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Motivation

BlogRegrets

Regrets – Boldness

by Ron Potter

In Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink lists four core regrets:

While I haven’t fully read this book yet, it seems like the perfect next sequence after the series of being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down that I recently wrote from Paul’s ancient text to the people of Corinth.

In this second of Pink’s regrets, Boldness talks about the lack of boldness to “accomplish a few important goals within the limited spat of a single life.”  This lack of boldness seems a lot more urgent at age 74 than it did at age 24.  That’s not unexpected because of the age difference but it’s important to be aware that accomplishing some things will only happen at a younger age.  At some point, it becomes obvious that there is just not enough time to accomplish some things that you had intended to accomplish all of your life.  So it’s important to begin those things that you would like to or intend to accomplish in your life when there is still time to accomplish them.

Why Boldness?

It takes boldness to start early because:

  1. It’s difficult to carve out the time to accomplish something out of the ordinary when it seems like your everyday life is overtaking you at the moment.
  2. It also means that we must overcome the fear of failure when we start a new venture early in life.

You might be saying to yourself, “I’ll be more equipped to do something bold when I have a little more experience.”  Or you might be thinking, “Once I get through the busy part of my life I’ll have more time to dedicate to that bold idea.”

Looking Back

The subtitle of Pink’s book is “How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.”  This seems evident to me now that I’m in my mid-70s.  It’s easy to say that “This is something I might have accomplished 50 years ago.”  It’s more difficult to think that I should have started five years ago.  There’s still a lot of time left to step out and accomplish that bold idea.  After all, if I could accomplish the task in 40 years, I could surely accomplish it in 35 years.  This is just an excuse for not stepping out in boldness and pretty soon that 35 years turns into 30 years until it’s too late to accomplish it at all.

I have a grandson who is a world-class bicyclist and I would like to go riding with him.  But today that would be impossible.  And yet, I’ve seen some 70-year-olds who could at least stay with him for a while.  The difference is they started when they were young.  They didn’t put it off.

Moving Forward

Plan.  Start.  You want to be better athletically, pick your sport and start today.  You want to be better at chess, start today.  You want to be healthier, start today.  Whatever it is, start today.  Don’t put it off until next year or when you turn 40 or sometime in the future.  Don’t put it off.  Don’t expect to accomplish your end goal immediately.  Start small.  Pink says “accomplish a few important goals.”

This means you know what is important.  This means you’ve planned.  This means you’ve taken that first step today.  You’ll be able to look back a year from now and be astonished at how far you’ve come.  You’ll be amazed at what it looks like in a decade or two.  But if you don’t start today, you’ll be looking back on that year, decade, two decades from now thinking “what if?”  Or thinking “I could have.”

Decide, Plan, Start

First, you need to decide what will be important to you.

Then, you need to build a plan for accomplishing your goal.

Finally, start today.  Just small steps.  But start!

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BlogMyers Briggs Type IndicatorMyers-Briggs

Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Orientation

by Ron Potter

The last of the four functions is known as your Orientation or “Living” function.  The two ends of this scale are judging (J) and perceiving (P).  It’s really about how we want our lives to be lived.

Judging vs Perceiving

The judging (J) preference likes things to be organized and planned.  Perceiving (P) preference likes things to be spontaneous and flexible.  I often see couples land at the opposite ends of this scale.  I have a preference for “J”, planning.  My degree from the University of Michigan is actually in project management, which means it was my job to organize, plan, and keep projects on schedule.  My wife falls on the perceiving end of this scale.  Although she is very organized, it’s something she has to work at and her normal mode is to bounce around from project to project.  For us “J’s”, we like to finish one project then move on to the next.

Vacation Story

You might want to look at the last story about vacations in the April 8th blog titled Where Decisions are Made.  Vacation structure is a good place to look at the difference between natural preferences.  If we talk about your job, you have likely trained yourself to function more like a “J”, even if you have a natural preference for “P”.  Away from work, in environments like vacations, our natural preferences tend to be a little clearer.

