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Category: Business & Communities

A Brit’s take on US dithering ~ no not Obama’s dithering ~ yours!

Published December 4, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Is Web2.0 healthy?

The critics say not.  They are so wrong but in one aspect they are right.

In the past, when we dithered, we doodled or watched TV.  Now we can express our dithering in a blog.  I am doing that now!

All around me I have seen signs today of people dithering

Let’s take the US blogosphere for a moment.

“Let me be clear,” as politicians are wont to say these days.  I am not American. But I an infinitely curious about Obama.  I watch politics and economics generally and I have a Google Alert for “Obama”.  Every day I read anything and everything that is written about Obama!  I have an ongoing and thorough sample.  This is what I “hear” from America.

America is in a panic

And they are projecting their panic onto Obama.  “Obama is dithering,” people cry.   Uh-uh.  Obama is going like a train.  But the bloggers are dithering. Oh, the bloggers are dithering.

Let me explain how I read dithering in the average blog post

Tendentious

  • Almost every blog post that I read about Obama ~ for him or against him ~ is tendentious.  It is clear that the author has a position that goes something like this.  I am uncomfortable about the world and I am uncomfortable in this world.  And then they follow that view by a ragbag of ragbag of stuff that Obama did.  It’s a jumble of unrelated stuff that reflects what the blogger is feeling.  I include the Huff Post in this sweeping generalization.

Circular

  • The weirdest part about this stream of muddle coming out of the bloggersphere in the US is that bloggers think that something might change when they write what they write.  Such narcissism!  Their superficial logic goes like this.  “Obama is wrong.  I say so.  Obama will now do what I say is right.”  Will he?  Do the bloggers really believe they have that power to blackmail change by voicing their ill temper?  Or is their logic even more weird?  “Obama will not change and so I can carry on being uncomfortable and whinge and whine until eternity?”  Become a “whinging pom”?  Well why not?  Maybe that is the destiny of fading empires.

Irascible

  • I think that the blog posts are a from of dithering.  They are a form of dithering as people decide what action to take.  I lived in Zimbabwe most of my life and I used to say there that when you start complaining about Mugabe it is time to get a life.  I use complaining about Heads of State as my rule of thumb that someone is losing the plot!  The complainer doesn’t even know the man (or woman).  They have no influence.  Their narrative is, and can only be, displacement activity.  It is a expression of bad temper, no more or less.

Scared witless by our own decision

  • But not all displacement activity is bad.  It is good when we recognize dithering as a signal that we are building up to take a decisive step in our own lives.  We have made the decision already.  That decision is made.  But we haven’t taken the first step.  The first step scares us silly.  So we rant, rave and complain about others!

What is the decision that has scared us so?

  • I think a certain amount of dithering is helpful.  It helps us muster the energy and commitment for the journey.  It helps us say goodbye to what must be left behind.  It helps us tidy away what we want to find on our return, much as we tidy an apartment before we leave on holiday. The big question though is what is the decision we have made.

What is going on behind the appearance of sulking?

Writing this, I realize that I should read American blogs with these questions in mind:

  • What decision(s) have been made that American bloggers are winding up to put into practice?
  • What decisions are they delaying (possibly unwisely)?
  • How does their procrastination affect me (and to be frank advantage me?)
  • When I act, how will my actions affect them? (They are far away and I am not very important so not very much ~ but the question should be on the general list of questions.)
  • When I comment on their blogs (if they let me ~ many are blocked off), what could I say that is useful to their story?

What decisions have been made in the US by the ordinary blogger?

Many seem to be trying out a policy of sulking?  But maybe there is something more interesting going on underneath?

Dithering

So yes, I am dithering. I am writing about American bloggers dithering to avoid doing some tasks of my own.   Have I managed to move from futurology to presentology?  Have I managed to bring myself to a state of action?

