infinite pie thinking

It seems at times a bit of a trite thing to say, ‘Live in the present’. The theory is good; don’t dwell on past mistakes or victories, as there is little you can do about what has happened; other than learn from your actions. Don’t worry too much about the future, as it is unlikely to turn out the way that you are planning. I was once told that life is what happens whilst you are making plans.

Live life in the present and give it your full attention, that way you will always be living life as if this was your last day.

Three things happened over the last couple of days that reminded me of this. I was watching one of the ‘Back to the Future’ films and was reminded of a quote that ran something like this.

‘Where is my flying car? When I was a kid I was promised a flying car by the year 2000!’

Well, seeing the news over the weekend I was introduced to two things, a 3D printer that manufactured plastic objects in front of you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing. They reported that these printers are now in the low thousands to purchase, and if you think that through the opportunities are incredible. The ‘Iron Man’ suit in recent films was made using a metal 3D printer. I took a three hour trip out this weekend to buy a pair of pliers for some jobs around the house, how long will it be before I print a set?

The second thing that hit me was the news that Google bosses are funding an expedition to mine asteroids and bring the resources back to earth. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/22/google_in_space/ Surely the stuff of Dan Dare.

OK, so here is today’s question. The future is here. Soak it up, what an incredible time to be alive.

What are you waiting for?

Honestly though, sit back and think through all of the meetings that you have sat through that ran over time.

Some agenda points, all business critical, the discussions were lively, points of views were made clear, there was some disagreement and a decision was made, all within the allotted time; fabulous.

Then, just as people were packing away their notebooks whoever is sat at the head of the table leading the meeting decides to go round the table for anyone’s AOB.

The word-hole flapping begins, it might be that there isn’t enough support, or delivery is threatened by that cut in budget, the timeframe is just unrealistic and so on.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these things are likely to be important and should be discussed, but think it through, if it is that important then it needs the proper forum; the right people armed with the right information.

If you are running a meeting, ad hoc or regular may we suggest the following process to ensure that everyone sat around the table gets the most out of the time that they invest.

1.       Notify the invitees about the upcoming meeting and ask for agenda points.

2.       Pull the agenda together and send it out to everyone, asking for confirmation of their attendance with the minutes from the last meeting including updates of any outstanding action points.

3.       Ensure that AOB is nowhere to be seen and remind everyone they have until 24 hours before the meeting starts to add any additional items for discussion.

4.       Run the meeting on time.

If someone then strays off topic organise a follow up conversation, get the experts in the room after your meeting has finished or allow those who are not needed to participate in the follow up leave after your meeting has finished.

It’s not too difficult; just give some thought to the amount of time and money that is being invested at that exact moment. In terms of salary alone 6 people being paid an average salary of £50,000 a year sat around a table going off agenda costs your business about £150 an hour, and that doesn’t include the cost of the facilities or the opportunities that are being missed as a result.

Ensuring that you and every other person in the room gets what they need out of the meeting that you’ve organised is one of your primary responsibilities. Do us all a favour. Kill off AOB.

It is often said that a rocky marriage actually consists of 6 people. Bear with me, it sounds complicated, but it’s quite simple. The six people are; you, the person you think you are, the person your spouse thinks you are, your spouse, the person your spouse thinks they are and the person you think they are.

Count them up, there are six, and they can all be distinct and individual. This is recognised in many interview techniques where instead of asking the candidate to describe themselves the interviewer will ask how their colleagues would describe them.

Working on the answer to that question opens up a whole series of questions about ourselves, especially if we take the question seriously and truly consider who we are and how other people regard us. In an ideal world the two should be quite close to each other, but in reality this line of questioning can have a serious impact on our ego when we think about the things that we consider important and then compare them to those things that our colleagues, friends and partners consider important.

Simply put our ego can be defined as three things.

1.       That which we do.

2.       That which we own.

3.       That which others think of us.

Imagine you are at a business function and don’t really know any one, an attractive member of the opposite sex walk up and says “Hi, my name is John / Jane, pleased to meet you. What do you do?”

Honestly in a subconscious effort to impress, most of us would answer in one of the three categories above.

1.       I am a [insert job title here]

2.       I own a small business in [insert impressive location here]

3.       I lead a successful team of [insert adoring team functions here]

In itself there is nothing wrong with that especially in when all three are in balance. But look around you now you will be able to identify those where the balance is not obvious. That person needs to drive around in a flash car, that person is always demonstrating their value by working 27 hour days 8 days a week, that person is buying peoples affection by attempting to be all things to all men and so on.

Now look at yourself, what is it that drives you? Your family, your children, your team, your wage slip, the size of your house, the horse power of your car, recognition from your peers?

None of these things are wrong, providing that you are aware of that which drives you and how that drive manifests in your day to day activity. Where there is discord or imbalance we might look to improve the situation and as in business these four things that can help us.

1.       Identify

2.       Understand

3.       Control

4.       Improve

By identifying and understanding what drives your ego, you can control it, and through control you can make the improvements that you want to. When that happens you can bring yours and others view of yourself closer together.

By the way, each of the three questions in the title only has one correct answer. I wonder if you know them?

 “Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.”

Peter Drucker

How can we tell the difference? We talk at infinite pie about leaders lifting themselves out of the tools of the technician and inspiring others to follow out of more than morbid curiosity, which sounds fantastic on paper but how can we be sure that we are doing the right thing and not simply following a process correctly?

