Interlude: What I'm Reading

Real life and a minor medical issue have disrupted my daily writing habit.  (If you are reading any one thing that I write, such as this blog, my website blog, or even my Facebook or Twitter accounts, you won't believe I write every day, but I do write something somewhere every day, I promise.  Except the last few days.)

As best I've been able, between brain-fogging medications and lots of extra sleep, I have still been doing a lot of reading.  In exploring all the new-to-me magazines I bought, I've come to the following conclusions:

I like the Economist a lot, but there's no way I'd be able to keep up with it every week.  I'm considering picking up a copy once a month or so.  I love the way it not only covers current events in a thoughtful way, but also ties them together and offers a comprehensive global perspective.  I also like that their conclusions tend to follow from facts, rather than from any conspicuous ideology.  I think people who accuse the Economist of leaning right are probably coming to it from something like Time, which very definitely leans left.  That's not a bad thing, but it's important to know if you're going to get your news primarily, or exclusively, from one source.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Atlantic, and I may well end up subscribing to that one.  Nice balance of thought-provoking articles on current events with well-written fiction pieces.  I liked the depth of it, as a nice complement to Time's breadth.

Time is much as I remember it from years ago when I used to subscribe.  A slight left bias, visible but not egregious, and a good, easily digestible overview of what's going on in the world.  I have seen it criticized for being too shallow (mostly by readers of the Economist), but again, if it's not my only source for information, it's great to have something that gives me some top-line context for the deeper content I encounter elsewhere.  I'm thinking about giving The Week a shot as well, to see how it compares.

I decided that the New Yorker would be great if I were, in fact, a New Yorker.  Yes, there's some good stuff in there, but it was literally page 49 where it stopped being a listing of what's on in New York and started being a general interest magazine.  Better than TimeOut, but not suited for those of us who do not live in NY and have no desire to live there, literally or vicariously.

Canada's Motivated magazine is fun -- a business magazine with a distinctly positive and upbeat tone.  It's essentially a day-long conference of motivational speakers in magazine form.  I probably won't subscribe, but I'll look for it on newsstands and pick it up when the cover catches my fancy.

I have a couple more to get through, and will report on those as I finish them.

The ARCTIC Summer

Back at the ranch, we got down to the work of turning "56K technology" into a brand and a product line.  We needed to generate a bunch of "education sell" material -- visually appealing and quick-to-read handouts that would explain the new technology succinctly and simply, while emphasizing why the end user would care.

Our goal was to be ready to go on a particular launch date with an aggressive ad campaign that would appear quite literally overnight.

During this time, the stress in the office was palpable.  Most of us were there by 7:30 AM, and most of us didn't leave until 7:30 PM or later.  As the date drew nearer, this became a six day a week schedule. We all felt the pressure to get everything done, and we felt it both from our individual roles and also from those of our colleagues.  The engineers were testing, revising, fine-tuning, testing again, and scratching their heads over various bugs in the code.  We needed modems that did 56K out of the box, and we needed an upgrade path for every version of our product that our customers already owned.

The newer modems could be "flashed" over their internet connection lines.  Slightly older ones could do a chip swap.  Older than that but new enough to qualify for the upgrade would need a full product replacement.  In all three cases, we decided the price would be the same.  The logistics of figuring out which modem you had, what upgrade you needed, and how to get your upgrade fulfilled were going to be a spectacular nightmare.  But we were committed to doing it for our customers, and making it as easy as it could be.

The factory didn't require a huge amount of retooling -- after all, the form factor of the devices wasn't changing; just some key parts of the guts.  But we would need to come up with some sort of forecast to determine what to manufacture and in what amounts.  Internal, external, a different model for Mac computers vs. Intel machines.

Then there was the head-end.  We needed to be ready to upgrade the ISPs so they could start advertising that they supported the new technology.  We wanted to be able to say some ISPs were live with it as soon as possible after the announcement, so end users would have a reason to buy the things. But we couldn't tell them about it until the launch date.

In sales and marketing, we had volumes and volumes of *stuff* to produce.  Data sheets for the products. Explanations of the upgrade process.  Inserts for the product boxes that would ship from launch day forward, explaining the upgrade path.  Cards for store shelves and other in-store media.

And, oh, by the way, a brand name.  We decided it would be called "x2 Technology(TM)" A logo emerged, and a general look and feel for all the new packages and supporting media.

Generating this stuff took months of work from hundreds of people.  The amazing thing was, everybody was having a ball.

Don't get me wrong.  We were stressed and exhausted.  In turn, each of us "hit the wall." And you've never seen so much caffeine ingested by one group of people in one day (My personal best was 12 cans of Diet Coke in 10 hours).  But at the same time, we were kids on Christmas.  We had an awesome new technology that was going to change the market.  We had total clarity on what we needed to do.  We were all in it together, and we knew it.  Even when we doubted we would ever pull it off in time, somehow, we never doubted we would pull it off in time.

Next up: Hell week.

ARCTIC

At a National Sales Meeting in 1996, a guy named Burk (he'll show up again in this story later) stood up in front of the entire PCD sales and marketing organization and worked his way through a slide presentation about a new technology, code name "ARCTIC."  It was absolutely imperative, he said, that no one in this room breathe a word of this to anyone.  We had gotten our hands on a technology, he said, that was going to allow us to double the speed of internet connections -- to achieve 56K on an analog phone line.

Yeah, I know.  From your seat at the gigabit ethernet workstation in 2012, you're not impressed.  But if you have been around long enough to remember, you remember that this was a very big deal.

We later decided that ARCTIC stood for "a really cool technology, introduced Christmas," that being the time frame when we were likely to be ready to go to market with it.

