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covid

ROUNDUP: Deep Work

by Ron Potter June 22, 2023

A Note From the Editor:

As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. A few years on, we’re looking back at some posts Ron wrote at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Ron’s Short Review: This book changed my habit of getting meaningful work done. I have carved out time every month to isolate myself and my thinking on particular projects. The productivity improvement has been astounding.

Deep Work

The COVID-19 virus may be offering the opportunity that you’ve been looking for to stand-out in a crowded world. In his book Deep Work by Cal Newton he makes some great points about Deep Work and the lack of it.

One of the things that Cal says is:

To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”

“A McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.

This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy? A lot can be explained by another type of effort, which provides a counterpart to the idea of deep work:
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”

How not to be replaced by a computer

The “easy to replicate” emphasis is my note. Why did I highlight that particular statement? Because when something is easy to replicate it means that a person who makes less wages can easily to the same work. More importantly, a computer can be taught to do easily replicable work. Your job is in danger of becoming computerized if you don’t shift from shallow work to deep work!

How do you counter this danger of being replaced by either cheaper labor or a computer? You learn, practice, and become good at and known for your deep work and deep thinking.

Cultivate Deep Work (Thinking)

You can pick up almost any article, magazine, podcast or post that will tell you how to survive working from home. These sources talk about

Get started early (don’t let your day get away from you before it starts)
Act like you’re going to the office (wrong, take advantage of doing things differently)
Have a dedicated workspace (good idea, but focus on making it a non-interruptable workspace)
Go to coffee shops, libraries, public lounges (may not be a bad idea but discipline must tag along as well. You can’t go to a coffee shop just so you can enjoy your favorite drink) And during the pandemic, many of these public places are not even available to us.
Stay off the public media! (Great suggestion.) Regardless of where you’re working from, stay off public media.

What you really need is the discipline and focus for deep work.

Living a life of Deep Work and Thought

As Cal Newton closes his book he says

Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand. To leave the distracted masses to join the focused few, I’m arguing, is a transformative experience.
The deep life requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. For many, there’s a comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.”

Isolation Advice

Then I was reading a Wall Street Journal article titled “Coronavirus Lockdown Lessons from Antarctica.” The article looks at many of the scientific teams that populate Antarctica during the wintertime and are completely isolated. They focus on one team in particular from Norway that works at the Troll station.

“On a recent evening, Troll’s six-person team put together a list of advice for those struggling with extended lockdowns.

- Give people space…folks have to be allowed time on their own to read books, listen to music, watch television.
- Don’t let problems linger and get bigger—talk about it from the start.
- Stay active, and even if you are in a small place, move furniture and get fit.
- Take a deep breath, this is a time to be curious”

Curiosity

I think curiosity is the foundation piece to deep work. Wikipedia says

Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.”

Development and Learning

Notice that curiosity is heavily associated with development and learning. I once had a friend who was fond of saying “as long as you’re like the little kid pulling his wagon up the hill, you’re doing fine. But as soon as you stop exerting the effort to get up that hill and you sit down in your wagon to rest, you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the hill”

Reflection

I think the first thing to be curious about is yourself. Socrates is quoted as saying “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” I’ll give Socrates a pass because he was alive about 400 years before Jesus but the Bible says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Even if you don’t hold to the Christian faith, let’s put those two concepts together. What they are really saying is that you must know who you are and how you fit into this life and humanity as a whole. That doesn’t come easily. A complete lack of this reflection is a sign of Psychopathy. Just a few of the symptoms of Psychopathy include: Grandiose sense of self-worth, lack of remorse, guilt, or empathy. Lack of long-term goals. None of these symptoms show signs of self-reflection. Start with yourself.

Notice that not having long-term goals is one of the signs associated with lack of self-reflection. Where are you going? What does the end of your journey look like? What do you want to be remembered for? These issues and others are not part of our busy lives, they are reached only by deep, reflective thought.

Opportunity

You’ve been handed an opportunity. Don’t waste it!

What kind of person do you want to be?
How will you become a great leader?
What will make you an outstanding team member?
What is that thing inside you that you always wanted to learn or explore?

Build it into your routine. Find a quiet place and a quiet time at least several times per week. Force yourself to go quiet and think about these things. You’ll come out the other end a better person.

This post was originally posted here and here on March 26 and April 23, 2020. This review was originally posted here on December 1, 2017.