You Think Too Much

Recently another family member who happens to be a natural “P” made some life decisions that I found curious.  When we finally spent some time together after these life decisions were made, I asked her if I could ask a few questions about her decision.  She agreed.  I asked my first question and she gave a thoughtful answer.  I was halfway through asking my second question when she stopped me and said “You think too much!”

She was right.  I think through decisions much more completely that she would be comfortable with.  But I had to admit, she was right, I do think too much.  But I also came to realize that I was most happy when I could plan things out.  Yet she was equally happy in her spontaneous approach.  I would say that both of us are equally happy with our lives.

Happiness comes when we’re able to function in our preferred world.  It has nothing to do with one preference being happier than the other.

J vs P Statistics

When we look at the statistics on this function, we see that the US population is roughly evenly split with 54% on the “J” side and 46% on the “P” side.  However, corporate leadership teams are closer to two-thirds and one-third with 63% on the “J” side and 37% on the “P” side.

That difference becomes a little more pronounced with Operation Teams falling 67% on the “J” side and 33% on the “P” side.

Be careful if you have a preference for the Perceiving (P) side of this scale.  Work often demands that teams think and act on the “J” side of this preference.  As with most people, the “J” side can be trained even if it’s not natural.  There are a few things to remember:

  1. Teams need balance.  Bring out your “P” preference when it can add to the conversation or decision-making.
  2. You need balance.  It’s OK to function as “J” in the business world but not let that carry over to all aspects of your life.  You won’t be happy if you can’t live part of your life in your natural “P” preference.
  3. None of the MBTI or other personality assessments have anything to do with skill or ability.  They are simply preferences (When the opportunity exists, I would prefer to live and work in … my world.)

Walking the Balance Beam

Almost all of our education system up to and through graduate school pushes toward the “J” side.  Apprentice programs of almost any type of work also push us toward the “J” side. (Measure twice, cut once).  So you’ll probably be pretty good at working with a “J” bent.  However, if you never allow yourself to have part of your life in the “P” world, you won’t experience the happiness that you would enjoy.

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BlogLeadership

Understanding Speed and Velocity: Saying “NO” to the Non-Essential

by Ron Potter

Shane Parrish said in one of his blogs “It’s tempting to think that in order to be a valuable team player, you should say “yes” to every request and task that is asked of you. People who say yes to everything have a lot of speed. They’re always doing stuff but never getting anything done. Why? Because they don’t think in terms of velocity.”

Speed vs Velocity

I learned the difference between these two elements in engineering school.  Most people don’t know the difference between the two and use them interchangeably.  I admit that in most cases, it doesn’t really matter that people use them incorrectly.  But I believe that part of great leadership is saying what you mean and meaning what you say.  You can’t do that if you’re using words incorrectly.  People understand different words differently and it’s important to clarify what you’re saying.

Speed

Speed is a scalar measurement.  It tells us how far we’ve traveled in what amount of time.  It is distance divided by time.  Our roads have “speed” signs along the way.  Our state increased the speed on rural interstate highways from 70 miles per hour (mph) to 75 mph.  This means that I can cover more miles in the same amount of time.  My speed increases.

But speed doesn’t indicate direction.  I may merge onto the interstate and increase my speed to 75 mph.  I’ll be making good time.  But if I entered into the northbound side of the divided highway and my intended destination is to the south of my starting point, my speed is meaningless.  I may drive for an hour at 75 mph but at the end of that hour, I will be further from my desired destination than when I started.  It doesn’t have much value to go fast if you’re headed in the wrong direction!

Velocity

Velocity, on the other hand, is a vector measurement.  It includes direction.  Going 75 mph to the north is the same speed as 75 mph to the south but has very different velocities and very different destinations.  Just going fast doesn’t necessarily get you to your desired destination.  In fact, you may have a faster speed but take longer to your destination if you have the wrong velocity.

