"Aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious.
You must bring him to the condition in which he can practice self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office."
– Screwtape Letters pg 11
Category: Leadership (Page 8 of 10)
I read listen to this on a Brian Tracy CD yesterday about being productive.
We live in a knowledge based, information based society.
Successful people are simply those who know more than their competitors. One of your most important responsibilities is keeping up to date with your chosen field and staying ahead of the pack, by continually taking in more information.
The amount of knowledge in every field is at least doubling every 7 years. That means you must double your knowledge every 7 years just to stay ahead.
The basic rule is; to earn more you must learn more. Or to put it another way; you are earning all that you possibly can today with what you now know.
You need to become an information gathering person to achieve and maintain excellence. If you want to be the best you must pay the price in terms of reading, listening, learning and growing.
You have gone as far as you can with what you now know. If you want to go further than you are now, you can only do it by taking in and applying new information.
He goes on to say that everyone who wants to get ahead should read for at least an hour a day. If you do this he suggests you will be regarded as a national authority in your field within 5 years.
In terms of the quote above. I think that there is portability to every role. Imagine if you wanted to be a leading sales person, what would happen if you studied that field for an hour a day. Just by the mere fact you are learning new things and continually challenging yourself you must improve!
What if you want to be an awesome mum and studied that topic for an hour a day. What about a leader or a pastor or an accountant?
The hard part. Resolving to do it!
Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
His words echo part of the thoughts that have been going through my head over the last month. How do I lead agóge so that it can become a really ingenious company? How do I teach people to think more? To be more creative? And most importantly to take their ideas and make them happen!
At work we have an internal blog and I write a weekly review, that is never weekly, but that's an SOI thing.
Anyhow, I sat down and started thinking about all of the stuff I had to get out of my head about being ingenious and creative and thinking and execution. As I mulled over the content I realised that it would never fit into a blog post and spreading the message over 5 or 6 weeks would dilute it significantly.
I then had an idea to write an eBook. A small, 6 pages, electronic book which is called "being INGENIOUS @ agóge". Cherie then gave me the idea to personlise it, which I did and then I actually printed it and sent it to everyone in the company. I guess its no longer and eBook although is available on our internal blog.
It has been generally well received and I will probably write another one some time, but the aim of the eBook is to not just write stuff. It's aim is to reinforce our vision, and in this case just one small part of it. There is very little in the eBook that is new, it is just a different way of saying it.
When I wrote the eBook I was doing my job. Casting Vision and Leading my team. It is a different way of doing it but in my role 'my imagination is more important than my knowledge'.
I forget that often!
[PS I might post the eBook in the future, once our competitors are so far behind us in being ingenious, so as to give them a fighting chance! 🙂 ]
[PPS After I wrote the eBook Seth Godin posted a blog called "You should write an eBook". He wrote one that now easily sits on more than 2 million computers. I feel a small sense of satisfication for coming up with the idea on my own, then having it reinforced by him]
[PPPS You can read a small excerpt of the ebook at www.viewpoint.net.nz]
"Your days can seem really long (and your life seem really short) if you're spending your entire career wasting time merely trying to earn some money.
Being engaged at work is seductive. It means that you're spending a big chunk of every day doing something you love, something that makes a difference. You get to motivate other people and create things that last. Unfortunately, this sort of opportunity is scarce and (apparently) getting more scarce. The gift I can give you is this: Since your boss hired you to make something happen, you now have permission to build something remarkable. You have the opportunity (on your boss's money) to build a project that will energize you and your co-workers.
You can do it.
The biggest insight about soft innovation is that anyone can do it. It's not based on your power in an organization, or your desire to become an entrepreneur or how creative you are. My goal is to sell you on your ability to champion an innovation in your organization. To find the Purple Cow and a team to build it. Then do it again and again."
This is a quote I enjoyed at 3am when I was trying to read myself back to sleep from Seth Godin's Book "Free Prize Inside"
Around 18 months ago I brought the majority of the staff in our company the book "Winning" by Jack Welch. The purpose for buying the book was to use it as a leadership development tool and to stretch their thinking, which in turn helps grow us as a business.
To assist in the learning I developed a booklet that people used to stay on track. People would read 2 -3 chapters a fortnight. We would then have a conference call with groups of 5 -7 people, discuss our obersations and learnings from the chapters.
Agoge is a small business with limited funds for training and leadership development and has staff based all over the country. I found that this process worked really well and we learned a lot as a business as a result. A key lesson for us was Candor, which has since become one of our values.
Below is a link to the PDF file. I hope you find it useful. If you would like a word copy please email Andrew Nicol (links in side bar)
I have almost finished "Winning: the Answers" by Jack & Suzy Welch.
In one of the questions Jack is asked "How do I know if I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?" Jack answers by posing four great questions:
– Do you have a great new idea that makes your product or service compelling?
– Do you have the stamina to hear "no" over and over again and keep smiling?
– Do you hate uncertainty?
– Do you have the personality to attract bright people to chase your dream with you?
Interesting that all four of them really excite me. I mean really really excite me. Number 3 is my favourite. Here is the whole paragraph:
Do you hate uncertainty? If you do stop reading here. Entrepreneurs spend more time in blind alleys than stray cats, if not chasing dollars, chasing new technology or new service concepts, not to mention everything else they need to build a business. If not in blind alleys, they're aboard a leaky boat on choppy seas – or put it more plainly, they are often running out of money while betting on the unknown. If you're an entrepreneur, that actually sounds like, well, fun!