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Thinking on 3 Thoughts Together

by Ron Potter July 15, 2021

My mind is a little bit crazy. I often find that three very different ideas come together in my head at a particular moment. I have learned to pay attention to and think more about these three things.

It happened to me recently when three thoughts came together:

Commute times. Working with companies in New York, Boston, and California exposed me to commute times that I was unfamiliar with living in Michigan.
American Express Travelers Cheques division moving from New York City to Salt Lake City
Hearing leaders talk about the increased productivity they’re experiencing in the new virtual world

Commute Times

The first time I worked in New York City as a consultant I showed up at the office on east 42nd street at 8:00 am assuming that was the normal start time. The office was empty. People didn’t really start settling into their office until around 9:00. As I got to know some of the team I would be working with I found out some of them lived in Pennsylvania. They would take a bus from their community to the rail station, take the train to New Jersey, take the ferry to Manhattan then either cab or walk from west 42 Street to the office on east 42 Street. It was nearly impossible to arrive before 9:00.

Then the office would begin to empty out by about 3:30 pm as the reverse commute took place. I had similar experiences in Boston, Chicago, and California. I always found it amusing in California when I would ask how far it was from one location to another. The answer was never explained in distance (4 miles) is was always explained in time (2 to 4 hours depending on the time of day).

American Express

I was living in Salt Lake City when American Express moved their Traveler Cheques Division from New York City to Salt Lake City. As I was reading about the move in the local papers, an American Express Official expressed how impressed they were at the increased productivity that came with the move.

Let’s think about that for a minute—

New York City business day: 9:00-3:30.
Sale Lake City business day: 8:00-5:00.

And you’re acting surprised by the increase in productivity?

Virtual Meetings

I’m having the same reaction about all of these articles from business leaders (most in major corporations in major cities) expressing surprise and pleasure about the increased productivity they’re seeing from working virtually.

Let’s see—

Commute times even in reasonable locations: 30 to 60 minutes.
Commute times for a virtual meeting: 3 to 6 minutes.

Increased productivity? I don’t think so. Just increased availability.

Teamwork

While this virtual world that we now find ourselves in may seem to be or even be more productive, it still takes more than that to build the kind of teams that will be trusting and innovative.

A client the other day asked me how to build a better team in this virtual environment. I didn’t have a great answer. It’s very difficult. There is something very real about the shaking of a hand or sitting down to talk face-to-face and being able to look into each other’s eyes.

Virtual One-on-One

I believe we can do some of this in a virtual environment but it takes planning and commitment. I have often done an exercise called “Assessment-Commitment”. This exercise can be accomplished in the virtual world but it takes time and commitment.

Each pair of people on the team must commit to spending virtual time one-on-one. Once this is accomplished, the team needs to meet (virtually) to discuss together the learnings that were accomplished in the one-on-one sessions. This means that the virtual meetings can’t be all about productivity, assignments, and getting things done. There must be time spent building the team!

Because we now find ourselves in this virtual world, don’t forsake the effort and time it takes to build great teams. It may take a bit more effort but it will reward you and the company many times over down the road.

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Blog Leadership

Is it a Wonderful Life?

by Ron Potter June 17, 2021

From the movie “It’s a wonderful life” George Bailey and his angel, Clarence.

Clarence was a wonderful gift for George. Unlike us, Clarence was able to show George what life would have been like if he had never been born.

What did George learn from that experience?

Background

Let’s take a minute to remember the overall storyline. Many of us have seen the movie at Christmas time through the years.

In the movie, George has a great yearning to travel and see the world. Right after he is married and on his way for their first adventure with his new wife, the stock market crashes. George worked for his father’s local building-and-loan business. When it was obvious that something was wrong, George abandoned his trip and went into the building-and-loan to help with the chaos. Pretty soon, George found himself stuck in the life he wanted to get away from.

Something Just Crashed and Went Wrong

Not only are we facing the changing world of Covid, as I wrote about last week, but the United States suffered the weakest growth for the ten years following the 2008 crash and recession. It seemed that we were being told by our own government “get used to it, this is the new normal”. I found myself getting depressed and worried over that attitude.

I also find myself even more worried today as I watch my grandchildren (ages 13-20) face this very scary new norm. One article I read said, “many young people have lost hope seeing their labor produce so little reward”. I consider myself very blessed in that all of my grandchildren have a good work ethic. I even mentioned to one granddaughter that I lose track that she’s only a junior (now senior) in high school because she works so hard. She seems all grown up going to school and working most afternoons and evenings.

