderson

About one in every five people is dealing with some kind of psychological disorder right now. And half of all adults will deal with one in some form, at some point in their life. In today’s society mental health issues are less visible but far more common than physical ailments, yet their realities are still shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding.

There’s a stigma attached to the many ailments that fall under the umbrellas of anxiety and depression that’s based on this lack of understanding. The pervasive idea that those with psychological issues are weak and unreliable is simply not true. Those who are afflicted are less likely to seek help than to blame themselves for their problems, while their colleagues often don’t recognize the symptoms, don’t understand what they are looking at, or wrongly assume it’s a “personal problem” not to be meddled with or brought into the office (see my previous blog on work-life balance to know my feelings on this topic). Gradually, though, things are changing, and our collective attitudes about mental health are stepping out of the dark ages.

Unfortunately, the nature of psychological issues also makes them more difficult to diagnose and treat. It’s considerably easier to walk into a hospital or doctor’s office and say, “look, my leg is snapped in two,” than it is to seek help for problems that do not have necessarily have exact names or clear paths of treatment: “Um, I think I’m really sad and I’m not totally sure why.”

So how do we know if one of our colleagues is suffering? First of all, anyone is susceptible. Mental health issues usually manifest through a noticeable dip in performance. Missing work, missing deadlines, or performing below expectations are all warning signs that someone might be having psychological issues. Here is where we need to change the cycle. Where typically employers are afraid to overstep their bounds by inquiring about the root of these problems, and suffering employees are afraid to risk their job by speaking out, a culture of openness and understanding will go a long way towards healthy employees and a healthy company.

What can we do? Eliminate the silent treatment. It is essential that your company have a firmly compassionate mental health policy. Your employees need to know that you’re there for them, that their neck won’t be on the chopping block the minute their productivity dips, and that you know that a happier person is a happier employee as well. You know that happiness is central to productivity. By having a pre-existing mental health protocol in place, it provides a normalized channel to go through when any psychological issues become apparent in the office.

An in-house coach can be extremely helpful for dealing with whatever issues your employees might have, psychological or otherwise. If this is not in your company’s means, it’ll be up to you to foster an open door policy and a network of professionals your employees can reach out to.

You don’t need to be a shrink, or be able to identify and understand all the symptoms of an employee who is suffering. You just need to reach out with a human touch. Ask if everything is alright. If the verbal answer is “yes,” but all other signs point to “no,” say so. Instead of trying to solve this problem yourself, you should be a facilitator for getting treatment. This really is about putting both parties in a position to be successful, insofar as your employee will not be successful at work or home when they are unhappy, and your business will not be as successful as it otherwise would be with staff working at full capacity.

The Cold Hard Facts. Every year depression results in 200 million lost workdays, costing employers billions and billions of dollars. This is worse than the impacts of both diabetes and heart disease. Similarly, when people afflicted with psychological issues do come to work, they are much less effective (quantity AND quality) than they would be if they were happy. Understand that in the case of depression, this is not solely a work-related problem. If someone is struggling with depression, it’s not only at work. Food does not taste as good, conversations are less interesting, and often, family life can bear the brunt of the problem.

By showing that you want to be part of the solution, you make yourself a stronger leader, and your company a compassionate, forward-thinking presence in your industry; a place people are going to want to work. It’s just the right thing to do. And the more awareness of mental health we have as a society, the happier and more productive we will be.

Categories: Business Culture, Thinking Differently

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THE POWER OF VISUALIZATION

2014-11-05T21:31:10Z

Author Scott Anderson

I’ve known I was going to write a blog about the power of visualization for a few days now. Because it’s been filed away in my mind as an area of concern, I’ve been thinking about the process and its benefits every so often throughout each day. I picture my thoughts as a spinning Rolodex of important topics within my conscious mind, and each time the ‘visualization’ card comes up I either cycle through past thoughts or have something new occur. Because of that this blog is already mostly written in my head, but only in fragments. Instead of now having to do the work of sitting down and asking myself, “what do I think about this? What do I really want my audience to know?” all I have to do is gather and cull from the thoughts I’ve had intermittently over the past few days and tie them together with my present mind acting as the glue.

Visualization, taken literally, is a tactic for making a picture out of some set of information that is theoretical or numerical in nature. It’s taking a reality from one plane and making it communicate on a different plane. Particularly for visual learners, it’s a way to feel the full force of truly impactful data.

For us, visualization is a technique where we use our minds to focus on goals and desires as a means for bringing them into reality. It’s a conscious choice you make that determines which topics show up on your Rolodex more often than others. It can be applied to both long- and short-term goals. For example, if I have the ambition to become a scratch golfer I might spend what most would consider a disproportionate amount of my time rehearsing the movements of the swing, visualizing the speed and angle of certain putts, or even playing full rounds in my head.

As proof that this stuff works, Natan Sharansky, an American computer specialist, spent 9 years in prison in the U.S.S.R. for “spying.” While in solitary confinement he trained his brain to become an advanced chess player and in 1996 he beat world champion Garry Kasparov. Some further proof, from a study looking at brain patterns in weightlifters, “found that the patterns activated when a weightlifter lifted hundreds of pounds were similarly activated when they only imagined lifting.”

So it’s not in my head if, after a winter of not actually swinging a real golf club, I have actually become a better golfer through consistent and targeted mental practice. The subconscious doesn't differentiate between “real” and “unreal” thought experience. If I internalize the correct motions and the correct attitude towards my intended practice, I will likely notice improvement. The same goes for short-term goals. If you have a job interview tomorrow, visualizing how it will go well is the polar opposite to sitting around all night, biting your nails and pulling your hair out. It’s just a couple steps beyond “you can do this,” to “you WILL do this, and here’s how”

This is not about “getting what you want” in terms of money or material things. This is about bringing yourself closer to the needs of your soul, to the place where you feel that your actions are truly aligned with your inner purpose. Visualization is also an effective means for assuaging fear. If you feel that you truly know what positive results will arise from a given situation, you really have nothing to be afraid of.

Like most topics I blog about, this is only one tool at your disposal for success and fulfillment at work and at home. Don’t count on it alone to get you where you want to go. So if you know what you truly want, set your mind to it. Revolve your thoughts around it and see what happens.

