├── images └── blooms-taxonomy.jpg ├── README.md ├── the-art-of-gathering.md ├── .github └── ISSUE_TEMPLATE │ └── zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md ├── understanding-computation └── understanding-computation.md ├── make-it-stick.md ├── dare-to-lead.md ├── resilient-management.md ├── the-first-90-days.md ├── conflict-without-casualties.md └── primed-to-perform.md /images/blooms-taxonomy.jpg: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Blackmill/book-club/HEAD/images/blooms-taxonomy.jpg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # book-club 2 | 3 | Book club weekly notes 4 | 5 | This is an open book club. You don't need to work at Blackmill or be a client. 6 | You don't even need to know us! 7 | If the current book interests you, do the reading, 8 | and jump on Whereby at the right time to have a friendly conversation. 9 | Hopefully we'll all learn something from the book and each other. 10 | 11 | You can see where we're up to in the issues: https://github.com/Blackmill/book-club/issues 12 | 13 | See you Wednesdays, at 12pm Melbourne time: https://blackmill.whereby.com/bookclub 14 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /the-art-of-gathering.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # The art of gathering 2 | 3 | - CH1: What is the reason for the gathering 4 | - Category is not enough 5 | - Commit to something 6 | - Purpose defines who should be invited 7 | - CH2: Who and Where 8 | - Inviting is easy, excluding is hard 9 | - Group size -> different group dynamics 10 | - Venue is important 11 | - The château principle 12 | - Density suggestions 13 | - CH3: Be an active host 14 | - Being a “child” host is doing a disservice to your guests. 15 | Instead acknowledge that you have a role, power, and authority 16 | - It’s not enough to set purpose, direction, and ground rules, 17 | you also need to enforce these 18 | - Generous authority 19 | - Example Alamo Draft House or Impact Hub LA 20 | - Connect your guests 21 | - Nora Abousteit rules for a host 22 | - CH4: Create a temp escape from reality 23 | - Etiquette vs pop up rules 24 | - Example: I am here days 25 | - CH5: Don’t start with logistics 26 | - Priming, before the event even starts, 27 | can be as simple as an email telling guests 28 | what to bring 29 | - Ushering: psychological threshold 30 | - Launching: don’t start with talking about sponsors, or logistics, 31 | but instead by defining why we are gathered 32 | - CH6: 15 toasts 33 | - Find ways to connect your guests, and help them be vulnerable 34 | - Dark themes 35 | - Sometimes it is easier to share with a stranger - 36 | that doesn't already have an image of who you’re supposed to be. Fresh eyes 37 | - CH7: Cause good controversy 38 | - Get people to take a side, instead of being polite and not making a decision 39 | - Heat maps, safe spaces, and ground rules. 40 | Issues are complicated when they threaten people’s fears, needs, or self of identity. 41 | - Questions to ask: what would be the benefit in bringing something up? 42 | What is the risk? Is it worth it? Can it be done with care? 43 | - CH8: Don’t end with logistics 44 | - Purposeful closing leaves a lasting taste, and reconnect with real life. 45 | Recall the purpose 46 | - Gathering are temporary 47 | - Last call 48 | - Anatomy of closing: looking inward and turning outward. 49 | A chance to reconnect one last time before the gathering ends 50 | 51 | 52 | priyaparker.com has a free PDF download with a summarised version of this book. 53 | 54 | You can also check: https://blog.12min.com/the-art-of-gathering-pdf-summary/ 55 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | --- 2 | name: Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance 3 | about: a template for the Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance weekly book session 4 | title: 'Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance: : Chapters ' 5 | labels: '' 6 | assignees: '' 7 | 8 | --- 9 | 10 | # Book: Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance: 40th Anniversary Edition by Robert Pirsig 11 | ## Aiming to read: 12 | 13 | ## Table of Contents TBC 14 | Part I ........................................ 5 15 | 1 ............................................... 6 16 | 2 .............................................. 14 17 | 3 .............................................. 19 18 | 4 .............................................. 24 19 | 5 .............................................. 29 20 | 7 .............................................. 42 21 | 22 | Part II ....................................... 49 23 | 8 .............................................. 50 24 | 9 .............................................. 55 25 | 10 ............................................ 58 26 | 11 ............................................. 62 27 | 12 ............................................. 71 28 | 13 ............................................. 76 29 | 14 ............................................. 80 30 | 15 ............................................. 90 31 | 32 | Part III ....................................... 96 33 | 16 ............................................. 97 34 | 17 ............................................. 105 35 | 18 ............................................. 110 36 | 19 ............................................. 117 37 | 20 ............................................ 125 38 | 21 ............................................. 132 39 | 22 ............................................. 134 40 | 23 ............................................. 141 41 | 24 ............................................. 143 42 | 25 ............................................. 150 43 | 26 ............................................. 156 44 | 45 | Part IV ....................................... 169 46 | 27 .............................................. 170 47 | 28 .............................................. 171 48 | 29 .............................................. 182 49 | 30 .............................................. 196 50 | 31 ............................................... 205 51 | 32 ............................................... 211 52 | 53 | MC: 54 | 55 | See you all at 12pm AEDT, @ https://blackmill.whereby.com/bookclub 56 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /understanding-computation/understanding-computation.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Understanding Computation 2 | 3 | [Understanding Computation](https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Computation-Machines-Impossible-Programs-ebook/dp/B00CT3C4IM) by Tom Stuart. 4 | > _...learn computation theory and programming language design in an engaging, practical way. Understanding Computation explains theoretical computer science in a context you’ll recognise, helping you appreciate why these ideas matter and how they can inform your day-to-day programming._ 5 | 6 | ## Chapter 1: Just Enough Ruby 7 | 8 | _Our conversation moved through this pretty quickly as most of the group are Rubyists to some degree._ 9 | 10 | ## Chapter 2: The Meaning of Programs 11 | 12 | __Compared to Knuth’s stuff, this is more accessible, but we still struggled. It's the first technical book we've done and 13 | we need to find a format that works. We've agreed to spend another week re-reading Chapter 2 and especially working through 14 | the code to see if we can find a clearer understanding and generate more to talk about.__ 15 | 16 | _There are a bunch of different ways of doing semantics: he’ll work through three._ 17 | 18 | We use programming languages to clarify complex ideas to ourselves, communicate those ideas to each other, and, most important, implement those ideas inside our computers. 19 | 20 | But computer programming isn't really about programs, it's about ideas. A program is a frozen representation of an idea, a snapshot of a structure that once existed in a programmer's imagination. => meaning 21 | 22 | In linguistics, semantics is the study of the connection between words and their meanings... In computer science, the field of formal semantics is concerned with finding ways to define meanings of programs and how to prove abstract concepts. (for example math equations) 23 | 24 | Programming languages needs: syntax and semantics. 25 | 26 | ### Syntax 27 | 28 | Every programming language comes with a collection of rules that describe what kind of character strings may be considered valid programs in that language; these rules specify the language's syntax. 29 | 30 | ### Operational semantics 31 | 32 | The most practical way to think about the meaning of a program is what it does—when we run the program, what do we expect to happen? 33 | 34 | ### Big step semantics 35 | 36 | For example, unlike Ruby, SIMPLE is a language that makes a distinction between expressions, which return a value, and statements, which don't. 37 | 38 | If we added more elaborate features to the language—data structures, procedure calls, exceptions, an object system—we'd need to make many more design decisions and express them unambiguously in the semantic definition. 39 | 40 | Small-step semantics has a mostly iterative flavour, requiring the abstract machine to repeatedly perform reduction steps. 41 | 42 | The idea of big-step semantics is to specify how to get from an expression or statement straight to its result. This necessarily involves thinking about program execution as a recursive rather than an iterative process. 43 | 44 | Big-step semantics is often written in a looser style that just says which subcomputations to perform without necessarily specifying what order to perform them in. Small-step semantics also gives us an easy way to observe the intermediate stages of a computation, whereas big-step semantics just returns a result and doesn't produce any direct evidence of how it was computed. 45 | 46 | ```rb 47 | class Number 48 | def evaluate(environment) 49 | self 50 | end 51 | end 52 | 53 | class Add 54 | def evaluate(environment) 55 | Number.new(left.evaluate(environment).value + right.evaluate(environment).value) 56 | end 57 | end 58 | 59 | class Assign 60 | def evaluate(environment) 61 | environment.merge({ name => expression.evaluate(environment) }) 62 | end 63 | end 64 | 65 | class DoNothing 66 | def evaluate(environment) 67 | environment 68 | end 69 | end 70 | ``` 71 | 72 | By contrast, this big-step implementation makes much greater use of the stack, relying entirely on it to remember where we are in the overall computation, to perform smaller computations as part of performing larger ones, and to keep track of how much evaluation is left to do. What looks like a single call to #evaluate actually turns into a series of recursive calls, each one evaluating a subprogram deeper within the syntax tree. 73 | 74 | It probably hasn't escaped your attention that, by writing down SIMPLE's small- and big- step semantics in Ruby instead of mathematics, we have implemented two different Ruby interpreters for it. 75 | 76 | ### Denotational semantics 77 | 78 | So far, we've looked at the meaning of programming languages from an operational perspective, explaining what a program means by showing what will happen when it's executed. Another approach, denotational semantics, is concerned instead with translating programs from their native language into some other representation. 79 | 80 | We've already seen operationally that an expression takes an environment and turns it into a value; one way to express this in Ruby is with a proc that takes some argument representing an environment argument and returns some Ruby object representing a value. For simple constant expressions like «5» and «false», we won't be using the environment at all, so we only need to worry about how their eventual result can be represented as a Ruby object. 81 | 82 | ```rb 83 | class Number 84 | def to_ruby 85 | "-> e { #{value.inspect} }" 86 | end 87 | end 88 | ``` 89 | 90 | Each of these methods produces a string that happens to contain Ruby code, and because Ruby is a language whose meaning we already understand, we can see that both of these strings are programs that build `proc`s. Each proc takes an environment argument called `e`, completely ignores it, and returns a Ruby value. 91 | 92 | At this stage, it's tempting to avoid procs entirely and use simpler implementations of #to_ruby that just turn `Number.new(5)` into the string '5' instead of `-> e { 5 }` and so on, but part of the point of building a denotational semantics is to capture the essence of constructs from the source language, and in this case, we're capturing the idea that expressions in general require an environment, even though these specific expressions don't make use of it. 93 | 94 | ```rb 95 | class Variable 96 | def to_ruby 97 | "-> e { e[#{name.inspect}] }" 98 | end 99 | end 100 | ``` 101 | This translates a variable expression into the source code of a Ruby proc that looks up the appropriate value in the environment hash. 102 | 103 | *Denotation: the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.* 104 | 105 | An important aspect of denotational semantics is that it's compositional: the denotation of a program is constructed from the denotations of its parts. We can see this compositionality in practice when we move onto denoting larger expressions like Add, Multi ply, and LessThan. 106 | 107 | ```rb 108 | class Add 109 | def to_ruby 110 | "-> e { (#{left.to_ruby}).call(e) + (#{right.to_ruby}).call(e) }" 111 | end 112 | end 113 | ``` 114 | 115 | Since statements return a modified environment, `Assign#to_ruby` needs to produce code for a `proc` whose result is an updated environment hash: 116 | 117 | ```rb 118 | class Assign 119 | def to_ruby 120 | "-> e { e.merge({ #{name.inspect} => (#{expression.to_ruby}).call(e) }) }" 121 | end 122 | end 123 | ``` 124 | 125 | To give this translation some explanatory power, it's helpful to bring parts of the language's meaning to the surface instead of allowing them to remain implicit. For example, this semantics makes the environment explicit by representing it as a tangible Ruby object—a hash that's passed in and out of procs—instead of denoting variables as real Ruby variables and relying on Ruby's own subtle scoping rules to specify how variable access works. 126 | 127 | ### Formal semantics in practice 128 | 129 | For example, since an operational semantics corresponds quite closely to the implementation of an interpreter, computer scientists can treat a suitable interpreter as an operational semantics for a language, and then prove its correctness with respect to a denotational semantics for that language—this means proving that there is a sensible connection between the meanings given by the interpreter and those given by the denotational semantics. 130 | 131 | Denotational semantics has the advantage of being more abstract than operational semantics, by ignoring the detail of how a program executes and concentrating instead on how to convert it into a different representation. 132 | 133 | ### Alternatives 134 | 135 | Other styles of formal semantics are available. One alternative is axiomatic semantics, which describes the meaning of a statement by making assertions about the state of the abstract machine before and after that statement executes: if one assertion (the pre- condition) is initially true before the statement is executed, then the other assertion (the postcondition) will be true afterward. Axiomatic semantics is useful for verifying the correctness of programs: as statements are plugged together to make larger programs, their corresponding assertions can be plugged together to make larger assertions, with the goal of showing that an overall assertion about a program matches up with its intended specification. (RSpec) 136 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /make-it-stick.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # 8: Make it stick 2 | 3 | ## Learning tips for students 4 | 5 | 1. **Retrieval practice** 6 | - when reading, pause periodically to ask questions: what are the key ideas? what terms or ideas are new? how would I define them? how do these relate to what I already know? 7 | - Interval self quizzes 8 | 1. **Spaced practice** 9 | - studying more than once but leaving considerable time between practice sessions 10 | - Establish a schedule for self-quizzing 11 | - Anything you want to remember must be periodically recalled from memory. 12 | 1. **Interleaved practice** 13 | - Interleave the study of different problem types 14 | - Blocked practice is not as effective 15 | - Quiz yourself of various problem types and retrieving the appropriate solutions for each 16 | - Instead of doing the same thing, change it up, mix in the practice of other subjects, other skills, constantly challenging your ability to recognise the problem type and select the right solution 17 | - Mixing up problem types improves ability to discriminate between types, identify the unifying characteristics within a type, and improves later success 18 | 1. **Elaboration** 19 | - Process of finding additional layers of meaning in new material 20 | - For example: relating to things I already know, explaining it to someone else in our own words, explaining how it relates to your life outside of class 21 | - The more that you can elaborate on how new learning relates to what you already know, the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be, and the more connections you create to remember it later 22 | 1. **Generation** 23 | - An attempt to answer a question or solve a problem before being shown the answer or the solution 24 | - Many people perceive their learning is most effective when it is experiential—that is, learning by doing rather than by reading a text or hearing a lecture. Experiential learning is a form of generation 25 | - Practice generation when reading new class materials by trying to explain beforehand the key ideas you expect to find in the material and how you expect they will relate to your prior knowledge 26 | - As a result of having made the initial effort, you will be more astute at gleaning the substance and relevance of the reading material, even if it differs from your expectation. 27 | - If you’re in a science or math course learning different types of solutions for different types of problems, try to solve the problems before you get to class. 28 | 1. **Reflection** 29 | - The act of taking a few minutes to review what has been learned in a recent class or experience and asking yourself questions. What went well? What could have gone better? What other knowledge or experiences does it remind you of? 30 | - What might you need to learn for better mastery, or what strategies might you use the next time to get better results? 31 | 1. **Calibration** 32 | - The act of aligning your judgments of what you know and don’t know with objective feedback so as to avoid being carried off by the illusions of mastery that catch many learners by surprise at test time. 33 | - Mistaking fluency with a text for mastery of the underlying content is just one example of cognitive illusion. 34 | - Example: pilots use flight instruments to know when their perception is misleading them 35 | 1. **Mnemonic devices** 36 | - Like memory castles 37 | 38 | ### Story: Michael Young 39 | 40 | - Slower but more deliberate reading with self-quizzing 41 | - Instead of long hours for re-reading he tried retrieval practice 42 | - Deciding what's important to practice 43 | - Making yourself answer the questions 44 | - Finding the right interval for spaced practice 45 | - Slowing down to find meaning 46 | 47 | ### Timothy Fellows 48 | 49 | > - Always does the reading prior to a lecture. 50 | > - Anticipates test questions and their answers as he reads. 51 | > - Answers rhetorical questions in his head during lectures to test his retention of the reading. 52 | > - Reviews study guides, finds terms he can’t recall or doesn’t know, and relearns those terms. 53 | > - Copies bolded terms and their definitions into a reading notebook, making sure that he understands them. 54 | > - Takes the practice test that is provided online by his professor; from this he discovers which concepts he doesn’t know and makes a point to learn them. 55 | > - Reorganizes the course information into a study guide of his design. 56 | > - Writes out concepts that are detailed or important, posts them above his bed, and tests himself on them from time to time. 57 | > - Spaces out his review and practice over the duration of the course. 58 | 59 | ## Tips for lifelong learners 60 | 61 | 1. **Retrieval practice** 62 | - Story: Nathaniel Fuller, actor 63 | 2. **Generation** 64 | - Story: writers's block 65 | - Creating a lot without criticism and thinking that it should be good 66 | 67 | > Without the drafted version—if it did not exist—you obviously would not be thinking of ways to improve it. In short, you may actually be writing only two or three hours a day, but your mind, in one way or another, is working on it twenty-four hours a day—yes, while you sleep—but only if some sort of draft or earlier version exists. Until it exists, writing has not really begun.” 68 | 3. **Reflection** 69 | - Story: Vice Dooley, Georgie Bulldogs football coach uses reflection and mental rehearsal to improve game strategies 70 | - Story: Chesley Sullenberger: US Airways flight 1549 that landed in the Hudson River in 2009 71 | 4. **Elaboration** 72 | - Story: Thelma Hunter, pianist, individual interpretations and deliberate practice 73 | 74 | ## Tips for teachers 75 | 76 | **Explain to students how learning works**, for example: 77 | 78 | > - Some kinds of difficulties during learning help to make the learning stronger and better remembered. 79 | > - When learning is easy, it is often superficial and soon forgotten. 80 | > - Not all of our intellectual abilities are hardwired. In fact, when learning is effortful, it changes the brain, making new connections and increasing intellectual ability. 81 | > - You learn better when you wrestle with new problems before being shown the solution, rather than the other way around. 82 | > - To achieve excellence in any sphere, you must strive to surpass your current level of ability. 83 | > - Striving, by its nature, often results in setbacks, and setbacks are often what provide the essential information needed to adjust strategies to achieve mastery. 84 | 85 | - Teach students how to study 86 | - Create desirable difficulties in the classroom, for example frequent quizzes to consolidate learning and interrupt the process of forgetting 87 | - Create study tools that incorporate retrieval practice, generation, and elaboration 88 | - Make quizzing and practice exercises count toward the course grade 89 | - Design quizzing and exercises to reach back to concepts and learning covered earlier 90 | - Space, interleave and vary topics and problems 91 | 92 | **Be transparent** 93 | 94 | - Help students understand the ways you incorporated desirable difficulties into lessons. 95 | - Be upfront about some of the possible frustrations and why this is valuable 96 | 97 | ### Bloom's revised taxonomy of learning objectives 98 | 99 | ![Bloom's taxonomy](images/blooms-taxonomy.jpg) 100 | 101 | - Remember 102 | - Recognizing 103 | - Recalling 104 | - Understand 105 | - Interpreting 106 | - Exemplifying 107 | - Classifying 108 | - Summarizing 109 | - Inferring 110 | - Comparing 111 | - Explaining 112 | - Apply 113 | - Executing 114 | - Implementing 115 | - Analyze 116 | - Differentiating 117 | - Organizing 118 | - Attributing 119 | - Evaluate 120 | - Checking 121 | - Critiquing 122 | - Create 123 | - Generating 124 | - Planning 125 | - Producing 126 | 127 | Ref: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/ or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4511057/ 128 | 129 | ### Story: Mary Pat Wenderoth, Biology Prof. 130 | 131 | Her techniques: 132 | 133 | - **Transparency** 134 | - **Testing groups** - where students wrestle with questions together, without opening a textbook, to figure it out together. Emphasis on exploration and understanding 135 | 136 | > Wenderoth will ask students in a testing group what ideas they don’t feel really clear on. Then she’ll send one student to the whiteboard to try to explain the concept. As the student struggles, perhaps putting up the pieces of the answer she knows, the rest of the group are instructed to test her by asking questions whose answers will lead her to the larger concept 137 | - **Free recall** - 10 minutes at the end of each day, recall on a piece of blank paper. After 10 minutes, they can go over the notes to check what they remember and what they forgot 138 | - Summary sheets - illustrate prior's week material in drawings annotated with key ideas, arrows, and graphs 139 | - **Learning paragraphs** - prepare a 5-6 sentence response to a question 140 | - **Bloom's taxonomy of learning** - When students get their tests back, they also receive the answer key and are asked to identify where their answers fell on the taxonomy and to think about what they need to know in order to respond at a higher level of learning. 