And yet I hear her and some of her cousins speaking fondly of socialism. But as one article said, “when the rewards for working and sweating end, prosperity withers and freedom dies”.

The Gift of Clarence

In the movie, George is actually able to meet his angel …it’s a movie. It doesn’t fit with my Christian beliefs 😉 and this pays off in a wonderful reward. George is thinking he would be better off if he had never been born. Clarence allows George to see the world as if he had never existed. George sees a very dismal world because he was not in it working hard, caring, helping, and loving.

Be a Clarence

Be a friend. Be a mentor. Be a parent. Be a grandparent. Help others —young people, children, and grandchildren see and experience A Wonderful Life. It may not seem like they’re listening at the time but you would be amazed how much it sticks with them. I remember mentors from decades ago. I still remember their words, the circumstances of the situation, and the fact that they cared enough to share with me. I may not have told them how much it meant but their words still stick with me today.

Be a mentor. Share with someone. Take time to talk with someone. You may not be immediately rewarded but the lessons and wisdom you pass on will pay rewards for years to come

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Blog Culture

The Coming Ice Age: Leading Beyond the Blizzard

by Ron Potter June 10, 2021

As we try to figure out the new normal, many comments and images have been tossed around. I ran across this article by Andy Crouch, Kurt Keilhacker, and Dave Blanchard of Praxis that gives us a good overview of what we’re facing.

Blizzard, Winter, Ice Age

For a minute, put your own thoughts to each of those words.

Blizzard

Years ago when my children were young, my wife and I decided to drive from Salt Lake City where we were living at the time back to her family farm in Michigan for Thanksgiving. Everything went great getting there as was our time with family at a very comforting time of the year. But then it was time to drive back from Michigan to Utah in early December. Things were going fine until I woke up (my wife was driving at the moment) and realized that we were spinning (a full 360) on the Interstate along with the cars and trucks near us. We had hit a blizzard in Nebraska. No one crashed and no one was hurt and we were able to get to the first exit which had a Holiday Inn where we checked in for a couple of days until the blizzard passed and the roads had been clear.

It was a scary experience!

Even after we were able to restart our journey, there was this anxiousness in the back of our minds as we headed out on the plains of Nebraska and into the mountains before making it to Salt Lake.

Blizzards are like that. Scary. They can be dangerous. And the possibilities can linger in our mind even after they clear.

Winter

Unlike blizzards that can come upon you quickly, we know that winters are coming. The calendar tells us so. The only thing we don’t know is how severe the winter will be and how long it will last. Keep in mind that we live in Michigan near the Lake Michigan side of the state. A couple of winters ago, we had an extremely cold spell of a couple of weeks during winter. Temperatures were below negative 20 degrees for nearly two weeks. When it’s that cold you need to protect people and things and be prepared if you lose your power. Even things in our garage began to freeze. But just like blizzards, we know that it will end sometime and things will get back to normal.

Ice Age

Back when I was a kid, we didn’t hear about global warming; we heard about another coming Ice Age. (Both based on science… supposedly.) We have beautiful, great lakes and terrain in Michigan because of the last ice age in which glaciers reached what is now the southern border of the state. It must have been impressive and awesome and it created and left a beautiful environment. But it was uninhabitable! The last Ice Age lasted about 12,000 years. Ice Ages create new normals.

What Are We Facing

Which category —Blizzard, Winter, or Ice Age— do you place our current Covid situation and the virtual workplace it has spawned?

Blizzard

I believe it’s clear to all of us that this is not a blizzard. We may have had some hope of that a year ago. We may have thought that “this will be over soon” and we would get back to normal. It is now obvious that is not going to happen.

Winter

I’m often asked why I continue to live in Michigan when I could live anywhere. My answer is that when you have a perfect day in Michigan, there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. I’m sure it’s the result of the great lakes and beautiful forests.

But with Covid, we don’t get a summer full of beautiful days. We’re at least in winter. There will be no “perfect” days with Covid. We will not return to “normal”.

Ice Age

We may even be into an Ice Age with Covid and virtual work. Things are not likely to return to “normal” in our lifetime. It will be a much more cautious and virtual world. Because I have children and grandchildren who live in other countries of the world, I’m very familiar with virtual connections. But I can’t wait until I can be with them again to give them each a big hug. And with the teams I work with, there is nothing like that shake of a hand, that pat on the back, and being able to look directly into the eyes of each other when dealing with difficult issues.

