All posts by steve@kerrzone.com

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

A single note

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The harmony of the team changes with the fading of a single note.  In this context harmony is defined as simultaneous actions to produce a common result with a pleasing effect. 

Team harmony is a very specific and necessary attribute underpinning high-performance teams.  Without the presence of harmony, high performance is unlikely.  

Every note matters

Consider each team member represents a note.  If the performance of the note is not the exact pitch and timing needed to create harmony with the others, the results can be discordant. 

For a cohesive high performing team, in order for all the notes to play in tempo and complementary pitch according to the arrangement, desire must be present and practice is needed. 

Creating Harmony

A team of professional musicians can come together and jam, in this case, to a large degree the quality of the music relies on the individual skills of the players.

Practice allows for repetition and feedback,  which leads to high-quality sustainable results.  To achieve harmony among the notes the players much want it and then work to achieve it. 

Dealing with Bad Notes

Sometimes it is just not possible to get all the notes to perform together in harmony.  In this case the score needs to be revisted.  

Perhaps the bad note needs to be discarded from the team.   This should be avoided to the greatest extent possible, adapting the score and fixing the issues can be a much less drastic approach than rebuilding with a different set of notes. 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Falling on your sword

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When you have made a mistake the most effective approach is always to acknowledge the error without reservation.  This can include explanations, rationale, apologies, offer for recompense, but most important is clear communication relative to acceptance of the fault. 

This clear statement of fault equates to the ancient Japanese tradition of falling on your sword to account for misdeeds (a bit drastic an approach, but okay as an exaggerated analogy).

Clarity and Sincerity

Non apologies are rampant in our culture.  These lead to the question “Do you really mean it”.  If you want to get past the error and move on, the others must believe you accept fault.  

Accepting fault, and making it clear you are fully accountable for you actions provide a solid foundation to resolve the issue.  This does not mean (although often recommended) you need to apologize but you do need to admit complacency. 

Although it does sound trite, problems are a great opportunity to build solid longterm sustainable relationships with others.  The key is how you deal with the issue.  Clear acknowledgment an issue has occured is always the first step. 

Taking Action

Once it has been established an error has occurred and accountability communicated, what next?  Resolving the issue to the satisfaction of all.

You may not be responsible, i.e.,  caused the problem,  but accountability is simply agreement a problem occurred and defining who (you) will resolve it.

Resolution actions can vary widely.  The key here is to achieve an outcome that all the involved stakeholders concur solves the issue.  

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Innovative Creativity

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Innovation and creativity are probably near the top of my list of favorite buzzwords.   Buzzwords for me are those that sound impressive but for which the meaning is unclear.

They are often adopted by a culture for a brief time but subsequently replaced by the trend of the moment and forgotten (e.g., flavour of the month). 

Be Creative/Innovative

In and of itself the use of the use of the imagination or creation of original ideas (i.e., creativity/innovation) is easily pronounced.   The challenge in determining the presence of innovation/creativity lies with the subjective nature of the terms. 

While the interpretation of original should be an objective measure it is often clouded by personal perspective.  Imagination is totally subjective, although extreme imagination is usually readily recognizable as such (also usually impractical).

Song copyright legal challenges are a good example of how the determination of originality is not necessarily a simple manner. 

Numerous court battles have been fought over whether a song was copied or not (i.e., was it original).  Based on many of these cases it is apparently never an easy determination.   

Was I?

Overall the very definition of the terms leads to creativity being somewhat of a subjective measure.   So for me, the words are unclear, I am not sure when I have done it, I am not sure how it is measured.  

Hence the terms fall into my buzz word category.  Sounds good, but really what does it mean?

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Respect

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Building on the personal value “Everyone is Important” it is natural to both act with a feeling of deep admiration for others based on their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

Respectful behavior is how we expect others to interact with us and it is reasonable to consider we would do the same for them.  It also fully supports the tenant that our differences are important and should be embraced/leveraged.  

