It’s easier to say than do. Or is it?

In the book Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success the authors offer prescriptive strategies that were scientifically proven to work and help change happen. There are basically 4 key strategies that focus on crucial moments, vital behaviors, 6 sources of influence, and good data. I decided to test it and make a personal change – lose weight applying the strategies. I was able to shed 3 Kg (~6.5 lbs.) last month, and I am now on the monthly sprint to shed another 3.

Strategy # 1: Identify Crucial Moments

The authors write:

“When it comes to personal change, you don’t have to be pushing yourself to the limits all the time. You need to focus on only a handful of moments when you’re most at risk.”

Since it relates to time I decided to make it simple and set time boundaries when I should not eat carbs rich foods. I decided to stop consuming carbs rich foods after 7pm. This is how I motivated it: carbs are fuel needed to generate energy to move my body. When I am not active I don’t need carbs. I am least active in the evenings and when I go to bed. If I consume much of carbs but never use it, it will turn to fat. That’s it, as simple as that. No carbs after 7pm – this was my crucial moment.

Strategy #2: Create Vital Behaviors

The authors write:

“Once you’ve identified your crucial moments, our next task is to create the rules you’ll follow when temptation pays you a visit. … you’ll want to set specific rules (not vague guidelines) that guide you to act in ways that eventually lead to what you want.”

One rule I made was very clear – no carbs rich foods. It’s pretty hard to resist the temptation and I wanted it to be also fun vs. torture, so I made a distinction what carbs rich foods mean. It was anything made of flour, crackers, cookies, bread, snacks, rice, potatoes, and related. Another vital behavior was mentally marking my pantry as a red zone. Any time I was instinctively approaching pantry to grab a snack I was putting myself on alert. It usually ended up with couple of raisins or an apple being taken away from the pantry..

Strategy #3: Engage All 6 Sources of Influence

The authors write:

“Having identified your crucial moments and vital behaviors,you now have to develop a change plan to get yourself to recognize those moments and engage in those behaviors… The only reasonable way to battle the wide world out there, which is so perfectly organized to keep you making the same mistakes, is to use all six sources of influence in combination.”

The 6 sources of influence are:

• Personal Ability. I felt I could easily do it. 
• Personal Motivation. I had personal motivation as just a challenge and also wanting to get into my perceived normal weight.
• Social Ability. I posted about the no carbs after 7pm sprint on Facebook. Few people reached out to me offering their insight how to cope with the situation and be more effective and successful. I picked few insights that helped me.
• Social Motivation. M friends – those on Facebook and in real life started to talk about it with me and encouraging in what I am doing.
• Organization Ability. My organization, my family, was able to create an environment where I could easily stick with the new habit. Biggest kudos go to my wife who’s best chef ever. She never tried to seduce me with carb rich foods after 7pm…
• Organization Motivation. My kids do sports and very active at that. My wife also goes to sport classes. All that created motivating environment to keep up with the sprint without major struggle.

Read more about the Six Sources of Influence.

Strategy #4: Turn Bad Days into Good Data

The authors write:

“In the face of what feels like abject failure, you’ll become either depressed or curious. …If you become curious, you’ll step back and examine the data, learn from what just happened, and then adjust the plan. …or you can experience the very same setback, become curious, and turn a bad day into good data”

In my case the bad days were when I actually ate carbs rich foods after 7pm. Another view on bad days could be when I could not shed even smallest weight despite not consuming carbs rich foods after 7pm. I became curious why this could be. One reason to that could be that it takes time to show results in the long run. This idea motivated me to stick with the experiment and it paid off by the end of the 30 day sprint – now I am at the begging of another sprint and I am motivated even more, last time I was able to change myself effectively – there is no reason I cannot do it once more. I am now on 30 day sprint no carbs after 3pm.

image by rolands.lakis

The 9 Building Blocks

• Customer Segments. An organization serves one or several Customer Segments
• Value Proposition. It seeks to solve customer problems and satisfy customer needs with value proposition.
• Channels. Value propositions are delivered to customers through communications, distribution, and sales Channels.
• Customer Relationships. Customer relationships are established and maintained with each Customer Segment.
• Revenue Streams. Revenue streams result from value propositions successfully offered to customers.
• Key resources. Key resources are the assets required to offer and deliver the previously described elements…
• Key Activities… by performing a number of Key activities
• Key Partnerships. Some activities are outsourced and some resources are acquired outside the enterprise.
• Cost Structure. The business model elements result in the cost structure

The Business Model Canvas

The steps to use the canvas are pretty simple as outlined in the book:

• • Plot the canvas on the poster
  • Put the poster on the wall
  • Sketch out your business model

Easy, eh?

image by @boetter

My biggest takeaways from the  book is a marketing mindset I should have as a consultant and also the prescriptive guidance on how to build my marketing strategy.

Here is my distillation. Read on…

Consultant’s Marketing Mindset

The authors of the book provide an attributes of guerilla marketing for consultants. These attributes helped me to get into the mindset of eternal demand creation for my services I offer as a consultant. And that’s the essence of any marketing – creating the demand.

