Monthly Archives: June 2017

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Intelligence and Knowledge

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Intelligence quotient is a number representing a person’s reasoning ability (measured using problem-solving tests) as compared to the statistical norm or average for their age, taken as 100.

Although IQ is considered to be somewhat age related, in general it is believed to  remain relatively stable across your lifespan.  That is, the reasoning ability is set in your early years and does not change much.

Knowledge is acquired through a combination of learning and the application of your reasoning ability.  Theoretically, your ability to acquire, develop and utilize knowledge is limited by your reasoning ability (i.e., I.Q.)

Application

Often we subjectively assess other peoples intelligence based on outcomes.  We associate this with ability to create and disseminate knowledge – in essence the ability to learn.

For example theories and law’s developed by Alberta Einstein are almost universally considered to be the result of high intelligence (a high IQ).

Many believe their own IQ’s, that is their  innate reasoning ability, would not enable them to reason out such complex concepts as the theory of relativity.

I wonder if this is true.

Nature or Nurture

The very concept of IQ leads to the conclusion that you are born with (nature) a fixed ability to reason and this limits your ability to learn (nurture).

Since, as a general rule IQ is not believed to change significantly through your life (although there are age based variations) this concept leads to the conclusion you are born with a certain ability to gather and create knowledge.

Although this innate ability does not endow you with knowledge (work is required to do that) your basic capability to gain knowledge is genetically based.

For me, this logic is just one of the issues with IQ measurement.  The ability to measure it in the first place being another.

The Quest Continues

Research on intelligence, both what it is and how it is acquired (nature vs nurture) continues and I look forward to the continued streams of unfolding conclusions on this topic as more data is gathered.

All in all, it makes for a fascinating discussion.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Proactive or Reactive

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Generally a pro-active response requires more effort than just accepting the default or status quo approach.  Reactive reponses generally have an urgency associated with them  and are often more like a band aid.

That is they cover the problem temporarily but do not necessarily resolve it.  A pro-active approach requires planning which in itself adds effort.

Default, going with the flow or reacting do not involve any preparation.  Planning is not effortless, but the results are typically more satisfying.

Effort, duration, results

Spending more time and effort should produce better results.  This applies regardless of the product or service. However there is a caveat, both time and effort must be productive.

The act of just spending time or randomly acting on anything may or might not be effective.  The better approach is for it to be thought out (i.e., planned) for maximum effectiveness.

Pro-actively planning the approach, what, when and how is far more likely to result in successful achievement of the objective.

Repeatable and Sustainable

Another often overlooked benefit of the while thought out action is the ability for yourself and others to repeat it over a long period and expect consistent results.

This is the underlying concept of many activity models like ITIL, CMMI, Cobit or 6 Sigma. These models provide a framework for planning.

Ultimately the pro-active approach produces better quality, time after time.  This concept can be applied to anything you do whether it be a trip to the grocery store or a trip to the moon.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Blues Image

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Over the years I have massed a large music collection. Although the genre definitely leans toward blues/ rock there is a good representation of pop.  Occasionally, I will highlight some of my gems from the collection in these posts.

Today’s Album – Blues Image by Blues Image

Founded in Florida in 1966 this bands first album was released on Atco records in 1969.  It did not sell well and I picked up a copy from the bargain  bin in 1970.

I was not expecting anything spectacular, the album did not break 100 on the billboard album chart and had no hits.   What a sweet find though, the music simply blew me away.  From jazzy blues to rockin out I found all the tracks strongly appealing.

“Lazy Day Blues ” was a particular standout for me but there are no filler tracks on this album.  Although the All Music Guide rating is only 3.5 stars out of 5 this is a case where I am out of sync with the critics.   The album gets a 5 from me.

There is a really fresh infusion of latin rythms, sharp lyrics (for the time period) and mellow vocals.  The is a blues rock band copying many English blues rockers of the time but with a musical twist.

The band had a breakout hit on their second album “Ride Captain Ride” which lyrically was very much in tune with the youth culture of late 1969 and early 1970.

Sadly though, this terrific group of musicians was a one hit wonder and following personal changes and a lackluster third album faded away to the oldies circut.

If you can find a copy or download it digitally (and it might be hard to do) I strongly recommend giving this album a spin.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Sears Canada Bankruptcy Thoughts

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Sears Canada entered bankruptcy protection last week.  The intent of this protection is to enable the Corporation to continue to operate although their debts exceed their assets.

The concept is, by restructuring both the debtors and the Corporation will ultimately be better off.  That is the debtors will end up with more than they would by seizing and selling the assets, the Corporation can continue to exist (in some form)

Of course, the debtors probably still end up with some losses, although depending on how well secured your debt was you might break even.