Looking back on it, I don't know if everyone in the company was as excited about it as I was.  I'm prone to passion -- when you tell me it's a big deal, I tend to believe you.  And it was pretty clear that we had the jump on our competitors with this, and that we had a unique capacity to deliver it that most of our competitors couldn't touch.

You see, in order for 56K technology to work, the modem you talk to with your modem must also speak 56K.  And the technology to do that at this point was proprietary.  Buying a 56K modem for your computer wasn't going to help you unless your Internet Service Provider could speak the same 56K language.  And unlike our competitors, we had an entire division (Corporate Systems, later renamed Network Systems) that built ISP head-end equipment.  So odds were good that the modem your modem was calling was built by U.S. Robotics.

And the crowning glory was that this technology would, for most of the head-end equipment and even a handful of client-side equipment (client-side being you, the average individual customer) would be "flash upgradable" -- no new hardware required.

At the time of this meeting, we had all arrived there feeling a little discouraged.  The modem was becoming commoditized, and we'd said everything there was to say about it that was interesting.  The market was softening and it was tough to defend the premium price we were asking in the retail marketplace.  (U.S. Robotics modems were the most expensive on the shelf.  We built them in Skokie, Illinois, USA, and we paid for a ton of independent lab testing and quality assurance work that our competitors tended not to bother with.)

Needless to say, this rekindled the fire in a big way.  We couldn't talk about 56K, but we could talk about current products that were flash-upgradable, and we could talk about the "end-to-end solution" that meant you and your ISP were using the same brand of modem.  If it's good enough for your ISP, then it must be pretty good, right?

We came out of that meeting ready to conquer the world, understanding exactly what we would need to do to become utterly dominant in the modem marketplace.  Our goal was a clean, world-changing launch of ARCTIC in time for the holiday shopping season, and from there, we were shooting for 60% market share.

Next up: The ARCTIC Summer

The Story Begins

Once upon a time, people used a device called a "modem" to connect their computers to the internet. Hard as it is to believe, the internet has not always existed, and it has not always come into every home and commercial property automatically, quickly and seamlessly.  It used to be that you had to "dial up," using a modem and a telephone land line (remember land lines?) to connect your computer to your internet service provider.  At the time our story begins, this phone connection, depending on how new and how expensive your modem was, afforded a data transfer speed up to 28.8 kilobits per second.  (The most seasoned computer users among you will recall when it was much slower even than that.  This is not that story.)  These days it is hard to imagine any of that, but at the time, it was the best technology we had.

The year is 1995, and I am working for a temp agency.  The agency has placed me at a company called U.S. Robotics for a two or three day data entry gig.  I detest data entry, but my temp agency has always been good to me and they are desperate, so I agree to the gig.  It is an awful experience, underscoring all the reasons I hate data entry, and I tell them I never want to go back to that awful place.

Months pass, and the agency calls me, again desperate.  They need someone to go to U.S. Robotics.  They offer to pay me a higher hourly rate than they've ever paid before, and they promise that if I hate it, I need only stick it out to the end of the week and they'll find someone else.  I reluctantly agree.

I go to a different building from the one I went to before.  It turns out my previous gig was in the "Corporate Systems" division and now I'm going to the "Personal Communications Division." I report to a lady named Christine in a department called "Channel Marketing."  And I get to work.

A few weeks later they offer me a permanent position, and I enthusiastically accept, because in this department of this division of USR, I have found something unlike anything I've ever seen before.  This group of people is smart, dedicated, professional, and at the same time is so much fun to be around that the hours at work just fly by.  The company makes modems, and I quickly learn that they are the number one selling computer modems in the world, with more than 50% market share in many of the segments in which they compete.  They are working on technology to accelerate modem speeds to 33.6 kbps, and working with resellers to push more and more modems out into the world as the internet's popularity is skyrocketing.

The pace at USR is relentless, and yet it is just plain FUN to be there.  We work hard, arriving most mornings between 8 and 8:30 and frequently staying until 6:00 or 7:00 at night -- especially on Fridays, which is an aspect of that culture I still don't understand to this day.  The department I work for seems to be responsible for a lot of internal communication among the sales and marketing functions, helping the salespeople understand the products and the promotions as they change and develop over time.  And in time, I become a key player in that game, personally creating and delivering a lot of information for the sales force.

This culture is exceptional.  There's a story that everyone in the company knows -- that at any time, the CEO, Casey Cowell, might ask you to state the mission of the company (a rather long statement about being the number one data communication company whose products "meet the needs and expand the capabilities of business and professional clients worldwide").  If you recited it correctly, Casey would hand you a $100 bill.  I never met anyone who personally had this happen to them, but I did talk to a number of people who claimed they remembered it happening to a coworker.  It may or may not have actually been true, but I am here to tell you that everybody in that company knew the mission statement.

More importantly, everybody LIVED it.  I consistently found every person I worked with to be friendly, helpful, and great at what they did.  We all knew why we were there, and we got stuff done.

My first six or seven months with the company were really good.  I loved it there.  And then something happened that made it even better.

Next up: ARCTIC

"I'm a writer.  And you know what the most difficult part of my job is? Writing."

So begins my favorite entry in one of my favorite books, The Imagineering Workout. The more I torture myself with analysis and reflection on what I want to be when I grow up, the more it becomes clear that I'm a writer.  And the most difficult part of my job, unquestionably, is writing.

Michael Sprout, the Disney Imagineer and concept writer who authored this entry, offers some steps for the creative writing process.  If you'll permit me a bit of self-indulgence here, I'd like to use those as the outline to explore what's going on with me right now (after all, if you can't be self-indulgent on your own blog, where can you?)  Even people who have built a career out of helping other people get out of their own way, sometimes get in their own way.  That's the story of my life right now.

