The Book Share

I've Moved The BookShare to SourcesOfInsight.com

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:41:00 +0000

I've moved The BookShare to SourcesOfInsight.com. An Open Mic session at Blogging Without a Blog, convinced me. Worst case scenario, I'll move it back. Best case scenario, I'm on a better path. I'm sure I've made a bunch of mistakes so far, but I figure it's a great experiment and I'll learn a lot.

Sources of Insight
I've named the blog Sources of Insight for two reasons:

Too many folks told me that The BookShare is a lame name.
I want to expand the scope from just books to more sources of insight(mentors, heroes, role models, quotes, ... etc.)

Outcomes
You can expect that Sources of Insight will be a browsable collection of nuggets:

A reference library of insight and wisdom from key books along with how I've applied it.
A reference library of heroes, role models and mentors.
A reference library of insightful, inspirational, and practical quotes.
A reference library of lessons learned.

The Mission
The mission stays the same. I'll continue to share nuggets of insight and action for work and life. I'll continue to draw from the best sources I can find. Real results for real people.

The Vision
The world's best collection of insight for work and life.

The Approach
Basically, I model the best. I ask the most successful people I know, what books, people or lessons changed their lives. I test the knowledge against real-world scenarios. I share the lessons with my mentees. It's a continuous process of improvement. I stand on the shoulders of giants and I draw from the wisdom of the ages.

Measures of Success
My measures of success at this point is pretty simple:

Users who need the blog, can find the blog.
Users can easily find relevant posts that help them.
Users can easily consume the posts.

What's Going Well
So far, users have said:

The name is more exciting.
The idea of the blog is compelling.
The look and feel of the theme is an improvement.
Posts are more readable and consumable in the new theme.
The pictures help.

What's Not Going Well
Here's what's not going so well:

The blog has no page rank.
The pages aren't indexed by Google.
I have a long process of fixing my links between posts.
I have lots of posts to add pictures too.
I don't know the template very well and I'm not familiar with all the Wordpess widgets and features.

I figure I have more blog time ahead of me than behind me, so I'm gradually fixing the issues.

See you at Sources of Insight. Wish me luck!

10 Years Younger

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:53:00 +0000

I'm a fan of periodic experiments for finding new ways to improve your mind and body. My latest experiment is shedding ten years of age-related damage in ten weeks based on the book, Shed 10 Years in 10 Weeks, by Dr. Julian Whitaker and Carol Colman. Given how much heart disease, cancer, ... etc there is in today's world, it won't hurt me to put more techniques under my belt. I told some friends and colleagues about my experiment and they wanted me to share my notes, so here it goes ...

Benefits of the Age-Loss Program
The book outlines the following potential benefits:

Lose a decade's worth of fat and regain ten year's worth of muscle.
Erase fine lines, diminish wrinkles, and restore youthful glow.
Boost your brain power and sharpen your memory.
Revitalize and enjoy your sex life.
Strengthen your immune system and prevent disease.
Recharge your spirit and regain your energy of yesteryear.

The Key to the Age-Loss Program
What I like about the book is that it's not magic. It's based on results from research and experience with more than 15,000 patients. It boils down to the following formula -- eat the right foods, take the right supplements, exercise regularly, and control the negative impact of stress in your life. Dr. Whitaker does mention that the combination of supplements is especially important.

Wellness and Reversing Diseases
I really like the fact that Dr. Whitaker is focused on wellness over illness. He specializes in modeling from the best and sharing what works. I also like the fact that he focuses on "reversing" issues. For example, he has books on reversing diabetes, reversing heart disease, and reversing health risks.

10 Steps of the Age-Loss Program
Here's a summary of the objectives of the ten steps, according to Dr. Whitaker and Colman.

Step	Objectives
Step 1: All Systems Go	Jump-start the rejuvenation process Recharge your batteries Regain a decade’s worth of energy and endurance
Step 2: Lose a Decade Worth of Fat	Restore your youthful metabolism Shed those extra pounds and extra years Lose up to ten pounds of fat
Step3: Renew Tired, Worn-Out Skin	Restore youthful radiance and glow Slow down and reverse aging Protect against sun damage
Step 4. Regain Ten Years of Muscle	Develop a youthful, sleeker body Restore lean body mass Become stronger, slimmer, and sexier
Step 5: Boost Your Brain Power	Sharpen your thinking Improve your powers of concentration Regain your mental edge
Step 6. Revitalize Your Sex Life	Restore your sexual vitality Enhance your sexual function and performance Extend your sex life into your 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond
Step 7: Rejuvenate While You Sleep	Restore youthful sleep patterns Wake up feeling refreshed and renewed Enjoy the extraordinary benefits of a good night’s sleep
Step 8: Recharge the Spirit	Enhance your feelings of joy and well-being Shed the stress to shed the years Awaken your senses and relax your body and mind
Step 9: Reinvigorate Your Immune System	Reinvigorate your immune system. Build up your resistance to infection Bounce back faster from colds, flu, and other common ailments
Step 10: Regain a Decade's Worth of Health By Correcting the Glitches	Arthritis Depression Diabetes Gastrointestinal Disorders Heart Disease Osteoporosis Vision Problems

Supplement Routine
Here's an example of the supplement routine, based on Dr. Whitaker's and Colman:

When	Actions
Breakfast	Multi-vitamin Vitamin C (500 MG) Magnesium and Potassium Asporatates Ginko Biloba (60 MG) Omega-3 Fatty Acids Alpha Lipoic Acid (250 MG) BioCoQ-10 (60 MG) Chromium Picolinate (200 Micrograms)
Lunch	Multi-vitamin Vitamin C (500 MG)
Dinner	Multi-vitamin Vitamin C (500 MG) Magnesium and Potassium Asporatates Ginko Biloba (60 MG)
Optional	Green drink Odorless Garlic Olive and Oregano Oil

Skin Routine
Here's an example of the skin routine, based on Dr. Whitaker and Colman:

When	Actions
Morning	Clean your face and neck. Apply vitamin C serum or cream. Apply moisturizer. Apply your sun protection.
Midday	Reapply your sun protection. Reapply your moisturizer. Sprits your face with water.
Evening	Always start out with a clean face and neck. Apply alpha hydroxyl acid (AHA) cream or lotion (1/2 hr before applying retinol). Apply your retinol cream. Reapply your moisturizer.

Workout Routine
Here's an example of the workout routine based on Dr. Whitaker and Colman:

When	Actions
Week 1 and 2	(20 minutes) Walk at a pace of 3 mph.
Week 3 and 4	(3 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (8 minutes) Walk at a pace of 3.5 mph (3 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (8 minutes) Walk at a pace of 3.5 mph (3 minutes) Walk at an easy pace
Week 5 and 6	(3 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (10 minutes) Walk at a pace of 4 mph (3 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (10 minutes) Walk at a pace of 4 mph (3 minutes) Walk at an easy pace
Week 7 and 8	(2 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (12 minutes) Walk at a pace of 4.5 mph (2 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (12 minutes) Walk at a pace of 4.5 mph (2 minutes) Walk at an easy pace
Week 9 and 10	(2 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (15 minutes) Walk at a pace of 5 mph (2 minutes) Walk at an easy pace (15 minutes) Walk at an easy pace

Dr. Julian Whitaker's Supplement Recommendations
Here's an example of the key supplements Dr. Whitaker recommends:

Beta-Carotene (15,000 total)
Chromium Picolinate (200 Micrograms total) (2 x 100 micrograms)
Co-Q10 (60 MG total) (2 x 30 MG)
Ginkgo Biloba (120 MG total) (2 x 60 MG)
Lipoic Acid (50 MG total) (2 x 25 MG)
Omega-3 (1000 MG total) (360 MG EPA, 240 MG DHA)
Potassium - Magnesium apartate (1000 MG total) (2 x 500 MG)
Selenium (200 Micgrograms total)
Vitamin A (5000 IU total)
Vitamin C (2500 MG total) (Multi-vitamin = 1200 MG,
supplement = 1300 MG)
Vitamin E (800 MG total)

Shopping List Example
Here's an example of how the supplements mapped to products I could actually get:

Alpha Lipoic Acid (Solar Ray Alpha Lipoic Acid, 250 MG, 60 capsules)
Bio CoQ-10 (Solar Ray Bio CoQ-10, 60 MG, 60 capsules)
Chromium Picolinate (Trader Darwin's Chromium Picolinate -
200 Micrograms, 100 tablets)
Ginkgo Biloba (Solar Ray, Ginkgo Biloba, 60 MG)
Magnesium and Potassium Asporatates (Solar Ray Magnesium and Potassium Asporatates)
Multi-vitamin (Super Nutrition - Iron Free, Easy Swallow Opti-Pack)
Omega-3 Fatty Acids (Trader Darwin's Omega-3 Fatty Acids, 1200 MG, 90 softgels)
Vitamin C (Solar Ray Bio-Plex, Buffered Vitamin C, 500 MG, 250 capsules)
Green drink (Greens to Go)
Odorless Garlic (Trader Darwin's Odorless Garlic)
Olive and Oregano Oil (Trader Darwin's Olive and Oregano Oil

Results So far
I'm only three weeks in so I don't expect miracles. So far though I've dropped more than 10 pounds and I'm closer to my "fighting weight." I have a lot more power hours throughout the day. I have a spring in my step and I feel a lot more powerful. I would expect that from any combination of the right foods, the right workout, and the right sleep. I guess the part that's different is how quickly my nails and hair are growing and how fresh my skin is. I think that's where the supplements are showing.

