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Friday Links

Seth Godin states, "laziness has changed." I've not decided if I agree with him or not, but it's an interesting topic.

For those of you who enjoyed the Hayek versus Keynes rap, here's a sneak peak of the next rap video.

I've been trying to read more about psychology lately. I've stumbled across a blog that reviews new research in the field. Here's an interesting article that asks, "Can Your Creative Brain Erase Negative Moods?"

For more on happiness, Lifehacker brings us "Many Little Things That Make You Happy Are Better Than a Few Big Ones."

Here are two nerdy (aka awesome!) infographics titled "When Your Relationship will End" and "Fed Swollen Balance Sheet to Get Bigger."  



 

If you've come across a neat link this week, please share it with us in the comments. Next week, we'll be making a big announcement and change to the blog. Stop by Monday at 10am to see what we've been working on. Have a great weekend!

Change--Miley Ray Cyrus Style

OK, let me just start by saying that if you're about to read this post thinking I'm going to talk in-depth about Miley Ray Cyrus*--as the title may suggest--you're about to be disappointed.  But, if that's what you're most interested in, feel free so skip to the end for why Miley and "change" are remotely related.

Hey!  You didn't skip to Miley!  Congratulations on your superb musical tastes.  Let's talk about "change" in general, and why it's important.  To paraphrase 'ol Shumpie (aka Joseph Alois Schumpeter), change is the defining fact of capitalism.  As he and others have laid out, the inherent nature of economies is to change, shift and morph.  As a result, the way resources are used today to create value (say, taking the inputs to make a cassette tape) will likely not be what's valued tomorrow.  Basically, a process of destroying the old in favor of the new will happen whether we like it or not.  

Your time is limited, Cyrus....

His concept of creative destruction--if you buy into it--would suggest that you and I should have a high regard for the ability to initiate, put up with, and encourage "change" in our day-to-day business.  After all, if we're not the ones urging creative destruction relative to our projects, products and services, then we will be 'creatively destroyed' as others outpace our innovations.

But what about Miley?  You're just going to have to hold on a bit longer....  The idea of "change"--if taken alone--can be dangerous, I would argue.  If you ch-ch-change without nuh-nuh-knowledge sharing, for example, others might get so confused they won't be able to help.  Like many aspects of MBM, solely focusing on one element can be harmful.  

So, I pose this question to you: what elements of MBM bolster and support change, and what elements are in tension with it?  For example:

• Bolsters: assuming we need to change periodically, sharing KNOWLEDGE is important to make sure we are all on the same page of what has changed and why.
• Tension: visions have to change from time to time, but if you change your department's vision every day productivity would likely decrease. 

What else?

"That's fine and all," you think, "but what about Miley?"  OK.  In one of the more interesting consulting jobs I've done recently--in which a team asked a few of us to explore with them the Guiding Principles in depth--we discussed the idea of "change" for a bit.  Shannon, my partner, suggested that we play Cyrus' song about moving to a new town (Party in the USA) to lighten the mood and provide a funny, positive example of this principle.  

The result was about about 10% funny and 90% makes-Andy-uncomfortable....  

*p.s. KAP class: it is Miley RAY Cyrus...  ;-)

What Mental Model are you working on?

I'm trying to implement the idea from a Conversation, about Applying a Few Mental Models at a Time (sorry only DNet users can access it). The idea is to focus in on one mental model until it becomes second nature. Then, move on to the next mental model.

Besides trying to be more disciplined in experiments, I'm working hard to apply the Human Action Model to the training sessions I lead. I'm doing this by being deliberate about having time in each session dedicated to the three conditions for action outlined in the Human Action Model. This has had some neat effects.

First, it's forced me to think through the specific actions I want people to take as a result of the session. It's no longer satisfying for me to "educate" without a connection to action. Second, measurement has become a little clearer because we can see the outputs associated with the action. Third, it's given me a framework for challenging how and why we do particular sessions. If I can't come up with a concrete action, then why are we doing the session?