Categories: Thinking Differently

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MEETING THE MYTH OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE HEAD ON

2014-11-03T22:42:50Z

Author Scott Anderson

There’s a lot of discussion in today’s business world about work-life balance and how to achieve it. The phrase itself conjures stock images of placid equilibrium—a pair of joyous kids on a seesaw or the good old scales of justice gleaming in perfect harmony. There’s a reason the only images of balance we have are abstract ideas like these. For those of us who have careers as opposed to jobs, and are committed to achieving success in them, work-life balance is not a realistic expectation.

The concept of work-life balance implies an equivalence between both physical time spent and mental energy expended. The fact that these are not really quantifiable metrics shows that we’re embarking on a fool’s errand if we try to achieve this perfect balance. My house and my car both have plenty of switches, but my body doesn’t. Unless you have a mindless job that you really don’t care about (and I hope this isn’t the case) it’s impossible to turn off work-related concerns the moment you step out of the office.

And vice versa. Unless you are a robot (again, hopefully not the case) it can be exceedingly difficult to “leave it at the door” when it comes to extracurricular concerns at work. The key is to approach both sets of situations seeking balance and happiness in each. How is your life at home? What pressures are weighing on you most, specifically? At work, how confident are you with the projects you take on? How is your relationship with your boss and coworkers?

An increased sense of calm in both areas will reduce any friction that exists between the two spaces. So what can you do to cultivate a healthy coexistence of work and non-work activity? Below are a few areas in which to assess your current happiness and gauge your progress.

Cultivate healthy practices. Health seems to be more at the forefront of popular culture now than ever before. This makes it easier to access different means of being healthy, but it also presents so many options that it can be daunting to decide how to act. Do I do the 30 Day Grapefruit Cleanse or the 60 Day Coconut Water Cleanse? Ultimately, it’s up to you. But either way, do the research and assess the options. Diet, exercise, and spiritual practice are all part of what makes a healthy program for me.

Communication is a big part of psychological health, as well. How often do you stop communicating out of frustration or lack of ability to do so? Are you comfortable talking to your significant other about concerns at work? Are you a good listener to his/her concerns? Try to approach coworkers and friends alike as individuals just as complex as you are, with their own fears, joys, dreams, and concerns.

Act, don’t react. Now is the time to alter habits that aren’t helping you achieve balance. If you harbor any negative feelings towards others, ask yourself why you are so bothered. And ask what you (not they) need to do to change that perception. The feeling of constantly being on your heels, reacting to the problems that come your way while other, more primary concerns go by the wayside is a byproduct of not having strong priorities in place. Can you be prepared for everything that happens? Of course not, and we wouldn’t want life to be so predictable. But we can be more prepared so we don’t get shaken off of our intended path.

Know what success looks like for you. Have both short and long term goals that are physically written down somewhere and concretely measurable. If you want to run two miles per day, do it and use an app to track your progress. If you want to spend a week in your ancestral homeland before the end of next year, put it on the calendar and start making plans. Balance is a mental state resulting from a continued process of intention and action, not a combination of facts and figures.

You do have some sort of work-life balance then, but it’s simply called life. It’s not measured by how effectively you shut out work while at home or vice versa. It’s measured by your comfort level with the inevitable overlaps between the two. Have you gotten better or worse in this regard since you’ve been at the job you’re in now? What will you do today to set yourself on a path towards more balance?

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Developing a Writing Practice--And How Practice Equals Performance

2014-10-22T17:59:32Z

Author Scott Anderson

Writing is difficult work. But it’s not neuroscience. A lot of people read certain written works and think, “Wow, I could never have written that.” And thankfully, it’s likely that no one is going to ask you to produce the next bestseller or groundbreaking academic paper. But that absolutely does not mean that writing is “not for you.”

I believe quite the opposite. When I began work on my first book, Playing Big, I was mortified to take even the first step. The fear of beginning a project that felt at once massive and new left me feeling physically ill. In the words of one of my favorite contemporary writers and thinkers, Daniel Pink: “Whenever I hear people describe how much they ‘love’ sitting down to write or how easily writing comes to them, I always assume they’re lying or delusional.”

This gut-based fear to put our thoughts down on paper is based on our perception of what the results of our work will be. It is ultimately a fear of failure. And a fear of that most unholy of sins, “wasting time”—to pour our heart and soul into something and then have no one ever actually read it.

We must alter our view of productivity and success so that the process is the end goal, not the result. Time spent acknowledging and articulating your thoughts will bring you closer to your true purpose. And honestly, the more focused you are on being present with each sentence you write, the more cohesive and enjoyable the finished product will be for you.

I recently met with a friend who had begun a daily free-writing practice. She keeps a small notebook with her at all times and frequently jots down thoughts as they come, when time allows. She told me how amazed she was at the ease with which her thoughts started to flow, and how quickly her notebook began to fill after committing to this practice for little more than a week. Here are a couple tips to get you going towards developing your own writing practice:

Commit. Write every day, no matter what you write about. If you have to sit and write about how you have nothing to write about, do it. You will be surprised what else eventually comes out. Hold yourself accountable for a certain amount of writing. If you prefer word processing, write until you hit a certain word count. If you’re a pen and paper type, make sure you write until you have a full page filled.

Eliminate any imagined audience. Judgment should rest only with you, and how true your writing is for you. Have you ever written something and thought, “It’s probably what they want to hear, but I don’t love it”? Thankfully, there is no “they” here.

No-pressure writing opens up space for the “important” thoughts to rise to the top. With practice, the valves loosen and allow thoughts to flow more freely and for you to get more in touch with thoughts as they happen, not in judgment but in awareness.

Write in a new place. Since your mind may still be somewhat uncomfortable with this idea, I advocate putting your body in a new situation as well. Your mind is likely to be more stimulated in a slightly unfamiliar, public place like a coffee house or a museum, than in your favorite chair or your desk at work.

Daniel Pink says he has many of his best ideas and clearest thoughts while running or being otherwise physically active. I think we’re all familiar with the concept of shower thoughts: the once-a-day place where lights just seem to turn on quicker.

So whether you are attempting to write an entire book on a single topic, or want to develop a personal free-writing practice like my friend, writing is for you. It’s for you to get more in touch with your own thoughts and to help alleviate fear from your life. Commit to giving time to your thoughts and you will be more confident in bringing your unique viewpoint to work, and you will also become more assertive and happy in your daily life.

