Timing is everything........

I have written before about how much change practitioners can learn from other life activities. Recently, this has been crystallised around timing, how important it is in change and how I Have never seen any aspect of change skills refer to timing of a project manager of change agent be recognised because of their timing. Instead you see people rewarded and valued for “slogging on regardless”, or, occasionally, being lucky. So why not?

Recently, on TV programme about the science of sport the presenter demonstrated that for a professional sportsman (in this case, a golfer and a baseball player) if their timing was even minutely off, their performance (distance and accuracy) dropped by over 10%. Interestingly, their widely accepted warm up routines actually had a negative impact on their timing!

I have also recognised in business that to have an idea adopted, let alone implemented, decision makers  are heavily influenced by timing. By this I mean when in the planning cycle is it presented, what else is distracting your decision makers, what competition for resource is it facing, etc. The speed of decision making is frequently independent of the amount of preparatory work, the size/impact of the decision or the urgency of what is being decided. This is why so often it take a crisis, real, perceived  or manufactured, to extract any form of decision making.

Comedy is also well recognised as being a profession where success is heavily dependent on timing. That said it is not one size (or one timing) that fits all. On one of his tours Billy Connelly, the Scottish comedian, admitted that it was much easier playing large venues. Why? Well, because it took longer for the laughter to pass around it, thus giving him more time to prepare his next line/joke.

The aspect that brought this all to mind is the old, eternal cry for more communication, especially from the passive, critical portions of the population. By “passive, critical” I mean those who prefer  to be spoon-fed just what they want to know and not have to exert any energy either trying to learn about or assess the benefits and impact of a coming change; those who prefer to read selectively and recall information in order that they can find solace in complaining that they know nothing because no one has told them – often despite hard contrary evidence.

It struck me that effectively connecting with this portion of the community along with the rest is heavily dependent upon timing. This timing is in terms of relevance to the individual, receptivity in the broader audience and context in terms of wider happenings. If one’s timing is right the communication is absorbed and sticks, but if the timing is wrong it is hardly worth doing other than to build documentary evidence that you did, in fact, communicate and do “the right things”.

Indeed if one looks dispassionately at the work of many project managers, you can pick out those with a feel for timing, who understand the heartbeat of the organisation they are working in, and those who do not. I have not quantitative evidence to support this, but I would suggest that those with “timing” lead the projects that are perceived to be better managed (not always struggling against the current) and deliver more benefits.

As a closing thought for now, I would suggest that when one recruits or assesses a change professional one should look at their sense of timing and go for those with the best instinctive management of this – they are probably “luckier” than the rest.

On my part I am seriously considering taking a class in stand-up comedy, something that amuses my family just in its notion. To me there is nothing to lose, and if it helps me play to an audience even an iota better then it is probably worth it. 

Maybe we should add it into the standard set of project management training?

An Epiphany of the Obvious - Cowboys and old dogs

Let's cut to the chase - building on strengths is a better way to raise performance than just eliminating weaknesses. Is that not obvious? Yet look at corporate life and see how much time is spent plugging weaknesses, individual and corporate, and how little spent on building on strengths.

While cost cutting can have a positive short term impact on profitability we know it is limited and not the way to build long term success. Why then do we treat our human capital as if we are continually cost cutting?

This train of thought was triggered the other day when I was asked to look a "StrengthsFinder 2.0". On the face of it this is a small book one can buy from Amazon for less than £10. in it is a code that gives access to an online assessment tool. The tool looks to identify your five top themes or strengths and then refers you back to the book and other online resources to help understand your strengths, develop them and use them. It claims to be based on many years of research and is apparently wow'ing corporate America.

I took the test and was struck that after 30 years of receiving corporate training around management and change, this was the first to really major on strengths. Previously, the tools ( Meyers-Briggs, Discovery, LIFO, Belbin, etc etc ) would be used to feedback to individuals and teams with the focus heavily loaded on shortcomings, weaknesses and differences.

I am sure this is not what the creators of these tools intended, but I contend it is how they are more often used. The tools are being used to solve a problem and that problem must be about weaknesses, or so it is easy to think. Similarly how many performance management systems really focus on strengths and developing them. More often than not one is told what one needs to do to fit in, how not to be different, how to adapt to everyone around you (NLP?) and be a good team player. Where do they value the individual over fitting into some stereotype?

Not only does this make a mockery of claims about diversity, it also misses huge engagement and performance opportunities. When was the last time the chair of a meeting asked for dissenting views instead of grasping perceived agreement and rushing to the next item? Daring to differ or show an alternative perspective can be seen as being difficult, off message and not part of the team.

