Knowledge Fulcrum

I recently read an interesting article about the effect that feeling helpless has on our emotional state and sense of control.

“Even the most laid back among us crave a sense of control, and when we feel helpless we scour our surroundings for anything that will restore predictability.  New research shows that when we lack control we don’t simply wait for order to return: we impose it, if only in our own minds, by imagining patterns and trends where none exist.

In six experiments, psychologist Jennifer Whitson of the University of Texas at Austin and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University manipulated subjects’ sense of control. Results showed that not having control caused participants to mistakenly see an image in a field of static, to smell conspiracy in other people’s benign behavior, to embrace superstitious  beliefs and to perceive nonexistent stock-market trends.  Such illusory perceptions evaporated when participants were first denied control but then given an opportunity to write about their most deeply held values, an activity that bolsters psychological security and quells feelings of helplessness.”

So I now ask myself: is it therapeutic to write as much as I do, and about what I do?  It might be considered therapeutic.  But I also know that I have something to say.  I know that I have experiences to bring to the table in this current economy. As I write, and when I write, I find myself taking stock of my experiences in my 20 year career.  I ask myself — how can I wield those experiences and invest them, infuse them into this blog so that readers, and as a collective, we can all change the course, and apply what we know.  There’s a galaxy of collective wisdom among us.  The best and brightest in our Nation’s Capitol are at work on the issues of our day.

I’m not sure that my craving for control is real because after all, what is “real” anyway?  I do believe that it’s our nature to express our thoughts and beliefs and in the process we constantly shape and re-shape our own sense of reality and control — the sense of ourselves to ourselves.

I have a son who’s 11 and a daughter who’s 8.

This speech is the most sobering thing I’ve seen in a long, long time.  Delivered in 1992 at the United Nations, it’s just as relevant, if not more so today that it was almost 20 years ago.  Give a listen.

The story goes something like this…

A couple is at home preparing a dinner of  beef roast together.  As  he starts to prepare the roast for the oven, he takes a knife and proceeds to cut both ends off.  Perplexed by his action his wife asks, “Why in the world are you wasting that meat?”  To which he replies, “This is how my father taught me to cook beef roast.”

Certain that something didn’t seem right, she calls his father to ask why.   The father’s response?  ”That’s how my mother prepared beef roast when I was young.”  They then called his grandmother.  They asked her why she  cut both ends of the roast off before putting it into the oven.   She calmly replied that it was ”…because my pan wasn’t big enough.”

This story illustrates how easy it is to take what happens in your organization as making sense.  At one time it may have, but chances are that it may not now make sense to keep doing it.  In my own experience, I estimated that 20% of what people did no longer made sense - it was just wasteful.  Reports were generated and distributed, which no one ever read, and procedures and processes were still followed diligently but no longer served a need.

The moral of this story?  Everyday – make a part of your daily rhythm an exercise where everyone stops to ask — why are we doing this? And is it adding value to our customers? I guarantee that if this hasn’t been a regular routine in your organization, then you’ll be shocked at how much “waste” just keeps happening.

This week I experienced two examples of what’s possible by living a truly purposeful life.  Both examples happened on the same day, at the same place, and for the same reasons – is that any surprise?

Example #1 – Makin’ Bac’n

How do you take something as simple as bacon and turn it into a business? I’d like you to meet Scott Kventon – the biggest fan of bacon I’ve ever met.  This week, Scott shared his story of the fast track start to his first business that went from concept to revenue in less than two months.  It’s the epitome of what a small group of passionate entrepreneurs can accomplish.

Scott’s the founder and inspiration behind the coolest site about bacon I’ve ever seen… http://bacn.com/.  In fact, it’s the first website about bacon I’ve ever seen.  Scott’s passion for the pig, coupled with his knowledge and endless energy, have resulted in a sustainable business that started from his garage.

So, what did I learn?  First, I learned more than I could have hoped about bacon.  He had me at “hello,” as I’ve been a fan of the pig for quite some time now.  More importantly, what I learned was that if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, you’d better watch out because there will be someone who is — and it’s likely they will kick your ass.

The next generation of entrepreneurs is a unique group of individuals.  They talk fast, they think fast, and they ACT fast!  On top of it all, they’re having fun.  If you can’t see this from BACN.COM, then you should unsubscribe from this blog and never come here again.  If it’s as clear as the nose on your face, then you get it.