Michael says that step one is "say, 'sure.'"  In other words, the first thing to do is to agree, and commit, to write something.  Most of the thousands of blogs on the internet have only a scant handful of readers, including this one.  The blogs on the short list, the ones that are really successful, are the ones that get updated frequently.  The best bloggers update at least once a day and comment on other blogs as well.  They are active in the community of bloggers, and therefore get attention from readers, followers, and advertisers.  The rest of us don't post enough, and for that reason we don't build huge followings of readers.  (If a blog has a ton of posts and still doesn't have any readers, that's your clue that quantity is necessary, but not sufficient.  Writing != having something to say, and both are required for long-term success.)

So for me, saying "sure" is about committing to write more.  The prerequisite for this is deciding to own, once and for all, that I'm a writer.  I'm still working on that, but I'm closer today than I've ever been before.

Step two, according to Michael, is "panic."  Now THAT is a plan I can embrace! This is the step where all the negative self-talk runs rampant.  In the book, his panicked self-talk messages include "I don't' know what I'm doing. I should have been a carpet installer."  My self-talk messages include "real writers are so much better than me.  I don't have enough discipline to be a writer.  I can't make any money writing."  Of course, those things are all true until I commit to making them false.  So if I want to change my fate as a writer, I better move on quickly to step three.

Michael says step three is "go to the library." And I love this, both because libraries are cool, and because he is using the statement as a metaphor.  "Going to the library" means collecting every bit of information you can get your hands on about whatever you want to write about.  If I'm going to write about milkweed, I'll need to find its Latin name (asclepias tuberosa), its origins, habits, cultivation needs, context (why do I care?  Well, because it's the primary larval and nectar food source for the monarch butterfly.  Did you know?) and whatever other information may enable me to write about milkweed.  I'll write something decent about milkweed if I read a lot about it.  But I'll write something better about it if I also grow it in my garden, see it in a butterfly enclosure, stick my nose in it to see if it makes me sneeze, and watch a butterfly sipping its nectar (or a caterpillar devouring its leaves).  The library is wherever your subject is -- not just the building full of books.

My lesson about going to the library is that if I want to be a good writer, I need to be a voracious reader.  That is a challenge for me (long story, sounds like whining, not worth wasting words on it).  It's a challenge I must, and will, commit to overcome if I want to be successful as a writer.

Steps four and five are about changing focus after filling your head to overflowing with information about the topic.  (He calls these steps "goof off" and "go to sleep".)  Basically, he's saying that once you have all the information your frontal lobes can possibly pack in, you need to let your back brain digest and process it all.  The subconscious brain is an insanely powerful and efficient computer, able to process data thousands of times faster than your cerebral cortex.  It works best when you're not constantly interrupting it with lame suggestions from your conscious mind, so do something unrelated to the writing project and give it some peace to do the work.  I have certainly experienced this, and have come to trust that process.  My challenge is to make sure I don't let "goofing off" displace writing-related activities completely.  One thing all writers and writing coaches agree on is that if you mean to be a good writer, you have to write every. single. day.  Preferably for an hour or more.  So that's what I need to do.

Finally, step six is the actual writing part.  Michael lists this step as "let it happen."  And that's exactly it -- once I've done the prerequisites, the writing comes pretty easily.  All I have to do is do it.  The easiest, and hardest, thing in the world.

Step seven, the last one, is to "keep writing implements handy at all times."  So far for me, this hasn't been an issue -- the muse strikes rarely enough that I'm almost never out of reach of a pencil on those occasions when she does.  But the point is well taken, and in fact I do have pencil and paper on my headboard, a note-taking app on my phone, an iPad, an assortment of journals and notebooks, and and abundance of pens and pencils that are comfortable for me to use.  Not having the right tools for any job makes it a hundred times harder, and I'm way too lazy to put up with that nonsense.  For me, it's less about having the tools than about using them.  That's my challenge, and that's why I decided to resurrect this blog that has been dormant for awhile. I've given it a facelift, let go of the self-imposed limitations on what topics I'll post here, and am now committing to write.

I have said "sure."  I am panicking a little.  I'll be headed to the library as soon as I post this.  And we'll go from there.

Creativity on Demand

As you know if you've read much of what I write, I'm a big believer in paying attention to your personal rhythm, and working with your energy instead of against it as it ebbs and flows over the course of the day. You'll be more productive, and less stressed, if you do heavy duty mental work when you have high mental energy, physical activity when you're feeling inclined to it, and rest when you're feeling run down. I advocate working with your family and your colleagues to build a schedule that works with your energy patterns, even if that means you do some activities at rather unorthodox times of the day (for example, working your desk job from 7 AM to 3 PM, or noon to 9, if that lets you be more productive without disrupting others' ability to do the same).

But here's the thing: reality doesn't always offer us the luxury of waiting until we are at our best to do something that needs to get done. That's the situation I'm in today. I have a very big project with a very aggressive deadline, and I need to make appreciable progress on it today even though my energy and creativity levels right now might best be compared to the bottom of a mud puddle. So the question is, what am I going to do about it?

Do the easy parts first. In today's particular case, luckily, the deadline is still a ways away, and so I don't have to just soldier through the hardest parts. I can choose aspects of the project that are easier and more fun for me today. The easy parts are just as essential as the hard parts, so I can accomplish something meaningful without beating my head against the most challenging pieces today, and having finished some parts will provide a nice framework to handle the harder parts when I'm feeling more up to it.

Pace yourself. In a not-so-long-ago time of my life, I would start to panic in this situation, letting myself be crushed under the negative self-talk of "now you're screwed; you'll never get it done in time; why did you agree to this deadline anyway?" I wasted a truly astonishing amount of time in overwhelm and going in circles, angry with my brain and my body for not performing at 100% efficiency all the time. There's only so much I can do about the way I am feeling today. Once I've done that, I will have to make do with what resources I have, and make the progress I can make. I'll do what I can, take breaks as I need to, and allow myself to be capable of what I'm capable of today, trusting that it will be enough.

