Tag Archives: success

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Adversarial Conduct

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Adversarial discussions are characterized by conflict or opposition and lurking  beneath the covers, probably some hostility.  Too often, these conversations stem from assumptions of intention.

It may start with some innocent questions for clarification.  The other stakeholder assumes you are against what they are trying to achieve and the adversarial dance begins.

Sadly!

A simple misinterpretation of intentions can derail a potential productive interaction which should have gold at the end of the rainbow.  Even clarifying intentions often won’t put it back on track.

Sadly this type of behavior occurs regularly in most organizations.  It is of course exacerbated by cultural bias, but it is not unusual to see the dance occur, regardless of culture.

To my amusement, often I observe  those who are actually in violent agreement (based on what they are saying) but appear to be just the opposite (i.e., violent disagreement).

Just Listen

The root cause of this type of adversarial discussions lies with  misunderstood intentions.  These stem from listening skills.  That is not just hearing the words but rather the message.

For me as I watch the head butting, or even when I am the object of head butting it never ceases to amaze how agreement is manipulated into disagreement.

Don’t Get Hooked

The way out of these situations is to ensure you are not “hooked” by the others.  That is often the intention of the other party.  They believe if they can just get the hook firmly embedded in your throat they can hall you in.

Unfortunately the result is usually dissatisfaction to all which is of course really unfortunate since the whole situation was actually on the brink of a great collaboration.

Ah, to behave like a human – we are just animals after all.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Personal Financial Management

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Having a financial plan ( that is a document of what is going to be done by whom and when relative to your finances) is a critical underpinning of your personal financial health. However, without validation, the plan looses a lot of value.

Annual Review

Personally I think a review as least annually is the minimum although some probably like to check how there are doing more often.  Less often provides to great a risk that important adjustments get missed and ultimately result in the plan no longer being achievable.

I do my reviews on a calendar year basis and have 2016’s currently underway – hence this post.

What is it?

Simply put the review should consist of four things:

  • Income – How much was it and where did it come from.    This could be on a before or after tax basis (if after tax you don’t need to track taxes as a separate expense item).
  • Expense – what did you spend your income on, the use of categories here to group expenses is pretty well mandatory so the document is not unwieldy.  It should have enough detail though to be enable meaningful analysis and decisions.
  • Income less Expense –  This is pretty important.  If you are spending more than your income some adjustment is likely needed.
  • Investment Income –  I do a more detailed separate breakdown on this income because of the risk and volatility associated with it.   The focus of this review is obviously realized and unrealized capital, interest and dividend incomes (or losses but I try to avoid those.)

For What time frame?

The longer period the data covers the better and this is really key for good retirement planning.  For me the data covers 20 years.

Now the question is, based on this data, are things proceeding as you planned?

That means focusing on questions like;

  • Are there unexpected increases in expenses?
  • Considering what stage your plan is at is the increase in net income or decrease as expected?
  • Is inflation occurring at expected levels (e.g., checking the average cost of property tax over time – assuming the base property is the same gives a sense of what percent it is creeping up – 20 years of data really help with this.)

And so on.  The same type of thought process can be applied to your investment portfolio.

And finally, figure out what you need to change, adjust the plan and you are good until next year.

Note:  Net worth analysis and change over time, future income forecasts, and expense forecasts, market and inflation analysis, security considerations (e.g., insurance) are all advanced attributes but this post is focusing on the basics.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

What state are you in?

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Regardless of what you do every day (e.g., work for money, pleasure, charity, retired etc) you can classify how you feel about the surrounding culture/ environment into one or more of four categories.

Each category defines your behaviour and motivates your actions. These are:

  1. unsatisfying/ does not meet your needs
  2. a good match that inspires you
  3. not perfect for you but presents an opportunity to influence change
  4. not to your liking but you accept it

Recognizing your environmental category is an important skill (self awareness) .  It helps you conciously act on the unconcious behavior drivers associated with the culture you are emeshed in.

