"The Glorification of Busy Has Ended. Amen" - As we transition from the industrial age into the #workinprogress era, I have been reflecting on strategies that we have been using, up to this point, to achieve a good equilibrium between our lives, communities, at home and at work. This places the recent ban on work emails after 6pm by Germany and France in a really different light. -By Philippe Mora (@philippemora) Philadelphia, <04/21/14> - "Busy" was just another way to tell someone "you are low priority to me". Today others start to discover the power of commitments, and The Hughes Network has been building commitment-based teams and projects for quite some time already. The organizational structure is quite simple (node-based lattice) and solves the issues of holacracy when applied to Creative and Knowledge workers. "You Are The Team": Contrary to matrix-based organizations, individuals are not assigned to verticals or horizontals. They are the nodes and interact only with their four closest nodes - they make commitments to them. Projects advance not sequentially with dependencies anymore, they move all at once. Just like when we make a movie, we can work on the digital staging while we shoot the natural shots while the sound is being reworked. The model is not new: this is what general contractors do when you build a home. More to come soon. The pendulum is finally swinging back from the apogee of complete immersion in work as the business ideal. A great hue and cry now strains to contain our out-of-control culture of overwork. We know it reduces productivity, destroys civic engagement, and produces all manner of stress-related health problems. The good news is that you can do something about it, for yourself and for your employees. You can be less stressed and more productive by spending less time on and less attention to work — while being more engaged with your family, your community, and the things you do for just you. You can take conscious, deliberate action to pursue four-ways wins: practical steps toward making things demonstrably better in all parts of your life — at work, at home, in your community, and in your private life. For decades, I’ve been refining what is now a proven method for producing four-way wins that works because it’s customized for each person who takes up the challenge. But there is still a heaping helping of skepticism that greets me wherever in the world I go to talk about it. I can tell you that, while it’s not easy, it is possible, for I’ve seen success in just about every kind of setting, from retail to manufacturing to human services, and everything in between. If you’re like most harried business professionals, it’s more possible than you now think it might be. Ready to give it a try? Diagnose. Start by taking a minute to explore your personal four-way view — what’s important to you, where you focus your attention (your most precious asset as a leader), and how things are going in each of the four domains of your life. (You can use this free assessment tool and guide for help in doing so.) Then begin generating ideas for experiments you can try to better align what matters to you with what you actually do. It’s likely that this will mean attending to a non-work aspect of your life you’ve been neglecting. This might be initiating an exercise program for yourself, carving out protected evening time for your family, or devoting attention to a project for your community, to name a few simple examples. Most importantly, there must be a real benefit, even if indirect, for your work and career, too. An essential aspect of this approach is realizing that an experiment in one part of life affects the others. For instance, you might choose to diet to lose weight (for your own better health); then this has ripple effects in your home and community domains because you’re less grumpy and have more energy for your family and friends. And you increase your performance at work as a result of greater focus and stamina. Similarly, an experiment conducted with the aim of creating greater satisfaction with your family by turning off your smartphone in the evening has beneficial business impact; in taking a hiatus from work in the evening, you return refreshed and are more productive. Dialogue. Talk to a few of the most important people in the different parts of your life about what you really need from each other. These conversations serve to build trust and strengthen your future together, while you refine and expand your initial ideas about experiments to make things better in all four parts of your life. Discover. Design an experiment in which you are deliberately aiming to improve your performance and results in each of the four domains — not to trade them off or to balance one against the other, but to enhance all of them. If you’re stuck, think a bit harder: I have coached and taught thousands of people to do this, and I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t come up with one such experiment about which they were very excited. Get Help. Share your idea with someone, not only to get their advice, but also to build in accountability pressure. Ask them to help you stay on track with your experiment by checking in with you for five minutes each week for the next month. Ideally this would be a person who believes they are going to benefit from this new action you’re going to take. Why, for instance, would your boss benefit from your exercising more? Get Moving. When you take intentional action to do what matters for people who matter, then your stress goes down. You feel a greater sense of control, and you learn that you have more freedom than you thought you had. You see that you can exercise choice. To overcome the guilt that often accompanies the desire for change, it’s crucial that your experiments are not selfish. They’re not about you — they’re about you and your most important stakeholders. You are producing benefits for others at home, at work, and in your community. So, if one of your experiments