Pilar Jerico

10 Key Factors for Writing Non-fiction

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:15:58 +0000

My most recent book published in Spanish, “La Nueva Gestión del Talento” (“New Paths in Talent Management”) is on the shortlist for the “KnowSquare” prize for the best business book of the year. It is very pleasing to have one’s efforts recognised, and I’m most grateful to the jury and to all the people who at some time in their lives have read my writings. Authors exist to serve their readers and, speaking personally, writing is one of the activities that brings me most fulfilment. So, many thanks to all!
I am sometimes asked what the best way to go about writing is. The honest answer is that I don’t know. What’s more, there are far better writers than me to give an answer to this question. However, I will go so far as to mention some techniques –not advice– that help me personally. But please bear in mind that each individual needs to find what works best for them.
•   Passion. I always write about something that fascinates me and which I believe in. The reason for this is simple: If you’re not hugely interested in what you’re writing about, you can’t hope that your readers will be, either.
•   Interest value and speed. Life is full of so many stimuli that it’s not easy to get someone to pay attention to what you’re saying, even for a few minutes. So the thought I try to constantly hold in my mind is: If I wouldn’t spend any time reading what I’ve written, how can I expect anyone else to?
•   An inner drive. When you ‘connect with the voice’ as some novelists put it, you just can’t stop writing. I know that there are some professional writers who have a fixed method, and I’d love to be one of them! But I’m just not made that way. I wrote NoFear in five weeks flat, after doing a great deal of research into the subject of fear for years. And in those five weeks I barely slept because I kept on waking up with new ideas. There’s no magical shortcut to writing a book. It’s hours and hours of work, and you need lots of patience and the determination to get through the dry periods when the muse deserts you.
•   Letting go. If I’m not very happy with something I’ve written, I don’t use it. You’re much better off if you don’t feel wed to what you’ve written; otherwise, you end up leaving in material that isn’t up to scratch. (I personally have gone so far as to cast out over 100 pages that I wasn’t happy with.)
•   Keep it simple. If a person of average intelligence has difficulty following the book, the fault lies with the writer, not the reader. (Obviously, I’m talking here about books on management, and not high-level scientific publications.)
•   Compass or map? It seems that there are basically two types of writer. First of all, there are those that have a compass– that is to say, they have a rough general idea of what they want to write about, and then explore different aspects of this idea as they go along. At the other end of the spectrum are the map-bearing writers, who have everything pretty well worked out before they put pen to paper. In my opinion, neither way of writing is intrinsically better; it’s just a question of how each person’s creative mind works.
•   Writer’s block. This happens to almost everyone at some time or other. In my own case, I find it helpful to start off a session by writing something unrelated to the book. This helps me to get warmed up, as it were. Even so, writer’s block is always lurking in the background.
•   Get feedback. I always find it useful to talk to others about what I’m writing and to get feedback from them. When I was working on Everyday Heroes, I used Twitter and LinkedIn to help me do this; I asked people to answer some brief questions, and their replies were really invaluable.
•   Get the opinion of someone you particularly trust. It’s impossible to write something that absolutely everyone likes, even though we often have problems accepting this. But it’s vital that you like what you’ve written; and, if possible, it’s extremely beneficial to have a very good friend who is highly critical who will tell you exactly what they think of your work. I say this as I have such a friend and he is my harshest critic, for which I am grateful.
•   Deadlines. The process of writing a book never really comes to an end, and you could be years working on the same one. That’s why having a deadline is a good thing, even though it brings with it its fair share of stress.