Self awareness is an empowering skill that allows you to ensure your behaviour is appropriate to the circumstances.  That is, control how you act separate from how you feel, to ensure positive outcomes.

Unsatisfying

Typically you would be motivated to leave this environment as soon as feasible.  This is not usually a happy place for you.  Don’t let your feelings drive bad (inappropriate ) behaviour.

Good Match

Embrace the environment.  That is, embrace how things are and thrive.  Should not be hard.  In this case, you are fully comfortable with the culture.

Not Perfect

There is a real opportunity here to create an environment you would consider a good match and it’s worth trying to do so.  Impact and influence behaviours are key.  Have fun with it.

Not to your liking

This situation is the hardest to take and can morph into deciding to leave.  Normally there is some real motivation to stay (e.g., need the money and cannot readily find a replacement).  Usually you feel trapped, unhappy and stressed.  This is a category you want to move away from as quickly as possible.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Good Experience/Bad Experience

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I recieved some interesting feedback yesterday on my post about the value of experience.  I had seemed to imply all experience was good.

Most of us have had bad experiences (think about Ryan Lochte’s recent Brazilian experience for example) and do agree experience can be percieved as being positive, negative, good or bad.

Life Lessons

I would argue though that in the context of life lessons, any experience, regardless of how it is percieved by the recipient, is valuable and sets the frame for growth, increased competency and ultimately success.

In the context of life lessons or even just professional activities experiences lay the ground work for us to choose to repeat or avoid actions based on past results (i.e., the experience)

Avoid Bad Experiences

The feedback I recieved suggested experience in and of itself does not have value and some experiences were to be avoided (e.g., a car accident).

In the context of capability to perform certain tasks (e.g. a medical operation) I would argue having the benefit of performing surgery in addtion to training and skills derived from practice positions me to be a better practitioner than someone without that experience.

Does this mean I would strive to avoid the experience of an unsuccessful surgey with a resulting fatality, of course.  However, if I did encounter that situation I would use the experience to advantage,

The knowledge of what went wrong and possibly how to a avoid a reoccurrence is golden. A bad experience can ultimately be leveraged for good.

My thought is that while the experience itself could be classified as negative, unpleasent, not to be repeated; in terms of the triumverate of attributes that forge sucessful results (education, ability and experience) all types of experiences are needed

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Prioritizing Your Time

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Fighting fires often becomes the default prioritization process.  This applies both personally and organizationally.  It is easy to divert your effort to the fire or even just wait for fires before acting.

The urgent/important model

image

In the four quadrents above, the urgent ones relate to fire fighting (i.e., fighting the fire is urgent).  The upper left activities are  probably justified in receiving attention, they are an important task.

The lower left quadrent is the problem.  Here we tend to spend time due to a false priority.  It is really not important to a accomplish ( e.g., a completely safe fire in pit with minimal danger of spreading)

We might waste our time watching the safe fire in the pit because we have been asked to (i.e., given our priority) even though we know it is not a valuable or important task (i.e., unlikely anything worthwhile will come of it).

Important – Not Urgent

Spending time on important things although there are not urgent is extremely valuable.   Typically these activities lay the strategic foundations for success.

The impact of completing important activities might not be immediate but over the long term it has a powerful effect (thats why they are classified important)

Impact of Spending time on Not Important – Urgent

It takes a lot of will power to focus on tasks that are not urgent and when there are urgent – not important tasks available, these often take priority because it is easier to do so.

Procrastination is a well known human trait and urgent not important things support this undesirable behavior when considered against the important tasks – they are typically harder so why bother.

A word of Warning/ A word of Advice

Stay out of the bottom right quadrent.  If you are in paid employment, people who spend too much time doing unimportant activities no one cares about are terminated. (Although some sneak by for years)

Spend as much time as you can in the upper right quadrent as these activites will lead to both a strong feeling of personal accomplishment and great success.  Unfortunately like the way to attaining many good things, it is the harder route.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Exploring self awarness

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In the context of a leadership or personal power skill (i.e., earned power) self awareness is not just conscious knowledge of ones own character, feeling and desire.