  • I think so.  Americans (as a rough group) are in the stage of bargaining.    In the 5 stage process of grief, they may slip through a period of depression when they realize that they have to start living again.  Then hopefully they fall in love again with life as it is.  We are close to the end.  For people interested in these processes ~ people have take a year since Lehman’s collapsed to get to this point and America had an election in the middle.  That might have slowed down the process of adjustment.
  • In the meantime, I can try to understand the decision that American bloggers have made but have not yet enacted.  What is scaring them silly?  When I understand that, I will find their blogs more enjoyable.  They will sap my energy less.  And I might make some friends along the way.

Great weekend to you!

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8 basics of HR

Published December 3, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Some time back,  Scott MacArthur asked what are the absolute basics of employing someone?  Here is my basic list of 8 points.

1.  That the employer pays wages to the agreed schedule (but not necessarily in 12 or 52 equal parts).

2.  That the employer deducts tax and pays the exchequer with the total annual wages of the employee in mind.

3.  That the employer pays other employment taxes which vary from time to time (training levies, insurance, AIDS . . .).

4.  That the employer insures the employee while s/he is at work (wise).

5.  That the employer ensures the employee is safe while work is being done and trains the employee correspondingly.

6.  In many jurisdictions, that the employment agreement is in writing and signed by both parties.

7.  That minimum employment conditions of wages, hours, shift times, holiday times and age of employee are met  (these vary enormously from jurisdiction to jurisdiction).

8.  That the employer does not make decisions on the basis of race, gender  . . (vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.)

What are the other absolutes of HR?
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Lead in a internet-mediated global world

Published December 3, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Organizational structure in our times

@benjaminellis, @audio and I had a spirited discussion yesterday on organizational structure.

@benjamellis was exploring mesh models ~ a full p2p model in a small team.

Classic functional organizations and Henri Fayol

@audio was advancing an argument that management theorists will recognize as being a cluster of principles articulated by Henri Fayol at the turn of the century.

Manages have authority (delegated from their managers).  They set a single, unified direction.   The principle of unity of command says they receive orders from one person only (so as to avoid confusion) and they are disciplined.  They decided what to do by reference to those commands.

These are the principles of classical functional organizations and they are a good place to start in organizing anything.  Even in a family wedding, its helpful to let “one person be in charge”.  We might be able to do a slightly better job than that person, on one or more aspects of the organization.  But we get a better result overall  if we pull together instead of in different directions.

Divisional organizations and market led companies

Functional organizational structures run out of steam when we move from simple product lines and simple markets to  complex technologies and complex markets.

The car industry illustrates this point.

Ford made any car provided it was black.  Standardised, cheap and one car for everyone.  The functional model works well.

GM (yes that one) revolutionized the market by making “a car for any purse.”  They began to differentiate the market and from there the divisional structure was born.  The market leads, so to speak, and the essence of the staff and managerial function is to integrate the responses to the different markets and find efficiencies.

Matrix organizations and multiplex leadership

Toyota blew a giant hole in this model.  They began to make customized and inexpensive cars.  They have short production runs. They change lines and retool quickly.  How do they do it?

In short, they cede control.  Workers have the power to stop the assembly line.  They do.  Workers have the power to change the pace of the line.  They do.  It is called kan ban.  Workers are capable of controlling quality and doing the work studies to improve productivity.  They do.  It is standard every day work based on statistics only Honors students learn in the West.

Suppliers have access to Toyota’s production statistics and have Toyota’s loyalty in return.  It feels it should be the opposite doesn’t it?  Remember loyalty breeds loyalty.  Let the big guy be loyal first.

The net effect are better cars, less waste, lower prices, more competitive company.

Local modularization, globalization and the internet

Life has moved on from Toyota, who we know are struggling as well in the downturn.  Our model for organizational structure now is local modularization.  It sounds like lego and it is.

Think Boeing.  They used to make planes.  Think of the specs for one plane.  A giant document.

Well the specs for the 787 (that is behind schedule) is all of 20 pages long. 20 pages to design on giant plane.

How did they manage this feat of simplification?   Well,. it seems they concentrate only on the interlinkages between modules.  They don’t have to design the parts.  They only have to contract to buy parts that will perform a certain function in relation to other parts.

These systems are hard to grasp when they are new.  Take another example from a British industry.  Rolls Royce makes engines.  It takes 10’s of 1000’s of manhours to design an engine and no one, no one, has an overall plan to make the engine happen.  Now if only I could find the link to the Cambridge researcher who documents this magical process.  I know where to find it though.  I’ll get it.

