Imagine

I’m like a kid with a new piggy bank – counting has become a marvel to me. In this case I’m counting miles to the gallon. Well, actually miles to the litre, or converting between the two. OK – maybe the similarities between me and a kiddy’s piggy bank are a bit limited.

Anyway – the latest tankful got 39.5 mpg – 3.5 mpg better than last time. In other words I drove almost 30 miles for free – the equivalent of almost two days to work and back. Not bad considering I didn’t have to rob a petrol station or even a bank to do it. I just had to drive a little slower and brake a little less often. Even though I rant about inconsistencies in units of measure, I think this little experiment is showing one thing: I can teach myself to drive more economically. And save money. And the planet. And ignore other road users who want to overtake me on narrow country lanes. Hey – we all have to make sacrifices to go green.

This has probably been my most successful experiment in the living data-centrically month. It’s pretty simple, but has also been very effective. As we all know round numbers have a power over us that we cannot control, so my next target is to get over 40mpg out of my little car. We shall see.

I’m also noticing a complete change in my attitudes to cars and driving. Whereas before I couldn’t comprehend anyone who didn’t tear around like a Bat Out of Hell, now I let them overtake me without even a hint of irritation. Quite a change. And safer too.

So if a dyed-in-the-wool girl racer like me can do it, imagine how much CO2 we would save if everyone took their foot off the accelerator, and the brake, a little more often. Imagine calmer, safer roads, with less CO2 being emitted. Imagine … (fades out to the lyrics of John Lennon)

Express appreciation; accept responsibility

Anyone who has ever organised anything with more than half a dozen people knows it can be frustrating. People working on multiple projects are a great example – different priorities often mean getting team members together can be difficult. In today’s enlightened times with flatter structures and experts in unlikely places, sticks are not a sensible option. Carrots are all well and good but genuine conflicts of interest often mean people can be placed in difficult positions. Good preparation, planning and communication, plus the ability to be flexible, come to the rescue when the going gets tough.

Yesterday I wrote about some of my frustrations with organising a meeting with 15+ people and getting everyone lined up in the same place at the same time doing approximately what they were supposed to be doing. In fact, although the turnout was relatively low, the quality and energy levels were super-high.

Everyone who had a role played their part brilliantly. The organiser of the evening was a consummate professional who made it all look so easy (artfully hiding all the hard work that had gone before). We had some terrific speeches, some truly gifted impromptu speakers and a highly enjoyable evening.

So to all my fellow Toastmasters last night: thank you!

The Toastmasters’ leadership checklist has nuggets of gold within it. Express appreciation and accept responsibility seems more than appropriate.

• Appreciation for people who worked hard to improve their own speaking abilities, and to entertain and inform their audience.
• Appreciation for those who are prepared to “have a go” even though the prospect of standing up in front of a group of people is truly terrifying.
• Appreciation for those who generously share their knowledge and experience even though they are already accomplished speakers.

What a crowd, huh?

So the small amount of responsibility I assumed in helping organise the evening was paid back many times over. Isn’t that always the way?

Leadership - the Toastmasters' way

“If you cheat yourself in the preparation, it will show up in your presentation.”

Jonas Gadson, DTM

Toastmasters International is an organisation for developing public speaking and leadership capabilities. Different from the red coat Master of Ceremonies Toastmasters, it started in the USA and is now in 106 countries with over 12,000 active clubs and more than 250,000 members.

I have been a member of my local club for over 4 years now and the longer I work with Toastmasters, the more I get out of it. We have a meeting tonight and I have been assigned the role of General Evaluator. I have to find evaluators for the prepared speeches and give an overall summary of the meeting. My preparation work is just about done so I am all set for tonight.

However, I already have a few things that I know I will say in my summing up. That’s because a Toastmasters meeting is no different from many other organised presentations or work meetings. The preparation starts long before the meeting – and it is the preparation that determines how well the meeting goes.

The person responsible for the overall meeting is called the Toastmaster for the Evening. The Toastmaster tonight is a very experienced speaker and a good organiser, so I know the meeting will be run well. However, he has had to cope with quite a lot of behind the scenes confusion: uncertainty about who will speak, changes of roles, etc. Not particularly unusual, but nor does it reflect particularly well on those involved.

Toastmasters have always had a strong focus on leadership – and this is their checklist on how to be a good leader. I think it is a solid checklist.