Categories: Business Culture, Self Improvement

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Embracing Mindfulness in the Office

2014-10-17T17:28:42Z

Author Scott Anderson

Embracing Mindfulness in the Office

Until recently, the word “mindfulness” would not have been mentioned in the corporate environment, much less considered relevant if it had been. But the walls of big business are no longer the rigid gray sliding structures they once were. Now, they are something in constant flux, elastic and diaphanous, with ample room for experimentation and dissent.

Creativity, innovation, and disruption are the name of the game. And with these concepts come the implementation of ideas that previously were not thought compatible with personal productivity and monetary growth. Strongly linked with meditation, mindfulness is, put simply, paying attention.

The aim of mindfulness is simple: to quiet the noisy mind and bring a simplified vision (clarity) to the situation at hand, whether that situation is a complex equation or something simple. And it works. It worked for many professionals even before it was written up in The Economist and Forbes as the next big business trend.

Let’s take Phil Jackson, for example. Jackson is the current president of the New York Knicks and famously guided the Chicago Bulls to six championships in nine years, earning him the nickname “Zen Master” in the process. For at the time (1989-1998), Jackson was noteworthy for being a committed practitioner of Zen Buddhism and for extending that philosophy into his basketball coaching. However, rather than be seen by the mainstream as a winning formula, the “Zen Master’s” tactics were seen as more of a quirky anomaly.

Now, perspectives have changed. Google offers a course for its employees called “Search Inside Yourself” and in 2008, Hearst Publications hired a meditation teacher to combat their employees’ stress at work. The practice of mindfulness is nondenominational, so anyone can practice it and still be in accordance with any other religion they choose to practice.

And while the medical industry today sees the teachings of “new age” thought-based teachers, such as Deepak Chopra, as bad for business, the business community has nothing to lose by embracing alternative tactics to promote the mental, physical, and spiritual health of their employees. In fact, you don’t have to look far beyond Google’s brightly colored, pillow-laden meditation rooms to know that the benefits of mindfulness are not just in our heads.

But let’s be honest. There is their bottom line and then there’s yours. Companies wouldn’t be so interested in participating in this phenomenon if it wasn’t helping to increase their profits. Being mindful for you shouldn’t be about simply increasing productivity at work. It should be born out of a true desire to simplify your own headspace, and find more focus, clarity, and eventually happiness in all areas of your life.

Categories: Thinking Differently

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Playing Big: An Introduction

2014-10-17T17:20:20Z

Author Scott Anderson

Playing Big: An Introduction
The idea of “playing big” is not new. It’s at the core of history’s most beloved innovators and successful entrepreneurs. But just in case you’re not familiar with the concept, I want to give you a simple introduction as I see it applied in the world today.

If the title of this post seems like some scheme to beat the world, or rise to the top of your respective little heap, think again. This process is about one person and one person only: you. It’s about you recognizing your strengths and passions, making a frank assessment about your day to day happiness, and ultimately implementing a plan to achieve the changes that you want to see and feel.

This journey will be about discovering what kinds of activities make you tick. Can you think of any activity in your life that makes the hours go by like minutes?

Now, what if you got paid to do that activity? The idea here is not to get into a situation where things are “easy,” but rather where there is less swimming against the tide.

Here are eight elements that make up our lives. From 1-10, how do you rate your happiness today in these areas?
•   Career
•   Money
•   Health
•   Relationships
•   Love Life
•   Growth
•   Fun
•   Spirituality
Being honest with yourself is the most important part of this process. It’s important to realize that you have pressures in your life that take away your self-focus. Family, work, and bills are all part of life, but these concerns must be placed on the back burner in order to start this process. Your day-to-day well being needs to be at the front and center, which will ultimately improve how you deal with all other concerns.
Which areas did you score lowest? Are there any actions you can take right now to begin improving these areas? Take this opportunity to plant a seed of change inside your head. Let it absorb for a few days. Listen hard to what your mind is telling you, and imagine how that seed will look once it grows.

Categories: Playing Big

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How to Simplify Your Life in 5 Minutes

2014-05-21T19:23:41Z

Author Scott Anderson

"How to simplify your life in 5 minutes"

The situation for many of us is that life is fast and full of opportunity. The complication is we think we have to do everything. The implication of this is that we make a millimeter progress in a million directions. My position is we can make a different choice. We can learn to recognize what is essential and eliminate nonessentials. If we do this then we can operate at a higher point of contribution. Below are five simple ways to simplify your life so you can focus on what is most essential.

The Priority Game
When the word priority came into the English language in the 1400s, it was singular. Think for a moment: What did it mean? The answer is the prior or very first thing. What's interesting is it stayed singular for the next 500 years. It wasn't until the 1900s that we came up with the pluralized term and started using the word priorities. But what exactly does the word mean? Can there be multiple very first things?
In the spirit of this, take five minutes to write down the most important six activities for tomorrow. Then cross off the bottom five. Write down your priority on a Post-it note and put it on your computer. Schedule a ninety-minute window to work on that priority - preferably the first thing of the day.

60 Seconds to Clarity
Pause once every hour for one minute to ask, "Is this the most important or valuable thing I could be doing right now?"If the answer is no, simply stop.

Two for the Price of One
Establish a new rule for one day: If you want to add a new activity you need to edit out two existing activities.This simple rule ensures two things. First, you don't add an activity that is less valuable than something you are already doing. Second, it helps to ensure you move toward reducing your overall burden each day.
Hold tightly to this idea if you are considering setting up any regular or repeated commitment and think long and hard about all the things you would have to give up in order to take this new thing on.

The Automated No
Saying no is one of the most socially awkward things for people to do. Perhaps the most socially acceptable way most of us do this is when we are on vacation or know we will be out of the office: "I will be out of the office from X date to Y date. If this is urgent call me on Z."
We can use a similar bounceback when we need to concentrate. In this case the bounceback can read: "I am off the grid from 1-4PM today working on a priority project. If this is urgent call me on X."
There are a growing number of apps and services that do this. AwayFind, for example, sends an auto-reply that includes a way to contact you (in an emergency) through a text. There are three advantages: First the person has to decide if it is worth the extra effort, second you only have to respond with a text-message length reply, and third it ensures you can be found just in case something actually is essential.