Commander’s Intent or Adding Boundaries to a System

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from a commentary on Obama’s statement on Afghanistan.  An unhappy soldier is asking for the Commander’s Intent – the mission. The one line sentence that explains the group’s goal.  This is very similar to Fayol’s unitary command.

My contention is this. Every system requires individuals and jobs where the purpose is to state the purpose – clearly and concisely.  There are many psychological, organizational and logistical reasons why this is important.

First, lets just look at a good example.   And then lets separate two things.  Distinguish arrogating the right to decide the content from articulating the group intent clearly.

‘3rd Platoon will ensure the delivery of 18 loads of class XII equipment to FOB Oscar, and safely return to base with all personnel and equipment accounted for.’

I could comment more. For now, I’ll repeat my contention.  It is a very important competency to be able to state clearly and concisely what our group will contribute and that competency will become more important in multiplexed leadership.

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Dissolve your recession blues with 3 questions (and a Posterous blog & camera)

Published December 2, 2009 by Jo Jordan

The mark of a good businessman is that he can succeed in bad times

Anyone can do well in a rising market.  When an economy is doing well, people trade with each other.  I make bread and I swap it for your milk.  While I am making bread, you plough my field.

In a sophisticated economy, we make the exchange process easier by swapping goods & services for money.  It’s easier all round.  And the sovereign ~ the king, queen, president or government ~ demands their share.  That’s called taxes.

In good times, we simply slot into the system.  Its easy.  Somebody wants something done. We do it. We get some money.  Our options improve.

In bad times, everyone tries to do everything for themselves.  It is harder to specialize because no one wants to trade their speciality for yours?

Is it?  Why is it so hard?

Why not just walk up to the person who has what you want and make an offer. I can do this for you if you do that for me?

Why haven’t you just done that?

Some where along the line we’ve lost our ability to think for ourselves

If we intend to be successful, in bad times and good, we have to be a little clearer about what we offer.

Here are 3 questions to ask and answer.

#1   What do I really enjoy doing?

Think about when you experience ‘flow’, that wonderful feeling when you are so engrossed that you loose track of time (and are late for the next think.)  Young people often experience flow in sport.  Where else have you experienced flow?

Now commit yourself to doing more of that.  Commit yourself to remembering when you experience flow.  Commit yourself to experiencing more flow, more often, and very frequently (every hour?).

Good.  Now we are enjoying ourselves we help others enjoy their lives!

#2   When do I bring the light to other people’s eyes?

When you are in flow, it’s unlikely that you are looking in the mirror.  If you were, it is likely you would see a magnificently radiant and happy person.  You eyes will be alive and dancing.

Everyone wants to feel like this.  When do people around you feel flow?  When do their eyes light up?

What is that you do that brings the light to other people’s eyes?  Which things do you love to do and which of these make other people so happy that their eyes sparkle with pleasure?

Where does your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet?

It’s a humbling experience to think of these sweet spots, isn’t it?  We don’t feel bold and brazen. We feel shy.  We feel hesitant.  We feel gentle.  We feel calm.  We know that this is our mission.  This is what we have been called to do in the ‘family of things’.

#3 Why do their eyes light up?

But we aren’t sure how to begin.  How do we grow this sweet spot where we are bringing a light to other people’s eyes?  We ask “why?”  When their eyes light up, what story are we helping them live?  What “flow” are they experiencing at that moment?  Who are they at that moment?  What is their purpose?

What essential information did we provide in that moment that helped their story come true?

We need to tell their story.  We need to take a photo and write a blog post.  Day-to-day, let’s document the place where we made someone’s story true.

That’s the point where we have something to trade

And to return from the poetic to commerce, it is at this point that we have something to trade.  We understand what we love to do.  We know when our pleasures are pleasures for others.   We understand their stories and we able to make them come true.  We can walk into someone’s shop or business and say to them, “I can do this for you.  Would you be able to do this for me in exchange?”

Capture those micro-moments when someone in your life lit up!