141 | - **Closing the achievement gap in the sciences** - teaching kids how to learn 142 | 143 | ### Story: Michael D Matthews, Psychology Prof, West Point 144 | 145 | Thayer method - named after superintendent Sylvanus Thayer. The method provides very specific learning objectives for every course, puts the responsibility for meeting those objectives on the student, and incorporates quizzing and recitation in every class meeting. 146 | 147 | > The point is not to "slide your eyes over the words." You start with questions, and you read for answers. 148 | 149 | - No lecture. 150 | - Read materials beforehand 151 | - Use class time for quizzes and group work 152 | 153 | > These are higher-order questions than are given in the daily quiz, requiring the students to integrate ideas from the reading and apply them at a conceptual level. It’s a form of retrieval practice, generation, and peer instruction. 154 | 155 | ### Story: Kathleen McDermott, Psychology Prof 156 | 157 | - Daily low-stakes quizzes 158 | 159 | > Anything covered in the course to date is fair game for a quiz, and she will sometimes draw from past material that she feels the students haven’t fully grasped and need to review. 160 | 161 | ## Tips for Trainers 162 | 163 | Less structured and non-classroom settings 164 | 165 | - In-service training 166 | - Get a copy of the presentation materials and use them to quiz yourself on the key ideas 167 | - Schedule follow up emails to appear with questions on critical learning 168 | 169 | ### Story: Kathy Maixner, business coach 170 | 171 | > “If you hand people the solution, they don’t need to explore how you got to that solution. If they generate the solution, then they’re the ones who are traveling down that road. Should they go left or right? We discuss the options.” 172 | 173 | She often uses role-playing to simulate problems, getting her clients to generate solutions, try them out, get feedback, and practice what works 174 | 175 | -- 176 | > We have talked throughout this book about learning, not about education. The responsibility for learning rests with every individual, whereas the responsibility for education (and training, too) rests with the institutions of society. Education embraces a world of difficult questions. Are we teaching the right things? Do we reach children young enough? How should we measure outcomes? Are our young people mortgaging their futures to pay for a college degree? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /dare-to-lead.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # [Dare to Lead](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CWGFPS7/) by Brené Brown 2 | > _How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?_ 3 | 4 | ## Introduction 5 | > What, if anything, about the way people are leading today needs to change in order for leaders to be successful in a complex, rapidly changing environment where we’re faced with seemingly intractable challenges and an insatiable demand for innovation? There was one answer across the interviews: We need braver leaders and more courageous cultures. 6 | 7 | Is courage a personality trait or a learnt skill? 8 | 9 | **"What stands in the way becomes the way."** 10 | 11 | Ten behaviours and cultural issues that leaders identified as getting in the way: 12 | 13 | 1. We avoid tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback. 14 | 15 | 2. Instead of proactively acknowledging and addressing the fears and feelings that show up during change and upheaval, we spend an unreasonable amount of time managing problematic behaviours. 16 | 17 | 3. Diminishing trust caused by a lack of connection and empathy. 18 | 19 | 4. Not enough people are taking smart risks or creating and sharing bold ideas to meet changing demands and the insatiable need for innovation. (Reminded of Primed to Perform requirement to adaptive behaviour.) 20 | 21 | 5. Instead of spending resources on clean-up to ensure that consumers, stakeholders, or internal processes are made whole, we are spending too much time and energy reassuring team members who are questioning their contribution and value. 22 | 23 | 6. Too much shame and blame, not enough accountability and learning. 24 | 25 | 7. People are opting out of vital conversations about diversity and inclusivity because they fear looking wrong, saying something wrong, or being wrong. 26 | > Choosing our own comfort over hard conversations is the epitome of privilege, and it corrodes trust and moves us away from meaningful and lasting change. 27 | 28 | 8. Rush with solutions that haven't been identified as the right one. When we fix the wrong thing for the wrong reason, the same problems continue to surface. It’s costly and demoralising. 29 | 30 | 9. Organizational values are gauzy and assessed in terms of aspirations rather than actual behaviours that can be taught, measured, and evaluated. 31 | 32 | 10. Perfectionism and fear are keeping people from learning and growing. 33 | 34 | **Lead through discomfort** 35 | 36 | ### The heart of daring leadership 37 | 38 | 1. You can't get to courage without rumbling with vulnerability. Embrace the suck. 39 | 40 | - Rumbling with Vulnerability 41 | - Living into Our Values 42 | - Braving Trust 43 | - Learning to Rise 44 | 45 | 2. Self-awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead. 46 | 47 | 3. Courage is contagious. To scale daring leadership and build courage in teams and organisations, we have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation, and armour is not necessary or rewarded. 48 | 49 | **Listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard** 50 | 51 | > so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people—we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected. 52 | 53 | -- 54 | 55 | > we should never underestimate the benefit to a child of having a place to belong—even one—where they can take off their armor. It can and often does change the trajectory of their life. 56 | > 57 | > If the culture in our school, organization, place of worship, or even family requires armor because of issues like racism, classism, sexism, or any manifestation of fear-based leadership, we can’t expect wholehearted engagement. 58 | > 59 | > Likewise, when our organization rewards armoring behaviors like blaming, shaming, cynicism, perfectionism, and emotional stoicism, we can’t expect innovative work. 60 | 61 | ## Chapter 1: 62 | 63 | > It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. 64 | > -- Theodore Roosevelt 65 | 66 | **Vulnerability is not winning or losing. It's having the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome.** 67 | 68 | > You are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I'm not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their lives but who will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgment at those who dare greatly. 69 | 70 | -- 71 | 72 | > If you're criticizing from a place where you’re not also putting yourself on the line, I’m not interested in what you have to say. 73 | 74 | **Get clear on whose opinions of you matter.** 75 | 76 | We need to seek feedback from those people. And even if it's really hard to hear, we must bring it in and hold it until we learn from it. 77 | 78 | Don't grab hurtful comments and pull them close to you by rereading them and ruminating on them. Don’t play with them by rehearsing your badass comeback. And whatever you do, don’t pull hatefulness close to your heart. 79 | 80 | **And no matter how much your self-doubt wants to scoop up the criticism and snuggle with the negativity so it can confirm its worst fears** 81 | 82 | **find the strength to leave what’s mean-spirited on the ground.** 83 | 84 | ### Square squad 85 | 86 | I'm getting clear on whose opinions matter to me. Thank you for being one of those people. I’m grateful that you care enough to be honest and real with me. 87 | 88 | The people on your list should be the people who love you not despite your vulnerability and imperfections, but because of them. 89 | 90 | The people on your list should not be “yes” people. This is not the suck-up squad. They should be people who respect you enough to rumble with the vulnerability 91 | 92 | - **Myth 1: Vulnerability is weakness.** 93 | - **Myth 2: I don’t do vulnerability.** 94 | - **Myth 3: I can go it alone.** 95 | 96 | > needing no one pushes against everything we know about human neurobiology. We are hardwired for connection. From our mirror neurones to language, we are a social species. In the absence of authentic connection, we suffer. And by authentic I mean the kind of connection that doesn’t require hustling for acceptance and changing who we are to fit in. 97 | 98 | > don’t derive strength from our rugged individualism, but rather from our collective ability to plan, communicate, and work together. 99 | 100 | - **Myth 4: You can engineer the uncertainty and discomfort out of vulnerability.** 101 | 102 | > Those fields in which systemic vulnerability is equated with failure (or worse) are often the ones in which I see people struggling the most for daring leadership skills and, interestingly, the ones in which people, once they understand, are willing to really dig deep and rumble hard. 103 | 104 | - **Myth 5: Trust comes before vulnerability.** 105 | 106 | > If you’re stupid enough to let someone know where you’re tender or what you care about the most, it’s just a matter of time before someone uses that to hurt you. 107 | 108 | > “We trust the people who have earned marbles over time in our life. Whenever someone supports you, or is kind to you, or sticks up for you, or honors what you share with them as private, you put marbles in the jar. When people are mean, or disrespectful, or share your secrets, marbles come out. We look for the people who, over time, put marbles in, and in, and in, until you look up one day and they’re holding a full jar. Those are the folks you can tell your secrets to. Those are the folks you trust with information that’s important to you.” 109 | 110 | > Trust is in fact earned in the smallest of moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds, or even highly visible actions, but through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and connection. 111 | 112 | > Gottman’s work on marriages, he was able to predict an outcome of divorce with 90 percent accuracy based on responses to a series of questions. His team screened for what he called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt, with contempt being the most damning in a romantic partnership. 113 | 114 | - **Myth 6: Vulnerability is disclosure.** 115 | 116 | I am not a proponent of oversharing, indiscriminate disclosure as a leadership tool, or vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake. There is no daring leadership without vulnerability. 117 | 118 | Amy Edmondson on psychological safety: 119 | 120 | > psychological safety makes it possible to give tough feedback and have difficult conversations without the need to tiptoe around the truth. In psychologically safe environments, people believe that if they make a mistake others will not penalize or think less of them for it. They also believe that others will not resent or humiliate them when they ask for help or information. This belief comes about when people both trust and respect each other, and it produces a sense of confidence that the group won’t embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up. 121 | 122 | Things that get in the way of psychological safety in teams and groups include judgment, unsolicited advice giving, interrupting, and sharing outside the team meeting. 123 | 124 | The behaviours that people need from their team or group almost always include listening, staying curious, being honest, and keeping confidence. 125 | 126 | **"What does support from me look like?"** Not only does it offer the opportunity for clarity and set up the team for success, asking people for specific examples of what supportive behaviours look like—and what they do not look like—it also holds them accountable for asking for what they need. 127 | 128 | **Maybe a better definition of vulnerability: be clear about our intention, understand the limits of vulnerability in the context of roles and relationships, and set boundaries.** Setting boundaries is making clear what’s okay and what’s not okay, and why. 129 | 130 | Asking someone to **"say more"** often leads to profoundly deeper and more productive rumbling. Context and details matter. 131 | 132 | Stephen Covey: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." 133 | 134 | We have to think about why we're sharing and, equally important, with whom. What are their roles? What is our role? Is this sharing productive and appropriate? 135 | 136 | - Stealth intention: I can protect myself from rejection, shame, judgment, and people turning away from me and thinking I’m a bad person. 137 | - Stealth expectation: They won’t turn away from me and think I’m a bad person. 138 | 139 | More than occasionally, I find that the people who misrepresent my work on vulnerability and conflate it with disclosure or emotional purging either don't understand it, or they have so much personal resistance to the notion of being vulnerable that they stretch the concept until it appears ridiculous and easy to discount. 140 | 141 | To feel is to be vulnerable. Believing that vulnerability is weakness is believing that feeling is weakness. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, and joy. 142 | 143 | Antonio Damasio: "We are not necessarily thinking machines. We are feeling machines that think." 144 | 145 | ## Chapter 2: the call to courage 146 | 147 | Meta discussion on language in the book: 148 | 149 | - Teaching via stories 150 | - Repetitive "rumble" and "this was in my previous book" 151 | - Possibly "smug tone" rather than "learning with us" 152 | - Using named phrases and keywords 153 | - No references to research sources even though the book claims to be based on science 154 | 155 | **Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.** 156 | 157 | > Not getting clear with a colleague about your expectations because it feels too hard, yet holding them accountable or blaming them for not delivering is unkind. Talking about people rather than to them is unkind. 158 | 159 | Being clear when giving feedback should take into consideration not hijacking the other person's amygdala. 160 | Rumble style talks about using vulnerability to build trust. 161 | 162 | "Trust batteries" 163 | 164 | From "I'm not enough" to "this is their fault" is not that far. 165 | Trying to get people to push through those feelings and anger, and step away to reflect is usually useful instead of immediately putting up armour. 166 | 167 | #### Permission slips 168 | 169 | > We each wrote down one thing that we gave ourselves permission to do or feel for this meeting... for stating and writing down intentions only, so there are no repercussions if you fail to deliver; however, they are useful for increasing accountability and the potential for support, and also for understanding where everyone in the room is coming from. 170 | 171 | Similar to "check-ins" at the start of a meeting, but instead of communicating that to the rest of the team, it is personal, with might need to be very self-aware to be able to do that. 172 | 173 | #### Turn and learn for work estimates 174 | 175 | Similar to card estimations, and even with team discussion on unknowns and possible complexities, these discussions are still very poor at estimating work and how long it will take. 176 | 177 | However it helps to get people on the same page by communicating what else is happening. Which is the same with agreeing on meeting minutes. 178 | 179 | #### New meeting minutes process 180 | 181 | > Everyone takes their own notes, but one person in the meeting volunteers to capture minutes. These are narrowed down to: 182 | 183 | - Date 184 | - Meeting intention 185 | - Attendees 186 | - Key decisions 187 | - Tasks and ownership 188 | 189 | > We now stop meetings five minutes early to review and agree on the minutes before we leave. 190 | 191 | Getting out of meeting with different ideas of what should be done happens. So the above can be very useful. 192 | 193 | #### Binary thinking 194 | 195 | > This type of binary thinking is very dangerous because we're not leveraging the fullness of people. The roles become caricatures and stereotypes 196 | 197 | #### How to apologise: core value for leadership 198 | 199 | > While some leaders consider apologising to be a sign of weakness, we teach it as a skill and frame the willingness to apologise and make amends as brave leadership. 200 | 201 | #### Mental health and loneliness 202 | 203 | Possibly another example of being clear with the chosen wording, for example using "lonely" rather than "disconnect". On theme with "clear is kind". 204 | 205 | > Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings, or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behaviour. 206 | 207 | #### Making space for conversation 208 | 209 | You as the leader by your choice of words, clarity, and being vulnerable, can create space for deeper conversations. 210 | 211 | > After the third one-on-one addressing the same issue, it's easy to make up the story that this person is just being difficult or even testing us. But what I've found in my own experience is that we haven't gone deep enough. We haven't peeled away enough layers of the onion. And once we start peeling, **we have to leave long pauses and empty space. I know the conversation is hard enough, but people need white space.** Stop talking. Even if it's awkward—which it will be the first fifteen times. 212 | 213 | -- 214 | > And when they start talking (which they normally will), listen. Really listen. Don't formulate your response while they're talking. If you have a great insight—hold it. Don't do that thing where the listener starts nodding faster and faster, not because they're actively listening but because they're trying to unconsciously signal the talker to wrap up so they can talk. **Keep a lot of space in the conversation.** 215 | 216 | #### Setting boundaries 217 | 218 | They're allowed to be pissed or sad or surprised or elated. But if their behaviours are not okay, we set the boundaries: 219 | 220 | - I know this is a tough conversation. Being angry is okay. Yelling is not okay. 221 | - I know we're tired and stressed. This has been a long meeting. Being frustrated is okay. Interrupting people and rolling your eyes is not okay. 222 | - I appreciate the passion around these different opinions and ideas. The emotion is okay. Passive-aggressive comments and put-downs are not okay. 223 | 224 | #### Time outs 225 | 226 | > Sometimes a team member will say, "I need time to think about what I'm hearing. Can we take an hour and circle back after lunch?" I really appreciate that because it leads to better decision making. And giving people a reasonable amount of thinking time cuts down on the meeting-after-the-meeting and back-channeling behaviours, which are both outside what’s okay in our culture. 227 | 228 | -- 229 | > ...we can't do our jobs when we own other people’s emotions or take responsibility for them as a way to control the related behaviours, for one simple reason: Other people's emotions are not our jobs. We can't both serve people and try to control their feelings. 230 | 231 | *Where is the line between being brave or being arrogant? How do you balance it?* 232 | 233 | ## Section 3: Armoured Leadership 234 | 235 | > I've always talked about living with an unarmored heart as *wholeheartedness*. 236 | In _The Gifts of Imperfection_, 237 | I define wholeheartedness as "engaging in both our lives from a place of worthiness. 238 | It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning 239 | and think, _No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough._ 240 | It's going to bed at night thinking, 241 | _Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, 242 | but that doesn't change the truth that I am brave, and worthy of love and belonging._" 243 | 244 | We had a conversation about the lip service to bringing our whole selves to work and how we might truly live that in our workplaces. 245 | 246 | | | Armored Leadership | Daring Leadership | 247 | |---:|:-------------------|:------------------| 248 | | 1. | Driving Perfectionism and Fostering Fear of Failure | Modeling and Encouraging Healthy Striving, Empathy, and Self-Compassion | 249 | | 2. | Working from Scarcity and Squandering Opportunities for Joy and Recognition | Practicing Gratitude and Celebrating Milestones and Victories | 250 | | 3. | Numbing | Setting boundaries and Finding Real Comfort 251 | | 4. | Propagating the False Dichotomy of Victim or Viking, Crush or Be Crushed | Practicing Integration – Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart | 252 | | 5. | Being a Knower and Being Right | Being A Learner And Getting It Right | 253 | | 6. | Hiding Behind Cynicism | Modeling Clarity, Kindness, And Hope | 254 | | 7. | Using Criticism As Self-Protection | Making Contributions And Taking Risks | 255 | | 8. | Using Power Over | Using Power With, Power To, And Power Within | 256 | | 9. | Hustling For Our Wealth | Knowing Our Value | 257 | | 10. | Leading For Compliance and Control | Cultivating Commitment And Shared Purpose | 258 | | 11. | Weaponizing Fear and Uncertainty | Acknowledging, Naming, And Normalizing Collective Fear And Uncertainty | 259 | | 12. | Rewarding Exhaustion As A Status Symbol and Attaching Productivity To Self-Worth | Modeling And Supporting Rest, Play, And Recovery | 260 | | 13. | Tolerating Discrimination, Echo Chambers, and a "Fitting In" Culture | Cultivating A Culture Of Belonging, Inclusivity, And Diverse Perspectives | 261 | | 14. | Collecting Gold Stars | Giving Gold Stars | 262 | | 15. | Zigzagging and Avoiding | Straight Talking and Taking Action | 263 | | 16. | Leading From Hurt | Leading From Heart | 264 | 265 | ### Perfectionism 266 | 267 | > Perfectionism is not the key to success. 268 | In fact, research shows that perfectionism hampers achievement. 269 | Perfectionism is correlated with depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis, or missed opportunities. 270 | The fear of failing, making mistakes, not meeting people’s expectations, 271 | and being criticized keeps us outside the arena where healthy competition and striving unfolds. 272 | 273 | -- 274 | > Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, 275 | about trying to earn approval... perfectionism is not a way to avoid shame. 276 | Perfectionism is a function of shame... perfection doesn’t exist. 277 | It’s an unattainable goal. Perfectionism is more about perception than internal motivation. 278 | 279 | ### TASC 280 | 281 | A TASC approach: the Accountability and Success Checklist: 282 | 283 | - Task: Who owns the task? 284 | - Authority: Do they have the authority to be held accountable? 285 | - Success: Do we agree that they are set up for success (time, resources, clarity)? 286 | - Checklist: Do we have a checklist of what needs to happen to accomplish the task? 287 | 288 | ## Section 4: Shame 289 | 290 | We are never good enough emotion 291 | 292 | > Shame is the fear of disconnection 293 | 294 | ### Shame 101 295 | 296 | 1. Universal 297 | 2. We’re all afraid to talk about shame. Just the word is uncomfortable. 298 | 3. The less we talk about shame, the more control it has over our lives. 299 | 300 | > Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing 301 | that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. 302 | 303 | **Never good enough, and who do you think you are?** 304 | 305 | > Shame is watching things change so fast and no longer knowing how and where I can contribute. 306 | The fear of being irrelevant is a huge shame trigger that we are not addressing at work. 307 | 308 | Strong opinions and criticism at work can trigger feeling shame. 309 | 310 | **Shame is not a compass for moral behavior.