Saying No

The title of this blog indicates that you must say no to the non-essentials.  If you don’t, you’re just going fast!

There must be a purpose or a destination in mind to achieve the greatest velocity.

Some people just can’t say “no.”   Even when they say yes to non-essentials.  They’re just going fast.  This leads to burnout, stress, health issues, and missed targets.  Without a clear destination, there’s no value in going fast.  It’s just that some people feel that if they’re going fast then they’re more valuable.  Wrong!

Successful People say No

I’ll close this blog with a quote from Shane Parrish’s blog:

The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.
– Warren Buffett

If I were to rank the CEO’s I’ve worked with through the years, the one at the top of my list (best CEO) said ‘No’ more than all the others.  There is a tremendous demand for the time of the CEO.  And the demands are almost all worthwhile.  But the best CEO I ever worked with made it very clear the three things they were focused on in any given year.  When a demand arose that required them to spend time on something other than the three things that were the focus for the year, they immediately said ‘No’ and recruited someone else to accomplish the task.  It’s usually ego that drives them to spend their time on the non-essentials.  Good CEO’s overcome the ego.

Increase Your Velocity

Three things are listed in the blog that will help increase velocity

  1. Ruthlessly shave away the unnecessary tasks, priorities, meetings, and BS.  See the paragraph above to help with this item.
  2. Don’t rely on your willpower to say no; instead, create systems that help you fend off the distractions.
    I think this is a really good suggestion.  Just believing you have the willpower to say no when the time comes will fail.  Rely on a visible system (to you and others) to put demands in the ‘no’ category.
  3. Say “no” to your boss.  This may be the most difficult one for most people.  But, if you have a good boss, you will be respected for saying ‘no’ based on your system.  If you are not respected for saying ‘no’ for the right reasons, look for another job (boss).

If you’re all about speed, you’ll simply experience burnout.  Velocity indicates you have a meaningful destination.  Velocity will lead to success and satisfaction.

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BlogLeadership

Wasting Time

by Ron Potter

This concept was brought to me by my favorite author, Shane Parrish, through his farnamstreetblog.com.

It’s a review of the book “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day” by Arnold Bennett.

While I believe this fits into today’s issues, Bennett wrote this book in 1910.

This is one of the things written about in 1910:

The 1910s were a time of great change in American industry. The managerial side of industry was growing and American corporations were reorganizing and becoming more efficient. Technology was available to make corporations run more smoothly and increase production.

A few of the things happening in 2020:

The 2020s are a time of great change in American industry. The managerial side of industry is shrinking and American corporations are being forced to reorganize and become more efficient. Technology is available to make corporations run more smoothly, increase productivity, and help teams run virtually.

What are you doing with your time?

Shane pulls out a few quotes from Bennett’s book.

You cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow, it is kept from you.

Remember: You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.

So, what are you doing with your time?

One of our blogs a couple of weeks ago included the following quote:

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.

Reinventing

Our work-life is changing.  You may have been “bracing for a months-long disruption” to your work life.  But now we’re starting to think in terms of years, or maybe even forever.

How are you spending your time?  Another quote that Shane pulls from Bennett’s book says:

Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live on such-and-such a sum…but I have never seen an essay ‘how to live on 24 hours a day.’ Yet it has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time, you can obtain money-usually. But…you cannot buy yourself a minute more time.

You cannot buy yourself a minute more time!  Bennett makes another statement:

The supply of time is truly a daily miracle. You wake up in the morning and lo! your purse is magically filled with 24 hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours.

It’s a miracle!  Every day you wake up with a new 24 hours that are yours!

Don’t Waste Time

Even though you have a new 24 hours every day, the time that you waste will never be recovered.  Again, Bennett says:

You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.

Do you put the highest urgency on your time?

Don’t Be Busy

I’m not talking about being “busy.”  I was once told that the word ‘busy’ is represented by two symbols in the Japanese language.  The first symbol represents “people.”  The second symbol represents “destroyer.”  Therefore, a translation of the Japanese symbols for busy is “people-destroyer.”

