| #240: On Patience |
-Paul Sweeney
#240-2. The perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate.
-Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, moralist and essayist (1715-1747)
#240-3. The art of patience is not much about how long one can wait, but it is about how one behaves while waiting.
-Anon
| #239: Dare to Let Others Be Different |
-Somerset Maugham, English critic and author (1874-1965)
#239-2. Commandment Number One for any truly civilized society is this: Let people be different.
-David Grayson [pen name of Ray Stannard Baker], journalist, author (1870-1946)
#239-3. A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.
-Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
| #238: @ 43 |
Note: This self-indulgent year-end post contains a lot of links that may lead you to interesting sites.
My niece Viyoma inspires me in many ways. The first child in the family, she was always the quiet one and soon acquired the label of "shy". Her creative presentations during her MBA, and her early foray into blogging made her popular amongst her friends. She forms and expresses her independent views in a politely assertive style and her offbeat career choice has opened up excellent opportunities for her. I love some of her interesting blog posts. Like the one on vendors in Mumbai local trains, her poem on the monsoon, her short description from Mangalore, her dialogue with her ideas, and her reaction to the tragic 26/11 event in Mumbai in a poetic rendition of what The Taj Hotel had to say.
| #237: On Acting Ably |
#237-1. The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
-Mahatma Gandhi
#237-2. Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
-A. N. Whitehead
#237-3. There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
-Elbert Hubbard
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Unrealized potential is a basic fact of life. Sometimes we are more comfortable with our imagined hidden talents than to risk trying to act on it.
Acting wisely is less common than knowing and understanding something. Action for the sake of action is quite common.
Recognizing talent in others is an obvious requirement for managers but it helps all of us in knowing who to choose as role models, as friends to hang out with, as partners to seek help from.
| #236: Three Ways to Keep Your Ego in Check |
December 10, 2009
"It's okay if other people think you're God, but you're in trouble if you start believing it."
David Cornwell, a sports attorney, recalled that quote as one uttered by his father, a surgeon. While Cornwell was speaking on Larry King Live about Tiger Woods' foibles, the quote has relevance to anyone in a leadership position, not just doctors and big name athletes.
Sure, leaders have to believe in themselves — otherwise no one else will. Their conviction in their own abilities has to be strong as well as resilient, but such self-assurance cannot be allowed to become arrogance. So often when we see business leaders making poor decisions it seems as if their ego is speaking louder than their voice of reason.
And yet we need to remember that, while it's easy to throw stones at people and power, and lampoon their outsized egos when they stumble, so often that outsize ego is the result of the relentless fawning of others. You do not rise to power without followers, but if that followership is more sycophantic than supportive, the leader can lose his bearings.
Keeping your ego in check is an exercise in humility, with the emphasis on the word exercise, so here are a few tips:
Accept praise, but never believe it totally. Ancient Romans had a tradition of welcoming home victorious military commanders with a state-sponsored procession that included the commander riding in his chariot. Legend has it that a slave standing next to him would hold a golden laurel above his head and whisper into his ear, "Remember you are mortal." True or not, it is a good lesson for anyone who achieves success to remind himself that success is earned, not bestowed. You need to keep earning it.
Listen to your best friend. While the word "friendship" may have become diluted in this era of social media mouse-clicking, the relationship between people who know and respect each other remains essential. Such friends (be they spouses or colleagues) are not afraid to give each other the straight dope. Senior leaders need the friendship of one or two close associates whom they trust above others to tell them the truth. Treasure those friendships.
Reflect on your shortcomings. Taking time out to gain perspective on what you are doing is valuable. In the Catholic tradition, penitents are taught to go through an examination of conscience, reflecting on their transgressions. A frank look at what you have done wrong, as it applies to decisions made, behaviors exerted, and treatment of others is vital to a leader keeping his head on straight. Too much dwelling on the negative is not good, but a frank assessment of shortcomings is advised.
Ego affirms a leader's ability to take charge. But checking the ego demonstrates a leader's ability to take charge of himself. That is critical to developing strong organizations which can achieve sustainable results.