It is fun!
I suspect a few of my team will nod their heads and say yip thats Andrew. I can also understand why a lot of people would not like to answer to these 4 questions, but I'm glad I can and do!
"In short I thought I would start shouting into the wind…"
And with those words my blog began. Like most things in my life my blog has proven to be random, distracted thoughts. It comes and goes depending on my mood and has had three major changes to its look and feel.
It will continue to change because I love change. It will continue to be random and change in writing style because I am always learning and experiencing different things.
Anyway here are a few of my favourate posts etc from each month since Aug last year.
Old Posts
Old & New … Lost after 3 years is the new car smell, it now has one of those car airfreshener smells . A smell that you know is hiding a potentially more potent odour, the way lighting a match in the toilet tries to hide a foul stench… read more [nb this is my most commented post a whole 3 comments]
Origin Pacific falls from the Never Never Land … In my opinion Origin was doomed to failure before their first flight left the ground. They tried to behave and act like super powers, then align themselves with super powers like Qantas, rather than establishing profitable niche markets … read more
Authentic Community …I think this small business called agóge. This business with people from all over the world, with varying educations, from different religions and diverse upbringings is starting to become an authentic community … read more
Woolgathering at 17,000 ft about the Marlborough Sounds … I sit in the ATR, transfixed at the sight of the Marlborough Sounds out my window and grateful for the relief from a tiring day that woolgathering about the Sounds allows. … read more
Flying an Alpha 160 … "It is like climbing into a new car when you have been used to driving a car that is 25 years old." … read more
Most enjoyable book
Blue like Jazz – Donald Miller.
Best quote
"I’ve always thought smack in the middle of a contradiction is a great place to be!" Bono – U2
I apply the brakes and decelerate for the booth ahead. An oldish graying lady slowly opens the booth window and greets me very pleasantly for 6am. Handing over a dollar coin is eventually followed by the barrier arm rising and my accelerating off down Route K towards Tauranga City. I am quite sure I it is the only toll road in the country, and probably one of the quietest roads as well. There are two many easy alternatives that only add a few km's and minutes to the trip to make it a success.
So why do I pay a dollar? Too save on fuel and time of course.
Later that day I was chatting to Greig about how stupid it is you can't get from 15th Ave back onto the toll road. It is stupid, for the record, because of lost revenue opportunities for them (there would be at least an extra car each day & I would get to save more time). Anyway I admitted to Greig that saving fuel can't be the real reason I take that road. I often drive around aimlessly in my car wasting more fuel than that. Furthermore saving time cant be the real reason because I would waste more time watching a couple of sets of TV ads than I would going the long way.
I was chatting to a friend the other day and she said that she doesn't read some stuff because she doesn't have time. I thought I can understand that. Later however, I thought it is not that we do or don't have the time, it is that we choose not to make the time.
- I choose to save a small amount of time and lose a dollar. Knowing well I will waste the same amount of time writing this blog.
- She chooses to spend the time on something else. Which is cool.
- I encourage my team to take Lead Time to think and plan and read. Most of them choose not to because they are too busy and have no time.
We all have the same amount of time in a day, it is actually that we all choose to use it differently. We can choose to use it on friends or family or love or work or hobbies or watching TV ads or taking toll roads or reading stuff or not.
The only problem is that you never, ever get to live that time again.
I have always understood that we are all made unique, entirely individual and wonderfully complex. But the implication of these thoughts often escapes me in action.
I think the problem is that I have never really, honestly believed that we are hard wired differently. A lot of the people that work for me that are smarter than me, had more significant and influential experiences than me, and have far more knowledge than me. Because they are genuinely more intellectual than I am, I struggle heaps when they don't see the big picture, or when they hear what I say and then do things completely differently.
I posted the other day about the styles of influence course I attended. As I have reflected on it, and spent time with the CBC guys and Vinney and Don, I have come to understand that I can be critical and biased when talking to people.
I think that we all have unspoken expectations of people, and then get frustrated when people fail to meet those expectations. We start thinking that they are intentionally doing this to bug us, and then our attitude towards them changes. When our attitude changes, our ability to influence the person positively dramatically reduces.
When all this happens who has the problem us, or the other person?
Me or you?
I have been humbled completely as I have considered some of these lessons.
It is incredible to consider that in the last 2 days I have learnt more about myself and how I interact with other people, than I have probably done in the last 2 -3 years. On Sunday evening I had Vinney from idynamx staying with us from the US. He is a very astute and intelligent guy and it was fascinating to talk with him about Style of Influence and the implications into our lives.
On Monday I attended a one day course run by idynamx where we compared our personal styles of influence with other people I work with outside of agóge. To say that I found the day just intelligently stimulating and personally challenging, would be to dramatically underestimate its impact on my think.
Below is a summary of my unique design. I am, according to the Styles Of Influence, test a Creative Designer.
Creative designers want to get a job done and get it done fast. They influence others in a positive way through this use of clear thinking and a strong personality. Creative designers can influence in a negative way through intimidation or forcefulness. Generally creative designers are individualists who enjoy a great deal of variety. These people enjoy thinking up new ideas and helping to get other people to implement them. At times, they can be hard to get along with and seem like a bully or overly dominant. When a task is in full swing, these people may want to "bolt" before the project has been completed. They work best in an environment that gives room to be creative and yet one that has a certain measure of accountability.