Know Thyself

To thine own self be true

Shakespeare’s words ring as true today as the day he wrote them. If we are not true to ourselves, we will forever follow the direction of the wind. But how well do we actually understand ourselves? Apparently I wasn’t the only one who didn’t come with a manual. We all go through life trying to figure out what we like, what we don’t like, what makes us happy, and what doesn’t. What are we good at, and what just doesn’t fit with our temperament.

It’s a slow and sometimes torturous journey with many twists and turns and a fair number of false starts. But as we grow as people, so our understanding of who we are also grows. Or at least it grows somewhere in the back of our minds, in our subconscious. It’s rare that we step back and take a good hard look at ourselves.

But when we do look at ourselves, we find patterns that repeat themselves. I make sense of the world through words – writing and reading. It’s how I am. You may make sense of the world through numbers. Others may be visual. There’s a big difference in these different types, and it moulds our careers and what we do when we want to relax.

So would our lives be different if we DID come with a manual? I think they might. Knowing whether we should put diesel or petrol into the car means our cars last much longer. If we just kept trying one and then the other, murmuring, “No, I think it went better with the petrol” we probably would never have built motorways. Yet still we insist on eating foods that don’t agree with us, we don’t take enough exercise, and we don’t really understand our strengths and weaknesses.

Of course the fact that a manual didn’t arrive in the package when we were born doesn’t stop us creating our own. It might take a few drafts to get to something that seems to work, but it might be a big improvement on having no manual at all.

What business are you in?

Ever struggled to answer when someone asks you what you do? It's one of the most common difficulties for smaller businesses.

As a photographer, it would be easy to answer “I’m a photographer”. But is that what you do? Yes, you take photographs. But it may not be why people buy from you.

After all, I take photographs (very bad ones), but I'm not suggesting you trust your wedding day, corporate, or special event photographs to me. If you hire me, I can almost guarantee that every single one of them will be dreadful. I don’t own any professional photographic kit, my eyesight isn’t so great, and I have a habit of taking photographs directly into the light - by accident rather than for artistic effect. That’s not to say I haven’t taken some nice photographs, I have, mostly of my cats. But you begin to get the idea. I’m no dead cert when it comes to creating a visual record of something that isn’t likely to be repeated in a hurry. In fact, it’s a dead cert I will fluff it up.

Which is why I don’t run a restaurant. Although I rate myself as a pretty decent cook, I’m what you might call patchy. I’m not a great one for recipes. Sometimes my cooking is brilliant, and sometimes it’s terrible. Dinner at my house and is a culinary lottery. So if you have a sense of adventure, as well as a healthy sense of humour, you could consider coming round Chez Moi for your Golden Wedding, special birthday, or I’m Terribly Sorry I Forgot Our Anniversary dinner. But probably not.

So are photographers in the photography business? Or are they in the business of creating perfect memories, capturing the real you, or taking the worry out of your important day? Of course, it depends on the photographer, just as different restaurants will come up with different answers depending on their market niche.

Figuring out what business you are in is all about taking your customers' perspective. There is no right or wrong answer, but thinking it through could inform much of how you run your business.

Focus: an Asperger’s Syndrome Lesson

I enjoyed catching up with friends and family over the Christmas and New Year break. One particularly enjoyable lunch was with a young man who has Asperger’s syndrome – he brought his parents and we enjoyed what turned out to be the last of the season’s festive lunches. Because we were not a large party, we were able to give a little more time and space to talking about his interests and passions: it was instructive.

Although people with Asperger’s struggle with social skills, they are often highly focused and interested in how things work; Einstein, Mozart and Marie Curie apparently had Asperger’s. Engineering of different kinds can be a good career choice. In this case, programming turned out to be a particular favourite, and a shared interest in eating vegetarian (although he was totally unimpressed by my consumption of fish), all of which provided plenty of opportunity for conversation.