• [Marketing]Is the business. This attribute reminds me that I am in constant contact with a customer which is just perfect situation to market my service, and that’s not by running the halls yelling “me! me!! me!!!” rather by delivering first class services. Quietly. Results speak louder than blah blah blah.
• Focused message. This attribute reminds me I should be delivering narrow range of services . I deliver performance and security services. I am a SME [subject matter expert], not a generalist.
• Insight-based. This attribute reminds me that I must not keep IP [intellectual property] to myself rather readily share it with a customer [unless there is a violation of some policy or law]. Telling a customer “I will tell you how to do it after you sign a contract” is wrong. Better off to share the overall approach of the solution to customer’s problem generating demand for more detailed engagement.
• Build intellectual assets. This attribute reminds me to keep sharing the knowledge via my professional blog. This is the best investment I have made when it comes to marketing to customers, my managers, and potential employers.
• Build client relationships. This attribute reminds me to not only strive to full engagement with a customers but also to cherish the connections. These connections serve me well when it comes to market research, leads, and referrals. Or a friendship.
• Enhance profit. This attribute reminds me that marketing is done to enhance my profits, not the philanthropy [at least at this stage of my career]. It helps me targeting my efforts to niches with more pain. The more pain, the more demand for SME’s.
• Reveal reality. This attribute reminds me I should share what I have witnessed – without beautifying or hiding parts of the reality. Clients are smart beasts, they spot fake in no time.
• Listen and serve. This attribute reminds me that marketing does not end by throwing stuff in the air – it reminds me I need to listen to reactions and act when there is a demand, even when no budget is allocated for it.
• One size fits none. This attribute reminds me that marketing, like life, is ongoing experiment – there is no rules. The only rule is “do what works, if it does not work – stop doing it.”
• Create markets. This attribute reminds me to be an entrepreneur, or inntrapreneur, or event soloreneur. It reminds me I cannot totally depend on someone else to create a market for my services.

Consultant Marketing Vision

The authors of the book offer extremely dense and prescriptive guidance on how to build a marketing strategy. I used it with my managers to get my message across. I think it clicked. Here is the guidance:

1. Sentence one explains the purpose of your marketing.
2. Sentence two explains how you achieve that purpose by describing the substantive benefits you provide to clients.
3. Sentence three describes your target markets(s).
4. Sentence four describes your niche.
5. Sentence five outlines the marketing weapons you will use.
6. Sentence six reveals the identity of your business.
7. Sentence seven provides your marketing budgets

Write your answers and see if your strategy sticks.

Practice This – Get Results

• Get Consultant’s Marketing mindset – focus your marketing efforts on high impact stuff.
• Follow 7 steps to build your marketing vision – if it sticks you’ll be just fine. If not, refine until it does.
• Read Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants: Breakthrough Tactics for Winning Profitable Clients – it’s loaded with insights from the guys who got results, not fluff.

My Related Posts

• Remarkable Marketing By Seth Godin
• From Part Time Aspiring Blogger To Marketing Top Gun
• Basic Instincts And Marketing

In her Four Ways to Improve Your Team’s Performance Daisy Wademan Dowling digests New York Times article about Tom Donnelly’s strategy of building a winning team:

Spend as much time with the slowest runner as with the fastest.

Take away performance pressure by adding perspective — and fun.

Accept inevitable setbacks — and move past them quickly.

Let the team’s performance be its own reward.

It resonated with me so much I decided to share my stories too:

Cherish The Top Performer, Mentor The Rest

I have witnessed two common practices during my career. (I have 14 years and 12 managers under my belt, does it count?)

• Spotlight top performers. In this case top performers get all the attention, all the time. No time is invested in developing the juniors. The result usually was burnout for top performers and fixing problems caused by untrained juniors. The bottom line: you lose both.
• Train, coach, mentor the junior. The other extreme is investing all the energy into the juniors without making time for top performers. The most vague response I personally heard was “I know you can handle it, so why would I bother making myself available for you?”. Dude, you have just lost your top performer’s trust in you. You have just lost your top performer. How long would it take you to raise another one?

Spend as much time with the slowest runner as with the fastest.

Results, Results, Results

End results are all that matters. Almost. How the team gets the results is the secret ingredient. One way to get results is squeeze it, the other tease it.

Two short stories.

Once I was told “We will decide and you will just do it”. By the way, “we” did not include me. I could disagree and start arguing which would be a pure career limiting move. So I agreed but did it my way – which was completely different from what “They” decided. Yet in the end, I produced the results “They” wanted….

The other day a perspective was shared with me, not a very shiny perspective for the whole team. It moved me and I decided to go beyond what I am usually supposed. The move I have made helped a member of the team improving the overall team’s performance.

Sharing perspective worked better than just pressing me to work harder.

Take away performance pressure by adding perspective — and fun.