Being busy is not productive.  Consciously deciding what to do with the time that we have is productive.  In fact, the word “decide” means to consciously figure out what not to do.

Don’t be busy.  Decide what you are not going to spend your time on and then consciously spend it on the things that are important. Those things should include (but not be limited to):

  • Health
  • Pleasure
  • Family
  • Your immortal soul
  • Reinventing yourself

Reinvent Yourself

Just don’t be busy!  Reinvent yourself!

Bennett says “You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.”

We all have excuses for not taking the time to reinvent ourselves.

  • Too Young – not enough experience
  • Too Old – can’t change my habits
  • Too Poor – no resources available
  • Too Rich – need to “protect” the wealth
  • Too Secure – if I change I might fail.  I’ll lose my security

What’s your excuse for not reinventing yourself?  Believe me, the world is moving much too fast not to reinvent yourself!

My father’s generation didn’t have the urgency.  The country was rebuilding after WWII and he was riding the wave.

My generation has needed to reinvent a few times.  I went from engineer to micro-computer entrepreneur to executive coach/consultant to animator.

My kid’s generations have moved even faster as the world changes around them.

My oldest grandson graduated from high school this year and I’m already watching him reinvent himself as he goes.

Time is Limited

24 new hours a day is a great gift.  But it’s easy to waste 10 minutes here or 2 hours there.  Its right use is the highest urgency.

Don’t be busy.  Reinvent yourself.

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Blog

Coronavirus and Deep Work

by Ron Potter

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

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.”

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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BlogTrust Me

Passionately-Focused Leaders

by Ron Potter

Staying focused is virtually impossible without passion. Passion is a craving deep within us, that yearning for something we feel we just must have. It surfaces in a multitude of ways. For example, consider the story of Patrick (Pádraic) Henry Pearse.

Headmaster at St. Edna’s, a small private college south of Dublin, Pearse’s passion was Ireland’s heritage, something he feared was being destroyed by the domination of the English.

Pearse was by nature a gentle man who could never harm even the smallest creature. He had spent his life helping his students understand and pursue their own big dreams. Pearse certainly was not considered a militant or a revolutionary. Yet he was driven by his passion for Ireland.

No longer able to watch the nation’s language, culture, and history eroding, he felt it was time “to pursue his own great goals that, in his words, ‘were dreamed in the heart and that only the heart could hold.’ ”4

He embraced the cause to reclaim Ireland and within a year was a leader of the Easter Rising, the Irish rebellion of 1916. After days of intense fighting, the British army defeated the revolutionaries, and on May 3, 1916, Pearse and others were executed in a jail in Dublin. The British leaders mistakenly thought this would put an end to the rebellion. But they did not understand the power of a person’s passion, as people across Ireland embraced Pearse’s ideas for saving Ireland and dreaming big dreams.

In 1921, Ireland declared freedom from England, and Pearse’s passion and dreams for the Irish culture came to fruition. Pádraic Henry Pearse’s passion ultimately forced a nation to find itself.

Finding our passion includes dreaming big. Ask yourself some questions:

Answers to questions like these will point you to your passion.

A friend of mine, the late Leonard Shatzkin, had a passion for mathematics that helped him become a pioneer in understanding the technicalities of inventory management. He developed a model of inventory control using linear regression that proved to be revolutionary for two companies he headed. But his passion didn’t just stop with benefits for his own organizations. Leonard then devoted the rest of his professional career to telling anyone who would listen about maximizing return on investment and minimizing overstocks.

That’s what passion is like; one way or another it demands expression. Even after his death, the effects of Leonard’s passion live on. His ideas and systems serve many individuals and organizations well.

Too often we allow old habits, the rigors of everyday life, and our ongoing fears or frustrations to impede our passion. We are cautioned by friends: “Don’t be so idealistic.” “Don’t be so daring.” “What if you fail?” These kinds of comments can shrink our passion so that we settle for working in fields away from our passion. We abandon it, we make do, and we play it safe.