Example #2 – Energizer Bunny

Take an empty office building, add a dose of brilliance — and you have NedSpace.  Josh Friedman and his partners are onto something big.

NedSpace is a new concept to me — providing rented desk space for young start-ups on the cheap.  The thing makes this such a value is not the $175/month desk but the ENERGY that you feel by being around other driven entrepreneurs.  By renting offices and desks to serial entrepreneurs, they provide an atmosphere that can’t be replicated by working from home.   NedSpace is a great concept which takes advantage of the glut of office space that’s out there, while creating a great environment for start-ups to work and collaborate.  My only question is — why don’t I have my office here?  Nicely done, Josh!

So much of what we hear today is focused on negative banter about what’s happened, who’s to blame, etc.  Maybe we need to spend more time talking and thinking about what is possible. 

We are beings driven by our conscious and sub-conscious minds.  Our behaviors are directly linked to our thoughts.  We control more than we realize.

I’ve been a huge fan of R. Buckminster Fuller for many years.  In his first book “Nine Chains to the Moon” Fuller coined the term ephemeralization – which refers to the ability of people to use technology advances to continuously do more with less.  His vision was that ephemeralization will result in an ever-increasing standard of living for an ever-growing population despite finite resources.

Here’s a simple illustration of this idea.  In 1520 Magellan spent 2 years sailing in a wooden boat around the globe.  350 years later steam ships could navigate the earth in just 2 months time.  75 years later an airplane, made of alloys, took  2 weeks to fly around the world.  35 years later a space capsule, made from exotic alloys, needed one hour to circle the earth.  The rate of advancement is increasing at an exponential rate.  

How has ephemeralization affected what is possible?  Talking and thinking about what is possible starts with you, and it starts with me.  We define how and what we can do to make our world different.  Maybe it’s simply spending 1 hour a day thinking about what’s possible for your life, dreaming of what will make your life better for you, your family, and your fellow humans without any limitations.  I do know that we cannot turn back time and change the place we find ourselves living in today.  We’re being carried to the doorstep of “necessity” – as it becomes increasingly clear that our past and current ways of dealing with our crisis won’t yield the desired results.  Today we have the opportunity to elevate our culture, our society, and ourselves beyond our primal urges.  We can exchange greed and fear for collaboration and acceptance.   And, we do this simply by our actions right now.  Perhaps a starting place would be to think about one small thing you can do today – now — that will begin to make your dream a reality.   Inaction is our only means of failure.

I traveled home to New Mexico earlier this week. 

Tuesday morning was the perfect New Mexico dawn.  I miss the warmth of the sun, the dryness of the air, and the brightness of the light.

It seems that lately I’m always going back to New Mexico to say good-bye to a loved one.  I suppose it’s part of getting older — yet I doubt I’ll ever get used to it.  It’s times like these that cause me to reflect on my own life, and that of my family and friends.  In today’s chaotic world, it’s so easy to get lost in the details of our day-to-day – email, phone calls, and the daily grind.  These are all meaningless things that feel so important in the moment.  But it’s days like today — when we say good-bye to a loved one, that allows us to stop and take stock of our own lives.  It’s never easy to say good-bye, but I’m thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to re-connect with family and to gain a better appreciation for my life.  I feel blessed that I’m surrounded by so many incredible people that I care so deeply about.   It also helps me realize how much potential still exists.  Each day we let another opportunity to affect the world pass us by — we’re only denying ourselves the chance to live a purposeful life.

May Stepleton lived a great life.  She enjoyed good health, a loving family, and a life we all would be fortunate to live.  Her smiling face, framed with that paper white hair, will forever be engraved in my memory.  She personified that daily mug of hot cocoa that always awaited me at the breakfast table.

Take a moment out of your busy day and call someone you love just to say hello.  Before you know it, we’ll all be out of time.  You will be missed, Grandma.

I recently posted a blog discussing the difference between team work and collaboration.   I thought it would be nice to provide you with a concrete example. 

Two of my favorite blogs I read recently had posts about recruiting for your business.  Individually, either blog is an excellent resource which will improve your efforts.   But if you combine them the results can be even better. 

MINDdrift

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Re: Focus:

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Even Better!