It’s simple, ask yourself this question, am I doing this for me, my ego, my company or my team? As simplistic as the theory might be; if you are not looking after your team, they will not look after your business, if they are not looking after the business, you’re not doing the right thing. As for your ego, come back tomorrow to find out how you can tame that.

People tend to broadly fit into two categories, those that refer internally, and those who refer externally. Simply put, this means if you want to put a point across in a debate you can access a list of supporting arguments crafted from your own experiences and studies, or you can quote from bodies of work from respected individuals in their field. There are pros and cons for both, and of course it’s best to be practiced at both as extremes in referencing (for example always quoting others, or yourself) should be avoided so as not to give the impression that you are either completely devoid of original thought or arrogant.

So to help out, we’ve put together our top 5 quotes from popular works for you to fit into your business life, take with a liberal pinch of salt.

1.       “A leader can’t lead if he doesn’t know where he’s going.” Locke, Series one of Lost

John Locke, the spiritual leader of the island has a pretty amazing story arc within the series. When trying to convince Jack that he should be the leader of the group Locke tells Jack not to return to the beach until he has finished seeking the reason behind the visions of his dead father. ‘Why?’ asks Jack. ‘[Because} a leader can’t lead if he doesn’t know where he’s going,’ replies Locke.

As trite as this might be at first reading you would be surprised how many people there are that blunder from one ‘objective’ to another. Colin Powell once said that leadership is inspiring people to follow out of more than morbid curiosity. I think many of us have been in the position where our leaders have said’ ‘this is our strategy!’ So we’ve picked up our bags and dutifully followed, only to find a short time later they turn around and say. ‘No, this is our new strategy.’ So we all change direction and follow again. This doesn’t have to happen often for many of us to put our bags down and say, ‘we’ll wait here; they’ll be back in a minute.’

At infinite pie we talk about SOSTT quite a bit, that is defining your situation and objective before you can think about your strategy and what comes next. If you don’t define where you are you can’t work out how to get to where you’re going.

Leaders understand and define where they or their organisation is going, and then communicate it to those in their teams. It is the first step in leadership and is so frequently forgotten.

2.       “You don’t need eyes to see you need vision.” Maxi Jazz, Reverence

Faithless, one of the true pioneers of 90’s electronica have written more cod philosophy than anyone else I know. People tend to use the term cod philosophy with a negative connotation, but I think it should be encouraged. The lyrics to Reverence talk about growth and change, something that we all face with varying degrees of success.

In any organisation, it’s easy to see the facts, and communicating them is relatively simple. Our objective is to turn over (x) millions in the next financial year; we will ship 19 million flugelbinders to emerging markets in the next 6 months, and so on. How inspiring are these things to the people that work within our organisations? Especially if the popular theory is that the company is only making money for the shareholders. In order to lead we need to learn how to communicate our vision. This should be a real, tangible vision that can be measured for sure, but it also needs to inspire people to follow. This can be based on a financial incentive that everyone in the organisation can subscribe to, or it can be more altruistic, but whatever it is it needs to be communicated and stuck to.

3.       “For there is nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.” Hamlet, Hamlet

It’s in keeping with the theme that in the play Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard the characters often stumble across quite complex philosophical ideas, but then skip past them as quickly as they find them. Shakespeare wrote the line above to demonstrate that two people can see the same thing and call them differently. In this instance Hamlet comparing Denmark to a prison and Rosencratz disagreeing but I’ll go one better, I think we can have that dialogue internally and depending on what else is influencing us at the time is how we will colour our perception. Sounds simple, but we need to make a concerted effort to look for the hidden opportunities.

We are faced on a daily basis with information; it usually comes with a back story, a supporting cast and dramatic intent. We didn’t turnover (x) millions last year, the emerging markets are manufacturing their own flugelbinders, I’ve just been promoted, the coffee machine has broken down. It would be simple for us to say that’s bad news, bad news, good news and bad news in that order, but if we stop for a moment to think about it these are none of those things until we apply our own sensibilities to them. They may very well bring opportunities to adapt, to grow, to discover that something that we didn’t know was broken needs fixing, or cut back on our caffeine intake. Sometimes the urge to look at something new bleakly is overwhelming, gut wrenching at first glance, but take some time, look at whatever it is again and remember you have the ability to change it from bad to good.

4.       “No such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Billy Connolly

Life just is. It is neither good nor bad. This follows on from the previous point. We can stand at the water cooler and blame the weather, the recession, the boss, the team, but eventually we are going to have to take responsibility for our own actions. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, but how we react to it is what sets us apart from those that can take no responsibility for what they do.

You will also hear people bleat on about how they are just not very lucky, but again I have found that the harder we work, the more prepared we are the luckier we get. That’s simply not true in itself, it’s just that as we prepare the greater chance we have of taking advantage of things that come our way.

5.       “Back off man, I’m a scientist.” Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters.

There’s only so much you can do about process. It’s a model, it’s a diagram or it’s a quote from a respected business school. The application of the process is what makes it something that we can communicate to our teams and inspire them to follow us. For all external referrers this can be an issue as the application of a quote or a model is invariably not part of the quote or the model. For internal referrers this causes an issue if it is all application and no process. You have to have both working in synergy. We work with processes to give us a common tool kit and language to work towards a common goal; inspiring people to follow us out of more than morbid curiosity.

I wonder if there are any quotes out there (notwithstanding the Star Trek Next Generation school of Leadership) that I have missed.

MD

infinite pie