More importantly is using this knowledge coupled with the feedback  cues from those you are interacting with to achieve the best result.  This results in good feeling s all around about the interaction.

In brief,  the more critical aspect of this skill is not the awareness about your own motivations, feelings and reactions, rather the impact these are having and how you use it for everyones benefit.

Awareness enables you to leverage this knowledge about yourself in real time to make every encounter positive and memorable for the others.  It is also the more effective approach to becoming the catalyst for the desired reaction.

Enabling others to do things they did not know they could

Your earned power is very dependent on using your self awareness effectively.  This is a critical skill in your behavioural toolbag to attain and maintain respect.

By optimizing your interraction with others it becomes more likely they will exercise their own leader within.

In a team environment the use of self awareness broadly by all team members simply feeds on itself creating a harmonious and hugely effective group. You can set the example to get this going.

This is leadership not from the front, but rather from within. The actions of the catalyst in the mix prompt the self awareness practice   to commence universally and ultimately it feeds on itself.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Guiding Success

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A key leadership attribute is having a keen understanding of the destination.  And most importantly how to get there.

Givving Direction

The first step toward achievement of a goal is clearly understanding the big picture.  What is the overall objective and how  and where do individual goals fit on the path to the overall objective.

Effective leaders not only  guide and direct the journey but monitor the quality and effectiveness of the achievements along rhe way.  It never ceases to amaze me when I hear a leader or manager exclaim “Thats not what I wanted”.

Of course another favorite is “Stop asking all these questions, just do it”  For me these kind of directions come from those with more managerial tendencies (a boss, supervisor or even a parent).

Leaders Seek the Optimal Result

Giving direction and guidance can lead to results but it’s important to qualify that results alone do not equal success.

Understanding the work that is being done, to ensure the goals and objectives align is not about micro managing or inflexibility.  Rather it is guiding achievement without interfering, micro managing or doing it yourself.  No one said leadership was easy.

How is this possible

Most importantly construct an environment for open ongoing and frequent communication.  Too often leaders hide behind the door to their office (a badge of success – the office that is).

Communication, voluntary, exuberant, two way and frank is the only way a leader can grasp what is occurring without becoming over involved and directive.  That is encourage everyone to discuss openly and freely about what is going on.

A free and open exchange of ideas with the right touch and balance of direction and validation the the goal is being approached, that is what you seek.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Life Long Learning

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Learning comes in many forms from the formal, to just straight up experiential.  Everyone is exposed to some form of learning moments  throughout  their lives, for many I would argue there is a daily chance for a learning experience.

Whether we absorb, store and ultimately how we use the learning we are exposed to (if we use it at all) is unique to each individual.   Some not only learn, but share what they have learned (teaching).

Formal Learning

Formal learning. which usually includes some form of validation (testing) and often provides recognition (things like a certificate, professional qualification, post secondary degree, license to practice, etc) is valued and the teacher(s) are frequently paid for providing the learning service.

Formal learning comes in a variety of formats from one on one teaching to classroom or online courses  and a plethora of variations and is sometime confused as the main and perhaps only way to “learn”

Informal Learning/ Take Care to be Aware

Keen observation and awareness of our surroundings and paying attention to each interaction we incur through out our day is key to attaining benefit from all the informal learning opportunities that come your way each day.

What did that communication you just received really mean?  The actions you just observed created a result, is there an identifiable root cause?  Is it repeatable?

The more we let these learning experiences pass us by the more we miss out the opportunity to build our knowledge and capabilities.

Youth as learning sponges

When we are young the questions typically come fast and furious.  This is just typical human behavior, these questions are learning moments.

