For example, as a software engineer, you build a feature and ask for feedback only to have users reply with “oh, that’s nice” or “I like it” – providing you with little detail to its real or differential value.  You are left wondering if they were just being polite, indifferent, or if the feature really is ‘nice’.

A tactic that I find useful is taking features away or intentionally not adding everything that can be added.  Not only is this time-saving, it often provokes more animated responses that start to get at the reasons why a certain feature is needed or wanted.

Sure, it can be unnerving to have someone yell at you for taking something away but it gives you great data-point for working out what really matters.

One could come up with a series of lesson plans that describe what leadership is but, in a funny way, this can stifle the very leadership and initiative you are trying to encourage.  If the purpose is to create a lesson plan, then a curriculum of 10 lessons is sufficient.  However, if the purpose is to ‘develop leaders’ then prescriptive lessons on ‘how to lead’ could jeopardise it.

Yes, there is a need to ‘model the way’ but encouraging others to lead sometimes requires ‘not leading’ – stepping back – so that a space is created for others to express their own voice.

In her new book, “Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work,” Perlow details the experiments she conducted at BCG and how they turned out to improve not just employees’ work lives, but the effectiveness and efficiency of the work process itself. In fact, the experiments were so successful that they have now been replicated in more than 1,000 BCG teams globally.

via When the smartphone’s turned off | Harvard Gazette.

There is no finish line. So love the journey.

- David Weekly | Startup Quote – Daily Wisdom about Startups.

Don’t ignore your dreams; don’t work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.

- Paul Graham: The Top of My Todo List.

With the faulty shower in my hotel room, I wondered if management spent any time asking housekeeping for feedback. It’s the housekeepers who know which bathrooms are the biggest pains to clean — and which bathroom mats are consistently soaked A wet bathroom floor surely frustrates the housekeeper, too, not to mention increasing the hotel’s service costs. Would it have been helpful if the hotel’s cleaning and maintenance personnel had a process to voice their observations and recommendations to management? You bet.

via Listen to Your Frontline Employees – Anthony Tjan – Harvard Business Review.

I would suggest going a step further: empower frontline employees with as much authority, information and resources to solve the problems they encounter.

In a dysfunctional organization however, this wouldn’t fly.  Managers are too busy protecting themselves.  Perhaps there’s already a feedback box or process in this hotel but who is going to give feedback when you don’t feel heard?

Maybe people get into the compassion business full-time not because they’re more compassionate than others but because they’re codependent. Maybe the driving force is really inverted narcissism — an unhealthy and unexamined addiction to care-taking or to self-neglect.

via Nonprofit Pathology – Dan Pallotta – Harvard Business Review.

Behaviors that have the appearance of virtue and care, but lead to excessive self-sacrifice and a compulsive need to be seen as the rescuer, savior and martyr.  A difficult, if not impossible thing to manage within an INGO (International Non-Government Organization).

I didn’t realize it until I was working with an INGO in Mozambique.  One perspective is that the INGO provided Mozambicans with an opportunity for a better life and Mozambicans should be grateful.  Another, and one that became apparent in trying to hire foreign workers in the country, is that Mozambique was providing an opportunity to foreigners – to find their self-worth in helping – and they should be grateful.  Codependence?

Perhaps it is not just the developing countries that need to learn to be less dependent, but also the care-giving foreign organizations that work within them.

While Tumblr has grown tremendously, the new hot social service is Pinterest, a site where people can pin images to their wall. Karp said that Pinterest fits into a longer history of curation online that goes back to gathering links. But he said this type of “hoarding” of pictures isn’t what interests him. He said he’s looking to help users build their identity through self-expression and creativity.

via Tumblr’s challenge: finding money in sparking creativity — Tech News and Analysis.

How do you promote and encourage deep creativity and innovation?

What tools enable people to express themselves in unique ways?

1. Hire Highly Effective Team Members
2. Focus on Inspiring Trust
3. Encourage Candor
4. Be Clear About Expectations

via Building Effective Teams Isn’t Rocket Science, But It’s Just as Hard – Douglas R. Conant – Harvard Business Review.

Martin Lindstrom:

These days, I schedule a regular dose of boredom into my day. Furthermore, I don’t check messages if I’m waiting for a friend. I choose, instead, to watch people in bars, cafes, and restaurants. I don’t play games on my phone or my computer. I carry an old Nokia that no one would dream of stealing. More often than not, I hit the pool at the end of the day. As I power up and down the lanes, I rethink what I’ve learned. I now have the time and space to solve whatever problems have arisen. It’s an important meeting with myself, and I keep it religiously. Because the day I lose it, I’ve lost myself.

via Want To Be More Creative? Get Bored | Fast Company.

Perhaps I would not have used the word ‘boredom’.  Martin’s habits sound more inquisitive and reflective.