Month: December 2013

“In my experience, one of the most reliable indicators that your product will be a hit involves your customers’ hands. In the early days of Dilbert, people were cutting out their favorite strips from newspapers and hanging them on walls. That requires the use of hands to operate the scissors, tape and pushpins. People were putting Dilbert in their PowerPoint presentations, and that requires hands on the keyboard. Some readers collected their own books of Dilbert comics, organized by theme, in three-ring binders. If your customers are only responding with words, lower your expectations. But if they start using their hands, strap yourself in; it’s going to be a fun ride.” | Scott Adams

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If you are wondering why your service or product isn’t getting the attention you feel it deserves based on the feedback received, pay close attention to the nature of the feedback. Are people actively using their hands to click “share,” or post on their soap boxes, or are they just talking about it?

As George R R Martin’s fans would say – “words are wind.” They don’t count.

Watch their hands, not their mouths.

Happiness = Set point (50%) + Conditions of living (10%) + Voluntary actions (40%)

Set point => internal cell balance – while this is mostly genetic, your set point is typically the average of a range and you can work to get to the top of that range.

Conditions of living => your fancy car, house, and standard of living

Voluntary actions => acts of gratitude and how you live life

I was reminded over the weekend that conditions of living only constitute 10% of your happiness. So, material pursuits under the excuse of happiness makes very little sense.

So, where do we begin to focus? I suggest starting at “voluntary actions.” Little actions like giving thanks for our gifts regularly contribute to 40% of our happiness.. a great place to start.

The hotel I’m staying at requires you to sign for everything delivered to your room. However, they don’t really care if your signature is real. For instance, I just marked the sheet with a small dash yesterday. No reaction. The guy bringing the tray thanked me and moved on.

Here’s how this system came to be – some guests in the past complained about additional items on the final bill. Some internal or external consultant looked at the data and suggested they add a signature to the order process to avoid exceptions. Cue: an organizational habit. They probably stuck to the habit of checking every signature for a while before they realized that the exceptions aren’t worth the additional effort of training their organization to check the signature. Or even more likely, perhaps they just forgot to do so. So, they are now stuck with a habit that doesn’t meet any real purpose.

There are a couple of interesting learnings here –

1. It is easy to accumulate bad/unnecessary habits over time. Perhaps we ought to think about a system reboot every couple of years and examine how we run our lives. Perhaps we ought to do this in our teams too.

2. It is not anywhere as easy to accumulate good habits. For a hotel, it would be amazing if there was an “unnecessary” world class service habit – e.g. saying thank you one too many times. These things rarely happen. We hardly ever find people who say they exercise too much or spend too much time reading great books.

3. Aside from an overall system reboot every couple of years, it is likely very worthwhile to sit down every few months and ask ourselves “why” we do what we do in a day. Just like the signature, we might find that we’ve forgotten the “why” and are simply stuck with the “how” and the “what.”

In the spirit of acting on yesterday’s post on change, I had an announcement today to the subscribers of 2 free services I offered – “Good morning quotes” and “Book Learnings.” Regulars in this blog have probably noticed multiple series of book learnings on sundays over the last 4 years.

I’ve taken these links off. More in the email below.

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I hope you are doing well. I am writing today with a different sort of learning – very different compared to the book learnings/good morning quotes you are used to receiving in your inbox.

This learning is inspired by a quote from the late J.P.Morgan, founder of the Wall Street bank, – He said “I can do a year’s work in nine months but not in twelve.” In saying this, Morgan referred to the fact that he kept a workaholic schedule for 9 months a year in New York but made sure he had at least 3 months away from work every year to ensure he kept his spirits up and got enough perspective.

After 204 book learnings and 1110 quotes over the last 4 years, I feel the time has come for me to get some perspective and ask myself what I can do differently/better. Inspired by Monsieur Morgan, I’ve decided to take a month off and think about how these learnings will/should play out over the next 4 years and more. There are some thoughts of integrating it all into one weekend learning but I am still unclear on what that would look like.

I am sorry for the sudden disruption in the learnings and quotes. Change is painful – for none more so than me as these have become deeply ingrained habits over time.

I am hopeful the learnings so far have helped and have added some value to your day every once in a while. I would love to hear from you on any ideas you might have for me as I ask myself how I can do this better and of course, if there’s anything you have particularly liked or disliked over these years.

Thank you for all your support and encouragement. I wish you a wonderful Christmas break and of course, a very happy new year!

Best wishes,
Rohan

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It’s going to be quite a change for me to wake up tomorrow morning and not send a quote to the list of subscribers first thing. It feels like the end of an era! That said, change is key to reinventing ourselves.. and I am looking forward to seeing what insights the coming month brings.

Onward and upward, hopefully.

3 things I have learnt about change –

1. It is always easier from the outside.

2. There is no point telling people the answer. They always have to work through it. All you can do to support them through it is give them a framework to think about it, ask the right questions, and provide unequivocal support.

3. Dealing with change is essential to being relevant. Steve Jobs realized this when he came back to Apple – his management style had to change. Sir Alex Ferguson did it over 3 decades at Manchester United.

Fighting change is a waste of energy. Change is the only constant.

Nelson Mandela died at the age of 95 yesterday. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from Mandela’s life, it is the power of one human being to drive great societal change.

