Entries from January 2008 ↓

How do you know what to improve? How do you know you actually improved?

Simple answer – beg for feedback.

I learn from everybody. Everybody is invaluable source for insights and new angles on what I do and how I can improve it. The trick is to identify most valuable feedback providers. I manage simple list of my life projects – family, work, social life, and few more. To improve in each project I treat everybody involved as a customer. My customers, managers, family members, colleagues, and reports are all customers for me. They are most valuable feedback providers. To help my customers give me constructive feedback I ask simple questions like “what you like/hate most with this?”, “what should I keep/change/stop doing?”.

Tune your radio dial to “Intention” wave

It is nice to hear “good stuff” or “very cool” as a feedback. Nice but nothing more. I cannot learn anything from it. If it is good I’d know that already since I was working on it based on previous feedback. Tell me what is NOT good. That way I can learn and focus my improvements effort. Get prepared to receive harsh feedback. That should not be a problem at all. I adopted radio dial metaphor – I tune myself into positive wave and always try to extract value ignoring the way it was expressed.

Family

My wife and I just celebrated our 10th anniversary since we are together. We admitted both that the fact we never fight is our biggest achievement. This was achieved by giving each other honest and constructive feedback. I challenge my 8 and 3 years old daughters with provoking questions trying to extract from them what they want most from their daddy. It is cell phone of course…

Customers

Asking for continuous feedback keeps on track both me and the customers. I set expectations at the beginning and make sure they are met along the way. Avoid surprises. Deliver what’s agreed and improve based on it.

Managers

Do not take responsibility of not hitting the goal. It is your manager responsibility. Your manager is responsible of setting the goal and paving the path to it. You are responsible for acting according to it. Continuous feedback helps prove the goal is achievable, the path has solid ground, and the actions aligned.

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” - Bill Gates

Do you like surprises?

I do not like surprises – of any kind. The only effective way I found to avoid getting surprised is planning ahead. When not planning ahead expect surprises. Then plan to handle the surprises.

I In “The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership” John C. Maxwell outlines how to plan ahead:

Adopting and adapting this technique helped me achieve better results in each life project I care.

Results – myself

I invest my efforts in developing self control, blogging, and body. My goal’s to control my emotions, post 2 times a week to each of my 2 blogs, and loose weight to 86 kilograms. So far I keep up with the pace - I am calm, 4 blogs a week, and 86 kilograms.

Results – family

Planning ahead helps my wife and I balancing our duties. No surprises. Our kids know when they get their daddy systematically. Fully dedicated - no interruption. I have quality time with my parents to absorb their wisdom.

Results – work.

I am aware where I am at with each project. What the next action is. When to expect to be praised or criticized. No surprises.

Results – social cycles.

I manage to keep up with monthly meetings with my old friends. Having a good laugh during lunch time - is not it a great achievement these days?

“A man who does not plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door” - Confucius

Proactively planning is small investment with huge ROI. Plan ahead, even when not planning or get your back up plan handy.

The Leadership Pill book helped me answer this question. Just count to three.

One for Integrity. If your manager walks his talk. If your manager backs you up. If your managers shares his values with you and sticks to it. If your manager really mad at you when you break the rules you both agreed on. This manager is for you.

Two for partnership. If your manager pulls you up. If your manager is keen to hear bad news. If your managers mentors you. If your manager treats you not just like the others. If your manager plays to your strengths. This manager is for you.

Three for affirmation. If your manager recognizes your achievements, even smallest ones. If your manager reflects your achievements to his management. If your manager recognizes your failures offering solution how to improve. This manager is for you.

Count to three.

“An employee’s motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.” - Bob Nelson

Business growth is a daily mantra in management circles. At least this is what I’ve noticed. But what growth means is different to different people. For some it is more customers base, for others more revenue.

This is what growth means to me:

Grow expertise. I strongly believe that being the best is a key to success. A colleague of mine told me today that being the only one is even better. Constant learning and research build expertise. Constant trial and error approach builds even more expertise. Then back to learning and even more research adds to success while motivated by failures and errors. Phil Gerbyshak offers  to become an expert in his More Tips to Recession Proof Your Career. I am with you, Phil.

Grow your focus. Focusing on specific area builds deep expertise. From Tim Ferriss’ 4 hour work week book:

From the law #1 from The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding 

"Customers want brands that are narrow"

Grow personal productivity. Removing logistics and operations costs in terms of time and energy create more opportunities to build more expertise [see first bullet]. Adopting simple habits and procedures streamline productivity and effectiveness and removes friction.

Grow personal network. Being the best is one man show. Being part of the super stars team is sure fire win. It allows building even more expertise for each member. Each one adds to the overall team’s expertise. From Building Your Advice-and-Counsel Network:

"No lead, no matter how capable and energetic, can do it all."

Grow personal confidence. Confidence is critical to building trust. Confidence can be fake, but when the confidence is built on top of the expertise it is true one.

The rest will come. What customer will say “No” to trustful productive expert backed by few others like this?

How many times you participated in a meeting where everything is absolutely clear – tasks, outcomes, schedules, how-to’s – everything but clear deliverable’s owner? Like “John brings beers tomorrow” or “Mary gets tickets by Tuesday”. Instead I witness things like “It is our common responsibility”, “Beers must be bought”, “We need to invite him to give a keynote speak”. The result? Everyone agrees but the task has no owner and it dies before it is even started.

Why it happens? May be because we assume too much? May be we really believe in things like “it goes without saying”. I witnessed way too many failures to deliver when clear individual assignments not set.

To avoid such failures I adopted simple rule of asking simple question to make things clear “Who does what by when to get this on the table?”

What’s usually overseen

This. The deliverable. The owner and the rest of the gang know what to bring back on the table when the deadline flies by. Usually it is well defined outcome – the main reason why.

When. The dead line. The owner must plan his path of action in timely manner to make it happen. It is also usually well known and accepted by all.

What. Path of action. Everybody knows and agrees what’s needed to be done. It helps to identify road bumps that can slow down the delivery and hit the deadline. The "what" is discovered through the discussion and then usually agreed.

What’s usually overlooked

Who. The owner. It is the guy who is responsible for failure or success of the outcome, of the deliverable. This name must be tightly coupled to the outcome and communicated to related audience. This part is overlooked way too often.

Opportunity

Lack of owner creates an opportunity to be one. Owning impactful deliverable can get you closer to your goals or even create new more attracting ones.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas Alva Edison