Now get on with it!  Opening a Posterous blog will take you a few minutes. Getting out your camera will take even less.  And send me your link!  I want to see you capture those micro-moments when someone in your life lit up!

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Ergonomics 101

Published December 1, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Ergonomics

Ergonomics – the efficiency of work.  Can we design work and procedures that are useable? Or somehow does the way we do things create more work, wasted steps, irritation, boredom or fatigue.

Clearly some basic ergonomics is a basic requirement for every manager and geek in this computer world of ours.

Hootsuite

I use Hootsuite as my Twitter interface.  I like the white layout.  I like my stream in three columns – combined, mentions and dm’s.  I like the button to shorten urls. I like the stats.

Over complicating upgrade

But they upgraded recently.  Big fail in my opinion.  We now have to select a social network for our message.  I know they are trying to increase functionality (getting greedy?).  The trouble is they left the send button next to the status update.

So we type a message, press send and go on to the next task.  Hours later we find an error message saying choose a network.  Blah.  Why can’t you remember.  Why can’t I have a default?

Solve a problem by thinking about what users do

This problem could be solved by moving the send button to the right of the social network choice.

This problem could have been avoided by making changes slowly and waiting for feedback to pick up what does and doesn’t work.

Ruin a good design

This overcomplication has changed a good service into a failing service.

For people looking for an Ergonomics 101 project: do an A B test with the button in two places.  Then sell  the results!

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7 steps to network yourself into business opportunity

Published November 30, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Network our way through the recession?

There is a funny video about Linkedin going the rounds that I found from @jackiecameron1.

Unemployed people sign up to Linkedin in a desert of jobs. Everyone is networked, but to each other, to no one has a job.

What use is networking if there are no employers in the group?

Networking is not hitching a ride!

What is very apparent in the rather delightful (and accurate) spoof  is that no one is doing anything.  Everyone is trying to hitch ride on everyone else!

Who in that network is trying to make anything happen? Who is inviting other people to help, even for free?

Networking out of a desert of jobs

To take the metaphor of the desert further, if anyone got the group organized to look for water, they might find some!

Why doesn’t anyone start some useful activity?

The simple answer is that no one there trusts anyone else. If they did, they would invite them to do something!

How do we begin to organize that group?

Here are 7 steps for organizing a group who seem to be out of ideas, out of resources and who don’t know each other well.

A  Show Confidence in Your People

#1 Begin!

#2 Be active.

Do something! Sit down and make a sandcastle! See who helps.

B Help Your People Gain Confidence in Each Other

#3 Change the sandcastle so that people are helping each other.

Move your position so that you are handing sand to the person building. When another person joins in, move to the the end of the line.

#4 Move the line slowly in the direction that seems most promising.

At the same time, get people to sing so that they become more aware that they are a group.

Keep your attention on the sandcastle by-the-way!  People are only going to be bothered with the sand castle if you are!

C Work with People Who Trust the Group

#5 Position a reliable person at the end of the line while you start a new line.

Make sure the person at the end of a line knows to sing out if they see anything unusual on the horizon.

D Bring Information About Opportunities Into the Group

#6 When someone sees something unusual on the horizon, don’t create a stampede.

Move the whole bicycle wheel, by changing the direction that the sand moves. Move the sandcastle builder to the other end and reverse the direction of sand. In an orderly way, move the other spokes. Keep it playful!

E We Are All In This Together

#7 Continue and continue!

You might decide to abandon your group and go it alone.  Yes, it might be slow moving the group along and it might feel as if the group is slowing you up.  But aren’t your chances of finding water higher in an organized group looking out for each other?

It is easier to think straight when things are really bad

It sometimes feel that deserts are too much to cope with.  I am also going to tell you that deserts are better than abandoned farm land. You are lucky. Yes, you are!

Let’s imagine, you simply find yourself in a abandoned but essentially sound farm.  You don’t start building a useless sandcastle. You do something useful.  You start to plough the land and plant seeds.  The difficulty is that you have now fixed your group to that field.  You will be unable to move slowly across the horizon to a better place.  In modern parlance, your solution is not scalable!