Lessons Learned
I've learned a few lessons so far that really help me:

Reduce friction. Rather than depend on sheer will power, I find ways to make it easier to fall into success. trade complexity for simplicity. Anything I can do to simplify or reduce friction, I do. For example, rather than run outdoors, I got a NordicTrack Elliptical so that rainy days didn't get in the way.
Find the fun. I think anything long-term has to be fun. In general, we move towards pleasure and away from pain. For example, I originally was going to get a treadmill, but realized that I liked the idea of bounding on an Elliptical better. I also found that I need to play my favorite songs to associate fun to the pain of the workout.
Take weekends off. I doubt Dr. Whitaker would agree, but for me, it's easier for me to push during the week, if the weekend is playtime.
Make it a routine. I found that I really have to make it a routine so the less I have to think about it, the easier it is to just do it. For example, even just scheduling time for the workout was important. I tested in the morning and tested at night, and while the morning is easier to make a routine, I find I like it more at night.
Find your personal success patterns. I experimented with a few different sleep patterns and found that if I wake up too early, I'm just no my most for the day. I really do measure my day in power hours. What good is having more time if you can't use it? I finally realized that just by flipping through my past experiences, I could find success patterns that worked to draw from.
Turn your routines into checklists. I find that having a simple, scannable checklists go a long way (for example, the supplement routine, skin routine, and workout routine above helped me quickly visualize what I need to do.)
Find what works for you. I found the diet part of the routine a little tough to follow. I think the principles were sound, but it's easier for me to just follow The Zone. (see A Zone Primer.)

Additional Resources

My Related Posts

Exercising Your Body Makes You Smarter

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:20:00 +0000

Do you feel smarter after you workout? It's because you have more oxygen available to your brain. Working out also increases your sense of well-being. In Shed 10 Years in 10 Weeks, Dr. Julian Whitaker and Colman write about how exercising makes you smarter and feel better.

Think Better and Feel Better
Dr. Whitaker and Colman write the following:

Did you ever wonder why you feel so recharged after a good workout? Nowhere is the body mind connection more apparent than when it comes to the effect of exercise on the brain. Exercise increases the amount of oxygen available to the brain by making the heart stronger and able to pump more oxygenated blood. In addition to increasing oxygen stores, exercise creates a natural high. It stimulates the release of endorphins, neurochemicals that actually have an opiatelike effect on the brain. People who exercise think more clearly, feel more alert and energetic, and have a markedly increased sense of well-being.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Exercising makes you think and feel better and act better.
You feel smarter after you workout because you have more oxygen available to your brain.
Endorphins released during exercise make you feel better.

Start with Your Audience’s Mood

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:01:00 +0000

Have you ever not been in the mood for somebody's sunshiny ways? Their lack of sympathy pushes you away. Instead, they should match your mood, at least at first. A little sympathy can go a long way. In Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion, Jay Heinrichs writes about using sympathy to build rapport.

Share Your Listener’s Mood
Start with your audience's mood. Use rhetorical sympathy to show concern. Heinrichs writes:

Sympathize – align yourself with your listener’s pathos. You don’t have to share the mood; when you face an angry man, it doesn’t help to mirror that anger. Instead, rhetorical sympathy shows its concern, proving, as George H. W. Bush put it, “I care.” So when you face that angry man, look stern and concerned; do not shout, “Whoa, decaf!” When a little girl looks sad, sympathy means looking sad, too; it does not mean chirping, “Cheer up!”

Change Your Emotions as You Make Your Point
After you start with your audience's mood, you can lead them to a new emotion. Heinrichs writes:

This reaction to the audience’s feeling can serve as a baseline, letting them see your own emotions change as you make your point. Cicero hinted that the great orator transforms himself into an emotional role model, showing the audience how it should feel.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Start with your audience's mood.
Sympathy can help build rapport.
Use rhetorical sympathy to show concern.
You can lead your audience to a new emotion, if you first start with their mood.

My Related Posts

Know Thy Time

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:27:00 +0000

What are the keys to effective time management? How do successful people manage their time? They log and analyze their time. They use deadlines. They know that time is the scarcest resource. They master their own time management to improve their contribution and effectiveness. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials), Peter F. Drucker writes that you should "know thy time."

Log and Analyze Your Time
Drucker writes that effective people perpetually work on their time management:

And all effective people work on their time management perpetually. They not only keep a continuing log and analyze it periodically; they set themselves deadlines for the important activities, based on their judgment of their discretionary time.

Urgent and Unpleasant Lists
Drucker shares an example about using lists with deadlines for urgent and unpleasant tasks:

One highly effective man I know keeps two such lists – one of the urgent and one of the unpleasant things that have to be done – each with a deadline. When he finds his deadlines slipping, he knows his time is again getting away from him.

Time is the Scarcest Resource
Drucker writes that time is the scarcest resource, but it's also easy to analyze and improve:

Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. The analysis of one’s time, moreover, is the one easily accessible and yet systematic way to analyze one’s work and to think through what really matters in it.

Everyone Can Follow “Know Thy Time”
Drucker writes that the path to contribution and effectiveness is knowing how you spend your time:

“Know thyself,” the old prescription for wisdom, is almost impossibly difficult for mortal men. But everyone can follow the injunction “Know thy time” if he or she wants to, and be well on the road toward contribution and effectiveness.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Time is the scarcest resource. You can't make more time. You have what you got. Make the most of it.
Log and analyze your time. A key to managing your time effectively is knowing where it goes.
Consider keeping lists of deadlines for urgent and unpleasant tasks. If you find your deadlines keep slipping, then you need to improve how you're managing time.
Effective people perpetually work on their time management. Effective people make it a habit to work at improving their time management.

My Related Posts

Know Where Your Time Goes

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:02:00 +0000

To effectively manage your time, you first need to know where it goes. Don't rely on your memory. The problem is you'll think you spend time where you should spend your time. Your memory will fool you. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials), Peter F. Drucker writes about logging your time rather than relying on memory.

Don’t Rely on Your Memory to Know How Much Time You Spend
Drucker writes don't rely on your memory to know where your time goes:

Man is ill-equipped to manage his time. Even in total darkness, most people retain their sense of space. But even with the lights on, a few hours in a sealed room render most people incapable of estimating how much time has elapsed. They are as likely to underrate grossly the time spent in the room as to overrate it grossly. If we rely on our memory, therefore, we do not know how much time has been spent.

Record Your Time and Test Your Memory
Drucker suggests logging your time and testing your memory:

I sometimes ask executives who pride themselves on their memory to put down their guesses as to how they spend their own time. Then I lock these guesses away for a few weeks or months. In the meantime, the executives run an actual time record on themselves. There is never much resemblance between the way these people thought they used their time and their actual records.

You Think You Spend Time Where You Should Spend Your Time
According to Drucker, we fool ourselves on where we actually spend our time:

One company chairman was absolutely certain that he divided his time roughly into three parts. One third he thought he was spending with his senior men. One-third he thought he spent with his important customers. And one-third he thought was devoted to community activities. The actual record of his activities over six weeks brought out clearly that he spent almost no time in any of these areas. There were the tasks on which he knew he should spend time – and therefore memory, obligingly as usual, told him that they were the tasks on which he actually spent most of his hours as a kind of dispatcher, keeping track of orders from customers he personally knew, and bothering the plant with telephone calls about them. Most of those orders were going through all right anyhow and his intervention could only delay them. But when his secretary first came in with the time record, he did not believe her. It took two or three more time logs to convince him that the record, rather than his memory, had to be trusted when it came to the use of time.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

To manage your time, you need to know where it goes. In order to manage your time effectively, you first need to know where your time actually goes.
Keep a time record. The only way to know where you spend your time is to log it.
Your memory is wrong. Your memory tells you you spend your time where you think you should spend your time.

My Related Posts

Consolidate Your Discretionary Time

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:48:00 +0000

What are best practices for time management? How do effective people manage their time? How do effective people manage to consistently get the most important things done each week? They consolidate their discretionary time. One approach is to work from home one day a week. Another approach is to push your administrative work to Mondays and Fridays, and then use Tuesdays, Wednesday's, and Thursdays to focus on your high priority work. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials), Peter F. Drucker writes about how effective people consolidate their discretionary time to get things done.

How Much Time is Available for Your Contributions?
Drucker writes that effective people figure out how much discretionary time they have:

The executive who records and analyzes his time and then attempts to manage it can determine how much he has for his important tasks. How much time is there that is “discretionary,” that is, available for the big tasks that will really make a contribution? It is not going to be a great deal, no matter how ruthlessly the knowledge worker prunes time-wasters.

The Higher Up You Go, the Less Time Spent on Contribution
According to Drucker, the higher up you go, the less time you spend on contribution:

The higher up a knowledge worker, the larger will be the proportion of time that is not under his control and yet not spent on contribution. The larger the organization, the more time will be needed just to keep the organization together and running, rather than to make it function and produce.

Consolidate Your Discretionary Time
According to Drucker, effective people consolidate their discretionary time:

The effective people therefore knows that he has to consolidate his discretionary time. He knows that he needs large chunks of time and that small driblets are not time at all. Even one-quarter of the working day, if consolidated in large time units, is usually enough to get the important things done. But even three-quarters of the working day are useless if it is only available as fifteen minutes or half an hour there. The final step in time management is therefore to consolidate the time that record and analysis show as normally available and under the executive’s control.

Work at Home One Day a Week
Drucker writes that one approach to consolidate time is to work at home one day a week:

There are a good many ways of doing this. Some people, usually senior managers, work at home one day a week; this is a particularly common method of time consolidation for editors or research scientists.

