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Answers begin with the Question, or do they?

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When we don’t have all the information we need or are not sure of it’s validity we will elicit additional information from other sources, that is human, virtual, experimentation and so on.

Hopefully this process of investigation will yield the answers we seek in response.  Sometimes the answers are not the information we seek.  This can be because the question is wrong, and there is the rub,

Question or Answer/ Chicken or Egg

Without some information we can not be sure what the question is and without the question information is lacking.  The question answer dance is founded on what we know when we begin.

Neither the initial question or subsequent answers is the starting point, rather, what we know about what we don’t know is the best place to begin.

Assuming questions are intended to gather things we don’t know or validate information we are uncertain of the beginning is not to seek answers or formulate questions but rather understand what it is you don’t know.

Understanding Requirements

The process of seeking information using questions as the prime technique begins with understanding what you seek.  Valid quality questions begin with requirement, that is defining what you seek.

Formulating the question is often best managed as a multi-step process building on the information uncovered during the journey for answers.  Critical to the success of this journey is the starting point, the first question.

Seeking Information/creating Knowledge

Asking questions and analyzing the answers will provide you with the information you need to create knowledge.  The value of knowledge to you depends on your requirements.

Asking questions is only of value when you have a solid understanding of why you are asking them.  What is the information you are lacking and why is it of value should always be the starting point of your interrogations.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

What by When?

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Clarity of purpose, understood by everyone involved or impacted by your plans and objectives, is core to their achievement.  It has been asked many times but if you don’t know where you are going do you ever arrive?

Leadership first and foremost is about ensuring that clarity exists – universally.  The clearly and broader the message is spread the greater the likelihood of arriving at the destination but at least you will know if you are not there yet.

What by When

For everything we set out to do there is always the question “What are we doing?” and co-existing with the objective is timing “When will we finish?”  These two simple pieces of information completely define any and all tasks we undertake.

This is not to say plans are absolute and inflexible.  Both the what and when parameters can change as you meander along your journey.   Starting without knowing what you are attempting to achieve leads to chaos, changing it as you learn more does not.

Motivation

Everything we do , how we behave, our desires, all have some underlying motivation.  Nothing happens without motivation.  Both what you are seeking to achieve and the time frame underpin motivation and drive urgency.

Having a solid understanding of the strategy and direction can be very high level or intricately detailed but without some definition of purpose  why would we do anything.

Of course even doing nothing requires motivation.  That is to say nothing can be defined and so is something.  The level of motivation to do nothing (possibly the default activity) does not need to be strong but still must be present.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

What or How

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Our goals can usually be described as the answer to the interrogative request  “What?”.    The response describes the nature, origin and identity of something.

Focusing only on the tangible and measurable part of what we wish to achieve is often at the expense of the how.  That is, the way or manner in which we behave to attain our objective.

Success without Substance

Unfortunately achievements that leave behind a field of dead bodies can be questionable.    In the movie Kill Bill the heroine exacts her revenge leaving unimaginable carnage in her wake.  Did she ultimately win?

To really be happy with your results it is important to consider how you proceed to get what you are after.  Without carefully considering how you can get what you want to ensure it is not at an unacceptable cost you may tarnish your success with regrets.

This may raise questions about the goal itself.  Was it worth it?

Plan before Leaping

We may feel we need something, the object of our desire.  This emotional tag can cause us to charge ahead without fully thinking out the practicality and feasibility of our approach.

Without forethought and a plan of action we may fail but in fact even worse we might get what we sought but given the cost suddenly we have no taste for it.  We may even be saddened by events.

Success is not simply accomplishing our purpose but rather doing it in a pleasurable and satisfying way is needed for us to be able to claim true success.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Seeking Direction?

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Life encompasses growth, ongoing activity, and continual change preceding death.  From birth to death each of us is on a conceptual journey where our experiences lead to new understandings. 

Our journey can be passive (go with the flow), active (control the outcomes) or a combination of approaches.

 Whether  you choose to control or influence your outcomes, or let someone else do it,  a key factor is what direction are you headed.

Finding Your Way

Your direction is dependant on where you are headed, that is what is the objective or goal?  Sometimes you my have an idea but need some help.

In these cases we often look to our leaders to provide some ideas or indications, even suggestions of our destination.  Ultimately we choose but our leaders can help us make that choice.