That’s why I like the idea of deserts.  We are willing to abandon sandcastles and rebuild them elsewhere.

When you chose your seed project, build something, anything, where we can see results and where we can all help! Keep the projects short and sweet so that people can see results and move them as we spot other things on the horizon.

Experiments in extreme living

What I want you to do is to build something with the resources under your feet.  And invite someone else to join in.

When the person joins in, give them a prime spot and support them.  Invite another person.  Keep building.

That’s is the challenge. That is the task!

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Don’t let the recession take over your life! Live anyway.

Published November 28, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Nile Crocodile
Image via Wikipedia

Overwhelmed by the threat of the ongoing recession?

In Africa, we have a lovely though terrifying expression.

When we up to our armpits in crocodiles, it’s hard to remember that our goal is to get to the other side

What do we do when we are surrounded by crocodiles?  Ignore them ~ they’ll have you for lunch.  Scream – a stress reliever that accomplishes nothing?

Read on!

Threat captures 100% of our attention

The threats of job loss, business failure,  mortgage default etc and boring etc have become very real.  For everyone.  These are the crocodiles.  They grab our attention and we can think of little else.  At best, we hope they will go away.

Well they won’t.  Like crocodiles, they have found us.  We didn’t find them!  They are not going away unless we make them!  And right now they are taking over our entire lives.

Reclaim your attention by labeling threats as threats (not goals)

The trouble with crocodiles, and recession-type threats,  is that they are so scary, we completely forget our goals, and indeed that we ever had any at all.

The mental trick to claiming back our attention and capacity to think straight,  is to label a threat as a threat.  Neutralizing a threat is not my objective.  Fighting crocodiles isn’t the goal (for most of us).  Getting to the other side is our goal.  We need only to neutralize the threat to getting to the other side ~ not neutralize the threat itself.

Go it?  This is how it works.  When we label a threat as an annoying distraction, we focus all our knowledge, knowhow and strength on sorting it out, and sorting it out quickly.  When a crocodile threatens us, we get over our initial panic and we poke  our fingers in the crocodile’s eyes .  The crocodile is neutralized sufficiently and get on our way to the other side!

Pick our battle ground and have the battle it promises

It’s still a battle, of course. We could lose. We will get hurt.  We are still frightened.  So it is heaps smarter not to play in crocodile infested waters in the first place!

If we am going to, and sometimes we have to, sometimes we find ourselves there by mistake, then we’d be very wise to keep a sharp look out for predators and to be ready to paddle into the deep water they don’t like.  The battle goes not to the swift or the strong, but ye who thought ahead and pays attention?

We must also be prepared to have a fight, win quickly, and not worry to much about it when it is over.   There is no point in ranting and raving about crocodiles when they are a part of the very life that we have chosen.

They are there.  Deal with them.  On their own terms, not in terms of some fantasy.

Deal with them as threats to be neutralized sufficiently to be on our way.

On our way!

Which is   .   .   .  which way?  We have been so busy fighting crocodiles that we have forgotten!

Do an elementary SWOT on the back of an envelope!

  • T = Threats.  You know those.  That’s all you’ve been thinking about lately.  The crocodiles that threaten to eat us up.
  • W= Weaknesses.  You know those. All the little things you’ve been angsting about.  All our worries about crocodiles are bigger than us!  The things that are out of our personal control.
  • S=Strengths.  You have a canoe and you know the crocodile hates deep water. You read books and it doesn’t!  What have you got going for you?  List every small thing at our disposal.
  • O=Opportunity  Where is the opportunity?  Have you forgotten?  Where is the opportunity in a crocodile infested river?  Look around and spot it.  Get there!  Now!

And poke out the crocodiles eyes.  You are bored with crocodiles now.  They are just at threat.  They are not our purpose.

Don’t forget your goal is to get to other side!

A long recession

This recession is going to go on for a long time.  Live your life anyway.  Get on with it!  Pay the recession as much attention as it needs just as you pay the crocodile as much attention it needs.  Then go on your way!

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5 ways to tell a winning organization from an organization on a losing track

Published November 27, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Select your organization well!  Your well being depends upon it.