Motivated By Failure

What motivates me a lot when I face with a challenge, let alone failure, is a quote I found in Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich :

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake – FRANK WILCZEK, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics.

Mistakes and failures are part of my life, the trick is how I treat them. I can go around and blame the world for the failure. Or I can change what’s under my control – ME.

Change the way you think, change the way you act. BOOM! Success.

Accept inevitable setbacks — and move past them quickly.

Top Performance Is The Reward

What would you prefer? The trophy that collects dust on the shelf or a great change you are responsible for? I’d feel very eroded having a trophy without making a serious impact. The other question is – would you be able to make a serious impact alone, without relying on your peers? – NO!

My biggest strength is my network I have cherished for so long. My wins are due to the support of the network – it goes beyond the team of colleagues. My family, my friends, my mentors, my dog . When I perform at my best here is what happens:

• Family gets happy high energy son, daddy, and hubby
• Colleagues get a peer who’s willing to share the knowledge and success recipes
• Managers get motivated and focused employee ready for the next fight
• Friends get a crazy guy telling funny stories that never says NO to the invitation to go drink a few beers.

Let the team’s performance be its own reward.

Practice This – Get Results

• Invest time in both winner and rookie  – keep the former and grow the latter.
• Share vision for the result vs. press for result – Get that result.

My Related Posts

• Creatures Of Logic And Creatures Of Emotion
• Become The Next Great Mind – Now
• Mark Twain Quotes – Motivation Super Power (WARNING – Addicting)

Editor in chief – Jimmy May

Managers, Consultants, Parents! Consider adopting it. I tried it and it perfectly works. Here is the recipe:

• Don’t dictate — inspire
• Don’t direct — win people to your way of thinking
• Begin with praise and honest appreciation
• Build morale and earn loyalty
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
• Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to

For Managers

Dear Manager! Care to make your reports to do their best work? Hell, of course you do. If so, read this carefully and practice this: 

• Don’t dictate — inspire. If you dictate you kill the spirit of innovation.
• Don’t direct — win people to your way of thinking. If you direct you will never get folks to buy in, and that means you will have to direct more. If you make others buy in, your team would operate independently and you could go home much earlier… 
• Begin with praise and honest appreciation. The only reason you still have your position is because of your reports. Respect!
• Build morale and earn loyalty. I know you go through tough times these days. You need loyal reports more than ever. 
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Are you a military man? No? Then stop giving orders. There are reasons why your orders might be disconnected from the “reality”. Ask questions.
• Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. Is there a reason why you are not running the halls bragging what a great workers you have? Your reports are the best people you can get, brag about them. What stops you to do so? Try it, and you’ll get loyal and inspired reports doing their best work in return.

For Consultants

I hear here and there that consultants come into the customers’ and start shooting off the heap advices without understanding the customer’s pain. I am a big fan of best practices that are common and almost universally applicable. But. To win customers’ hearts consultant must show he understands the uniqueness of the customer, once there only then offer advices.

• Don’t dictate — inspire. Share with the customers your previous successful practices, inspire to adopt your way.
• Don’t direct — win people to your way of thinking. Offer the customer the choices and let him pick from the collection.  
• Begin with praise and honest appreciation. All business are the same, but your customers’ is unique. Tat is why they still win the competition.  
• Build morale and earn loyalty. Trust is the only single thing that will help you to grow. Never compromise it. 
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Usually it reveals the problem and the solution. In 99% of my gigs asking the right questions showed the customer can handle the situation himself. It was the matter of asking the right focused questions.
• Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. Consultant, when the problem solved show it’s done by the customer, not by you (see the previous bullet).

For Parents

It’s all about leadership. Managers lead their reports (I know there is a dispute about what’s the difference between Managers and Leaders though), Consultants lead their customers. It’s no different with Parenting – Parents lead their kids.

• Don’t dictate — inspire.  Raise free will open minded kid. 
• Don’t direct — win people to your way of thinking. Make your kid adopt you as a role model. 
• Begin with praise and honest appreciation. This is what your kid will do to the others.
• Build morale and earn loyalty. When your kids will get into the troubles you will know it first hand. One of my friends died just because of being afraid to tell the truth to parents.
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. You can actually learn it from your kids. 
• Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. Raise high self esteem kids.

From the newsletter:

“When we are dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”- Dale Carnegie

Practice This – Get Results

• Read the post from the beginning.

My Related Posts

• John Wooden’s 12 Lessons In Leadership [For Kids]
• The Best Advice For Any Manager
• Consulting – What’s The Deal?
• 3 Things Customers Really Want

My take is this – you teach and lead your kids by example.

I was reading Compromise Can Be an Act of Leadership article by John Baldoni at HarvardBusiness.org. Baldoni is a leadership consultant and a coach. He offers simple recipe for Compromise as an act of leadership:

• Think outcome.
• Find common ground.
• Celebrate the union.

I used it in practice with extreme success when I let my 9 years old daughter down.

