Monthly Archives: October 2017

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Quality Disclaimer

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I have been writing and publishing about five posts a week for more than two years.  My objective is very retro.  That is, web logs or blogs were originally online diaries of a sort and that is what I do.

Today they have morphed a bit to advertising centric profit generators but that is not my intent at all.

Its all about me

A common definition of a diary is a personal reflection of events or experiences.  Typically, this is maintained over a regular period e.g., daily, weekly and so on).

For some, the recording itself, not the sharing with others, is the purpose.  Just the fact that recording takes place indicates there is some intent to share, however, it could just be for personal memories.

Does Quality Matter?

Since the beginning of my blog, I do get continuous intermittent feedback about inadequate punctuation, syntax, grammar deficiencies and by far the most common, spelling errors.

I have a number of acquaintances, colleagues and academic friends that frequently point out to me how my posts don’t conform to writing norms.

My inner voice is shouting “please find someone who cares” while outwardly I just smile and nod.  Readers with journalistic backgrounds can be the worst when it comes to pointing out an editorial deficiency.

I was at lunch with a friend today and mentioned the book I was working on using the website Wattpad.  (https://www..com/home) The advice came quick and fast, great idea but get an editor.

Crowd Sourced Editing

In this day and age, a very efficient way to get help can be crowd sourcing.  Wattpad is a great community site for authors and readers to get together.

If you choose to write, you can share your book with the community (those you grant permission to) so they can advise, edit or just read and enjoy.  Basically I can crowdsource my editing.

If your book is popular, the company (Wattpad) might offer to act as your agent/ publisher.  This is part of their business model to get publication revenues for themselves.

So apologies, loyal readers, for sloppiness.  Focus on the content and you should be fine (if you can understand it)

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Free Trade

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Picture a planet where the human race exchanges raw materials, products and services without restriction.  This senario puts all product and service suppliers on equal footing.

In this idealized situation wherever you were on the earth the price or cost of goods would be limited by natural attributes.  At the simplest level access is based on availability and demand.

Competition would be founded on the producers abilities without constraints of artificial controls like tarrifs, duties and other types of border controls.

And the Con’s

National identity requires differentiation.  A way for the population to say “My country is better than yours.   Managing your national identity requires  control over outsiders.

Our nations exist so we can collaberate jointly to support the overall populace through leadership (governance) and laws.  Setting boundaries is a key aspect of this.

Each countries internal economy and national culture tend to be unique in some ways.  Open borders make it more difficult to maintain this singularity.

At what Cost?

Freely exchanging goods and services around the world will probably increase access and lower costs.  This would ultimately improve world wide economic activity.

The insular approach lowers creativity and can result in stagnation.  Japan of the seventeeth and eighteenth century is a very real example of this.

The country was virtually closed to foriegn influences and as a result  national development and creativity stalled.

Ultimately the human race would probably benefit greatly by thinking outside of the box.  Blow away artificial limitations and be free.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Telling Your Story

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Taking on an organizational leadership role means your prime accountability is motivating a group of people to act toward achieving a common goal.

There are many behavioural approaches to achieving this goal.  Sucessful leaders adopt the approaches that work best for them.  This enables them to leverage behaviours which they are most comfortable with and probably best at practicing.

Nature and Nurture

There is a plethoria of studies on foundational leadership behaviour and analysis on how to best employ them.  Things like, communication, empathy, self awareness, confidence and so on.

The research continues on how much of the basic skill can be learned (nurture) and how much you are born with (nature).  There is no consensus yet but most research indicates there is some balance between natural abilty and learning.

Gaining Power

Typically, when appointed, the leader is granted power comensurate with their organizational level.  Their ultimate success will depend on the combination of granted power coupled with the power they earn following the appointment.

Earned power comes from the quality of exercise of leadership behaviours.  A key first step is getting to know your group and perhaps more importantly them getting to know you.

This leads to everyone becoming comfortable  on a personal level.  Beginning with this collegial approach begins the building of trust and respect which are the foundation of earned power.

Simply put, before embarking on the communication of strategy and objectives, specific plans and approaches, build a foundation that will support  ollaboration.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Twenty five or six to four

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In 1969, the keyboardist for the Chicago Tansit Authority (that was the bands original name) wrote a song he titled “Twenty-Five or Six to Four”. The song reached number four on the billboard pop charts in 1970.

A side note is the band changed their name from Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) to just Chicago when the corporation threatened to sue them,  the corporation has a copyright on their name.

The city of Chicago does not copyright their name so an easy solution presented itself.  But I digress, back to the story of the song which the real point of this post.