(Thanks to PJR Sudhir for sharing this.)
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I notice that many achievers with well-developed communication skills tend to use phrases like, “Clearly we have to…”, “It’s obvious that…” and “Having considered everything, I have no choice but to…”. While such clarity and confidence is useful, there are many situations where the possibility of new ideas and additional perspectives need to be given space and time. Real life and people’s brains have a way of enlarging the scope of what seems so clear to us. Better choices may exist outside the boundary of our “everything”.
Another important point was made by a senior manager friend in this manner: When people greet me in a friendly and respectful manner, I pause to think whether it is aimed at me or at my chair. One should not confuse one’s own standing as a person and a professional with any temporary value accruing from one’s position.
| #235: On Persistence |
-W C Fields
#235-2. If at first you do succeed -- try to hide your astonishment.
-Harry Banks
#235-3. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
-Bill Gates
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It is an interesting creative exercise to make variations of well-known proverbs. The first two are practical observations on knowing when to "cut your losses" and move on, and how we sometimes expect to fail at a first attempt.
Competition is a fact in most aspects of life and who better to point it out than one of the most hyper-competitive icons of our time? We like it and accept it when we are positioned to win, we despise it when we lose. If the energy spent in complaining and criticizing is instead channelized into understanding the factors that lead to success...
| #234: Ultimate Advice |
-Byron Katie, American speaker and self-help author (1942-)
#234-2. You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it.
-German saying
#234-3. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
-J. R. R. Tolkien, English fantasy writer, poet, philologist, author of The Lord of the Rings (1892-1973)
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Spiritual teachers often advise acceptance. Paradoxically, it enables deep change. On the level of daily affairs, this could remind us to distinguish between facts outside our immediate control and aspects that can be influenced by us. A married person encounters examples of this when dealing with the personality traits of the spouse, which are less changeable than outward behavior.
Acceptance should not be confused with passivity or apathy. Living involves taking action, which includes forming opinions, deciding and influencing the outer world.
One can endlessly debate the above or avoid spending think time on such matters in the abstract but either way one is making a choice.
| #233: On Being a Leader |
-John Quincy Adams
#233-2. The leader is the person who is able to take credit for things that happen on their own.
-Dilbert
#233-3. Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration—of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.
-Lance Secretan
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We tend to think of leadership as getting others to do something and acquire ways to induce others. Inspiring others to act can be done in many ways, some active and some passive, some by saying or doing something ourselves, others by not saying or by not doing.
Amidst the positive reminders, I find the Dilbert-ian sarcasm a healthy dose of humour that can also make us pause and wonder if we are guilty of the kinds of behaviour that Scott Adams spoofs about.
| #232: The Missing Ingredient |
by Dan Strutzel
There is a well-known story that's been oft-repeated by motivational speakers across the globe about a famous chef and his young apprentice. As the story goes, the chef was teaching his young student how to prepare his famous Key Lime Pie.
Now, this pie wasn't just good, it was what they call a "culinary experience." The creamy lime filling not too sweet, not too tart, succulent and downright tasty. The graham cracker crust lightly browned, holding together just long enough to meet your tongue before it crumbled and released its rich caramel flavor. Then there was the dollop of homemade whipped cream on top, light and fluffy and filled with real lime wedges. Yes, this was Key Lime Pie unlike any that anyone had ever tasted.
Eager to pass on his craft and increase his sales, the chef sought to teach his art form to his young apprentice. So he had him gather all of the ingredients and took him step by step through the entire recipe. The apprentice watched the chef closely, add limes here, mix cream here, add eggs here, a teaspoon of vanilla there, caramel flavoring there ... on and on it went. Then they each inserted the pies into the oven and waited for the masterpieces to bake.
When they pulled the pies from the oven, the apprentice was shocked. His crust was slightly burned, but the chef's was a golden brown. His filling tasted tart and made his eyes squint, while the chef's was as smooth as silk. His whipped cream had curdled, yet the chef's rested on the pie like a soft white pillow.