Of course in some cases the leaders directions are firm and prescriptive and we just need to go along for the ride.  The more motivating approach occurs when leaders encourge and advise but leave the choice to us.

Passive/Aggressive

When the leaders pronounced direction is not to your liking you may choose to appear to accept the direction (passive reaction) but through your actions do everything to acually go a different direction (aggressive).

Ultimately the path you travel and the destination you reach  are most pleasant when it’s where you want to go.  

This applies regardless of whether you devised your own direction or it was provided by a leader or even just through circumstance.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Measuring Success

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We have many ways of measuring achievement.  The measure can be aligned with the objective directly or peripheral factors.  Also it can be highly objective or subjective or somewhere in between.

For example if you are  playing a game of golf the measure could be your score or it could be your score against the scores of others.  Both of these are pretty objective measures.

However, it could be how you feel.  This is a more subjective measure not necessarily related to your score but rather how much fun you had.   Did your level of enjoyment meet expectations?

Measuring your Daily Activities

Most of us spend our days performing  activities involving mental or physical effort, i.e., work.  (To clarify financial compensation is not required to classify  spending your time as work).

What is the success measure relative to this work.  Like the golf game, there are multiple measures.  You can objectively assess if the goal of your activity was achieved and to what level.

The subjective measure of accomplishment can also apply.  Was it a good outcome, high quality, appreciated, etc.?

However, Over the long term, I would argue, the subjective measure of enjoyment and happiness is the most important.

If you are laughing and having fun the lack of more concrete success, while not desirable or to be encouraged, can be overlooked and absorbed to some extent.

This is not to propose that achieving what you set out to do is not important, but it should not be at the expense of your personal happiness.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Influence versus Manipulate

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We all have power to influence others.  You are exerting influence when you effect a change (the change you desire) on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.

Manipulation is simply influencing a change in a clever or unscrupulous way.  Manipulation characterizes the way influence is applied.

Unscrupulous  practices are not about being fair or moral.

Unscrupulous behaviour is targeted at getting what you want without a huge amount of constraint on the behavioural practices beyond the fact they generally do not employ brute force but are rather well planned intelligent and ingenious (i.e., clever).

Effective Manipulation

I often have discussions with others who immediately classify manipulation as inappropriate while influence and impact skills are considered powerful positive tools.

This is not surprising as unscrupulous behaviours have a negative connotation.  On the other hand, manipulation is really just a sub-set of influence.

Additionally it is important to note the determination of  “fair” and “ morale” can be very subjective.  Manipulation can often just define influence behaviour where you have chosen not to let arbritrary constraints hold you back.

Influencers follow the rules, manipulators rule.  Often the rules are framed to be in favour of those you are trying to influence.  Playing within these boundaries will most likely lead to failure.

I acknowledge manipulation is a technique I use, but for me , the key is not to practice it in nefarious ways or with obvious disregard to morales, fairness or others beliefs.

Rather the point is to be clever, not evil, not  disrespectful but really clever.  And it works.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Play the game for yourself

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Showing up and participating might get you a pass but if you want to win more is needed.  Viewing life as a game (yes, a tired and worn out analogy) places your role as a competitor.

Being part of the play can be very enjoyable.  I wonder though if something is missing.  If we equate success to winning, achieving your goal (i.e., success) should be a win.

Just being not enough

If your objective is just to show up, it probably is not a real objective and probably is not enough.  Building on the game analogy my suggestion is to study the rules, players and potential outcomes.

Based on this analysis, as your goal pick an outcome that will maximize your enjoyment, without negatively impacting others.  Don’t kid yourself, maximizing your enjoyment requires more than just showing up.

A servicable performance should never be taken as a complement.  The feeling of real accomplishment is like a stimulating drug, it feels good.  That is just basic human nature.

Play to win every time

The very key to the ideas proposed in this post is repeatable consistent behavior.  Whatever the activity of the moment never mail it in.  This is of little benefit to yourself.

Seize every moment with gusto, not unfocused energy but rather excitement and purpose.  I cannot think of any occassion when just going with  current is a worthwhile approach.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Strategic Alignment

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Today I had a discussion with my colleagues about strategic alignment.  Typically in organizations there is some heirarchical structure.  Strategy must bridge this structure.