** 311 | 312 | > where shame exists, empathy is almost always absent. That’s what makes shame dangerous. 313 | The opposite of experiencing shame is experiencing empathy. 314 | The behavior that many of us find so egregious today is more about people being empathyless, not shameless. 315 | 316 | ### Shame / Guilt / Humiliation / Embarrassment 317 | 318 | #### Guilt 319 | 320 | Guilt = I did something bad 321 | Shame = I am bad 322 | 323 | #### Humiliation 324 | 325 | > People believe they deserve their shame, they do not believe they deserve their humiliation. 326 | > -- Donald Klein 327 | 328 | #### Embarrassment 329 | 330 | > The hallmark of embarrassment is that when we do something embarrassing, we don't feel alone. 331 | We know other folks have done the same thing and, 332 | like a blush, the feeling will pass rather than define us. 333 | 334 | ### How shame shows up at work 335 | 336 | - Perfectionism 337 | - Favouritism 338 | - Gossiping 339 | - Back-channeling 340 | - Comparison 341 | - Self-worth tied to productivity 342 | - Harassment 343 | - Discrimination 344 | - Power over 345 | - Bullying 346 | - Blaming 347 | - Teasing 348 | - Cover-ups 349 | 350 | When letting people go, give people a **"way out with dignity"**. 351 | Most business try to check all the legal boxes rather than be considerate to the person being fired. 352 | 353 | Generally document why and then fire them. Similar to giving constructive feedback, 354 | but very few do that, and instead just let people continue to do average work. 355 | If you can't justify the reason, maybe you shouldn't be firing them? When things are going wrong, 356 | them start constructive conversations earlier. Giving people a chance to make a chance. 357 | 358 | > when the culture of a corporation, nonprofit, university, government, church, 359 | sports program, school, or family mandates that it is more important 360 | to protect the reputation of that system and those in power 361 | than it is to protect the basic human dignity of individuals or communities, 362 | you can be certain of the following problems: 363 | > 364 | - Shame is systemic. 365 | - Complicity is part of the culture. 366 | - Money and power trump ethics. 367 | - Accountability is dead. 368 | - Control and fear are management tools. 369 | - And there’s a trail of devastation and pain. 370 | 371 | -- 372 | > Giving people permission to talk about shame is liberating. 373 | It shines a light in a dark corner. People realize they're not alone. 374 | Sharing their stories together normalizes shame, creates connection, and builds trust. 375 | 376 | ### Empathy 377 | 378 | ## Section 5: Curiosity and Grounded Confidence 379 | 380 | As children, our parents gave us lots of armour because our parents generation were not confident in raising children. Grounded confidence comes from making mistakes and learning from them. It's not "blustery arrogance or posturing or built on bullshit". With confidence, "we can trade the heavy, suffocating armour" for bravery. 381 | 382 | "Rumbling with vulnerability" is the "fundamental skill of courage building". 383 | 384 | To be good at stuff, you need to practice. This is true for all this stuff too. 385 | 386 | ### Grounded Confidence = Rumble Skills + Curiosity + Practice 387 | 388 | The bit of the chapter that was praised by all present, was the idea of halting a conversation/argument and saying let's go away and think about this for a bit, then come back and make a decision. Although most of us haven't practiced this, we want to try it out. 389 | 390 | A few examples in this chapter were more or less successful. The Old Navy example was good, but the school one didn't seem relevant. Still, there were some good quotes. 391 | 392 | > People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care 393 | 394 | ## Part 2: Living into our values 395 | 396 | This part begins with the metaphor of an arena, that falls apart quite quickly. The bulk of the chapter is a call to action though. 397 | 398 | ### Live your values 399 | Step 1: We can't live into values that we can't name 400 | pick some core values, three of them only. Actual ones, not aspirational ones. 401 | 402 | Step 2: Taking values from bullshit to behaviour 403 | Define three or four behaviours that support our values 404 | Define some "slippery slope" behaviours that undermine our values 405 | 406 | Step 3: Empathy and self-compassion: the two most important seats in the arena 407 | Regardless of our values, we must consider our privilege and be empathetic 408 | 409 | We all had problems with the author's strong preference for faith over family as one of her core values. Richard and Adam read her values in a very negative way, whereas Jo put aside her distaste for the authors relgiousness and tried to see the value in the argument. 410 | 411 | ### Living into our values and feedback 412 | 413 | This is a list of guidelines for "readiness" to give feedback. The list focused on shared responsility for problems, recognising people's strengths and avoiding shaming. 414 | 415 | We did have some issues with some parts of the list: 416 | Sitting next to someone to deliver feedback, rather than across from them, makes eye contact, and several other social cues, difficult. 417 | Acknowledging their good aspects before sharing feedback can lead to a shit sandwich, that the reciever can see as deceitful. 418 | 419 | ## Part 4: Learning to Rise 420 | 421 | > The Learning to Rise process is about getting up from our falls, overcoming our mistakes, and facing hurt in a way that brings more wisdom and wholeheartedness into our lives. 422 | 423 | instead of being affected by our emotions without any self-control, or ignoring them, or taking them out on someone else 424 | 425 | > The best leaders are aware of their emotions 426 | 427 | ### The Story Rumble 428 | We often give a knee jerk reaction, then justify our decision by making stuff up and relying on shaky logic. Brown calls this the Shitty First Draft (SFD). 429 | 430 | > The SFD as a concept is Relavatory 431 | - Lachlan 432 | 433 | When you identify a SFD, this is the moment to pause, reflect, and identify why you've made the decision. Identify the bits you made up to justify your decision and improve the SFD. Once the story you use to justify the decision changes, the decision might change too. 434 | 435 | Better yet, plan before you made the decision. Elle was reminded of a similar practice from Laura Hogan. 436 | 437 | Most of us found the found the book ended abruptly 438 | 439 | ## Final Impressions 440 | 441 | Lachlan likes the permission slip system. It’s ok to call for a break to go for a walk, reflect, come back to things later etc. 442 | 443 | Aimee wishes the author clairfied what she means by “clear”. Especially when people are from different backgrounds. 444 | We think we know what other people are feeling, but we don’t. However, sharing what we think can help bridge that gap 445 | To elle this means being super explicit, and spelling things out. And not being too emotional 446 | 447 | Elle summarised the book, and got a lot out of the armour section 448 | 449 | Richard thinks that vulnerability is an important lesson of the book, but can’t figure out what that balance is between vulnerability and oversharing. 450 | Aimee read an article about asking permission and being emotionally available, this could help. 451 | 452 | Antoine liked the section on Armour. Raising awareness of the types of armour was good. Most people felt this was the most useful part of the book. 453 | 454 | Shitty first drafts as a concept was widely praised. 455 | 456 | We didn't like the author's language. The use of the term "rumble" turned us all off, and the books was a struggle at times. We think the author is deliberately selling a certain type of US way of life that was alien to us all, even the Americans and people who have briefly lived there. Her overt religiousness also grated. Despite these negatives, we all felt the book was worth reading. 457 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /resilient-management.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2 | # Resilient Management 3 | 4 | ## Chapter Introduction 5 | 6 | This book is here to help us manage teams 7 | 8 | ### What makes a team? 9 | 10 | 2+ people who share a strategic objective 11 | 12 | There's plenty of ways of defining a team, but it doesn't really matter 13 | 14 | #### Lexicon 15 | * Teammates - the people in the team you manage, the people who report to you 16 | * Discipline - function specific area of the org you work in. Design, FED, etc. 17 | * Functional Team - a group of people who work in the same discipline 18 | * Feature Team - people from different disciplines, working together on a feature 19 | 20 | Teams are the atomic units of every org. We spent some time identifying how Lara's terms map to our own experiences. 21 | 22 | ### Tuckman's stages of group development 23 | There are four stages a team can go through 24 | * Forming - Few patterns or processes, might only just have formed 25 | * Storming - Friction occurs because of differences 26 | * Norming - Starting to find the grove, differences are worked out, clarity emerges 27 | * Performing - Everyone is communicating well, and you're shipping 28 | 29 | These stages will repeat throughout the lifecycle of a team, even if you've been together for years. When a new person joins, or a manager changes, or the mission changes, these stages of group development can restart with those Forming stage feeling again. And since teams are in a constant state of change – as your hire, as you switch projects, as you develop roadmaps – you have an opportunity to address what's missing and how your teammates want to grow. 30 | 31 | Any change in personnel, project or leadership can cause backsteps. 32 | 33 | > Can anyone tell what stage their team is in? I think so. 34 | 35 | #### What's in this book 36 | Leadership, human growth and resiliency skills 37 | 38 | #### What's not in the book 39 | Strategy, Managing managers, Project managing 40 | 41 | The chapters of the book serve the different stages of group development, chapter 1 is Forming 42 | 43 | ## Chapter 1 44 | 45 | As a manager, one of your primary jobs is to foster a foundation of trust on your team. This will be the underpinning of the team's overall health. To foster trust, you've gotta start by understanding each other: each person's needs, preferences, and approaches to work. 46 | 47 | To do this, you need to understand them 48 | 49 | Not everyone thinks or behaves like you do. Some people like public celebrations of promotion, others do not. 50 | 51 | It takes time an effort to learn your teammates' different needs 52 | 53 | ### Humans' core needs at work 54 | 55 | Two bits of the brain are relevant 56 | * Prefrontal Cortex - Rationality and logic 57 | * Amygdala - lizard brain 58 | 59 | Humans have six core needs in the workplace (BICEPS) 60 | * Belonging 61 | * Improvement / Progress 62 | * Choice 63 | * Equality / Fairness 64 | * Predictability 65 | * Significance 66 | 67 | These are more or less important depending on the individual, so ask them about which ones are important to them. 68 | 69 | > How do they compare to the ones in Primed to Perform? 70 | 71 | Anecdote: Someone discussed the book with a relative who worked in education management and they were familiar with the first 4 but hadn't used the last two in their work. 72 | 73 | We spent some time discussing why that might be and whether our industry is different. 74 | 75 | We went round the group identifying which of these core needs feel most important to each of us. Also discussed whether all 6 are needed in order to succeed and feel comfortable or whether perhaps it is approximate. 76 | 77 | #### Same stimulus, different responses 78 | 79 | People can react differently when these different needs are affected. 80 | 81 | Desk moves are a great example of this, they can threaten each one of those needs, causing some people to dislike them 82 | 83 | * Belonging - Removes a locality based social group 84 | * Choice - Desk movements are often dictated, removing the choice from the individual 85 | * Equality / Fairness - Some groups might be advantaged over others (closer to the windows etc.) 86 | * Predictability - Breaks the routine of showing up to work in the same place day after day 87 | * Significance - Could remove a person from a high status desk 88 | 89 | We had a long conversation about desk moves. The different ways to think about the desk moves and how somebody's core needs might trigger negative responses in them. 90 | 91 | ### Work style and preferences 92 | 93 | It's helpful to gather more information from your teammates over and above the core needs list. 94 | 95 | [I]nsights about each teammate's growth areas, preferences about feedback and recognition, and other aspects of their work. This is information I can refer back to as I assign work to them and help them grow. 96 | 97 | _I'd like to ask you some cheesy questions to help better support you_ 98 | 99 | #### Grumpiness 100 | * _What makes you grumpy?_ 101 | * _How will I know you're grumpy?_ 102 | * _How can I help you when you're grumpy_ 103 | 104 | Grumpy is shorthand for so many things but this work keeps the question light and funny and easier to answer. 105 | 106 | #### Feedback and recognition 107 | * _In what medium do you prefer to recieve feedback (in person, email, chat)?_ 108 | * _When do you prefer to recieve feedback, in 1:1s or when it happens?_ 109 | * _How do you prefer to recieve recognition - publicly or privately?_ 110 | 111 | #### Goals and support 112 | * _What makes 1:1s the most valuable for you?_ 113 | * _What are your goals for this year, and the next three months?_ 114 | * _What do you need from your manager?_ 115 | * _What do you need from your teammates?_ 116 | * _What do you need from your peers outside the team?_ 117 | 118 | #### The wordy question 119 | _Human learning and growth requires the right amout of four things: new challenges, low ego, space to reflect and brainstorm, and timely and clear feedback. How are these four going for you? Is there one you need more or less of?_ 120 | 121 | #### The most important question 122 | _What's your favourite way to treat yourself?_ 123 | 124 | None of us had an immediate answer to this. Or to many of the above. We think sharing these with your team beforehand to give them time to reflect would be useful. 125 | 126 | They also need to get to know you as well as you know them! 127 | 128 | ### Help the team get to know you 129 | Pay attention to your own superiors' styles, sharing your approach with your teammates helps you work together 130 | 131 | There are different kinds of managers, people who focus on _getting shit done_ vs those that focus on growing the team, and so on 132 | 133 | Your style will change how you do various things; coaching, giving feedback, scoping work, communicating news etc. 134 | 135 | What are you optimising for? 136 | 137 | Think about the scenarios in which your particular management approach might manifest day to day, such as when you are: 138 | 139 | - coaching, mentoring, or sponsoring your reports; 140 | - requesting and delivering feedback; 141 | - goal setting or vision setting for/with your team; 142 | - scoping, delegating, and shipping work for/with your team; and 143 | - communicating to/with your teammates in different mediums. 144 | 145 | 146 | There's a MadLib to help us figure this out: 147 | 148 | I'm a ________ leader who value ________ and __________. You'll see this when I _____________________________. I support my team by ______________ and I stay aligned with company values by ____________. I thrive in a _____________ environment. I commit to being _____________________________. 149 | 150 | #### Sharing with your teammates 151 | 152 | An example, where a lead optimises for _long term relationships_, demonstrates that when that approach is understood by both parties, it improves things 153 | 154 | Once you've done your MadLib, share what you learned with your teammates. 155 | * _What do you optimize for in your role?_ 156 | * _What do you how your teammates will lean on you for?_ 157 | * _What management skills are you currently working on learning or improving?_ 158 | 159 | ### Coaching questions 160 | 161 | A list of useful questions to ask of ourselves 162 | 163 | ## Chapter 2: Grow your teammates 164 | 165 | - Storming phase: when a group figures how to: work together, collaborate, hit goals, determine priorities. Defined with friction. 166 | - Business-related: managers are also responsible for strategy-setting, aligning team's work to company's objectives, and help the team with blockers. 167 | - Team-related: managers should help their teammates grow in their role, and support team's progress. 168 | 169 | *Business related is sort of discussed in next chapter. 170 | this chapter talks about how to grow the team as a manager but doesn't really discuss how to deal with friction and conflicts, except the section of teaching teammates how to give feedback, which has a hidden assumption: they are not good at giving feedback since there is friction and conflicts. 171 | The book talks about collaboration in the next chapter. In my head, when the team doesn't know how to work together, it's the time to teach them about collaboration. Once collaboration and communication flows well, it is time to grow them.* 172 | 173 | #### Four different hats 174 | 175 | - Mentoring: giving advice and helping to solve problems based on own experiences 176 | - Coaching: asking open questions to help reflect and introspect 177 | - Sponsoring: finding opportunities for teammates to level up 178 | - Delivering feedback: observing behaviour and sharing those observations 179 | 180 | *Reflecting back to The Manager's Path, it discusses mentoring for new hires, interns, and technical or career growth, and giving feedback.* 181 | 182 | Question: what is your default mode? 183 | 184 | We agreed that we want to spend most of our time coaching, depending on the experience of the teammate. In order to get to spend time coaching, the team needs to be "self-mentoring", in a supportive environment. When teammates can seek advice from each other, the lead can focus on coaching. 185 | 186 | Since it's easier to mentor than coach, falling back to mentoring could be considered "lazy". 187 | 188 | **Mentoring** 189 | 190 | Focus on problems and solutions. **Focus on mentor rather than mentee.** 191 | 192 | > Our personal experiences are often what we can talk most confidently about! For this reason, mentorship mode can feel really good and effective for the mentor. 193 | 194 | Be a responsible mentor when mentoring marginalised people from marginalised groups. Be aware of how they are perceived and unconscious bias that might be at play. 195 | 196 | Pair programming 197 | 198 | > Imaginative, innovative ideas often come from people who have never seen a particular challenge before, so if your mentee comes ip with a creative solution on their own that you wouldn't have thought of, be excited for them--don't just focus on the ways that you've done it or seen it done before. 199 | 200 | *Exercism* 201 | 202 | **Coaching** 203 | 204 | 1. Asking open questions - to help explore a topic deeper 205 | 2. Reflecting - hold a mirror for the other person 206 | 207 | > Questions that start with *why* tend to make the other person feel judged, and questions that start with *how* tend to go into problem solving mode--both of which we want to avoid... However, *what* questions can be authentically curious! 208 | 209 | - What's most important to you about it? 210 | - What's holding you back? 211 | - What does success look like? 212 | 213 | Examples for a conversation about promotion, to help discover what it means: 214 | 215 | - What would you be able to do in the new level that you can't do in your current role? 216 | - What skills are required in the new level? what are some ways that you've honed those skills? 217 | - Who are the people already at that level that you want to emulate? What about them do you want to emulate? 218 | 219 | Then help teammates reflect by repeating back to them what you hear them say. Active listening. 220 | 221 | https://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Habit-Less-Change-Forever-ebook/dp/B01BUIBBZI/ 222 | 223 | **When coaching, we don't need to have all the answers, or fully understand the problem.** 224 | 225 | > coaching can generate way more growth for that other person than just giving them advice or sharing your perspective. 226 | 227 | **Sponsoring** 228 | 229 | > Put their name in the ring for opportunities that will get them he experience and visibility necessary to grow in their role and at the organisation. 230 | 231 | Most effective way to help someone get to the next level. 232 | 233 | Examples: 234 | 235 | - Giving public recognition 236 | - Assigning stretch goals beyond their current skill set 237 | - Give opportunities to write blog posts, present at conferences, contribute to open source 238 | 239 | > Remember that members of underrepresented groups are typically over-mentored, but under-sponsored 240 | 241 | This point was particularly well recieved by us! 242 | 243 | Richard didn't feel like he had been sponsored before, didn't realise it was a thing until recently and so hasn't sponsored people. Others pointed out that he probably had been sponsored but didn't realise it. We discussed small ways to sponsor people, such as encouraging them to write blog posts. 244 | 245 | https://hbr.org/ideacast/2019/06/the-surprising-benefits-of-sponsoring-others-at-work is a good podcast covering sponsorship. 246 | 247 | **Feedback** 248 | 249 | - Routinely deliver both positive and constructive feedback about their performance in their role. 250 | 251 | Can only be done if the role is defined properly, and expectations are clear. 252 | 253 | > Choose points from both their current level to see how well they're meeting these goals, as well as language from the next level up, to help them see how they can grow or where they're already excelling. 254 | 255 | **Feedback equation**: feedback should be: 256 | 257 | 1. Specific 258 | 2. Actionable 259 | 3. Delivered in a way that ensures the receiver can actually absorb that 260 | 261 | Write the feedback first, to ensure it makes sense and do a gut check to ensure it will get the receiver into a "fight/flight" mode. 262 | 263 | 1. Describe the facts of what happened: who/what/when/where 264 | 1. Describe the impact: on team, project, trust in them... focus on one effect that they care about 265 | 1. Request or question: instead of giving out a solution of what they should do, coach them on finding solutions on their own. 266 | 267 | > Asking an open question at the end of delivering feedback is often much more powerful than making a request. 268 | 269 | -- 270 | - Elle's definition of good feedback: clear, specific, timed right, non-judgmental, and speaks only to behaviour. 271 | - Missing: when not to give feedback 272 | - When positive feedback is given frequently, the negative feedback seems less threatening and more credible 273 | - Actionable, Specific, Kind 274 | - Intent (the purpose behind the giver's message) may not always align with its impact (how the receiver is affected by the message) in conversation. 275 | 276 | For example: 277 | - Feedback: I think you should work on being more confident 278 | - Intent: When you don't know something, be confident to admit it and ask questions 279 | - Impact: I come across as doubtful or passive. I should give the impression I know all the answers 280 | 281 | Compass of shame: represents the different ways we all respond to difficult feelings like shame, anger, guilt. or fear, but primarily shame 282 | 283 | -- 284 | 285 | Example: 286 | 1. Observation: instead of "when you write emails, it seems like you're mad" or "you write emails that are too short", try "Over the last few weeks, I've noticed that your emails to me contain fewer than five words on average" 287 | 1. Impact: instead of "I think you are mad at me", try "this adds much more time to the overall process of us communicating", which is more measurable and possibly understandable by the other person 288 | 1. Question: "Can you help me understand what you're optimising for?" 289 | 290 | > A culture of healthy feedback won't appear overnight, no matter how often you deliver feedback...foster that culture by teaching others how to deliver feedback in a healthy and impactful way. 291 | 292 | Help ensure observations are just facts, without judgement or opinions. Help finding an impact that is clear and measurable. Then help with coming up with questions or a request for the feedback recipient. 