In theory, the restructuring allows the company to emerge from bankruptcy as a slimer invigorized entity ready to be a world beater once again.

Theory does not always work in practice and some companies have been known to go from bankruptcy to bankruptcy.  (I guess the restructuring teams probably benefited somewhat each time).

Good for the Employees

By continuing to operate in bankruptcy, wholesale layoffs of the work force can be avoided – although restructuring will probably affect some percentage of the employees.

The case of Sears though, is a reminder of how those employee directly impacted can be adversly impacted.  Although the restructing plan is not completed, Sears Canada announced preliminary layoffs of about 3700.

The catch, no serverence will be paid to laid off employees regardless of years of service.

The company does say those employees can sue for their severance, but given the bankruptcy protection any successful litigation would simply result in a unsecured claim.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Financial Float

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One regular service financial institution ( FI)  customers use regularly is money transfer/ payments.  Whether a small retail customer or a large Corporation moving funds from one entity to another can be a key service expectation.

The movement of money can take many legacy manual forms from cheques, drafts, wire transfers, payment orders and so on  to diect on-line transfers.

Of course just handing over cash was one of the most widely used methods and although still popular for some transactions (e.g., drug deals) that method is slowly becoming replaced by on-line options (e.g., debit cards)

Payment Options

When moving money  there are several considerations:

– timing of the acceptance of the payment

– payment guarantee

–  convenience

Each of the common legacy money transfer options involve taking money from one account and moving it to another.  Because these are not online real time transactions there is risk the funds are not available (lack of guarantee), lost in transit (inconvenient) or take time to move (slow)

When one FI takes the money from your account and then transfers it to another FI  or credits your account and waits for reimbursement, it is called float.  Float can be positve or negative depending on the flow of funds .

Accumulated positive free float funds can be profitable to an FI while negative float can be costly.  In this age of digital technology it is surprising to me Fi’s still have not fully eliminted these legacy manual money transfer methods that involve unnessecary float.

It is true, world commerce continues to moves toward 100% real time online processing more and more, but unbelievably, there still is a high volume of offline processing (whether credit card, cheque or some other similar form )

Personally I find cheques archaic and frustrating but occassionally no alternative is offerd other than these slow inefficient paper options.

Hey bankers out there, get with it.  Join the digital age.  Resistance is futile .  Force your customers to move off these slow, costly, labour intensive, high risk methodologies.  Might have been okay 150 years ago when Canada became a country, but today, seriously.

 

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Choosing to be percieved as Stubborn

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Stubborn describes a behaviour that is considered inappropriate by most people.  More to the point, when we characterize someones behaviour as stubborn it’s not a compliment.

When a person is percieved to display dogged determination not to change their attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so, we lable them stubborn.

Subjectivity

Like so many things related to behaviour classification, stubborness has a significant subjective quality.  The assessment is largely based on the assessors perception and opinion.

The most subjective part of the assessment relates to the motivation of the resistance to change.  That is, deciding the stubborn person is resisting change, though there is no good reason for them to do so.

The subjective  part hinges around an opinion relative to the quality of the arguments for changing anothers attitude.  Typically the “stubborn” person does not see it that way.

Ergo, someone who behaves stubbornly from your perspective might not agree with you.  This can lead to entrenched positions by all parties, a situation not conducive to resolution.

Seeking Positive Outcomes

Not surprisingly when one person percieves stubborn behaviour in another the natural response is to develop their own stubborn behaviour.  Ultimately, to an outside observer, the discussion begins to resemble two brick walls with strong foundations, spouting barbs.

Help is at hand.  This is where your self awareness is a key tool.  Recognize the rising stubborness in yourself and in the moment use self talk to remind yourself escalating stubborness on the part of all parties never leads to resolution.

Relax, agree with the party you view as stubborn.  This technique invariably creates a small opening where your opponent become slightly receptive.  After all they now believe you get it.

Slowly  using continued reinforcement of agreement you ply your points and with time and patience a place of mutual agreement can be achieved.  The key here is iteratively building receptivity to discussion (softly) and using this to slowly achieve common ground.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Intangible Benefits

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Motivation to expend effort is usually related to the expected outcomes.   There is usually a reason to act and logically the benefits in doing so favour the action.

The effort/benefit analysis is most interesting when the measure of success is more subjective than objective.  Or to use common business case terminology, intangible versus tangible.

I don’t have time

A common explanation, I often hear, for not spending effort on certain tasks is “I don’t have time”.  Most of the time this is because the intangible benefit is percieved as low.

