Tag Archives: communication

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Motivating High Performance

Leave a comment

Performance, in the context of the post refers to the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.  High performance should lead to better outcomes.

Applies to Everyone

In a group situation (e.g., family, corporate , charitable) the more the individual performances integrate (i.e., synchronize) the greater the outcome.

Motivating performance is most effective when balanced (a favorite concept of mine) between the group and the individual.  If my soccer team has a superstar I might win sometimes.

If every player on the roster is a superstar, and collaboration is their mantra, the chances we will consistently win are high.  That is both individual and team performance are key success factors.

Enabling Motivation

The most powerful form of motivation comes from within.  Achievement orientation is an extremely important emotional intelligence characteristic.

Selecting group members that identify with this value and display the associated behaviours is the first step toward building a motivated team.

Having a high level of individual motivation practiced by everyone in the organization sets the framework for leaders to provide the motivational direction.

In this case, the individual contributors naturally combine and leverage each other.  They recognize a true team effort is the route to great success.

The secret to successful motivation is to create an environment where self motivation will occur organically.  This is no so much about direct action on the part of the motivator.

The key is recognizing what each individual needs to fuel their inner motivation and then give it to them.  Observation and barrier removal is mainly what this entails.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Executing the Strategy

Leave a comment

To be an effective leader do you need to be able to define and execute a strategy?  Or is it enough to be a to just define or just execute?

My own research leads to the conclusion that it depends.  Ultimately what matters most is a leaders self awareness.  They know their own strengths and weaknesses intimently.

Strategy and execution are both required to succeed.  The leader needs to be able to assess gaps in strategy or execution, they do not have to personally resolve these gaps.

Work Smarter, not Harder

Achieving results through the path of least resistance is less effort.  Typically this means lower cost, faster turn around and often higher quality.

Strategies define what and how.  If the how is based on the underlying philosophy that easy is better, the strategy is better positioned to be implemented.

Innovation is a term widely used and often associated with a variety of interpretations.  To a large degree innovation relies on simplicity.   Why spend a lot of effort to achieve results if there is an easier way.

Of course the innovative approach can refer not only to the methodology but also to the result itself.  The key is that the innovative outcome, though possibly visually or tactically different, is functionally the same.

Outcomes

While strategy and execution are critical processes to enable the achievement of goals it is the actual outcome that gets measured and remembered.

The leaders focus is not on their ability to think strategically or act with a high level of operational effectiveness but rather to facilitate these practices in order to enable the achievement of the desired outcomes.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Arguing

Leave a comment

A very cool aspect of post secondary environments is the propensity to argue.  This is done in a respectful manner with a prime goal of learning.

The discussions give reasons in support of an idea, action, or theory, typically with the aim of persuading others to share one’s view.  This results, whether the argument is resolved or not, in the acquiring of new, or modifying and reinforcing of existing, knowledge (i.e., learning).

Enlightenment versus Action

The key attribute of these discussions is the intended result.  That is the creation of knowledge.   These arguments are not focused on changing behaviour or proving superiority, rather to create or expand u derstanding.

For me, as I move into the twightlight of life (there are more seniors in Canada than children under 14) it offers the opportunity to exercise my intelligence in ways I have not done heretofore.

The focus is not based on a tangible business case.  The purpose is not to improve profit, satisfy shareholders or customers but rather  for the good of everyone.

Ultimately that is what knowledge does, it improves the whole human race.  Whether philosophical, medical or scientific; understanding might or might not have real economic or other measurable benefits but it does have value.

On the whole it results in the betterment of the human condition.  So kudos to the human race for recognizing this and  supporting and promoting higher education.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Self Aware, Situation Aware & Balance

Leave a comment

Whatever you are trying to achieve, how you behave is a critical success factor.  This applies whether attempting to make a sale, get agreement, achieve consensus, build understanding, gain support and the list goes on.

Sterotypical behaviours are often associated with the goals.  Things like the pushy salesman, the receptive consensus builder, understanding  listener  and so on.

Do what works!

Situations can drive us toward different kinds of behavior.  In sales mode we might feel a little directness is needed .  Maybe some superiority, at very least there is probably a desire to at least appear knowledgable.

More important, and effective, than pre-concieved behavior is adopting your action to the exact context.  That is being fully aware of yourself, the other parties and the environment.