293 | 294 | When giving feedback as a third party, find an aspect of the feedback that you can personally own. 295 | 296 | > Build feedback into your team routines, like retrospectives. Encourage your teammates to find opportunities to offer specific and actionable feedback--both positive and negative--to their teammates, as it will help the entire team grow stronger. 297 | 298 | Feedback, we decided is tougher to give in practice, than it is to read about it. Preparing what to say in advance is a good idea, since coming up with intelligent things to say off the cuff is difficult. 299 | 300 | Nick suggested that different communication methods might suite different types of feedback. We all agreed that while good feedback can be shared publically, negative or "constructive" feedback should be given privately. 301 | 302 | Just "having a meeting" isn't necesarily a good way to share feedback if it blindsides people and nothing productive can happen in the meeting. Get around this with regular 1:1s and consistently share feedback. The alternative approach of sending feedback via email in advance can also backfire, with people responding with combative lists of rebuttals. 303 | 304 | Although the short email example was a good one, the final question given of "what are you optimising for?" is a bit cringeworthy and could be interpreted as a snide attack. 305 | 306 | Richard had a problem where a colleague refused to share feedback with a 2-up. To fix this, more emotional safety and feedback training could be implemented. 307 | 308 | Adam pointed out that sometimes, the right thing to do is call "bullshit" on a person. Sometimes they even thank you for it later. 309 | 310 | https://www5.esc13.net/thescoop/behavior/2017/10/27/compass-of-shame/ 311 | 312 | 313 | 314 | #### Striking a balance 315 | 316 | Goals for 1:1s: 317 | 318 | 1. Build trust 319 | 2. Gain shared context 320 | 3. Plan and support career growth 321 | 4. Solve problems 322 | 323 | Reflecting back to The Manager's Path, is discusses styles: 324 | 325 | - To-do list meeting 326 | - The catch-up 327 | - The feedback and coaching meeting 328 | - The progress report 329 | - Getting to know you 330 | 331 | - Coaching for building trust and helping someone grow. Same as sponsoring. 332 | - Mentoring is if someone needs more direction. 333 | - Feedback is critical always. 334 | 335 | #### When it's not working 336 | 337 | > Consider whether or not this teammate might flourish if they moved to a different part of the organisation. It is your responsibility to make sure you're not "passing a problem around." 338 | 339 | Options: 340 | - Move to another team 341 | - Separating ways, especially when their behaviour is damaging to their teammates, or costing the business. 342 | 343 | > **Set clear expectations across the team about how everyone works together to ship work, hit goals, and level up** 344 | 345 | Homework: 346 | 347 | - Practice lightweight positive feedback. 348 | 349 | ## Chapter 3: set clear expectations 350 | 351 | - Norming stage 352 | - Goals: define the new norms by setting clear expectations 353 | - Why: so people can feel aligned to higher-level organisational goals, as well as feel momentum 354 | - Otherwise, responsibilities can feel ambiguous 355 | - Develop clear goals as a team, so they can shape the team environment themselves. 356 | 357 | Mentioned: 358 | 359 | - https://managerreadme.com/ 360 | - https://hackernoon.com/12-manager-readmes-from-silicon-valleys-top-tech-companies-26588a660afe 361 | 362 | Things to document: 363 | 364 | - Roles and responsibilities 365 | - Team vision or priorities 366 | - Team practices for collaboration, communication, and workflows. 367 | 368 | ### Roles and responsibilities 369 | 370 | - Career ladder 371 | - Skills matrix 372 | - Job descriptions 373 | 374 | Useful for: 375 | 376 | - performance reviews 377 | - delivering feedback 378 | - making a case for a hiring plan 379 | - writing job ads 380 | 381 | **RACI Matrix** 382 | 383 | - Responsible 384 | - Accountable 385 | - Consulted 386 | - Informed 387 | 388 | Helps to define who gets to make a decision. For example: 389 | 390 | - Responsible: two designers on the task 391 | - Accountable: one of them to communicate progress to business stakeholders 392 | - Consulted: performance team 393 | - Informed: working group, whoever got consulted 394 | 395 | Introducing this in Shopify has helped a lot, 396 | cutting down the "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem on projects. 397 | Dropbox also uses this matrix, and also in emails. 398 | Top of email has a list, for example, everyone who is cc is informed. 399 | 400 | Would people get upset for not being a part of the decision making? 401 | Not at Shopify, and possibly they might be relieved that they are not responsible. 402 | Might make it easier to know whether you should do something about this email or not. 403 | 404 | **Accountable is a good opportunity to grow sponsee's skills.** 405 | 406 | **Responsibility Venn Diagram** 407 | 408 | - Define what each is supposed to be doing day to day. 409 | - Use 1:1s and coaching questions to figure this out, 410 | for example: pitfalls they see, opportunities for collaboration, 411 | and what an ideal structure might look like for them. 412 | 413 | Example: 414 | 415 | - Product manager: "what" 416 | - Engineering manager: "who" 417 | - Engineering lead: "how" 418 | - And everyone responsible for "why" 419 | 420 | It could be useful from a different perspective: 421 | determining that someone should consult someone else, 422 | and work with others, instead of just by themselves. 423 | 424 | Review and reassess every six months: what's not working? 425 | What should stay the same? what new responsibilities have been added? 426 | What responsibilities should be delegated to someone who's not represented in the diagram? 427 | 428 | > Most important outcome of these exercises is that everyone of the team 429 | will have a shared understanding for who is doing what, 430 | and who they should go to for which kinds of questions and decisions. 431 | 432 | ### Team vision and priorities 433 | 434 | VSMO at the team level, not just organisational level: 435 | 436 | - Vision: north star 437 | - Mission: more grounded version 438 | - Objectives: what the team is set up to do 439 | - Strategy: measurable goals to help with benchmarking progress 440 | 441 | Example: 442 | 443 | - Vision: product teams gracefully build compelling experiences on a shared product platform 444 | - Mission: educate and create infrastructure, empowering Product to craft inclusive and sustainable marketplace. 445 | - Objectives: 446 | - Increase velocity 447 | - Define and make it easier to follow Etsy's best practices 448 | - Resources: how do we work 449 | 450 | Why? Help the team to gut check project plans, 451 | share plans with stakeholders around the company, and back up hiring strategy. 452 | Should also help with prioritisation. 453 | 454 | In most companies, people don't have so much time to define 455 | all these things so particularly. And this doesn't happen in small companies. 456 | Lachlan: only company that this was so defined was the army. 457 | 458 | Nick: would be useful to define these kind of techniques for communication with people outside of the company. Who to contact and for what. 459 | 460 | *Question: is that defined for your team? how clear is your day to day goals and priorities?* 461 | 462 | ### Team practices 463 | 464 | - Makes it easier to onboard a new team member 465 | 466 | Should cover: 467 | 468 | - Team meetings 469 | - Email groups and useful slack channels 470 | - workflows 471 | 472 | Tanya: in big organisations such organisations, there are multiple levels of units, 473 | that this can apply too, and it usually is done ad hoc. 474 | 475 | **Meetings** 476 | 477 | Have documentation for meetings: 478 | 479 | - Meeting description 480 | - Who should attend 481 | - Meeting goals 482 | - Ground rules 483 | - Timing 484 | 485 | Again to be reviewed every six-months. 486 | 487 | **Communication** 488 | 489 | - Define expectation around work hours, on-call situations, and emergencies 490 | - Ground rules about communication styles and channels 491 | - What are the different email groups? 492 | 493 | *Question: is that defined at your workplace?* 494 | 495 | > As you document your team's messaging channels, email lists, and resources pages, 496 | remember to include context about why someone might (or must) choose one channel or method over the other. 497 | 498 | -- 499 | 500 | > Speaking of collaboration, it's critical to bake collaboration into your team's workflow. 501 | 502 | Set expectations on how to: 503 | 504 | - approach problems together: code paring, splitting work 505 | - communicate with each other, their manager, business stakeholders: ticket management system, outage procedures 506 | - holding each other accountable: providing feedback. 507 | 508 | **Etsy's "Charter of Mindful Communication"** 509 | 510 | > Reflect on the dynamics in the room 511 | > Elevate the conversation 512 | > Assume best intentions 513 | > Listen to learn 514 | 515 | **Question: what team practices are not documented but should be?** 516 | 517 | ## Chapter 4: communicate effectively 518 | 519 | ### Communication plan 520 | 521 | > the art of the communication plan: a step-by-step strategy 522 | for sharing new information throughout an organization 523 | 524 | Very useful, and necessary in big companies. It makes it clearer in your own head 525 | about the message you wish to deliver. Especially when dealing with sensitive information, 526 | as things can go wrong so quickly. Consider triggers for certain people. 527 | 528 | *Template:* 529 | 530 | - header: author, date, status 531 | - background: 532 | - what is happening 533 | - why 534 | - people: 535 | - who knows 536 | - who will be directly impacted 537 | - timeline 538 | - what will be said where and when 539 | - talking points 540 | 541 | Planning the communication, and considering how people will react, 542 | and planning a response to different groups appropriately. 543 | 544 | People expect news in a specific manner, or in a specific order. 545 | 546 | Examples: reasons why people get fired 547 | 548 | Companies should help drive the narrative of what is happening, 549 | instead of letting rumours tell a different story. 550 | 551 | > Though you won't be able to guess the entirety of your teammates' reactions 552 | (humans are surprising!), it can be helpful to brainstorm ways 553 | to address their reactions so you can adequately prepare, 554 | or help leadership wordsmith announcements in a way that will address folks' core needs. 555 | 556 | **Things to brainstorm about:** 557 | 558 | - Map big changes back to the things people care about 559 | - Choose your words carefully 560 | - Plan out who can be informed 561 | - Optimise for creating clarity and transparency 562 | - Remember that others' reactions threaten your amygdala 563 | 564 | If the company (leadership) is not careful in their message, they can loose credit with the team. 565 | 566 | ### When disagreeing with a decision: disagree and commit** 567 | 568 | > Disagreeing and committing is the most mature and transparent move you can make. 569 | After disagreeing, committing looks like putting your own reservations on hold 570 | to give things a try and trust in leadership's decisions. 571 | It looks like weighing the pros and cons of a decision, 572 | speaking up about potential issues to other leaders, 573 | and then agreeing to support the decision 574 | even though you're not personally jazzed about it. 575 | 576 | If a manager tells the team: "I don't agree with this but we need to do this" 577 | will cause more problems with the team later on. 578 | Don't say: "WTF!?" in front of the team. 579 | 580 | Sometimes you might be able to say: I disagree with the decision 581 | but I trust my manager and their experience and decision. 582 | 583 | Sometimes, a pushback from one group matches their needs at their level 584 | but doesn't align with other groups in the organisation, 585 | and the overall big plan and impact on other work groups. 586 | It is about conceptualisation of the big picture, 587 | and finding the right words to get the most people behind this decision. 588 | 589 | ### Choosing your medium 590 | 591 | Rule of thumb: if something requires context, it should be done face to face IRL. 592 | Otherwise, it can be done in email. 593 | 594 | Having regular all hands is useful to avoid rumours mill. 595 | Qantas Hotels does weekly updates that is open for everyone 596 | to share what has happened with their corner of the company over the last week(s). 597 | 598 | Even when a message is delivered IRL, it is useful to follow up with an email summary. 599 | 600 | ### Communication styles in colours 601 | 602 | - Red: a bit of anger, frustration, edge, or urgency 603 | - Orange: cautious, hesitant, tiptoes around topics 604 | - Yellow: lighthearted, effervescent, cracks jokes 605 | - Green: in tune with others' feelings, loving, high emotional intelligence 606 | - Blue: calm, cool, collected, steady 607 | - Purple: creative, flowy, great at storytelling 608 | - Brown: adds (and lives in) nuance, complexity, and ambiguity 609 | - Black: blunt, unfeeling, no nuance, cut and dry 610 | 611 | Mentioned: 612 | 613 | - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats 614 | 615 | ## Chapter 5: Build resiliency 616 | 617 | There will always be change happening but, as managers, we should see it as an opportunity to gain experience, try out different tactics, and build up new skills. 618 | 619 | ### Managing times of crisis 620 | 621 | It is our responsibility to provide a safe and supportive work environment. 622 | 623 | #### Before a crisis 624 | 625 | It can be difficult to process new information in a time of crisis—be clear with teammates. 626 | 627 | Prepare in advance: 628 | 629 | - Know your benefits; 630 | - Lead by example; 631 | - Ask for input; and 632 | - Keep setting expectations. 633 | 634 | #### During a crisis 635 | 636 | > As a manager, you’re in a position of both power and familiarity. 637 | 638 | Ask your report if there is some way you can support them but make it easy to say "no". If they choose to share, anticipate a dip in productivity and partner to understand what happens next. 639 | 640 | It's natural to express sympathy but do not respond in a way that requires *them* to reassure *you*. 641 | 642 | > For each major event in the news that may affect marginalized people at your company, partner with your organization’s leadership to craft a clear message of support for those affected 643 | 644 | ### Managing your energy 645 | 646 | Management can be quite taxing and so tactics are necessary to maintain energy levels. 647 | 648 | #### Tracking your energy levels 649 | 650 | Record the different mental requirements of your day-to-day commitments and how each session makes you feel. Consider grouping meetings/tasks with similar mental requirements to minimise context switching. 651 | 652 | #### Reprioritizing your tasks 653 | 654 | If volume of work is your problem, you may need to reprioritise. An Eisenhower matrix can help you understand, prioritise, and delegate your tasks. 655 | 656 | ##### Delegating projects 657 | 658 | When you are carrying too many tasks, it is a good time to delegate. 659 | 660 | As managers we want to give our teammates clearly packaged work but, in reality, your messy, unscoped project: 661 | 662 | - allows them to hone problem-solving abilities; 663 | - forced them to lean on more people around them; and 664 | - stretches them into new leadership skills faster than small, simple projects. 665 | 666 | More complicated projects will require your support: 667 | 668 | - tell them how and in what medium you will support them; 669 | - tell them that you expect this to be a stretch for them, and that's the point; and 670 | - use a RACI. 671 | 672 | > The goal is to stay in coaching mode when delegating; you want to help your teammate grow, while also freeing yourself up to focus on other work. 673 | 674 | ##### Saying no 675 | 676 | > The best way to troubleshoot your energy drain may be to reduce how often you say yes, and get more practice saying no. 677 | > 678 | > If it's not urgent, and not important, it's time to say no 679 | 680 | If everything is important, match your tasks to your current mission or vision statement and remove anything that doesn't directly support those goals. 681 | 682 | ### Building a support network 683 | 684 | It's important to be apart of a group of managers who share knowledge and support each other's development. 685 | 686 | Be on the lookout for people who: 687 | 688 | - will push you out of your comfort zone; 689 | - have different levels of experience than you do; 690 | - have experience in a different industry; and 691 | - are good at the things that you’re terrible at. 692 | 693 | #### Growing your Voltron 694 | 695 | It can be awkward to ask people to be an in support network with you, especially if you don't know them. Apart from people in your business, you can ask your connections on Twitter or LinkedIn, Slack channels, or people at Meetups. Try asking for their advice on a topic close to their heart. 696 | 697 | #### First-team mentality 698 | 699 | You should consider your peers to be your "first team"; this will help you understand how others are tackling changes to strategic direction or are coaching their teammates—they will learn from you, too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /the-first-90-days.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # The first 90 days 2 | 3 | ## Intro 4 | 5 | > You’re managing under a microscope, subject to a high degree of scrutiny as people around you strive to figure out who you are and what you represent as a leader. Opinions of your effectiveness begin to form surprisingly quickly, and, once formed, they’re very hard to change. If you’re successful in building credibility and securing early wins, the momentum likely will propel you through the rest of your tenure. But if you dig yourself into a hole early on, you will face an uphill battle from that point forward. 6 | 7 | - Transitions into new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of leaders 8 | - Success or failure during the first few months is a strong predictor of overall success or failure in the job 9 | - Leaders average a major transition every 1.3 years 10 | - Each year about a quarter of managers in a Fortune 500 company change jobs 11 | You goal is to reach the break-even point as rapidly as possible 12 | 13 | ### Reaching the breakpoint even 14 | 15 | - “Break-even point”: the point in which you have contributed as much value to the new organization as you have consumed from it 16 | - Usually 6.2 months for midlevel hired from the outside 17 | - If you inherited a disaster -> maybe could see value from the start 18 | - If outside hire into a successful org -> longer to see net value 19 | 20 | ### Transition traps 21 | 22 | - Sticking with what you know 23 | - Falling prey to the action imperative 24 | - Setting unrealistic expectations 25 | - Attempting to do too much 26 | - Coming in with "the" answer 27 | - Engaging in the wrong type of learning 28 | - Neglecting horizontal relationships 29 | 30 | Transition failures happen because new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them. 31 | 32 | ### Fundamental principles 33 | 34 | - Prepare yourself 35 | - Accelerate your learning 36 | - Match your strategy to the situation 37 | - Secure early wins 38 | - Negotiate success 39 | - Achieve alignment 40 | - Build your team 41 | - Create coalitions 42 | - Keep your balance 43 | - Accelerate everyone 44 | 45 | ### Transition risk assessment and mapping out the first 90 days 46 | 47 | - Spend time learning about the organisation 48 | - Start planning what your want to accomplish and by when 49 | - Identify the risks you face 50 | 51 | ### Acceleration checklist 52 | 53 | 1. What will it take for you to reach the break-even point more quickly? 54 | 2. What are some traps you might encounter, and how can you avoid them? 55 | 3. What can you do to create virtuous cycles and build momentum in your new role? 56 | 4. What types of transitions are you experiencing? Which are you finding most challenging, and why? 57 | 5. What are the key elements and milestones in your 90-day plan? 58 | 59 | ## 1: prepare yourself 60 | 61 | - It is a mistake to believe that you will be successful in your new job by continuing to do what you did in your previous job, only more so 62 | - Prepare yourself for the new position: let go of the past, embrace the imperatives of the new situation 63 | - Two key transitions, each with each own challenges are: 64 | - Being promoted 65 | - Onboarding into a new company 66 | 67 | ### Four pillars of effective onboarding 68 | 69 | - Business orientation (learn about the company as a whole, not just your specific parts) 70 | - Stakeholder connection (vertical and horizontal). Find people to tell you the back story 71 | - Expectations alignment 72 | - Cultural adaptation (determine the norms, shared language, values, etc.) 73 | - Key check list includes: influence, meetings, execution, conflict, recognition, ends versus means. 74 | 75 | ### Key ways to prepare yourself 76 | 77 | - When transitioning, take time to make a clear break from the old and the new 78 | - Assess your vulnerabilities 79 | - Watch out for your strengths 80 | - Relearn how to learn (learn how to “unlearn”) 81 | - Rework your network 82 | - Watch out for people who want to hold you back 83 | - Get some help 84 | 85 | ### Checklist 86 | 87 | 1. If you have been promoted, what are the implications for your need to balance breadth and depth, delegate, influence, communicate, and exhibit leadership presence? 88 | 2. If you are joining a new organisation, how will you orient yourself to the business, identify and connect with key stakeholders, clarify expectations, and adapt to the new culture? What is the right balance between adapting to the new situation and trying to alter it? 89 | 3. What has made you successful so far in your career? Can you succeed in your new position by relying solely on those strengths? If not, what are the critical skills you need to develop? 90 | 4. Are there aspects of your new job that are critical to success but that you prefer not to focus on? Why? How will you compensate for your potential blind spots? 91 | 5. How can you ensure that you make the mental leap into the new position? From whom might you seek advice and counsel on this? What other activities might help you do this? 92 | 93 | ## 2: Accelerate your learning 94 | 95 | - Baseline question: how did we get here? 96 | - The pressure to do almost always comes from within rather than outside forces 97 | - Simply displaying a genuine desire to learn and understand -> credibility and influence 98 | - Coming in with the answer alienates people 99 | - Learning agenda: learn about the past, present, and future 100 | - Past: performance, root causes, history of change 101 | - Present: vision and strategy, people, processes, land mines, early wins 102 | - Future: challenges and opportunities, barriers and resources, culture 103 | - Identify who you can learn from the most -- from within and outside the organisation 104 | - Structured learning methods: ask the same five Qs: 105 | 1. What are the biggest challenges the organisation is facing (or will face in the near future)? 106 | 1. Why is the organisation facing (or going to face) these challenges? 107 | 1. What are the most promising unexploited opportunities for growth? 108 | 1. What would need to happen for the organisation to exploit the potential of these opportunities? 109 | 1. If you were me, what would you focus attention on? 110 | - Once you gathered insights, observations, and questions, gather the team, share your thoughts and invite a discussion. This will teach you about substance and team dynamics. 111 | - Methods for learning: 112 | - surveys 113 | - interviews 114 | - focus groups 115 | - analysis of critical past decisions 116 | - process analysis 117 | - tours 118 | - pilot projects 119 | - Learning plan template! 