It reminds me of horses whisperers ( see Robert Redford in the film, but the book is better! ). If you have not read the book or seen the film, then let briefly explain. In order for a horse to be ridden, the common wisdom is that it has to be "broken". This is where a cowboy breaks the will and spirit of a horse physically by forcible riding it and showing supremacy. This is a very macho activity and one that relies on strength and courage. In short they break before they build, forcing common behaviours upon an individual horse.

An alternative is a horse whisperer. These people have a quieter, gentler approach. They look to understand a horse, to develop an empathy and forge a bond. Moving to the stage that the horse agrees to / accepts being ridden. The horse has not been broken in any way, instead it has been enticed into behaving, albeit subtley and I would suggest is better for it.

While there are relatively few whisperers, you can mass produce cowboys ( even if you do lose a few along the way with some horses ) and process many more horses by breaking them. This may appear efficient in the short term, but primarily it is expedient.

How many cowboys do we have in management? How much are they limiting performance? I guess the test is to see how many teams amount to something greater than the sum of the parts; I would suggest relatively few.

Of course building on strengths and embracing diversity is harder on a manager. He/she would need to build a portfolio team rather than build clones; they would need heightened tolerance and understanding when they too are being chased for short term delivery. The problem is that many rounds of short term performance soon look like sub standard long term performance, but hey, by then the manager will long gone, having ridden off to another sunrise somewhere.

I am not sure if I am an old dog or indeed if these are new tricks for me. I have long built teams and developed their members, creating opportunities and supporting ambition. The difference now is that I have a tool to help and a clearer vocabulary.

I would issue this challenge:

> Take a look at yourself and identify your own strengths ( maybe use StrengthsFinder? ) - look at yourself differently.
> Next look at your team and do the same for each.
> Consider if you are allowing each to play to their strengths, if not can you change things so theta are?
> Look at your team as a collection of talented individuals and not as a set of imperfect clones.

Lastly consider if your team is greater than the sum of it's parts? If not then now is the time to do something about it.

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Small pleasures and unwritten rules

For pretty much the first time in my life I have recently had my shoes cleaned by a professional show shine man. In fact I have had three pairs cleaned on three separate occasions.

I noticed a guy had set up his pitch just outside our building. I am guessing he is Turkish or similar given the tiered array of brass Aladdin style pots that bracket the foot rest. That and the black leather waistcoat, the mediterranean skin tone and his accent.

The first time I used him was last week when I looked at my shoes and admitted to myself that a) I had neglected them and b) they looked dirty. I decided to invest in a proper clean (priced at little more than a large Starbucks coffee!).

A short while later I was the proud owner of a pair of gleaming leather toe caps (plus the rest of the shoe), but by then I realized I had a new set of rules to learn, yet no instruction booklet. There had been various subtle taps indicating a change of foot. I had been politely told off for not putting my foot flat (apparently it creates lines in the folds). I had watched the ritual of e various layers polish, three to my recollection, being applied; been buffed twice by brush and velvet cloth and protected by carefully selected plastic sock guards.

This is something few ladies will have experienced and set my mind thinking to the rules if the road regarding getting your haircut and (forgive me ladies) the occupancy pattern of urinals in a male toilet. I don't recall my father ever taking me aside and saying, "Son, this is the way it works!", but I was younger, impressionable and had an opportunity to observe. I learned to move my head at the subtlest of touches, often acting ahead of the need (the hairdresser's) and of the rule of "maximum distance" (urinals). In the shoe cleaner's chair I was alone.

I have been back twice since. The second time with a new pair of shoes that I thought would benefit for an early professional waxing. Today I took a pair of brown shoes and watched as the right shade of brown was mixed from two pots before application. You don't find that in Sainsbury's.

Apart from the obvious that I know have three pairs of well polished shoes, I have also discovered the moments of quiet contemplation one can find as another person rubs your feet. Even today I was told off for creasing my shoes during a shift of foot positions; something that broke my revery, but I hope that as the rules become second nature, the level of pleasure, albeit small, will grow.


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The Jabberwock of the 21st century?

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
Lewis Carroll

Long before the Internet existed my old Headmaster drummed a few truths into his students. One was that if you write anything down you have to assume that the world will read it. Of course that was not true literally, but with the Internet it is far more possible now. What he really meant was that once you wrote something you lost control of it's distribution, its readership and how it might be used, not matter how boldly you marked in "PRIVATE" or "CONFIDENTIAL" and caveated it.

He also spoke of "the perversity of inanimate objects", meaning it is strange how often apparently lifeless things (and I include the written word here) will negatively affect you.