Balance Respect and Action

On a bit of a contrary note (contrary to the aforementioned value), it is possible if you treat others with respect they will walk all over you.   In this case caution may be needed. 

This is not to imply we should not be respectful to others in principle, that is to recognize, accept and to some degree admire their capability. 

Rather it is just a caution about intensity. Some may abuse respectful behavior and others actually respond better because they appreciate the forceful direction that disregards them to some extent.  (Sometimes it is just easier to accept, agree and move on)

Polite but Firm

In some cases your objectives require more directness and less repect for the others but this does not mean rudeness is either a valid or acceptable approach.

Some belief just being polite is respectful so in a sense polite and firm avoids you being a door mat but also can be considered a respectful format.

In the context of this post respect to others is much more than politeness and can open you to being walked on but this does not mean polite behaviour should also be cast aside. 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Confidence

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Self confidence is the belief you can rely on yourself.  The level of your own self trust is reflected by your behaviour. 

Intrinsically, we all have firm trust in ourselves but it can be eroded over time through the influence of environmental circumstances.

Believe

It is very important to take accountability for your self trust.  Personal confidence is yours to own and manage and yours alone. 

This does not mean you should be unaware or heedful of feedback and signals from others either verbally or through actions. 

The key point is to remember is this is your life and while your actions should not be taken with an unwavering conviction that you are right, neither should you bow to others unless the rationale is strong. 

Be Firm, Not Stubborn

Personal confidence is not about charging head first like a bull, challenging all around you and portraying a high level of firm self trust. 

It does empower you to be firm in your beliefs not to the extent of stubbornness but rather to the level of fair judgement.

Be aware of your surroundings but trust in your ability to judge fairly the best path to follow.  Firmness is articulated through reasoned analysis not forceful action.  

Rely on Yourself

The most important message associated with self confidence is the belief that everyone is important, that includes you. 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Feeling Good

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In very simple terms, a core personal objective that can be applied to everyone is seeking to feel good.  While subjective in its determination, feeling good is about having happy and positive feelings about your life.

It is a pleasurable feeling.  Things that create pleasure can be motivating and seeking a state of happiness is one of these. 

Are you happy?

Although happiness is a subjective assessment, our feelings are very real to us and we generally know what they are quite definitively (although mixed feelings do exist).

Although it sounds a bit trite, we all recognize when we are happy and when we are not.  Contextually the drivers of happiness may be different but the ability to recognize it’s presence is not. 

Creating Joy 

Creating joy for others is one way to create your own happiness.  It can be the key to a pleasurable life.  Simply put, when we make other people happy we make ourselves happy. 

The real joy in gifts is not in the receiving (although we do enjoy that) but rather in the giving.  It makes us feel good to make others happy.  

I have often noted in my posts, “it’s all about me” and although today’s post seems to have an altruistic perspective the self-interest aspect of my beliefs is satisfied by the pleasure received through giving others pleasure.  

So don’t hesitate, be the joy that others crave.  

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

The political answer

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I attended a question and answer session today with the Minister of Advanced Education for Alberta.  It was an interesting reminder for me about the political answer. 

Often politicians say a lot of words in response to a query but the question itself remains unanswered, although the intent is for the response to appear complete. 

Positive Perspective

Many of the inquiries were about funding ( no surprise).  The answers to these questions were a carefully crafted non-response.

That is the answer follows a pattern like; “funding that program has merit, however, all funding must be balanced, a budget review is imminent or underway and I really can’t say much more about that until the review is complete.

Being direct

This measured approach to responses is better for me than outrageous statements simply focused on making the speaker look good.

A good example of this, by a politician who is currently front and centre in the public eye, is the diatribe of Donald Trump.

President Trump does not hesitate to say what he is thinking, even if it contradicts what he said previously on the same topic, which it often does. 