Without Meaning

Music with meaningful lyrics is great but for me the lyrics don’t have to have deep meaning for me to enjoy the song.  Which brings me to 25 or 6 to 4 which I always enjoyed and thought was a great message song, just not sure what the message was.

Listening to the radio this morning I enjoyed hearing an interview with Danny Seraphine, one of the bands horn players.  He explained the songs lyrics.

And the answer is

When explained, all is clear, although this is not something I would have guessed.  Robert Lamm was working all night on writing a new song.

At around 25 minutes or 26 minutes to 4 am in the morning  he realized the day was breaking and he was still searching for something to say.

Simply put, the song is about the experience of writing the song.  Who knew?  Rhetorical question of course as lots of people probably knew, I just was not one of the.

Even with this revelation though, still a fabulous song.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Sincerity

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Trust, at its core, is about how well we perceive  others of
of being free from pretense, deceit, or hypocrisy.  That is, are they sincere?

Our perception is filtered by a persons behaviours.  In short, what they say and do.  Sometimes knowledge we have about a situation can be used as a metric to determine someones trustworthyness.

Most often though our perception of sincerity is underpinned by feelings.  From a personal perspective there is great value in gaining the trust of others.

Earning Trust

Practicing behaviour that demonstrates sincerity should be simple.  It starts with the messages you send, whether these are based on  verbal or  non verbal communication, those must be 100% consistent.

Your honesty must be absolute.  One damaging action, leading others to question your sincerity, can take years to reverse.  The perceptions of others about you typically are developed quickly and changed slowly.

Sharing Everything

It may be an animal instinct originating from the birth of human kind; people sense when others are holding back.  A reticence to share everthing you know can impact the perception of your sincerity.

Most of us will all encounter knowledge from time to time which is not ours to share or can have negative results if we do (e.g., things bound by privacy laws or deemed to come under national security).

The key to handling these things is to be open about there existance and explaining why you can’t share them, in some cases it may be you have awareness but don’t know the answers.

Being open in this way can have a very powerfull effect.  Rather then letting others suspect you are holding back, you prove your sincerity with open disclosure to the extent possible, explaining what you cannot share and why (obviously not explicitly).

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Context Counts

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The answer to the question, “Is this a successful outcome?” can be dependent on your perspective.  Although the result can be agreed to objectively, that is everyone accepts what happened, whether it was positive (sucessful) or negative is very much contextual.

For Example

The owners of the majority of shares in a large company develop a plan of subsidary asset sales and excess cash divestiture through stock repurchase and dividend payouts.

The result is beneficial to exisitng shareholders of the parent company.  The value of the subsidiary drops but the holders of equity in the parent company gain (dividends, parent company stock price increases).

Ultimately the subsidiary may go bankrupt having a very negative impact on its employees, suppliers and customer base ( they need to go elsewhere if they can even find an alternative)

In this case, the shareholders deem the result a success, the other shareholders not so much.  The outcome, bankruptcy of a viable enterprise, is not disputed, whether it was a good or bad outcome is.

In case you did not recognize it, this  story is one way of describing the recent Sears Canada bankrupty.  My telling of the tale is from a cynical perspective, but does have some validity nether the less.

That is the facts, allbeit interpreted liberally, are provable facts.  So clearly your place in the story, rich owner profiting from others loss or poor employyee without severance really speaks to how the outcome is viewed.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Whistle Blowing

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I read a CBC news story today about privacy, and whistle blowing in the context of one of Canada’s five major banks. Having worked at Bank of Montreal for 31 years and experienced events related to both these topics, I have thoughts worth sharing about all these things. (Worth sharing in my humble opinion).

Privacy

The underlying concept of today’s social privacy platform is that you are the owner of information that is uniquely associated with you and have a right to dictate it’s use.

The association is the critical factor.  A birthdate on it’s own is not classified as private but when it is associated with your name (i.e., your birthdate) it is private information.

In my opinion the laws and practices around ownership and management of private information are to all our benefits, continually improving and we are lucky to have a culture that supports and believes in these practices.

Todays news item was based on an employee complaint that the corporation (TD bank) was sharing private information, e.g.,  your name associated with your bank account number, to a third party contractor overseas, without your awareness or permission.

Whistle Blowing

The act of exposing any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public.

In this case the Corporation claims their outsourcing practices, including the handling of the private information was both legal and ethical.  Customers had been provided an agreement that advised their information could be shared with third parties overseas.

Of course the agreement did not need to be acknowledged specifically by a signiture but rather by a standard proclimation “by using this service you agree to …..”