As time goes by (and we grow older) the questions are less frequent and even sometimes discouraged or treated as socially unacceptable.   How often have you heard “enough, no more questions, just do it?”

Both the learning moments and knowledge sharing chances require patience – on everyone’s part.

Take Advantage

Consider the value and benefit to your own happiness from embracing the opportunity to make a key aspect of your life about life long learning, leveraging every chances you get both formal and informal.  Don’t let life pass you by.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Celebrating Failure

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Seems odd to celebrate failure, in fact there is a lot of strong rationale for this practice.

What is failure

There can be a few nuances to the definition of failure, for the purpose of this discussion let’s view it as not achieving the desired or intended objective.

Success is basically the opposite, that is achieving the desired or intended objective.

Both success and failure have an associated order of magnitude.  Sometimes they can be very close.

For example, the objective could be to make revenue of $100,000 in a given month.  If the actual revenue is $98,000 the goal was not achieved (failure) while revenue of $102,000 exceeded the goal (success).  In the overall scheme of things there is not much difference in this performance.

Failure does not sound good, why celebrate?

Although Yoda (a deeply philosophical character from the Star Wars movies) states “there is no try, do or do not”; and it sounds good, the reality is if you don’t try you are almost assured neither do nor do not states will be achieved.

Celebrating failure has an interesting ring to it and usually get’s peoples attention when I talk about it.  The intent is to recognize the attempt.  Recognition has been demonstrated in numerous physiological tests to be an effective motivator, a way to encourage repetition of a behavior.  Celebrating failure is just a form of recognition (read on …..)

Setting a stretch goal, should result in failure more often than not – I would argue it’s hard to classify as a stretch goal if you can always attain it.   So we should all fail on occasion.

Acknowledging, recognizing, even encouraging the behavior that led to the failure provides reinforcement of the effort.  Although it’s a simplistic statement, consider; “if you did not make the attempt it’s unlikely you will achieve the desired result”.

Motivate through recognition

In a leadership role I often hosted team sessions to review and discuss results, both bad and good (i.e., success and failure) to encourage a continued drive toward achievement.  To be clear, these were never about criticism or what went wrong, but as Mary Poppins sang – “accentuate the positive”.

The results spoke for themselves.  Instead of failing which can demotivate and result in a downward spiral (losing teams continue to lose) concentrating on the positive aspects stopped the downward slide (it’s not bad, it’s really good and here is why).

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Give me some Power

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Your personal power is earned or granted.  There is no other kind.

Granted Power

Based on your position in an organization (e.g., manager, director) or role in society (e.g., politician, police person) you are granted a level of authority within which it is expected your directions will be followed.  This positional or role based power is granted under certain conditions and the level of enforcement varies.

Granted power is largely exercised through recognition of the authority and associated respect for it.  The expectation is that the rules of governing body, that is a government, political, business or social organization will be respected.

In some cases penalties exist if the rules are not respected (resisting a police officer can lead to arrest) and tools can be authorized to be used assist in the enforcement of the rules (e.g., guns).

In other cases there can be consequences like being dismissed from your job or given a stern talking to but these are softer and sometime the negative results of disrespecting authority are ignored and sometimes not even fully enforceable.

In general though, granted power is easier for those who have it to exercise as there is some level of consequence associated with ignoring instructions from those who have granted power over you.

Earned Power

If are able to get others to act or take direction without the benefit of granted power you are exercising your earned power.  Those taking the directions are following you because you earned their respect.

Which is more powerful

Many studies have show a balanced combination of earned and granted power is most efficient in both achieving long term results as well as the immediate.

On it’s own granted power is the least effective and always has the downside that if the circumstances resulting in your granted power are removed you could be in trouble  (the dictator is overthrown).

How can this knowledge help?

Whether collaborating or leading others, consider the best way to achieve the desired results.  The directions you give must be clear enough and carry the ring of authority to be respected (granted) but also must include elements of empathy, ownership and respect of others to get their buy in.