"What happened?" the apprentice blurted out to the chef. "I put in every ingredient that you did, I followed all of the directions, just as you did, and I couldn't even sell my pie at a grocery store, while yours is next to perfect."
The chef smiled, leaned over, put his hand on the apprentice's shoulder, and said, "Son, you forgot the most important ingredient of all." "What's that?" asked the apprentice. The chef winked and said, "You forgot to put yourself into it."
During my tenure as Vice President of Product Development for Nightingale-Conant, and having been an avid audio listener long before that, I have heard literally hundreds of speakers on almost every topic under the sun. I've come to conclude a key insight about public speaking: You can take every course on public speaking, learn all the right jokes and quotes, use all the right body language, and dress for success. Yet if, like the apprentice, you leave yourself out of the recipe, you will never have a lasting impact on your audience.
Many speakers say that fear is the major obstacle to good public speaking. They quote the familiar statistic that most people fear public speaking more than they fear death. This is certainly true. But in my experience, "overcoaching" of public speaking techniques is just as much of a barrier. You know what I'm talking about. This is the speaker that treats his or her speech like that Key Lime Pie recipe. Begin with a joke, then insert a story about yourself to identify with your audience, then tell the audience what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you've told them, and then add a great quote (and a dash of salt)... and there you have the "perfect speech."
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Applies to more things than just public speaking. Like many advanced tips, this has to be absorbed and implemented in stages. Simple techniques, do's and dont's have to come first, we have to apply them in practice and then we are ready for the magic step of doing it naturally and well.
| #231: On Hope |
-Anon
#231-2. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
-Dale Carnegie, pioneering self-help author of How to Win Friends and Influence People and other books (1888–1955)
#231-3. The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
-Winston Churchill, British orator, author and Prime Minister (1874-1965)
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Hope, like faith, involves holding a belief in the mind that is not fully indicated or substantiated by facts. ‘Hope for the best, anticipate the worst,’ one of the many age-old aphorisms drilled into me from a young age, has been a useful guide for prudent planning balanced with a general optimism.
But hopes do not always come true. What we do when they don’t has to be guided by conscience.
| #230: How to Take Advantage of Others |
How to Take Advantage of Others
by Fast Company Staff
May 2005
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Something to consider:
Everyone knows something that you don't. Take advantage of that and allow them to teach you. By seeking the knowledge and wisdom of others 2 powerful things happen. (1) - you acknowledge them (a basic human desire). And (2) - you learn a lot in the process. Everybody wins.
The process doesn't have to be a lengthy one. A colleague of mine makes a habit out of asking nearly everyone he meets for quick tips. He describes a challenge he's having and then asks for 2 pieces of advice for how he can overcome it. "Much of what I hear is crap," he admits, "but it's worth listening to because some of the stuff is brilliant."
Something to try:
1. Go through your contacts and jot down a few people you'd like to learn from.
2. Invite them to lunch.
3. Let them know you'd like to take advantage of them (bet they don't hear that every day).
4. Ask them provocative questions to get them to tell you their story.
5. Try to leave with one or more ideas you can put into action.
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We interact with so many people with useful knowledge but sometimes restrict our conversations to small talk or gossip. Maybe sometimes we should discuss more relevant subjects.
| #229: Plan But Don't Always Stick to It |
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)
#229-2. We cannot truly plan, because we do not understand the future—but this is not necessarily a bad news. We could plan while bearing in mind such limitations. It just takes guts.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
#229-3. Enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of flawless intellects.
-David Kelley, founder & CEO of Ideo Product Development
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A powerful quote that is a favorite of mine. Making a plan is necessary for most activities in life. It induces us to gather data, think about the objectives, constraints and sequence of steps. But once we have a plan and start execution, it is vital to keep our antenna tuned for new information, changed circumstances and unexpected events that may suggest changing our plan. Rigidly adhering to what we decided based on assumptions that no longer hold true is sometimes worse than having no plan.
