Entries from June 2007 ↓

This is test drive #3 announced in Practicing Colin Powell’s Rules.

What was in my practicing pipeline are:

• Collin’s “The day employees stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
• Leo’s “Give a full-body massage“.

Recently my good friend just used the same phrase with regards to employees and their problems, he said ”they just won’t bring you their problems anymore, so you sink slowly”.

I am looking back when I was team lead (today I am individual contributor and I do not have anybody to report to me). I recall that any time my team members were coming into my cubicle I used to put aside any work I was doing that time, disconnecting the phone and listening what they have to say. My approach was simple - if I listen and help them now I won’t be surprised afterwards. I earned trust among the team, and I had quite few surprises.

I can also reflect it to my little daughters - they are looking for my attention trying to tell their stories [==problems==] from kinder garden or from school. I know for sure if I do not listen to them now, no matter how tired I am, I will lose their trust so when they will grow up the train I missed will be far away…

Here is my practice:

I let people bring their problems, never compare theirs to mine. If I cannot help I try to encourage them by sharing my approach of The Mindset Of Failure

Leo, full-body massage never works!! At max, it gets to half-body quickly turning into greatest compliment I mentioned in Driven By Values, Sushi, And Great Sex :)

This is test drive #2 announced in Practicing Colin Powell’s Rules.

I was practicing

• Jason’s “Know your values, be consistent”
• Leo’s Cook a romantic dinner.

Here is my interpretation of values. Actually, very same Jason helped me to figure out my core coarse grained values after reading his Priorities for Tough Decisions. He has good punch line in the end (good place for the punch line I guess):

What’s more important:

• Career or family?
• Emotional comfort or thrilling risks?
• Material success or physical well being?
• Connection with others or time alone?

As for me, it is not black or white with above statements but it really helped me to be more focused.

• Family is most important for me, I would not trade my family happiness for great career.
• Emotional comfort is what keeps my family peaceful and happy, I like thrill but would never let it hurt my emotions that would for sure reflect on my family.
• Material success or physical well being? - Not sure why would one trade one for another, I think there is a room for both. I think I need to work on physical part - more practice ahead!
• If time with family counts toward “time alone” then it would be “time alone”.

Seems like my core value can be summarized by keeping my family happy, and then everything else comes together. I am happy I know it, thanks Jason!

“Cooking romantic” dinner was changed to “Show off with your home made sushi”. I have spectacularly prepared about 40 rolls of sushi in 15 minutes while hosting couple of friends. 10 minutes to boil rice in microwave while slicing veggies and the rest time for actually rolling it. Our friends were amazed by the speed of preparation and the taste - I know, I need some practice to master my modesty :). I got plenty compliments spoken out load - but the greatest compliment came after they left…

Conclusion - Jason and Leo, both tips work very well. Thank you.

Coming up next:

• Collin’s “The day employees stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”
• Leo’s “Give a full-body massage“.

“I don’t fear death because I don’t fear anything I don’t understand. When I start to think about it, I order a massage and it goes away.” - Hedy Lamarr

This is my first test drive post I announced in  Practicing Colin Powell’s Rules.

I was about to check the following rules:

• Colin’s “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.”  one of  Colin’s Powell’s rules to make things done
• Leo’s “Write a poem.” - as one of the 50 ways to be romantic on the cheap.

I started with “Pissing people off”. I decided to get some responsibility for creating some interactive and insightful conversation within my team of peers. I admit that we are buried with daily routine and do not have a chance to share our insights. I decided to create this chance - I sent out pretty controversial email to my peers about some professional subject. People started to comment. Some to the point some less, some neither - stayed silent but observing.

I killed the thread by telling the team that it was my experiment and that it gained some very positive results - professional areas to improve and niche players that actually can fill these areas and coach other team members. One of the feedbacks I got in person was “thanks for starting the thread, it showed we are alive and kicking”.

The poem part did not go exactly as described in the guide - I was time constrained so I decided to improvise. My emphasis was on the pronounce rather the content. The content was all over with “you” , “love”, “beautiful” and even more “love”. My eyes were rolling and hands are waving - I looked really stupid and unusual. The response was “you forgot to take your pills again?” while laughing out loud. I think it worked.

Practicing is fun.

Coming up next:

• Jason’s “Know your values, be consistent”
• Leo’s Cook a romantic dinner.

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” - Albert Einstein

I like Jason’s productivity and effectiveness posts - I am subscribed to his feed. He offer simple and practical stuff - just what I like.

After reading his How to Get Things Done - Colin Powell Version I decided to test drive Colin’s and Jason’s rules. I will be dedicating blog post for each rule and posting result it gained. To make it more fun I also will test drive 50 Ways to Be Romantic on the Cheap

Coming up next:

• Colin’s “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.”
• Leo’s “Write a poem.”

“If no one is pissed-off with you then you are dead but just haven’t figured it out yet.” - Tom Peters

There is no use in concentrating on something negative that happened. It’s happened. It’s gone. It is in the past. I observe too many people concentrating on “how bad it was” thing and depressing themselves and those that surround. Reminds me smoking - same effect. 

It is natural reaction to blame the whole world or yourself for failures. I used to do it too. It ate up my energy and motivation. It drained me.

I decided to change my practice and think of my failures as of dry facts. I look at this with ease and analyze. Why it happened? What I learned? What should I stop doing, start doing, or change?

The result of such simple practice is that I can anticipate similar failures and get prepared or even avoid it.

Reminds me aikido - “Aikido emphasizes joining with an attack and redirecting the attacker’s energy”.

Consider failure as your attacker and redirect its energy for goodness.

“Its not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” - Hans Selye