recipes for success - professional development

After two days at a professional development forum I am reminded of yet another recipe for success, take the time to for professional development.  

While we regularly have opportunities to improve our skills for our job, we also need to take the time to improve our overall person and see out opportunities to stretch ourselves. We need to be reminded that working with people, data, information, concepts, etc is something that is always changing and improving. We need to hear and read how other people think so we can reflect on how we think about the same things. 

After we take the time to develop ourselves we then need to share that information with others to further develop ourselves and contribute to the same of others. 

I will try to write more and at to this but I wanted to share this before I forgot. 

recipes for success - what is missing?

OK,  so someone is stuck. You, or someone you are assisting, has the making of a simple problem you can't seem to get unstuck from. You need a quick practice to assist yourself(s) to finding the answer that likely already lies within the deep reaches of your mind. This tool is another I have learned that helps you to figure out what is missing from your plan to achieve success in the situation.

The challenge is to break down the situation to determine if what is missing is

a) your willingness to get done what is necessary to pull through to success or
b) your skills, abilities, aptitude, understanding, knowledge of the subject matter at hand or
c) the circumstances, situation, environment, schedule that would enable you to reach for success.

If someone is not really willing to put in the effort require, sometimes called commitment, then the discussion that follows is around determining why?

Skills and abilities can be the easiest of the three because it comes down to finding a plan to get those skills through training or some other course of learning.

For the environment, it might mean redefining the rules and talking with others about the situation to layout the space to succeed.

A couple examples:
My kids participated in a athletic program which started off with success but after a few evenings there seemed to be a problem with their participation. When I applied this practice to the situation I determined that they had the skills to participate, the environment for success but they were not 100% willing to put in the effort to make it work. In this case they thought if they didn't participate they could instead play video games. Once they realized that the other option instead of participating would be less fun than the program, and not video games, suddenly their commitment was back.

Later we experienced another lull in their participation and what I found that time was that they were still willing, still skilled but in fact now the circumstances in the program had changed. The instructors had slacked off their early rigour with a solid schedule to more of a "guys hanging out" kinda program where they bragged about their accomplishments. For our kids who were hoping to do cool things sitting around listening to cool stories was boring. I spoke to the instructors, and their boss, and in a very short order the kids were excited to be participating.

So, what is missing, the will, the how or the way?

recipes for success - relationship * possibility * action

One of the most powerful concepts of the coaching practices that I have learned is to think of our interactions with the idea of three types of conversation: relationship, possibility and action. There is no script for each of these conversations to happen but rather the practice of seeing your conversations through these lenses has helped me consider where I am at with the person.

Relationship 
A conversation that is about you getting to better understand the other person. Its not about becoming friends or buddies but rather finding out what are the things that are affecting and influencing them. How do they think about issues, how do they shape their decision making and what styles of leadership, communication and connection works for them and doesn't work for them. You will find that the more you learn and the more connections you have in your relationship the more possibilities you will find emerging.

Possibility 
This conversation leverages on your relationship, what is possible now that you know more about the person. Who they are and what they can do that you have discovered in the relationship building helps you understand why they are the person for "the job". Your collaborative relationship building has created a possibility that they can live into because you understand them better. For example, I find when I am working towards connecting a technical person with a client that part of the relationship building is finding a common language about the work to be done. That relationship building has now created the possibility that they can talk action because the language barrier of the technical terms and business terms is gone.

Action
Finally the conversation you have been waiting for, a conversation about action.  Its the conversation about doing stuff and having gone through building a relationship and building possibility now that action is far more likely to result in success. Now if the request for action is not well received maybe you need to go back to the conversation about possibility or maybe even further back to consider the relationship but in either case you have somewhere to go. I find this much more comfortable than the situation where I need action from someone or expect it from a friend or peer but because there is limited possibility its easy for both sides to take it personally.

I  am amazed at how this simple practice can help me in solving a problem or helping someone or figuring out where to go next in a conversation.


Ben Zander has a taken on creating possibility and I will leave you with one of the videos that captures part of his view on it:

recipes for success - an offer to share what I have found or learned

Engaging in discussion with people that are very passionate about their work (paid or otherwise) is incredibly stimulating but also at times exasperating because of the tendency not find opportunities for collaboration let along finding consensus towards some good results. With that in mind I wanted to share some ideas that I have taken in since a couple years back in a coaching practitioner learning event in which I took part. The coaching practices shared with us were not about getting some credentials but rather about us regular folks learning new ways of thinking and doing things.