Frictionless Tomorrow
Think through tomorrow's schedule from the moment you will wake up until you go to bed. Look at each activity. Identify any way you can make it a little easier through preparation. If you are planning to exercise, get your running clothes out so when you wake up in the morning, you won't have to spend time digging through your closet. The idea here is to make doing the essential activity almost easier than not doing it.
I encourage you to experiment with Essentialism. Prototype ways of working. Try out these ideas - and many others. Live by design rather than by default. Use what works. Eliminate the rest.

Greg McKeown is the author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. His "why" is inspiring people to design their lives and careers in order to achieve their essential mission.

Post originally published in Everyday eBook

Categories: Self Improvement

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How to Give a Meaningful Apology

2014-05-02T19:50:03Z

Author Scott Anderson

A fantastic article by Mark Goulston on the importance and the power of making a full apology for harms done at work.

How to Give a Meaningful Apology
by Mark Goulston, March 11, 2013

"I'm sorry, I just can't stop crying," Rick*, a manager in sales at a Fortune 100 company said to me — and then to Jim, a Senior VP at that company and also Rick's boss.

Jim looked at me, not knowing what to do next.

I had been called in to see about mending a rift between the two. While it had been building for some time, it had reached a climax when Jim had yelled at Rick in a team meeting, "I don't even know why I bother with you! You are an utterly useless human being!"

Rick was shaken and abruptly got up to leave the room — whereupon Jim yelled out to him, "Useless and a coward to boot!"

The rest of the team was speechless. Many of them looked down or away, while others stared like deer in the headlights.

I first sat down with each of them separately to hear their side of the story. Jim revealed that he was being pressured by his boss to substantially increase his numbers and that he felt he needed to wake up his team. His stress levels already high, Rick had unwittingly triggered him in that meeting by not responding and appearing confused at a question Jim had asked him.

Rick told me that Jim was a bully who seemed to have it in for him, and that whenever Jim spoke to him with an abusive tone, it triggered such stress that his mind would go blank.

After meeting with each of them alone, I met with both of them and applied a strategy I had developed decades ago to help divorced couples. The crux is this: you can't be sincerely empathic towards and angry at someone at the same moment. In other words, you can't walk in someone else's shoes and step on their toes at the same time.

I asked Jim, "If I were to ask Rick, what caused him to get up and leave the room when you berated him in front of your team, what would he say?"

Jim was a little confused about the question. I tried again. "Put yourself in Rick's shoes at the moment he left that meeting — tell me what you think he was feeling."

With some contrition and embarrassment, he replied, "I think he felt beaten up by the schoolyard bully" — he gulped — "And that bully was me." Rick was obviously moved and even became a little emotional at Jim's admission.

I then asked Rick, "If I were to ask Jim what was going on with him at the moment he yelled at you, what would he say?"

Rick replied, "I think he would say he's under huge pressure to get our numbers up and it's stressing him out." Jim actually became calmer and more conciliatory in his posture towards Rick. We continued like this for some minutes until the two actually seemed to be syncing up with each other.

I finally applied something I call the Fishbowl Technique, where I had Rick and Jim look into each other's eyes and focus only on each other's eyes. I asked Jim to say to Rick, "I'm sorry about bullying and humiliating you in that meeting, and all the other times I have done it to you. I was wrong."

It was at that point that Rick became overwhelmed with emotion and started to cry and couldn't regain his composure. This time it was Jim who was like a deer in the headlights and finally had to look away.

When the raw emotion had run its course, I asked Rick, "What was that all about?"
He looked at me with bloodshot eyes, but appearing ten pounds emotionally lighter. "I have never been apologized to in my entire life, much less had someone tell me that they were wrong for doing something hurtful to me."

That knocked both Jim and me over.

Is there someone you need to apologize to? If there is, don't just say you're sorry; give them a Power Apology (which I explain in detail in my book, Just Listen). It has three parts:

Admit that you were wrong and that you're sorry. Really own up to what you did — or failed to do. For example, "I jumped down your throat and berated you mercilessly when you didn't get that report done on time. I was wrong to treat you that way and I am sorry." Sadly, most labor attorneys will advise you not to say you're wrong to anyone, because that might lead them to have something they can use to sue you. If that is the case, you may just need to stop at saying you're sorry. (And while in matters of the business and legal world, perhaps you shouldn't admit you were wrong, in matters of the heart with the people you love, always say it. It's that one thing they need to begin to forgive you.)
Show them you understand the effect it had on them. For instance, "And when I did that, and wouldn't let it go, I think I made you feel cornered and probably anxious — and maybe even panicky." You don't need to jump to conclusions or make assumptions about what they must be feeling or thinking; just try to really put yourself in their shoes.
Tell them what you are going to do differently in the future so that it doesn't happen again. For example, "Going forward, when I'm upset about something you have done or failed to do, I'm going to pause and ask myself, 'What is the outcome I want from speaking to you? In all likelihood it will be for you to just fix what needs to be fixed so you can get the results that both of us want. I will calmly speak to and maybe even with you instead of at or over you." This reassures them that you will truly try to change your behavior in the future — not just keep apologizing after every blow-up — and hopefully ends the conversation on a more positive note.
Finally, never assume that part of the apology can be left unsaid. To really repair a rift, even then unsaid needs to be spoken out loud.

by Mark Goulston

Categories: Business Culture

Tags: Happiness

First Culture. Then Happiness.

2014-02-20T20:55:29Z

Author Scott Anderson

Take a second to scan the article below by Jamie Notter on culture and happiness.

The tidal wave of books on “positive culture” might lead us to believe that it’s as simple as making employees happy. As though beer on tap in the lunch room is all it takes to be a great company, to be Zappos.

To the contrary, as Notter observes, employee happiness is the result -- not the cause -- of great culture. (Indeed, “happiness” is not among Zappos’ core values.)

Before employees are genuinely happy, they must be engaged in “the success of the enterprise and their own development at the same time”. You can’t buy engagement with free beer.

“Buy-in” as it is so often over-simplified, is earned. Culture must touch something much deeper than creature comfort. That’s the elusive alchemy Zappos as mastered. They touch a place in employees’ hearts that challenges what’s best in all of us to do more, to be more, to be great.