Schedule All the Operating Work for Monday and Friday
Drucker writes that another approach is to batch your operating work for Mondays and Fridays:

Others schedule all the operating work – the meetings, reviews, problem sessions, and so on – for two days a week, for example, Monday and Friday, and set aside the mornings of the remaining days for consistent, continuing work on major issues.

How Not To Consolidate Discretionary Time
Don't let your little rocks get in the way of the big rocks. Drucker writes:

But the method by which one consolidates one’s discretionary time is far less important than the approach. Most people tackle the job by trying to push the secondary, the less productive matters together, thus clearing, so to speak, a free space between them. This does not lead very far, however. One still gives priority in one’s mind and in one’s schedule to the less important things, the things that have to be done even though they contribute little. As a result, any new time pressure is likely to be satisfied at the expense of the discretionary time and of the work that should be done in it. Within a few days or weeks, the entire discretionary time will then be gone again, nibbled away by new crisis, new immediate, new trivia.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Figure out how much discretionary time you have. Baseline your schedule to figure out what time is available that you can move around. The goal is to batch your discretionary time together so that you have bigger blocks of consecutive work time.
Consolidate your operating work for Mondays and Fridays. Batch your meetings, reviews, and administrative tasks to Monday and Friday mornings.
Use your power hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for your high priority work. Focus on moving your big rocks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Work from home one day a week. Consider working at home to consolidate your discretionary time.

I've analyzed and tested lots of time management approaches, but this I really like Drucker's prescriptive guidance. I like the idea of batching administrative work to Mondays and Fridays, and consolidating your discretionary time.

My Related Posts

How To Improve Your Crucial Conversations

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:46:00 +0000

How do you improve your crucial conversations? A crucial conversation is any conversation where the stakes are high, emotions run strong and opinions vary. If you can master crucial conversations, rather than fear your tough conversations, you’ll kick-start your career, strengthen your relationships, and improve your health. In Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler show you specific principles and skills to master your crucial conversations.

7 Steps for Mastering Your Crucial Conversations
Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, identify 7 principles for mastering your crucial conversations:

Step 1. Start with Heart. (1) Focus on what you want (2) Refuse the sucker’s choice.
Step 2. Learn to Look. (1) Look for when the conversation becomes crucial (2) Look for safety problems (3) Look for your own style under stress.
Step 3. Make it Safe. (1) Apologize when appropriate (2) Contrast to fix misunderstanding (3) CRIB to get to Mutual Purpose.
Step 4. Master My Stories. (1) Retrace my Path to Action (2) Separate fact from story (3) Watch for Three Clever Stories (4) Tell the rest of the story.
Step 5. STATE My Path. (1) Share your facts (2) Tell your story (3) Ask for other’s paths (4) Talk tentatively (5) Encourage testing.
Step 6. Explore Other’s Paths. (1) Ask (2) Mirror (3) Paraphrase (4) Prime (5) Agree (6) Build (7) Compare
Step 7. Move to Action. (1) Decide how you’ll decide (2) Document decisions and follow up.

Step 1. Start with Heart
How do you stay focused on what you really want? Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest asking yourself:

What do I really want for myself?
What do I really want for others?
What do I really want for the relationship?

See Start with Heart.

Step 2. Learn to Look
How do you know when safety is at risk? Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest the following:

Learn to look at content and conditions.
Look for when things become crucial.
Learn to watch for safety problems.
Look to see if others are moving toward silence or violence.
Look for outbreaks of your Style Under Stress.

See Learn to Look and Six Styles Under Stress.

Step 3. Make It Safe
How do you make it safe to talk about almost anything? Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest the following:

Decide which condition of safety is at risk. Is mutual purpose at risk? Is mutual respect at risk?
Apologize when appropriate.
Contrast to fix misunderstanding.
CRIB to get to Mutual Purpose (Commit to seek Mutual Purpose, Recognize the purpose behind the strategy, Invent a Mutual Purpose, Brainstorm new strategies.)

See Make It Safe.

Step 4. Master My Stories
How to stay in dialogue when you’re angry, scared or hurt? Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest the following:

Retrace your path by asking the following questions:

Am I in some form of silence or violence
What emotions are encouraging you to ask this way?
What story is creating these emotions?
What evidence do you have to support this story?
Watch for clever stories.

Tell the Rest of the Story

Are you pretending not to notice your role in the problem?
Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do this?
What do you really want?
What would you do right now if you really wanted these results?

See Master My Stories.

Step 5. STATE My Path
How do you speak persuasively, not abrasively? Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest the following:

Share your facts. Start with the least controversial, most persuasive elements from your Path to Action.
Tell your story. Explain what you’re beginning to conclude.
Ask for other’s paths. Encourage others to share both their facts and their stories.
Talk tentatively. State your story as a story – don’t disguise it as a fact.
Encourage testing. Make it safe for others to express differing or eve opposing views.

Step 6. Explore Others’ Paths
How can you listen when others blow up or clam up? Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, suggest the following:

Ask. Start by simply expressing interest in the other person’s views.
Mirror. Increase safety by respectfully acknowledging the emotions people appear to be feeling.
Paraphrase. As others begin to share part of their story, restate what you’ve heard.
Prime. If others continue to hold back, take your best guess as what they may be thinking and feeling.
Agree. Agree when you do.
Build. If others leave something out, agree where you do, then build.
Compare. When you do differ significantly, don’t suggest others are wrong. Compare your views.

See Ask, Mirror, Paraphrase, and Prime and Agree, Build, and Compare.

Step 7. Move to Action
How can you turn crucial conversations into action and results? Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler write:

Determine who does what by when. Make the deliverables crystal clear. Set a follow-up time. Record the commitments and then follow up. Finally, hold people accountable to their promises.

See 4 Decision Making Methods.

Key Take Aways
I've used these techniques on the job and I've found them to be some of the most effective techniques for keeping your brain engaged during high-stakes conversations. Here's my key take aways:

Start with Heart. Focus on what you want.
Learn to Look. Look for safety problems and look for your own style under stress.
Make it Safe. Apologize when appropriate, contrast to fix misunderstanding, and find Mutual Purpose.
Master My Stories. Separate fact from story.
STATE My Path. Tell your story, ask for other’s paths and encourage testing.
Explore Other’s Paths. Ask, Mirror, Paraphrase, Prime ... Agree, Build, and Compare.
Move to Action. Decide how you’ll decide.

My Related Posts

4 Decision Making Methods

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:41:00 +0000

What are four common ways of making decisions? How do you choose the most effective decision making approach? In Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler write about the four most common decision making methods and how to choose the most effective approach.

4 Methods of Decision Making
According to Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, there’s four common ways of making decisions:

Command - decisions are made with no involvement.
Consult - invite input from others.
Vote - discuss options and then call for a vote.
Consensus - talk until everyone agrees to one decision.

Command
According to Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, command is when there's no involvement:

Let’s start with decisions that are made with no involvement whatsoever. This happens in one of two ways. Either outside forces place demands on us (demands that leave us no wiggle room), or we turn decisions over to others and then follow their lead. We don’t care enough to be involved – let someone else do the work.

Consult
According to Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, consult is when you ask for input:

Consulting is a process whereby decision makers invite others to influence them before they make their choice. You can consult with experts, a representative population, or even everyone who wants to offer an opinion. Consulting can be an efficient way of gaining ideas and support without bogging down the decision making process. At least not too much. Wise leaders, parents, and even couples frequently make decisions in this way. They gather ideas, evaluate options, make a choice, and then inform the broader population.

Vote
Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, suggest only using a vote when team members agree to support whatever decision is made:

Voting is best suited to situations where efficiency is the highest value – and you’re selecting from a number of good options. Members of the team realize they may not get their first choice, but frankly they don’t want to waste time talking the issue to death. They may discuss options for a while and then call for a vote. When facing several decent options, voting is a great time saver but should never be used when team members don’t agree to support whatever decision is made. In these cases, consensus is required.

Consensus
Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, suggest using consensus when there's high stakes or you need everyone to fully support the final decision:

This method can be both a great blessing and a frustrating curse. Consensus means that you talk until everyone honestly agrees to one decision. This method can produce tremendous unity and high-quality decisions. If misapplied, it can also be a horrible waste of time. It should only be used with (1) high-stakes and complex issues or (2) issues where everyone absolutely must support the final choice.

How To Choose Which Decision Method to Use
Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler, outline how to choose which decision making method to use:

Who cares? Determine who genuinely wants to be involved in the decision along with those who will be affected. These are your candidates for involvement. Don’t involve people who don’t care.
Who knows? Identify who has the expertise you need to make the best decision. Encourage these people to take part. Try not to involve people who contribute to new information.
Who must agree? Think of those whose cooperation you might need in the form of authority of influence in any decisions you might make. It’s better to involve these people than to surprise them and then suffer their open resistance.
How many people is it worth involving? Your goal should be to involve the fewest number of people while still considering the quality of the decision along with the support that people will give it. Ask: “Do we have enough people to make a good choice? Will others have to be involved to gain their commitment?”

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Don't use command when you need consensus. Don't use command for important decisions that need buy in. Consensus would be more appropriate.
Use consult to make efficient, informed decisions. Use consult to gain ideas and support without bogging down decision making.
Use vote if efficiency is the most important factor. Use vote for efficiency and when everyone agrees to support the outcome of the vote.
Use consensus when you need everybody's buy in. Use consensus when you need everybody to support an important decision.

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Ask, Mirror, Paraphrase and Prime

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:54:00 +0000

Ask, mirror, paraphrase and prime are four power listening skills. In Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler write about asking, mirroring, paraphrasing and priming to build rapport, stay connected, and listen more effectively.