120 | 121 | ### Checklist 122 | 123 | 1. How effective are you at learning about new organisations? Do you sometimes fall prey to the action imperative? To coming in with “the” answer? If so, how will you avoid doing this? 124 | 2. What is your learning agenda? Based on what you know now, compose a list of questions to guide your early enquiries. If you have begun to form hypotheses about what is going on, what are they, and how will you test them? 125 | 3. Given the questions you want to answer, who is likely to provide you with the most useful insights? 126 | 4. How might you increase the efficiency of your learning process? What are some structured ways you might extract more insight for your investment of time and energy? 127 | 5. What support is available to accelerate your learning, and how might you best leverage it? 128 | 6. Given your answers to the previous questions, start to create your learning plan. 129 | 130 | ## 3: Match strategy to situation 131 | 132 | - Questions for leaders: 133 | - What kind of change am I being called upon to lead? -> to be able to match strategy to situation 134 | - What kind of change leader am I? -> how do I adjust my leadership style 135 | 136 | ### STARS model 137 | 138 | - Startup - assembling new business initiative 139 | - Turnaround - saving a business in trouble 140 | - Accelerate growth - managing rapidly expanding business 141 | - Re-alignment - re-energising a previously successful organisation 142 | - Sustaining success - taking a successful business to the next level 143 | 144 | > You cannot figure out where to take a new organisation if you do not understand where it has been and how it got where it is. 145 | 146 | ### Leading change 147 | 148 | - Diagnose which parts of the organisation are in which stage -> this exercise will help you think systematically about challenges and opportunities 149 | - Take each part of the business and categorise it with STARS situation, priority percentage, and challenges and opportunities 150 | 151 | > Specifically, you must establish priorities, define strategic intent, identify where you can secure early wins, build the right leadership team, and create supporting alliances. 152 | 153 | ### Turnarounds vs re-alignments 154 | 155 | - Organise to learn 156 | - T: focus on technical learning, prepare to act quickly 157 | - R: Focus on **cultural and political** learning, prepare to act deliberately 158 | - Define strategic intent: 159 | - T: prune non-core business 160 | - R: leverage existing capabilities. Stimulate innovation 161 | - Establish priorities: 162 | - T: fast, bold moves, focus on strategy and structure 163 | - R: slow, deliberate moves, focus on systems, skills, and **culture** 164 | - Build the leadership team: 165 | - T: clean house at the top, recruit external talent 166 | - R: few big changes, promote potential from within 167 | - Secure early wins: 168 | - T: shift organisational mindset from despair to hope 169 | - R: shift organisational mindset from denial to awareness (like learning metrics) 170 | - Creating supporting alliances: 171 | - T: gain stakeholders support to invest in the required resources 172 | - R: build alliances sideways and down to ensure better execution 173 | - Leadership style: 174 | - T: hopeful, hero 175 | - R: steward, servant leader, more diplomatic, ego-less approach 176 | 177 | ### Checklist 178 | 179 | 1. What portfolio of STARS situations have you inherited? Which portions of your responsibilities are in start-up, turnaround, accelerated-growth, realignment, and sustaining-success modes? 180 | 2. What are the implications for the challenges and opportunities you are likely to confront, and for the way you should approach accelerating your transition? 181 | 3. What are the implications for your learning agenda? Do you need to understand only the technical side of the business, or is it critical that you understand culture and politics as well? 182 | 4. What is the prevailing climate in your organisation? What psychological transformations do you need to make, and how will you bring them about? 183 | 5. How can you best lead change given the situations you face? 184 | 6. Which of your skills and strengths are likely to be most valuable in your new situation, and which have the potential to get you into trouble? 185 | 7. What are the implications for the team you need to build? 186 | 187 | ## 4: Negotiate success 188 | - Clearly communicate a 90 day plan 189 | - Proactively engage with your new boss to shape the game so that you have a fighting chance of achieving desired goals 190 | - Establish realistic expectations 191 | - Establish a relationship with your boss 192 | - Don't stay away 193 | - Don't surprise your boss 194 | - Don't approach your boss only with problems 195 | - Don’t run down your checklist with your boss, have at most 3 things 196 | - Don't expect your boss to change 197 | - Do clarify expectations early and often 198 | - Take responsibility for the relationship with your boss 199 | - Negotiate timelines 200 | - Figure out what your boss cares about most 201 | - E.g. “What are three things that are important to you?” 202 | - Determine your boss’s working style 203 | - Under promise and over deliver - aim for early wins in areas that are important for your boss 204 | - “What exactly do I need from my boss?” 205 | - After 90 days, discuss how I am doing 206 | 207 | ### Planning for 5 conversations 208 | 209 | 1. Situational diagnosis conversation - how does your boss see things 210 | 2. Expectations conversation - understand and negotiate expectations 211 | 3. Resource conversation - resources negotiations, what do you need to be successful? 212 | - Focus on underlying interests 213 | - Look for mutually beneficial exchanges 214 | - Link resources to results 215 | 4. Style conversation - how do you work together 216 | 5. Personal development conversation - what your development priorities should be? 217 | 218 | Use these conversations to set goals for the next 30 days. 219 | 220 | > Helping direct reports accelerate their transitions is about more than being a good manager and contributing to others’ development. The faster your direct reports get up to speed, the better able they will be to help you reach your goals. 221 | 222 | ### Checklist 223 | 1. How effectively have you built relationships with new bosses in the past? What have you done well? Where do you need improvement? 224 | 2. Create a plan for the situational conversation. Based on what you know now, what issues will you raise with your boss in this conversation? What do you want to say up front? In what order do you want to raise issues? 225 | 3. Create a plan for the expectations conversation. How will you figure out what your new boss expects you to do? 226 | 4. Create a plan for the style conversation. How will you figure out how best to work with your boss? What mode of communication does he prefer? How often should you interact? How much detail should you provide? What types of issues should you consult with him about before deciding? 227 | 5. Create a plan for the resource conversation. Given what you need to do, what resources are absolutely needed? With fewer resources, what would you have to forgo? If you had more resources, what would the benefits be? Be sure to build the business case. 228 | 6. Create a plan for the personal development conversation. What are your strengths, and where do you need improvement? What kinds of assignments or projects might help you develop skills you need? 229 | 7. How might you use the five conversations framework to accelerate the development of your team? Where are you in terms of having the key conversations with each of your direct reports? 230 | 231 | ## 5: Secure early wins 232 | 233 | - Don't change too many things too quickly 234 | - Early wins to build personal credibility - try for that in the first 30 days 235 | - Making waves of change: learning, designing the changes, building support, implementing the changes, observing results 236 | - Start with the goal in mind 237 | - Focus on business priorities 238 | - Identify unwanted behaviours -> support behavioural changes. 239 | Examples: lack of focus (unclear priorities, putting out fires), discipline (QA, performance, inconsistency), innovation (slow, non existent), teamwork (compete, cliques), complacency 240 | - Basic principles for wins 241 | - Focus on a few promising opportunities 242 | - Get wins that matter to your boss 243 | - Get wins in the right ways - don't cut corners 244 | - Take STARS portfolio into account 245 | - Adjust for the culture - understand what is and is not viewed as a win 246 | - What to do first 247 | - Build credibility 248 | - Decide which project to launch 249 | - People will form opinions on you with very little data 250 | - Leading former peers 251 | - Accept that relationships must change 252 | - Focus on establishing yourself in the new role - for example new boss introducing you 253 | - Recognise disappointment competitors and figure out who can work for you and who can't 254 | - Establish your authority, maybe adopt a consult-and-decide approach 255 | - Focus on what's good for the business 256 | 257 | > Your credibility, or lack of it, will depend on how people would answer the following questions about you: 258 | > 259 | > 1. Do you have the insight and steadiness to make tough decisions? 260 | > 2. Do you have values that they relate to, admire, and want to emulate? 261 | > 3. Do you have the right kind of energy? 262 | > 4. Do you demand high levels of performance from yourself and others? 263 | 264 | - Credible leaders: 265 | - Demanding but able to be satisfied 266 | - Accessible but not too familiar 267 | - Decisive but judicious 268 | - Focused but flexible 269 | - Active without causing commotion 270 | - Willing to make tough calls, but humane 271 | - When you start, think about how you wish to communicate: what messages?, how will you engage and connect? 272 | - Early wins: best are problems you can 273 | - tackle quickly, 274 | - with modest expenditure, and 275 | - will yield visible operational and financial gain 276 | - Align your learning agenda with early wins 277 | 278 | ### FOGLAMP project checklist 279 | 280 | > **Focus:** What is the focus for this project? For example, what goal or early win do you want to achieve? 281 | > **Oversight:** How will you oversee this project? Who else should participate in oversight to help you get buy-in for implementing results? 282 | > **Goals:** What are the goals and the intermediate milestones, and time frames for achieving them? Leadership: Who will lead the project? What training, if any, do they need in order to be successful? 283 | > **Abilities:** What mix of skills and representation needs to be included? Who needs to be included because of their skills? Because they represent key constituencies? 284 | > **Means:** What additional resources, such as facilitation, does the team need to be successful? 285 | > **Process:** Are there change models or structured processes you want the team to use? If so, how will they become familiar with the approach? 286 | 287 | ### Leading change 288 | > **Awareness**. A critical mass of people is aware of the need for change. 289 | > **Diagnosis**. You know what needs to be changed and why. 290 | > **Vision**. You have a compelling vision and a solid strategy. 291 | > **Plan**. You have the expertise to put together a detailed plan. 292 | > **Support**. You have sufficiently powerful alliances to support implementation. 293 | 294 | ### Behavioural change 295 | - You cannot through away the culture 296 | 297 | > The key is to identify both the good and the bad elements of the existing culture. Elevate and praise the good elements even as you seek to change the bad ones. These functional aspects of the familiar culture are a bridge that can help carry people from the past to the future. 298 | 299 | - Match strategy to situation 300 | - Avoid predictable surprises. Ask about the external environment, customers, markets, competitors, and strategy, internal capabilities, organisational politics 301 | 302 | ### Checklist 303 | 1. Given your agreed-to business goals, what do you need to do during your transition to create momentum for achieving them? 304 | 2. How do people need to behave differently to achieve these goals? Describe as vividly as you can the behaviours you need to encourage and those you need to discourage. 305 | 3. How do you plan to connect yourself to your new organisation? Who are your key audiences, and what messages would you like to convey to them? What are the best modes of engagement? 306 | 4. What are the most promising focal points to get some early improvements in performance and start the process of behaviour change? 307 | 5. What projects do you need to launch, and who will lead them? 308 | 6. What predictable surprises could take you off track? 309 | 310 | ## 6: Achieve Alignment 311 | 312 | > But Hannah knew that the people issues couldn’t be dealt with until the structure was put right. 313 | 314 | -- 315 | > The higher you climb in organizations, the more you take on the role of organizational architect, creating and aligning the key elements of the organizational system: the strategic direction, structure, core processes, and skill bases that provide the foundation for superior performance. 316 | 317 | -- 318 | > If you have the scope to alter **direction, structure, processes, and skills** in your new position, you should begin to analyze the architecture of your organization and assess alignment among these key elements. 319 | 320 | Otherwise, just focus on alignment 321 | 322 | ### Avoiding common traps 323 | - Making changes for change's sake 324 | - Not adjusting for the STARS situation - instead of a "one size fits all" 325 | - Trying to restructure your way out fo deeper problems - better of to understand root causes of problems 326 | - Creating structures that are too complex - strive for clear lines of responsibility 327 | - Overestimating your organisation's capacity to absorb change - incremental change is better 328 | 329 | What is a matrix structure?? 330 | 331 | ### Designing organisational architecture 332 | You need alignment on 333 | 334 | - Strategic direction - mission, vision, and strategy 335 | - Structure - work units, how work is measured and incentivised 336 | - Core processes - systems that add value 337 | - Skill bases - capabilities of the people in the org 338 | 339 | Changing one, will probably require alignment in the other three as well 340 | 341 | ### Getting started 342 | 343 | > First, you need to be clear on whether your destination (the mission and goals) and your route (the strategy) are the right ones. Then you can figure out which boat you need (the structure), how to outfit it (the processes), and which mix of crew members is best (the skill bases). 344 | 345 | 1. Begin with strategic direction 346 | 2. Look at supporting structure, processes, and skills 347 | 3. Decide how and when you will introduce the new strategic direction 348 | 4. Think through the correct sequencing - approach 349 | 5. Close the loop 350 | 351 | ### Strategic direction 352 | 353 | > Mission is about what will be achieved, vision is about why people should feel motivated to perform at a high level, and strategy is about how resources should be allocated and decisions made to accomplish the mission. 354 | 355 | **Focus on 4Cs**: 356 | 357 | - Customers - who to serve? what is our value proposition? which markets to exit? what new markets to enter? 358 | - Capital - where is cash coming from? where else can we acquire capital and when? 359 | - Capabilities - what are we good and not good at? what capabilities can we leverage? which do we need to build up, create, or acquire? 360 | - Commitments - resourcing 361 | 362 | Review existing docs and disassemble into the above four components. Do they support each other? is there a connecting logical thread? What plans are already in place? 363 | 364 | **TOWS** 365 | 366 | Identify potential threats and opportunities before considering your strengths and weaknesses... Learn how the strategy was defined 367 | 368 | > Does the organization have weaknesses that make it particularly vulnerable to specific threats? Does the organization have strengths that would permit it to pursue specific opportunities? ... Translate these assessments into a set of strategic priorities 369 | 370 | ### Elements of structure 371 | 372 | 1. Units - teams by function, product, geographical area 373 | 2. Reporting lines - accountability and effort coordination between the teams 374 | 3. Decision rights and rules - who is empowered to make decisions? 375 | 4. Performance measurement and incentive systems 376 | 377 | ### Core processes (systems) 378 | 379 | > Core processes (often referred to as “systems”) enable your group to transform information, materials, and knowledge into value in the form of commercially viable products or services, new knowledge or ideas, productive relationships, or anything else the larger organization considers essential. Again, as with structure, ask yourself whether the processes currently in place support your mission, vision, and strategy. 380 | 381 | Evaluate: 382 | 383 | 1. Productivity - does the process transform knowledge, materials, and labour into value? 384 | 2. Timeliness - in a timely manner? 385 | 3. Reliability - does the process break down? 386 | 4. Quality - does it meet quality standards? 387 | 388 | ### Develop skill bases 389 | 390 | Four types of knowledge: 391 | 392 | 1. Individual expertise - gained through training, education, and experience 393 | 2. Relational knowledge - understanding of relationships that shape collaborations 394 | 3. Embedded knowledge - core technologies and systems 395 | 4. Meta-knowledge - knowing where to go to get critical information 396 | 397 | Goal: identify knowledge gaps 398 | 399 | ### Changing architecture to change culture 400 | 401 | Culture is influenced by the four elements of organisational architecture, as well as by leadership behaviours. To achieve cultural change, we need to change the architecture and reinforce it with leadership. 402 | 403 | ### Checklist 404 | 405 | 1. What are your observations about misalignments among strategic direction, structure, processes, and skills? How will you dig deeper to confirm or refine your impressions? 406 | 2. What decisions about customers, capital, capabilities, and commitments do you need to make? How and when will you make these decisions? 407 | 3. What is your current assessment of the coherence of the organisation’s strategic direction? Of its adequacy? What are your current thoughts about changing direction? 408 | 4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation’s structure? What potential structural changes are you thinking about? 409 | 5. What are the core processes in your organisation? How well are they performing? What are your priorities for process improvement? 410 | 6. What skill gaps and underutilised resources have you identified? What are your priorities for strengthening key skill bases? 411 | 412 | ## 7: Build your team 413 | 414 | ### Avoiding common traps 415 | 416 | 1. Criticising previous leadership 417 | 2. Keep people for too long 418 | 3. Don't change too many things too quickly 419 | 4. Not working on organisational alignment and team development in parallel 420 | 5. Not holding on to good people 421 | 6. Undertake team building activities before the team is complete 422 | 7. Make decisions too early 423 | 8. Trying to do it all by yourself - get support from HR 424 | 425 | ### Assessing the team 426 | 427 | Assess who is who in the first 30-60 days, team members roles, and how the team worked in the past. Start by establishing an **evaluation criteria**: 428 | 429 | 1. Competence - technical competence and knowledge? 430 | 2. Judgement - exercise good judgement? especially under pressure? 431 | 3. Energy - right kind of energy? or burnt out? disengaged? 432 | 4. Focus - capable of setting priorities and sticking to them? 433 | 5. Relationships - collaborative? 434 | 6. Trust - trustworthy and follow through on commitments? 435 | 436 | > If you’re entering an enterprise leader role, consider developing your own templates for evaluating people in functions such as marketing, sales, finance, and operations. **A good template includes function-specific key performance indicators (KPIs), what the KPIs should and should not show, key questions to ask, and warning signs**. 437 | 438 | Additionally: 439 | 440 | 1. Remember to check your assumptions. 441 | 2. Factor in extent of teamwork 442 | 3. factor in the STARS mix 443 | 4. Factor in how critical these positions are 444 | 5. Have 1:1 with your new team 445 | 6. Assess the team as a whole 446 | 447 | > One way to assess judgment is to work with a person for an extended time and observe whether he is able to (1) make sound predictions and (2) develop good strategies for avoiding problems. 448 | 449 | ### Evolving the team 450 | 451 | After 30 days, decide: 452 | 453 | 1. Keep in place 454 | 2. Keep and develop 455 | 3. Move to another position 456 | 4. Replace (low priority) 457 | 5. Replace (high priority) 458 | 6. Observe for a while 459 | 460 | Also, consider alternatives, develop backups, and treat people respectfully 461 | 462 | ### Aligning the team 463 | 464 | Motivate using a blend of push and pull tools: 465 | 466 | - Push tools, such as goals, performance measurement systems, and incentives, motivate people through authority, loyalty, fear, and expectation of reward for productive work. 467 | - Pull tools, such as a compelling vision, inspire people by invoking a positive and exciting image of the future. 468 | 469 | ### Off-site planning checklist 470 | 471 | Reasons for an off-site: 472 | 473 | - To gain a shared understanding of the business - diagnostic focus 474 | - To define the vision and create a strategy - strategy focus 475 | - To change the way the team works together - team process focus 476 | - To build or alter relationships in the group - relationship focus 477 | - To develop a plan and commit to achieving it - planning focus 478 | - To address conflicts and negotiate agreements - conflict resolution focus 479 | 480 | Logistics: 481 | 482 | - When and where? 483 | - What will be dealt with? and in what order? 484 | - Who will be the facilitator? 485 | 486 | Don't try to do too much. Not too many targets, stay focused. 487 | And ensure there is a shared understanding of the business environment and workplace relationship before you can define vision or create a strategy 488 | 489 | ### Decision making 490 | 491 | - Highly divisive—creating winners and losers—then -> consult-and-decide and taking the heat. A build-consensus process will fail to reach a good outcome and will get everyone mad at one another in the process. 492 | - If the decision requires energetic support for implementation from people whose performance you cannot adequately observe and control -> build-consensus 493 | - If inexperienced team members -> consult and decide 494 | - If you need to establish authority -> consult and decide 495 | 496 | > To avoid confusion, consider explaining to your direct reports what process you’re using and why. More importantly, strive to run a fair process.4 Even if people do not agree with the final decision, they often will support it if they feel (1) that their views and interests have been heard and taken seriously and (2) that you have given them a plausible rationale for why you made the call you did. The corollary? Don’t engage in a charade of consensus building—an effort to build support for a decision already made. This rarely fools anyone, and it creates cynicism... 497 | 498 | ### Virtual teams 499 | 500 | Additional things to consider; 501 | 502 | 1. Get people together early 503 | 2. Establish clear norms about communication 504 | 3. Clearly define team support roles - for example note taker 505 | 4. Create a rhythm for team interaction - routines. Provide structure for interactions 506 | 5. Don't forget to celebrate success 507 | 508 | > You will know you’ve been successful in building your team when you reach the break-even point—when the energy the team creates is greater than the energy you need to put into it. 509 | 510 | ### Checklist 511 | 512 | 1. What are your criteria for assessing the performance of members of your team? How are relative weightings affected by functions, the extent of required teamwork, the STARS portfolio, and the criticality of the positions? 