Daddy Is Late

My kid was going to perform during her school’s annual festival. We set the time when I should arrive to witness her talent and success. I arrived exactly on time. But…when I came the show was over. She was standing on the stage together with her friends looking at me with eyes full of tears. She felt let down. I felt even worse. I let down my own kid. What a daddy…

Think Outcome

I could excuse myself that I came exactly at the time we set. Who cares? I was not there when she needed me, no matter who’s fault it is.

Then it struck me! Use situational leadership. Use the situation to teach her values. Teach her to think outcome. Teach here to think improvement.

Find Common Ground

She approached me and the avalanches of blame were thrown at me endlessly. I looked at her embarrassed showing I am wrong and she is right. When she choked with her own tears I had a chance to speak: “Darling, I made a mistake. I let you down, and I am deeply sorry for that.” She was disarmed.

First common ground was found – that was easy. We both knew I am wrong and she is right.

I gave her a hug and asked: “Darling, what should your daddy do to make sure it never happens again?”

Celebrate The Union

We spoke and agreed on set of techniques to help me so that I won’t let her down again. The conversation was developing and then we became friends again.

At that point I took step back. I felt it was good time to summarize the lesson we have just learned. I told her that it’s always better to focus on future improvements rather ruminate about the past. Mistakes are part of life, the question is what we spend our energy on – is it accusing each other or do we spend our energy on learning and improvement?

What do you think was her answer?

That evening she had another fight with her 4 year old little sister over a broken toy. She started to loudly accuse her at first but then she stopped abruptly and started to explain how to treat her toys without breaking it.

The lesson was taught and applied in practice. She became a leader. I am curious what have the youngster learned from this?

“There is luxury in self reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.” – Oscar Wilde

Practice This – Get Results

• Think outcome, do not be right, be smart – growth is all about outcomes.
• Practice Wooden’s 12 leadership lessons – they are universal. Sports, business, parenting – you name it. 
• EQ (Emotional Intelligence) is your friend. Practice and master the “Park” technique – influence without authority starts here. 

My Related Posts

• John Wooden’s 12 Lessons In Leadership [For Kids]
• Emotional Intelligence – Core Skills
• Become The Next Great Mind – Now
• Is Becoming A Leader Actionable And Attainable For All?

Editor in chief – Jimmy May

“Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Discuss People

I say, discuss people but do not dwell on it. Find the role models, learn what they have done to achieve their results.

• Find the role model.
• Research on the guy using online search and social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
• Research the guy’s blog.
• Share your observations with your friends.
• Get connected, build your network.

Discuss Events

I say,  discuss events. Our world’s pace is getting faster and faster. There is no sign it’ll change. But how do you follow after what’s going on? How do you focus on what matters and how do you weed out the rest?

• Listen to what your role models have to say.
• Set up alerts for keywords on search engines.
• Reverse engineer the event – find what was the root cause.
• Grab the inspirational idea behind the event.
• Model the pattern.

Discuss Ideas

Got an idea? Share it! Discuss it, create the buzz, ask for feedback like crazy. Make it sticky!

• Find the audience for the idea.
• Find the return on investment for your idea.
• Model the success (always as a win win).
• Get listeners to buy in.

But is it enough to just discuss the ideas to become the next great mind? No!

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it. “ – Thomas A. Edison

Practice This – Get Results

• Start the conversation – with your friends, with your colleagues, with your boss, with your family, with me. Build and strengthen your network.
• Discuss ideas – put your craziest ideas on the table. Draw the attention. People will relate to you as an innovator. It is a valuable brand these days.
• Do not just throw ideas to the wind. Use it, show results, show it actually works.

My Related Posts

• Basic Instincts And Marketing
• Ask Your Customers’ Friends – Your Growth Hides There
• How to Use Outlook 2007 RSS To Effectively Aggregate And Distill Information

by kalandrakas

Improving Process – Kaizen Way

In order to improve your results Masaaki Imai, the author of Kaizen: The Key To Japan’s Competitive Success, recommends improving your process. To improve your process you focus on the following:

• Discipline.
• Time Management.
• Skill Development.
• Participation and Involvement.
• Morale.
• Communication.

Taking The Kaizen Way Of Process Improvement

This is my take on personal improvement mapped to the above focus areas:

• Discipline.
• The Power Of Saying “No”
• Keep Your Inbox Clean , Stay Focused And Productive – My 4 Simple Rules
• Emotional Intelligence – Core Skills
• Time Management.
• Time Is Not Money. Time Is Budget.
• Prioritize What You Do – Steven Covey Way [The Way That Works]
• Effective Time Management With Vista Sidebar
• Skill Development.
• Grow Quality – Not Quantity
• Microsoft vs. Google – Competing For GTD
• Learning Capability Is Your Core Competitive Advantage
• Participation and Involvement.
• TechEd 2007 Barcelona – Web Application Security Session Sum Up
• Do Not Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye
• Morale.
• Meet My Mentors – Bruce Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Thomas Edison
• Practical Advice By Lt. Col. Frank Slade For Tango And Life
• My Values And Their Salary
• Communication.
• Basic Skills For Effective Public Speaking
• Dale Carnegie’s Recipe For Effective Public Speaking
• Manage Your Manager For Fun And For Profit

Am I on track? Are you?