We all want to see ahead.  I am going to tell you that we cannot.

Yet we as surely as we court disaster when we get behind the wheel of the car when we have been drinking, we can run our organizations recklessly. You will get out of a car that is driven by a drunk, and you should aim to stay away from badly run organizations or at least to replace its management!

Let’s assume for a moment that you are one step back and you are choosing an organization.  Yes, choose. Even in a wicked recession, we choose. We choose which jobs we look at.  We choose which companies we research and approach.

Even as outsiders, there are 5 things to look out for to check the health of the organization.

These ideas are based on “systems theory”.  I hope any systems theorists reading this will comment.

One: We are continuously mindful of how well we are doing as a team and what it takes for the whole team to win

In plain language: Do people say “we” and do they talk about real things.  Do they say things like “In December, the market is slow for us.”

Do they talk in terms of taking everyone with them?  Do they make sure all the stragglers keep up and do they all cross the finishing line together?

Two: Everything matters, everything is connected to everything and connections get stronger with use!

In plain language: When you first approached the organization, did they start to “dance” with you?  Or were they stiff and rigid?  At the other extreme, were they hopelessly muddled?

Do they treat you like “white water”?  Do they work with the river and paddle gently or do they, at one extreme, fight the river [you] or at the other, not guide their canoe efficiently [be too relaxed and out-of-it]?

Is there feeling “give and take” or is the a feeling of force and rigidity or the opposite, no order at all?

Three: History happens once.  Nothing will ever happen again

In plain language: Do people in the organization tell a story of where the company came from and where they are going to?  Or is the company a skeleton of procedures without any flesh?

When they  talk to you about your story, do they attend to relevant parts or are they distracted by inconsequential details?

When something surprises them, do they ask questions or do they dismiss what they don’t understand?

Do they ask you how you would do things out of curiosity (and not as a test of right and wrong)?

Four: Birds fly in a flock without anyone giving orders!

In plain language: Are there 2 or 3 principles that govern this organization and are those sufficient to coordinate team work?  Do people point to the team work with evident pleasure?  Do they marvel that so much gets done with so little bossing around?

If you ask them what it would take to succeed on the job or fail on the job, can they give you 1 or 2 points or do they point you to manual that they haven’t read?

Five: Has the organization made unusual discoveries about what is good, true, better and possible?

In plain language: Do people talk about times when they were working as usual and then they stumbled over a new solution that was much better than they had done before?

Are they slightly mystified about how that happened?  That’s a good sign.  Mutation is healthy and it is only mutation when it is a surprise!

Qualify the organization

In sales, we only spend a lot of time on customers who need our products and services, who have the money to buy, and who intend to buy.  We “qualify” our customers.

We also have to qualify our organizations and move towards those who are healthy!

Rating an organization

When you talk to someone about a job, rate the organization on each of the five points.  How do they stack up on a scale of  0 to 25?  Try it and rate organizations that are right under your nose.  See if you haven’t got far healthier organizations right under your nose where you live!

Join up with people who will last the recession!

An inflexible organization will not last the recession.  And nor will one who is not organized at all.

Look for a healthy firm.  They will have the internal flexibility and mindfulness to adapt to the chaos in the environment. They will organize their affairs so you can grow. They will enjoy what they do and you will too.

Happy hunting and happy choosing!

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Get to the heart of what will be the vibrant, interesting, & lucrative jobs and careers in the 21st century?

Published November 26, 2009 by Jo Jordan

New management

When I went to university, we were told that management is the art of getting work done through people.  A passport to laziness and exploitation!

Today, we say management is developing people through work.

Work should be fun.  It is fun for some of us.

And work should be fair.  Not only should we receive a fair day’s pay for a fair days work.  We should be growing as a person and capable of doing more with each hour of work that we put in.

Rewriting the training manuals for jobs and careers

In 20th century management manuals, Stage 1 of work was doing.  For about 10 years, roughly from 16 to 26, we learned a trade and built breadth & depth through education and exposure.  Our job was to cultivate a deep knowledge of our materials and tools, appreciate our customers, and adapt what we did for their needs.  We wanted to learn enough about the wide range of situations that we might encounter in the future so that we could go with the flow and make a living as the years went by.