513 | 2. How will you go about assessing your team? 514 | 3. What personnel changes do you need to make? Which changes are urgent, and which can wait? How will you create backups and options? 515 | 4. How will you make high-priority changes? What can you do to preserve the dignity of the people affected? What help will you need with the team in the restructuring process, and where are you going to find it? 516 | 5. How will you align the team? What mix of push (goals, incentives) and pull (shared vision) will you use? 517 | 6. How do you want your new team to operate? What roles do you want people to play? Do you need to shrink the core team or expand it? How do you plan to manage decision making? 518 | 519 | ## 8: create alliances 520 | 521 | > To succeed in your new role, you will need the support of people over whom you have no direct authority. 522 | 523 | - Consider the people who are likely be critical to your success 524 | - Define influence objectives - whose support do I need? 525 | - Win and block alliances 526 | - Map influence networks - and why can they influence? is it 527 | - Expertise 528 | - Control of information 529 | - Connections to others 530 | - Access to resources 531 | - Personal loyalty 532 | - Reasons why resistance might happen: 533 | - Comfort with the status quo 534 | - Fear of looking incompetent 535 | - Threats to core values 536 | - Threats to their power 537 | - Negative consequences for their allies 538 | - People that still need to be persuaded. They might be: 539 | - Indifferent 540 | - Undecided 541 | - Political operators waiting to see which way the wind will blow 542 | - Understand pivotal people 543 | 544 | > Start by assessing their intrinsic motivators. People are motivated by various things, such as a need for recognition, for control, for power, for affiliation through relationships with colleagues, and for personal growth 545 | 546 | - Craft influence strategies 547 | - Consultation promotes buy-in 548 | - Framing - craft personal messages. Frame arguments with logos (logical data), ethos (principles and values), and pathos (emotional connections) in mind 549 | - Choice shaping - affect how people perceive their alternatives 550 | - Social influence - avoid asking people to make choices that are inconsistent with their values, prior commitments, decrease their status, threaten their reputation or risk disapproval by others 551 | - Incrementalism - small steps rather than a single big leap 552 | - Sequencing - approach the right people first 553 | - Action-forcing events - eliminate inaction as an option to avoid delays 554 | 555 | ### Checklist 556 | 1. What are the critical alliances you need to build—both within your organisation and externally—to advance your agenda? 557 | 2. What agendas are other key players pursuing? Where might they align with yours, and where might they come into conflict? 558 | 3. Are there opportunities to build long-term, broad-based alliances with others? Where might you be able to leverage shorter-term agreements to pursue specific objectives? 559 | 4. How does influence work in the organisation? Who defers to whom on key issues of concern? 560 | 5. Who is likely to support your agenda? Who is likely to oppose you? Who is persuadable? 561 | 6. What are the motivations of pivotal people, the situational pressures acting on them, and their perceptions of their choices? 562 | 7. What are the elements of an effective influence strategy? How should you frame your arguments? Might influence tools such as incrementalism, sequencing, and action-forcing events help? 563 | 564 | ## 9: Manage yourself 565 | 566 | - Guidelines for structured reflection 567 | - How do you feel so far? excited? confident? in control? 568 | - What has bothered you so far? with whom have you failed to connect? and why? meetings? 569 | - What has gone well? or poorly? 570 | - Potentially dysfunctional behaviours that lead to stress 571 | - Unclear boundaries 572 | - Brittleness 573 | - Isolation 574 | - Work avoidance 575 | - Three pillars of self management 576 | - Adopt 90-day strategies 577 | - Create and enforce personal disciplines 578 | - Plan 579 | - Focus on the important 580 | - Learn to say no - rather than commit on the spur of the moment 581 | - Stand back from emotional situations 582 | - Check in with yourself - are you aware of your reactions? 583 | - Recognise when to quit 584 | - Form support systems - at work and at home to help maintain balance 585 | - You cannot be productive at work if home is falling apart 586 | - You can't do it alone. It leads to isolation and losing perspective. Find technical advisors, cultural interpreters, and political counsellors. Consider internal and external advisers. 587 | 588 | 589 | ### Checklist 590 | 591 | 1. What are your greatest vulnerabilities in your new role? How do you plan to compensate for them? 592 | 2. What personal disciplines do you most need to develop or enhance? How will you do that? What will success look like? 593 | 3. What can you do to gain more control over your local environment? 594 | 4. What can you do to ease your family’s transition? What support relationships will you have to build? Which are your highest priorities? 595 | 5. What are your priorities for strengthening your advice-and-counsel network? To what extent do you need to focus on your internal network? Your external network? In which domain do you most need additional support—technical, cultural, political, or personal? 596 | 597 | ## 10: Accelerate everyone 598 | 599 | > It’s even a potential source of competitive advantage; if you can help everyone get up to speed faster, the business will be more nimble and responsive. 600 | 601 | ### Checklist 602 | 1. What are the most important transitions in your organisation, and how often do they occur? 603 | 2. Is the organisation able to identify where and when transitions are occurring? 604 | 3. Is there a common core transition acceleration framework, language, and toolkit? 605 | 4. Do leaders have the support they need, when they need it, and throughout their transitions? What could be done to provide focused resources for onboarding and promotion transitions? 606 | 5. Are the company’s systems for recruiting and accelerating transitions linked in appropriate ways? 607 | 6. Should transition acceleration be part of your organisation’s curriculum for developing high-potential leaders? 608 | 7. How might the 90-day framework be used to accelerate organisational change—for example, restructuring or post-acquisition integration? 609 | 610 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /conflict-without-casualties.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Conflict without casualties 2 | 3 | ## Chapter 1: Conflict: the big bang of communication 4 | 5 | > Conflict is energy 6 | 7 | - People need to be very self-aware to know that discrepancy between what they want, what the situation is, and how they feel about it 8 | 9 | > The purpose of conflict is to create 10 | > -- Michael Meade 11 | 12 | - Broad generalisations in the first chapter 13 | 14 | - Famous people: did they struggle with or struggle against.... did MLK really "struggled with" for a win-win situation? or was he a rebel fighting for his beliefs? 15 | 16 | - Two outcomes for conflict: drama and compassion 17 | 18 | - Compassionate people handle conflict better 19 | 20 | - NVC talks about acknowledging how the other person is feeling, even if you don't agree with it. Because everyone wants to be heard. And this is in other ways compassion. 21 | 22 | - If conflict is not addressed, it festers and gets worse 23 | 24 | - Practice will be useful, and will make handling conflict in the future easier. Also be prepared to take the risk, and having those conversations. 25 | 26 | ## Chapter 2: Drama, misusing the energy of conflict 27 | 28 | ### What is Drama? 29 | 30 | Drama is what happens when people struggle against themselves or each other, with or without awareness, to feel justified about their negative behaviour. 31 | 32 | - Drama is about struggling against 33 | - Drama happens with or without awareness 34 | - Feeling justified is the modus operandi in drama — people are spending enormous amounts of energy trying to feel justified 35 | - Drama is all about negative attention behaviour 36 | - Drama is fuelled by myths 37 | 38 | Dr Taibi Kahler: 39 | 40 | - Myth 1. You can make me feel good emotionally. 41 | - Myth 2. You can make me feel bad emotionally. 42 | - Myth 3. I can make you feel good emotionally. 43 | - Myth 4. I can make you feel bad emotionally. 44 | 45 | "Nobody can make you feel a certain way." 46 | 47 | ### The Drama Triangle 48 | 49 | Dr Stephen Karpman (psychiatrist, athelete, and more!) developed models for offense and defense in sports and continued that work into interpersonal relations. He developed the Drama Triangle describing how three different negative roles play off each other to perpetuate unhealthy behaviour. 50 | 51 | Nature hates a vacuum and so every role actively recruits for other roles to fill the gap. It's an equilateral triangle to indicate equal responsibility. 52 | 53 | #### The Persecutor 54 | 55 | - Resorts to criticism, questioning motives, accusations, and insults 56 | - Driven by the belief that the individual is OK and others are not OK, so therefore it’s OK to behave this way 57 | - Myth: you can make others feel bad to get what you want 58 | - Sacrifice respect for being feared 59 | 60 | #### The Victim 61 | 62 | - Victims overadapt, surrender, lose assertiveness, accept blame for things they didn’t do, and internalize the negative energy around them to avoid conflict and rejection 63 | - Driven by the belief that others are OK, but they are not OK, therefore it’s OK for people to mistreat them 64 | - Myth: others make them feel bad to coerce them into doing things, or they can make them feel good by approving of them or showing pity 65 | - These emotions also invite criticism from other Persecutors who are frustrated with their avoidance, mistakes and lack of assertiveness. This disapproval serves to further reinforce their feelings of worthlessness. 66 | - Sacrifice self-worth in the interest of keeping the peace and avoiding conflict 67 | 68 | ### The Rescuer 69 | 70 | - Meddles in other people's business and offers unsolicited advice 71 | - Driven by the belief that they're OK and others would be more OK if they'd just let him help them, therefore it's OK to behave this way 72 | - Myth: they can make others feel good by doing the thinking for them, by showing them the error of their ways and the benefits of theirs 73 | - Invite others to sacrifice empowerment, competence and accountability, and exchange them for dependence 74 | 75 | #### The Internal Drama Triangle 76 | 77 | While someone may exhibit a single drama role externally, it will be backed by an internal drama triangle. 78 | 79 | "Recognising our own internal drama dialogue can help us gain insight into how we developed these patterns in the first place, and why we act out our own external roles the way we do." 80 | 81 | ### There's hope for change 82 | 83 | 87% of the workplace problems leaders face are related to people issues. How can an organization possibly realize its potential with so much wasteful conflict going on? 84 | 85 | Costs approximately $359 billion for annum in paid hours—the drag on our economy is colossal. 86 | 87 | (These numbers are all pretty loose.) 88 | 89 | Great leaders see drama coming a mile away and choose not to play a role in it. They develop alternative ways of influencing excellence to preserve everyone’s dignity and stay focused on the most important priorities. 90 | 91 | ### The Silver Lining 92 | 93 | The author argues that these examples of negative attributes are representative of misused positive attributes. 94 | 95 | Seems fair, but his examples don't really make it clear. Kind of holding out for further explanation. 96 | 97 | Playing to our strengths is a great way to gain momentum, develop confidence and maximize our potential. 98 | 99 | Behind each negative drama role are positive capacities that lay dormant or have been misused. 100 | 101 | We need flexible people who can respond to the unexpected and thrive under pressure; these same people can become Persecutors, disregarding rules and setting up negative drama. 102 | 103 | People who are conscientious are trustworthy and we can count on them to keep our highest values in mind—they can misuse this strength by falling into Rescuer mode, pointing out what everyone else is doing that’s wrong. 104 | 105 | In drama, someone who is warm and caring by nature may play the Victim role, their warmth mutating into emotionality 106 | 107 | One of the key qualities of a good leader is the ability to solve problems without creating new ones. What if the energy expended in drama was redirected to leveraging the multiple strengths we have within us? 108 | 109 | ### Cultural Consequences 110 | 111 | People respond to the leader(s) and that shapes the culture accordingly. When cultures are defined by drama, the dynamics and consequences are predictable. People are capable of playing all three roles, but often play one of them more consistently. 112 | 113 | #### Victim leaders breed victim cultures 114 | 115 | Victim leaders avoid conflict, play it safe, second-guess themselves, and anticipate bad things happening. Many Victim leaders are still in their positions because others feel sorry for them or are avoiding the necessary conflict to hold them accountable. 116 | 117 | Their environments reflect their leadership type through these symptoms: 118 | 119 | - employees with low self-confidence 120 | - loss of respect for the leader 121 | - a gloom-and-doom mentality 122 | - believing that outside forces are in control 123 | - low morale and engagement 124 | - apathy and indifference 125 | - avoidance of conflict 126 | - avoidance of initiative, playing it safe 127 | 128 | #### Rescuer leaders breed rescuer cultures 129 | 130 | Rescuer leaders are often the ones who were promoted because they were responsible and hardworking. Once in a leadership position, they never learned how to develop and empower others, instead portraying themselves as the indispensable expert who has all the answers. Their culture shows it in these ways: 131 | 132 | - low innovation 133 | - low initiative 134 | - fear of failure 135 | - analysis paralysis 136 | - death by meetings 137 | - death by data 138 | - dependence on the leader 139 | - resentment of the leader 140 | - withholding information from the leader 141 | - silos 142 | - low levels of collaboration 143 | 144 | #### Persecutor leaders breed persecutor cultures 145 | 146 | Fear, guilt and intimidation have worked before, and it’s intoxicating to feel the temporary rush of power. These leaders don’t get honest feedback because people are afraid of them. They aren’t held accountable because nobody will stand up to them. They avoid information that would question their position, power, authority, or effectiveness. And their environment shows it through: 147 | 148 | - secrecy, hiding, and avoidance 149 | - cutthroat competition 150 | - fear and anxiety 151 | - blaming, manipulating, and attacking others to avoid responsibility for negative outcomes 152 | - increased risk of abusive behavior 153 | - high turnover 154 | - increased risk of lawsuits 155 | 156 | ### Which drama role is most harmful? 157 | Much of these section comes from: https://hbr.org/2015/12/its-better-to-avoid-a-toxic-employee-than-hire-a-superstar 158 | 159 | High performers are four times as productive as average workers and may generate 80% of a business’s profits. 160 | 161 | Toxic workers can have an even greater effect on organisations. These are talented and productive people who engage in harmful behavior. What makes these employees so damaging is their combination of high productivity and toxic behaviors. Because of this, they are not held accountable for their behavior, often with the excuse that the company needs their contribution. 162 | 163 | Allowing a toxic employee to stay costs a company more than twice as much as the contribution of a star performer. 164 | 165 | ### Getting rid of toxic employees 166 | 167 | The toxic employee has likely built up a cadre of followers or sympathizers who will react negatively at first. Once the noxious employee has left, though, the results are almost always better than anyone could have anticipated. 168 | 169 | ## Chapter 3: But I'm just trying to help 170 | 171 | > Some people really do want to help. They have good intentions. Most of us, in fact, want to make a difference, advance noble causes, and positively influence those around us. 172 | 173 | > Victims hold onto the myth, "You can make me feel good (or bad) emotionally," 174 | 175 | > I'd only be OK if you are pleased with my help. 176 | 177 | > Starting sentences with, "What you should do is…." or "Why don't you…." 178 | 179 | > Suggesting action that could backfire on the other person but leaves the Rescuer out of harm's way. 180 | 181 | > Drama-based helping fosters an unsavory mix of unhealthy emotions. It cultivates uncertainty, neediness, resentment, anxiety, narcissism, entitlement, dependency, and defensiveness, just to name a few. 182 | 183 | > ...pattern of passive-aggressive manipulation, using the Victim role to garner sympathy, and then switching to the Persecutor to keep people from holding him accountable. This is a common pattern in leadership, and we've found it to be particularly prevalent in nonprofit and faith-based organizations. Why? Because passionate, committed people with big hearts are drawn to this line of work. Passion and commitment most easily morphs into Persecutor, and big-hearted love for people most easily morphs into Victim. 184 | 185 | -- 186 | 187 | ## Chapter 4: Compassion: not for the faint of heart 188 | 189 | > "I am uncomfortable with this conversation because I want you to feel empowered and confident and I want to be helpful as a friend," she said. "I am willing to support you in problem-solving how to get what you want. I'm not willing to criticize Fred or continue to hear you complain about your situation and put yourself down. I care about you." 190 | 191 | The notion of zero tolerance is itself drama. 192 | 193 | > Compassion requires humility, creativity, and courage. Compassion doesn't mean letting someone off the hook, feeling sorry for them, or "loving them into good behavior." 194 | 195 | > Compassion balances caring, concern, empathy and transparency with boundaries, goals, aspirations, and standards. It's the engine that turns conflict into a creative force. 196 | 197 | > Compassionate accountability is the process of holding someone (including yourself) accountable... 198 | 199 | > Compassion Triangle, with the skills of *Persistence, Vulnerability, and Resourcefulness* as the positive counterparts to Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer respectively. 200 | 201 | > ...we chose the word Openness to replace Vulnerability. Openness captures the essence and intent of this skill set... 202 | 203 | > "You and I are worthwhile." 204 | 205 | ### Openess 206 | 207 | Openness is a state of non-judgmental receptivity to your own and others' experiences. 208 | 209 | Openness is the healthy alternative to Victim, involving transparency, courage with self and others, self-awareness, empathy, confidence in one's own adequacy, and a willingness to own and disclose emotions. It is the key to transparency, authenticity and emotional intelligence. Openness is about being tuned in to the physical, spiritual, and psychological activity inside you, inside others, and between you and others; and accepting these with a nonjudgmental attitude. 210 | 211 | At its most basic level, conflict is a gap between what we want and what we are experiencing at a given point in time. 212 | 213 | #### Three ways to be open 214 | 215 | 1. Emphasize 216 | 217 | Empathy is about emotional resonance, being able to appreciate and even experience emotions from another person's perspective. 218 | 219 | - Ask questions about how a person is feeling, what's important to them, and how they are experiencing a situation. This is not about their thoughts, opinions, or strategies; it's about their emotional experiences. Examples might include, "How are you doing with this transition?" or "What concerns you the most?" or "How are you feeling today?" 220 | - Affirm that it's OK to share feelings, that you care about the emotional part of another person's world. Examples; "I care about how you are feeling today. If you want to talk about it, I'd be glad to listen," or "I know this is a stressful situation, and I care about how it's affecting you." 221 | - Take time to listen, checking your understanding by repeating back what you thought you heard until the other person is satisfied. Example: "I heard you say you're anxious about making a mistake on this project and looking silly in front of your peers. Is this accurate?" 222 | - Avoid inserting your interpretations, analysis, or feelings. Empathy is not about you. Never say, "I know what you are feeling." People don't want you to know, they want you to care. Never start sentences with phrases like, "I think what you are feeling is…" or "Here's why you are feeling this way…" 223 | - Relate through personal experience. 224 | 225 | > Emphasizing the shared feeling, rather than the content of the experience, prevents it from becoming competitive. 226 | 227 | > ...there's a fine line between empathy and one-upping. 228 | 229 | Masters of empathy are truly moved by what others are feeling. They can relate to your experience and want you to know because they really do care. And they do it in a wonderfully affirming way that doesn't call attention to themselves. 230 | 231 | 2. Validate 232 | 233 | - **Affirming another person's experience does not condone their behavior, nor does it mean you agree with them. It simply sends the message that the experience is real to them, and matters to you.** 234 | - Avoid disagreeing, discounting, or re-interpreting another person's experience through your own lens. Never say: "I don't know why you feel like that. It's not a big deal," or "What you should be feeling is…" 235 | - Thank the person for letting you know how they feel. For example: "I so appreciate you sharing this with me." 236 | 237 | 3. Disclosure 238 | 239 | Disclosure is about sharing how you are doing with what you are experiencing. The purpose is honesty, transparency, and rapport. 240 | 241 | - Focus on your feelings 242 | - Usually, the real problem isn't about others. It's all about how confident you are about your feelings and your OK-ness, and whether you know how to express feelings in healthy ways. 243 | - Share information 244 | - It's ok to share strong negative feelings if it's motivating your behaviour 245 | - Focus on your truth 246 | 247 | People who are violated by another don't feel violated. They actually feel afraid, angry, and anxious. People who are called out in front of their peers don't feel disrespected. They most likely feel defensive, angry, or sad. Beware of emotional labels that reinforce a drama-based myth that someone else can make you feel a certain way. 248 | 249 | ### Resourcefulness 250 | 251 | Resourcefulness is the curious collection, assessment, and utilization of resources to guide action. 252 | 253 | #### Three ways to be resourceful 254 | 255 | 1. Gather ideas and options 256 | - Show a spirit of inquiry and curiosity. 257 | - Ask open-ended questions. 258 | - Generate lots of options. 259 | - Play out scenarios. 260 | - Conduct mini-experiments. 261 | - Fail forward 262 | - Share the data behind your emotions and motives. If you are upset about something that happened, describe it as objectively as possible without placing blame or making assumptions. 263 | - Explain the gap. 264 | - Disagree while respecting others' intentions and dignity. 265 | 266 | Book: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni 267 | Book: Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success, John Maxwell 268 | 269 | 2. Build on successes 270 | 271 | - Think outside the box 272 | - Celebrate the small things 273 | - Set stretch goals 274 | 275 | 3. Leveraging personal strengths 276 | 277 | Leveraging strengths is one of best ways to boost self-confidence. Any problem can be approached by first asking, "What do I already know how to do that could be used in this situation?" 