In the software development process, the so-called agile practices are posited on planning for changes. This appears to go against the emphasis on scope freeze that is the essence of quality processes but customer reality always overrides the idealistic models. Adaptability can be planned and nurtured.
Taleb has expounded on this aspect from the perspective of financial markets and the (mis)use of statistical models in his books, Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan.
Innovation gurus remind us that the nature of the creative process is messy and cannot be planned and measured in simplistic ways.
| #228: On Choices |
-Michael Altshuler
#228-2. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
-Linus Pauling
#228-3. History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. The won because they refused to to become discouraged by their defeats.
-B C Forbes
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It is a simple but harsh truth that each of us has 24 hours and we choose to fill it with things that we value at the moment. Even when we say, "I have no choice but to do this..." what we mean is that I am giving this (or the person wanting this) a higher priority than some other things I wish to do.
In the world of creative/lateral thinking, quantity leads to quality. Most of our genius is undiscovered because of mental laziness.
Getting discouraged or feeling demotivated is also a choice we make. Simply starting to use positive words and phrases to describe situations itself helps in a big way. Try it.
| #227: On Conversation |
-Anon
(Thanks to D. Karthikeyan for sharing this.)
#227-2. "Diplomacy is nothing but a lot of hot air," said a companion to French statesman Georges Clemenceau as they rode to a peace conference. "All etiquette is hot air," said Clemenceau. "But that is what is in our automobile tires; notice how it eases the bumps."
(Thanks to Amlesh Kanetkar for sharing this.)
#227-3. What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
-Salman Rushdie, writer (b. 1947)
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Not saying wrong things sounds simple but the problem is our judgement of what is wrong. There are clues that could help: (i) if the temptation to say what has occurred to me is felt as a compulsive need to impress (ii) if I intuitively sense that my point could be misconstrued and thereby rendering my communication ineffective (iii) if I have received feedback to tone down or polish my speech. The simple act of pausing and examining whether something should be said and if there are better ways to put it across would itself help.
It is fashionable in today’s business world to deride diplomacy and praise straight talk but in reality bluntness seems to get most people into trouble. Etiquette is just a commonly agreed form of symbolic interaction that occasionally degenerates into meaningless ritual when used without understanding its spirit. Every organization culture, every subgroup and every layer of management has its own coded language that one is expected to learn gradually through observation and imitation. Some rare books or articles elucidate this but they tend to sound too cynical.
On the other hand, too many people take what they think to be a safe option of keeping their dissenting views unstated. This does have serious consequences but that is not visible. Healthy debate is the hallmark of a progressing society.
| #226: On Confidence |
-Mary Anne Radmacher
#226-2. Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.
-Peter T. McIntyre
#226-3. The trouble with the world is that the stupid are always cocksure and the intelligent are always filled with doubt.
-Bertrand Russell
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Quiet inner strength always wins over noisy aggression. It makes persistence easier, and is sustainable. It comes from spiritual maturity.
In my view, any of the following could lead to spiritual maturity: (i) reading any deep subject including science, mathematics, philosophy (ii) interest in star-gazing, astronomy (iii) trekking (iv) passionate involvement in any task at work or as a hobby (iv) music (v) any of the classical or fine arts (vi) reflection on one's own and others' behaviour with a positive, accepting and learning orientation (vii) ability to laugh.
On the other hand, overconfidence is common amongst the ignorant!
Über-coach Marshall Goldsmith posted five useful tips on Build Your Self-Confidence at his Harvard column on Oct. 30, 2009. In my comments to the article, I mentioned the following:
Self confidence could be looked at as being confident about oneself, not necessarily about one's view being correct. On the path to developing as a leader, if we anchor all our thoughts and actions in a basic trust on our sincerity of purpose, our ability to find a way and our flexibility to change direction, then the difference between self confidence and arrogance remains clear.