Use affirmations. If affirmations tell the self in times of doubt that which it knows to be true at other times, then what better time to use them than when in doubt? On a rough day, I use simple, fairly modest affirmations that remind me that most days aren't like this. Sometimes just a good old-fashioned "this too shall pass" will do the trick. I'm also fond of "I am enough." Sure, when I believe I can make it stick, I'll go with "I am an awesome, brilliant, dynamic superhero" (or the equivalent) -- but on days when I can't quite find that belief in me, I'll just use something simple and solid that gets my feet back under me and gives me a way forward. I know I'll be back in superhero territory soon enough, and in the meantime, I can connect to something that, while it may not be quite that spectacular, is still very real, very comforting, and very empowering. I am doing the best I can right now, and tomorrow will be even better.

Own it. When I sat down at my computer this morning, I didn't quite know how I was going to deal with this problem of needing to be creative on a deadline. I knew I wasn't feeling it, and I knew I needed to figure out a way past the block I was facing. By writing this very blog entry, I have taken ownership of the problem and the solution, and perhaps offered you a way to deal with this situation next time you find yourself in it.

Did I miss anything? What do you do when you have to be creative on demand?

Radical Alignment

Last week I attended a two-day strategic planning retreat with some colleagues I greatly admire. As we discussed my 2011 plan, I realized that it is just about as different from the one I wrote in 2006 as a plan could possibly be, and I was amazed at how far I have come in five years.

If you compared the two plans side by side, it would seem as though I had completely redefined my business from the ground up, and reinvented everything about it. In some ways, that's true. But it's not that I've gone from one end of a line to the other end. It's that I've gone from the edge of a circle to the center.

If you're a business owner or executive, perhaps you remember your early efforts at planning. You probably did what most of us (including me) do: you wrote a plan that said what you believed the bank or your mentors or your customers wanted to hear. It probably related a little bit to what you wanted to do, but it was mostly about making sure it sounded really impressive. You were going to synergize your team's core competencies for maximum stakeholder return (or something equally likely to guarantee a winner in Buzzword Bingo). When you tried to execute it, your plan was either incomprehensibly vague, or so specific that you threw up your hands in despair the first time it went off the rails.

After that, you might have attempted a rewrite, or just decided to "wing it." Somewhere along the line your business either started to go well or it didn't, and in any case you developed a profound distrust of the whole idea of "strategic planning." The phrase went into the buzzword bucket with "synergy" and "conceptualize" and "deliverables", never to be heard from again.

In my case, my business has changed a little, and my attitudes about what needs to go into a strategic plan have changed a LOT. My plan has always been easy to distill to one page (and I hope yours is, too). These days, that one page doesn't have very much "how" on it. It has "what" (mission, BHAG, critical success factors) and "why" (vision and values), but is free from the details that change all the time anyway. I've gained clarity on the whats and whys in ways I could never have imagined five years ago. Most importantly, the plan is now radically aligned.

There is no disconnect, anymore, between what my plan says and what I want, believe, and aspire to accomplish. There are no tasks on my plan that I hate or dread. There are no values or goal categories that someone else told me to put there, or that are just meant to look good to the bank. My plan is uniquely and profoundly mine. And I know it is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

How about you? Is your plan radically aligned with your dreams, your talents, and your passions? What would you have to take out, change, or add to get there?

Shining a Light, Part I

I have recently discovered a new raft of self-limiting beliefs I've been lugging around with me, and am now pulling them out of my karmic backpack to leave behind. This is an interesting experience. I wonder if you've ever had it? You wake up (figuratively or literally) one day and go, "wow! Why am I telling myself THAT? Not only is it not serving me, it's not even true!"

One of my favorites -- perhaps you've heard it -- is "people will hate me if they ever find out what I'm really like." If you're like almost everyone I've ever met, you developed a belief much like this somewhere around junior high, and some small part of it has persisted in you ever since. It feeds on labels. If "people" (at my office, in my bridge club, at my church) ever found out that I was (or wasn't) Christian, Jewish, Democrat, Republican, skeptic, morning person, dyslexic, divorced, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered/straight/kinky, or not a natural blonde, I would be run out of town on a rail and would never find another friend.

The really weird thing about this is that our subconscious (what I sometimes call the "lizard brain") somehow persuades us that this is a real risk, even with people we have known for years and who trust and respect us deeply. When we suspect our friends or colleagues of being capable of this sort of treachery, it is we ourselves who commit the more treacherous act. How unkind, to insinuate that another person could be so petty! How distrustful, to imagine that someone who knows you well would change their mind about you based on something as small and ultimately meaningless as a label.

If we want to build real relationships (and we know that real relationships are the first premise of all effective human interaction in both personal and professional arenas), we have to be authentic. That means letting go of the labels we place on ourselves as well as those we slap onto others. It also means trusting that people want and need to know who you really are, and that when you shine a light on yourself, and on them, that everyone will like what they see.

What aspects of you need a light shone on them today, in order to reveal more of who you are, banish the labels, and let you show up fully to the opportunities that lie before you? Whom do you need to trust more deeply? (Maybe even yourself!) Who could help you shine that light, and what would you have to believe in order to feel safe asking?

(And if you don't think this has EVERYTHING to do with success in your business, think again.)

Life Lessons from the Movies, episode 3

I have a soft spot in my head for Disney movies, as most of you know. Today's source of inspiration is not, I admit, one of their better efforts, but does offer a valuable message for personal and professional development. The movie is Meet the Robinsons, and the lesson is that it's OK to get things wrong.