PS. Notter has an ebook on Snippet that goes into more detail. Worth a read.

-Scott

Zappos and great culture: It’s not about happiness

By Jamie Notter, February 3rd, 2014 |

The online retailer Zappos is arguably the premiere poster child for company culture in today’s business world.
Zappos started selling shoes online in 1999, which was toward the end of the first dot-com bubble. Not only did Zappos survive the bubble’s burst, but it managed to grow from $1.6 million in sales in 2000 to $1 billion in sales in 2008. That’s almost a factor of 1,000 (and two years ahead of its schedule, no less). Selling shoes. Online. How is that possible?

Well, it seems culture was a big part of it. There are plenty of business articles and blogs out there that extoll the virtues of the Zappos culture, and CEO Tony Hsieh (pronounced “Shay,” by the way) wrote a book in 2010, titled “Delivering Happiness,” that tells the Zappos story, in which culture plays a very prominent role. In the book, he explains how and why he put so much of his own time and attention into building the culture at Zappos. By 2009, “Delivering Happiness,” became the brand promise of Zappos, and its vision and purpose statements were simplified to “Zappos is about delivering happiness to the world.” In the book he actually talks about a few “happiness frameworks” that he pulled from scientific literature.

Cause or Effect?
But here’s the rub: The Zappos culture isn’t really about happiness. It has 10 core values, and happiness isn’t mentioned once among them. I point this out because I think it is critical to debunk the myth that links corporate culture and being happy. The myth goes something like this: Employee “engagement” happens when you have a “positive” culture where everyone is happy and friendly and “cohesive.” That’s not true. I think we’re confusing the results of a strong culture with the attributes of a strong culture.

In reality, the happiness we notice is a by-product of a corporate culture that engages people around the success of the enterprise and their own development at the same time. Hsieh actually studied the science of happiness and realized that basic pleasure, which we often associate with the feeling of being happy, is really just the first step. Touching people’s passion generated much more happiness, and connecting to a higher purpose raised the bar even more. Hsieh realized that if he could build a business that enabled a smooth flow between the passion and purpose of both customers and employees, he knew he’d be delivering happiness, and he knew he’d be successful.

It turns out that, in the case of Zappos, the sweet spot for doing that is customer service. Hsieh figured out early on that if you’re selling shoes online, then delivering what he called the “WOW” through customer service was going to be a primary driver of success of the company. So, that is the core of the company’s culture: customer service. In fact, he once described Zappos as a “customer-service company that just happens to sell shoes.”
How does that happen at Zappos?

Well, it does things differently than other online retailers, like letting its customer service reps in the call center spend as long as they want talking to the customers (the record is over 10 hours for one call). The call-center employees needed the decision making power in order to deliver the WOW, so Hsieh gave it to them. He also realized he needed to let them truly be themselves, be adventurous, embrace change, and learn how to do more with less, so he changed the way things were done at Zappos so his people could do those things. These are some of Zappos’ core values (be yourself, embrace change, do more with less). Those values are focused squarely on enabling amazing customer service. It turns out when your culture drives success, happiness is just the result.

Happy or Human?
Hsieh believes that the alignment between the organization and the core values is so powerful that, to some extent, it doesn’t matter what values you choose. If you do the alignment right, you’ll see the results. Here’s where I disagree. I certainly agree you shouldn’t just copy the Zappos values (don’t get me started about “best practices”), but I think your choice of values definitely does matter. It matters in the visible way that the values you choose must connect to what makes the organization successful (in Zappos’ case, customer service), but the values also matter in the way they connect to employees as human beings. And I don’t mean the high-level aspirational values from the last chapter (respect, excellence, etc.); I mean values that tap into the power of what it means to be human — something organizations have been missing for decades.

I’m not sure Hsieh realized how much Zappos got that right in its cultural values. In the last chapter, I asked you to think about values that might drive your culture and specifically where they might fall along the continuums of decentralized/centralized, transparent/private, together/separate, and learning/doing. Now I’m admitting that I have a preference toward the first word in each pair: decentralized, transparent, together, and learning. Notice that Zappos seems to be going in that direction as well (it becomes even more evident if you read all of Hsieh’s book).

These are ideas that come from a different book I wrote, along with Maddie Grant, titled “Humanize.” In the book, we argue that organizations over the last century have typically undervalued qualities like the ones above that Zappos is now embracing, and that’s why Zappos (and Whole Foods, and a host of others) are succeeding. It doesn’t require adopting these ideas in the extreme, but by moving in this direction we unlock some power that has been lying dormant in our organizations. Again, culture is about driving the success of the enterprise, and these four directions are important paths to consider as you figure that out.

Categories: Business Culture

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Coaching has a winning record at ADM

2014-01-10T19:55:45Z

Author Scott Anderson

The concept of business coaching conjures up images of cutting-edge Bay Area companies with Frisbee (R) golf courses, meditation rooms and beer on tap. Companies like Google, LinkedIn, Zappos, Archer Daniels Midland -- what, you don’t think of 112 year-old ADM as a radical trend setter?

Decatur, Illinois is no Silicon Valley. But agribusiness giant, ADM, is one of the leading proponents of “coaching-based performance improvement”, in which managers are trained to coach their direct reports instead of traditional top-down management.

Since its launch in 2009, ADM’s “Coaching to Win” (CTW) program has delivered breakthrough ideas to cut costs, improved efficiency, and increase the bottom line. Radical concepts, no?

If lower costs and higher profits don’t appeal to you, ADM’s coaching program is also eliminating the annual torture of performance reviews. According to CTW’s creator, Jane Pierce. “We think the best way to inspire performance and equip people to be successful is when leaders coach in the moment throughout the day.”

Maybe ADM is a trend setter. A recent survey by Bersin & Associates found that corporations which embrace coaching have 21% better overall business results than their old-fashioned peers. Coaching is also effective – and popular – with GenY workers who value both the independence and the one-on-one mentoring that coaching offers.