I particularly loved the following lesson:

Lesson Number Ten: If you are a leader, the people are your work. There is no other work worth doing.

Leader, Practice This

If you are a leader these can help you do your work:

• Ask your people "do you have a dream?".
• The Carrot Is Mightier Than A Stick.
• Let your team play, make it a game.
• Build vulnerability based trust.
• Emotional intelligence is your friend. Park your emotions.
• Partner with your people. Do not just direct.
• Affirm accomplishments of your people – personally and publicly. Brag about your team!

Here is great simple checklist of failed projects that can be  easily applied to your project too. Taken from 12 characteristics of doomed projects:

• Doesn’t meet expectations.
• Lacks change management processes.
• Lacks project sponsorship.
• Insufficient resources or budget are available.
• Team doesn’t report or escalate critical problems quickly.
• No risk planning.
• Schedule delays and missed commitments are rampant.
• Project is over-budget with no end in sight.
• Low morale is a problem.
• Uncontrolled scope creep abounds.
• Project direction and end-game aren’t clear.
• Showstoppers haven’t been identified.

Start asking these questions and make your project successful.

Kaizen is what Japanese apply when they want to improve and become more productive.

by lenaibojcdruz

Kaizen (??, Japanese for "improvement") is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life.

5 strategies

There are only few simple principles for Kaizen implementation. They are referred as 5S’s. This is how Masaaki Imai outlines it in his book Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management:

1. Sort – Separate everything unnecessary and get rid of it. Put a red tag on unnecessary items (for example, unused machines), then remove them.
2. Straighten – Put key items in order so they can be found readily. Straighten logically, so items can be located with a minimum of wasted effort.
3. Scrub – Tools and workplaces should be clean. Dirt and foreign particles can cause machinery to malfunction.
4. Systematize – Make a schedule for cleaning and for checking that all is in order. This ensures that housekeeping is maintained constantly.
5. Standardize – Make the preceding steps part of a regular process.

Does it work?

Yeah! Does it really work? Let’s see.

• Toyota. This company is kind of success, right? Here is what they do:

The Toyota Production System is known for kaizen, where all line personnel are expected to stop their moving production line in case of any abnormality and, along with their supervisor, suggest an improvement to resolve the abnormality which may initiate a kaizen.

• Myself. I think I am success. I am no millionaire. I am regular corporate worker. Then why I count myself for successful one? I like John Wooden’s definition for success and that is why I feel I am successful:

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable"  – John Wooden.

What Kaizen does have to do with me and my success? Let’s see:

1. Sort – Separate everything unnecessary and get rid of it. I practice Covey’s Important/Urgent quadrant to get rid of noise.
2. Straighten – Put key items in order so they can be found readily. I am a big fan of pipeline processing.
3. Scrub – Tools and workplaces should be clean. I am on tools diet. I just love utilizing familiar tools for different tasks, here are few examples:
   1. Effective Time Management With Vista Sidebar
   2. On Writing – John Lennon, Gerald M. Weinberg, Me, You, And Outlook 2007
   3. Security .Net Code Inspection Using Outlook 2007
4. Systematize – Make a schedule for cleaning and for checking that all is in order. I am a big fan of checklists. Here is the whole blueprint.
5. Standardize – Make the preceding steps part of a regular process. How about the whole lifecycle?

It seems I’ve been doing Kaizen all that time unconsciously. That is fine. I am only happy it worked great for me, only now I am even more confident in continuing doing it – continuous improvement, Kaizen.

Self Test

1. Do you separate important from noise? What’s your technique?
2. Are you processing your work in ordered manner? How do you order your work items?
3. Are you over-tooled, over-engineered? Do you have the tools to make your job done? Do you have more tools? Do you really need them?
4. Do you check yourself periodically? Daily, weekly, monthly, annually?
5. Do you have lifecycle plan of your work? Do you have lifecycle plan of your life? No? Then how do you know you are on track?

Wrong.

It is completely wrong, unless you are joining them to beat them. Beat them either harder or smarter. Better both.

by TOMOYOSHI

You are not a quitter. But sometimes you get to the point where you want to give up on your dream. You feed yourself with ton of excuses why you can’t do it. You want to quit and move on.

Do not quit, you can beat them. You can beat them all.

Struggle is the meaning

When I was reading Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich I stumbled on a very motivational quote:

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. – Frank Wilczek, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physics.

It really made an impact on me and every time I feel down, this one helps me to get up and move forward toward what I believe, The Dream.

It takes time to win

I am a big fan of “Fail Fast” approach. In a nutshell it means that investing in something must gain fast results. If the investment does not gain any results, if it fails – stop doing it, change the approach. It helps avoiding Pyrrhic Victory. However, never give up on the bigger goal, The Dream.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. -Albert Einstein

Struggle is your source of energy

In the The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal the authors identify 4 Dimensions Of Personal Power: Physical, Emotional, Mental, Spiritual. Their approach is based on tens of years of research and applied practice – they actually Practice This . Their take is that our Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual muscles must be periodically stretched in order to refill our personal power reservoirs. Keep fighting to be stronger.