Being confident and projecting confidence could at times be different things. This could also be analyzed as: confidence derived from content and confidence in style.
| #225: Paul Hawken to Youth |
This is from http://www.up.edu/commencement/default.aspx?cid=9456 (highlights mine) and has been quoted or linked in many blogs recently. Takeaways for me from this speech:
-Good style with a mix of humorous one-liners and hard-hitting reality
-Inspiring without sounding too touchy-feely
-Makes any reader ask some fundamental questions
Healing or Stealing?
Commencement Address at University of Portland
May 3, 2009
By Paul Hawken
When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." No pressure there.
Let's begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.
This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.
There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.
When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.
You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.
There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver's description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.
Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.
The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can't print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.
The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a "little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven."
So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.
This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.
| #224: Dogfooding |
To say that a company "eats its own dog food" means that it uses the products that it makes. For example, Microsoft emphasizes the use of its own software products inside the company. Dogfooding improves software quality, because the developers best able to fix bugs are likely to be personally confronted with them. It's also a means of conveying the company's confidence in their products: imagine the public relations nightmare if it were to emerge that Apple's iPod team all owned Zunes, or if the Yahoo! Search team used Ask.com for their personal surfing.
The term is a variation of the marketing slang term "...but will the dog eat the dog food?" which is a shorthand way of saying that the product may look good and have many positive qualities, but the most fundamental point is whether the consumer actually likes it. The slogan refers to the early days of television, when programming and commercials were live, and things did not always go as planned, particularly if one of the actors was a dog. Dog food commercials frequently ended with a dog actually not eating the product. Thus, no matter how good the food looks on camera, or how good its story sounds, the commercial is not a success until the dog actually eats the dog food. This term became popular in the technology industry during the dot-com craze as many services seemed to be developed because they could be developed, rather than because consumers wanted them. The metaphor of a company "eating its own dog food" takes this idea one step further to say that the company has not merely considered the value of the product for consumers (that is, whether the dog will eat the dog food), but actually is a consumer of the product. When properly executed, this can add a new level of sincerity to advertising and customer relations, as well as helping to shape the product.
The phrase entered the industry in the following way. In the late 1980s Brian Valentine was test manager for a product at Microsoft called Microsoft LAN Manager. His manager, Paul Maritz, challenged him in an email, titled "Eating our own Dogfood", to increase internal usage of the product. Paul Maritz had in turn got this phrase from a past manager and colleague of his, James Harris, who had served in the military and often used colorful language, and who was fond of challenging technical types in review meetings by asking, "But will the dogs eat the dogfood?" As a result of this exchange, Brian Valentine set up an internal test server at Microsoft called "Dogfood". From this initial usage the term spread through Microsoft, to the point where reaching the "Dogfood" stage (i.e. good enough to use it yourself) became an important step. From there it spread to the wider industry.
Using one's own products has four primary benefits:
-The product's developers are familiar with using the products they develop.
-The company's members have direct knowledge and experience with its products.
-Users see that the company has confidence in its own products.
-Technically savvy users in the company, with perhaps a very wide set of business requirements and deployments, are able to discover and report bugs in the products before they are released to the general public.
(Thanks to Shuja Rehman for sharing this.)
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In a way, without intending to, this is what my company did long ago with a timesheet, defect tracking and project management tool. What started as a small internal automation project became a revenue-generating product that also helped establish our organization as a process pioneer and thought leader in quality management processes. Some banks have a Staff Testing phase after UAT and before go-live of an important new facility like Internet banking. This is done separately or as part of a Friendly User Testing phase.
A few months ago, before launching a strengths coaching initiative, we dogfooded it by rolling it out to our HR and Training team.
| #223 |
-Henry Van Dyke
#223-2. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
-Henry David Thoreau
#223-3. Normal is in the eye of the beholder.
-Whoopi Goldberg
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Three reminders to stay close to your true self. Confidence booster for essentially good human beings. Does not apply if your actions cause harm to others.
| #222: On Having a Stand and Changing It Too |
-Ambrose Bierce
#222-2. Be courageous—it’s the only place left uncrowded.
-The Body Shop
#222-3. When people are born they are supple, and when they die they are stiff.