4 Power Listening Tools (AMPP)
AMPP stands for:

Ask. Ask the other person what’s really going on.
Mirror. Mirror means describe how the other person looks or acts (e.g. you seem upset, you seem angry at me).
Paraphrase. Paraphrase what you’ve heard using your own words.
Prime. Prime means take your best guess at what the other person might be thinking.

Ask to Get Things Rolling
To break a downward spiral, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest invite the other person to talk about what’s really going on:

The easiest and most straightforward way to encourage others to share their Path to Action is simply to invite them to express themselves. For example, often all it takes to break an impasse is to seek to understand other’s views. When we show genuine interest, people feel less compelled to use silence or violence.

Mirror to Confirm Feelings
When another person’s tone of voice or gestures are inconsistent with their words, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest “mirroring”:

When we mirror, as the name suggests, we hold a mirror up to the other person – describing how they look or act. Although we may not understand other’s stories or facts, we can see their actions and get clues about their feelings.

Paraphrase to Acknowledge the Story
To build additional safety in the conversation, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest paraphrasing what you’ve heard:

Asking and mirroring may help you get part of the other person’s story out into the open. When you get a clue about why the person is feeling as he or she does, you can build additional safety by paraphrasing what you’ve heard. Be careful not to simply parrot back what was said. Instead, put the message in your own words – usually in an abbreviated form.

Prime When You’re Getting Nowhere
According to Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, consider priming when you think the other person still has something to share and they might do so with a little more effort on your part:

The power-listening term priming comes from the expression “priming the pump.” If you’ve ever worked an old-fashioned hand pump, you understand the metaphor. With a pump, you often have to pour some water into it to get it running. Then it works just fine. When it comes to power listening, sometimes you have to offer your best guess at what the other person is thinking or feeling. You have to pour some meaning into the pool before the other person will do the same.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Ask the other person what's really going on. Direct and effective.
Mirror back to the person what you see. Reflect back what you see.
Paraphrase back in your own words. Don't parrot back. Use your own words to check what you've heard.
Prime the pump to get the dialogue flowing. Share your best guess for what's going on to encourage the other person to open up.

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Agree, Build and Compare

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:36:00 +0000

What do you do when you disagree with another person’s stories or facts? In Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler write about using your ABCs to agree, build and compare your views when you disagree with the other peron's facts or stories.

Remember Your ABCs
Remember you’re ABCs:

Agree – agree when you agree.
Build – build when others leave out key pieces.
Compare – compare when you differ.

Agree
While you need to work through disagreements, start with an area of agreement. Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler write:

So here’s the take-away. If you completely agree with the other person’s path, say so and move on. Agree when you agree. Don’t turn an agreement into an argument.

Build
If you agree with what’s been said but the information is incomplete, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest building:

On the other hand, when you watch people who are skilled in dialogue, it becomes clear that they’re not playing this everyday game of Trivial Pursuit – looking for trivial differences and then proclaiming them aloud. In fact, they’re looking for points of agreement. As a result, they’ll often start with the words “I agree.” Then they talk about the part they agree with. At least, that’s where they start.

Compare
When you differ significantly, don’t suggest others are wrong. Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler suggest comparing your two views:

Finally, if you do disagree, compare your path with the other person’s. That is, rather than suggesting that he or she is wrong, suggest that you differ. He or she may, in fact, be wrong, but you don’t know for sure until you hear both sides of the story. For now, you just know that the two of you differ. So instead of pronouncing “Wrong!” start with a tentative but candid opening such as “I think I see things differently. Let me describe how.”

Key Take Aways
Here’s my key take aways:

Agree when you agree. State what you agree with. This helps build rapport.
Build on what you agree with. Start with what you agree with to build momentum. Don’t focus on trivial flaws and blow them out of proportion.
Compare your views rather than state others are wrong. To stay connected, get curious on how you see things differently.

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Can Effectiveness Be Learned?

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:03:00 +0000

Can you learn to be effective? In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes that effectiveness is a habit and that you can improve through practice and examples.

If Effectiveness Were a Gift ...
Drucker writes that if effectiveness were a gift, our civilization would be highly vulnerable:

If effectiveness were a gift people were born with, the way they are born with a gift for music or an eye for painting, we would be in bad shape. For we know that only a small minority is born with great gifts in any one of these areas. We would therefore be reduced to trying to spot people with high potential for effectiveness early and to train them as best we know to develop their talent. But we could hardly hope to find enough people for the executive tasks of modern society this way. Indeed, if effectiveness were a gift, our present civilization would be highly vulnerable, if not untenable. As a civilization of large organizations it is dependent on a large supply of people capable of being executives with modicum of effectiveness.

How Do You Learn Effectiveness?
Drucker raises questions about learning effectiveness:

If effectiveness can be learned, however, the question arises: What does it consist in? What does one have to learn? Of what kind is the learning? Is it a knowledge -- and knowledge one learns in systematic form and through concepts? Is it a skill that one learns as an apprentice? Or is it a practice that one learns through doing the same elementary things over and over again?

Consulting and Effectiveness
According to Drucker, consultants are only effective consultants achieve results:

As a consultant, I work with executives in many organizations. Effectiveness is crucial to me in two ways. First, a consultant who by definition has no authority other than that of knowledge must himself be effective -- or else he is nothing. Second, the most effective consultant depends on people within the client organization to get anything done. Their effectiveness therefore determines in the last analysis whether a consultant contributes and achieves results, or whether he is pure "cost center" or at best a court jester.

There is No "Effective Personality"
According to Drucker, there is no "effective personality":

I soon learned there is no "effective personality." The effective people I have seen differ widely in their temperaments and their abilities, in what they do and how they do it, in their personalities, their knowledge, their interests -- in fact, in almost everything that distinguishes human beings. All they have in common is the ability to get the right things done.

Effectiveness is a Habit
According to Drucker, effectiveness is a habit:

Effectiveness, in other words, is a habit; that is, a complex of practices. And practices can always be learned. Practices are simple, deceptively so; even a seven-year-old has no difficulty in understanding a practice. But practices are always exceedingly hard to do well. They have to be acquired, as we all learn the multiplication table; that is, repeated ad nauseam until "x x 6 = 36" has become unthinking, conditiioned reflect, and firmly ingrained habit. Practices on learns by practicing and practicing and practicing again.

Practice Your "Scales"
According to Drucker, you improve effectiveness through practice:

To every practice applies what my old piano teacher said to me in exasperation when I was a small boy. "You will never play Mozart the way Arthur Schnabel does, but there is no reason in the world why you should not play your scales the way he does." What the piano teacher forgot to add -- probably because it was so obvious to her -- is that even the great pianists could not play Mozart as they do unless they practices their scales, and kept on practicing them.

Practice Builds Competence, but Talent Builds Mastery
According to Drucker, practice will lead to competence, but won't necessarily lead to mastery:

There is, in other words, no reason why anyone with normal endowment should not acquire competence in any practice. Mastery might well elude him; for that one might need special talents. But what in effectiveness is competence. what is needed are "the scales."

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Effectiveness is the ability to get the right things done.
Effectiveness can be learned.
There is no "effective personality."
You improve your effectiveness through practice.
Make effectiveness a habit.
Practice will lead to competence, but not necessarily mastery.

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3 Answers for the Second Half of Life

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:43:00 +0000

How do you prepare for the second half of your life? In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes about 3 potential paths for the second half of your life.

3 Answers for the Second Half of Your Life
Drucker provides 3 answers for the second half of your life:

1.    Start a Second Career
2.    Develop a Parallel Career
3.    Become a “social entrepreneur”

Start a Second Career
According to Drucker, one path is to start a different career:

The first is actually to start a second and different career. Often this means only moving from one kind of organization to another. Typical are the middle-level American business executives who in substantial numbers move to a hospital or university, or some other nonprofit organization, around age forty-five or forty-eight, when the children are grown and the retirement pension is vested. In many cases they stay in the same kind of work. The divisional controller in the big corporation becomes, for instance, controller in a medium-sized hospital. But there are also a growing number of people who actually move into a different line of work.

Develop a Parallel Career
Drucker writes that another path is a parallel career:

A large and growing number of people – especially people who are very successful in their first careers – stay in the work they have been doing for twenty or twenty-five years. Many keep on working forty or fifty hours a week in their main and paid job. Some move from being busy full-time to being part-time employees or become consultants. But then they create for themselves a parallel job – usually in a non-profit organization – and one that often takes another ten hours of work a week.

Become a “Social Entrepreneur”
Drucker writes another option is to start a non-profit activity:

And then, finally – the third answer – there are the “social entrepreneurs.” These are usually people who have been very successful in their first profession, as businesspeople, as physicians, as consultants, as university professors. They love their work, but it no longer challenges them. In many cases they keep on doing what they have been doing all along, though they spend less and less of their time on it. But they start another, and usually a nonprofit, activity.

People Who Manage the “Second Half” Will Be the Success Stories
Drucker suggests you can turn the long working-life expectancy into an opportunity for yourself and society:

People who manage the “second half” may always be a minority. The majority may keep doing what they are doing now, that is, retire on the job, continue being bored, keeping on with their routine, and counting the years until retirement. But it is this minority, the people who see the long working-life expectancy as an opportunity for themselves and for society, who will increasingly become the leaders and the models. They, increasingly, will be the “success stories.”

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Consider whether you'll want to start a second career, a parallel career, or become a "social entrepreneur."
Turn the second half of your life into an opportunity.
Test the paths you think you'll pick.

Develop Disagreement Rather Than Consensus

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:28:00 +0000

To make more effective decisions, develop disagreement rather than consensus. Disagreement provides alternatives and makes you think more deeply about the issue. In fact, if you don't have disagreement, you're not ready to make a decision. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes about encouraging disagreement rather than consensus to helps make more effective decisions.