What’s not killing me only makes me stronger – Friedrich Nietzsche

Beating smarter

How do I become a smarter fighter?

Try applying ancient proven patterns & practices of martial arts – take, for example, Judo – my favorite sport :

The word "judo" …  may mean "gentleness", "softness", "suppleness", and even "easy", depending on its context

The soft method is characterized by the indirect application of force to defeat an opponent. More specifically, it is the principle of using one’s opponent’s strength against him and adapting well to changing circumstances

Here is another great source of techniques to beating them smarter – The Thirty Six Strategies:

Whereas other Chinese military texts such as Sun Tzu The Art of War focus on military organization, leadership, and battlefield tactics, the Thirty Six Strategies are more suitably applied in the fields of politics, diplomacy, and espionage.

Take, fore example, this one:

19. Remove the firewood under the cooking pot.
When faced with an enemy too powerful to engage directly you must first weaken him by undermining his foundation and attacking his source of power.

The foundation

My take is that the foundation to becoming a smarter fighter is Emotional Intelligence.

Emotion Is Your Enemy – coach John Wooden.

Fight your enemy, become Emotionally Intelligent:

• Emotional Intelligence – Core Skills
• Emotional Intelligence – Higher Order Skills

Self test

• Do you have a Dream?
• Have you ever gave up on your Dream? How did you feel? Drained?
• Have you ever fulfilled your dream? How did you feel? Empowered, ready for another fight?
• Do you want to become a smarter fighter?
• Do you want to win you Dream?

I found the answers to almost all the questions in Gerald M. Weinberg book – Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach.

My favorite is how he defines leadership.

by JessicaFairchild.com

Leadership is the process of creating an environment in which people become empowered. – Gerald M. Weinberg.

I found out that this definition can be easily applied not only to technical leadership but to any kind of leadership.

Family

Are you creating an environment in which your kids and your partner become empowered? 

• Is your home a place where your family members long to be? Or each one seeks a reason to sneak outside if it?
• Are your kids passionately share their experiences they had in kindergarten or in the school? Or when you ask “How was your day?” you hear just “Fine”?
• Is you partner shares her deepest feelings, thoughts on life and work. Do you discuss a deeper meaning and then make love? Or you have transactional conversations and actions that sometimes concluded by just sex?

Work

Are you creating an environment in which your colleagues, managers, reports become empowered?

• Do you like coming to your work? Why?
• Do you like your office? Why?
• Do you like your colleagues? Why?
• Do your colleagues like you? Why?
• Are you writing emotionally intelligent emails that build rapport?
• Did you receive “Thank you!” email privately lately?
• Did you send “Thank you!” email privately lately?
• Are you genuinely interested in listening to what you colleague has to say?
• What’s your “street creds”?
• What nickname your co-workers gave you?
• What significant change you drove lately? How many followed?
• Are you “go-to” person for any subject of your interest/expertise?

Blogging

Are you creating an environment in which your blogofriends (real and virtual) become empowered?

• Are you commenting on other underdog blogs?
• Do your comments encourage discussion or are they self centric and self promotional?
• Are you giving link love?
• How many comments you get?
• Do you get link love back?
• Do you have loyal readers? How do you know?
• Did you get recently emails from your blogofriends asking for advice or help?

Self

Are you creating an environment in which you become empowered?

• Do you carve time for your life projects?
• Do you give priorities to do what you passionate about?
• Can you quickly list your goals?
• Can you quickly list your latest achievements in life and work?

Footnote

Becoming a leader looks actionable and attainable to me. I think you can easily become a leader. It is all about developing skills of creating environment that empowers people.

Mr. Universe doesn’t have more muscles than I do, just better developed ones. – Gerald M. Weinberg.

The best advice I’ve got from The Dream Manager book by Matthew Kelly – ask your employees “what’s their dream?”. Have you tried that?

by Cia de Foto

Ask your employees

What are you asking your employees? “Are you on track?” “Are you going to hit that goal?” ”How do you plan to cover that deficit?”, etc. These are all good questions. But there is more. Just ask “what’s your dream?”. As simple as that. “What’s your personal dream?”,  “What’s your career dream?”. What drives you every morning to get out of bed and come to work?

“You’ll be amazed at what they’ll tell us. Nobody knows the business like those who work in the trenches of it every day. Ask your employees. They know more than you think.” – Matthew Kelly, the author of The Dream Manager book.

I have managers too

Now let’s switch roles. How often you are asked by your managers that question “What’s your dream?”. I mean sincerely, with genuine desire to really know? I do not expect neither your nor my manager to be a shrink, but who would like to be just a tool to hit the goal. I would not. I’d rather like to be a passionate team member with shared goals, pardon, *dreams*.