(Many thanks to Garry Kranz, contributing editor to Workforce Management, for his original article on ADM’s coaching program which ran in 2013)

Categories: Business Culture, Leadership, Planning for the Future, Thinking Differently

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9 Business Books That Will Change Your Life

2013-02-15T21:34:34Z

Author Scott Anderson

By Dave Kerpen February 11, 2013

Great leaders learn every day, and reading great books is the one of the best ways to learn. I've been fortunate enough to read some excellent books over the last fifteen years - books that have inspired me to change the way I see the world, my business, and the opportunities in front of me. In the order in which I've read them, here is a list of nine books which have changed my life. May they change yours as well:

1) What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career Seekers by Richard Bolles
I read this book when I was 21 years old and didn't know what to do with the rest of my life. It helped me go from a Crunch n Munch vendor at the ballpark to a top salesperson at Radio Disney. Ffifteen years later, I have given at least 40 copies away to interns, staff and friends who are searching for their career purpose. It's difficult work - because not only will you read the book, but you'll have to do a lot of exercises and soul searching throughout - but whether you're 21 or 61, you'll emerge with a clearer vision of what you want to do next and where you'll want to work.

2) Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends & Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin
No author has influenced me more as a marketer, business person and writer than Seth Godin. I could have easily included 9 books just by Godin - Purple Cow, Tribes, Linchpin, Poke the Box & his latest, Icarus Deception are all amongst my favorites. But Permission Marketing described social media marketing before it existed. Seth understood push-vs-pull marketing long before others, and this book, published in 1999, is still a must read for anyone in marketing today.

3) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
This classic, one of three by Gladwell (Blink & Outliers are the others), demonstrates how successful products are launched, how ideas spread and how a trend can take off. It's influenced me a great deal, as a word of mouth and social media marketer. And it's an essential read, whether you're in marketing or sales, or just want to become better at getting your ideas to spread.

4) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap - and Others Don't by Jim Collins
Collins is scientist of great companies - and this is his best work - chock full of case studies and simple yet profound principles like Level 1 Leadership. Even though I read this book when my company was only a handful of employees, it inspired me to want to build something great, and enduring. Whether you work at a large company that has the potential itself to become great and enduring, or you have a vision of a company you'd like to one day build, this is a must-read.

5) Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase The Value of Your Growing Firm by Verne Harnish
It's hard to believe I even had a business before I read this book by the founder of my favorite business group, Entrepreneurs Organization. Verne's 1-page strategic plan is now used by both companies I've founded, and thousands of other companies. And our management teams use much of the methodology from this book. What's great is that it's both inspirational and quite practical - an excellent read for any entrepreneur or manager at a small business.

6) The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work, and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber
This is a must read for any small business owner - especially "technical" owners such as lawyers, accountants, florists, restaurateurs, consultants and dentists. Gerber inspires the small business owner to get out of his/her own way, and to build systems and processes that scale and allow the business owner to work "on" the business and not "in" the business.

7) Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrilow
Make no mistake - if you are an owner or leader at a business - this is a great, super valuable read, even if you or your owners have no intention or ever selling the business. The idea isn't to create a business in order to sell it - it's to create a business that has sustaining value beyond you and without you. Warrilow's book is a short, easy story - with powerful, unforgettable lessons - so much so, that after my business partner and I read it, we gave copies to the entire Likeable team to read.

8) Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
No matter what you do, this easy read will change the way you think about your work. It is so simply written, with small words and big pictures - and yet contains profound wisdom about how to be more productive and successful without being a workaholic or sacrificing anything. I read it in an hour on a plane, and have since shared it with two dozen colleagues, and referred back to it myself at least a dozen times.

9) The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity to The Most Important Organization in Your Life by Patrick Lencioni
Along with Seth Godin, Patrick Lencioni is my favorite business author. I've read and love The Advantage, Getting Naked, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and The Five Tempations of a CEO. But the reason I've selected this one as my favorite, is that, as I've written before here, our ultimate legacy isn't our career, but our family. In this book, Lencioni applies his management consulting methodology and brilliant storytelling ability to the running of a family. It's amazing how little strategy most of us parents apply to the most important organization we've got, our families, and this book helps change all that. Six months after my wife and I read this book, I'm proud to report that our family now has a strategic plan, complete with a mission statement, quarterly objectives, and weekly 10-minute meetings. And it's going GREAT.

Categories: Thinking Differently, Self Improvement

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The 5 Questions Every Company Should Ask Itself

2013-02-06T17:27:06Z

Author Scott Anderson

WRITTEN BY: Warren Berger

IN INTERVIEWING SOME OF THE BIGGEST INNOVATION EXPERTS, INCLUDING CLAYTON CHRISTENSEN AND ERIC RIES, WARREN BERGER FOUND THAT ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS CAN BE MORE CHALLENGING THAN FINDING ANSWERS.

“One does not begin with answers,” the legendary business consultant Peter Drucker once said. “One begins by asking, ‘What are our questions?’”

The notion that questions may at times be more valuable to a business than answers is counterintuitive. But in my research into the value of inquiry, I’m finding a growing number of today’s leading business consultants share Drucker’s view on the critical importance of getting company leaders to focus on asking the right questions. “It’s the number one thing I spend my time thinking about these days,” says Dev Patnaik of design firm Jump Associates. Eric Ries, meanwhile, finds that as he trains companies in Lean Startup methodology, one of his biggest challenges is getting his clients to “acknowledge uncertainty and ask the seemingly dumb questions.” According to Keith Yamashita of design consultancySYPartners, “In business, our ability to ask questions is an opportunity to reframe the challenges in front of us.”

But as Yamashita notes, that can only happen if business leaders are willing to question boldly. He says we’re coming off an era of “small-minded questions” geared to efficiency: How can we do it faster, cheaper, where can we cut? “But in order to innovate today,” Yamashita maintains, “companies must ask more expansive questions.”

What follows are five big, bold questions every company should be asking, according to Yamashita, Ries, Harvard Business School professor and author Clayton Christensen, and consultants Jack Bergstrand of Brand Velocity and Tim Ogilvie of Peer Insight.

1. WHAT IS OUR COMPANY’S PURPOSE ON THIS EARTH?

-Keith Yamashita

Sure, it’s a bit grand, as Yamashita acknowledges. But the business environment of today and tomorrow demands a company mindset that goes beyond mundane corporate concerns. To arrive at a powerful sense of purpose, Yamashita says, companies today need “a fundamental orientation that is outward looking”--so they can understand what people out there in the world truly desire and need, and what’s standing in the way. At the same time, business leaders also must look inward, to try to clarify their own core values and larger ambitions. In trying to unearth all of this, Yamashita doesn’t just use one big question; he employs a series of them. What does the world hunger for? What are the big challenges? Who have we (as a company) historically been when we’ve been at our best? Who must we fearlessly become?