Don’t Make a Decision Unless There’s Disagreement
Drucker writes that you should not make a decision unless you've considered alternatives:

Unless one has considered alternatives, one has a closed mind. This above all, explains why effective decision-makers deliberately disregard the second major command of the textbooks on decision-making and create dissension and disagreement, rather than consensus. Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views, the dialogue between different points of view, the choice between different judgments. The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.

The Right Decision Demands Adequate Disagreements
If you don't have disagreement, then you're not ready for a decision. You don't fully understand the problem. Drucker writes:

Alfred P. Sloan is reported to have said at a meeting of one of his top committees, “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here.” Everyone around the table nodded assent. “Then,”continued Mr. Sloan, “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.” Sloan was anything but an “intuitive” decision-maker. He always emphasized the need to test opinions against facts and the need to make absolutely sure that one did not start out with the conclusion and then look for the facts that would support it. But he knew that the right decision demands adequate disagreements.

3 Reasons for Insisting on Disagreement
Disagreement can help you avoid preconceived notions, find new alternatives, and stimulate the imagination. Drucker writes:

There are three main reasons for the insistence on disagreement. It is, first, the only safeguard against the decision-maker’s becoming the prisoner of the organization. Everybody always wants something from the decision-maker. Everybody is a special pleader, trying – often in perfectly good faith – to obtain the decision he favors. This is true whether the decision-maker is the president of the United States or the most junior engineer working on a design modification. The only way to break out of the prison of special pleading and preconceived notions is to make sure of argued, documented, thought-through disagreements.

Second, disagreement alone can provide alternatives to a decision. And a decision without an alternative is a desperate gambler’s throw, no matter how carefully thought through it might be. There is always a high possibility that the decision will prove wrong – either because it was wrong to begin with or because a change in circumstances makes it wrong. If one has thought through alternatives during the decision-making process, one has something to fall back on, something that has already been thought through, that has been studied. Without such an alternative, one is likely to flounder dismally when reality proves a decision to be inoperative.

Above all, disagreement is needed to stimulate the imagination. One does not, to be sure, need imagination to find the right solution to a problem. But then this is of value only in mathematics. In all matters of true uncertainty such as the executive deals with, whether his sphere is political, economic, social, or military – one needs “creative” solutions that create a new situation. And this means that one needs imagination – a new and different way of perceiving and understanding.

Commit to Find Out Why People Disagree
Don't just disagree, find out why there's disagreement. Knowing why people disagree helps you cut through the fog. Drucker writes:

The effective decision-maker, therefore, organizes disagreement. This protects him against being taken in by the plausible but false or incomplete. It gives him the alternatives so that he can choose and make a decision, but also so that he is not lost in the fog when his decision proves deficient or wrong in execution. And it forces the imagination – his own and that of his associates. Disagreement converts the plausible into the right and the right into the good decision. The effective decision-maker does not start out with the assumption that one proposed course of action is right and that all others must be wrong. Nor does he start out with the assumption, I am right and he is wrong. He starts out with the commitment to find out why people disagree.

First Understand the Alternatives
Drucker writes that you need to understand the alternatives:

Effective people know, of course, that there are fools around and that there are mischief-makers. But they do no assume that the man who disagrees with what they themselves see as clear and obvious is, therefore, either a fool or a knave. They know that unless prove otherwise, the dissenter has to be assumed to be reasonably intelligent and reasonably fair-minded. Therefore, it has to be assumed that he has reaches his so obviously wrong conclusion because he sees a different reality and is concerned with a different problem. The effective person, therefore, always asks, What does this fellow have to see if his position were, after all, tenable, rational, intelligent? The effective person is concerned first with understanding. Only then does he even think about who is right and who is wrong.

Lawyers Know Both Sides
Drucker writes that to make the most effective decisions, you need to understand both sides of the issue:

In a good law office, the beginner, fresh out of law school, is first assigned to drafting the strongest possible case for the other lawyer’s client. This is not only the intelligent thing to do before one sits down to work out the case for one’s own client. (One has to assume, after all, that the opposition’s lawyer knows his business, too.) It is also the right training for a young lawyer. It trains him not to start with, “I know why my case is right,” but with thinking through what it is that the other side must know, see, or take as probable to believe that it has a case at all. It tells him to see the two cases as alternatives. And only then is he likely to understand what his own case is all about. Only then can he make out a strong case in court that his alternative is to be preferred over that of the other side.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Don’t make a decision unless there’s disagreement.
Disagreement provides alternatives, stimulates the imagination, and helps you break out of preconceived notions.
Understand the alternatives.
Know why people disagree.
Know both sides of the issue.

My Related Posts

What is the Relevant Decision Making Criteria

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:00:00 +0000

How will you measure whether your decision will be effective? To make the most effective decisions, you need to know what to measure. You also need to select among alternatives of measurement so that you can truly understand what's at stake. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management , Peter F. Drucker writes about how you need to figure out the most appropriate and relevant measurements.

What is the Criterion of Relevance?
The most effective decisions are made by finding the appropriate measurement. Drucker writes:

Perhaps the crucial question here is, What is the criterion of relevance? This, more often than not, turns on the measurement appropriate to the matter under discussion and to the decision to be reached. Whenever one analyzes the way a truly effective, a truly right, decision has been reached, one finds that a great deal of work and thought went into finding the appropriate measurement.

The Traditional Measurement is Not the Right Measurement
The traditional measurement reflect's yesterday's decision. Drucker writes that you need to know what's relevant for today:

The effective decision-maker assumes that the traditional measurement is not the right measurement. Otherwise, there would generally be no need for a decision; a simple adjustment would do. The traditional measurement reflects yesterday’s decision. That there is need for a new one normally indicates that the measurement is no longer relevant. The best way to find the appropriate measurement is again to go out and look for the “feedback” discussed earlier – only this is “feedback” before the decision.

Example of How Traditional Measurements Can Be Irrelevant
Drucker provides an example to illustrate how traditional measurements can be irrelevant for making effective decisions:

In most personnel matters, for instance, events are measured in “averages,” such as the average number of lost-time accidents per hundred employees, the average percentage of absenteeism in the whole workforce, or the average illness rate per hundred. But the executive who goes out and looks for himself will soon find that he needs a different measurement. The average serve the purposes of the insurance company, but they are meaningless, indeed misleading, for personnel management decisions. The great majority of all accidents occur in one or two places in the plant. The great bulk of absenteeism is in one department. Even illness resulting in absence from work, we now know, is not distributed as an average, but is concentrated in a very small part of the workforce, e.g. young unmarried women. The personnel actions which dependence on the averages will lead – for instance, the typical plantwide safety campaign – will not produce the desired results, may indeed make things worse.

Finding the Appropriate Measurement is Risk-Taking Judgement
Drucker writes that appropriate measurement is risk-taking judgment:

Finding the appropriate measurement is thus not a mathematical exercise. It is a risk-taking judgment.

Effective People Insist on Alternatives of Measurement
Drucker writes that effective people insist on alternatives of measurment:

Whenever one has to judge, one must have alternatives among which to choose. A judgment is which one can only say yes or no is no judgment at all. Only if there are alternatives can one hope to get insight into what is truly at stake. Effective people therefore insist on alternatives of measurement – so that they can choose the appropriate one.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

To make the most effective decisions, find the most relevant measurements.
Traditional measurements are not the right measurement or there would be no need for a decision.
Finding the right measurements is risk-taking judgment.
Insist on having alternatives to choose from.

My Related Posts

Opinions Over Facts for Effective Decision Making

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:41:00 +0000

How do you make more effective decisions? Do you start with the facts? To make effective decisions, you first start with opinions. You gather facts based on what's relevant. You then test opinions against reality. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes about making more effective decisions.

Decisions are Judgements
Drucker writes that a decision is a judgment:

A decision is a judgement. It is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between “almost right” and “probably wrong” – but much more often a choice between two courses of action neither of which is probably more right than the other.

Executives Who Make Effective Decisions Don’t Start With the Facts
Drucker writes that effective decisions start with opinions:

Most books on decision-making tell the reader: First find the facts. But executives who make effective decisions know that one does not start with the facts. One starts with opinions. These are, of course, nothing but untested hypotheses and, as such, worthless unless tested against reality. To determine what is a fact requires first a decision of the criteria of relevance, especially on appropriate measurement. This is the hinge of the effective decision, and usually its most controversial aspect.

No One Has Ever Failed to Find the Facts They are Looking For
Drucker writes that there are no facts unless you first know what's relevant:

To get the facts first is impossible. There are no facts unless one has a criterion of relevance. Events by themselves are not facts. People inevitably start out with an opinion; to ask them to search for the facts first is even undesirable. They will simply do what everyone is far too prone to do anyhow; look for the facts that fit the conclusion they have already reached. And no one has ever failed to find the facts he is looking for. The good statistician knows this and distrusts all figures – he either knows the fellow who found them or he does not know him; in either case he is suspicious.

Opinion Comes First
Drucker writes that we start out with untested hypotheses:

The only rigorous method, the only one that enables us to test an opinion against reality, is based on the clear recognition that opinion comes first – and this is the way it should be. Then no one can fail to see that we start out with untested hypotheses – in decision-making as in science the only starting point. We know what to do with hypotheses – once does not argue them; one tests them. One finds out which hypotheses are tenable, and therefore worthy of serious consideration, and which are eliminated by the first test against observable experience.