278 | 279 | - Explore passion and interests 280 | - Focus on strategies instead of inherent qualities. People can't learn others' innate talent, but they can learn and practice strategies 281 | - Ask about and affirm intentions 282 | 283 | ### Persistent 284 | 285 | 1. State Your Own Boundaries and Commitments... 286 | 287 | - Keep your list small and focused 288 | - Be explicit. Make clear what you will and won't do, and avoid passive-aggressive ultimatums. Announcing your nut allergy is not enough. 289 | 290 | 2. Reinforce non-negotiables 291 | 292 | > "Compassion without accountability gets you nowhere. Accountability without compassion gets you alienated. Blending the two is the essence of leadership." 293 | 294 | What does it really mean to hold someone accountable? Bringing someone to account means asking them to explain themselves or "account" for their behavior. What most supervisors and parents mean by accountability is that you can be trusted to do what you say, keep your promises, and meet your obligations. It's about consistency between goals and performance, between promises and deliverables, between what you say and what you do. Accountability is commitment to walking the walk, both for you and for the other person. 295 | 296 | - Finish what you start. Keep your promises. If you can't, or choose not to, then inform those who will be affected, discuss the situation fully and work together on what's next. 297 | - Own the pain and the glory 298 | - Don't give up 299 | - Remind others about commitment 300 | - Be straightforward about what you want 301 | - Use consequences carefully 302 | 303 | Angela Duckworth's research at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates that the key predictor of success is not talent, title, wealth, or good looks. It is grit: the ability to work hard for a long period of time toward a focused goal and keep moving forward in spite of challenges, obstacles, and failures. Duckworth says, "Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals. It's a marathon not a sprint." 304 | 305 | Constructive. Consequences should maximize the potential for positive learning and growth. No consequence should ever shame or humiliate another person. Persecutor leaders are infamous for calling people out in front of their peers, and scapegoating individuals with inappropriate consequences aimed at teaching everyone a lesson. Coaches who punish the whole team instead of talking to the one person who was late are engaged in destructive consequences. 306 | 307 | 3. Accept responsibility and make it right 308 | 309 | ...you make a mistake, admit it and apologize. If you let someone down, acknowledge it and make it right. Taking responsibility means avoiding excuses or counterattacks, as these behaviors only serve to mask real feelings such as embarrassment, anger, fear, or loss. If you are making excuses or counterattacking, you haven't been open about, or taken ownership of, your emotional motives. 310 | 311 | - Identify the behavior in question. Don't focus on anyone else's behavior. The most important thing here is to avoid excuses, justifications, or rationalizations for your behavior. The bottom line: what did you do and how did it affect people? 312 | - Apologize for your behavior by saying, "I'm sorry." Don't dilute it with qualifiers like, "I'm sorry for whatever you think I did," or "I'm sorry for how you interpreted what I said." Both of these statements actually blame the other person for feeling upset. 313 | - Offer to make it right. If you have ideas on what you could do to make amends, offer them to the other person. If not, ask them what ideas they have that would help repair the damage. 314 | - Don't throw yourself under the bus. Just because you did a bad thing doesn't mean you are a bad person. Hold your head up, maintain your dignity, and show that you're capable of changing your behavior going forward. 315 | 316 | > ...environments of safety in which we affirm our own and other people's worthiness. Resourcefulness is necessary to support environments of curiosity in which we affirm our own and other's capabilities. Persistence is necessary to support environments of consistency in which we ensure our own and others' accountability to others for our behaviors. 317 | 318 | ## Chapters 5-6 319 | 320 | Every politician ever: 321 | 322 | - We need to protect **our way of life** that we worked hard to create 323 | - We need to depend **our way of life** from those who would seek to destroy it 324 | - We need to ensure sustainable access to the resources that enable **our way of life** 325 | 326 | ### Compassion cycle 327 | 328 | Compassion cycle: open, resourceful, persistence, 329 | which are interdependent ways of feeling, thinking, and acting 330 | that work productively together. 331 | 332 | - Open: expressing feelings and thinking, and goals. Basically explaining where you are at 333 | - Resourceful: generating ideas for solving the conflict 334 | - Persistence: implementing a solution 335 | 336 | In order to get back from persistence to open, we need to ask for feedback 337 | about the solution we implemented, instead of just declaring it "solved". 338 | 339 | It reminds us a waterfall structure, very structured phases... 340 | 341 | Drama inevitably pushes us into corners, 342 | where we cling to distorted world views that compel us to do the same thing over and over, 343 | expecting different results. Compassion leads to being able to adapt to change. 344 | 345 | ### Three rules of the compassion cycle 346 | 347 | 1. Start at open 348 | 1. Movement is necessary 349 | 1. The only way forward is forward: the only way to move is 350 | from open -> resourceful -> persistence, without jumping around 351 | 352 | This really only applies to conflict situations. 353 | It is not about what the best solution for the product, 354 | but what is the best solution for the conflict at hand. 355 | 356 | > Openness evens the playing field and Rescuers don't like this. 357 | Persecutors haven't a clue how to be Open because they are so focused on 358 | why they are right and everyone else is wrong. 359 | They can't conceive of entertaining a view other than their own. 360 | They dare not stop long enough to experience their own feelings 361 | because it would be too uncomfortable. 362 | It would make them vulnerable, 363 | which to Persecutors is the scariest thing imaginable. 364 | 365 | > You see a person struggling and want to help. 366 | Entering at Resourceful-as the first team member did-is tempting. 367 | You have ideas about how you can help and want to share them. 368 | You may even have a great solution that you know would solve the problem. 369 | Maybe you are just curious and want to figure out what's going on so you can be more helpful. 370 | 371 | ## Chapter 7 - warning! Drama Approaching 372 | 373 | "Everyone has a plan until they get hit" 374 | - Mike Tyson 375 | Should really have been "... until they get punched in the mouth" 376 | 377 | [Quote origins](https://github.com/Blackmill/book-club/issues/12#issuecomment-485639479) 378 | 379 | ## Chpater 7 380 | 381 | ### Giving In (victim) 382 | 383 | Giving in is usually motivated by fear that conflict would lead to disapproval or rejection by others. The false belief is "I'm only OK if I don't cause any conflict." 384 | 385 | Getting back on the Compassion Cycle requires a return to Openness. 386 | 387 | Affirmations: 388 | 389 | - "I am OK. My boundaries and needs, feelings and wants matter." 390 | - "I am worthy of pursuing what I want, just like anybody else." 391 | - "How someone responds to me, even if I don't like it, doesn't define me." 392 | 393 | ### Giving unsolicited advice (rescuer) 394 | 395 | Giving unsolicited advice stems from the belief, "I know better and you need my help, even if you didn't ask for it." 396 | 397 | The drive to protect others from their own insufficiencies masks a hidden desire to be perceived as competent and responsible. The belief is, "You will be OK if you take my advice." 398 | 399 | Resourcefulness emphasises, "You and I are capable," while unsolicited advice emphasises, "I am capable and you need my help even if you don't ask for it." 400 | 401 | There's nothing wrong with advice, as long as the other person is open to it and has given you permission to offer it. One of the most simple ways to avoid giving unsolicited advice is simply to ask a person if you may share something with them. 402 | 403 | Affirmations: 404 | 405 | - I am smart and capable. Others can be as well if I let them. 406 | - I am most helpful when people ask me first and are open to my help. 407 | - Being available, even without giving advice, is a terrific way to help. 408 | 409 | ### Giving ultimatums (persecuter) 410 | 411 | An ultimatum reflects an attitude that the person is no longer willing or interested in struggling with. They've chosen being justified over being effective. People usually resort to ultimatums because they feel angry, afraid, frustrated, desperate, hurt, or embarrassed and don't have the skill or confidence to do anything else. Fearing that they are losing control, they use ultimatums to cover up the authentic need to be respected and valued. 412 | 413 | Ultimatums send the message, "If you do XYZ, then I will have every justification to Persecute you." 414 | 415 | **A valuable lesson about what happens when two Persecutors compete. Everybody loses no matter how right they are.** 416 | 417 | Affirmations: 418 | 419 | - I'm not a quitter. That's admirable. 420 | - By affirming the best in others, I will get their best effort. 421 | - Sometimes being effective is better than being right. 422 | 423 | ## Chapter 8: it's all about choices 424 | 425 | "I'm feeling anxious (emotion) about this transition and would really like some clarity (intention)." 426 | 427 | "I care a lot (emotion) about you and want to help (intention)." 428 | 429 | Sharing what I want or need to get closer to that goal is the critical next step to turn my intention into something more. 430 | 431 | **"I'm feeling anxious (emotion) about this transition and would really like some clarity (intention). Will you help me work through this (ask)?"** 432 | 433 | **"I care a lot (emotion) about you and want to help (intention). How can I support you (ask)?"** 434 | 435 | People who don't ask for what they want usually end up in the Victim role. 436 | 437 | Many people fear that asking for what they want makes them too vulnerable and is a set-up for disappointment. This is true only if you believe the myth, "others can make me feel good or bad emotionally." 438 | 439 | Openness is about recognising that I am worthy. Therefore, sharing what I want is simply the next step to demonstrate to myself and others that this is true. 440 | 441 | ### Resourcefulness and the power of letting go 442 | 443 | - "I understand my options and the pros and cons of each one." 444 | - "There are three things I could do to advance my objectives." 445 | - "The plan is ready to execute." 446 | 447 | ### Let go and move on 448 | 449 | This habit wreaks havoc on my waistline. And I think it all stems from my difficulty letting go and moving on. I worry that the other person's food might end up tasting better than mine and then I would be disappointed. I worry that the option I don't choose might have been the better one. It's crazy-making! 450 | 451 | Avoiding the choice to take action, let go, and move on costs companies billions of dollars a year in the form of lost opportunities, resources wasted in predictive analyses, and bringing in more consultants whose recommendations are never implemented. How is it that people, teams, and organisations can put so much into planning, learning, and organising yet avoid taking the leap to implementation? 452 | 453 | - Loss of control 454 | - Loss of options 455 | - Loss of certainty 456 | 457 | Statements to avoid (have empathy!): 458 | 459 | - "Just do it." 460 | - "In a week it will seem like nothing." 461 | - "We simply have to make a decision!" 462 | - "What's the big deal?" 463 | 464 | ### Stop and listen: make the choice to practice empathy 465 | 466 | Persistence keeps working toward a goal, while Openness revels in the moment. 467 | 468 | The danger of Persistence is that we get so focused on our goals, mission priorities, strategic plans, and action steps that we lose focus on the world around us and within us. 469 | 470 | From Non-violent Communications book: 471 | > ...the behavior of others may be a stimulus for our feelings, but not the cause. We are never angry because of what someone else did. We can identify the other person’s behavior as the stimulus, but it is important to establish a clear separation between stimulus and cause. 472 | 473 | ## Chapter 9 — Coaching Accountability When There’s No Drama 474 | 475 | ### Meeting people where they are 476 | 477 | "Match and Move" helps you meet people where they are on the Compassion Cycle and facilitate the appropriate Choice to Move. Match and Move is used only when someone is in the Compassion Cycle, exhibiting one of the three compassion skills. 478 | 479 | - The helper (therapist, coach, mentor) joins the client in their development path, seeking to understand his or her frame of reference, validate his or her worldview, and affirm his or her experience. 480 | - Together, then, the two move forward on a journey. 481 | - The helper facilitates growth and learning but doesn’t direct it. 482 | 483 | Compared to the helper setting a high standard and pulling the client up, this represent a drama versus compassion approach to helping and encourages less drama. 484 | 485 | Coaching is about meeting the client where they are and helping them to succeed at their goals. 486 | 487 | The diagrams about Meeting People Where They Are didn't seem the best choice. The second one seems kinda patronising. The Helper is still dragging someone up to their own level as if they know all. 488 | 489 | We all struggle with how to translate this language into our own. Nobody talks like the characters in the book. 490 | 491 | We're also uncomfortable with the introduction of terms like behavioural commitment without definition or explaining the concept. 492 | 493 | ### Match and Move from Open to Resourceful 494 | 495 | When a person is showing one of the three compassion skills, the best thing to do is meet them where they are by showing the same compassion skill yourself. 496 | 497 | How much compassion matching you engage in depends on the situation. Situations that are more emotionally charged or where the stakes are higher might require more matching than others. 498 | 499 | The best way to know if your compassion match was effective is whether the person accepts your invitation to make the Choice to Move. 500 | 501 | The “Move” part in Match and Move is to invite and facilitate the other person to make the choice to reveal what they want. The key to inviting the Choice to State Your Wants is to keep the responsibility on the other person. 502 | 503 | You can't force someone to move, you can only invite them to. Whether or not they accept the invitation doesn’t change their accountability for behavior or performance. Nor does it absolve the helper of their responsibility to hold the client accountable for their performance. 504 | 505 | ### Match and Move from Resourceful to Persistent: inviting the choice to Let Go and Move On 506 | 507 | You can identify when someone is at Resourceful if they are exchanging information, exploring options, asking curious questions, or generating possibilities. 508 | 509 | Leaders should put a lot more energy into positively motivating their employees. It’s a huge driver of performance and morale. 510 | 511 | As a leader, your job is to help people increase their capability at Resourcefulness. Ownership over decisions and choices is a tremendously powerful thing. Taking away that authority and accountability from someone should be done as rarely as possible. 512 | 513 | Making the choice to Let Go and Move On around small decisions can help build confidence to make bigger decisions later on. If you are trying to Match and Move someone out of Resourceful and are encountering resistance, try breaking the big decision into smaller ones. 514 | 515 | For the choices that matter most, we can’t guarantee no negative consequences. There’s never a way to avoid all fear and loss. This is OK. Leading out of drama requires leaders to acknowledge this, give space to talk about it, help people process it, and move forward anyway. 516 | 517 | We all feel like Javier has clearly worked very hard for his achievement and Juanita's response is simply to push him on the next phase without a break or celebration. The Compassion Cycle seems to be a perpetual motion machine, always driving people forward without pause. 518 | 519 | 520 | ### Match and Move from Persistent to Open: inviting the choice to stop and listen 521 | 522 | Persistence is about finishing what you start, doing what you said you would do, and sticking to your non-negotiable boundaries and commitments. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to count on people and there would be no consistency in our lives. 523 | 524 | Persistence is highly effective to a point. Overused or abused, Persistence becomes legalism, closed-mindedness and tunnel vision. 525 | 526 | ### Up, down, or sideways 527 | 528 | Match and Move is a great coaching tool to enhance positive accountability with anyone in your life, not just for a boss with a subordinate. 529 | 530 | Everything about this book's model requires a lot of training and practice. Building a culture where everyone feels safe and can have open discussions seems less likely to produce drama. Are these the same cost? Organic cultural creation usually results in a mess. Culture requires thought and deliberate implementation. 531 | 532 | We segued into a large conversation on culture here, referencing: 533 | - [Reinventing Organisations](https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Organizations-Creating-Inspired-Consciousness-ebook/dp/B00ICS9VI4/) 534 | - [Deliberately Developmental Organisations](https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Culture-Deliberately-Developmental-Organization-ebook/dp/B01BO2ITX2/), and 535 | - a talk Elle saw that was a private reference she can no longer find. 536 | 537 | 538 | ## Chapter 10 — The Formula for Compassionate Conflict 539 | 540 | ### The Formula for Compassionate Conflict 541 | 542 | CC = O-R-P-O 543 | Compassionate conflict = Open, Resourceful, Persistent, Open 544 | 545 | O-R-P-O reminds us again of [Non-Violent Communication](https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Life-Changing-Relationships-ebook/dp/B014OISVU4/) 546 | 547 | The Formula can be used any time you detect a drama role in yourself or another person, or you identify a significant gap between what you want and what you are experiencing and want to pursue a solution that requires conflict. 548 | 549 | Start at Open. Begin by disclosing your own feelings relevant to the situation, without giving in. This is not the time to point out others’ problematic behaviors or describe what people did or didn’t do. 550 | 551 | Move to Resourceful. Describe any resources you are willing to offer to problem-solve how you will try to close the gap between what you want and what you are experiencing. If there is information or resources you want, describe what they are. Avoid giving advice or suggesting what others could or should do to help you. 552 | 553 | Progress to Persistent. State your boundaries or “non-negotiables,” as well as your commitments. 554 | 555 | Finish with Open. Return to Open by checking in with yourself or others about their perspective, feelings, and desires. Stop to listen and be receptive. 556 | 557 | ### The ORPO apology 558 | 559 | 1. Share your feelings (Open) 560 | 2. Identify Your Behavior and its Impact (Resourceful) 561 | 3. Make it Right (Persistence) 562 | 4. Be Receptive (Open) 563 | 564 | ### Why does the formula work so well? 565 | 566 | The Formula for Compassionate Conflict works so well because it complies with the rules of the Compassion Cycle. 567 | 568 | By starting at Open, it promotes an environment of safety where real feelings and motives can be revealed. 569 | 570 | Openness only has bite if it dedicates resources to learning at Resourceful and is clear about what’s at stake at Persistence. Resourcefulness only thrives if it is informed by the true emotional motives at Open, and held accountable by the non-negotiables of Persistent. Persistence only has credibility if it has done its due diligence at Resourceful, and cares enough to continue along the cycle to Open, where it stops and listens. 571 | 572 | The Formula offers multiple “points of entry” onto the Compassion Cycle. This is powerfully disarming and can be transformative for someone who’s looking for drama. 573 | 574 | ### How many times does it take? 575 | 576 | There’s no guarantee that ORPO will work on the first try. It’s hard for people in drama to receive a response that refuses to justify their respective ally or adversary motives. 577 | 578 | Most often, a person in drama will not accept your invitation the first time—maybe not even the second or third time. Struggling with someone may require a lot perseverance and patience. Staying out of drama yourself may be the best you can hope for, and that’s a victory. 579 | 580 | ### Tips for ORPO success 581 | 582 | 1. Be drama-free yourself 583 | 2. Be aware 584 | 3. Be realistic 585 | 4. Be patient 586 | 5. Be prepared 587 | 6. Be kind 588 | 589 | # Chapter 11: Preparing to struggle with 590 | 591 | In summary: conflict is the gap between expectations and reality. 592 | 593 | Inaccurate math: as your resources increases, your stress increases 594 | 595 | > When the demands on us (both actual and perceived) 596 | outweigh the resources we have (or perceive to have), we experience stress 597 | 598 | A couple of new topics now in the final chapter of the book: 599 | 600 | - Dr Taibi Kahler's six core emotional motives (phase issues) and what happens if you hide these motives: 601 | - Fear -> chronic suspicion, trust issues, self-righteous arrogance, and pessimism 602 | - Loss -> rigid micromanagement, obsessive compulsive behaviour, and critical attitude towards how lazy and irresponsible everyone is 603 | - Anger -> losing confidence and self-esteem, getting personal and depressed 604 | - Responsibility -> blaming, complaining, and sarcasm 605 | - Autonomy -> avoidance, isolation and a senses of insignificance. 606 | - Bonding/intimacy -> negative drama, manipulation 607 | - Here's the actual cycle you should follow, with six steps: 608 | - Mind the gap 609 | - Build your open bank 610 | - State your wants 611 | - Build your resourceful bank 612 | - Choose to let go and move on 613 | - Build your persistence bank 614 | 615 | Would be good to build our own dictionary to use in ORPO communications, and practice. 616 | 617 | The book's message gets lost in all the fluff, but the general idea of ORPO is useful. 618 | 619 | # Meta talk 620 | 621 | ## Elle 622 | Things I find lacking in this book, discussion about: 623 | - compromise 624 | - when is it appropriate to bring things up 625 | - should we bring things up at all? 626 | - how to evaluate the situation 627 | - what to do when you're the victim, and the persecutor is your boss 628 | 629 | ... just to name a few... 630 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /primed-to-perform.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Primed to Perform 2 | 3 | ## Chapter 1: what is total motivation? 4 | 5 | ### Motive spectrum: six reasons we work: 6 | 7 | **Direct motives => increase performance** 8 | 9 | 1. Play: curiosity and experimentation 10 | 2. Purpose: values and believes aligned with impact of work 11 | 3. Potential: work towards personal goals 12 | 13 | **Indirect motives => decrease performance** 14 | 15 | 4. Emotional pressure: disappointment, guilt, or shame 16 | 5. Economic pressure: to win a reward or avoid punishment, extrinsic 17 | 6. Inertia: because we do it everyday 18 | 19 | According to Dan Pink: mastery, autonomy, purpose. 20 | Mastery could be a subset of potential. Purpose is purpose. 21 | So what is missing is autonomy in the above. 22 | 23 | They haven't directly address autonomy by definition. But looking at their various examples, 24 | for example, the call centre example, they gave the team a lot more autonomy, 25 | to choose their own path and actions. 