Sadly, this is probably not the case.  An example of this is, “I don’t have time to show them how, I’ll just fix it myself. ” The immediate benefit of providing training is not obvious.

In the long run, correcting the root cause (training) rather than repeatedly fixing the issue, ultimately improves quality, effort, personal satisfaction and a host of other attributes over the long run.

Best of all, the benefits achieved by this upfront training effort are both repeatable and sustainable.  Unfortunately this is not an easy metric to measure and has a subjective component to the measure of it’s value.

Think about it

On the next occassion “I don’t have time” pops into your mind as a reason not to take a particular action, ask yourself “Do you have time not to?”.

Basically, in the long run, will not dealing with this issue now demand a lot more time and effort. The key here is to give full consideration to possible intangible benefits before deciding not to act.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Line or Staff

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Professionals with a proven skills, training and a strong track record are often hired to provide expert advice.  These consultants can assist organizations in valuable ways, but there are some caveats.

Roles Based Management

Armies typically classify their officers as either line or staff.  At a very high level the two types exist to distinguish between those that manage the battles (line) and those that provide support and strategy (staff).

In the military model, line mangers are at the front line of the organizational goals.  They execute the strategy.  Their performance can be directly aligned with the organizations outcomes.

Staff managers have specific expertise and focus on doing what is needed to enable line managers to succeed .  In this context, quality of advice and support provided is the performance measure.

Usually staff managers success is not linked to that of line managers directly.  Typically the highest levels of organizational power lie with line managers.  Staff managers input is important but the decision and action falls to the line.

Back to consultants

The  work of consultants is very much, using the armys model, staff work.  It is important and necessary work but there is no accountability for results.

If the advice works, the consultants reputation is enhanced, if not they probably don’t stay in the business long.  Although over the years I have frequently seen consultants dodge the qaulity bullet.

Staff Managers in Line Management roles

One of the most frustrating experiences is when a line manager operates with a consultanting or staff managers mind set.   Although they are in a role that is intended to oversee the deliverly of strategic results, their consulting mindset is focused on advice not execution.

Typically, this leads to high turnover in that area of the organization.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Hidden Agenda

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Peoples knowledge and experience underpin their behaviour.  If you ask someone for advice on hammers and their knowledge base is nails, it’s likely their counsel, although obstensively about hammers will derive from the nails perspective.

Of course there is great opportunity to be had through leveraging peoples diverse backgrounds ( what they know and have done) but it is not easy.

The effort required to extract everyones best behaviour and integrate it with everyone elses is not trivial.  My own experience is the results more than justify the effort.

Facilitation

Facilitation covers any activity you undertake that makes tasks for others easy.  In this case the task is to bring diverse knowledge and subjective assessments together in a cohesive whole.

The critical skill is to facilite the interaction without appearing to do so.  The facilitator needs to be independent and willing to focus on the goal and making the task of getting to it easier.

This requires a deft touch.  In a sense, you are leading a group down a path, however if you become perceived as a leader or trying to lead your facilitation effectiveness is suddenly greatly diminished.

True facilitators are neutral.

Guide

Your goal is to guide others interractions to the best conclusion possible.  To do this you must not participate.  Agreement or disagreement with the discussion is your nemisis.  Your only objective is a positve high quality result.

The participants knowledge and experience, bound together in a cohesive way is all you need to obtain the objective.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Making Mistakes

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Life is full of mistakes.  When you make a decision and/or take an action that turns out to be wrong, it is a mistake.  Everyones makes mistakes.

Life without mistakes is highly improbable, but also would be awfully boring.  Making mistakes is not a goal but not making them shouldn’t be an objective either.

Embracing Mistakes

Mistakes can have negative consequences.  They can also uncover paths to success or provide valuable experiences that can be used to avoid even greater mistakes.

It can be exhilarating to attempt to scale the mountain, especially when you succeed.  Fear of making a mistake and perhaps not even trying could be as costly as the mistake itself.

Balance

A common theme in so many of my posts is finding the optimal balances between opposites.  In this case, the balance is effectively between caution (to mitigate the risk of a mistake) and boldness( to go where no man has gone before)

Too much caution and places where no one has ever been will remain unexplored.  On the other hand too little caution when bursting into the unknown may have dire consquences, even death.

Recovering from Mistakes

The most important part of any discussion of mistakes is how to behave when they occur.  First and foremost, always acknowledge the mistake and acquiesce to your complicity in it.

This is critical because a defensive posture envaribly magnifies the mistakes.  With acceptance, it is much easier to move to the next step – resolution.

Following acceptance, analyze the impacts and consequences of the mistake  and plan a course of behaviour that results in maximum mitigation.