is to arrive at work a half-hour later or leave earlier to go to the gym, spend time with your children, or serve on a community project, and this experiment does not result in improved performance at work, then you adjust it so that it does produce some benefit for your work, too. In decades of experience, I’ve seen all kinds of experiments not only sustain themselves but grow contagiously precisely because others are invested in what you’re doing and they want to see you succeed. There’s something in it for them. And, inspired by your example, they then initiate their own experiments designed to create four-way wins. The worst that can happen is that you don’t achieve the result you’d hoped for. But, if you reflect on what did or did not work with your experiment in the laboratory of your life, you will gain what is even more valuable than the immediate result; that is, useful insight on what it takes to produce change that is truly sustainable — change that lasts because it’s good not just for you, but for your world. [ Read More: "Reduce Stress by Pursuing 4-Way Wins" > Thank You HBR 03.03.14]
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The delicate pink sakura, or cherry blossom, is associated primarily with the culture of Japan. These trees blossom throughout Japan every spring, but their beauty never gets old, so we’ve collected some of our favorite photos of this year’s cherry blossoms in Japan. Week-End Reading: http://philippemora.us > Also, find more on my pinterest boards. > By Philippe Mora (@philippemora) [See More Here > Thank You Bored Panda April 2014]
Smart simplicity: in a previous post, I have discussed that developing mindful leaders starts with everyone, especially now that we are moving towards flat and node-based organizations. Here's another interesting find today: stop trying to make people happy. See, in my past 20 years in Silicon Valley, I have been in awe at the the variety of creative ways used by HR departments to reward employees: ranging from ice cream fridays to pizza, sometimes Togo's, I have always been wondering what grown adults really, really think when they are offered ice cream to reward them for a "job beyond the call" and supposedly to make them happy. -By Philippe Mora (@philippemora) San Francisco, Good Friday XIV - Smart simplicity is actually very ... simple. By letting go of pyramidal organizational structures (and to not fall into the fashionable holacracy trap), and moving towards flat node- and commitment-based lattice structures, companies have a real opportunity to simplify and really make people happy. Besides ice creams and unhealthy sandwiches, I'd like to offer something even more simple: empowerment and trust, strengthened by commitment. This works quite well in the NFL and Hollywood, how about we start to implement this starting by Creative and Knowledge Workers ? Whether you’ve heard of them or not, two gurus from the early 20th century still dominate management thinking and practice — to our detriment. It has been more than 100 years since Frederick Taylor, an American engineer working in the steel business, published his seminal work onthe principles of scientific management. And it has been more than 80 years ago since Elton Mayo, an Australian-born Harvard academic, produced his pioneering studies on human relations in the workplace. Yet managers continue to follow Taylor’s “hard” approach — creating new structures, processes, and systems — when they need to address a management challenge. Hence, the introduction of, say, a risk management team or a compliance unit or an innovation czar. And when managers need to boost morale and get people to work better together, they still follow Mayo’s “soft” approach — launching people initiatives such as off-site retreats, affiliation events or even lunchtime yoga classes. If these approaches made sense in the first half of the twentieth century (and that’s open to question), they make no sense today. Indeed, if anything, their continued use is making things worse. We are living in an age of mounting complexity. By our calculation, companies are operating in a competitive environment that is six times more complex than it was in 1955, when the Fortune 500 was launched. For the best companies, this complex world is an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. But, for too many companies saddled with approaches to management that are outdated and ineffectual, it presents a seemingly insurmountable challenge. As they have responded to each new challenge, managers (as Taylor recommended) have introduced new structures, processes and systems. When this happens year after year, there is a damaging accretion of structural fixes — we estimate that the number of these has grown by a factor of thirty-five over the past 55 years. The consequence is what we call “complicatedness,” which spells trouble for a company’s productivity and leads employees to feel frustrated and to disengage. In the most complicated 20% of companies, employees spend large chunks of time on aimless activities that do not add value: For instance, writing reports or participating in internal meetings that have no impact. There is, however, an alternative, a third way — one we call “Smart Simplicity.” We’ve developed this approach over the past 30 years of working with 500 companies in more than 40 countries around the world, and we introduce it in a new book called Six Simple Rules. With “Smart Simplicity,” we put the cooperating individual at the heart of the modern organization. Where the Taylor school implicitly distrusts the individual worker and designs structural fixes for controlling their actions in a top-down, rigid, micro-managing way — albeit ameliorated by the softening effects of the people initiatives propounded by the Mayo school — we promote a radically different approach. Simply put, companies are most productive when they harness — not hobble — the intelligence of their employees. Six simple rules help managers get beyond the shackles of the “hard” and “soft” management approaches we’ve inherited from our forefathers:
