A muddied reflection

Blink for self-awareness

A bit behind the times, so please forgive me, but I just finished "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. Good stuff for the arsenal of self-awareness and recognition of the power of our unconscious. What I find most fascinating is the opportunity that it provides those seeking development of their personal leadership style. What better information can we receive than to know that we actually do make immediate judgments in most (all?) situations! Armed with that information...I'm clearly in a WMD mood...one can make a conscious decision on how he/she wants to show up, and adjust accordingly. Now, there may be some absolute, fantastical unconscious that is our current "true-self" -- as evidenced by the work demonstrated by John Gottman that is able to predict divorce with frightening accuracy -- but for the majority of business and personal situations, the awareness of the physical manifestation of our feelings can be used to enable our desired response.

I know, I know...isn't our natural response our true self? I don't think so. We've all been engrained with bias through our experiences and interactions and that betrays our conscious intent. I want to be a better person...that is, not discriminate on any level, judge people or their business intellect by their appearance, etc., etc., but I do it. Recognizing this natural condition, slowing down a bit, looking inward, we can then generate our TRUE self. Who we want to be.

I'm also glad that I'm over 6 feet tall.

I'm not making this up

If you aren't reading CPU (creating passionate users)...well...you should be.

I think I've commented on the power of iterating, yes? There is a growing wave of acceptance and recognition of the power of learn-as-you-go (said another way.) The growing manifesto of a Lean-Agile infrastructure.

Nobody said this would be easy

The development and spreading of the leadership virus sure isn't easy. Without a profound desire to learn, the benefits seem so obscure that I find that many people lack the commitment to pursue their own development. At the end of the day, this has the opposite effect that they originally intended. Forego individual development for the sake of immediate, quick hit wins of execution...the proverbial "stuff that's on my plate"...and in the end everyone suffers.

The enterprise loses the ability to achieve exponential velocity toward the long term success; consumers suffer as a result; and, the individual ultimately fades from their potential. No easy task to balance the pressures of the day-to-day, and even harder (potentially) to help people escape this vicious spiral. Can you incent a desire to learn and grow? Rare is the corporation that provides incentives on potential versus performance. Darn those pesky shareholders.

I love this

I'm not proud of my ability to find humor at the expense of others...well not real proud...but I do love what politicians bring to my life.

I blame someone else cause I'm an idiot...

Churn, baby, churn

Consider this quote from Guy Kawasaki's "Rules for Revolutionaries"...

"As a rule of thumb, revolutionaries should strive to make the optimal solution feasible -- as opposed to making the feasible solution optimal."

Get it out there. Iterate. Learn as you go. The common mistake to interpreting this basic concept is to think that it's ok to put crap out in your market. Whether your market happens to be a paying consumer base or an internal corporate associate group is irrelevant. This is the power of an Agile development lifecycle -- making possibilities real. Over 50% of software functionality is wasted! That being true, then move away from the natural calling for a perfect, turnkey solution. Defined well, perfection doesn't exist. Churn. Try. Learn & Burn. Whatever you want to call it, live the waffle mantra (just do it -- ok, a stretch on the obscure reference.)

The concept here is critical and I can't stress enough the application of this learning to things above and beyond software development. Consider your stereotypical "project management" approach to any initiative that you may take...gather all requirements; understand and document all that your customer wants; translate that into a perfect solution; start execution. Waste. It's an enabler to those that are uncomfortable with uncertainty and trust. Push thinking to the highest priority that is needed, build it, and reassess. You'll make that optimal solution feasible by making something happen. Don't wait. When it comes to value to market, remember what is true in the long run...

True Leadership...the Lean way

The foundation of true innovation and revolution in any larger corporation -- and probably smaller firms, for that matter, although there is a bit more flexibility in that envronment -- is a demonstration of Lean Principles by senior leaders. Leaders, not managers. In a culture of Lean principles, managers are not nearly as relevant as individuals that believe and demonstrate, day in and day out, that they are there to inspire answers by their teams, not provide solutions. Of course, "never" is in an ideal state that perhaps can't be achieved, yet a dictate or prescribed request on a team should be such the exception that everyone knows that something in the system is off and instigating the behavior.

Hard to do? You betcha. Next time you need something of your team/direct report/mentee, talk with them about the context of the need. What's driving the request? What are your expectations on the guardrails for coming up with a solution? That done, pay close attention to how you react to challenges or personal frustrations. Solutions or options not as deep or intuitive as you would like? Sit in on a working meeting and offer perspective, don't tell the team what you want done.

A lot of "managers" claim to want to provide inspirational leadership but lack the patience, dedication, or competencies to pull it off. Don't be one to talk about how important "people" are to you...live it every day in every opportunity. The people that you are trying to inspire will recognize it and be incredibly motivated.

leonard bernstein

Ah, politics. I think of the House as this bastion of radical polarity. Hardly "representative," more a place to generate momentum and create a fervor among the parties. Tomorrow's Senate hearings on the cataclysmic neutral net should be fascinating.

As outlined by countless blogs and experts, you can find reasonable arguments to support on either side of the debate. I want to land on the side of keeping government out of the web regulatory business, yet question their ability to intervene efficiently and reasonably should the end of days scenario play out where poor souls looking to promote a startup and live the capitalist dream are locked out by the big fish that are the only ones that can afford to pay a premium from the evil backbone owners. That being said, it seems reasonable to think that some free-market competition could go a long way to promote a progressive infrastructure build.

At least we have our leaders to look out for us and make the informed decision that speaks the voice of the people. Something like that.

Does "Lean" say it all?

I'm not ashamed to say that, potentially, the most influential reading I have experienced to date is the seminal "Lean Thinking." Seemingly basic in concept, yet truly revolutionary if a company/org/person deeply internalizes and applies the major concepts: The customer defines the value; identify and optimize within the product value stream; maximize the flow of value within the value stream; enable the customer to pull their value; and, perfect the flow of value.

What we (my work team...the proverbial "we") have begun to discover and exploit are the deeper meanings that make up these 5 primary principles. A primary example is that a team provides better results than the individual. A value stream is the collection of activities required for the development of a product -- so the collection of that group of activities (often, people) provides for a greater result than a connection of separate functional groups. It's the team, the variety of perspectives and experience. This concept of team can be applied in a more liberal sense to great advances in identifying and optimizing processes, technology, work culture, and associate growth and learning.

The truly revolutionary concepts are those that can be generalized to be part of the whole system. Subjective application, to be sure, but what great aspiration than to bring your team to a level that learning is really about the deeper embedded concepts that support the multitude of B-books?

There is much evil in the world, Grasshopper

Ah, but to roam the earth in search of answers. Alas, I am compelled to do so from the confines of my cube-like space, but with an uncommon freedom to think about how things should be rather than within the confines of rote execution. Welcome to my adventure and quest for learning. I can't tell you for sure where this will lead, but it is for certain with the intent to find the beauty available in the world of business process integration. A system of the work, if you will.