This awareness enables you to customize your behavior to the needs of the situation, ongoing.  Ultimately what you do becomes reflective of what needs to be done in order to achieve your goal.

Seek a balance

Successful outcomes of any interraction are far more likely to occur when they provide benefit to all participants.  Although you will have an objective, a critical success factor which always applies, is that everyone gets something.

This perspective is often called win-win.  In essence it simply ackowledges the best interactions are those that everyone feels good about.

Over time this type of approach builds reputations.  Those who focus on benefiting themselves become recognized for this type of practice.

Ultimately this impacts their  ability to sustain results overtime.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Communication Maturity

Leave a comment

The maturity theme continues.

Todays focus is on humans most critical skill.  Whether living your life to the fullest, striving to be best or just seeking basic satisfaction, communication underlies everything you do.

Communication is simply the providing or recieving of information.  There are a multitude of ways to exchange information (i.e., communicate).  My blog, of course, is an outstanding example of this.

Of course once sent or recieved the information must be processed, always the tricky part.  Whether in an  individual or organizational context, the processing (which includes filtering) is most impacted by both parties maturity levels.

What is Communication Maturity.

One person tells a story to another.  They understand the information they have shared and check with the reciever “Got that”, “Yup” is the affirmative response.

Oh if it were really so simple.  In this example the receiver certainly got information, that was confirmed, but was it what the sender intended.?  Who knows?

Interpretation of information can be influenced by your personal filters, bias and most of all experience.  Maturity is all about experience and when applied as objectively as possible to information exchanges it can increase the likelihood of consensus understanding.

Consensus does not mean agreement rather common understanding.  For mature dialogue that is the goal.  A key attribute of successful  exchanges is understanding not agreement. This is the ultimate goal.

It is far more important that all parties view the base information the same way even if they don’t agree.  Without exception this leads to better outcomes.

Developing conversational maturity takes time (you need experience afterall) but it also take focus and effort. Experience is of little value if not applied.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Hindsight

Leave a comment

“If I knew back then what I know now , then I could have ………”. Ah, what a sad lament.  The logic of the statement rings true.  For example if I knew shares In Apple were going to appreciate the way they have before the price began to rise.

Or that Nortel would go bankrupt.  That Bre-X was a fraud.  That Donald Trump would get elected.  The pain I could have avoided, the profit I could have made.

Lamenting the Unknown

The benefit of hindsight is fairly obvious .  There is none.  The probability that you will ever know what the future will bring with absolute certainty is nil.

Recognition that the unknown exists is key to making good decisions.  Attempting to predict the unknown and acting on those predictions can be a risky business.

A better practice is to quantify what you know and where possible what you don’t know.  In some cases of course you won’t even know what you don’t know.   Those cases cannot be quantified.

Knowledge Based Actions

Knowledge is a combination of the things you know and those you don’t know.  That is, you know of them, but don’t know the answer.  (Obviously things you don’t know of at all cannot be included)

Knowledge based decision making is  based on known information (included those with an unknown quantity but which you are aware of).  This method provides better results than hindsight or historical data.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Sharing Information

Leave a comment

When I was a child we used to play a game called broken telephone Or some called it just the telephone game.  It was an educational exercise geared to demonstrate how easily verbal communication can go off the rail.

It’s a simple exercise where a group of five or ten people whisper a word or phrase to each other down a chain.  The original information (the word or message) rarely (probably never) survives intact to the end of the chain.

The last person states what was passed to them and everyone has a good laugh.  For example start with lock and don’t be surprised to see it morph through several whispers as clock,block, rock , and finally emerge as possibly love (where did that come from).

The confusion grows with the use of phrases ,for example try ” Two tiny toads ate flat flying flies.”

The point

This exercise  clearly show how small misconceptions can end up making a huge difference.  It is  a fun way to highlight the  importance of active listening.

Most importantly though it shows just how hard it is to share information accurately.  The last person in the game thinks they are replicating the information, it was just the simple sharing of a word or phrase, after all.

Don’t be fooled

You may be positive your information share was clear, however, more often than not this is not true.  Don’t assume the meaning of your message (communication, information share) is interpreted the way you understand it.