Test an Opinion Against Reality
Drucker writes that effective people test their opinions against reality:

The effective person encourages opinions. But he insists that the people who voice them also think through what it is that the “experiment” – that is, the testing of the opinion against reality – would have to show. The effective person, therefore asks, What do we have to know to test the validity of this hypothesis? What would the facts have to be to make this opinion tenable? And he makes it a habit – in himself and in the people with whom he works – to think through and spell out what needs to be looked at, studied, and tested. He insists that people who voice an opinion also take responsibility for defining what factual findings can be expected and should be looked for.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Know that decisions are judgments
Start with opinions over facts
Know the criteria of what's relevant
Test your opinions against reality

My Related Posts

Objectives are Like Flight Plans

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:16:00 +0000

How do you create effective objectives? Effective objectives are not straightjackets. Instead, effective objectives are more like flight plans. They set directions and guide the resources and energies. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes about creating and setting effective objectives.

Objectives Must Be Transformed into Work
Drucker writes that objectives don't help unless they're turned into actions:

If objectives are only good intentions, they are worthless. They must be transformed into work. And work is always specific, always has – or should have – clear, unambiguous, measurable results, a deadline, and a specific assignment of accountability.

Don't Treat Objectives Like Straightjackets
Drucker writes that objectives must be flexible:

But objectives that become a straightjacket do harm. Objectives are always based on expectations. And expectations are, at best, informed guesses. Objectives express an appraisal of factors that are largely outside of the business and not under its control. The world does not stand still.

Objectives are Like Flight Plans
Drucker writes that the most effective objectives are like flight plans:

The proper way to use objectives is the way an airline uses schedules and flight plans. The schedule provides for the 9:00 A.M. flight from Los Angeles to get to Boston by 5:00 P.M. But if there is a blizzard in Boston that day, the plane will land in Pittsburgh instead and wait out the storm. The flight plan provides for flying at thirty thousand feet and for flying over Denver and Chicago. But if the pilot encounters turbulence or strong headwinds, he will ask flight control for permission to go up another five thousand feet and to produce a new schedule and flight plan. Unless 97 percent or so of its flights proceed on the original schedule and flight plan – or within a very limited range of deviation from either – a well-run airline gets another operations manager who knows his job.

Objectives are Directions Not Fate
Drucker writes that the objectives do not determine the future:

Objectives are not fate; they are directions. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are means to mobilize the resources and energies of the business for the making of the future.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Turn objectives into specific work.
Effective objectives are like flight plans.
Don't treat objectives like straightjackets.

My Related Posts

What Our Business Is, Will Be, and Should Be

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:44:00 +0000

What is your business? What will it be? What should it be? In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes about asking what your business is, will be, and should be to avoid spending your energy defending yesterday and instead, spend your energy exploiting today and the future.

What Should Your Business Be
Drucker writes that you should aim to figure out how to modify, extend and develop your business:

What will our business be? Aims at adaption to anticipated changes. It aims at modifying, extending, and developing the existing, ongoing business. But there is need also to ask, What should our business be? What opportunities are opening up or can be created to fulfill the purpose and mission of the business by making it into a different business? Businesses that fail to ask this question are likely to miss their major opportunity.

Systematically Abandon the Old
Drucker writes that you should adjust for changes in society, economy, and market as well as respond to innovation:

Next to changes in society, economy, and market as factors demanding consideration in answering the question What should our business be? comes, of course, innovation, one’s own and that of others. Just as important as the decision on what new and different things to do is planned, systematic abandonment of the old that no longer fits the purpose and mission of the business, no longer conveys satisfaction to the customer or customers, no longer makes a superior contribution.

Exploit Today and Work on Making Tomorrow
Drucker writes that you should systematically analyze what your business is and what it should be to survive and thrive:

An essential step in deciding what our business is, what it will be, and what it should be is, therefore, systematic analysis of all existing products, services, processes, markets, end users, and distribution channels. Are they still viable? And are they likely to remain viable? Do they still give value to the customer? And they are likely to do so tomorrow? Do they still fit the realities of population and markets, of technology and economy? And if not, how can we best abandon them – or at least stop pouring in further resources and efforts? Unless these questions are being asked seriously and systematically, and unless managements are willing to act on the answers to them, the best definition of “what our business is, will be, and should be,” will remain a pious platitude. Energy will be used up in defending yesterday. No one will have the time, resources or will to work on exploiting today, let alone to work on making tomorrow.

Purpose and Mission Enable Objectives, Strategies, and Focus
Drucker writes that defining the purpose of your business is the key to managing a business:

Defining the purpose and the mission of the business is difficult, painful and risky. But it alone enables a business to set objectives, to develop strategies, to concentrate its resources, and to go to work. It alone enables a business to be managed for performance.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Ask what your business should be.
Systematically abandon what no longer adds value.
Don't waste energy defending yesterday.
Exploit today and tomorrow through systematic analysis.
Systematically analyze existing products, services, processes, markets, end users and distribution channels.
Defining your business's purpose and mission enable you to set objectives, develop strategies, and concentrate resources.

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5 Bad Entrepreneurial Habits

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:58:00 +0000

What leads to the downfall of established companies? In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management, Peter F. Drucker writes about five bad Entrepreneurial habits that let small companies leapfrog over the big companies.

The Five Bad Entrepreneurial Habits
According to Drucker, the five bad habits are:

NIH (Not Invented Here)
"Cream" a market.
The belief in "quality."
The illusion of the "premium" price.
Maximize rather than optimize.

The Downfall of Established Companies
Drucker writes how the bad habits let small companies use Entrepreneurial judo:

There are in particular five fairly common bad habits that enable newcomers to use entrepreneurial judo and to catapult themselves into a leadership position in an industry against the entrenched, established companies.

Not Invented Here (NIH)
Drucker writes about the Not Invented Here syndrome:

The first is what American slang calls NIH (“not invented here”), the arrogance that leads a company or an industry to believe that something new cannot be any good unless they themselves thought of it. And so the new invention is spurned, as was the transistor by the American electronics manufacturers.

"Cream" a Market
Drucker writes about the pitfall of only chasing the big customers:

The second is the tendency to “cream” a market, that is to get the high-profit part of it.

This is basically what Xerox did and what made it an easy target for the Japanese imitators of its copying machines. Xerox focused its strategy on the big users, the buyers of large numbers of machines or of expensive, high-performance machines. It did not reject the others; but it did not go after them. In particular, it did not see fit to give them service. In the end it was dissatisfaction with the service – or rather, with the lack of service – Xerox provided for its smaller customers that made them receptive to competitor’s machines.

“Creaming” is a violation of the elementary managerial and economic precepts. It is always punished by loss of market.

The Belief in "Quality"
Customers only pay for what they value -- they don't care how hard it was for you to produce it. Drucker writes:

Even more debilitating is the third bad habit: the belief in “quality.” “Quality” in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not “quality” because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. That is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes “quality.”

The Illusion of the "Premium" Price
Drucker warns to watch out for "premium" prices:

Closely related to both “creaming” and “quality” is the fourth bad habit, the illusion of the “premium” price. A “premium” price is always an invitation to the competitor.

What looks like higher profit for the established leader is in effect a subsidy to the newcomer who, in a very few years, will unseat the leader and claim the throne for himself. “Premium” prices, instead of being an occasion for joy – and a reason for a higher stock price or a higher price/earnings multiple – should always be considered a threat and dangerous vulnerability.

Yet the illusion of higher profits to be achieved through “premium” prices is almost universal, even though it always opens the door to entrepreneurial judo.

Maximize Rather Than Optimize
The fifth bad habit is maximizing when you should be optimizing. Drucker writes that you need to optimize and move on, rather than maximize:

Finally, there is a fifth bad habit that is typical of established business and leads to their downfall. They maximize rather than optimize. As the market grows deep and develops, they try to satisfy every single user through the same product or service. Xerox is a good example of a company with this habit.

Examples of Optimizing Over Maximizing
Drucker provides a couple of examples how smaller competitors beat the larger company through optimizing rather than maximizing:

Similarly, when the Japanese came onto the market with their copiers in competition with Xerox, they designed machines that fitted specific groups of users – for example, the small office, whether that of the dentist, the doctor, or the school principal. They did not try to match the features of which the Xerox people were the proudest, such as the speed of the machine or the clarity of the copy. They gave the small office what the small office needed most, a simple machine at a low cost. And once they had established themselves in that market, they then moved in on the other markets, each with a product designed to serve optimally a specific market segment.

Sony similarly first moved into the low end of the radio market, the market for cheap portables with limited range. Once it had established itself there, it moved in on the other market segments.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Just because you aren't the first, doesn't mean it's not a good idea.
Go after the low-profit part of the market too, not just the "cream."
Customer's don't care how hard it is for you; they only pay for what they value.
Beware of "premium" prices.
Optimize over maximize.

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Personal Memory House or Landscape

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:01:00 +0000

Want to have a place to put your lifetime of learning? Organize your mind with a personal memory house. You effectively decorate your memory scenes with ideas and thoughts. You can then remember anything simply by walking through your memory scenes. In Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion, Jay Heinrichs writes about how the ancients used these personal memory villas to deliver great speeches and store a lifetime of learning.

Creating an Inventory of Thoughts
Heinrichs writes that the ancients had effective techniques for storing their ideas:

Cicero called memory, "the treasure-house of the ideas supplied by invention." Like other rhetoricians, he had his own methods for creating an inventory of thoughts and ways of expressing them. The ancients had wild ideas about memory, employing pornography, classical architecture, primitive semiotics, abusive classroom techniques, and exercises that orators continued throughout their lives.

