There once lived a great mathematician in a small country village. He was often called by the local king to advice on matters related to the economy. His reputation had spread far and wide. So it hurt him very much when the village headman told him, "You may be a great mathematician who advises the king on economic matters but your son does not know the value of gold or silver."
The mathematician called his son and asked, "What is more valuable - gold or silver?" "Gold," said the son. "That is correct. Why is it then that the village headman makes fun of you, and claims you do not know the value of gold or silver? He teases me every day. He mocks me before other village elders as a father who has failed to educate his son. This hurts me. I feel everyone in the village is laughing behind my back because you do not know what is more valuable, gold or silver. Explain this to me, son."
So the son of the mathematician told his father the reason why the village headman carried this impression. "Every day on my way to school, the village headman calls me to his house. There, in front of all village elders, he holds out a silver coin in one hand and a gold coin in other. He asks me to pick up the more valuable coin. I pick the silver coin. He laughs, the elders jeer, and everyone makes fun of me. And then I go to school. This happens every day. That is why they tell you I do not know the value of gold or silver."
The father was confused. His son knew the value of gold and silver, and yet when asked to choose between a gold coin and silver coin always picked the silver coin. "Why don't you pick up the gold coin?" he asked. In response, the son took the father to his room and showed him a box. In the box were at least a hundred silver coins. Turning to his father, the mathematician's son said, "The day I pick up the gold coin the game will stop; they will stop having their fun and I will stop making money."
Sometimes in life, we have to play the fool because our seniors and our peers, and sometimes even our juniors like it. That does not mean we lose in the game of life. It just means allowing others to win in one arena of the game, while we win in another arena of the game.
We have to choose which arena matters to us and which arenas do not.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
What are you missing?
Opportunities are all around us - if only we can see them and take action...
I was just watching a National Geographic TV programme about African wildlife, specifically watching a black-headed crane diligently searching in the grass for the grubs etc that it eats. I noticed a large fly, or maybe flying insect, buzzing around the crane's head while the crane continued foraging. SUDDENLY the crane flicks its head up and snaffles the tasty treat that had been buzzing around it. The incident left me wondering...
...what opportunities might I be missing that are there all around me but I do not notice because I am so focussed on my current task?
Had Alexander Fleming thrown away that Petrie dish containing the penicillium mould just becasue it was not the desired outcome, who knows how many more people would have died of curable ailments before someone else discovered penicillin? We need to work with the paradox of focussing on a clear outcome whilst remaining open to all and any posibilities.
I was just watching a National Geographic TV programme about African wildlife, specifically watching a black-headed crane diligently searching in the grass for the grubs etc that it eats. I noticed a large fly, or maybe flying insect, buzzing around the crane's head while the crane continued foraging. SUDDENLY the crane flicks its head up and snaffles the tasty treat that had been buzzing around it. The incident left me wondering...
...what opportunities might I be missing that are there all around me but I do not notice because I am so focussed on my current task?
Had Alexander Fleming thrown away that Petrie dish containing the penicillium mould just becasue it was not the desired outcome, who knows how many more people would have died of curable ailments before someone else discovered penicillin? We need to work with the paradox of focussing on a clear outcome whilst remaining open to all and any posibilities.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Bring some wonder into your life
I was listening to the radio this morning and heard this quotation from Will Fyffe, an early/mid 20th century music hall entertainer "You are about to see something wonderful - a Scotsman doing something for free". He was performing for the troops in the 2nd World War.
It left me wondering about what I do that is wonderful, the things that I do (or would do) for free because they inspire me so much; the things that bring joy into my life; the things that really feed my core values.
When we are doing these things we come alive, we can focus for hours on end, we just know that we are making a difference, we do not need any external motivation it's all coming from inside ourselves.
So - what is it that YOU do that is wonderful?
How can you find ways to do more of these things?
How would life be if your 'job' was about doing the stuff that was wonderful?
It left me wondering about what I do that is wonderful, the things that I do (or would do) for free because they inspire me so much; the things that bring joy into my life; the things that really feed my core values.
When we are doing these things we come alive, we can focus for hours on end, we just know that we are making a difference, we do not need any external motivation it's all coming from inside ourselves.
So - what is it that YOU do that is wonderful?
How can you find ways to do more of these things?
How would life be if your 'job' was about doing the stuff that was wonderful?
Change is emotional
A recent incident at home reminded me of the sometimes extreme challenges of change. I won't go into the incident but it helped me to recollect that individuals change at their own pace.
The business case my be compelling, the organisational rationale all-encompassing etc but at the end of the day individuals have emotional attachments to what currently IS. It is those emotional attachments that we ultimately have to address - the pain of changing has to be lower than the pain of staying put, otherwise what does the rational person do but stay put!
Remember also that sometimes it is the pain of the process, rather than the end-point, that is the challenge. This is an arena not for rational dialogue but for comfort, support and belief that the individual will find their own way through their own pain.
Always remember that effective change leadership is more about the people than the process!