My memory of Nelson Mandela owes it’s thanks to Hollywood. I loved Morgan Freeman’s portrayal of the great man in “Invictus.” And today, I’d like to share the poem the movie is named after by William Ernest Henley. Freeman’s poignant rendition of the poem is memorable.

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“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

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My wife and I have “Live invictus – I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” should be one of our 3 family values. In many ways, Nelson Mandela will live on..in our home.

If you have hopes and dreams of driving change that may be un-thinkable or unimaginable, I hope you remember what Mandela accomplished in his lifetime. That he accomplished all of that after spending 27 years in prison is incredible.

Thank you Nelson Mandela. Thank you for teaching us that ‘it is possible.’

An English premier league analogy – forgive me – Manchester United are struggling this season. The new coach didn’t help. The retirement of a legend didn’t either. But, you know what it is they have truly lost? Momentum. After winning the league a month before the league even finished last season, United slacked off. And, unlike with Sir Alex Ferguson, they have been unable to get that momentum back in the new season. Winning is a habit and only happens when you have momentum on your side. (Arsenal offer a contrast and show the power of momentum. Neither side has changed all that much but the momentum makes the difference).

Many of my posts this year have dealt with my attempts to make exercise an automatic habit in my life. I’ve not done too bad. I had a particularly good run between August-mid November. I was hitting my exercise target every week and was on a roll. Then, I lost momentum for valid reasons. In the week following the miss, I missed again thanks to somewhat valid reasons. I was determined to get “back” this week. 

Just as I was deciding to head out for exercise last evening, I remember the resistance saying – “You know, you’ve already missed 2 weeks. How does it matter if you miss another? You’ve got valid reasons…”

I went for my work-out immediately. The resistance gains in strength as you fail towards your own goals.

The great thing about momentum is that it works both ways. While inertia creates a negative momentum, you can use positive momentum to your advantage too. If you have just lost momentum on a project, begin to take small steps towards it every day/as often as possible.

Respect momentum, appreciate it’s effects, and use it to make progress. It’s among the best things you’ll do.

Here’s a simple mind hack – stop thinking of your work-outs as 30 minute commitments.

Start thinking of them as 20 minute commitments instead. It’s a simple shift but it has been a big part of the success behind the regular exercise habit I’ve formed in 2013.

30 minute has this funny effect of seeming too long. But, 20 minutes? If you say you haven’t gotten 20 minutes to get fit, then you’re surely kidding yourself, right?

So, when you start thinking of exercising tomorrow and find your brain throwing up all sorts of excuses, pitch the 20 minute idea. It works.

(Let me know how it goes anyway! ;-))

A long time reader and friend wrote me an email a few days ago where she said (among other things) that while she didn’t agree with all the posts, she appreciated the fact that there was a post here everyday.

I feel the same way as well.

My opinions have changed with time and I’m sure that trend of constant change is not going to change any time soon. It does gets a bit complicated when you have a strong point of view. For instance, when I just started working, I was fairly open about the fact that I had pirated music and movies from my university days. I didn’t really care about whether the content I consumed was paid for (of course, this means it wasn’t paid for 95% of the time). Now, I’m at the other end of the spectrum. My views began changing as I began earning money and reached a head early this year when I realized that my attitude to piracy was at odds with what I claimed to be my values. I was in danger of marginal thinking. So, I’m 100% anti-piracy now and bring up this discussion at every opportunity as I’ve learnt a lot from my experience with this subject.

I used to previously wonder about whether this habit of changing strong opinions was a problem I needed to sort out. However, I have begun to view this as a positive trait thanks entirely to a great post from Jason Fried, the founder of 37 signals, on their blog. I have posted this piece of advice from Jeff Bezos once previously but would like to share it again as it is a real gem. Enjoy. And thank you Jeff and Jason!

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Some advice from Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos stopped by our office yesterday and spent about 90 minutes with us talking product strategy. Before he left, he spent about 45 minutes taking general Q&A from everyone at the office.

During one of his answers, he shared an enlightened observation about people who are “right a lot”.

He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.

He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary.

What trait signified someone who was wrong a lot of the time? Someone obsessed with details that only support one point of view. If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time.

Great advice.

Every morning I wake up, I face the resistance. The resistance would rather have me in bed for a few minutes longer, a few hours even, than go brush my teeth and get productive. It’s excuses soon start running thin on most days since I’m eager to get going. So, when I sit up, it tried a different tactic. It starts asking me if I am capable of getting what I want to get done today.

“Can you do it?” – it goads. “You didn’t get to it yesterday.”
”But I couldn’t. There were too many other things on.”
“It doesn’t matter. You didn’t. Why would you today?”

Here’s what I’ve found.

1. The way to vanquish the resistance is to focus on your process. My process involves an insistence that I must keep plugging away and keep making progress. Results come later. The resistance can’t quite use the “bad results” excuse with me and begins to fail at the part where I describe my process and my intention to just follow it for another day.

2. The resistance is a very persistent toxic force. It will show up every morning – you have to admire it’s persistence and learn to laugh at it. It will try to get you to stay in bed longer, procrastinate longer, and stop you from showing up. On days when you’re weakened by illness or consumed by a lack of purpose, it works. Don’t let it work. Do things because you want to.. not because you lost a battle with the resistance.

3. For an interesting piece on how the resistance makes you physically sabotage yourself, read Steven Pressfield’s post

4. Fighting the resistance and winning is a great way to get the day started. Use the force. Win.