Construct an Imaginary House or Scene to Fill With Ideas
Heinrichs writes that you should create an imaginary house or scene to fill with your ideas:

It went like this: every rhetoric student would construct an imaginary house or scene in his head, with empty spaces to fill with ideas. One rhetorician was extremely specific about it:

The backgrounds ought to be neither too bright nor too dim, so that the shadows may not obscure the images nor the lustre make them glitter. I believe that the intervals between backgrounds should be of moderate extent, approximately thirty feet; for, like the external eye, so the inner eye of thought is less powerful when you have moved the object of sight too near or too far away.

Your Personal Memory House or Landscape Lasts a Lifetime
While your memory structure may take a years to build, Hienrichs writes that it can last a lifetime:

It might take years to create a personal memory house or landscape, but the resulting mnemonic structure could last a lifetime. The student then created his own mental images to fill each space. Each image would stand for a concept, an ideal or commonplace, or a figure of speech.

An Indoor Shopping Mall Example
Heinrichs illustrates a personal memory scene using a shopping mall example:

Imagine an indoor shopping mall with stores that hold figures, commonplaces, particular concepts, and argument strategies. Some of the stores never change their merchandise, while others supply ideas that can serve a particular speech. You arrange the stores according to the classic outline of an oration, with items useful to your introduction, narration and facts, division, proof, refutation, and conclusion. For example, the introduction section can have all the devices of ethos in them. One of them, the "doubt trick" (dubitatio) -- the one where you pretend not to know where to begin -- can be a mirror in the shape of a question mark. Another, the one where you seem to have come to your choice reluctantly, after considering all the opponent's arguments, can be a painting with a picture on both sides of the canvas. Each picture can stand for an opposing argument.

Ancient Practices
According to Heinrichs, pornographic pictures helped memory:

If we really wanted to follow the ancient practices, we would make the picture pornographic, and fill some of the stores with naked men or women doing very interesting things. Rhetoric teachers found that their students -- all young males - tended to remember these images especially.

Daily Walks Through Your Memory Villas
Never get lost in your speech. According to Heinrichs, Roman speakers could simply visit the particular memory scene they need to draw from:

Even if they didn't have to give a speech, Roman gentlemen were supposed to walk through their "memory villas" at least once a day, visiting each section and imprinting the images in their heads. Then, when he did have to speak, the Roman could simply walk through the villa and visit the sections he needed. Instead of memorizing an outline and phrases, the way we might, he only had to remember the route for that particular speech, along with a few new images -- stored in the appropriate place -- that spoke to the particular issue.

Architectural Memory and Parallels to Today
Heinrichs writes that PowerPoint is a parallel with architectural memory:

Strange as this may seem to us today, we do have parallels to this architectural memory. Take PowerPoint for instance. Each slide often contains an image -- a picture, a chart, or graph -- that conveys a particular concept. By looking at the slide along with the audience, the speaker can remember what to say.

A PowerPoint Experiment
Heinrichs provides an experiment you can test to visualize your next speech, rather than relying on notes or slides:

If you had the time and the inclination, you might experiment by combining PowerPoint with the ancient memory technique. Write down all your thoughts. Now put each thought on a PowerPoint slide. Find or create a graphic for each slide. Print the slides in thumbnail and view and cut them out with scissors. Now create a kind of board game, like Snakes and Ladders, where you follow a path through a kind of landscape and encounter each slide. Place the slides in the order you want along the path, beginning with the introduction and finishing with the conclusion. Stare at your "board game" for an hour or two, focusing on the pictures (you won't be able to read the type anyway). Could you give the speech without notes or slides? At any rate, that's what the Roman's did, only they had the advantage of years of practice.

Romans Had to Speak for Hours and Were Constantly Interrupted
Heinrichs writes that while he doesn't need to use the approach, the Romans would give long speeches and were interrupted along the way:

In my case, since my talk is only fifteen minutes long and I intend to speak plainly, I can do it without notes or rhetorical mnemonics. But the Romans had to speak for hours, and their audiences interrupted them constantly. In a pinch, they could always duck into their memory house and pull out something, well, memorable.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Organize your mind by constructing a personal memory house or landscape
Create a place for your ideas and put your ideas in their place
Walk through your memory, scene by scene
Visualize the scenes of your speech rather than memorize the notes or words
Build your personal memory villa over a lifetime

As simple as the idea sounds, I know it's effective. I've used a similar idea in a very small scale. I never thought to have multiple landscapes or really elaborate houses or scenes filled with ideas. I can very much imagine hanging specific paintings on the walls of various rooms or having specific trees or bushes mean certain things. The real beauty of this technique is that it's a forcing function that automatically improves your memory (simply by creating the memory) and it improves your imagination and visualization.

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Learning and Growing Through Routines

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:47:00 +0000

You can use your daily routines for learning and growth. Rather than view habits as mechanical, you can view them as mastering your craft. By focusing on improvement, your routines and habits become an opportunity for personal transformation. You can use your routines as an exploration into who you are and how you express yourself with something larger. In The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, Michael E. Gerber writes about using routines and habits for joy and personal development.

Habits Need a Higher Purpose
Orchestration is a way to do something habitually. Gerber explains that all habits need a higher purpose, or they are mechanical and deadening:

"I need you to help me with something," Sarah said, a look of concern on her face. "I need help coming to grips with this whole subject of Orchestration. It sounds so mechanical, so deadening! When I think of it, I picture a shop full of people working dispassionately, each of them doing things in identically the same way, like robots. Certainly you can't be saying that. But I don't know how else to think about it."

"Sarah," I began softly, "if the Business Development Process were only about Orchestration, I would agree with you -- it would be deadly. Absent a higher purpose, all habits are. Because that's all that Orchestration really is Sarah: a habit. A way of doing something habitually.

Innovation, Quantification and Orchestration Go Together
Gerber writes that Orchestration is only part of the process and that the sum is greater than parts:

"The problem is you can't understand the value of an entire process by separating it from its parts, or its parts from the process. Because once you separate the parts of a process, once you take a process apart, there is no process. There is no movement whatsoever. There is only this thing or that that. There is no beginning, no middle, no end. There is no story; there's only an event, frozen in time. You might say that apart from its process, the part of a process is dead. So when you think of Orchestration absent Innovation and Quantification, you're describing an action stripped of its purpose, its meaning, its vitality.

The Joy Comes From Improvement
Gerber writes how the joy comes from improving upon you very specific tasks:

Wasn't there a specific way your aunt taught you to cut the fruit? A specific way to hold it? A specific way to prepare it? Wasn't there a specific way to do everything your aunt taught you to do? And wasn't the creativity, the continuous stream of surprises, a result not just of the specific work you were doing but of your continuous and exhilarating experience of improving as you learned how to do those very specific tasks better and better, until you could do them almost as well as your aunt?

"Wasn't that where the joy came from? That if you were resigned to doing one thing, one way, forever, without every improving, there would be no joy -- there would only be the same deadening routine? And isn't that what your aunt taught you as she taught you to bake pies -- the mystery that change can bring?

There Needs to Be a Set Routine to Improve Upon
The key is to have a set routine to improve upon. Gerber writes:

"So, of course, there needs to be Orchestration, Sarah. There needs to be a way we do something. There needs to be a set routine. Because without it, there would be nothing to improve upon. And without improvement, there would be no reason to be. We would be machines. Or, as you called them, 'robots.' There would be the tyranny of routine. There would be the monotony and the boredom you so eloquently describe.

The Way of Work as Personal Transformation
Work becomes an exploration into who we are and how we express ourselves. Gerber writes:

"But with the process, with the continuous Innovation and Quantification that precedes Orchestration and that follows it, with this continuous investigation into the way of work, the work itself because key to our own personal transformation. The work itself becomes something other than a habit; it becomes an exploration into who we are and how we express ourselves in relationship to something much larger. First, the position we fill. Then the function it fills. Then the business within which the function fulfills both itself and the business without which it wouldn't exist. Then the world within which the business fulfills its purpose as well as the purpose of the people with whom, and for whom, it comes into action. And so on, and so forth.

The Thrill of Apprenticeship
Gerber writes that the thrill of apprenticeship is learning and growing from routines and exploring who you are in relationship to something bigger:

"What I've just described is the thrill of apprenticeship, the learning and growing that you experienced in the kitchen under your aunt's tutelage.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Use routines and habits for personal development.
The key is to focus on improvement.
Your set routines are a baseline to improve upon.
Orchestration is a way of doing something habitually.
Your habits need a higher level purpose or they are mechanical and deadening.
Think of improving your routines and habits as mastering your craft.
Leverage your work for personal transformation.

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Working On Your Business, Is Working On Your Life

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:49:00 +0000

Working on your business, is working on your life. Life if what business is about and your business should create more life for everyone. In The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, Michael E. Gerber writes about how going to work on your business, is going to work on your life.

Going to Work on the Business, is Going to Work on Your Life
Gerber writes that working on your business development is a metaphor for working on your life:

"On a more practical level, what we've experienced in our work with small business is that, as the Business Development Process becomes an integral part of the business, it also becomes an integral part of the communication between the participants. It becomes not only a way of thinking and a way of doing, but a way of being as well. You might say that while going to work on the business, people begin to realize that it is a powerful metaphor for going to work on their lives.

Create More Life for Everyone
According to Gerber, your business should create more life for everyone:

"And that, I believe, is the heart of the process: not efficiency, not effectiveness, not more money, not to 'downsize' or 'get lean,' but to simply and finally create more life for everyone who comes into contact with the business, but most of all, for you, the person who owns it.