I'm no where close to comfortably applying this mental model in this context, but I'm doing my best to be systematic over the next several months. Hopefully, it will reach a point where it's second nature for me to outline the portions of a training session that are aimed at the three conditions of human action. Once I get this down, I hope to move onto a deeper understanding/application of this model.

What do you think of my Human Action Model application attempt? What mental model are you working on? How are you trying to apply it in your day-to-day work? Have you had success doing something like this in the past?

I'm Awesome at Humility

Many of you have probably seen amusing statistics from on-line dating sites (like this great infographic).  For example, the actual average age of male on-line daters is 37, but the average listed age is 24....

It's easy to comfortably guffaw and scoff at such egregious false truths, especially if you haven't done on-line dating.

Here's a stat, however, that might make some of our readers squirm a bit: 72% of first-year managers never--cough, never--question their ability to lead others in their first year.

The odds that nearly 3/4's of first-time managers have nothing to doubt themselves about are about as likely as the "fact" that all on-line daters make about $25,000 more per year than their traditional-dater cohorts.

Quoting from an on-line Wall Street Journal article, "A new survey of 1,100 front-line managers suggests many are over-estimating their skills, with surprisingly little self-doubt. Seventy-two percent said they never questioned their ability to lead others in their first year as a manager."

Additionally, along 10 skill areas--including "delegating" (Decision Rights), "communicating" (Knowledge Processess) and "adaptability" (Change)--"no more than 15% of managers pointed to any one of those skill sets as a 'development area,' according to Development Dimensions International, who released the survey.

"OK," I reflect, "I'm probably not as good as I think I am at managing."  Allow me to posit a few additional ideas along these lines that make me even more worried about my performance:

1. humans, including first-year uber managers, tend to systematically overestimate the knowledge they possess, and underestimate risks associated with making decisions;
2. being able to realistically introspect on your skills, biases, mistakes and successes can be incredibly challenging, especially when done alone; and
3. "Humility" isn't just a Guiding Principle because it sounds nice and polite.

So, what should we do?  Let us know if you have ideas about or have experimented with strategies to better hone your intrapersonal skills.

A few things that I've done (or, at least, have thought "that would probably be helpful if I actually went and did it") are:

• Don't just file your performance review away.  Go back to it periodically.  Write out a simple action plan for the next month to improve in one area.  Proactively get feedback on areas you struggle in.
• Tell others what you're working on.  Sometimes just verbalizing what it is you need help with will (a) help others help you and (b) make you feel more accountable to improve in that area.
• Find a no-holds-barred friend. If you can, latch on to folks who are willing to give blunt, realistic feedback and who interact with you often enough to have something to say.
• After Action Reports and diaries. Get in the habit of reviewing and reflecting all of the time.  An easy way to do this is to do reviews of your large projects (bonus: in addition to improving your project you'll likely learn something about yourself).  Or, if you're disposed to the written word, a manager's diary may help you look back and review how you diagnosed--correctly or incorrectly--past situations.
• Don't wait.  Don't wait for your manager or someone else to do this for you.  You own You, Inc., as Chris would say.

What else?

[ht AK-47, aka Andrew K]

Experiments versus Spaghetti

Lately, I've come to the realization that I'm not very good at running experiments. I'm good at what I have come to call "spaghetti." Spaghetti is where you throw things at the wall and see what sticks... if you want to see where the term comes from, give a 2-year-old spaghetti for dinner, don't watch him too closely and see what happens when he throws the spaghetti against the wall. Don't get me wrong, sometimes spaghetti can be useful. However, it's not an experiment.

Let me give you an example. I've been treating this blog like spaghetti. I've been trying some neat things, but not coming up with disciplined experiments. I fiddle around with an idea or just try some stuff, but there's no hypothesis. This makes gathering feedback or developing measures tough because I'm not clear about what I'm testing. Fortunately, I've got people around me pushing me on this, which has helped me realize my spaghetti mistake.

With all that said (er, typed), I want to run experiments and stop throwing spaghetti. I need your help with this. When is something an experiment? Moreover, how do you turn spaghetti into a useful experiment? Specifically, how can I turn my "blog spaghetti" into a useful experiment? Help me out in the comments.