The business case my be compelling, the organisational rationale all-encompassing etc but at the end of the day individuals have emotional attachments to what currently IS. It is those emotional attachments that we ultimately have to address - the pain of changing has to be lower than the pain of staying put, otherwise what does the rational person do but stay put!
Remember also that sometimes it is the pain of the process, rather than the end-point, that is the challenge. This is an arena not for rational dialogue but for comfort, support and belief that the individual will find their own way through their own pain.
Always remember that effective change leadership is more about the people than the process!
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Process or People - helping change happen.
There is a really interesting discussion in a forum to which I subscribe about organisational change, under the general title of “What is missing”. It got my juices flowing, so here are some of my thoughts on the topic…
I find myself yawning at those change practitioners who go on about Change Project Management, Business Cases, n-Step Processes and anything to do with the hard/systems/processes/procedures/models aspects of change. This stuff is at the easy end of the spectrum - it's essentially a technical issue and in the arena of 'puzzles', ultimately solveable.
I label proponents of such programmed approaches the "it's Thursday, so it must be Module 17b" merchants.
Conversely, my juices flow when anyone considers the people involved (do you know, I almost used the phrase 'wetware' but that soooo... degrades the people to an abstract concept and misses the point!). It's the people that are the real, and un-programmable, challenge. We all have our different motivations, propensities towards change, desires for involvement, abilities/desires to learn, etc and any change wallah (let's not get back into manager or leader!) who fails to address the different needs of every single individual involved in or associated with the change faces an uphill and potentially disastrous challenge. I vividly remember upsetting a newish MD who spouted to the workforce about the changes he was going to make before being challenged along the lines of "Well, that is what you want, what you will get is what the 4500 employees are prepared to give you" (I said it and we never really saw eye-to-eye thereafter!).
So, I would like to see MUCH more attention paid to how to work effectively with the humans in the system - they can and will deliver the change when they understand and feel the imperative for change, when they understand and feel what is in it for them and when they have a real change to be involved in designing and delivering the parts of the change that interest and/or affect them.
I have learned to 'do what I can, where I can, when I can', working with whoever is willing and able at the time to move the agenda forward. One willing partner is worth a hundred unwillingly donkeys.
Change is not a linear process, progress very rarely follows a predeterminable plan, it often runs across rocky territory, meeting unexpected obstacles along the way. It's fairly straightforward to produce a Work Breakdown Structure and a Gantt Chart for designing a piece of software (which, BTW is NOT change management despite what many IT guys woudl claim!)or even redesigning a business process. What is a lot more difficult (dare I say impossible?) is anticipating and planning for the many different people issues that will emerge at different times throughout the process. Yes, there will be some resistance, but I cannot say it will appear in Week 17 and be handled using Process #27 with a duration of 3 weeks; it will appear when it appears, at different times from different people (even in respect of the same technical change). Which is not to say that planning is not important – it’s the plan that isn’t.
The easiest way to get a lorry to roll downhill is to remove the chocks under the wheels, take off the brakes and make sure it is out of gear - you need all three otherwise it will stay where it is. Someone on the steering wheel helps, but I promise you that if the first three conditions are met, the lorry WILL go downhill. The 'someone on the steering wheel' needs to be very conscious of the dynamics (culture?) of the vehicle; you can no more turn a 30 tonne lorry on a sixpence than change a multimillion organisation in a week. I remember learning to drive and making BIG turns of the steering wheel, now I know that a gentle adjustment will get me what I want much more efficiently and smoothly.
My experience is that the more attention, and resource, is given to helping the people in the system understand and work in the change, the more effective the change.
I find myself yawning at those change practitioners who go on about Change Project Management, Business Cases, n-Step Processes and anything to do with the hard/systems/processes/procedures/models aspects of change. This stuff is at the easy end of the spectrum - it's essentially a technical issue and in the arena of 'puzzles', ultimately solveable.
I label proponents of such programmed approaches the "it's Thursday, so it must be Module 17b" merchants.
Conversely, my juices flow when anyone considers the people involved (do you know, I almost used the phrase 'wetware' but that soooo... degrades the people to an abstract concept and misses the point!). It's the people that are the real, and un-programmable, challenge. We all have our different motivations, propensities towards change, desires for involvement, abilities/desires to learn, etc and any change wallah (let's not get back into manager or leader!) who fails to address the different needs of every single individual involved in or associated with the change faces an uphill and potentially disastrous challenge. I vividly remember upsetting a newish MD who spouted to the workforce about the changes he was going to make before being challenged along the lines of "Well, that is what you want, what you will get is what the 4500 employees are prepared to give you" (I said it and we never really saw eye-to-eye thereafter!).
So, I would like to see MUCH more attention paid to how to work effectively with the humans in the system - they can and will deliver the change when they understand and feel the imperative for change, when they understand and feel what is in it for them and when they have a real change to be involved in designing and delivering the parts of the change that interest and/or affect them.
I have learned to 'do what I can, where I can, when I can', working with whoever is willing and able at the time to move the agenda forward. One willing partner is worth a hundred unwillingly donkeys.