These were lessons I forgot to my peril more than once in my early career. I now find myself chuckling when advice from HR professionals is not to write this down (including emails) if you are in any form of disciplinary or difficult negotiation with staff. Emails can and have been used in the prosecution (in all senses of the word) of these matters.

I had been intending to blog on this subject following a recent conversation with my god-daughter. She is just heading to university to study, amongst other things, politics. I raised the question of Facebook, Twitter, etc. and gently reminded her to be be careful what she posted as it will persist on some database, accessible by some search engine, possibly forever. As a result, it is likely to surface at the most inopportune or embarrassing moment in her future career, whatever that may be.

The trigger today was an article in The Times about a teenager who wrote an abusive email to President Obama. Now, with FBI and Police involvement, he is banned from (ever?) entering the USA. While I and others think this is a gross over-reaction - what happened to free speech and a sense of proportion? - it is also a great example of the unforeseen consequences of "writing something down".

I have certainly found myself self-censuring in my posts here. A good number of things I might post about I have decided against. The dangers were illustrated to me a good few years ago when my boss observed an employee I had recently hired was blogging in work time. This was before blogging was common place. My boss brought it to my attention because when he reviewed the blog my employee had made comments about me. I think the post has been erased now, but as I recall it opined that I did not know as much as I thought I did and made some comment about being pompous.

A few of my colleagues thought I should call him out on it, but I didn't and never have. I decided that he was entitled to his opinion and that now i knew watt he thought I was better informed. What was calling him on it expected to achieve? We subsequently worked closely together for over three years and indeed are still colleagues and I believe we are friends with some mutual respect. Then again who knows? I certainly have not wasted effort or sleep trying to locate any more current posts.

As a parent one does one's best to prepare your children to live in the real world. Along with skills, one tries to impart some wisdom and this evening I shall show the article to my daughter and hope some of the implications register. I know her generation use these mediums differently to mine and indeed the older generations are frequently shocked. It may be that future recruiters or assessors will work to different standards and be more understanding and tolerant of the more "unusual" postings, but that cannot be banked upon.

All I can do is hope I have warned my daughter about this particular Jabberwock.

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Grounds for Partnership

Last night I gave the opening speech for a conference of IT Directors. My intent was to provoke some thought and discussion and maybe open the way for wider discussions today, the second day. At the risk of upsetting some friends I decided to explore the holy grail that most businesses seek which is a partnership between business and IT. My grounds were that I have been sitting in meetings discussing this topic for well over ten years, yet we seem no further forward, so maybe we are looking for the wrong thing. Indeed I think it was Confucious who said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.

Cutting a long story short and not repeating the speech, it seemed to go pretty welll, quite a few wry grins and nods in the right places. Further to that around a dozen people have approached me since and said they enjoyed the speech and a number of them have asked for copies of the slides, which I have gladly dispatched.

The piece that I thought I would add here was a single slide that seems to have resonated with many and might be of use to more. It was a slide I put together as a way to check and see if a partnership exists or is viable. With a lack of originality I used the initials in the word "partner" as the key.

Briefly:-

• There is a need for a common purpose. Sort of obvious, but in many instance you find that the parties have different and diverging agendas; it is hard to build a partnership on this;
• The union should be apposite. I chose this as the definition I found was "significantly appropriate". I am not sure "good enough" is in fact good enough for partnership;
• Reward is about the balanced sharing of spoils and pain. In projects onemight see that IT bear the burden of failure while the business enjoy the success. This is not balanced and will drive non-partnership behaviours;
• Trust, well I trust (pun intended) that this is self evident;
• "n" as in a number of alternatives. If there is no alternative then it will become something like a forced marriage ie might be successful, but evidence suggests that more often than not, it is not;
• Empathy. Again I hope self evident, but a union of technologists and commerce is not an easy one, especially when the going gets tough; and lastly
• Responsibility ie each and every party sharing joint responsibility and fulfilling their own role properly.

My contention is that partnership is hard to build and sustain if even one of these is missing and certainly when two or more are absent or weak. The challenge to the audience (and the reader) was to look at the aspects of business where they think they have or need partnership and use this checklist to assess it.

The speech did cover other aspects, but this is enough for this post.

Forgive me Father.....

.....for I have not blogged in a while. That said I did state at the oustet that I would blog when I found things that interested me. Well like buses interesting things come together and I now have a few on draft form. that said I thought It better to break myself back in with this a sort compendium of items. If you can discern a pattern then I salute you.