In the movie, the protagonist is very confused when the people around him enthusiastically praise him for failing. "You failed! That's GREAT!" I don't know about you, but I don't have that experience very often. Usually when I mess up, no cheering occurs. Interestingly enough, though, it's also pretty rare for other people to criticize or scold me for it. What about you? When you fail, or make a mistake, do you get a lot of grief from anyone else? There's only one person who punishes me relentlessly for the errors I make in my life. She looks back at me from every mirror.

Two simple lessons I wish I had learned by the time I was ten are only just now starting to sink in. Consider them my gift to you if you are younger than I am, and know they are easier to put into words than they are to install in your psyche.

Lesson one: Mistakes are essential! Getting it wrong is how we learn. Theodore Roosevelt said, "the man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything." When we let ourselves get bound up in the fear of failure, we avoid trying new things. We hide in our comfort zone and miss out on a world of opportunities. Go ahead and explore something unfamiliar, and don't be afraid of failure. Every experiment is a success as long as you get data.

Lesson two: Lighten up! If making a mistake is a learning opportunity worthy of celebration, don't waste energy feeling bad about it or beating yourself up. I find it difficult to let go and move beyond my mistakes, but when I am able to do it, it's the most liberating feeling I've ever had. When you mess up, take any needed corrective action quickly, learn the lesson, and let go of the negative feelings as soon as you can. Remember that spaced repetition can work for you as well as against you. Repeat the parts of the lesson you want to remember instead of letting negative messages pollute your head.

They say we teach what we most need to learn. Perhaps you have enjoyed some benefit from reading this, and if not, you are willing to indulge me as I teach something I'm working to learn for myself.

Made any fabulous mistakes lately? I'd love to hear about it.

Making It All Work

I have borrowed the title of this blog post from the title of the book I just finished reading. In it, David Allen (you all know what a huge fan I am of David) explores how the principles he put forth in Getting Things Done are implemented in real life. He digs deeply into what he calls the "stages of control" and the "horizons of focus," and provides stories, tips and examples to help the reader implement GTD more effectively.

I had two wonderful "aha" moments in reading this book. The first was when he shed some light on the multiple meanings of the title. We have a tendency to think and talk in terms of "work" being stuff you get paid to do, and stuff you don't like doing (mowing the lawn is "work," lounging in the pool is not). David suggests that a purer definition of "work" is really any action you take toward some desired outcome, and when you think of everything you do in the course of a day as "work," two good things happen. One, you let go of the idea of work as punishment and embrace the idea of work as productivity; and two, you become more mindful of the need to choose your actions in every moment based on your priorities, your commitments, and your energy level. If you are fortunate enough to set your own hours, this may translate into golfing on Tuesday morning with an important client (or a favorite nephew), and working on a proposal on a Saturday afternoon because that is when you are in the best state of mind to do it. So "Making It All Work" suggests assigning the label of "work" to everything you do, regardless of the project or context it serves, and perhaps by extension, learning to take your job less seriously and your health and family more seriously.

My second "aha" was a new level of understanding of an idea I had read many times before in David's work, but had not quite fully absorbed. This is the idea that planning has to happen on the level where you are focused now before it can happen on a higher level. David calls this "paying attention to what has your attention," and it basically means that if your desk is so covered with stuff that you can't think straight (physical clutter), or you are consumed with dread over the decision to terminate a problem employee (mental clutter), you will not be able to devote useful attention to "30,000 foot view" thinking no matter how important it is. The reason this "aha" is important for me is that I have long touted the importance of strategic planning as a critical first step toward success in business, leadership, and even energy management (what some folks call "time management"). I still stand by the assertion that it is a critical step, but I've now realized it's not always the first step. This new appreciation for what it really means to meet the client where they are will make me more effective in diagnosing your organization's needs and responding appropriately to them.

If you're ready to clear the clutter and get things done, give me a call.

It's all a Game

I recently spent a little more time than I really care to admit playing a video game called "Pac-Match Party." I think much of the appeal came from the fact that I got quite good at it very quickly, and as I thought about it, I realized that it offers a lot of interesting parallels with work and life. If (and only if) you have a little discretionary time available, follow the link and try the game for a bit. Then see what you think of these analogies.

The task you perform in this game is to rearrange picture tiles to create rows of at least three the same. In order to do this, you need to look at the board strategically to see the big picture of what tiles are where, what constraints there may be on your ability to rearrange them, and where you may be able to score extra points by choosing a move that lines up four or five tiles instead of just three. You also need to look at the board tactically, because there are other things going on in the game that require you to work as quickly as you can. And each time you succeed in lining up three tiles, those tiles disappear and the entire board shifts as the tiles above them drop and new tiles appear. Meanwhile, there are constant distractions of sound and motion that you must decide to respond to or ignore. Abundant opportunities and distractions, constantly changing, requiring you to look for possibilities that may not be obvious. Does this sound like anything you've ever encountered in your life?

In addition, your "life" in the game is represented by a little Pac-Man eating his way around a single track that frames the board. He is being chased by a red ghost. The actions you take on the board affect the speed your Pac-Man travels. If you make enough good moves quickly enough, your Pac-Man will actually catch up with the ghost, it will turn blue (remember how it happened in the original Pac-Man game?) and you can eat it, for lots of extra points. So your situation may be reactive, where you are working frantically to out-run your opponent, or proactive, where you are working to run your opponent down. The closer the opponent gets to catching you, the more pressure you feel to work quickly and the more likely you are to make a mistake. But if you get far enough ahead to "lap" your opponent, you gain the upper hand and become the threat, rather than the threatened. This in turn may increase your confidence and your effectiveness. Does this sound like anything you've ever encountered in your business?