New Norm

This is the new norm. We’re never quite sure what the new normal will actually look like. We only know that it will be different (and confusing) until the new normal emerges.

We haven’t really figured it all out yet.

I know that many of our collaboration platforms (Zoom, MSTeams, Webex, and others) are working fast and furious trying to figure it out. But I do know that they’ll miss the mark if they rely on transactional measurements rather than personal relationships interactions to create the new normal.

Trust

As the team from Praxis says, “Out greatest resource is trust”. Trust is difficult to cultivate virtually, although I believe it can be done with focus and effort. It’s more important than ever in this time of winter and/or ice age to build trust. It will be hard work but it will also be worth it.

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Blog Culture

Zoom Fatigue

by Ron Potter May 13, 2021

My first regret with Zoom is that I didn’t invest in the company in the early days. I’ve been a user since the early days but had no idea what was coming. Covid increased users rapidly and the last I looked they had around a half-million users. One more investment opportunity missed!

For this blog, I will use the word Zoom as a generic term for all of the video conference applications from Microsoft, Cisco (Webex), Google, and others.

Exhausting

Even though Zoom has become essential, the environment has become exhausting at the same time. Why?

I’m a highly extroverted person and you would think I would enjoy the Zoom environment. And in fact, I do prefer it to one-on-one phone calls. And I even do OK and experience quite a bit of value in small team meetings.

But for those who are in several meetings per day and often with large numbers of participants, it’s exhausting. I have always experienced mental fatigue deeper and harder to recover from than physical fatigue. Zoom meetings are all focused on mental fatigue.

Evolution

We have evolved (and survived) because of our ability to understand very small expressions and understand meaning from them. One of my pleasures is reading spy novels. Almost all of them talk about microexpressions as a means for understanding truth, lies, confidence, fear, and other emotions. Human communications is a combination of words, movement, timing, gestures, and others. Scientists even have a name for all of this coordination. They call it synchrony.

Synchrony is essential for complete communication and humans work hard to achieve it. I believe that synchrony is essential to build trust! It’s interesting to me that Zoom and all of its competitors are working hard to improve teamwork through this media. I believe it was Microsoft that talked about the “art of teamwork”. And yet, they are all looking at things that can be measured like: “Who are you meeting with?”, “How often are you meeting?”, “What time of day do you meet?”. None of these things have anything to do with building the trust essential in good teams.

Fight-or-flight

Scientists at Stanford University found that the size of images can trigger our innate “Fight-or-Flight” state of mind. When another person’s image looks larger and closer than others on the conference call, they can seem threatening. Looking at a screen of nine faces where there is no coordination of closeness to screen is very different than having nine people around a conference table. When every image is a different proportional size, the human mind is trying to figure our fight-or-flight threat. It’s exhausting.

Feel Good Conversations

Studies also show that face-to-face conversations release neurotransmitters like dopamine. Dopamine is linked to our feelings of pleasure. I look forward to meeting with people one-on-one. It feels good!

Another quote from Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction lab is “Zoom smothers you with cues, and they aren’t synchronous. It takes a physiological toll.”

What to do

So what do we do about all of this? So far, I’ve seen no good answer.

Virtual Apps

I’m working with a group putting together an app we call GPS4Leaders (GPS4Leaders.com). It was originally meant to be a stand-alone app that leaders and teams could have instant access to through their phones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. We have built the app based on years of consulting work with clients.

Since the rapid shift to virtual meetings, we are moving away from the stand-alone app to a Zoom-based app. We’re currently working with one of the Virtual Meeting Software companies to incorporate the “trusting team” concepts into the virtual environment. We’ll see how it goes.

Pick up the phone

If it’s impossible to meet someone directly, pick up the phone and talk together. You can even revert to the Zoom environment but do it one-on-one, not in a group. Talk with the other person directly. Get to know who they are, not just what they do. What makes them a unique individual? What is their background? What experiences have they had? What are their ambitions? Anything you can do to get to know them as human beings the better. We are human beings, not human doings!

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Blog Culture

Science is Always Right

by Ron Potter February 11, 2021

But scientists are not always right! Even scientists have a perspective on the world that will shape the scientific data they see.