Innovate or die

admin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:17:42 +0000

In the last few decades, discoveries in the neurosciences have given rise to a whole new lexicon in the field of people management, with terms such as neuroleadership, bioleadership, neuromarketing or neuromanagement becoming common currency. All of these new words describe changes in the way that leaders manage their teams; and, above and beyond traditional leadership skills, they focus on the ability to effectively manage one’s biological, psychological and intellectual faculties in order to help teams to achieve the objectives they have been set.
Innovate or die could well be considered the motto of all companies today. And there are plenty of reasons for affirming this: a fiercely competitive environment, the global crisis, the rapid pace of change, etc … All of these factor create the need to come up with new products and services to satisfy a new type of customer who is increasingly sophisticated and discerning. Although many companies do invest in innovation on a product level, they don’t usually think about altering the way they manage people or deal with clients. For this reason, a change in management style can create new opportunities that have not been explored by most companies
Innovative companies share a number of common characteristics: cooperation -and not competition- between different departments is the norm; both individual and group achievements are rewarded; a spirit of trust, rather than a desire for control, runs through the whole company; power is based on the value added by each individual and not on their position; the company is interested in customers’ opinions and engages in a constructive dialogue with them; mistakes are seen as part of the learning process; and priority is given to programmes that promote cooperation and learning with other colleagues. All of this leads to an inescapable conclusion: introducing real innovation implies very profound changes, and goes far beyond just innovating in the products or services we offer.
Factors that promote an innovation-oriented management style
Any organisation can begin to manage in a more innovation-friendly way, irrespective of its size, sector or past history. However, this doesn’t mean that making the change is easy; on the contrary, it requires a major paradigm shift whereby everyone becomes involved in the process of innovation, irrespective of their position in the company. In order to achieve this, companies need to leverage a series of factors that promote an innovation-friendly culture, which we detail below:
- Group intelligence: creating extended companies
Crowds display a degree of wisdom that often goes unappreciated. A couple of examples will help to illustrate this: you get a better idea of who will win the Oscars by looking at the results of an online poll of ‘non-experts’, rather than by listening to the predictions of the so-called ‘experts’; Google has become the best search engine on the Web thanks to its use of group intelligence. However, it’s undeniable that the potential benefits of group intelligence remain untapped by most companies.
Creating an extended company is based on the idea that there is more innovation outside than inside, so why not go and look for it? Creating an extended company involves innovating in the business model, embracing innovation, and sharing in both the risks and rewards. It means tapping into group intelligence or, in other words, the wisdom of all the people who form part of the organisation. Before we proceed, a word of caution is in order. To obtain intelligible and intelligent feedback from a crowd, certain conditions must be met: you need to consult a diversified cross-section of opinion; the people consulted need to be giving their opinion completely independently; and the organisation which the crowd hails from must be decentralised. Perhaps most important of all, the people giving their opinion must have at least a basic knowledge of what they are being asked about! With the advent of social networks, we now have the technology to ask the crowd what they think. So the challenge we face is not a technological one; rather, it is a question of changing the prevailing paradigm.
- Manifesto and values
Being an innovative company presupposes having innovative values. This is only possible if the organisation in question is guided by a spirit of cooperation, in which the company’s vision, mission and values are an everyday reality and are shared at all levels. People who work in companies are now demanding more transparency than ever before and, thanks to social networks and 2.0 technologies, firms can no longer shirk their responsibilities in this regard. These days, customers, employees and even competitors can freely express their opinions, criticise and make recommendations– all without having to pass through any kind of filter.
Do I feel proud to work for and form part of this organisation? Do the values of this organisation really promote cooperation, transparency and diversity? This is definitely true in the case of 3M, where a culture of innovation lies at the very heart of the company
- Creating the right conditions for cooperation
Innovation does not arise spontaneously. Good ideas can only be generated if we create the right conditions for them to occur. Great discoveries in the past have been made thanks to the interaction and exchange of different opinions held by different people. The prevailing emotional climate in a company can be a springboard, or a dampener, for creating a cooperative environment. We can identify a range of positive emotions that favour innovation, such as enthusiasm, cheerfulness, peace of mind and calm, all of which need to be laced with a good sense of humour. Once again, we need to insist on the need for having a democracy of ideas that is facilitated either by collaborative platforms that select the best ones or by open channels of communication with superiors where ideas and proposals can be voiced freely. This is one of the keys to Google’s success: a company culture which says that anyone can come up with a great idea.
- Innovative policies
Do workers have the time to innovate? The people management policies we adopt will influence employees’ behaviour in one direction or another. Innovation is not just a question of using the most up-to-date technologies. First of all, we need to have the right management policies and the right atmosphere in the workplace; the technology is then layered on top of this. Innovation cannot be improvised. You need time to think, create, share, ask, listen, cooperate and try things out. Once we have created the right conditions for innovation to flourish, it is absolutely essential that employees have intrinsic motivation, that is to say, that they feel happy at work. In this regard, it is important to have a coherent remuneration policy, whereby there are no huge differences in pay between people doing similar-level jobs. In addition, the Be-Up report on innovation in management has highlighted that companies where the difference in salary between the worst and best paid workers is less than a factor of ten can be considered the most innovative ones.
- Regular innovation-oriented activity
It is a big step in the right direction if workers are already in the habit of innovating. Innovation is alive and well when it forms part of an organisation’s day-to-day activity and people seek to be innovative within the framework of their daily functions and responsibilities, becoming in the process intrapreneurs. For innovation to thrive, it is vital to work on the development of cooperative habits so that it becomes part and parcel of everyone’s work and of the company culture. If we want a change in habits to occur on an individual level, there are three different strands that must be present: need (appreciate the personal benefits of change); knowledge (have the psychological and intellectual wherewithal to start a process of change); and frequency (repetition, to generate sustainable change in thoughts and actions). All of this is equally applicable to a change in management practices.
- Leading by example
There’s no two ways about it: if a leader doesn’t believe in the benefits of innovation, his/her team won’t innovate. So it is of fundamental importance that the leader’s thoughts, emotions and actions are all channelled in the same direction, and that no mixed messages are given. A leader who promotes innovation will display the following qualities: he (or she) is willing to explore new possibilities, which involves questioning the established way of doing things; he is able to transform his team and has more faith in their potential than they do themselves; and he fosters the ability to act quickly, be flexible and to adapt to the changing environment. When these conditions are fully met, the need for control and fixed working practices disappears, and a new way of running companies arises: pro-activism, that is to say, the ability to create the right conditions for finding solutions and for constructing an environment where uncertainty becomes a source of creativity. Achieving this requires a different set of emotions from those that normally prevail in companies, emotions which are closely connected to a sense of self-worth and to No Fear. To sum up, the quest for innovation is an exciting new adventure and, best of all, it is within everyone’s grasp. Technological problems can no longer be cited as an excuse; nowadays, any organisation and indeed any person can set out on the path to innovation.
Pilar Jericó and Marta Romo
First published in Spanish in CanalCeo, 2 December 2011