Other interesting parallels:

• The thing that ultimately determines your success or failure in the game is on the periphery of the action -- very small and at risk of going unnoticed. What's on the periphery of your vision right now that could determine your success or failure?
• The game requires constant, smart action, but does not require lightning-fast reflexes or frantic activity. Are you effective and efficient in your work, or just busy?
• As you progress through various levels, there are more and more "roadblocks" to your actions. How to you respond to the increased challenge as you become more and more successful?
• It is relatively easy to complete levels quickly, but you will score more points by staying on your current level for as long as possible. In other words, your strategy will be different depending on your goals. Are you clear about your current goals, and is your activity aligned with them?

The best parallel of all in this game is that if you do nothing for a few seconds, the game will point out a move to you. It doesn't do it for you, show you the whole solution, or help you too soon, but if you need a little boost, the game offers you just enough help to keep you moving forward on your chosen path. Sounds to me a lot like what a coach does!

Need some help to clarify your strategy or find your next move? Give me a call.

The Butterfly Effect

Being in the business of change, I continually run across (and often use) various buzz phrases and adages that are true enough, often enough to warrant repeating. One popular one among business coaches goes, "If nothing changes, nothing changes."

It's a simple enough idea, closely related to the perennial favorite definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If we keep doing what we've always done, we'll keep getting the same outcomes we've always gotten. That's great, if for example you've always gone to the same dentist and never had a cavity, but not so good if you've always advertised in the same outlets and never gotten the customers you were looking for.

I recently returned from, of all things, a yoga retreat at a beautiful wellness center in the Berkshires. While I was there, I realized a hugely important corollary to the "if nothing changes, nothing changes" adage. You see, I have sometimes found myself paralyzed by the magnitude of what needs changing. I decide, for example, that I'm sick of my front yard looking terrible, with scraggly weeds and patches of bare dirt. But then I contemplate what would be entailed in fixing it -- tearing out the hopeless lawn, adding new plants, setting up a water-wise irrigation system -- and I get so overwhelmed that I end up doing nothing. A few weeks or months later, I get fed up with the status quo again, and go through the same cycle. Each time it gets more frustrating, but nothing changes, so nothing changes.

Here's the thing I discovered on my yoga retreat. I came to a real, down to the depths of my gut understanding of the notion of "enough." And I realized that if I planted one tree, or mulched one small bed, or installed one rain barrel, it would make a difference. And if I took one step each time I felt ready to do so, I would accomplish the whole project. (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!) Most importantly, I realized that doing one little thing would impact my attitude. And sure enough, when I planted a few flowers in pots, and grouped the pots together in the garden close to my front door, it shifted my attitude about it so much that in short order I had mulched a large area in front of the house, put in a rain barrel, and ordered a couple of new trees. The project is far from done, but more importantly, it's far from UNdone. Now, instead of despairing every time I pull into my driveway, I am delighted by the bright little cluster of flower pots that tells me "hey, you've done enough for now. The rest will wait."

If nothing changes, nothing changes. But if anything changes, everything changes.

What's the "one small step" you could take on a huge project that will be enough to provoke a giant leap in your attitude?

Writer's Block

I've been having some computer troubles since I returned from a trip out of state, and the combination of those two factors has made it virtually impossible to keep up with my online activities. This has been doubly frustrating because my recent travels and other experiences have given me so many ideas to write about!

Fortunately, I think the logistical storms have passed, and I look forward to rediscovering all the little notes I've written to myself to remind me about all those ideas. We'll see what thoughts have survived the temporary upheaval. It all certainly serves to reinforce one of David Allen's key points about productivity -- if your tools lack the features and functions you need, or if they are not working perfectly, they act like an anvil around the neck of your creativity.

I also discovered how a little, relatively invisible problem with a computer can turn into a big one if you don't pay attention to the small cues that something is not right. (After 30 years of working with the silly things you'd think I'd have caught on to that one!)

Today's free advice, worth every penny you paid for it, is: don't put up with flaws in any tool you need to be productive. If you don't love it, or it doesn't work perfectly, it's time to get it fixed or replaced. The cost in money to have the right tools is a pittance compared to the cost in time, trouble, frustration and sapped creativity to tolerate stuff that doesn't work for you.

Contradictions

Not that I recommend this strategy, but being sick for a few days offers an opportunity to catch up on one's reading, and I have been. I'm not a particularly fast or voracious reader, yet I've finished two books in the last two days and am well on the way to finishing a third. All this to say, I have some reflections to share about my recent reading.

I saw some parallels between these two very different books -- one called "The End of The Dream" by Philip Wylie (1972, long since out of print) and the other called "A Simpler Way" by Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers (1999). Wylie's book is a classic speculative fiction "if this goes on" cautionary tale of a global apocalypse brought about not by war, but by a systematic ransacking of the natural environment that led to a dramatic rise in sea level, widespread disease and starvation. The other book is an imaginative nonfiction exploration of human evolution, starting from the premise that species evolve, not because they have to, but because they can. Creatures adapt, then, in highly creative and experimental ways, not with any particular end in mind, but to see if the change has a desirable benefit. Not exactly to avoid death, but to enrich life.

Wylie's premise is that human greed and shortsightedness ultimately led, in his imaginary future, to environmental ruin and thus human ruin. Wheatley and Rogers operate from a very different premise -- that humans, like all animals, will choose life and life-affirming activities, and that the over-structuring of organizations, rules, processes and procedures interferes with those life-affirming aims.

Einstein said, "you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." While this may not be literally true, in the sense that when you have enough resources to work with, you can have both a Peace Corps and an Army, the essential contradiction makes it nearly impossible for any one individual, entity, or even nation to apply equal resources to both. The same is true of any two contradictory notions. It is difficult to apply equal resources to environmental protection and explosive industrial growth. Or to individual freedom and excessive regulation or bureaucracy. Or even to "struggling for survival" -- avoiding death -- and embracing the fullness of life.