• Give more than you expect others to give.
• Combine optimism and perseverance.
• See everyone as a diamond in the rough.
• Express appreciation; accept responsibility.
• Keep your ego in check.
• Show respect for the people around you.
• Treat team members as family.
• Be a source of inspiration.
• Stress cooperation, not competition.
• Maintain a sense of humour.

It is a useful reminder for me tonight in accepting change as inevitable, whilst striving for high standards in a club that is already renowned for its leadership abilities.

It is highly likely that in a meeting involving 15 or more different roles there will be changes to the original plan and last minute drop outs. But the two-pronged approach of Preparation and Positive Leadership help all meetings run well – not just Toastmasters’ evenings.

Valuable reminders for participants as well as leaders.

Going green: a confusing business

We are all going green - environmentally green that is. But do we know why? Or how well we are doing? Or indeed, how much is enough.

Yes, we know about carbon emissions. Yes, we know about climate change. No, we don’t want polar bears to go extinct. But these are all relatively vague notions. We can’t see carbon emissions. We quite like it when it’s warm and sunny. But making the link between global warming, polar bears and switching off the lights when we leave a room doesn’t always happen. Wind turbines are wildly popular, but we are pretty much opposed to nuclear power stations; without having clear facts on either.

Am I being unfair? It’s not that I think we haven’t got a grasp on this because we are stupid; more that we are not being given clear data. The green revolution is a confusing business – and little is being done to make it less confusing.

Data, data, everywhere
Don’t get me wrong - I am not saying is that there is a shortage of facts and figures. We overdose on them – they are sprinkled like pepper through newspaper articles, web sites, and news bulletins. All utterly convincing and designed for effect.

Only recently I went to a meeting about London’s energy issues. The headline ran:

London is responsible for around 8% of the UK’s emissions, producing 44 million tonnes of CO2 each year.

It sounded reasonable enough. The evening started with some facts and figures: London is home to 7.5 million people for example. Hang on a minute – that’s 12.5% of the UK’s population. Then you have to add in the effect of tourists, commuters and those passing through the airports, tube network and railway stations. So if our most populous city is producing less than its fair share of emissions, doesn’t that mean that London is already doing pretty well? Of course London doesn’t have a power station, or heavy industry, both of which spew out carbon by the aircraft load.

So I am left with no benchmark as to whether London is doing well or badly in the carbon battle. As the policymakers, scientists and business people who also attended didn’t say, I’m guessing they didn’t know either.

Clear data are important
Having a straightforward and consistent idea of how well or badly we are doing is important. It is crazy to have to do intellectual gymnastics in order to understand the effect of our behaviour on our purses and the planet. And when the experts can’t add it all up, something is badly wrong.

The debate about carbon emissions is everywhere at the moment – from how we create jobs to saving polar bears. Much is without quantifying the problem at either a local, national or global level. So we can’t be surprised when Porsches still overtake me at high speed on the M4 and people don’t insulate their lofts.

The tide has turned

What happens when you try to generate electricity by putting a wind turbine in the water?

The answer turns out to be 1.2MW and a few grey hairs. Peter Fraenkel, the technical brains behind SeaGen spent a fascinating hour or so taking a crowd of engineers through the technical and commercial difficulties of designing a world first. SeanGen at Strangford Lough is the world’s first tidal electricity generator and it is now producing and selling its electricity.

It is a fascinating concept and I am not being entirely serious when I say it’s a wind turbine in the water, although it does work on similar principals. Two huge turbines are able to operate bi-directionally in order to capture energy from the ebb and flood of the tides.

The difficulties of designing and installing something that operates in fast tidal currents are substantial and the team at

Marine Current Turbines have more than their share of war stories to tell. The day we broke a 16m blade had to be one of the best. Strong enough to hang 5 buses off, it was not strong enough to withstand the power of the tides when it was tilted the wrong way due to a systems fault. But this is clearly a company with a steely determination and Fraenkel’s tales of the unexpected demonstrated time and again that nothing would get in their way.

It’s a story of British engineering at its best.

Now that commercial electricity is being generated from SeaGen, however, new issues raise their heads above the water. Scaling up the concept and ensuring that profits are made out of the enormous monetary and technical effort that has gone into it are at least as challenging as what has gone before. It would be nice to think that this plucky British company will be handsomely rewarded for their substantial contribution to our sustainable energy options. Only time will tell. But after what they have come through so far I suspect they will put up a pretty good fight.