Just as a mighty river needs a channel, passion needs a channel and a goal. Without such restraint, the result is a flood, a natural disaster. You need to make certain that you control your passion, not the other way around.

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BlogCulture

Walk away from Productivity Blocks

by Ron Potter

I was at my computer at 6:00 am this morning. Three and one-half hours later I was stuck! I was facing a difficult client meeting and it was requiring extreme concentration and creativity to deal with the issue in a constructive way. But, I just got stuck. So, I got up and took a long walk.

Fortunately, I was in a location where I could walk in solitude on a very quiet path through the woods. I took a 45-minute walk. Let me break that walk into thirds for you.

Conscious of my surroundings.

The first third of the walk I was totally conscious of the sounds of my steps, the slight breeze rustling through the trees and the few jays that loudly proclaimed my presence. Nothing else. All my work thoughts were subconscious.

Deep Understanding

Over the next 15 minutes, the concentrated work I had done that morning began to blend with the solitude of my walk. I can’t fully explain it other than my mind began to produce some very high-level understandings. In that 15 minutes, it became clear how I should organize, structure and present the materials.

Blended Experience – Organized Plan

The last 15 minutes of the walk was spent enjoying a little bit of both. I once again became conscious of the sound of my footsteps and jays, but at the same time, I began to see the structure for the meeting, the key points to be emphasized and the steps to success.

High Productivity

Upon returning to my computer the next half hour of work was just incredibly productive. I took all of that thought process from that deep 15 minutes of understanding, put the structure together and began filling in all the pieces. Moving from being stuck to a very satisfying completion with some deep work in between.

Getting past Stuck

When we find ourselves stuck after 3-1/2 hours of concentrated work, most of us will stick with it, stay at the computer, keep hacking away, work until we get at least what feels like a conclusion. And yet, walking away is likely to be the most productive approach. Not to our email. Not to the break room. Not to our news feeds. Just getting up and walking out. Walking through nature in complete silence for 30-45 minutes. That’s when the deep work happens.

Word of Caution

Please understand. I did not decide to spend 15 minutes on each phase of that walk. What I’m sharing with you is my reflection on how I moved from being stuck to some very satisfying work. I didn’t plan to take a walk to solve my problems. I planned to take a walk. Taking a walk lead to some very satisfying productivity.

Deep Work

Deep work! That’s the key. A good walk in the woods. (Note: the book Deep Work by Cal Newport is a great resource.)

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BlogCulture

The Motivation of Money

by Ron Potter

Clotaire Rapaille. If the name alone doesn’t fascinate you, his life story and his life work should.

I don’t have time to tell his story here but read his book The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as they Do

I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Rapaille for a short period years ago. But what I learned during that time sticks with me. Dr. Rapaille was performing a series of “syndicated studies” for major corporations around the world on various topics. One topic was about Rewards and Recognition, what motivated people. It was very clear from the global study that people were not motivated by money. In fact, it turns out that every time money is involved, in the form of a bonus, pay raise, profit sharing or whatever the mechanism, the deep-down belief in people was that the company had simply leveled the playing field using the money. Put simply, money was granted when they had already given the company an extraordinary effort. The company was simply “leveling the playing field” by rewarding them with money. Money was not a motivator, it simply made things even.

I know a young entrepreneur who is creating and growing a successful company. In my conversation with her the other day, she spoke of how she sits down with each employee at the beginning of the quarter to talk about how the employee wants to grow personally and what they would like to learn. They always find an opportunity for growth and development for the employee that would also benefit the company. By funding the personal growth and development of the employee she keeps them motivated and benefits the company through increased skills and capabilities.

Dr. Rapaille’s study answered the question, if not money, what was motivating. The answer to this began to take on the idea of a GPS system. All employees are on a journey to somewhere. There may be long-term goals and there are always short-term goals. Short-term goals might be related to having a young family and needing more time to be with them. Or trying to finish an advanced degree and needing the resources, time and tutoring to accomplish the goal. Long-term goals might include living in a particular geographical region, reaching a certain level of corporate leadership or even retiring at a young age.