Overriding strategies start at the institutional level and cascade down.  The overall strategy is by its very nature more indicative or directional than specific.

For example, the three year strategy institutional strategy could be to reduce costs while maintaining a constant revenue.  Although this can be simply stated, of course, the execution plan is more complex.

Reaching All Levels

A litmus test for organizational alignment lies with results.  Strong alignment throughout the organization is far more likely to contribute to the overall strategic objective.

Defining strategies within any section of the organization that will contribute to the overall organization goals can be difficult because there is some subjectivity inolved.

For example, cutting staff in one department might appear to support a cost reduction strategy, and is easily measured at that level ( staff were reduced or they were not).

The rub is, the staff reductions could seriuosly impact revenue, which maintaining flat was the other part of the strategy.  Simply put, aligning the strategies of parts to the whole is not easy.

Thinking Strategically

A potential assist to the pitfalls of strategic alignment is to expect everyone to think strategically with the institutional high level goals in mind.

Years ago I attended a seminar where the speaker highlighted what this kind of thinking looks like.  He was doing an organizational assessment at Boeing, probing employees about their work.

He asked a janitor he interviewed what his job was.  The janitor replied, “I build planes”.  Hard to argue that employee was not thinking about the companies strategy and didn’t get at.

At there very core in every aspect of the company, in fact, as simply put by the janitor, ultimately the employees build planes.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Developing Strategy

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Strategy is an oft misinterpreted term.  It can be used to justify actions or inaction.  It can be seen as far seeking and visionary (not necessarily always the case).

Strategy involves creation of  a plan of action or policies designed to achieve a major or overall aim.  The key attribute is that the strategy reflect “major” goals.  Strategies typically don’t extend to routine or low impact actions.  These are typically defined as tactics.

A series of tactical actions often underpin the strategic plan.  An example of this is:

  • the strategy is to grow sales revenue every year by 10%
    • planned actions include improved customer service, broader product line, more advertising
    • tactics underlying the strategic plan include specific actions to improve customer service including measures, new product development and so on

Developing the Strategy

Developing the strategic plan can be a difficult exercise.  The more collaborators the harder it is, although more participant could also lead to better plan with more buy in.

It is important to start with the major or top level goals.  The strategic activities and the tactical plans all stem from these.  The time frames associated with achievement of these goals is critical  to define as well.

Another tip during strategic planning is to focus on measurable actions and outcomes.  Intangible things are quite subjective and much harder to obtain consensus on.

Additionally, keep the focus on high level overridding plans and time frames first before moving to the tactical level.

And finally , use strategies wherever they fit.  The whole organization or just personal goals.  The value is clarity in what you are striving for and definition of the optiminal way to achieve it.

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Aspire Against All Odds

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Today a colleague shared  a picture which he called “my special flower”.  Not his wife, daughter or grand child, no it was really his special flower.

 

my special flower

Special because it survived and thrived against all odds.  Arising from a crack in the paving stones of his home driveway the flower is both health and colorful.

And this growth was without nurturing or support , no water or fertilizer, my colleague just let his little flower make it on her own.

What does it take to succeed against all odds?

Despite any outside help this little flower succeeded because it aspired to.  That is, building on a theme from yesterday’s post, the flower practiced the belief that  “If I believe I can, than I can!”

The takeaway here is not the sense of pride my colleague feels for “his little flower” but rather the fact she did it without him.

We do not live and thrive in isolation, we do need support; however, I postulate one of the most important personal value we can practice (if not the most important) is personal accountability.  Regardless of the need for support of others (and most times you really do) the foundation where it all starts is the individual.  You need to believe in yourself, take responsibility for your actions and use this as the springboard for success – bring the other flowers along with you for the ride.

For the greatest success couple your personal accountability with the aspiration to set personal goals and then achieve them (it is you who makes greatness happen not others).

What am I aspiring for?

This is of course a very personal question.  That being said there is a basic methodology you can employ to answer it.

Begin with high level statement of personal purpose, that is a life philosophy.  For example (and I freely admit I borrowed mine from an ancient greek philosopher):

I will live my life to maximize personal pleasure as long as I don’t impede on the personal pleasure of others.

Using this simple statement as a foundation I craft my life around achieving things that make me feel good.  I don’t have or need a bucket list, day by day I live mine.

And so little flower, grow – live long and prosper.