To bring this heady monologue back to earth, then, here's the question: what are the fundamental contradictions preventing you from creating a full life, a free spirit, a thriving business? What beliefs are getting in your way, about yourself, your community, your industry, the economy, the government? What do you need to let go of, in order to reach for what you really want?

The first quarter of 2010 is almost over!

It flew by for me, thanks in part to an exciting and profitable client contract and the promise of more coming down the pike. As often happens when a "good gig" comes along, I'm awash in the daily details of what's currently in front of me, and getting a bit behind in some of the less urgent (but still quite important) aspects of my life. Fortunately, I have some mechanisms for addressing that so it doesn't get out of hand.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge David Allen fan, and once again, his methods apply to this situation, although I would qualify that by saying the GTD philosophy is necessary but not sufficient. I've been using OmniFocus with good success to capture and categorize the "stuff" in my head, and would recommend that fine software package to those who are in search of a good workflow management app for your computer/PDA. I'm sort of keeping up with weekly reviews, a habit that requires a good deal of discipline but is absolutely worth whatever it takes to establish.

Perhaps the most critical piece of the puzzle, and one I hope you have as a repeating appointment in your calendar as I do, is a periodic (at least quarterly and preferably monthly) review of your strategic plan. Assuming you chose to set some goals for this year, whether they were SMART goals, wild wishes, New Year's Resolutions, or even just hopes and dreams, it's right about now when they tend to be permanently lost if you haven't pulled them out to assess your progress.

What I've discovered about myself in using OmniFocus is that having my "stuff" captured and interpreted into doable tasks is only half the battle. Finding the motivation and managing my physical and mental energy to tackle the items on the list is just as, if not more difficult than the capture process itself. Everything on the list is something I put there, not someone else's arbitrary idea of what I ought to be doing. Yet a bewildering array of distractions is always available: interesting TV shows, new books, nice weather (for a change!), and of course the highly addictive Internet. Periodically reviewing my progress toward my larger goals becomes the fuel on my motivational fire, providing the clarity that allows me to focus my attention on the things I have decided are important to me. It also provides a critical reality check, giving me the opportunity to change my mind about one or more of my goals based on whatever new information has come to light since I wrote them. I may need to change some, eliminate some, and add others. The key is to do so in an intentional way, and so not permit external forces to change my goals for me.

When was the last time you pulled out your list of dreams or goals for 2010? Is now the right time to do that? If not, when is? Make an appointment with yourself and put it on your calendar right now. Even if you decide to throw every last goal out the window and write up a whole new batch, you'll feel so much better for having done it on purpose.

As always, let me know if I can help.

Life Lessons from the Movies, episode 2

In just two viewings of "The Princess and the Frog," Tiana has become my favorite Disney princess. Any Disney aficionado, or anyone with daughters, knows there are a myriad of young two-dimensional ladies to choose from in that pantheon. In most cases, two-dimensional doesn't only describe their appearance.

Tiana is different. For starters, she's not a princess. And in a refreshingly modern twist, she has no particular desire to be a princess. She has a different kind of dream, driven by her family ties and her personal values, and she spends her life in relentless, focused pursuit of it. Tiana is no shrinking violet, tempted by evil sorcerers and in need of rescuing by any knight in shining armor. Interestingly enough, in this story, the prince is by far the more helpless of the two.

Like all good mythic heroes, Tiana has disadvantages. She is a minimum-wage earning minority woman in a time and place where such people rarely rise above that station. She has a tragic flaw -- that of being out of balance. She loses someone important to her, and she faces temptation, hardship, and injustice. Of course, this is a Disney story, so in the end, the good guys prevail and "happily ever after" comes right on cue. What's unique about this story is that the fairy godmother (you're going to love this!) is basically a coach. Rather than intercede on Tiana's behalf, she simply asks the right questions and points out the flaws in our heroes' strategies, that they might find within themselves the needed resources to solve their own problems. In the end, they prevail by realizing, and then being true to, what is most important to them.

Here are the questions Tiana needed to resolve. Do any of them resonate with you?

1. How is what I want different from what I need?
2. What's my real reason for doing what I am doing?
3. What motivates the people who are in a position to help me?
4. What am I willing to sacrifice for what is most important to me?
5. What am I missing out on as I pursue my goals, and is that OK with me? If not, what do I need to do differently?

Two things Tiana really had right were that she had a plan, and she had an affirmation. Do you have both of those things? If not, drop me a line. I can help.

Follow the Money

A colleague of mine recently said to me, "if you understand the flow of cash in a business, you understand the business." While I'm not sure an understanding of the cash flow alone would make me an expert in a particular industry, there's no doubt that "following the money" provides a lot of insight into how a company works. It can also shed some light on the ways in which a company doesn't.

Supposing Jane in procurement doesn't much care for the way Joe over in marketing treats her. Joe puts together a purchase order for some promotional items to be handed out at an upcoming trade show, and tosses it on Jane's desk along with a terse remark. She carefully places it at the bottom of the pile on her desk. The P.O. gets processed eventually, and the items arrive (barely) on time. Joe's and Jane's distaste for each other deepens, and more to the point, the company pays rush charges on the last-minute order.

The invoice for the order makes its way over to accounting, where Bill, who doesn't like Joe any better than Jane does, tucks it into the bottom of his in-basket. And misses the deadline to get the discount for paying within 15 days.

There's nothing wrong with the process at this company. Everyone does exactly what they are supposed to do, according to the letter of the procedure. Yet they are missing obvious opportunities to save money. Why? Because processes don't run companies. People run companies. And when people let their personal gripes or grudges get in the way of productivity, chances are there's a deeper problem that process improvement alone won't solve.