All too often I hear people refer to science as the answer that ends all arguments. As a Christian, I especially dislike the one where Christians don’t believe in science. I’m a Christian and I believe in science. I’m not technically a scientist but I do have an engineering degree that depends a great deal on science.

Francis Collins might be considered this nation’s leading scientist. He is currently the Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and a leader in the Human Genome Project. Dr. Collins wrote a book titled, Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

Virtual Meetings

My point in this rambling is that we are entering a new era of virtual meetings versus face-to-face meetings. I believe this is our future. Many companies, especially the ones with collaboration platforms such as Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others are adding technology to improve virtual meetings. I believe they will have a positive effect on meetings but they are also claiming that this technology will create high-performance teams.

I believe they’re missing a key point.

Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings

The Wall Street Journal recently printed an article called “Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings”. For the article, they interviewed management experts, technologists, academics, and startup founders. They broke the article into the following categories:

Who’s Paying Attention? Worker’s posture and expressions are analyzed to determine positivity and engagement levels.
AI to Manage the Flow with an AI-powered moderator. It would provide feedback, facilitate flow, monitor time, and interject if someone is getting cut off or talked over.
A Seat at the Table: The software would assure that the meeting includes a diverse ethnic and gender balance.
Immersive Presentations: Participants would use virtual-reality glasses to view materials such as PowerPoint slides and others. The goal is to have the participants flip pages, go deeper and move their heads to flip between tables, charts, presentations, and the meeting itself, eliminating the need to flip back and forth between these things on a shared screen.
A Fitbit for Meetings: In this one, each participant wears a smartwatch that analysis and tells them about their personal overall performance.
The Virtual Office Party: This is an attempt to provide the casual chat between participants by having their avatar hear only the voices of nearby avatars as they move around.
Data-Driven Collaboration: Avatars are used in this one as well to “help” people casually talk while keeping track of personal interactions between employees to help match up people across departments when needed.

A line at the beginning of the article says “Critics say elements of tools under discussion raise concerns about worker privacy and may face resistance as being too intrusive.” I think if they had explored this one point further the conclusion may be that none of this technology will work because workers will find it too intrusive.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

At the same time that WSJ article appeared, I was also reading The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. I found the contrast between the two documents striking. While the WSJ article may be focused on running meetings more efficiently, that does not translate into higher performance. In The Culture Code, it’s stated that the highly successful groups talk about relationships. There isn’t much in the WSJ article that talks about relationships.

One section of the books talks about patterns of interaction:

“When I visited these groups, I noticed a distinct pattern of interaction. The pattern was located not in the big things but in little moments of social connection:

Close physical proximity, often in circles

- Profuse amounts of eye contact
- Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs)
- Lots of short, energetic exchanges (no long speeches)

High levels of mixing

- everyone talks to everyone
- Few interruptions
- Lots of questions
- Intensive, active listening
- Humor, laughter
- Small, attentive courtesies (thank-yous, opening doors, etc.)

One more thing: I found that spending time inside these groups was almost physically addictive.”

MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab

There is also an interview with Alex Pentland who runs MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab. He said:

“If I lean a few inches closer to you, we might begin mirroring. It only works if we’re close enough to physically touch.”

Pentland says that words are noise. Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected.

Safe and Connected

All the technology currently available or available in the foreseeable future may in fact make meetings more productive. However, I currently don’t see any that help people feel safe and connected. This will be the challenge for the near future.

GPS4Leaders

In the app we’re developing, we do get at the issues that help people feel safe and connected such as trust and relationships. But it will still require the participants to take corrective action and make changes when the data indicates these are a problem.

Star participants and leaders of the future will be good at this!

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Blog Team Team Series

Riding it Out or Reinventing

by Ron Potter August 27, 2020

“U.S. Companies Lose Hope for Quick Rebound From Covid-19” This was a headline in the Wall Street Journal the other day. Buried in the body of the article was the statement, “Executives who were bracing for a months-long disruption are now thinking in terms of years. Their job has changed from riding it out to reinventing.” On the same day (unrelated to the WSJ article) this cartoon appeared

I thought the cartoon was very appropriate because I’ve seen so many companies in my consulting career say they’re innovative but act like the cartoon.

Leaders Support Innovation

Leaders are not usually the innovators! Good leaders support the innovators on their teams.

Let’s take a look at how innovation happens from a Team Leadership Culture framework.