He is particularly fond of computer games, which was discovered when the only computer game in the house was found. However, unlike many boys his age who favour a trial and error approach to finding out how things work, he took time to study the controls and rules before starting out. It didn’t take long, and he was much more proficient for it. I think to him it was obvious, but to me it was impressive. Despite having at one time earned my living by writing technical documentation, reading the manual is still a last resort as far as I am concerned.

This focus and determination to do something well was highlighted in Super Hero blog of Emma Wimhurst – mother of William who has just made it to the county cricket team. Young William sounds like a well-rounded youngster who just happens to be very focused and determined to achieve his goals, and Emma is inspiring in how she writes with pride and some admiration about his cricket achievements. She neatly sums up William’s approach with four pointers:

• Define your objective
• Focus on your goal
• Avoid distractions
• Refuse to fail

In reading a little about Asperger’s I see that those with the syndrome are able to focus perhaps more solidly even though they have many other challenges. For those of us who weren’t dealt any obvious difficult cards, it is chastening to think how often we waste our abilities through lack of focus. It seems it takes a lesson in focus from two youngsters to make us appreciate what can be achieved when we focus.

Stick to your knitting

A regular reader asked what lessons could be learnt from the excellent Cafe Fish in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. It’s a good question, because not everyone can be an excellent cook, but many of us want to run excellent businesses.

I think the answer he was thinking of was more imaginative than mine. As a long standing fan of Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s “In Search of Excellence” my take would be slightly different. I think there is less creativity in getting it right – and more logic. Although many believe Peters and Waterman to be a little too long in the tooth for today’s strategists, I think one of their key messages is still as relevant as ever:

“Stick to your knitting.”

Cafe Fish was not started by two advertising executives or trainee call centre assistants; it was created by two sisters who had spent their lives in the catering business. They had grown up on the banks of Loch Fyne, famed for the excellence of its fish. In other words, before they signed the lease on the restaurant, they had a pretty good training in how to be excellent in their field. In other words, they played to their strengths.

Unfortunately they haven’t read Sunday’s Getting to Excellent blog post and called with the offer of dinner on the house, so I haven’t been back to sample their dishes again. But I have no reason to believe their tables were not as packed as they were on Sunday evening. So in this instance at least, I think that Sticking to their Knitting worked a treat.

Use Your Talents

I wrote yesterday about the genius next door: someone you know socially but have no idea about the contribution they have made to their field. It was inspired by a lovely comment from a reader who pointed out that geniuses have to live next door to someone, and sometimes we need to look up and see who is around us.

The unknown genius next door is one thing, but what if you get introduced to an acknowledged major talent? The word genius is perhaps a bit strong as we tend to think of geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci or Einstein, and so no on else measures up. But there are many more who have been blessed with a talent and have diligently used it to make a real contribution in their work and to humanity.

The other evening I found myself sitting opposite such an individual. Well practiced in the art of small talk I invited him to tell me about his work – expecting a short explanation of his field. Not normally a high-risk question - except if you are sitting opposite a theoretical mathematician. Obviously.

I was introduced to the complexities of ring theory and matrices, although the explanation was dumbed down for my benefit. As the explanation progressed (at reasonable speed) he occasionally looked up and asked “do you recognise this equation?” or “you have heard of this?” or some other such question. As I failed to live up to the most basic expectation comments such as “I’m surprised you’ve not seen this before” were thrown in. If this is making it sound like a maths lesson, I’m doing him a grave injustice. It was a fascinating and friendly insight into a different world, a rarefied place where those who make genuine breakthroughs in algebra live.

He has a mathematical matrix named after him. Awesome.

On the way home I thought about Radio 4’s “Thought for the Day” when The Rev. Rosemary Lain-Priestley spoke of the Parable of Talents. Use Your Talents wisely, Jesus preached. Those who do not were judged harshly by Jesus, but those who do use their talents to generate wealth were praised. It was a fitting thought for the drive in to work.