Continuous Improvement for Its Own Sake is a Waste of Time
According to Gerber, improvement doesn't mean anything if it doesn't address the hearts, minds, and souls of people:

"So, I obviously feel passionately about the subject. What you call it doesn't really matter; call it the Business Development Process, Reengineering, TQM, Excellence, or Kaizen -- the entire subject becomes a desultory process if it doesn't address the hearts and minds and souls of people. Quality is just a word, and an empty word at that, if it doesn't include harmony, balance, passion, intention, attention. Continuous improvement for its own sake is a waste of time.

Life is What a Business is About
Gerber writes that life is what business is all about:

Life is what a business is about, and life is what this work is about. Coming to grips with oneself, in the face of an incredibly complex world that can teach us if we're open to learn. In this way, the Business Development Process can be thought of as a metaphor for personal transformation, for coming to grips with real life. For developing real skills within a structure of your own design. For understanding the dynamics of change, of value, of communication, of thought.

An Opportunity to Fulfill Whatever is Fulfillable
Gerber writes that business is an opportunity to fulfill whatever is fulfillable:

"But what it is, in the end, is an opportunity to fulfill whatever is fulfillable in the place you find yourself now, and in any future place you could occupy with enough imagination and enough of a wish."

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Going to work on your business, is going to work on your life.
Business should create more life for everyone.
Continuous improvement doesn't matter if it doesn't improve the hearts, minds, and souls of people.
Business is about learning and growing and is a metaphor for life.
Business is an opportunity to realize our dreams and fulfill whatever is fulfillable.

I particularly like this perspective. It reminds me that the only box we have at work is the one we put ourselves into. This is truly a time for self-leadership and personal empowerment. It's a great time to be an Entrepreneur or an Intrapreneur. I think of Microsoft as one big land of opportunity, with plenty of smart people, resources, and potential. The key is unleashing it.

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Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:25:00 +0000

According to Michael E. Gerber, Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration are the backbone of every extraordinary business. They are the essence of your Business Development process. In The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, Gerber explains how Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration are key to your business development process.

The Three Part of a Business Development Process
According to Gerber, the three parts of the business development process are Innovation, Quantification, and Orchestration.

Building the Prototype of your business is a continuous process, a Business Development Process. It's foundation is three distinct yet thoroughly integrated activities through which your business can pursue its natural evolution. They are Innovation, Quantification and Orchestration.

Innovation
Gerber says you should innovate the way in which your business does business:

The Franchise Revolution has brought with it an application of Innovation that has been almost universally ignored by American business. By recognizing that it is not the commodity that demands Innovation but the process by which it is sold, the franchiser aims his innovative energies at the way in which his business does business. To the franchiser, the entire process by which the business does business is a marketing tool, a mechanisms for finding and keeping customers. Each and every component of the business system is a means through which the franchiser can differentiate his business from all other businesses in the mind of his consumer.

Quantification
Gerber writes that you should quantify your innovation so you know the impact and where to spend your energy:

But on its own, Innovation leads nowhere. To be at all effective, all Innovations need to be quantified. Without Quantification, how would you know whether the Innovation worked? By Quantification, I'm talking about the numbers related to the impact an Innovation makes.

Orchestration
Gerber writes that you should integrate your most effective innovations into your processes and routines:

Once you innovate a process and quantify its impact on your business, once you find something that works better than what preceded it, once you discovered how to increase the "yeses" from your customers, your employees, your suppliers, and your lenders -- at that point, it's time to orchestrate the whole thing. Orchestration is the elimination of discretion, or choice, at the operating level of your business. Without Orchestration, nothing could be planned, and nothing anticipated -- by you or your customer. If you're doing everything differently each time you do it, if everyone in your company is doing it by their own discretion, their own choice, rather than creating order, you're creating chaos.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Innovation, Quantification and Orchestration are the backbone of business development.
Innovate in how your business does business.
Quantify the impact of your innovations.
Bake your innovations into your business processes.

I have to admit, I really do like the distinctions and the precision that Gerber puts to the business development process. What he's really emphasizing is that your business is a living, breathing system with people and processes and that to survive, your business needs to continue to grow and learn through innovation. But innovation doesn't help if you don't know the impact or if you don't actually make it a part of your business. Beautiful.

Reflecting back, I know that innovation was a key part of our patterns & practices team. We pushed innovation and changing the game. It wasn't necessarily about innovating in the product, though we did that too, it was about innovating in how we built what we built.

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Asking Better Questions

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:28:00 +0000

How can you ask better questions? How can you ask more effectively? If you improve the questions you ask, as well as who you ask and how you ask, you can produce more effective results. In Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement, Anthony Robbins writes about asking intelligently and precisely to get the results you want.

5 Guidelines for Asking Intelligently and Precisely
According to Robins, the five guidelines for asking better questions are:

Ask specifically.
Ask someone who can help you.
Create value for the person you're asking.
Ask with focused, congruent belief.
Ask until you get what you want.

1. Ask specifically.
Robbins writes that you have to be specific about what you want:

You must describe what you want, both to yourself and someone else. How high, how far, how much? When, where, how, with whom? If your business needs a loan, you'll get it -- if you know how much to ask. You won't get it if you say, "We need some more money to expand into a new product line. Please lend us some." You need to define precisely what you need, why you need it, and when you need it. You need to be able to show what you'll be able to produce with it. In our goal-setting seminars, people always say they want more money. I hand them a couple of quarters. They asked and they recieved, but they didn't ask intelligently, so they didn't get what they wanted.

2. Ask someone who can help you.
Robbins writes that you have to ask the right person:

It's not enough to ask specifically, you must ask specifically of someone who has the resources -- the knowledge, the capital, the sensitivity, or the business experience. Let's say you're having trouble with your spouse. Your relationships is falling apart. You can pour out your heart. You can be as specific and as honest as humanly possible. But if you seek help from someone who has as pitiful a relationship as you do, will you succeed? Of course not.

Finding the right person to ask brings us back to the importance of learning how to notice what works. Anything you want -- a better relationship, a better job, a smarter program for investing your money -- is something someone already has or something someone already does. The trick is to find those people and figure out what they do right. Many of us gravitate toward barroom wisdom. We find a sympathetic ear and expect that to translate to results. It won't unless the sympathy is matched by expertise and knowledge.

3. Create value for the person you're asking.
Robbins writes that you have to make it a win-win for the person you're asking:

Don't just ask and expect someone to give you something. Figure out how you can help them first. If you've had a business idea and need money to pull it off, one way to do it is to find someone who can both help and benefit. Show them how your idea can make money for you and for them as well. Creating value doesn't always have to be that tangible. The value you create may only be a feeling or a sensibility or a dream, but often that's enough. If you came up to me and said you needed $10,000, I'd probably say, "So do a lot of other people." If you said you needed the money to make a difference in people's lives, I might begin to listen. If you specifically showed me how you wanted to help others and create value for them and yourself, I might see how helping you could create value for me as well.

4. Ask with focused, congruent belief.
Robbins writes that you have to ask with conviction:

The surest way to ensure failure is to convey ambivalence. If you aren't convinced about what you're asking for, how can anyone else be? So when you ask, do it with absolute conviction. Express that in your words and your physiology. Be able to show that you're sure of what you want, you're sure you'll succeed, and you're sure you will create value, not just for you but for the person you're asking as well.

5. Ask until you get what you want.
Robbins writes that you have to keep asking until you get what you want:

That doesn't mean asking the same person. It doesn't mean asking in precisely the same way. Remember, the Ultimate Success Formula says you need to develop the sensory acuity to know what you're getting, and you have to have the personal flexibility to change. So when you ask, you have to change and adjust until you achieve what you want. When you study the lives of successful people, you'll find over and over again that they kept asking, kept trying, kept changing -- because they knew that sooner or later they would find someone who couldn't satisfy their needs.

"Ask Until" Is the Most Important Part
Robbins writes that asking until you get what you want is the most important part of asking intelligently:

Sometimes people do all four perfectly. They ask specifically. They ask someone who can help them. They create value for the person they've asking. They ask congruently. And even after that, they don't get what they want. The reason is they didn't do the fifth thing. They didn't "ask until." That's the fifth and most important part of asking intelligently.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Be specific.
Ask the right person.
Find a win-win.
Believe in what you're asking for.
Keep asking until you get what you want.

I find that asking intelligently at work helps me be more effective. For example, if I know what to ask for and I know who to ask and I show a win-win, this helps me get support for a project or idea. I know that if at first I don't succeed, to try, try again. I also change my approach, if it's not working. It's about persistence and tuning along the way.

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Choose "How" Questions Over "Why" Questions

noreply@blogger.com (J.D. Meier) — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:44:00 +0000

Why are you stuck? That's not a very empowering question. You'll just figure out reasons for why you're stuck. Instead, ask a question like "how can you move forward?" or "how might you accomplish that?" The key is to ask "how" questions over "why" questions. In Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement, Tony Robbins writes about choosing "how" questions over "why" questions.

Choose "How" Questions Over "Why" Questions
Robbins writes that you should choose "how" questions over "why" questions:

Here's another important frame. Choose "how" questions over "why" questions. "Why" questions can get you reasons and explanations and justifications and excuses. But they usually don't come up with useful information. Don't ask your kid why he is having trouble with algebra. Ask him what he needs to do to perform better. There's no need to ask an employee why he didn't get a contract you were bidding for. Ask him how he can change so you'll be certain to get the next one.

Good Communicators Move Forward
Robbins writes that good communicators focus on moving forward over rationalizing why something's wrong:

Good communicators aren't interested in rationalizations of why something is going wrong. They want to find out how to do it right. The right questions will lead you in that direction.

Key Take Aways
Here's my key take aways:

Choose "how" questions over "why" questions.
Don't dwell on what's wrong, focus on what's right.
Find a way to move forward.

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