Author: alearningaday

Lovelace nurses and identity – The 200 words project

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath..

The Lovelace hospital in Albuquerque faced an 18-30% turnover of nurses. This meant a high staff replacement cost, low morale, and high risk to patients. Kathleen Davis, VP of Operations, decided the way forward was by “Appreciative inquiry” – to change the organization by figuring out what’s working. So, with consultant Susan Wood, they interviewed 100 about what was satisfying in their jobs.

Most nurses were feeling beaten down and overworked but their tone changed when asked what was working – they were all very loyal to nursing. They loved being ‘nurses’ – it was their identity.

So, Lovelace’s management introduced “Extraordinary nursing” awards, changed their onboarding programs to focus on building this identity, and conducted workshops to help nurses improve their nursing skills. Nurse satisfaction scores increased. The results followed – they improved retention by 13% and patient satisfaction with nursing went up.

Here’s to testing appreciative inquiry in our lives as well..

Appreciative inquiry
Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

‘To discover why nurses choose to stay at Lovelace – and to gather insight in such a way that the process in and of itself contributes positivity and minimizes negativity.’ | The purpose statement of the Lovelace inquiry statement

“You may not like us..and that’s okay. “

Every great brand takes a stand for what it believes in. When it does that, it says – “You may not like us.. and that’s okay.” Apple and Harley Davidson aren’t mass market products but they sure are authentic. There is a certain consistent beauty present across their products that comes from that authenticity.

It isn’t too different for us as individuals. When we stand for what we believe in, we also say “You may not like me.. and that’s okay.”

Until we do that, it is impossible to be authentic.

And, without authenticity, it is impossible to be happy.

“I will be doing it. Will you join me?”

You want to go the gym. It would be great to have company. Good news – your friend would like to go to the gym today. That’s a perfect opportunity for the – “Let’s do it together” line. Of course, tomorrow arrives and you receive a message first thing in the morning that your friend has another commitment and won’t be making it. Lying in bed, you decide not to go too as you are tired and need some rest.

Engaging buddies on important commitments is a great idea. It just fails because the “Let’s do it together” line implies shared accountability. Shared accountability is an oxymoron.

A better way forward would be to say – “I will be doing it tomorrow. Will you join me?”

This changes the dynamic in 3 ways –
1.You take responsibility and make a commitment. This ensures that both you and your friend take the commitment seriously.
2. You’ve made a decision that you will go either way and that your friend is a welcome addition. If you only want to do something because your friend wants to do it, it is time to question if what you plan to do is important enough in the first place.
3. The ball is in your court to keep the commitment. If you lack the integrity to do so, it is time to get into the habit of keeping your own commitments.

This isn’t a post about changing the language. Language is a by-product of intent. And, our intent better be strong. There’s no other way of ensuring we consistently get past the resistance.

What if I fail?

That toxic force, the fear of failure, thrives on being avoided. It kills initiative, destroys happiness, and encourages inaction. And, yet, it prefers we don’t talk about it or think about it.

So, the next time you feel its power, ask yourself – what if I fail? Write down your thoughts as you answer the question.

What if the person turns down my hand of friendship?
What if that company says no to my cover letter?
What if that group rejects the idea?
What if I try and lose?
What if she says no?

It is not that bad. It is never that bad. Sometimes, it is even fantastic and liberating.

Sure, we need boundaries. But, I’d argue that we could do with more risk and less status-quo today. We live better lives when we drive and embrace change. And, when we live better lives, we make the world a better place.

And, even if we did fail in that attempt, it’s okay. We’ll learn. We’ll get better. We’ll try again tomorrow.

Show me your schedule

A friend of mine has an hour set aside every week for a priorities check. During this hour, she goes through her past week’s schedule. This schedule is color coded with every event tagged to her various priorities. She adds up the hours she spends on various activities to get to the time spent per priority. If she is spending less hours on her top priority in comparison with the next two, she knows it is time to change tactics.

If there is a better way to check on our ability to prioritize, I don’t know of it yet. I plan to incorporate this idea into my life as well.

We are what we do. And, our priorities are never what they say are. Show me your schedule… and I’ll show you your priorities.

No panacea

When I hosted my blog on Blogger, many stopped to let me know that WordPress was better. It had better search indexing, better this and better that. So, after many years of deliberation, I switched. After around 20 hours of effort that involved troubling a close friend, we were finally up.

In the 5 months that have passed, I have actually had more troubles with WordPress than I had with Blogger in many years. The first was not WordPress’ fault. In the process of migrating, I lost 80% of my feed readers. The next few definitely were. The latest issue is around my mobile site heading to some weird Russian site on Android devices. I’ve deactivated the mobile plugin and am hopeful that will solve the problem (please let me know if it doesn’t).

That’s not to say WordPress was a wrong decision. All things considered, the decision making process was sound and I am convinced it was the outcome of a good process. I am focused on the process and not the result. Yes, it has had it’s issues but it only goes to illustrate a key principle – there is no catch-all solution to all problems. There is no panacea.