Over the next while I will post the recipes as I have time to type them and share them.

in the "business" of saving the world?

thinking out loud, again.....

I have struggled with thinking through an issue raised on a web site I check in on from time to time. The issue is a matter of forming alliances for financial purposes with the intention of collaborating on successfully working to eliminate poverty. Article: Uncultured Project Appeal to Readers

In my paradigm the only time money can be moved in a charitable way is when there are clear organizational lines drawn in the frame of a framework that is transparent to those donating or granting the funds. Shawn, the guy behind the site and the actions, is an individual working towards supporting the elimination of poverty but he is not part of any organization. In his bid to form an alliance with another group to collaborate he has met disappointment and I think its because he is not part of an organization (charity, non-profit) that has a framework that is transparent and governed. However, Shawn makes the argument that a for-profit company could technically do the same thing and I wonder at that thought.

I suppose technically its possible for a business to choose to have multiple streams of cash flow and one of those could be put to some charitable initiative,  the other streams being traditional profit driven. Technically the business could accept donations to be part of their initiatives, sadly they cannot be tax deductible to the donors (tax laws state that the org must be non-profit). In theory the business could form an alliance with a charity who would accept donations and then partner in projects with the business in a way that contractually ensures the non-profits transparency framework is not compromised.

Let's talk sand water filters (which was an interest of mine and how uncultured became one of my links in the past) and the fact that a business here that perhaps does construction projects has the capacity to easily create the hardware for a household filter.  Let's say they agree to build them and find a non-profit that uses its financial resources to cover the shipping of the product and the setup in the country of need. Technically the owner of the business needs to ensure that there is enough money to keep the business operating as well as the time and materials for the work on the sand filter. The alliance with the non-profit could fund the materials or the business could donate them or the completed filter to the non-profit making for a charitable donation for the business which would offset some taxes. ( I am no tax expert) There is lies the challenge, that capacity for charitable work could be put to profits for the owner and so the only gain to his financial plan for his business is the potential maximum tax savings and potentially the reputation and marketing success in sales. My assumption is that the free capacity for this work could only be a small portion of the company outputs as there is no business so profitable in its products/services that it can both maintain market share and spend a large portion of their time on charitable work. I suppose an individual could be a high end consultant and split their time between consulting and charity work but much of the world's needs are more than people talking.

Is it even possible for a for-profit company to have a long term future that includes most of its effort being spend on giving its time and resources to eliminating poverty?  Maybe, if we had a poverty credits system whereby countries and companies had to show a portion of their profit going to eliminate poverty than you could have a company in the business of building frameworks for the elimination of poverty in parts of the world stuck in the vicious cycle of it.

Dude, the world is a matrix of rules,cultures and selfishness and I wonder at the most efficient ways to change that.

EDIT: I like my charitable deductions at tax time and here is the skinny on how that works for an org in my country:

"Purposes that are not charitable at law

Organizations established for the purpose of making a profit will not qualify for registration. To qualify for registration, an organization must be non-profit and have purposes (also called objects) that are charitable at law. "

is being tired a valid excuse for not helping the world?

A full work day, being a dad, being a husband and a few household duties or projects thrown in here and there and there isn't much left of my energy and yet......

..... there are conversations I would like to contribute to.


I recalled a quote tonight from Ross Perot  and it made me think. 

  "the activist is not the man who says the river is dirty.  The activist is the man who cleans up the river." ~ Ross Perot

 it made me think about an article in a magazine I flipped through in the library today at lunch. The magazine, Canadian Dimension, a left wing opinion magazine had an issue dedicated to feminism today. I could not help but notice that as I read through articles scanning for the issues women saw as the most important today that much of the text was just ranting about women needing to organize, fight back, take back and make the world right. I kept looking because I wanted to know what issue they were tackling, to make right. I did eventually find one before I gave up and went on to Pop Mechanics, it was the issue of physical violence in the home towards women.  A valid issue. I was left disappointed though, since I was willing enough to read the magazine and curious as to how I might influence in my life and work and I was left instead with the feeling that the majority of the words written pointed to crackpot and only a small number to activism or ideas of how I the reader can make a difference. How sad. 