In terms of tackling the first two questions, Yamashita believes companies “must develop a culture that is excessively curious about the outside world”--and be able to identify deep needs as well as the right “hairy problem” to focus on. Rather than try to save the whole world at once, companies should zero in on the challenge that’s most compelling and appropriate. In his client Coca-Cola’s case, Yamashita says, because of the sheer volume of bottles they put out into the world every day, the need to develop local, closed-loop recycling emerged as a pressing grand challenge.

The “who we’ve been” and “who we must become” questions require a willingness to look back (because at the finest moments in a company’s history, Yamashita holds, its core values come shining through) while also looking ahead, to envision a version of the company that does not yet exist. At the intersection of these questions resides the big overriding one about purpose--the question that matters above all else: “In the end, as a human being or an institution, you have to understand why you were put on this earth,” he says, “and what actions you’re going to take to deliver on that purpose.”

2. WHAT SHOULD WE STOP DOING?

-Jack Bergstrand

There’s a natural tendency for company leaders to focus on what they should start doing immediately. But the harder question has to do with what you’re willing to eliminate. If you can’t answer that question, Bergstrand maintains, “it lessens your chances of being successful at what you want to do next--because you’ll be sucking up resources doing what’s no longer needed and taking those resources away from what should be a top priority.” Moreover, if you can’t figure out what you should stop doing, it might be an early warning sign that you don’t know what your strategy is.

And yet, Bergstrand notes, it is very difficult for most companies to decide to stop doing things--especially programs or products that were once successful. “We don’t like to kill our babies,” he says. Corporate politics can get in the way, too; individuals or groups within a company are naturally inclined to protect and defend their own projects. On top of all that, it’s just a lot more fun to focus on the new than to deal with the old. “Even asking the question about ‘what should we stop’ makes people inside a company uncomfortable,” Bergstrand says. “It often takes an outsider or a new management team to even be willing to raise the question.”

3. IF WE DIDN’T HAVE AN EXISTING BUSINESS, HOW COULD WE BEST BUILD A NEW ONE?

-Clayton Christensen

Christensen, who pioneered the concept of disruptive innovation, observes that business leaders can sometimes use hypothetical “what if” questions to temporarily impose artificial constraints: What if we had to sell our $100 product for a buck; how might we go about doing that? Such questions can also be used to temporarily break free of existing constraints and biases.

Christensen’s big question is a classic example of the latter, and he loves it because it enables leaders to stop focusing on pre-existing beliefs and structures--“the stuff they’ve already invested in”--and come at the business with a fresh approach. He says the question is most useful “if, at any point in the future, you see the possibility that the core business might slow down.” But even if your company is going great guns, answering this question can point to future opportunities and help your share price to outperform the market by showing “that there’s more growth here than analysts may have thought.”

Christensen’s question could be seen as a cousin of the famous one asked by Intel’s co-founder Andrew Grove when the company was trying to decide whether to shift its focus away from making memory chips. If we were kicked out of the company, Grove asked his partner Gordon Moore, what do you think the new CEO would do? They reasoned that a new leader would feel no emotional attachment to the declining memory chip business--and would probably leave it behind. Grove and Moore did likewise, as they shifted Intel’s focus to microprocessors.

4. WHERE IS OUR PETRI DISH?

-Tim Ogilvie

Ogilvie’s question is really asking, Where in the company is it safe to ask radical questions? As Ogilvie sees it, you can’t necessarily do that everywhere. “As an established business,” he says, “you’ve got all these promises you’re keeping to your current customers--you have to stay focused on that. But that may not have a future.” So the question becomes, “Where, within the company, can you explore heretical questions that could threaten the business as it is--without contaminating what you’re doing now?”

In answering that question, it’s up to company leadership to “provide permission and protocols for experimentation,” he says. That means supplying the time and resources for people to explore new questions, as well as establishing methods: “how might we” questioning sessions, ethnography, in-market experimentation. It can also mean cordoning off this area of the business, but not too much. There should be a clear line of visibility between the core business and the “Petri dish” part of the company--so that each can influence the other.

Ogilvie says another way to phrase this question is, Where is the place we can be a startup again? And surprisingly, he thinks it’s a question that even startups should ask themselves. “Startups are so desperate not to be a startup,” says Ogilvie (himself a former startup CEO). “They’re so anxious to be post-revenue and post-profit that you can almost give up what’s great about being a startup too soon. They get built for execution, and once they’re having success they’ll very quickly start thinking, ‘We’ve got to stick to our knitting.’” All of which means they’ve outgrown their original Petri dish--and might need a new one.

5. HOW CAN WE MAKE A BETTER EXPERIMENT?

-Eric Ries

Shifting emphasis from Ogilvie’s where to the how of experimentation, Ries’s question is counterintuitive for most managers, who tend to think in terms of “making products,” not “making experiments.” But as Ries points out, anytime you’re doing something new, “it’s an experiment whether you admit it or not. Because it is not a fact that it’s going to work.”

So how do companies get better at experimenting? Ries says you start with the acknowledgment that “we are operating amid all this uncertainty--and that the purpose of building a product or doing any other activity is to create an experiment to reduce that uncertainty.” This means that instead of asking "What will we do?" or "What will we build?" the emphasis should be on "What will we learn?"

“And then you work backwards to the simplest possible thing--the minimum viable product--that can get you the learning,” he says.

Just this one change--before you get to any of the more complex Lean Startup methodology--can make a world of difference, Ries insists. For one thing, it can help unlock the creativity that’s already there in your company. “Most companies are full of ideas, but they don’t know how to go about finding out if those ideas work,” Ries says. “If you want to harvest all those ideas, allow employees to experiment more--so they can find out the answers to their questions themselves.”

Categories: Thinking Differently, Planning for the Future, Leadership, Business Culture

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Leadership vs. Management

2013-01-28T14:31:59Z

Author Scott Anderson

A leadership guide featuring step-by-step how-tos, Wall Street Journal stories and video interviews with CEOs.

Adapted from “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management” by Alan Murray, published by Harper Business.