Although his comments have led to labels like pathological, sexist, racist liar he somehow continues to retain some level of support and popularity.

It make me wonder is the measured, reasoned, logical approach to acting in the public interest is going by the wayside?

Is the population tiring of middle of the road politicians, are fierce conservative bullies with dictorial aspirations making a comeback?  Sadly, could be.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Challenge

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Many psychological studies have demonstrated the value of doing a task or job that requires a great deal of effort and determination.  In fact, lack of challenge in your daily activities can impact your quality of life. 

Challenging activities can provide the underlying reason to act and are a real motivating factor.  The basic desire to do stuff, take actions of some sort to achieve objectives, is a basic part of human nature.

Satisfying Outcomes

Usually, the things we undertake have a purpose.  Achieving this outcome provides satisfaction of achievement but the difficulty of being successful is a key contributing factor to the level of pleasure derived from the achievement. 

Simply put, successfully completing a challenging activity is more satisfying than one that is relatively easy.  Our personal development and growth is related to the levels of difficulty. 

Throughout our lives we have desires and we undertake actions to attain these goals, but just achieving the goal is not the only measure of success.  We do not feel as satisfied or even satisfied at all if the achievement required no effort on our part.   

Making Changes

Sometimes when we are not challenged by the things we do, it is easy to fall in the trap of just carrying on.  The effort of effecting a change is not perceived as fundamentally required to increase our personal happiness. 

The lethargy and overall feeling of boredom become acceptable.  Over time this has a negative impact on our health and if we don’t snap out of it and make a change the impact on our overall health can be quite detrimental. 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Persuasion

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When you want someone to believe or act a particular way you are practising the art of persuasion.  The intent of the persuasion activities is to convince them.

Often persuasion can be attempted unconciously.  That is, we have something we want others to believe or do and so we behave accordingly, intuitively.

Argument

We can construct our arguments unknowingly.  We recognize what we want to happen and so craft our message in a way that is pervassive, so ultimately another person will act the way we desire.

Sometimes our proposed action may have a weak justification and so we bolster our argument using a position of authority or threat.

For Example

The TD bank recently sent me an email requesting I attend at a local branch to update my personal information or access to my credit card might be restricted.  

They gave me a deadline to do this by mid-January.  Providing deadlines is a good way to reinforce threats.  Also a standard marketing technique.

I suspect TD was trying to persuade me to come to a branch so they could try and sell me stuff.  This is something most people resist so they added a veiled threat.

TD’s attempt at persuading me to subject myself to a sales pitch, without any real justification has only upset me to the point where I want to cancel my card.

Backfire

When we craft our arguments in support of our objective focused solely on our objective we can dissaffect our audience.  This can reduce even eliminate our chance of successful persuasion.

This is a strong argument to think through how we will persuade carefully before proceeding.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Set your pace

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The consistent and continuous speed at which you work,  (i.e., complete activities to achieve your objectives), is your pace.  It can vary from fast to slow. 

Pace is a critical determining factor relative to overall success.  From a highlevel conceptual perspective, too slow can diminish the impact while too fast can impact the overall quality. 

Determining Optimal Pace

The pace at which tasks are executed is often just a conscious decision.  Environmental factors often drive the pace of activity and you just go along. 

Accepting the default approach to your pace has some drawbacks.  The obvious attributes of impact (timeliness) versus quality figure significantly in this determination.

Proactively figuring out the best pace based on the standard value equation (effort/outcome) and then proceeding accordingly ultimately impacts the overall level of the accomplishment. 

Basically, going fast or slow and all points in-between can dramatically effect the outcomes.

Accountability for the Results

A key contributing factor to your ability to own the accountability for results is the pace of execution. This applies from conceptualization through planning to completion.  

Accepting the default pace of the changes you participate in will be easier most of the time, but your level of success might not be where it could be.  

Focus on achievement, consider the pace at which you are proceeding and adjust ongoing to achieve optimal results.