There are many techniques associated with good and effective communications but the most important one is restating.  When you have finished communicating, ask the other party to repeat the message.  Don’t be surprised at how often this leads to the need for clarification.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Governance – an exploration

Leave a comment

Very generally,  governance refers to undertaking processes and practices by which others actions/activities are controlled and directed.

In effect these processes and practices start with guidelines, laws and rules  and end with enforcement to ensure they are adhered to.  For example, speed limits are a law most of us are familiar with.

This law is a governance practice intended to reduce the risk of accidents (or it represents a government money grab) . Speed cameras are one enforcement practice associated with this law.  Fines are another.

Governance, Yuk

A typical reaction to governance is distaste.  Like most things though  governance has associated pro’s and con’s.  Low levels of governance  usually result in:

  • faster completion
  • greater flexibility/ innovation
  • simpler solutions
  • lower quality
  • greater risk of error
  • inconsistency across repeated activities

Clearly high quality, consistentency and low risk are better attributes than the opposite listed above.  Yet higher governance is usually less flexible, slower and lacking creativity.

What to do?

Both approaches to governance (a lot and a little) have pro’s and con’s generally exactly the opposite.  The best way to achieve the highest results (best of both worlds) is “surprise,surprise” through a balanced approach.

Too much or too little governance is not a one size fits all balance.  It is very contextual.  For example, as an investor you probably desire strong governance to be in place around your investment.

The intent is to risk your reduce of loss.  However if the regulations are too onerous the investment can be strangled by them.  You might not lose but you might not gain either.

An example of this is Trumps approach to reducing regulations put in place during the last financial crisis.

In his view the risks mitigated by these outdated regulations have subsided in the current economy and the regulations are holding back economic and job growth.

I am not sure I agree with his assessment but the principle of balancing governance practices to get the best result really does resonate with me.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

International Day of Happiness

Leave a comment

March 20th is the International Day of Happiness,  unanimously adopted by  the United Nations 193 member states in 2012.  This day is intended to highlight the need to recognize the pursuit of happiness as a human right and a “fundamental human goal.”

Not New

There is no question this is a noble goal albeit not a new one.  Throughout the ages since dawn of civilization humans have philosophized about the pursuit of happiness.

Philosophers  such as Bhudda, Socrates, Confucius, Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, Mencius, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, and religious figures like Jesus, Abraham, Moses, and the prophet Muhammad have all comptemplared the definition of happiness, and how to achieve it in some shape an form.

My own personal philosophy of life stems from the work of plato.  I consider my happiness founded in the belief I can persue my own maximum pleasure as long as I don’t impinge on that of others.

Making it Happen

Sadly creating a worldwide environment of happiness and joy for all, while a noble objective, is hard to do.  A simple poll in my workplace today revealed few (actually I found none) aware this was International Happiness Day.

The need to declare such a day, to bring attention to the basic human requirement for global happiness is in itself unfortunate. Happiness should be endemic, the norm rather than something to strive for.

Ah, Utopia.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Checks and Balances

Leave a comment

The law of supply and demand can act as a key behaviour control.  Action and reaction can also serve this purpose.  These two practices can be used as tools to effect change.

It’s So Unfair

I had a conversation the other day about people being mistreated.  Things like unrealistic job performance demands, little sympathy for hardship, or taking a hard line on working hours or working conditions.

Clearly wrong or harsh behaviour cannot always be corrected or resolved through a reaction or by managing supply or demand.  However, these approaches can influence change and do provide the opportunity to drive outcomes.

Whether successful or not, at least you tried.  Taking action is far more likely to achieve a result than just hoping the “luck of the Irish will prevail”.  That is, if you take no action you should expect no result.

(Side note, luck of the Irish refers to winning or succeeding at something for no apparent reason.  Like finding gold when others cannot or winning at gambling).

For Example

An obvious example of using the law of supply and demand to affect behaviour change is trade sanctions (limiting supply). In this case one group of countries might apply a trade blockade to another country to influence them to change their behaviour (e.g., stop developing nuclear arms)

At a more granular level, if an employer cuts your wage, you could just accept it but alternately you could refuse to accept the insult and provide supporting evidence of your value, (measurable evidence) and outline the impacts of losing you as a valuable resource versus some short term monetary savings.  The ability to react and how you react is up to you.

Give it a try

Next time you see unjust behaviour, try to effect a change.  What can you lose, beyond the time and effort to try.