I’ve really started to appreciate the benefit of “blending” ideas together – just another form of collaboration.  Thanks Simon and David!  If you have other ideas or examples please throw it in the blender for the rest of us!

What does your employee feedback program look like?  Do you have one of these boxes in your office?  How do you gauge the mood of the employees in your organization?  Do you know what’s getting in the way of your people’s performance?  How do you know?   Let’s start over – why should you care? 

First, I’ll start with why some  employee feedback programs don’t work:

• Feedback systems are black boxes.  Ideas and suggestions either never get seen or fall on deaf ears.    If you aren’t willing to take action, then DON’T ASK FOR SUGGESTIONS.
• Feedback isn’t timely.  If the system is designed to gather information, but it’s not noticed or acted on immediately, then the problem either already did its damage or has grown into a bigger problem. 
• Suggestions are poorly defined.  Too often, employee feedback systems are only used to vent personal issues about peers, managers and customers and don’t identify the core operation or process that is broken.  
• Lack of accountability.  Most systems don’t provide any feedback loops to ensure corrective measures are identified, implemented and standardized.
• Feedback is ad hoc, not systematic.  If you don’t make it a priority everyday, or every week – then feedback systems won’t stick long-term.

If you’re still unsure as to the benefit of good feedback systems – then perhaps you can read a bit more about world-class organizations that implement feedback systems that produce results (Thanks, Verne!).  

Now the good news.  This doesn’t have to be rocket science – here are  a few tips to get you started:

• Make it a habit.
• Keep it anonymous.
• Make it about what, not about who.
• Good systems ask for feedback on corrective measures that will work; good systems are not just looking for complaints.
• Don’t shoot the messenger – if you aren’t ready to hear the brutal facts, then go to another website.
• Make sure the issues are visible so EVERYONE can weigh-in on what issues need addressing first.
• Never, ever stop!  It’s continuous improvement.
• Offer rewards when improvements save the company time, energy and money.  It only works if everyone has a stake in the outcome.
• When you listen – don’t defend but keep an open ear and mind to what your people have to say.

Today more than ever we all need to work together to identify and solve the issues that are holding our performance back.   Employees and owners can no longer look to the other for the answers - we need to work together to make our organizations and ourselves stronger, better and more effective.

Hill wrote this in 1937 – Think and Grow Rich.   As much as we may want to believe that we’ve made progress as a society I can’t help but think we really haven’t.  We seem to be struggling with the same problems, and if we really believe that using the same solutions will result in different outcomes, we’re just kidding ourselves.  Maybe it’s time to use a different approach.  Maybe it’s time to use a different model. 

Teamwork is when someone must subordinate personal aspirations and the leader wins.

Teamwork is a joint action by 2 or more persons or a group, in which each subordinates his or her individual interests and opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group.  This does not mean that the individual is no longer important; however, it does mean that effective and efficient teamwork goes beyond individual accomplishments.  The most effective teamwork is produced when all the individuals involved harmonize their contributions and work towards a common goal.  In order for teamwork to succeed, one must be a team-player.  A team-player is one who subordinates personal aspirations and works in a coordinated effort with other members of a group, or a team, to strive for a common goal.   Businesses and other organizations often go to the effort of coordinating team building events in an attempt to get people to work as a team rather than as individuals.

Collaboration – there are no leaders.  Everyone wins.

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals — e.g., sharing knowledge, learning, and building consensus is an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature.  Collaboration does not require leadership, and can sometimes bring better results through decentralization and egalitarism. 

This is an image of a structure that was used to create a philanthropic organization based on the idea of collaboration.  Project Red Dot (www.projectreddot.org) was established in 2008 as a way for individuals to work towards a common goal – in this case, to help people in Ghana, Africa connect to the world.  It has produced incredible results while using a minimal amount of resources because the model is based on collaboration.

I’ve recently reconnected with Doug Mendel and I’m attempting to set up a similar structure to help his orgainzation (www.dougmendel.com).  By combining the right combination of talented, motivated and resourceful people, a tremendous amount of progress can be made while using little or no resources.  In the case of Project Red Dot, they’ve been able to re-deploy laptops that would have ended up in a landfill.  In Doug Mendel’s case, he moved a fire truck from Colorado to Cambodia.  Both used the same model.  Both yielded amazing results.

My question is – how can YOU use this model to reach your goals and aspirations?