Team Innovation

Team innovation can be the most difficult to pull off but at the same time the most rewarding as well. However, it does take a few prerequisites for it to work.

Team Size

Many studies have determined that the best size of a decision-making team is seven, plus or minus two.

Once you get above nine people on a team, the ability to reach commitment on any given topic is greatly diminished. There are just too many factions possible with 10+ people.

If you have fewer than five team members, it’s too easy for the team to form factions of three people vs. one person. Even though that one person may have the most innovative idea, they will feel outnumbered and it’s too easy for the faction of three to treat them as an outlier or put pressure on them to go along with the majority.

Either way, the dynamics may be killing the innovation.

Keep decision-making teams to seven people, plus or minus two.

Team Attributes

TREC is the outline that brings the right attributes to an innovative team.

Truth. Being able to speak the truth to each other without fear of reprisal is necessary for innovative teams.

Respect. Each team member must be self-aware enough to know that their perspective is only a perspective. It is not “the truth”. It is not the only way of looking at an issue. It’s only their perspective and each member has a valid perspective. If the team trusts that all perspectives are valid, innovation is more likely to happen.

Elegance. Coming up with an innovative solution that is also elegant (simple, understandable, actionable) is the best solution.

Commitment. If the team is able to share the truth with respect, commitment can happen. Even if your perspective was different (or even opposing) to the final direction, commitment means that no matter what, you express your commitment to the solution. You’re able to do this because you were a member of the team that took all the perspectives into account and “committed” to a team solution.

Team Dynamics

If innovation is the goal, team dynamics becomes extremely important. Teams have been conditioned to come together for a given amount of time (usually an hour), encouraged to follow the agenda, and finally, make decisions depending on the discussion or reports. This feels very structured and efficient. It’s just not good for innovation.

Innovative teams have a different dynamic.

They will start as a whole team to discuss the areas of possible innovation.
All the perspectives are shared, at least in an outline form.
The team then breaks up into smaller teams. These can be as small as two individuals but should never be larger than three.
Deep Work is required. Deep Work requires spending distraction-free time on the topic, pushing your cognitive capabilities to the limit.
Return to the full team with this new Deep Work perspective to hear what we’re learning and then discuss directions we could possibly head.
Rinse and Repeat. Continue this large team, small team (maybe different small teams with each iteration) dynamics until the team begins to zero in on an innovative approach.

Team Decisions

Remember that the word “decide” means that you narrow your options down to a small number of choices (preferably two) and then you put one of those options to death. You kill it. You eliminate it. You stop spending resources on it. The commitment to the team direction should be powerful enough to put all of your resources towards the chosen innovative approach.

A Culture of Innovation

Moving the culture of an organization towards innovation usually centers around one word.

Decide!

As we’ve talked about the word “decide” lately, I hope it has become clear that the word decide means that you put one option to death in order to put your resources toward a different option.

Leaders and leadership teams will often decide on a direction but neglect to let the organization below them know that they’ve decided not to spend resources on other options.

Organizations are full of people who love the security of their job. They’ve spent years learning the job, getting better at the job, and feeling secure that they can go to work every day and do the job. They’re “secure.”

But, if you are now saying to them, “We’re heading in a different direction and we don’t know yet where it will all lead.” They can often feel scared or at least insecure. They may or may not mention this insecurity but they will wonder

Do I have the skill set to do the new job?
Will my job, group, division be eliminated?
Will I be asked to relocate to a different department or location?
Am I back to ground zero in terms of my skills and worth to the company?

Without any clarity on these and other topics, people will tend to come to work every day and continue to do what they’ve always done. They’ll seek security in doing the known rather than be lost in the unknown!

Open, Transparent, Humble

In times like these (which means now, in our current environment) it’s important that leadership is open with the organization. Let them know everything that you know.

Be Transparent. If people feel like they’re not getting the whole story, they’ll either go back to what they’ve always done or abandon ship. Your best people, the ones you need the most will abandon the ship first.

Be humble. Don’t give them the impression that you have all the answers when you don’t. Let them know that you and the team are doing their best with uncertain circumstances. Taking this approach will also bring forth more innovative ideas that you wouldn’t otherwise hear.

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Blog Culture

High Tech – High Touch

by Ron Potter July 23, 2020

Those words keep haunting me. They are the four words I remember from the book Future Shock. The book was written by Alvin Toffler in 1970. That’s 50 years ago!