It seems to me that we are all blessed with talents, but not everyone uses them wisely. I know I go about my day without a thought of any talents I might have, or how they manifest themselves in my work.

As individuals, managers and parents, however, we need to be aware of our own, and others’ talents. We need to encourage the best out of ourselves and those around us. Most of us won’t have some major breakthrough carrying our name, but that doesn’t matter. What the Parable of the Talents teaches is that we should not squander the talents we have. All contributions matter.

I now have a napkin covered in algebra. I’m hoping its similarities with the napkin Picasso signed are recognised. In the meantime, though, I will be using my talents just in case theoretical mathematics never gets to hang in The Tate.

Outliers

How can a book about statistics be so interesting? Malcolm Gladwell of Blink and Tipping Point fame has written a fascinating book about why some people are successful and some are not. I’ve just finished reading this meandering but gripping account of why where you come from is important. Your birthday, birth year, home town, and parents’ socio-economic group all influence your chances of success in life. Not rocket science you might think – well, read the book, it certainly challenged some of my beliefs about how things operate.

Of course, he does cherry-pick his examples: the Beatles, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs are all lives that have been well documented. But equally he challenges some deeply held treasured myths: that it’s not just intrinsic talent, but also hard work that sorts the millionaires from the benefit recipients.

His description of KIPP made me late for work this morning. “Work hard. Be nice.” it says on their web site – and hard work is exactly what is turning around the lives of disadvantaged children. Through their own grit and determination, led by an inspiring and visionary program, over 16,000 US students now have a chance of higher education and a better life. The secret? Start school earlier, finish later, do more homework and take less holidays. Genius!

Gladwell also points to Ericsson’ research on Expertise and Expert performance – another great interest of mine. It turns out our great violinists, pianists, chess players and others are in fact those who have practiced the most. They also happen to be very talented, but they have to put the hours in like everyone else.

I have a perverse interest in statistics, and expertise, despite its apparent dryness. This book brings both subjects to life in a way that I can only envy. Data visualization using words, beautifully done.

A quotation

“Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself”.

- Thomas John Watson, Sr.

Thomas Watson was the son of a lumber merchant who worked first for NCR and then the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) which he soon renamed to International Business Machines. Under his leadership the company went from 400 employees to a world power-house of computing.

This quotation reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci's thoughts:

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.”

A thought for a Monday ...

Benjamin Franklin’s balanced scorecard

Benjamin Franklin is known as a great American leader and diplomat. He was a signatory to the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

He is less well known for the little scorecard he devised, which is a shame because it is quite something: balanced and still instructive.

Benjamin Franklin developed a plan with 13 virtues he wanted to live his life by. He monitored his plan using a small grid containing the days of the week and initials for the 13 virtues.

He gave each virtue one week’s focus so that after 13 weeks he had worked on all 13. After 13 weeks he would start the process over again.

He kept a little book and every evening he would review the day and put a dot next to a virtue when he considered he had failed to live up to its qualities.

His goal was to live without having to put any marks on his chart. To start with his charts had lots of dots, but in time they grew clearer. Eventually he reduced his dependence on the charts, but he always carried the little book with him as a reminder.

He followed the plan to the age of 79 when he wrote about it. He said that he was even more determined to stick with it for his remaining days because of the happiness he had enjoyed by following it.

Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues are quite unique and unfortunately rather out of fashion. Yet they obviously served him well since he is one of the most respected and most accomplished men in the history of the United States.

His determination to live a good life, and his methods of achieving his goals, are instructive to anyone interested in Performance Management.

His 13 virtues, each with short descriptions, are given below:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.


2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.


3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.


4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.


5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.


6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.


7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.


8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.


9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.


10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.


11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.


12. Tranquillity: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.


13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Who's that girl?

How long does it take to become successful at something?

There is a temptation to think that Performance Management is a silver bullet. Nothing could be further from the truth. Performance management is a tool – a very useful tool, but it’s not a substitute for persistence and determination.