The conclusion of the study? To really reward and motivate your people, you must know them and their journey. You must understand their GPS system and where they’re located on that trajectory. Once you’ve made enough personal connection with them to understand their current location, reward them by helping them get to the next mile-marker on the journey.

  • After a period of heavy dedication, send them home for a few days with their family.
  • Give them some time off to study for that next exam. Offer the help of someone who knows the topic well.
  • Give them some great feedback and then training to help them with the next stage of professional growth, not a one-size-fits-all training and development.
  • Whatever reward personally benefits them, that’s rewarding!

Two decades ago it took a high priced, global study to help managers understand what’s motivating to their employees. My young entrepreneur understood it instinctively.

Every leader/manager I know is asking me about the millennials and what motivates them. It seems to be a mystery. I have one piece of solid advice. Don’t ask me. Ask them!

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BlogCulture

Anyway Help

by Ron Potter

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

Sometimes people want to remain victims. It doesn’t require any accountability.

Sometimes people feel inadequate and if you help them it just proves the point.

Sometimes people don’t want your help, they just want your friendship and support.

First, make sure you understand your own motives before you try to help. A welfare society appears to want to help but it’s about keeping power and control. Are your helping motives pure?

Sometimes we try to help because we feel superior and the other person is incapable of helping themselves. Helping supports our superior feelings. Are your helping motives pure?

Sometimes we’re just being helpful. No power, no reward, no motives, just lending a helping hand. But people may still attack. Help anyway.

Headlines from a wonderful little book titled Anyway by Kent Keith

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BlogCulture

Flow

by Ron Potter

Daniel Pink spoke often of getting into the flow in his book Drive. You know you’ve been in flow when you look up and you’ve completely lost track of time. You’re so engaged in your work that time is not a consideration. You’re in the flow.

Even though I experience it on a regular basis I hadn’t heard the word recently until an article by Srinivas Rao titled “What it takes to lead an extremely high flow life” caught my eye. The hints that it took to get into high flow included:

  • Avoid Interruptions
  • Work for long enough to get into flow
  • Do deep work

Sounds simple enough. Every team I work with lately is telling me how wonderful it is to avoid the interruptions of their daily routines. Avoiding the interruptions rewards them with the time they need to really get into some deep work. NOT!

Every team I’m engaged with is asking me to help them with the stress and pressure of their business lives. I’m observing mental stress, emotional stress, and physical stress. People are getting sick, losing touch with their family and friends and feeling that they never have enough time to get into the work that they’re good at, enjoy and have been hired to accomplish.

Why have we allowed these things to happen to us? Everybody seems to understand that it’s happening and it’s destructive but there seems to be a sense of helplessness to get out of the tornado, plant your feet on the ground and get some work done. Why?

I believe one of the reasons (maybe the main one) is that we’ve lost our ability to say No! I just finished reading “The Power of a Positive No”. It’s good to understand why we’re hesitant to say No. The book offers what it calls the Three-A Trap:

  • Accommodate: We say yes when we want to say no.
  • Attack: We say no poorly
  • Avoid: We say nothing at all

And The Combination is the deadly mix of all three. Our reasons for not saying No are powerful; I don’t want to lose my job, I don’t want to damage our relationship, I don’t want to look ignorant, and the list goes on. But what are we doing by not saying No? Destruction and falling short of our goals. Not good things.

The simple word decide can be an answer. Think of all the words you know that end in “cide”. Cide in Latin means “put to death”. When we decide, we’re not supposed to keep saying yes to everything. We’re supposed to declare what we’re not going to do so that we can accomplish the important things.

Have you decided what you’re not going to do today? It’s the only way to get into deep work and flow. Enjoy the journey.

