A Learning a Day

Every once in a while, life throws in a crazy outlier experience. These experiences often feel horrible. This could be an exceptionally bad project or a period in life when everything seems to be dark and depressing.

The good news is that they don’t last too long and the better news is that they are of high value in terms of what they add to our life experience.

Outlier experiences stretch our pre conceived limits. Let’s take a simple example – there are a lot of people who complain about bad commutes. I was among them. Then I spent most of 2012 commuting for 3 hours every day. It wasn’t planned and was just a product of circumstance but was painful nevertheless. As far as commutes go, it was an outlier experience that has given me a lot of perspective. I learnt how to make good use of time over long commutes and am generally thankful for shorter commutes (which is most of the time).

For long term happiness, or the state of happiness instead of the feeling of happiness, we need to hone the ability to put things in perspective. Bad outlier experiences help us do that better than anything else.

So, if you just had a tough week as a part of a tough period, I ask you to take heart. It will pass, and what’s more, it’ll give you some very useful perspective and wisdom if you’re willing to learn from it.

It’s a simple lesson in theory – once you know your deadline and expected result, work hard to front-load work so you finish comfortably.

It just took me the good part of 24 years to really learn it.

3 lessons from 6 months of effective front-loading of work –

1. Scoping work, i.e. making sure the deadlines are realistic, is a valuable skill. If your deadlines are unrealistic, no amount of front-loading will save you. It might ease a bit of pain though. The most important principle of scoping is to under promise and over deliver – it’s a hard one to get right. I’m hoping I’ll have a few tips on that in a year or two.

2. Front-loading work doesn’t remove stress. It just makes sure the stress is positive. Stress quickly moves from positive stress/pressure to negative stress as the deadline nears.

3. Be ruthless about removing bottlenecks early. It is okay to be impatient 4 weeks before the deadline. The joy of being able to check and double check your work in peace as your deadline nears makes all the impatience worth it.

“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! ;-))