When trees are born they are tender, and when they die they are brittle.
Stiffness is thus a cohort of death, flexibility is a cohort of life.
-Tao-Te Ching
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I find it interesting that we have modernity and progressive thinking in many spheres, which is all about breaking convention and old traditions, but we often replace it with adherence to new, unstated "rules of the game". Taking a bold stand on an issue is becoming rare. It is easier to sit on the fence and hedge our bets before identifying the winning horse. We are frequently advised not to “rock the boat”.
Having taken a stand, one should also be willing to change it if new facts or better logic demand it.
| #221: Gary Hamel on the Future of Management |
An excerpt from Gary Hamel's 2007 book, ‘The Future of Management’ published by Harvard Business School Press. Interesting takeaways are:
-How American companies kept giving different excuses over the years on why they cannot apply Toyota's practices
-Why American companies cannot simply copy techniques and expect the same results
-The management guru's inputs for leaders at all levels (I have highlighted some statements)
The Future of Management
Business Standard Strategist Team / Mumbai October 23, 2007
Gary Hamel is the strategy guru’s guru. The visiting professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School has been described as a “management innovator without peer” by Financial Times and ranked among the 25 most influential business thinkers of the 20th century by Journal of Business Strategy. He is the author of Leading the Revolution and coauthor of Competing for the Future, seminal works that have spent weeks on all management bestseller lists. In The Future of Management, launched last fortnight, Hamel puts forward a provocative, new theory: management as it is now practised has outlived its utility. In fact, legacy beliefs prevent organisations from overcoming new, 21st-century challenges. The way forward is management innovation: new ways of mobilising talent, allocating resources and building strategies. An exclusive excerpt:
From innovation to advantage
Management innovation tends to yield a competitive advantage when one or more of three conditions are met: the innovation is based on a novel management principle that challenges some long-standing orthodoxy; the innovation is systemic, encompassing a range of processes and methods; and/ or the innovation is part of an ongoing program of rapid-fire invention where progress compounds over time…
...Why, after decades of trying, have America’s indigenous automakers so far failed to duplicate Toyota’s hyperefficient manufacturing system? This was one question I put to a senior executive group in one of America’s big car companies a few years back. We had just finished a sumptuous dinner at an elegant hotel when, over coffee, one of the carmaker’s top finance executives mentioned that the company had just completed its 20th annual benchmarking study of Toyota.
What, I wondered aloud, had the company learned in year 20 that it hadn’t learned in years 19, 18, 17, and so on? The blunt subtext to my question hung in the air like acrid cigar smoke: Why are you still playing catch-up? After a moment of embarrassed silence, a senior staffer spoke up, and offered an explanation that went something like this:
Twenty years ago we started sending our young people to Japan to study Toyota. They’d come back and tell us how good Toyota was and we simply didn’t believe them. We figured they’d dropped a zero somewhere — no one could produce cars with so few defects per vehicle, or with so few labor hours.
It was five years before we acknowledged that Toyota really was beating us in a bunch of critical areas. Over the next five years, we told ourselves that Toyota’s advantages were all cultural. It was all about wa and nemwashi — the uniquely Japanese spirit of cooperation and consultation that Toyota had cultivated with its employees. We were sure that American workers would never put up with these paternalistic practices.
Then, of course, Toyota started building plants in the United States and they got the same results here they got in Japan — so our cultural excuse went out the window. For the next five years, we focused on Toyota’s manufacturing processes. We studied their use of factory automation, their supplier relationships, just-in-time systems, everything.
But despite all our benchmarking, we could never seem to get the same results in our own factories. It’s only in the last five years that we’ve finally admitted to ourselves that Toyota’s success is based on a wholly different set of principles — about the capabilities of its employees and the responsibilities of its leaders.
Amazingly, it took nearly 20 years for America’s carmakers to decipher Toyota’s advantage. Unlike its Western rivals, Toyota believed that first-line employees could be more than cogs in a soulless manufacturing machine... In contrast, US car companies tended to discount the contributions that could be made by first-line employees, and relied instead on staff experts for improvements in quality and efficiency.