10 rules for changing habits: the Habit Formula

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:55:07 +0000

The formula: H=N+F+K

Habit = Need + Frequency + Knowledge

Take stock of your situation… I need to change!
Choose and define the habit you want to acquire. Choose only one!
Stop making excuses, and analyse the ‘bad’ habits of yours that are going to make acquiring the new one difficult.
Decide how you are going to reinforce the new habit through repetition. Design your own system!
Spend at least 5 minutes a day, every day, on your new habit.
Get the support of others. Tell those close to you about what you are trying to achieve.
Seek out the right conditions to start the process. Don’t make things more difficult for yourself than they need to be.
Keep a record of your actions and talk to those close to you about your successes and setbacks.
Pavlov works, and endorphins do, too… So give yourself rewards from time to time!
Keep on persevering and repeating … and in 21 days you’ll have created a new habit!

Emotional lows

Pilar — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:52:53 +0000

We are currently in the midst of a major economic crisis which is taking a huge emotional toll on many people. This is a period when everything seems to be falling apart and there is no place for optimism. What’s more, feelings of hopelessness like this can last for hours, days or even months (failed plans, the break-up of relationships, being fired …). However, the difficult times on our lives do have an inner meaning. Throughout history, all heroes –whether of myth, legend or religion- have had to contend with their own particular emotional trials. This has led them to re-connect with their own fragility, to become more human, and to ready themselves for the next stage of their journey, even if the price to pay is the bitter pill of defeat. Nevertheless, accepting defeat is but the beginning of the process, and is merely glimpsing the light far away at the end of the tunnel. Dante is able to open the gates of heaven only after he has descended to hell. And the same is true for the rest of us.