Churchill, the energy crisis, and inspiring action. What a day!

Three things happened to me yesterday that made me think about great leaders. Or more specifically, what it takes to inspire action when it’s needed.

Firstly I found myself sitting in the sunshine next to London’s Churchill Museum and the Cabinet War Rooms. I’ve never visited and couldn’t yesterday because I was too late. With half an hour to spare I simply watched the world go about its business. Tourists, civil servants taking a quick smoking-break and security guards watching over H M Treasury are an eclectic lot. But it was Churchill’s achievements that occupied my mind: how he galvanised not just the government and the military, but the whole country into doing what was necessary to win the war.

Musings on Churchill were not reducing CO2 emissions, however, which was the focus of the debate I was due to attend across the road at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Livewire Isabel Dedring from the Mayor’s office kicked off the evening stressing the importance of reducing emissions, and the leading role that London sees itself playing. She went through the variety of initiatives that were needed from managing waste, insulating homes and making City Hall more environmentally acceptable. Despite massive political will from this clearly capable lady and her boss, progress appears to be agonisingly slow. The difficulty of convincing people to make the simplest changes like insulating their lofts, even though grants are available and it will save them money, is indicative of how big a mountain there is to climb. But Boris with his electric car, and Isabel with her brains, are clearly a team to watch.

My evening ended with Churchill, though. Driving home I was listening to Dr Peter Sandman talking about panic and the swine flu pandemic. He talked about how leaders often get it wrong when trying to avert panic. Denying the problem, or pacifying people can create panic instead of action.

He also talked about Churchill and how he got the tone just right. He did not say: “don’t worry – its all going to be fine – I’ve got it under control.” Whilst that might have averted panic it would certainly not have inspired action. What he did was send out a message of deep concern. He managed to convey the severity of the situation whilst inspiring confidence in this plans. He also made it clear that everyone’s efforts would be needed.

The UK is putting some of their best scientific, engineering and political brains to work on the problems of CO2 emissions and global warming, yet many of us routinely leave lights on and don’t think about our energy usage.

What struck me was that the principals of inspiring action are common: whether you are trying to win a war, lower CO2 emissions, survive the recession, change a business’s strategy, or inspire a project team. The difficulty is that they are not that prevalent.

Performance, mood and tiredness

There appears to be little evidence that a good mood positively affects performance. If that were not enough, research suggests that a bad mood can produce better performance. Watcha know?

Not only that, but researchers think that performance and mood are not adversely affected by a gradual reduction in sleep. In an experiment, sleep was reduced over a 6 – 8 month period, to about 5 hours per night, with no measurable behavioural effects. Whatever you do, please do not mention this to anyone who knows me – having the alarm go off at 6am is quite bad enough!

I can’t tell you what bad news this is to a chronically-positive-sleep-loving person like me. But isn’t it interesting? It appears to fly in the face of what I (mostly) experience for myself. When I’m in a great mood, I get loads done, and when I am very tired, I’m both unhappy and unproductive.

However, I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I didn’t admit to those times when I’ve been in a bad mood, but still been productive. Or had a dreadful night’s sleep but still got loads done. When I am under pressure I can still do good work even though I feel dreadful. And, dare I say it, there are times when I am in a good mood, have had loads of sleep, but somehow fail to set the world on fire.

So I draw some rather depressing conclusions. Whilst I would prefer to be well rested and happy, neither appears to be particularly necessary to high performance: until I can find some contradictory evidence, of course.

Any discussion about sleep, mood and performance would not be complete without mentioning chemical helpers. After years of being a caffeine-free zone I am back to drinking green tea by the swimming pool. I don’t drink coffee, but green tea has more than enough caffeine. And, yes, I think it helps to stay alert and improve concentration. It won’t be news to many of you that researchers have found Red Bull to be positively correlated with better concentration and performance. I’ve never tried the stuff myself, having scared everyone witless with my experiments with energy-boosting Guarana powder. Caffeine and Guarana certainly have the disadvantage that they can disrupt sleep, causing more, rather than less, tiredness. I imagine Red Bull would do the same.

So I guess any attempt to gradually reduce sleep would need to done without alcohol, caffeine, Red Bull or Guarana. But would it result in better or worse performance? I’ve got a particularly busy time coming up – I wonder whether now is a good time to give it a go?