Such was the disdain for the intelligence of frontline workers that Henry Ford once wondered querulously, “Why is it that whenever I ask for a pair of hands, a brain comes attached?”
...As this example illustrates, management dogmas are often so deeply ingrained as to be nearly invisible, and so devoutly held as to be virtually unassailable. When it comes to management innovation, the more unconventional the underlying principle, the longer it will take for competitors to respond. In some cases, the head-scratching can go on for decades…
Management innovation in action
If you have ever shopped at Whole Foods, you know it is not your grandma’s supermarket. Stuffed full of organic and natural products, a Whole Foods store is a commodious, eye popping, mouth-watering temple to guilt-free gastronomy. Whole Foods’ business model is built around a simple but powerful premise: people will pay a premium for food that’s good for them, good tasting and good for the environment…
At every turn, this inventive company has taken the road less traveled. Whole Foods’ commitment to organic produce and sustainable agriculture is unmatched by any competitor. Its stores are laid out to make shopping feel less like a chore and more like a culinary adventure. And unlike its hide-bound rivals, which compete with promotion-driven, loss-leader pricing models, Whole Foods charges a premium for its super fresh, environmentally friendly products, a fact that has led some critics to re- brand the store, “Whole Paycheck.” Nevertheless, Whole Foods has become the grocery store of choice for the hip and the health conscious — the supermarket equivalent of Starbucks.
Today, Whole Foods operates 194 stores and generates nearly $ 6 billion a year in sales. It is also America’s most profitable food retailer when measured by profit per square foot…
Whole Foods’ approach to management twines democracy with discipline, trust with accountability, and community with fierce internal competition. It is the skillful juxtaposition of these counterpoised values that makes the company’s management system both uniquely effective and hard to duplicate...
At Whole Foods, the basic organizational unit is not the store, but the team. Small, empowered teams are granted a degree of autonomy nearly unprecedented in retailing. Each store consists of roughly eight teams that oversee departments ranging from seafood to produce to checkout. Every new associate is provisionally assigned to a team. After a four-week trial, the team mates vote on the applicant’s fate: a newbie needs a two-thirds majority vote to win a full-time spot on the team. This peer-based selection process is used for all new employees, including those hoping to join teams at Whole Foods’ head quarters, such as the national IT and finance squads. The underlying logic is powerful, if unconventional: Whole Foods believes that critical decisions, such as whom to hire, should be made by those who will be most directly impacted by the consequences of those decisions.
...Small teams are responsible for all key operating decisions, including pricing, ordering, staffing, and in- store promotion. Consider product selection. Team leaders, in consultation with their store managers, are free to stock whatever products they feel will appeal to local customers. This is a marked departure from standard supermarket practice, in which national buyers dictate what each store will carry, and big food manufacturers pay thousands of dollars in slotting fees to get their products on the shelf.
At Whole Foods, no executive sitting in Austin decides which products will appear on what shelves. Stores are encouraged to buy locally as long as the items meet Whole Foods’ stringent standards. As a result, every store carries a unique mix of products. Teams also control staffing levels within their departments, a prerogative that is elsewhere usually reserved for the store manager.
In essence, each team operates like a profit center and is measured on its labor productivity. While associates are highly empowered, they are also highly accountable. Every four weeks, Whole Foods calculates the profit per labor hour for every team in every store. Teams that exceed a certain threshold get a bonus in the next pay check. Each team has access to performance data for every other team within its store, and for similar teams in every other store. The fact that no team wants to end up as a laggard adds to the motivation to do well. All this explains why the hiring vote is such a big deal at Whole Foods. Vote in a slacker, and your paycheck may take a beating...
This exceptional degree of autonomy conveys a simple but invigorating message: It is you, rather than some distant manager, who controls your success. The fact that this freedom is matched by a high level of accountability ensures that associates use their discretionary decision-making power in ways that drive the business forward.
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