Yeah, I always read those things in detail (sarcasm).  My brother however also does and many people are often frustrated by the time he tales to do so.  Kudos to him, but I am not sure this is a standard popular practice.

And this is where the discussion hits a grey area.  I am not sure what the answer is but the following thoughts are interesting food for discussion.

  • Should public, private or government organizations be allowed to first refusal before the whistle is blown [perhaps they are not in the wrong)?
  • Can any topuc be fodder for a whistle blower or are there limits?
  • Is disclosure of privacy abuses open season, it is such an important topic, or should there be guidelines?

And this probably just the beginning of the discussion.  Fun topic.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Communication 101

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When communicating with others, far more important than what you say is what is heard.  We spend the majority of our time in some form of communication, ranging from sending to receiving.

Whether, reading listening to music or a speech, watching entertainment live or recorded, the variety of communication forms is wide and varied.

The key to effective communication is not dependent on the communication form, rather it is the translation of the message into meaning by the recipient.

Regardless of type of communication, the most skilled communicators focus on their audience.

It’s not about you

The most common mistake is crafting the message to tell your story.  Story telling is a fantastic way to pass a message but for it to resonate and be understood the story needs to be aimed at the audience (for them, not for you).

What I want you to know and what you want to know are the two most basic underlying considerations to help you craft your message.

The skill is integrating the information so it is targeted with the audience in mind yet satisfies the scope of all stakeholders, that is both sender and receivers needs are met.

Don’t Ignore the Purpose

What is heard is the message.  If it does not meet your expectation the purpose is not satisfied.  Regardless of how skilled you were at crafting and delivering the message, if it does communicate what was intended, you have failed.

Remember, focus the message on the audience,but not at the expense of neccessary content.  Mould the message to fit the audiences and during delivery continually monitor reaction to gauge your success.

To the best of your ability judge if they are hearing what you are sending.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

The pace of change

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Change is inevitable.   Planned and managed with a clear objective based on reasonable benefit assumptions, change is good.  There are a lot of conditions that needto be satisfied to ensure change is good, but the results make it worth the effort.

Sometimes conditions create the need for a change. For example someone leaves an organization or team.  At a minimum their replacement will be a change, but a reorganization or other restructuring are opportunities that could also result.

The pace of the change

For todays post we assume a good change is in process.  The objective and most beneficial change actions have determined and a approach is planned.  That is the work (e.,g., communication, implementation) activities are defined.

Should this change proceed slowly or rapidly?  Is there an optimal type of approach to change scheduling.  Should we push it through quickly to reduce the anxiety of affected stakeholders or will slow and cautious lead to a higher quality result?

Both approaches have benefits and pitfalls and these can vary depending on the specifics of the change.  Sometimes there are constraints that drive a slow or fast approach (e.g., things are bad and need to improve fast or the culture mandates a slow and discursive approach so you have limited choice of pace.

Most importantly, when determining the schedule for your change (i.e., the timing of the implementation activities) be sure to consider the associated risks and plan mitigation activities. This applies whether a fast or slow paced change.

For example if the pace of change could lead to team demorialization or mass exodus consider this risk and plan what to do if it occurs.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Sharing Imformation

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Who do I tell and what I tell them?  These are questions people are constantly asking themselves, whether conciously or unconsciously. This is a filtering process.

These questions are not intended to imply that we will share all the information we have but rather that we will determine if we can or should share some or none (The answer to the first question could be no one.)

If you are going to share something, what you will share comes into play.  Underlying this filtering process is motivation for sharing.  This influences the what and even how.

What’s the Purpose

All communication or lack thereof has a purpose.  There are four basic categories into which information sharing falls.  These are:

  • unburdening (lessen your guilt)
  • personal gain  ( this includes a wide variety of motivations from monetary to self worth)
  • altruistic (for the benefit of others)
  • malicious (to attack or harm others, could be coupled with gain on your part)

Withholding information can be as effective as sharing and during the filtering – whom do I tell and what – the decsion to not tell could be because that appears to be the best way to achieve the underlying objective.

In a flash

The really scary part is the filtering process often happens without a great deal of concious thought or examination of pro’s and con’s.  For most, it is just managed intuitively.

A thought pops in your head, is mulled briefly and then shared or not.  During that brief interval the reasons to communicate or hold back and what to say and how to position it are determined.

Often this leads to misunderstanding, frustration and conflict.  What we say, to whom and how we contextualize the information is so critical and important to get it right, yet alas, we spend so little time figuring it out.