Every move you make opens up new sets of problems. That’s just life. Don’t go in expecting all those past problems to be solved. Some of them might well solve the old problems but the chances are high that new problems have been created. C-suite executives know this too well – they execute one change program after the other to remove problems that never seem to go away. The problem is, perhaps, not in the program but in the expectation.

There is no panacea. There will always be challenges. The sooner we embrace that, the better for us.

You have to make the effort

People who are good at directions are those who make the effort to memorize directions.

People who do well in school are those who make the effort to attend classes and follow up.

People who remember names are those who make the effort to make associations that help them remember names.

People who sustain long relationships are those who make the effort to stay connected.

We choose either to make excuses or to just make the effort. There is no hack that will help. You just have to decide to do it and then, do it.

And, of course, you’ll feel useless and fail as you progress. But, as Ben Horowitz likes to say, that’s how we get made.

Amazon-style narratives – The 200 words project

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from The Everything Store by Brad Stone..

A few years into building Amazon, Jeff Bezos wanted meetings to be more productive. So, he decided to ban PowerPoint presentations since he felt they communicate very little real information. Instead, meetings at Amazon were to be structured around memos (with a maximum of 6 pages), called narratives. Bezos believed writing necessitated rigorous preparation from meeting organizers, forced a deeper clarity of thought, and ensured they went beyond the numeric facts to the story.

So, to this day, meetings of Bezos’ team of senior executives begins with participants quietly absorbing the memo. They spend as long as 30 minutes reading and scribbling notes in the margins. Bezos says the act of communal reading guarantees the group’s undivided attention.

The Amazon meeting idea is being adopted by many companies. Here’s to giving it a shot.

Amazon style narratives
Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

 ‘Full sentences are harder to write, they have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.” | Jeff Bezos

It’s fine to get an MBA but don’t be an MBA

As I’m two days away from getting started on my graduate school education, I thought I’d share a blog post that happens to be one of my all time favorites written by Hunter Walk (thank you for the great post, Hunter!), a venture capitalist and former Google/YouTube product manager. While the post’s title is directed at MBA’s, I think it is just as applicable for anything you consider an accomplishment – getting promoted to Vice President, raising funding for your start-up from an A-list venture capital firm, IPO-ing your firm, working at a blue chip company, etc.

I hope you enjoy the post as much as I did..

The “MBA: good or shitty for entrepreneurs” debate flares up regularly here in Silicon Valley. Having attended business school at Stanford, I certainly have a horse in the race, but I’m also not one to insist it’s (a) the best choice for everyone or (b) required for success. At the same time, let’s dismiss the notion that any legitimate entrepreneur would never go to business school – ie that the act of even thinking an MBA is worthwhile proves you’re not a real hacker or hustler.

Key to all this talk is a more fundamental issue which most people gloss over — the notion of letting an experience define you versus it becoming part of who you are. And thus my take is that it’s fine to get an MBA, but not cool under any circumstances to be an MBA.

Getting an MBA means you’re curious to learn broadly about theories and explore how these techniques can be applied to various businesses. Being an MBA means you think you’re getting taught the one right answer to problems – to a hammer everything is a nail – and that only MBAs know these dark arts.

Getting an MBA means offering your perspectives and experiences to your classmates. Being an MBA means looking at your peers as networking targets.

Getting an MBA means thinking about your degree as just another attribute of who you are – I have brown hair, a wife, work at Google, enjoy citrus fruits and possess a Stanford degree. Being an MBA means you are “Hunter Walk, Stanford MBA,” elevating the matriculation to a level of undeserving primacy.

Getting an MBA means you shoot out of school wanting to prove yourself and see what you can contribute to others. Being an MBA means thinking the world owes you something and that your value 10x’ed just from spending two years on a campus.

At the end of the day, just be who you are, which is a collection of skills, abilities, successes, failures, fears, dreams and hopes. The most important degree you possess is Human University.

By the way, the “get, don’t be” applies not just to business school but any accomplishment that causes one to define their identity vis a vis an entity or action. This just as easily could have been titled “fine to go to MIT, don’t be an MIT” or “fine to work at Facebook, don’t be a Facebook.”

Allowing for serendipity

Louis Pasteur discovered vaccination by accident. The idea that the same bacteria that caused disease would be the key to becoming immune to it was so ahead of its time that it would have been impossible to get there by logical thought. An accident was required.

Louis Pasteur did not get there by accident though. He was one of the most accomplished germ researchers of his time and was experimenting on germs every day. He worked hard to create the circumstances that allowed the accident to take place and, when it did, he was open enough to consider what the accident could mean. There were other doctors and researchers who had observed similar germ behavior before him but they brushed it away. Louis Pasteur’s openness to serendipity combined with his acquired skills is what made vaccination possible.

Serendipity and luck have a funny way of showing up when you are most prepared and still open to a new idea that might change all your assumptions.

We don’t find serendipity. Serendipity finds us. We just have to be open enough to allow it to happen..