Change is not a linear process, progress very rarely follows a predeterminable plan, it often runs across rocky territory, meeting unexpected obstacles along the way. It's fairly straightforward to produce a Work Breakdown Structure and a Gantt Chart for designing a piece of software (which, BTW is NOT change management despite what many IT guys woudl claim!)or even redesigning a business process. What is a lot more difficult (dare I say impossible?) is anticipating and planning for the many different people issues that will emerge at different times throughout the process. Yes, there will be some resistance, but I cannot say it will appear in Week 17 and be handled using Process #27 with a duration of 3 weeks; it will appear when it appears, at different times from different people (even in respect of the same technical change). Which is not to say that planning is not important – it’s the plan that isn’t.
The easiest way to get a lorry to roll downhill is to remove the chocks under the wheels, take off the brakes and make sure it is out of gear - you need all three otherwise it will stay where it is. Someone on the steering wheel helps, but I promise you that if the first three conditions are met, the lorry WILL go downhill. The 'someone on the steering wheel' needs to be very conscious of the dynamics (culture?) of the vehicle; you can no more turn a 30 tonne lorry on a sixpence than change a multimillion organisation in a week. I remember learning to drive and making BIG turns of the steering wheel, now I know that a gentle adjustment will get me what I want much more efficiently and smoothly.
My experience is that the more attention, and resource, is given to helping the people in the system understand and work in the change, the more effective the change.
Friday, 20 August 2010
Stuff happens - we can choose how to deal with it...
Something in an article I was reading reminded me of the acronym CIA when used to ‘deal’ with the stuff that happens around us.
C – can I Control the situation? If the situation does turn out to be controllable then do so and get on with life. Most likely it isn’t (we can’t even control our own breathing, heart rate etc for more than a few minutes) so get on with life…
I – can I Influence the situation? Always (yes, always!) a matter of choice. A little fella called Ghandi decided to influence the Brits out of India when others gave up. Conversely you might decide not to influence the situation (I did/do not agree with the Iraq War but decided not to go on the million man march in the UK). If you choose not to influence then accept and get on with life…
A – am I prepared to Accept the situation? (See Iraq above) If I am going to accept the situation, and if I cannot control nor choose to influence then I have no other choices, then accept it fully and get on with life…
C – can I Control the situation? If the situation does turn out to be controllable then do so and get on with life. Most likely it isn’t (we can’t even control our own breathing, heart rate etc for more than a few minutes) so get on with life…
I – can I Influence the situation? Always (yes, always!) a matter of choice. A little fella called Ghandi decided to influence the Brits out of India when others gave up. Conversely you might decide not to influence the situation (I did/do not agree with the Iraq War but decided not to go on the million man march in the UK). If you choose not to influence then accept and get on with life…
A – am I prepared to Accept the situation? (See Iraq above) If I am going to accept the situation, and if I cannot control nor choose to influence then I have no other choices, then accept it fully and get on with life…
Education, education, education...
I have shamelessly ripped this piece off from a piece written by John Wood that I read in "What Matters Now", a free ebook distributed via Seth Godin's blog.
Education has a ripple effect. One drop can initiate a cascade of possibility, each concentric circle gaining in size and travelling further.
If you get education right, you get many things right: escape from poverty, better family health, and improved status of women.
Educate a girl, and you educate her children and generations to follow.
Yet for hundreds of millions of kids in the developing world, the ripple never begins. Instead, there’s a seemingly inescapable whirlpool of poverty. In the words of a headmaster I once met in Nepal: “We are too poor to afford education.
But until we have education, we will always be poor.” That’s why there are 300 million children in the developing world who woke up this morning and did not go to school. And why there are over 750 million people unable to read and write, nearly 2/3 of whom are girls and women.
I dream of a world in which we’ve changed that. A world with thousands of new schools. Tens of thousands of new libraries. Each with equal access
for all children.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.
The second best time is now.
John Wood is Founder & Executive Chairman, Room to Read,
which has built over 850 schools and opened over 7,500 libraries serving 3 million children.
For those of us who have the chance of education, make sure we take it; for those hundreds of millions who do not, what are YOU going to do to help make it happen?
Education has a ripple effect. One drop can initiate a cascade of possibility, each concentric circle gaining in size and travelling further.
If you get education right, you get many things right: escape from poverty, better family health, and improved status of women.
Educate a girl, and you educate her children and generations to follow.
Yet for hundreds of millions of kids in the developing world, the ripple never begins. Instead, there’s a seemingly inescapable whirlpool of poverty. In the words of a headmaster I once met in Nepal: “We are too poor to afford education.
But until we have education, we will always be poor.” That’s why there are 300 million children in the developing world who woke up this morning and did not go to school. And why there are over 750 million people unable to read and write, nearly 2/3 of whom are girls and women.
I dream of a world in which we’ve changed that. A world with thousands of new schools. Tens of thousands of new libraries. Each with equal access
for all children.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.
The second best time is now.
John Wood is Founder & Executive Chairman, Room to Read,
which has built over 850 schools and opened over 7,500 libraries serving 3 million children.
For those of us who have the chance of education, make sure we take it; for those hundreds of millions who do not, what are YOU going to do to help make it happen?
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