Description

Wikipedia says that

Alvin Toffler argued that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a “super-industrial society”. This change overwhelms people. He argues that the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaves people disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation”—future shocked.

Stress and Disorientation

I am familiar with these feelings. I wrote about them recently in my blog titled “Divided” where I talked about being confused, hurting, and even angry. I love this country and love the people in this country. But I am feeling stress and I’m definitely disoriented.

Virtual World

Covid-19 is contributing to this stress and disorientation. By all predictions, more than half of employees indicate that they would like to stay in the virtually connected world, rather than go back to the office. I believe that many corporate leaders are salivating at the cost savings of shedding their physical office space by allowing everyone to continue in the virtual world of video connection, they just don’t know the real costs.

High Tech, High Touch

Toffler was emphasizing one point with these words. You can have all the high tech you want, but without high touch, it won’t work well. In this day of division, with many taking “sides”, what can we do to help this situation? The answer is also in the four words: High Tech, High Touch.

Without building personal, “high touch” relationships, we don’t have a chance of solving this issue.

Virtual World Better

So, if we’re going to be in this virtual world for some time to come, how do we solve the “High Touch” issue. Unfortunately, I don’t think we do completely. But with some additional High Tech we can at least get focused on the issue and help people connect and build relationships if they’re willing.

I’ve been working with a group of consultants (High Touch) and technical people (High Tech) over the last couple of years in anticipation of this virtual world happening. Even without Covid-19 impacting the world, I was seeing more and more geographically separated people working together on teams. Through this effort, we have created a platform we call GPS4Leaders. It’s made up of four modules: Interact, GPS4Teams, GPS4Leaders and GPS4Culture. We might refer to it as iTLC.

Here is a short video about the iT of iTLC.

We have designed the GPS4 modules to help virtual teams. It can help in the following ways:

Identify the makeup of the team from a personality type. Built into the system are three assessments based on Social Styles, Competing Values, and a partial Myers-Briggs. If there is discord on the team or the teams lack the ability to make decisions, the Interact Module can help.
GPS4Teams will also help the team to determine where they are now and how they get to the needed future state of a highly functioning team. This happens through team assessment and pulse surveys.
GPS4Teams also identifies disagreements. While protecting individual member scores, it will show if there is Diffusion, Polarization, or an Outlier.

The best that can happen in this virtual world is to help teams focus and spend time developing understanding and relationships between members.

Reach for the Best

It’s going to be difficult to create the relationships that are required for high functioning teams. Using the tools available can help focus the need for building these relationships. But, it’s going to be up to the team leaders and team members to use technology to help build high functioning teams. It looks like the only thing we’re going to have as the world changes.

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Blog Leadership

Deep Work in Isolation

by Ron Potter April 23, 2020

I seldom do a quick follow up after a recent blog but the next couple of blogs have been triggered by reader feedback.

Recently many readers commented on the blog post titled “Coronavirus and Deep Work”. In that post, I recommended that you not waste this forced time at home. Use some of it to sit quietly and think deep thoughts. We seldom get a chance to do that during our former work life even though it is much needed. I referred to Cal Newton’s book Deep Work where he goes into much more detail.

Isolation Advice

Then today—April 17—I was reading a Wall Street Journal article titled “Coronavirus Lockdown Lessons from Antarctica.” The article looks at many of the scientific teams that populate Antarctica during the wintertime and are completely isolated. They focus on one team in particular from Norway that works at the Troll station.

“On a recent evening, Troll’s six-person team put together a list of advice for those struggling with extended lockdowns.

- Give people space…folks have to be allowed time on their own to read books, listen to music, watch television.
- Don’t let problems linger and get bigger—talk about it from the start.
- Stay active, and even if you are in a small place, move furniture and get fit.
- Take a deep breath, this is a time to be curious”

Curiosity

I think curiosity is the foundation piece to deep work. Wikipedia says

Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.”

Development and Learning

Reflection

Opportunity

You’ve been handed an opportunity. Don’t waste it!

What kind of person do you want to be?
How will you become a great leader?
What will make you an outstanding team member?
What is that thing inside you that you always wanted to learn or explore?

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Blog Culture

We’re not in Kansas anymore

by Ron Potter April 16, 2020

I’ve just started reading a book titled Epidemics and Society. This book makes the point that epidemics have done more to shape society and the course of human history than wars. This book was written before our current battle with COVID-19 was even on the radar.