So I got to thinking, if I was going to choose an issue to try to influence outside of my direct sphere of private influence for good (i.e. family and friends) what would I choose and how would I go about doing it. I already contribute financially to charities but if I were to use my words on a blog or submission to a paper or supporting policy change or creating conversation for policy change or what-have-you, irregardless of the method, first what would I pick.  I was left feeling tired. Which is what I started with in this post, the question of whether being tired is a sufficient answer.  I think the answer must be NO. 


So with that answer in mind I  picked myself up and I dusted myself off and thought harder. What I came up with is that I would like to find a way to contribute or create conversations about social innovation.  They could be based on community, spirituality, economic, environment and any other number of of issue sparks but ultimately that's what gets me excited. I get excited about helping to get people thinking difference about the social constructs that we gripe about and manage without actually coming up for air and thinking of actually changing them. 

So now I have a dilemma, do I spend my spare time (what little there is) reading more about and seeking opportunities or do I spend it entertaining myself or making more money.  I will have to think about this some more. . . . 


How about you? how do you want to help the world?  do you think we should?

children in grown up bodies

-sigh-

occasionally my work inspires me for my ideas of what to write here and today I am filled with a desire to vent.

I am regularly reminded that while our bodies age, and our vocabularies increase, the level of maturity is not guaranteed to follow. Moreover wisdom may never come to an individual despite many opportunities because they are lost in a selfish mode that has served them well. Make no mistake, I believe the selfish do not acquire wisdom and that it is clearly a gift resulting from selflessness.


What has irritated me today is people who don't understand that to work together you need to offer constructive feedback or solutions to each other.

• Telling someone that their plan is bad is not helpful, at all. 
• Pontificating about how your own plan might possibly be different, and better, and more like a theory that you had had is also not helpful. 
• What is helpful is drawing attention to a particular point that you think you can offer an option or an alternative too. 

Sadly though some people get used to others allowing them to speak their minds without any tangible contribution to the conversation, other than to voice their idea, which they have heard before and is not relevant to the discussions or decisions at hand. Incredible. Must be nice to be so important that people must listen to you despite the fact that its not helpful.

Sadly I almost laughed because while the "feedback" was coming in I likened it to my kids and their wild requests that come in from time to time. It goes something like this:

"Would you like to work together to clean up your lego so its easier for you to build new things?"

"No, I would like to take an inventory of all my lego and throw out the stuff I don't like and buy new stuff!"

"I see, do you realize that we could spend more time playing if we just cleaned it up and you could start playing"

"I want new stuff. New stuff is better. Obviously I can't make good things with old stuff. Because you won't think about new stuff your ideas are old, outdated and bad."

"Ok, but we have discussed many times before how we could organize your lego better, so now we just need to get into action and start to look at doing it. If you like we can do the first idea and see how that goes and do more."

"Did I not make myself clear? Only cool people build lego with the new themese and the new way of doing things. I would rather sit here and complain about the old way of doing things, even if I don't get my way, than fix the old way and get to play"

I find it interesting when I talk to people about this and I relate one of the issues embedded in this is related to their expectations of resistance or over selling and under delivering. Take for instance the Toyota stance on car pricing. You can generally expect that the price posted on their web site is close to what you would pay. Walk across the street to the GM dealership and you can hack thousands off the sticker price. So if you go into the world thinking that others will take advantage of you unless you kick and scream until they give you what you want you tend to think its fair game to demand more of others assuming that they will just negotiate back.

As an honest person this really tickets me off however. When I create an estimate for something (some piece of work) I use my expertise and experience to assess the right method of attack and the resulting target for completion. I allow for some contingency depending on the risks, I am not an idiot, but I do not "pad" my estimates because I like to have some free time or because I like to let the customer include things "for free" or because I am lazy. So when the wrong kind of person comes along who does "pad" and has those assumptions I am going to clash with them. To make matters worse, when the same issue happens with ideas wherein I proposed an idea to a solution, taking into account the reality of the situation, I am proposing the best that I think can be done in the time allowed. I am not, as the "padder" thinks choosing the least effort solution hoping to impress in the end by doing more. I want a realistic target and realistic expectations.

Kinda like the difference between the smaller tablets and the Ipad. Gotta "pad" the size of the screen to over compensate for the actual work its going to do with you. ;-)

so people, please be kind to each other and helpful. We have enough backseat geniuses out there and us drivers are really thinking of installing a privacy shield to block them out.

ok, I feel better now.