[Read More Here > Thank You HBR 04/03/14]
Being too nice: this sounds like a really great problem to have. However as a leader to be a nice and honest person is a given. So, is the skill about finding the right amount of "nice"? And to not fall into the trap of the "don't take this personally, but ... <enter lame excuse here>? See, in other cultures, being nice is never about polite deception or being a doormat, it's about being direct, honest and truthful. This skill has been lost in today's politically charged corporate culture: It's now being taken for aggression. How did we end up here ? -By Philippe Mora (@philippemora) San Francisco, <04/17/14> - I am seeing today so-called "change agents' who use the same playbook after being let go from large corporations as the one they used to get to the top inside those corporations. And they have the audacity of telling the world that they're now different! Seriously ? And the "sure tell" test is to be honest and direct with them - they get offended! Works wonders. My advice: don't fall into the trap of the "reverse passive aggressive" behavior of some, who will tell you that you are not "nice" with them, just when you are doing your best to be direct, honest and truthful. Just ignore them. For they are the essence of the passive aggressive political animal. Further, "polite deception" is worse than lies - it's a complete waste of time. So let me summarize: there is no such thing as being too nice, and as a leader, thrive to be truthful, honest and direct - and just let go of those who don't get it. Leaders are placed under a tremendous amount of pressure to be relatable, human and … nice. Many yield to this instinct, because it feels much easier to be liked. Few people want to be the bad guy. But leaders are also expected to make the tough decisions that serve the company or the team’s best interests. Being too nice can be lazy, inefficient, irresponsible, and harmful to individuals and the organization. I’ve seen this happen numerous times. A few years ago, a senior staff member of mine made the wrong hire. This can happen to anyone, and the best way to remedy the situation is to address it quickly. Despite my urging to cut the tie, this staff member kept trying to make it work. While I laud the instinct to coach, fast forward two months later, and we were undergoing a rancorous – and unnecessary – transition process. There’s a key lesson here for any leader. Nice is only good when it’s coupled with a rational perspective and the ability to make difficult choices. Here are a few other other recognizable scenarios where being nice isn’t doing you – or anyone – any favors: Turning to polite deception. You’ve been in these brainstorming meetings – everyone is trying to hack a particular problem, and someone with power raises a ridiculous idea. Instead of people addressing it honestly, brows furrow, heads nod like puppets on strings, and noncommittal murmurs go around. No one feels empowered to gently suggest why that particular idea won’t work. At my company, rejecting polite deception is a big part of how we do business. When something isn’t right, we call each other out on it respectfully, then and there, without delay. Why? It’s not helpful to foster an everyone-gets-a-trophy mentality; you have to earn the honors to get the honors. The long linger. Sometimes a hire just won’t cut it in a certain role. It might seem easier to keep an employee in place rather than to resolve the mismatch – but it actually is not. Resist the temptation to prolong confrontation, to see if things will get better. It is more of a disservice to let someone flounder, especially when it’s clear that he or she just isn’t hitting the mark. Be kind and communicate clearly, but don’t be nice. Be surgical about it. Make the clean cut. Help the person transition somewhere he or she can succeed. Handling employee issues immediately helps your culture and productivity – over time, you’ll attract employees with similar values and convictions. Don’t be a doormat. When you’re too nice – to suppliers who can’t deliver on time, to colleagues who don’t do their work, to customers who refuse to pay – you’re actually letting others take advantage of you and your business. When you’re overly generous with your allowances for others, you create a fertile atmosphere for contempt to spread. Imagine the reactions of your most talented, focused, and motivated employees as they watch lackluster coworkers get pass after pass. Anger and resentment take root, morale plummets, and turnover starts to go up, up, up. Think of how loyal customers will react if they see how easy it is for others to take advantage of your services. Your reputation will surely suffer. These problems become more difficult to solve as they pile up. You don’t need to be severe to be respected, but you do need to hold your organization to certain standards — and you must be firm about people meeting them. Setting rules will help you when decisive action is needed. No more delays, no demurring, no debating. Failing the introspection test. Are you too nice to yourself? Introspection is a powerful leadership tool, but we often forget to use it. When you ask yourself what behaviors hold you and your team back, you can recalibrate your leadership style for the better. When you give employees the space to give you the hard truths, without fear of repercussion, you’ll get valuable perspective and make a giant leap forward in maturing as a leader. Of course, this doesn’t mean managers get a free pass to be disrespectful, cruel, or a bully in the workplace. There’s a world of difference between being an effective leader with high expectations and dealing with problem after problem caused by milquetoast management. Beware of confusing being nice – or being liked – with being a good leader. [Read More Here > Thank You HBR 04/07/14]
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