The ‘magic’ of the emotional troughs that we go through in our lives is that they sweep away our old way of thinking, even though the process is very painful. It’s only when this has happened that we are capable of exploring new ways of looking at life. And just as there is no dawn without night, so there is no transformation or learning without humility. The knights of medieval times knelt when they were made knights; getting down on their knees was a symbol of their humility, which comes from the Latin humus, meaning earth. And in the same way, only when we fall and question ourselves to our core –when we are humble- can a process of inner discovery and transformation take place.

There’s no need to go looking for emotional turmoil in our lives– it will find us. That being the case, let’s look at some of the keys that can help us to overcome it as quickly as possible:

1. Own up to how you are feeling. If you are feeling sad, you mustn’t deny it– your emotions are what they are. Some things hurt us, and accepting this is the first step to overcoming them.

2. Put distance between yourself and your emotions. Once you’ve admitted how you are feeling, you need to contemplate your emotions from as far away as possible. We are not our emotions or our thoughts; we are something far greater, and have the ability to re-create ourselves.

3. Forgive. Very often, emotional upheavals put us face-to-face with our past mistakes. We are not perfect, although we spend a lot of the time trying to be. Forgiving the other person and/or ourselves is another essential step in finding the light at the end of the tunnel.

4. Creativity. Finding creative outlets during times of sadness is an excellent way of channelling our energies in a positive direction. Writing, painting, cooking … there are many things that can put us in touch with our natural creativity

5. Be grateful. In spite of everything, even when we are plunged in the deepest despair (or the dark night, as St. John of the Cross says), we are blessed by the simple fact that we are alive. As I wrote in a previous post, enthusiasm is an inner emotion that comes to the surface if we are grateful for what we have. Therefore, reflecting daily on those things for which we are truly thankful is a very good way of helping us get through the most trying of times.

Three cheers for enthusiasm

Pilar — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:24:46 +0000

We really are very lucky. I know that this may sound rather hollow in the light of over 4 million people out of work in Spain, and persistently gloomy economic news. But if we keep things in perspective, we’re bound to reach the conclusion that we’re fortunate to be alive today and not at some time in the past.

Barely 150 years ago, life expectancy in Spain didn’t reach 40, and only a quarter of the population could read and write; and of course, working conditions were far worse, and many rights which we now take for granted simply did not exist. And even today, despite the despondency in Spain and much of Europe, many countries in Latin America and Asia are experiencing double-digit growth, and the prevailing mood there is far from pessimistic. In Spain, in contrast, we are sad.

Spanish companies are expectantly waiting for political decisions designed to refloat the economy; nevertheless, each of us cannot turn a blind eye to what we as individuals can do to help overcome the current malaise. Every organisation is characterised by a prevailing climate which all its members, to a greater or lesser extent, contribute to. And it’s difficult for companies to compete if they’re mired in apathy, or to envision a new future if they’re bogged down by nostalgia for the good times that may never come back. We are not going through a common-or-garden economic crisis; we are living in a time of historic change. However, despite the negative connotations that this may have, the current situation is infinitely better than the lot which fell to any of our ancestors.

At the moment, apart from structural change, we are also in great need of enthusiasm, a word which comes from en-teos, or inner divinity. Enthusiasm doesn’t come from something outside ourselves; rather, it is something that springs from within, and is nurtured or dampened by every decision that we take, in our inner dialogue with ourselves, and in our interaction with others. These are not easy times, as we all know, but if we start to look at things differently, we will have more strength to face up to the challenges before us, and to change the collective mindset that currently holds us in its thrall.

First published in Spanish in Expansión.com 30/09/2011