In this case, following the money would reveal these disconnects. The challenge for the person who discovers them is to recognize the real problem. Telling Jane and Bill to pay more attention to the urgency of this paperwork, or giving them more "training" on the procedure, won't make the slightest difference. They know how do to it efficiently. They choose to undermine Joe instead of acting in the company's best interests. It will take noticing the pattern -- that this happens regularly with Joe's purchase orders and not with Bob's or Mary's -- and resolving the people conflict to put the cash flow back on track.

The soft stuff is the hard stuff, and people are the bottom line when it comes to your bottom line. What might you discover by "following the money" at your office?

Impeccable

I am recently back from the 21st annual Women in Aviation, International Conference, where I heard wonderful keynote speeches from a number of notables in the aviation field. Among these was Randy Babbitt, the new FAA Administrator. Mr. Babbitt talked at length about the issue of safety, as you might expect. What was interesting to me was his choice to address safety in terms of professionalism.

Pilots, like people in all industries, are expected to take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of themselves, their equipment and others in their care. In your workplace, even if the greatest daily danger you face is a paper cut, you have safety procedures with which you are expected to be familiar and compliant. But how many people do you know who approach safety with real professionalism?

How many times have you seen someone complain about or ignore a fire drill, give their hands a cursory rinse rather than a thorough scrub, or use a tool without the proper guards or protective gear in place? Most of us have taken a safety shortcut at least once in our lives, and some of us, myself included, literally have the scars to prove it. And usually, at least for me, I can look back on that event and see the error chain: no one was looking, or I was in a hurry, or I got sloppy because I was bored or tired. Those errors show a lack of professionalism -- not a problem with training or procedure, but a problem with attitude.

Any safety-conscious industry offers plentiful safety training for employees. Most have been through classes, review, and drills recently, and are surrounded by job aids in the form of placards, posters and checklists. Yet in the absence of a professional attitude, none of this makes the slightest difference.

How would you want a customer or colleague to describe your work? Would you like it to be labeled "sloppy", "lax", or "incomplete"? Or would you like it to be labeled "impeccable"? I, for one, would like to have an impeccable safety record. Will I achieve that by rushing, skipping steps, or failing to take it seriously? Probably not. I'd also like my clients to describe me as providing impeccable service. Will I achieve that by rushing, skipping steps or failing to take it seriously? Of course not. And in the case of service, just as in the case of safety, more "how-to" training won't help. Professionalism -- attention to detail, focus on the client and on my mission and values, and the right attitude toward the work are the keys to impeccable performance.

Care, Then Choose

"For as long as you know in your heart that what you’re making or doing matters, and, consequently, for as long as you accept and embrace the immutable laws of scarcity, your options for maintaining focus will, like Frank’s perfect answer ["you do one thing at a time"], remain stunningly obvious.

You “focus” on the one thing you care about, as you “unfocus” on everything else. If not for every minute of your life, at least for the time you set aside to pursue the thing that matters.

If that sounds fancy and oversimplified, then you “care” about too many things. Period."

(from Merlin Mann's post, "First, Care" on 43folders.com)

In another realm of my life, I am considering closing a small volunteer organization, of which I am currently president. My one-year term as president is about to enter year four, not because I've refused to give up my power (far from it), but because no one else seems to want the job. More specifically, only four people reliably attend meetings, and two of them just moved out of state. The other is already filling two other officer posts and has no aspirations to the proverbial throne.

When the organization began, it boasted a membership of nearly 40 enthusiastic members. Since the novelty has worn off, it has fallen off the priority list of those other members, leaving me no choice but to conclude there is either no ongoing need for the service we are offering, or that service is already provided by other organizations.

There's nothing wrong with that. By extension, there's nothing wrong with saying "no" to something that is not a priority or a passion in your life. When you are asked to join a club, donate to a cause, volunteer for a charity event, or write a letter to the Times, you can say "no," and that can be the end of the conversation. It is far better simply to say "no" once than to say "maybe" over and over again. This is what you are doing when you say "oh, I can't today," or "I'm too busy this week -- maybe next time." Rather than free yourself from something you don't love, you are letting it remain around your neck as you give that friend or colleague or organization permission to keep asking. If you say "not this time" more than three times, face it: you aren't interested and discussing it further is a waste of everyone's time.

Causes, committees, clubs and kaffeeklatsches are available to you in infinite supply. Any of them would benefit greatly from your support. All of them will not, and trying to spread yourself that thin is a great way to go broke and fall over from exhaustion. Instead, give generously of your heart, mind and pocketbook to a few causes and hobbies that speak to you on a deep level. Organizations rely most heavily on a few, a few dozen, or at most a few hundred people for whom that one thing is the most important thing in their lives. If you have the wherewithal to be one of those people for a favorite group, by all means, do so. If not, you may want to support a handful of different groups to a moderate degree, or you may want to plan to give a little bit to as many as you can, as your resources allow. Odds are, unless you have a lot more free time or discretionary cash than most people, you will have to choose one of these options. Choose your strategy carefully, in alignment with your values, your basic needs, and your other priorities.

Distractions are often disguised as opportunities. Measure each one against your personal vision and mission, and make your choices intentionally. Your health, your family, your appointment calendar, and your wallet will all thank you for it.

From Merlin Mann: "First, Care."

Before I write my own blog post, I offer you this one, that I wish I had written.

(Warning - there are one or two "non-family-friendly" words in the linked post. Please do not click if such a word might offend you. And no, I don't wish I'd written those particular words.)

Merlin Mann offers a great, no-frills answer to the question of how to stay focused, and it provides a great segue into the post I'm about to write, about priorities. Take a look at Merlin's post, then come back for mine....