I’m reminded of Picasso who apparently was once asked by a fan to draw something on a napkin. The story goes that Picasso agreed but requested a sizeable sum before parting with the sketch. The admirer was shocked and asked Picasso how he could ask so much for something that took so little time to create. Picasso replied that it had taken him over 40 years.

A genius like Picasso was no overnight success – so what hope for you and me?

You might have noticed that the blog is looking a little happier today. That’s thanks to my very own Picasso – John Cassidy; photographer to the stars and talented business people. I spent some time with John last week, and learnt a few things I didn’t know about how to take fabulous shots of David Beckham, Sean Connery and Caroline Eveleigh (spot the celebrity in that list!).

John has been taking professional photographs for over 20 years focusing on the military, sports personalities and business people. He has worked in over 100 different locations - from the Falkland Islands, to Norway; Malaysia to Kuwait and back again. When not taking photographs of people he has photographed some seriously impressive jets: Jaguars, Tornados, Hawks and Harriers. And oddly enough you have to keep up with a jet to photograph it, which means travelling faster than the speed of sound in another seriously impressive jet. Some people have great jobs, don’t they?

John has taken over 100,000 images of celebrities, and over 500,000 images of business people. That’s significantly more than half a million images to get maybe 10,000 photographs that have been published in national newspapers, magazines, and journals. That’s a lot of photographs, a lot of smiles, and a lot of awards for his work.

This is performance management in action, driven by passion not scorecards.

John is good fun to work with and has an impressive portfolio of work. When he isn’t shooting people or jets, he also blogs about the life of a photographer.

My only complaint is that he didn’t introduce me to Thierry Henry. Maybe next time?

6 Powerful reasons to write and read status reports

In these days of email, online systems and other e-enabled management devices, the status report has lost popularity. We drown in information, so why would we want more?

My management life started with status reports. My monthly report went to the Managing Director and set out the highs, lows, risks and opportunities of the accounts I managed. I was a star when my figures were good, and surprisingly reluctant to put pen to paper when the figures were bad.

It is refreshing to see that President Obama is also required to write a weekly status report http://www.whitehouse.gov/weekly_address. Because he is President of the United States it is actually a video – we didn’t have such new fangled things in my day so we typed our status reports.

Consider these 6 good reasons for writing, and reading, status reports – from both perspectives.

The power of the status report from the writer’s perspective:

1. Structured reflection. The writing of a status report requires an hour or so each week to pause and reflect on significant achievements. It gives time to think - if there have been no achievements, why not? How can achievements be reproduced? Reflection is one of the most valuable management tools around, and perhaps one of the most underutilised. Many recommend daily structured reflection, but weekly reflection is achievable even for the busiest manager.
Putting your thoughts in writing improves thinking, and provides a summary to look back on each week and month.

• What were the major accomplishments this week?
• What has not gone so well?
• What were the missed opportunities?
• What are the priorities for next week?

2. Sorting out the significant from the insignificant. Sorting out what is significant and what is not is the key differentiator between the successful and not-so-successful. The formality of the status report requires good thinking about what matters more and what matters less.

3. Connect metrics to activities. A status report has a quantifiable element that reports your key metrics against targets. The link between activities that improve key metrics, and those that do not should become apparent.


The power of the status report from the reader’s perspective:

1. Understand the other point of view. Getting a considered view of what went well or badly during the week gives a fair indication of where to direct resources. If half the week was spent battling with a problem that could be fixed, maybe something should be done about it. If someone plainly doesn’t know how to overcome a problem, perhaps some mentoring is needed.

2. Identify strengths and weaknesses. A previous post talked about the power of playing to strengths, and the importance of identifying strengths in teams. You are unlikely to get the full story from a status report, but it’s a start.

3. Reminder of key metrics. Although the metrics will undoubtedly be in systems and reports elsewhere, the status report ensures these measures are looked at least once a week. This last point alone will deliver the ROI on the both the reader and writer’s time spent on status reports.