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Absurd!BlogIn-Depth Book Reviews

Absurd!: PRAISE WILL GET YOU NOWHERE!

by Ron Potter

I’m continuing my series on an in-depth look at a wonderful little book that’s twenty years old this year.  The title is Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson.  You may want to consider dropping back and reading the previous posts about ABSURD!  I think it will put each new one in great context.

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Praising People Does Not Motivate Them

Praise is very useful indeed as a lubricant to help keep our human relations in good working order.  For one thing, people expect it.  This is the one area where our author praises praise.  People do enjoy being appreciated and it does improve relationships.  But as a motivator, not so much.

One area in which we can really see and almost feel this principle at work is when the work of a high- status person is praised by a low-status person; it is often seen as presumptuous or even insulting.  We’ve all been there and cringed at the moment, thinking of the person providing the praise as really sucking up or being completely unaware of how inappropriate their praise is coming across.

In the opposite direction giving praise establishes the fact that the giver is in a position to sit in judgment of the receiver.  Receiving praise in this circumstance can feel very threatening or at a minimum very uncomfortable even if the praise is positive.  We get uncomfortable when we’re being judged; good or bad.

So how do we motivate if praise doesn’t work?  We take the time to get engaged.  We learn, listen, understand, ask useful or sometimes naïve questions to stimulate our thinking.  Our author says, “What really does release creativity and promote achievement is when a manager takes the time to get involved in the employee’s work – learning what direction the work is taking, the problems and possibilities it presents, the way the employee is dealing with the task.  But involvement is demanding and time-consuming, which probably explains why many manager resort to praise as a substitute, hoping that it will accomplish the same results.”

Learning, listening and sharing.  Dealing with the other person as a smart, whole, capable human being.  Now that’s motivating.  When someone cares enough to take the time to listen, learn and understand it really engages people.

Too many leaders are focused on “doing” rather than growing.  If you only use praise and criticism, you’ll find yourself falling farther and farther behind because you’ve not taken the time to connect with your people on a real human level by getting engaged with them and their work.  Don’t just praise, motivate!

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BlogTrust Me

Effective Team Goal Setting

by Ron Potter
Image source: Steven Depolo, Creative Commons

Image source: Steven Depolo, Creative Commons

What is a high-achievement goal? Studies show that high achievers set goals that they feel they have a 70 to 80 percent chance of accomplishing.

Some leaders feel you have to set goals that are almost unachievable just to keep people motivated and pushing harder. They would scoff at the idea of a goal that you had a 75 percent chance of accomplishing. However, research and my observation show that people will perform consistently the best and at a high level of accomplishment when the chances of success fall in that narrow window of 50 to 75 percent probability. If the goal has a greater than 75 percent chance of completion, high achievers (and most people) feel the goal is too easy. But high achievers want the publicly stated goal to be around that 75 percent range. Then, in their own minds, they will shoot for a much higher goal—one that they feel they may have only a fifty-fifty chance of accomplishing. They like this more-challenging goal because they feel it is their personal effort that will make the difference between the stated goal and this internal higher target.

But all studies show that once the stated goal has less than a fifty-fifty chance of success, it is no longer a motivating target. The chances of success are too slim.

I observed a fascinating example of this phenomenon when the leadership team for a client discussed the goal that had been publicly set by the CEO for them to accomplish over the next five years. We could tell by the team’s discussion that they felt this goal was at or near the fifty-fifty odds range.

While the goal seemed very challenging, there was a sense in the group that it might be attainable and the results would be exciting. But when one of the team members present indicated that the goal had recently been increased to accomplish about 30 percent more over the same five years, everyone in the room rolled their eyes, threw down their pens or pencils, and hung or shook their heads. The spirit went out of them. They obviously felt the new goal had less than a fifty-fifty chance of being achieved, and hope plummeted.

The moral of the story for leaders: Goal setting is very critical to future success, and a great deal of thought and feedback should be collected before announcing high-level goals.

These goals may be broad goals stated to the public or to Wall Street. Or they may simply be individual goals that are set during annual review periods.

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