The temptation is to convince yourself that your employees’ dreams are not relevant to your business. That is only true of your employees are not relevant to your business – and if that were true, why would your employ them?- Matthew Kelly, the author of The Dream Manager book.

What’s your dream?

I am selling the Most Valuable Product, the Experience. What are you selling (stop denying, we all sell something)? Does your customer get engaged easily? No? Neither mine. Then how do you engage with your customer?

You create a brand that is credible, compelling, and personally connected with the potential customer. 

by myuibe

This simple formula is expressed in William J. McEwen’s book Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life. How do you check your brand for credibility, compelling, and connecting? This is what the author suggest:

Credibility

• [Brand] is a name I can always trust.
• [Brand] always delivers on what they promise.
• [Brand] is a highly respected brand name.
• I know what [Brand] stands for and what makes them different

Compelling

• [Brand] sets the standard for all other brands to follow
• There is no other [product/service category] quite like [Brand]
• I can’t imaging a world without [Brand]
• [Owners/Buyers/Shoppers/Customers] rave about how great [Brand] is.

Connecting

• [Brand] is the perfect [product/service category] for people like me.
• I can easily imaging myself as a [Brand] [owner/shopper/buyer/customer]

“Brand promises that are Credible, present a Compelling offer, and manage to personally Connect will attract first dates. But far more than that, they will generate a special type of first date – one that set the stage for a continuing brand relationship” – William J. McEwen, the author.

Self check

Are *you* Credible, Compelling, and Connecting brand? Check yourself. Replace [Brand] with [My dad/mom] or [My husband/wife]. Is it still Credible, Compelling, Connected? Are you world greatest for your customer?

Yes, there is. John Wooden’s offers his Pyramid of Success as prescriptive guidance for success.

by varshesh

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable”  – John Wooden.

I used John Wooden pyramid as self test, an assessment. I tried to assess myself whether I follow proven practices for success or not. For each topic I’ve identified post I’ve published that relate. Assess yourself too. Are you on track?

Foundation

• Industriousness

“Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way”.

• Want To Achieve Results? Push Yourself Out Of Comfort Zone

• Friendship

“Strive to build a team filled with camaraderie and respect comrades-in-arms”

• Build A Tag Team

• Loyalty

“Be true to yourself. Be true to those you lead.”

• My Values And Their Salary

• Cooperation

“Have utmost concern what’s right rather than who’s right”

• Responsible For Dream Fulfillment

• Enthusiasm

“Your energy and enjoyment, drive and dedication will stimulate and greatly inspire others”

• Conclude The Day With Positive Reflection

Second Level

• Self-Control

“Control of your organization begins with control of yourself. Be disciplined.”

• Emotional Intelligence – Core Skills
• Plan Ahead Or Plan Your Back Up Plan
• Emotional Intelligence – Higher Order Skills
• Life Architecture For Personal Achievement

• Alertness

“Constantly be aware and observing. Always seek to improve yourself and the team.”

• Get Criticized – The More The Better

• Initiative

“Make a decision! Failure to act is often the biggest failure of all.”

• The Mindset Of Failure
• Motivated By Failure

• Intentness

“Stay the course. When thwarted try again; harder, smarter. Persevere relentlessly”

• Find Your Strengths, Know Your Life Purpose

Third Level

• Condition

“Ability may get you to the top, but character keeps you there – mental, moral, and physical”

• 4 Dimensions Of Personal Power

• Skill

“What a leader learns after you’ve learned it all counts most of all.”

• Personal Development Lifecycle
• Experience Is The Most Valuable Product

• Team Spirit

“The star of the team is the team ‘We’ supersedes ‘me’.”

• You Have Built A Team, Now What?

Fourth Level

• Poise

“Be yourself. Don’t be thrown off be events whether good or bad.”

• Do Not Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye
• One, Two , Three – Is This Manager For Me?
• About me

• Confidence

“The strongest steel is well-founded self-belief. It is earned, not given.”

• 3 Easy Steps To Become A Superhero
• Duck Or Eagle

Peak

• Competitive Greatness

“Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required each day.”

• Personal Performance Engineering Practices
• Learning Capability Is Your Core Competitive Advantage

Same rules apply.

I’ve been looking at John Wooden’s 12 lessons in leadership. It made a lot of sense for me to apply it in my personal life with my kids:

1. Good Values Attract Good People. What values do you teach your kid? 
2. Love Is The Most Powerful Four-Letter Word. Do you show your kid your love?
3. Call Yourself A Teacher. What have you taught your kids lately? 
4. Emotion Is Your Enemy. Keep cool, do not yell at your kids, they explore the world’s limits including yours. 
5. It Takes 10 hands To Make A Basket. What family tasks your kids is assigned to do? Is your kid a team player?
6. Little Things Make Big Things Happen. Do not constantly preach, show how to do things, small things.
7. Make Each Day Your Masterpiece. Read this least each morning. 
8. The Carrot Is Mightier Than A Stick. My kids taught me that. Not John. 
9. Make Greatness Attainable By All. Reward every even smallest achievements, make them hungry for bigger ones. 
10. Seek Significant Change. Self explanatory I guess…
11. Don’t Look At The Scoreboard. Enjoy the process.  
12. Adversity Is Your Asset. You kid is different from you. Do not break your kid to be like you. Learn from your kid to grow yourself.