Status reports are a bit like exercise – you feel good once you have done them, wonder why you don’t do them more often, and when done regularly will tone your management muscles to peak performance.

Oooh, that reminds me, it’s Friday tomorrow – I’d better start achieving something so I can put it in my report ….

Play to your strengths

How the Moscow City Ballet reminded me that bringing out the strengths in yourself and others is a great deal more productive than moaning about weaknesses.

The week finished as it started, with a visit to the ballet. Moscow City Ballet danced their ballet slippers off in Sleeping Beauty last night. It was enchanting. The corps de ballet were in delightful harmony. The costumes were lovely. The applause was rapturous, loud and long.

Watching Moscow City Ballet twice in one week has made me think that Performance Management isn’t only about measures. Performance Management is as much about Management as it is about Measures – you need both. Measuring something that is not up to standard tells you only that - that it isn’t up to standard. It doesn’t necessarily tell you what to do about it (although analytics can sometimes give you a start).

While the heavenly Valeria Guseva and her Prince Sergiy Zolotaryov could steal any show, the performance isn’t only about the stars; it’s about the whole production. Moscow City Ballet played to their strengths and brought out all that is great about Russian ballet. Yes, it was traditional, but also had some lovely humorous touches. No, it wasn’t technically daring, but it was well done and all the better for it. And just for the record – Talgat Kazhabayev as the Bluebird was all that a male dancer should be – and more. Oh, those Russians!

In business, we tend not to like weaknesses. Yet we all have them, and we all have our strengths too. The counter argument of bringing strengths to the fore I think works much better. Yet often that isn’t what we do. The good stuff we just pass off as “it’s his job” but the poor stuff we complain about.

Getting an appreciation of your own strengths, and those of your colleagues or team, isn’t always easy. Unless we are looking out for strengths we can name, they often go unnoticed in the general noise of day to day work. But something special happens when you do identify strengths.

Finding that “Mary is particularly good at negotiations”, for example, opens up opportunities. Mary is flattered to be thought to have expertise in this area, and works even harder on it. She is keen not to fluff up a negotiation and so prepares better and works more diligently. As others see her expertise they ask her advice, or let her coach them in negotiations, both the benefit of Mary and the rookie negotiators.

How much better is the above scenario than making an example of Hubert who always seems to get it wrong? Bemoaning his lack of expertise, and the time and money wasted through his inept attempts, which may or may not be fixed through training. My guess is that Hubert’s problems with the subtleties of negotiation are because his strengths are of a logical nature. His abilities at maths or complex problem solving might be of huge help to Mary if more were made of them.

The difference is only a matter of perspective – looking for, and using, the strengths and qualities in people’s abilities. Our strengths are often deep seated. Whilst education and training undoubtedly play a part in making us more rounded players, our natural abilities will always be where we will shine. Applying education and training in the areas of our strengths can be magical. Yet, so often we do the opposite – apply training to our areas of weakness. Although it’s a little counter-intuitive, working on strengths can build better performance.

As teams large and small are asked to deliver more with less, tension can rise and tempers fray. Finding a few experts on your team and encouraging them could unleash hidden potential.

Try it – ask people who know you what they think you do best, and what you do less well. Listen with an open mind and write down all the comments (or get them to write them down in their own words). Then watch yourself at work and see what you agree with, and what you disagree with. Over a couple of months keep revisiting the comments and look for evidence of what you are doing well, and where you are weak. Then work on your strengths and measure the difference. Figure out how to use your strengths to make a quantifiable difference in you business. Is the applause more rapturous, loader and longer?

We all need moonbeams sprinkled on our work from time to time. Find some opportunities to be your own Lilac Fairy and bring a Sleeping Beauty or two alive with your own particular expertise.

As for me – I’m now asking myself whether practicing my pas de chat and pirouettes is really the best use of my time ...