Month: December 2012

If it comes down to saying that, it has failed..

Better to accept failure and move on rather than tout the line.

Popularity often results in people following what you say versus what you do (think: politicians). In Steve Jobs case, you could argue he was not just popular, but was followed by a mass of people who had an almost cult-ish admiration for the man.

The trouble, then, is when you go out and dole bad advice. In his case, his famous Stanford commencement speech had 3 pieces of advice. Two of these were fantastic.

“You can’t connect the dots going forward”

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

The trouble is that he sandwiched this with a piece of advice that went on to define his talk – “You’ve got to find what you love.”

The trouble with great people making elementary mistakes is that their mistakes are often magnified. It is the same with Jobs. I’m sure he did it with all good intentions.

I reflected on it after spending time with some fantastic minds during the “workshop with no name” on Saturday when it felt like many of the members of the group believed Steve Jobs stood for the person who got to where he was because he never practiced and stayed “original.” It almost felt like the message they had gleaned from the hundreds of articles that glorify Jobs is that he did incredible things because he channelled some mythical natural ability. If they did the same by finding what they loved, they’d be just like him.

I’m convinced this is bad advice. Why? Because it strips away merit. And merit only comes from hard work and deliberate practice.

If you feel this is bullsh*t, I’d highly recommend taking a bit of time off and reading Cal Newport’s fantastic book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.” He just gets it. You won’t regret it.

PS: As an appetizer, here’s a glimpse of Cal Newport’s approach to picking apart the passion argument in “Don’t follow your passion”

This week’s book learning is part 5 of a 5 part series from ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ by Cal Newport. (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4)

The question from last week was – if we don’t worry about following our passion, how do we account for “missions/callings“?

Cal studies numerous achievers who have advanced to their cutting edge in their fields and found a pattern.

– They did not have a mission figured out when they got started

– For the most part, they had no clue what they even wanted to do when they got started

– In all cases, they found their mission ONLY after they acquired career capital (else you only end up with lots of enthusiasm about your “calling”, with nothing to show for it!)

– Why? The next big ideas in any field are found right beyond the current cutting edge, in the adjacent space that contains the possible new combinations of existing ideas

A good career mission is an innovation waiting to be discovered in the adjacent possible of your field. So, if you want to identify a mission for your working life, you must first get to the cutting edge – the only place where these missions become visible.

The conclusion here is simple – The more experience you have, the more likely you are to love your work and find a mission.

Hence, advancing to the cutting edge in a field is an act of “small” thinking, requiring you to focus on a narrow collection of subjects for a potentially long time. Once you get to the cutting edge, however, and discover a mission in the adjacent possible, you must go after it with zeal: a “big” action.

The usual way – think big and act small. ( Sketch by EB)
Cal advises us to think small instead and act big

Once you have the career capital required to identify a mission, you must still figure out how to put the mission into practice. If you don’t have a trusted strategy for making this leap from idea to execution, then like most people, you’ll probably avoid the leap altogether.

What strategy is that? Coming next week as the “bonus” part of this series..

Here’s to thinking small and focusing hard on getting to the cutting edge of what we do this week!

is to teach.

And the best thing about teaching is that it’s not about ramming learning down someone’s throat.

It’s creating an environment conducive to learning and facilitating the process.

At some point in the next few weeks, I will be looking back at the year and at the many initiatives I undertook. Some succeeded and some failed.

One of those that I failed at was my 100% attention initiative. It has gotten much better in some aspects, like attention during conference calls, but hasn’t improved much in some cases, like attention during personal calls. I offer up my natural ADD as an excuse but I know it’s weak because I can do it if I want to. It’s just not a habit yet.

So, I thought I’d pick out a post from Brad Feld called Golden Retriever Eyes. This is a post I can relate to, completely!

These are our golden retrievers (Denali and Kenai).  They are looking at Amy, who happens to be standing next to me as I’m taking this photo.  Notice their eyes – they are giving Amy their 100% undivided attention.  We call these “Golden Retriever Eyes.”

I have a special talent.  When Amy is talking to me, I can be doing something else (e.g. typing on my computer, reading a book) and – when she says “Brad – you aren’t listening to me,” I can repeat back the last two sentences that she said to me word for word.

For a number of years in our relationship, this was effective (at least for me.)  At some point, Amy realized this wasn’t satisfying to her – she’d figured out my special talent – and realized that her assertion (that I wasn’t listening to her) was close (I was listening, but I wasn’t paying attention.)  After several “conversations” (definitely a euphemism in this case) about it, Amy realized she didn’t want me to just listen, but she actually wanted me to pay attention.