In no particular order here they are:

Portfolio Employment

I seem to be running into more and more people who seem to be considering a working life that may have two or three components running together. This seems to be a practical response to the employment situation where finding a significant role that one likes seems to be more difficult. It is also a pragmatic response to the pension debacle we face. Many of us will have to supplement meagre pensions with additional income from earnings that may have to stretch into out seventies.

I sense it may also have something to do with how even companies who say they care for their staff are no treating most of us as commodities, offering no real security and little care; so we look after ourselves and spread the risk.

Now I am not sure if this is a true trend or a measure of the different circles I am starting to circulate in as I consider a number of interesting possibilities.

I had long realized that our children's generation would be the first to be worse off than their parents. What I had not realized was that it would affect me, but for many of us who have lost final salary pensions we find ourselves on that cusp. Our retirement will be less comfortable than our parents.

Parents have no musical taste

As father to a teenager I have been increasingly ridiculed should I show any appreciation for modern music. I have always had a fairly eclectic taste in music so why not enjoy elements of today's music?

Last year my daughter almost fell off her chair when I knew that Scouting For Girls sang "she's so luvverly". She just about coped this year on as our family holiday songs became "Billionaire" by Travie Mccoy feat. Bruno Mars and "California Girls" by Katy Perry (..... daisy dukes, bikini on top....), but when I start talking about the Sky 1 series "Must be the music" it is all too much! She is horrified I like a Brit Pop band from Braintree called Missing Andy - just search on Youtube.

For an unsigned band they have some great songs and some very professional videos. They wow'ed the TV judges with "Made this way (Made in England)" and the video is very clever. The video for "Call to Arms" is also very well made, but I found it rather disturbing. On the face of it the video is something of a gorefest, but I sense an undercurrent. I will leave you make your own judgement, but I wonder if the band will come to rue releasing that video. As it is now on the Internet it will always be available somewhere, but it is likely to spook any record company with even a modicum of risk aversion.

Marmite XO

I am probably behind the times again, but in the supermarket today I found(!) Marmite XO. It claims to be a longer matured and stronger version of Marmite. I just had to buy some.

I have long been in the 'love it' camp in regards to Marmite and struggle to think how you can improve it. The sad side of me will come out when I run a comparative taste test in the next few days - watch out for the results.


Well that is probably enough - I do have three more posts forming plus a Marmite feedback so maybe the next week will be a little more productive.


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String theory, psychometrics and all that!

Today The Times published extracts from Stephen Hawking’s new book. The headline is that God did not create the universe, but rather we/it/everything are the inevitable consequence of the Law of Gravity, leaving no room and no need for God.

Luckily for you , the reader, I don’t plan to discuss that aspect of it, but rather something that cropped up towards the end of the article. Hawking predicts that physics is close to writing:

“a theory of everything, a single framework that can entirely explain the properties of Nature. Such a theory has been the holy grail for physicists since the time of Einstein, but until now it has been impossible to reconcile quantum theory, which explains the sub-atomic world, with gravity, which explains how objects interact on the cosmological scale.”

He expects that M-Theory, a form of string theory, will achieve this goal. Luckily I do not profess to understand or be able to explain string theory, but would pick out the following

“Rather than being a single master equation, Professor Hawking, suggests that M-theory will be a “whole family” of theories existing within a consistent theoretical framework. Much like the way different maps — political, geographical, topological — can map a single region without contradicting each other, M-theory will map different aspects of the material world.”

This resonates deeply with something else that has been on my mind ie the many frameworks and tools we, as managers and modern workers, are faced with in trying to explain human relations and motivations in the search for ultimate personal and corporate performance.

Over the years, through MBA study and corporate training I have come across a multitude of theories, frameworks, assessment tools and approaches (see below for a representative, but not exhaustive list). Most recently, as reported before, while on holiday I took up and read “Neuro Linguistic Programming for Dummies”. What struck me was how much of it seemed to either draw upon or feed other things I have come across, so much so that I was left not sure what is the root and what the derivative and craving some unified/unifying framework that would help me understand it all and make use of it.

I realise that various elements come from psychometrics, psychology and even philosophy, and I have often witnessed competitive streaks and discord between different practitioners, but yet it seems that they all attempt to explain the workings of human beings and how to influence them. As a physicist myself (albeit way back) I look for simplicity and elegance and intuitively feel that it should exist here too. Instead I feel I am left to pick the jewels from each and try and create my own tool kit.

The question I have is, is anyone trying to unify this? Or instead is it easier for each to ply their own theory/tool/trade and leave the consumers divided and confused?


Various tools/frameworks I can recall using or being trained in:

Dale Carnegie
Meyers-Briggs

DISC
Belbin

Judgement
Index Maslow

Neuro Linguistic Programming
LIFO

Deep Democracy