Leadership and management must go hand in hand. They are not the same thing. But they are necessarily linked, and complementary. Any effort to separate the two is likely to cause more problems than it solves.

Still, much ink has been spent delineating the differences. The manager’s job is to plan, organize and coordinate. The leader’s job is to inspire and motivate. In his 1989 book “On Becoming a Leader,” Warren Bennis composed a list of the differences:

– The manager administers; the leader innovates.

– The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.

– The manager maintains; the leader develops.

– The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.

– The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.

– The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

– The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.

– The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.

– The manager imitates; the leader originates.

– The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

– The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.

– The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Perhaps there was a time when the calling of the manager and that of the leader could be separated. A foreman in an industrial-era factory probably didn’t have to give much thought to what he was producing or to the people who were producing it. His or her job was to follow orders, organize the work, assign the right people to the necessary tasks, coordinate the results, and ensure the job got done as ordered. The focus was on efficiency.

But in the new economy, where value comes increasingly from the knowledge of people, and where workers are no longer undifferentiated cogs in an industrial machine, management and leadership are not easily separated. People look to their managers, not just to assign them a task, but to define for them a purpose. And managers must organize workers, not just to maximize efficiency, but to nurture skills, develop talent and inspire results.

The late management guru Peter Drucker was one of the first to recognize this truth, as he was to recognize so many other management truths. He identified the emergence of the “knowledge worker,” and the profound differences that would cause in the way business was organized.

With the rise of the knowledge worker, “one does not ‘manage’ people,” Mr. Drucker wrote. “The task is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of every individual.”

Categories: Leadership, Business Culture

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Why Women Make a Difference in the Boardroom

2013-01-03T20:03:23Z

Author Scott Anderson

By Blythe McGarvie on October 16, 2009: BusinessWeek

There are more women than ever in executive positions these days, but their scarcity in the boardroom could be hurting U.S. business

When I was in my twenties starting out in business, I asked the septuagenarian man sitting next to me at a meeting held at his private club whether it accepted women as members. Without missing a beat, he said, "Of course we do. We have many widows here." I thought that if he could not distinguish between women able to join a club on their own and those who gained membership as adjuncts to their husbands, he probably would have difficulty promoting or working for a woman in the business realm.

While finding women in executive positions is hardly novel today, finding them in the boardroom is much more unusual. This fact not only verifies a persistent hesitancy among established males to open doors to women, but it also may be a cause for concern over the strength of U.S. business.

Homogenous groups underperform in solving difficult problems, according to research in professor Scott E. Page's book, The Difference. "Groupthink," defined by Irving Janis in 1972 when he wrote about disastrous policy decisions, occurs when groups make decisions without considering all of the alternatives and consider unanimity more important than the quality of the outcome.

"Less Feverish"

In my experience as a chief financial officer and currently as a board member for Accenture (ACN), Travelers (TRV), Viacom (VIA.B), and Wawa (WAWA), I've observed numerous situations in which women raised considerations that had not been brought up by men and that allowed for better discussions and better decisions—with ultimate unanimity. As Cathryn Cranston, board member of American Media, told me: "Women deliver their comments in an equally substantive, but less feverish, way than men."

A token woman on a board is not sufficient to make a difference, but evidence shows that those companies with several women board members report better financial results. Research conducted by Catalyst, a nonprofit corporate membership research and advisory organization, has found that companies with more women board members outperform those with fewer female representatives.

A 2007 study found that boards that held more women experienced return on equity 400 basis points higher, return on sales 400 basis points higher, and return on invested capital 300 basis points higher than boards with only token female representation—one or two women. To understand this dynamic, I asked an expert who makes her living recruiting board members and CEOs, Gayle Mattson, executive vice-president and global leader of the board and CEO practice at DHR International. She believes her clients are best served by her ensuring that searches are global and inclusive.

As an example, let me cite my own experience. I am the chairman of the Travelers' Investment and Capital Markets Committee overseeing more than $70 billion in investments. We did not have any major impairments like other insurance and financial services firms. I credited this both to our committee and to management, which is comprised of male and female global thinkers.

Asking the Right Questions

Women and ethnic minorities constitute the core of the slate of candidates Mattson presents. "Women change the dynamics of transparency and openness. Nothing is taken for granted," Gayle explains. Today, she finds a challenge in assuring that companies have multiple women board members. She cites that companies get into less trouble and have different risk profiles with more women board members. She worked with Principal Financial Group and is convinced they avoided the mortgage meltdown "…because board members asked questions early on. They looked at issues." This company's board of directors consists of four women and eight men.

In the past many board members were active or recently retired CEOs, mostly white males. Since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, demand for financial experts skyrocketed. Women with financial expertise had board opportunities they didn't have before. I already served on the boards of Wawa, Accenture, and Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) before passage of this law and have seen the great leap forward for women since then. Yet women with the potential to serve on boards need the same mentoring and teaching as high-potential men.

The best way to groom a future woman board member is to have the CEO work closely with her on strategic projects and financial priorities. In this process, she will have the opportunities to distinguish herself and build a network of various constituencies with whom the CEO works. This is a good practice whether the aim is to groom the female executive as a board member of the company for which she works or as an outside director.

Seeking Out Mentors

A company may well want to allow a few high-potential executives to work closely with members of its board of directors. Women need to seek experience with other board members if they want to be qualified to serve on boards in the future. When I was a chief financial officer for five years of Hannaford Bros. (acquired by Del Haize in 1999), I had monthly phone calls with one of our board members regarding economic conditions in our new market. She was certainly very interested in our business, but she also used these calls to prepare for her role on the Federal Reserve Board of Richmond. I viewed each call as a mini-exam and wanted to make sure that I provided accurate and insightful information and analysis to her.

She also had a regular call with the head of internal audit as part of her preparation as chair of the audit committee. I owe a considerable debt to this board member as I learned from one of the most intelligent, best-trained, and gracious woman I have ever met. Not every board member is willing to spend time with management. If you are looking to prepare yourself for a board position, choose as mentors those board members who care about development and learning. Such people groom future leaders.

Today, women no longer have to wait until men die to join many private clubs. Let's open the boardrooms to women directors who can keep your companies financially sound, be role models for talented young women, and make U.S. business even better.

Categories: Leadership, Business Culture

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