What will our Future Look Like?

During this time of self-containment, I’ve had many thoughts about what our future will look like when we finally emerge for the worldwide pandemic. My thoughts have taken me from movie theaters to the workplace and topics in between. We’re not in Kansas anymore!

Video Connected Teams

One of the things that I believe will happen during this time is employers and employees will realize that much can be accomplished over the Internet. While we’ve been moving this way already, this forced telecommuting may help us finally pull the trigger to use technology more broadly.

All of the collaboration software such as Microsoft Teams, WebEx for Teams, Zoom, and others are seeing this as an opportunity to push their technology farther and faster then they would have before we left Kansas. We’re not in Kansas anymore!

Art of Teamwork

We’ve heard “Art of Teamwork” used to show that collaboration is needed as much as simply getting things done by groups of people. In other words, there is an Art to building great teams with collaboration platforms.

A few years ago, a small group of my colleagues gathered to talk about creating an app that would help leaders form better teams. We believe it’s more than simply adding the “art” of great teams.

We called our app GPS4Leaders (You can see more on our webpage). In doing so, we were expressing that teams, like a good GPS system, is more than just functioning well at the moment.

Think about what a GPS system does for you:

Clearly identifies where you are now.
Helps you locate your desired destination.
Maps out the best route to reach that desired destination.

Where are you now?

Knowing where you are now means knowing who you are as a team. GPS4Leaders uses four modules to help you assess your team and guide you toward the desired future.

GPS4Leaders is made up of four modules:

Interact (available now)
Teams (available now)
Leadership (coming next)
Culture (in the near future)

Knowing where you are now requires the first two modules.

Interact helps the team identify who they are as individuals and what the make-up of the team looks like when you put all the pieces together. This is accomplished by a self-assessment looking at personality types. You can think of these similar to the familiar DICS or Myers-Briggs. We’re not trying to build the best assessment; we’re trying to make whatever assessment you use more visible and useful.

Teams looks at the dynamics within the team. GPS4Teams has two assessments built-in. But again, we’re not trying to become the best assessment in the world. Our goal is to help you assess how your doing so that you know where you are now and your progress toward a better future team.

Leadership will be built in the near future. This will allow teams to assess their leaders. It will provide the same advantages as Team but be focused on the leader.

Culture will be coming in the future. This will look at the company as a whole and determine the extent to which leaders and leadership teams are being successful in pushing positive behavior throughout the organization.

We’re not in Kansas anymore

Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we are now in a very different place. The rules and patterns of our old way of working together have disappeared. How are we to function now?

Please visit our website today and experience how this new app will help you navigate this brave new world.

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Blog

Coronavirus and Deep Work

by Ron Potter March 26, 2020

I know, I know, enough of the Coronavirus already. We’ve been self-isolated and at this point have no idea what to believe is true and what is hype. What I do know is the interesting journey I’ve been on in relation to Deep Work.

Deep Work

One of the things that Cal says is:

To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”

“A McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.

This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy? A lot can be explained by another type of effort, which provides a counterpart to the idea of deep work:
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”

How not to be replaced by a computer

How do you counter this danger of being replaced by either cheaper labor or a computer? You learn, practice, and become good at and known for your deep work and deep thinking.

Cultivate Deep Work (Thinking)

You can pick up almost any article, magazine, podcast or post that will tell you how to survive working from home. These sources talk about

Get started early (don’t let your day get away from you before it starts)
Act like you’re going to the office (wrong, take advantage of doing things differently)
Have a dedicated workspace (good idea, but focus on making it a non-interruptable workspace)
Go to coffee shops, libraries, public lounges (may not be a bad idea but discipline must tag along as well. You can’t go to a coffee shop just so you can enjoy your favorite drink) And during the pandemic, many of these public places are not even available to us.
Stay off the public media! (Great suggestion.) Regardless of where you’re working from, stay off public media.

What you really need is the discipline and focus for deep work.

Living a life of Deep Work and Thought

As Cal Newton closes his book he says

Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand. To leave the distracted masses to join the focused few, I’m arguing, is a transformative experience.
The deep life requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. For many, there’s a comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.”

Take advantage of the opportunity being offered

We’re all looking for a silver lining to the isolation caused by our current pandemic. Take advantage of the forced isolation to become a deep worker and deep thinker. It will pay rewards that you can’t even think of at the moment.

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