Sadly, of course, markets change and revolutions happen in technology.  With very little notice, customers defect to other products and markets, competitors outrun us, or the technology changes sufficiently to require another 10 year apprenticeship.

In the ‘olden days’, HR departments were responsible for seeing ahead and retraining staff ahead of any abrupt changes.  By definition, the HR Director’s job was to spot changes on the horizon and get everyone retrained in new ways without disrupting today’s operations.  There was a reason for that high salary!

You are now your own HR Director

Today’s management theorists and leadership coaches counsel another approach.  They recommend that each of us scan the horizon for changes and retrain ourselves in good time.

This is quite hard to do.  As noobes, we barely understand the business.  We don’t have data to see ahead.  Indeed it might be kept from us.  And training tends to focus on skill  rather than the ‘sweet spot’ where are skills are deeply valued by our customers.

The sweet spot where your skills are deeply valued by your customers

I know that there has been a lot of research on how to train people on the sweet spot.

  • I recall attempts to train doctors by introducing them to patients from day one.  The conclusion, I recall, was that the pre-clinical training was necessary to speed up communication between noobes and experienced doctors and the experiment was abandoned.
  • Cognitive psychologists have developed computer games to test whether it is better to learn the market before we learn the underlying technology of our business.  They concluded no.  First, learn the technology, then try to make money.
  • Military psychologists have found that youngsters trained to manage their attention on computer games performed better as fighter pilots.  In the game, the recruits played the part of captains of de-mining vessels.  Each ‘month’, or game cycle, they would concentrate on the overall outcome of running the ship and concentrate on learning one of the functions only ~ navigation, finance, HR, etc.  The limitation known with this approach is that under pressure we often go back to the “level” that we first learned, requiring, once again, that we can see into the future and pick our “level” correctly.

It seems easy to mess up our mental models of the sweet spot and what we need to do to manage it.  We can overemphasize the money end and underemphasize the skill.  We can also learn to manage situations that are too small to sustain a living.

More research needed on managing our own training for 21st century jobs and careers

None of these experiments have focused though on developing a sense of the sweet spot and organizing skills and commercial acumen around a sweet spot that morphs, ebbs and flows.  I know no experiment where “subjects” were explicitly trained to monitor what is happening around them, to think of their own skills (and the skills of their team) and bring those together into a rewarding balance.

I wonder what would happen if we learned to think that way from the get-go?

 

Organize your own thinking about vibrant, interesting & lucrative jobs and careers in the 21st century

If you want to try, to organize your thinking about the sweet spot between your skills and the needs of customers, this is what I recommend.

Pick on anything you did today that you enjoyed and draw out 3 spokes

  • name the key technical skill that you used to provide your customer with value
  • name the customer and describe his or her needs
  • name the sweet spot and try describe it in one sentence

These three spokes correspond logically to three factors associated with successful business teams:

  • The teams ask questions more often than the give answers
  • They concentrate on the outside world a little more than on themselves
  • The look for what is going well and are positive 5x more than they are negative

Become your own HR Director

I think it will take quite a few lots of 10 to 15 minutes jotting down notes for this way of thinking to come easily.  But when it does you will be your own HR Director

  • Looking ahead
  • Retraining on time
  • Finding the sweet spot where you feel vital, involved, entertained, valued AND rewarded!

Do let me know how it works out!

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Happy Thanksgiving from UK!

Published November 25, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Thanksgiving in UK

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving over here ~ at least not en masse.  But Americans who live among us do.  Some celebrated early and have regaled us with stories of botched gravies and seasonal accompaniments. Others have desperately needed lettuce.  And others insist on making cranberry sauce from scratch.

Naive questions from foreigners

I asked my American colleagues what you are celebrating.  They were dumbfounded.  It’s an excuse to eat one said.  Another sad you were celebrating the first harvests of the Pilgram Fathers ~ and then laughed embarassedly!  Political holidays are always so awkward!

So Happy Thanksgiving to you.  May you have a good time with your families and safe travels!

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