I continued researching John Wooden web site and then I’ve noticed books section where I’ve spotted this one – Inch and Miles: The Journey to Success. This is next one to appear on my Must Read Books list very soon.

This post is inspired by short conversation I had with Vered over my previous post You Have Built A Team, Now What?

You got your Tag team of Superheroes that shares common Values, you’ve set the Goal, you’ve got The Most Valuable Product to sell. Now what?

You pass the ball to the team and watch the game.

by medium as muse

Pass the ball

I want to be a leader. Leadership cannot be assigned, it only can be earned. How do you earn your leadership? Here is how John C. Maxwell defines it in his The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You  book:

Here is my favorite leadership proverb: “He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.” If you can’t influence others, they won’t follow you. And if they won’t follow, you’re not a leader. That the Law of Influence. No matter what anybody else tells you, remember that leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.

So influence is the thing… how do you influence on your team members? You bark orders? You create their own space and let them realize themselves, while keeping in mind shared Values and striving to achieve common Goals. I liked how Tim Ferriss’ gives an example for it in his The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich book:

This intentional absence has enabled him to create a process-driven instead of founder-driven business. Limiting contact with managers forces the entrepreneur to develop operational rules that enable others to deal with problems themselves instead of calling for help.

When the game is over

How do you know that the game is over? The game is over is when the team does not need you any more. Here are the situations I witnessed:

• The team operates on its own, the team members become an Eagles, they just win the game time after time. They need another leadership or another leader to take them even further.
• You lost the game. How do you know you lost it? I like Collin Powell’s take:

“The day soldiers 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.”

Win the game

• Let them play, let them fail, let them win.
• Watch the game.
• Help the team members realize themselves – do not solve their problems, help them find the solution themselves.
• Know when to move in, move on, move out.

Are you winning the game?

How do you cope with tons of information in interconnected, interdependent flat world?

You continuously learn.

by lexdenn

These three questions are the core reasons that make learning a core capability according to Peter M. Senge and his book titled The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization.

Keep up with the exponentially growing pace

Set your own pace. Find Your Strengths, Know Your Life Purpose. Build an architecture of your own life. Develop yourself iteratively and in cycles.

Cope with information in interconnected world?

Paradoxically, I started to read more lately. I mean I started to read books. Yes, I am ashamed I never did it before. Here is the list of books I have read recently:

1. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
3. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
4. Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service
5. Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life
6. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
7. The Leadership Pill: The Missing Ingredient in Motivating People Today
8. The Handbook of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: Inspiring Others to Achieve Results
9. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal
10. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
11. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Ok, this one I read few years ago)
12. Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance
13. 45 EFFECTIVE WAYS FOR HIRING SMART: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game
14. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
15. The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

Reading books is time consuming. The following resources and techniques are much more effective and efficient for me:

• “Read” audio books utilizing drive time.
• Regularly read JD’s The Book Share where he distills gold nuggets from the books he reads. And he reads a lots of books.
• Subscribe to www.getAbstract.com/.
• Practice ninja techniques for RSS consumption. Readers do not read the Web – they scan the Web. This might be a good tip for bloggers to publish more readable or should I say scannable blogs with eyes friendly and effective layout.
• Never read in depth emails with knowledge nuggets, store it in dedicated folder for further re-use.

I am also regular reader of Mike King’s Learn This blog were he passionately shares new stuff he learns.

Consider adapting software performance engineering practices to day-to-day life. Here is an example how caching can improve your response times – The Fast And The Peaceful.

Overcome the failure of hierarchical organization

Find organization that resonates with your values. Speak your manager’s language and then Manage Your Manager For Fun And For Profit. Check periodically asking yourself One, Two , Three – Is This Manager For Me? Offer your work echo-system best Experience you can offer. There is no reports and managers. There are team members that are responsible for each one’s part. Build A Tag Team. Become a superhero, it is easy.

Footnote

“There are no mistakes in life, there are only lessons to be learned: Advice to the Youth.” – Mark Twain

Have a look at one of the most viewed videos to learn more. It might make you decide to start learning differently – Did You Know; Shift Happens – Globalization; Information Age

by Karpfish

Here is my take

• Plan Ahead Or Plan Your Back Up Plan.
• Hire potential, not skills.
• Commit on shared values.
• Build vulnerability-based Trust in Your Teams.
• Each member is an Eagle, not a Duck.
• Share knowledge and opportunities.
• Practice Emotional Intelligence Core and High Order Skills.
• Grow Quality – Not Quantity
• Personal accountability is key.
• Provide and ask for contionous feedback.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” - Henry Ford

Stomp Out Loud is my vision for how tag team should look like.