So – give your special friend “Golden Retriever Eyes” when she is talking to you.  That’s what she really wants.

Brad’s post absolutely nails it. I do listen. But, I don’t pay 100% attention and sure as hell don’t give folks close to me “Golden Retriever Eyes”.

Here’s to that..!

What are your experiences with attention?

It is believed that inspiration comes from knowing why we do what we do.

My belief is that inspiration doesn’t come from knowing why we do what we do. Instead, it comes from asking the “why” question often enough to find answers every once a while.

The rest of the time? It just leads to other meaningful questions. And asking these  different questions ensures we traverse paths we might never have traversed if we hadn’t stopped and asked ourselves those questions.

Meaning. Possibilities. Openness. Curiosity. Inspiration.

Now you know why kids look so full of energy and inspiration. This is the stuff we are born with..

Any task is a combination of 3 pieces – preparation, action and follow up.

For a normal task, I typically find the rule of thumb to be 3x, 1x, 2x. So, if I’m preparing for a 1 hour call I will be facilitating, it would require 3 hours of preparation and 2 hours of follow up.

This will of course change a lot depending on the nature and importance of the task. For instance, for a certain monthly (very) senior management report on a project, the recurring theme was roughly 30x prep, 1x action, 4x follow up i.e. for a 1 hour presentation, roughly 30 hours were spent preparing and 4 hours spent following up.

The ratios may vary, but the takeaways are typically constant –

– The presentation/call/meeting/workshop are amongst the least important parts. Your performance on the day is only as good as your preparation and the effectiveness of what you did is only as good as your follow up.

– Preparation is hardly ever neglected. Follow up is! Great follow up makes a massive difference.

– The better you get at something, the less preparation you require. It’s vital to remember that it doesn’t mean you are putting in any less preparation, overall. It just means that you’ve done your time. That’s why great speakers can seem to “wing” it, every once a while.

Then again, Winston Churchill reminds us –

“It usually takes 3 weeks for me to prepare a good impromptu speech.”

What he left out was that it probably also took him 2 weeks to follow up..

I was working through all my expenses the other day. I had been waiting for a few yearly expenses to be processed. I use a simple spreadsheet to tackle expenses and the main objective was to understand my monthly expenditure.

I learnt three valuable things in the process.

First, make sure you put in all your expenses in one place.

Second, data throws away misconceptions. Over the last few months, my monthly accounts closure has been a rushed task on account to an overall lack of time. I’ve always had a mental approximation on how much I spend. The data indicated I was fairly off the mark – I was much closer to hitting my budget limits than I imagined!

Third, reality spurs action. The realization that I’m not as austere as I’d like has naturally resulted in a few unnecessary expenses being cut here and there. I realize expenses are one of those things which are worth revisiting from time to time. It helps to cut away the fat.

A very valuable exercise overall. I will look into my accounts properly once again at the end of the year. I hope you do too.

This week’s book learning is part 4 of a 5 part series from ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ by Cal Newport. (Parts 1, 2, 3)

Cal Newport’s 3rd principle is simple – control is one of the most important things you can bargain for (and not a promotion!). Why?

-> “Great Work” is defined by 3 traits: Creativity, Impact and Control. A job with these traits, especially control, is rare.

-> If we want something that’s both rare and valuable, we need something rare and valuable to offer in return .

-> These rare and valuable skills are our career capital.

-> And, the craftsman mindset leads to acquiring career capital.

Example: Steve Jobs gained a bit of control in his life when he sold out the first bunch of Apple I at the local computer shop.

However, to get even more valuable control, he needed to increase the value of what he had to offer. So, he took on $250,000 in funding from Mark Markkula, and worked with Steve Wozniak to produce Apple II – a new computer that was unambiguously too good to be ignored.

Cal warns that it’s dangerous to pursue more control in your working life before you have career capital to offer in exchange. Else, you run into a hard truth of the real world – it’s really hard to convince people to give you money.

So, just because you are committed to a certain lifestyle doesn’t mean you’ll find people who are committed to supporting you.

To those enthralled by the myth of a true calling, there’s nothing more heroic than trading comfort for passion. The passion theorists indicate that the biggest obstacle between you and work you love is a lack of courage to follow your dream. The downside of this is that it strips away merit.

In reality, great work doesn’t just require great courage, but also skills of great (and real) value.

So, what about “missions”/”callings” then? That’s in principle #4 – coming up next week..

Here’s to looking for control vs promotions this week!