26 | 27 | -- 28 | > In business, we tend to obsess over the "how"—as in "Here's how to do it." 29 | Yet we rarely discuss the "why"—as in "Here's why we're doing it." 30 | But it's often difficult to do something exceptionally well 31 | if we don't know the reasons we're doing it in the first place. 32 | > -- Dan Pink 33 | 34 | In a way, similar to: "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA 35 | 36 | ### Books: 37 | 38 | - [Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour](https://www.amazon.com/Intrinsic-Motivation-Self-Determination-Perspectives-Psychology/dp/0306420228) 39 | - [Drive by Dan Pink](https://www.danpink.com/books/drive/) 40 | - [Give and Take by Adam Grant](https://www.adamgrant.net/give-and-take) 41 | 42 | ## Chapter 2: the total motivation factor 43 | 44 | Can be applied not just to work, but also to learning, children, fitness, health... 45 | As long as you enjoy the activity, you will do actually do it more often. 46 | 47 | > First, direct motives typically enhance performance while indirect motives decrease it. 48 | Second, the closer the motive is to the work itself, the better the performance. 49 | Play is the strongest motive. Then purpose. Then potential. 50 | Inertia is the most destructive, then economic pressure, then emotional pressure. 51 | 52 | -- 53 | > Play is about two times more powerful than purpose, 54 | which is about three times more powerful than potential. 55 | Inertia is about two times more damaging than economic pressure, 56 | which is about three times more damaging than emotional pressure. 57 | 58 | -- 59 | > Being able to objectively measure the strength of a culture is a true game changer. 60 | 61 | -- 62 | > Fostering play at work has been an explicit part of Southwest's strategy 63 | to deliver what they call POS—positively outrageous service. 64 | 65 | -- 66 | > Play and purpose are also assisted by limiting the number of management layers 67 | between the CEO and the front line, 68 | and enabling local employees at each airport to make decisions. 69 | "We've tried to create an environment where people... 70 | don't have to convene a meeting of the sages in order to get something done," [Herb Kelleher] 71 | 72 | -- 73 | > Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? 74 | Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. 75 | Start with employees and the rest follows from that. 76 | > -- Herb Kelleher 77 | 78 | "Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think": 79 | https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/transcript 80 | 81 | Skeptical about a couple of the examples that 82 | are not usually considered as companies that look after their employees: Walmart, and Amazon. 83 | 84 | For this to work, you need to provide a level of safety to be autonomous and play. 85 | Interested to see if they cover this in the book. 86 | Also interested in how to deal with personal vs team goals, especially if they are at odds. 87 | 88 | Monetary incentives don't increase performance and productivity. 89 | 90 | The premise is that performance is predicable, and measurable. 91 | 92 | ## Chapter 3: rethinking performance 93 | 94 | Total Motivation is the Missing Link between culture and organisation 95 | 96 | reads the heading, but we got lost in the detail of this chapter. Although it was filled with interesting things, some felt it didn't successfully argue this point well. 97 | 98 | > The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ 99 | -- Newsweek 100 | 101 | This was demonstrated with several examples, not just in the long term, but also in the immediate short term after being primed to perform creatively or not. 102 | 103 | When building high-performing organisations, you need to understand and optimise two different, opposing types of performance: 104 | 105 | Tactical performance: how well a person executes a plan (productivity, efficiency, and control) 106 | Adaptive performance: a person's or organisation's ability to diverge from the plan (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) 107 | 108 | > The milirary uses the phrase "VUCA" to describe the limitations of tactical performance and why adaptive performance is so crucial. 109 | 110 | VUCA ( Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity ) 111 | 112 | > Tactical performance is not enough to address VUCA 113 | 114 | > Adaptive performance behaviours are very difficult and sometimes impossible to measure. As a result, they are almost always neglected. 115 | 116 | Tactical and adaptive performance are the opposites of each other. Companies often sacrifice adaptive performance for tactical performance, at their expense. 117 | 118 | Why do indirect motives reduce adaptibility, but direct motives increase it? 119 | 120 | * The Distraction Effect 121 | When a job requires only tactical performance, indirect motivators can increase performance but, when adaptive performance is required, indirect motivators can make performance worse. 122 | 123 | The economic pressure distracted them because they focused on the stakes, not just the work. 124 | 125 | * The Cancellation effect 126 | Numerous studies exist showing that performance-based rewards cancel out the natural sense of play, reducing persistence. 127 | * The Cobra effect 128 | Delhi wanted less cobras, so they provided a bounty for dead cobras. People started cobra farms to profit. The city killed the scheme, all the farmed cobras were released and they ended up with more cobras then when they started. More generally, they measured the wrong thing, dead cobras vs less live cobras, and so the motivation failed. 129 | 130 | We decided that these three problems are not nessecarily escalations of each other, but they are closely linked. Whether there is correlation or causation of indirect motivation was debated a little. 131 | 132 | Although we can identify these problems in our own workplaces, the book as yet offers no solutions. We shared stories of these effects in our own workpaces: 133 | * In product distribution and sales, staff were incentivised by targets to sell only to the targets, and if there was little chance of meeting a target, deffering a sale to the next month was common. Some buyers learned this and could take advantage. 134 | * Car dealers are incentivised to sell a specific number of cars in their sales period, and will offer discounts to meet those targets. 135 | 136 | The usual way companies try to prevent this from happening is by adding more oversight. The book points out this is a bad idea. 137 | 138 | ## Chapter 4: The Yin and Yang of Performance 139 | 140 | Total Motivation (ToMo) is good in individuals, but even better in organisations. 141 | 142 | Tactics vs Strategy 143 | 144 | > Strategy gives us our destination and the path to get there 145 | 146 | Strategy is compared with Culture. 147 | 148 | > Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze. 149 | 150 | Cliched quote from Mike Tyson that has been overused, and is a variant of several quotes over the last few hundred years. 151 | 152 | Nevertheless, it demonstrates that adaptability is important, and adaptability has to be built into a companies culture. When VUCA happens, adaptablility will save you. 153 | 154 | Most of us were not convinced this chapter was successful in arguing this point clearly. 155 | 156 | ** emergence ** 157 | 158 | The biological concept of emergence is explained using termites as a successful example of a species with emergent behaviour. No mention is given of successful but non-adaptive species. 159 | 160 | > Emergence occurs when the individual components of a collective are able to organize themselves into a system that is far more complicated than the sum of its parts. These systems are almost always self-organized and have incredible levels of adaptive performance. 161 | 162 | The need to adapt to climate variability is given as a reason why humans have such large brains. This doesn't appear to be a widely accepted evolutionary theory, this bit was a bit over-cooked. 163 | 164 | ** complexity ** 165 | 166 | Three categories of company are provided, from very rigid to extremely adaptable. The most adaptable is lauded as the best choice, but this seems to contradict what was said earlier about the Ying and Yang balance of Tactics vs Strategy. 167 | 168 | ** general thoughts from the last two chapters ** 169 | 170 | We feel that salary and bonuses, considered maladaptive incentives in the book, do make us feel valued by our employers. 171 | 172 | Wikipedia was given as a highly successful adaptive organisation with a flat structure of motivated volunteers. We wonder what tactics they use to achieve this. We appreciated that they recognised wikipedia's recent difficulties as well. 173 | 174 | Stack overflow is an interesting parallel to wikipedia, it uses gamification to motivate people. 175 | 176 | A trucking company uses a flat structure, and autonomous cells to make decisions, there are more examples in [Reinventing Organizations](https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/). 177 | 178 | ## 5: The bias blame 179 | 180 | ### Our bias to blame causes us to lead through indirect motives 181 | 182 | -- 183 | 184 | > Indirect motivators can lead to narrow, short-term increases in tactical performance that are easy to measure. 185 | 186 | -- 187 | 188 | We look for reasons to explain outcomes that don't fit our intuition. 189 | 190 | We find it hard to believe in random acts of kindness. 191 | 192 | Adam: we can't be sure why the people did the nice thing and mailed the letter, even though it was presented as a definite thing. 193 | 194 | It takes very little to make someone feel like a citizen. 195 | 196 | > Our intuition struggles to believe that people’s decisions can be so dramatically affected by small changes to their context. 197 | 198 | Monopoly game: did I win because of skills? or privilege? 199 | 200 | Same as with web application, we tend to blame ourselves, rather than the system. 201 | 202 | > The more removed we are from someone, the more likely we are to blame them. 203 | 204 | Fundamental attribution error 205 | 206 | > Because the blame bias causes us to blame the player, not the game, we focus on prodding the player, not changing the game. The easiest way to prod is through indirect motivators. We concoct more potent sticks and carrots. We spend weeks on performance evaluations, but very little time on culture building. We invest all sorts of energy in hiring the right people and then underestimate the influence of our culture once they arrive. 207 | 208 | Motivators survey: "Surprisingly, pay didn’t even make the top three—they ranked it fourth." 209 | 210 | This completely ignores how money actually works. Of course a bunch of MBAs aren't concerned about money. Once you have *enough* money for whatever your needs, *then* you can focus on other priorities/motivators. 211 | 212 | > Across each industry, employees believed that their colleagues had less total motivation than they did (see Figure 13). And not just a little bit less. On average people believed that their colleagues were 19 points lower on ToMo than they were! 213 | 214 | **Antidote: believe people are motivated and have potential. Like a self fulfilling prophecy. "Pygmalion effect"** 215 | 216 | > By tricking the officers into believing that some of their students were naturally high performers, the blame bias was eliminated. With no blame bias standing in the way, these leaders naturally became higher ToMo. For example, if high-CP students had a problem learning a military concept like VUCA, the leader didn’t blame the learners. It couldn’t be their fault because they had such high command potential. Therefore the leader is forced to confront the context rather than the individuals. ToMo increases. If average-CP students struggle with a concept, it is easier to blame them. When the learners are blamed, the leader naturally gravitates toward indirect motivators, and thus ToMo decreases. With it, performance decreases. 217 | 218 | -- 219 | > The Pygmalion effect is the flip side of the blame bias. Once blame is eliminated, expectations increase. When expectations increase, a leader more naturally uses the principles of total motivation, which inevitably improve performance. 220 | 221 | -- 222 | > high expectations create high performance, low expectations diminish it. 223 | 224 | Treat people according to how we expect them to perform. 225 | 226 | REAP model of feedback: 227 | 228 | 1. Remember: assume positive intent 229 | 1. Explain: come up with 5 possible scenarios to explain the behaviour 230 | 1. Ask: why? 231 | 1. Plan: together identify the root cause of the problem and develop a plan to remedy it 232 | 233 | **Toyota Way "Genchi Genbutsu"** 234 | 235 | **> Adaptive performance demands objectivity and an open mind.** 236 | 237 | ## 6: Frozen or fluid 238 | 239 | ### When we most need fluid organisations, we freeze them instead 240 | 241 | > No one person can impose adaptability. That’s what culture is for. 242 | 243 | Lemonade stands experiments: one groups was given space to play and experiment 244 | 245 | #### Crossroads: 246 | 247 | 1. Foundation: focus on building a product, or a product and a culture. 248 | 1. Scale up: many opt for skills and quantities rather than cultural fit. 249 | 1. Institutionalising - around 150 people, organisations become too large for informal processes. 250 | 1. Renewal 251 | 252 | Are they referencing Dunbar's Number with the 150? It's not clear from the text. 253 | 254 | #### Case study: Medallia 255 | 256 | Medallia's founders: "culture is not secondary to our mission. It’s the only way to achieve the mission.” 257 | 258 | > She’s lived in five different countries, where she realized that many things she took as fact were actually culturally determined. 259 | 260 | -- 261 | > "...that, our modus operandi had been: ‘hire smart, talented, nonjerk people and they’ll do the right thing.’ But we realized that many smart, decent, good people were not coachable because they were afraid of not being perfect.” 262 | 263 | -- 264 | > Pressman had struggled to codify the criteria for the culture interview. She and Hald still wanted their “no jerks” culture, but in reality, they were searching for something more nuanced than just decency. They could have crossed their fingers and hoped to hire people who naturally saw the world their way. But they decided to develop a scalable framework for the culture interview by hiring a psychology doctoral student from Stanford. 265 | 266 | -- 267 | > the difference between average and distinctive performance lay in a person’s whys. 268 | 269 | Induction / onboarding: a week long onboarding program: 270 | 271 | 1. Welcome letter and two gifts: fitbit to grow your health and wellbeing, and a kindle to grow your mind 272 | 1. On the first day, new hires are asked to do something to make the company a better place 273 | 1. Each person is asked to do something to challenge their self-imposed barriers to personal growth 274 | 1. Hiring manager describes the special spark that led to the job offer 275 | 276 | > Today, Medallia has one culture leader for every two hundred fifty people, a data scientist who applies rigorous metrics to culture and performance, and over twenty certified cultural interviewers. 277 | 278 | -- 279 | > Onboarding primes play, but it’s not enough to maintain a high–total motivation culture. 280 | 281 | - Leaders are taught to actively combat the blame bias and assume good intent. 282 | - Create space for play 283 | - People meet weekly to share what they've learnt and celebrate victories - to increase play and purpose, of feeling sense of belonging and pride in their work 284 | - Performance reviews are more about self-reflection exercises, and review conversations about what they've learnt. Feedback is designed to help that person grow, not to establish a year-end grade. 285 | - Career ladders to help people understand the skills they need to learn over time. The ladder criteria include tactical skills for each role, as well as cultural and leadership behaviours. 286 | 287 | > “If you look at the cost per hire alone, our culture programs more than pay for themselves.” 288 | 289 | **“a tree that is unbending is easily broken.”** 290 | 291 | #### Summary: 292 | 293 | - The objective of a high-performance culture is to maximise adaptability. 294 | - Adaptive organisations require adaptive individuals—people with high levels of creativity, problem solving, persistence, and citizenship. 295 | - ​Individuals adapt when they have high total motivation. The more that people work for the direct motives, and the less that people work for the indirect motives, the more adaptive they will be. 296 | - ​Great organisations build high-ToMo cultures. They resist their bias to blame individuals. They resist the temptation to freeze. They balance the yin and yang of tactical and adaptive performance. 297 | 298 | ## Chapter 7: The Torch of Performance 299 | 300 | > Imagine if organizations managed their finances like they manage their cultures. … they’d survey their employees, asking, “What do you all think? Are we running out of money?” 301 | 302 | ### The torch in the darkness 303 | 304 | Culture "builders" have heavily focused on measuring tactical performance and employee satisfaction, never shining a light on adaptive performance and maladaptive performance. 305 | 306 | The torch is the *total motivation factor* which is a measure of the six motives. 307 | 308 | ### On the shoulders of giants 309 | 310 | The *total motifcation factor* is based upon the Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale (WEIMS) presented in *[Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale: Its Value for Organizational Psychology Research](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232570502_Work_Extrinsic_and_Intrinsic_Motivation_Scale_Its_Value_for_Organizational_Psychology_Research)* 311 | 312 | WEIMS is an 18-item measure of work motivation. The authors state that they measured "the applicability of the WEIMS in different work environments", however, it should be noted that the responses came from 465 military workers and 192 civilians. 313 | 314 | > Their approach was simple. Using a questionnaire, they would measure how much play, purpose, potential, emotional pressure, economic pressure, and inertia a test subject felt for a given activity. 315 | 316 | ### Diagnosing ToMo 317 | 318 | ToMo analysis has five steps: 319 | 320 | 1. Measure: formula for the factors' weight, to get a score 321 | 1. Identify issues and test your theory 322 | 1. Analyse the keys of culture and prioritise actions 323 | 1. Set an aspirational ToMo goal 324 | 1. Develop the business case for investment 325 | 326 | _"I continue to work at my current job because the type of work will help me to reach my personal goals"_ ...will probably be higher fro millennials that think a lot about their personal career progression. 327 | 328 | Average might not be a good indicator, but maybe a median would be more informative. 329 | 330 | Each factor also has a different weight also based on how much the business can affect it and change it. 331 | 332 | Score might be different over different days, maybe if they picked up a dime... 333 | 334 | #### Know your ToMo 335 | 336 | > The first step... is to calculate the ToMo for all the people within an organization, and locate the pockets with material differences. 337 | 338 | A simple 6-question survey is provided. This questionnaire is a simplified version of the 18-question version provided in the WEIMS analysis. The questionnaire can also be completed at [the Primed to Perform website](https://primedtoperform.com) 339 | 340 | The value of direct motives are added and then indirect motives are subtracted. 341 | 342 | > The closer the motive is to the work itself, the more powerful that motive is. Hence, the motives have different multiplier weights. Play is more powerful than purpose. Purpose is more powerful than potential. 343 | 344 | - Use ToMo as a diagnostic tool, not as a report card. 345 | - Don’t become dogmatic about the metric. 346 | - Make sure your employees’ responses are anonymous 347 | - If you wish to demonstrate the value of ToMo... make sure to include long-term and holistic measures. 348 | 349 | #### Test your theory 350 | 351 | Next, use the data to test your theories of where ToMo can be improved. 352 | 353 | > Start by thinking of the areas in your organization where adaptive performance is most critical. At the top of the list should be those parts of your organization that interface with customers, impact product quality, require creativity, or are subject to extreme risks. You should also include areas where cheating and other cobra effects could be disastrous. 354 | 355 | #### Analyze the keys of culture 356 | 357 | There is no single "key" to driving motivation. 358 | 359 | > Great cultures come from many small motivators that are all aligned to increase ToMo. 360 | 361 | The factors that matter most, however, are: 362 | 363 | - Leadership: A leader who practices the specific behaviors that maximize total motivation does add an average of 50 points of ToMo to his or her team, however, it is much easier for a leader to destroy ToMo than to create it. 364 | - Identity: This includes mission, behavioral code, heritage, and traditions 365 | - Role design: Designing each and every job to balance tactical and adaptive performance. 366 | - Career paths: Career ladders where each rung is designed to increase ToMo produce 63 more points of ToMo, and thus better performance. 367 | - Compensation: Compensation systems tend to lack clarity of the purpose. Compensation systems that celebrate growth add an average of 48 points of ToMo. 368 | - Community: Strong communities are an effective way to inspire play and purpose 369 | - Performance management: Many organisations focus entirely on tactical performance at the expense of adaptive performance and/or focus on using emotional or economic pressure to produce results. 370 | 371 | The importance of any one of these keys differs across organisations and between teams. 372 | 373 | #### Set an aspirational ToMo 374 | 375 | "Magical cultures" lead their competitors in ToMo by approximately 15 points. 376 | 377 | > We chose a 15-point lead as part of our goal for a practical reason. When we look at ToMo within industries, the magical cultures that we tend to admire typically have a 15-point ToMo advantage over their peers. 378 | > 379 | > Organizations in unique industries can set absolute goals, but for many organizations, it makes sense to pick a target relative to the competition. 380 | 381 | #### Develop the plan and business case 382 | 383 | It is necessary to create a business case for cultural development. Using ToMo, it becomes possible to create a connection between culture-driven spend and economic performance. 384 | 385 | ToMo has a strong connection to customer experience. Typically, better customer experience leads to higher prices, higher retention of customers, more cross sales, and stronger recommendations to other customers. 386 | 387 | In asset management, higher ToMo leads to greater investment performance. 388 | 389 | You should calculate the value of one point of ToMo. Each organisation is different but generally you will need to consider: 390 | 391 | > - Increased margin due to improved customer experience, leading to higher prices 392 | > - Increased margin from less waste and better cost management 393 | > - Increased direct sales revenue through adaptive sales behaviors 394 | > - Increased revenue growth (from new products, new segments, or new markets) 395 | > - Increased revenue growth (from increased word of mouth) 396 | > - Reduced employee acquisition costs 397 | > - Reduced employee retention costs 398 | > - Reduced cost due to maladaptive behaviors (for example, operational risk, credit risk) 399 | > - Reduced volatility due to better dealing with VUCA 400 | 401 | ### Night vision 402 | 403 | You can't simply clone an Apple Store and expect to see the same results. There are many cultural keys sewn into the fabric of Apple Stores and this allows Apple to keep a higher price point. 404 | 405 | > Measuring ToMo allows us to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of an organization’s culture. By tracking it over time, we can make sure that it is constantly strengthening, not freezing. By using it in controlled experiments, we can test if our changes are making it better or worse. 406 | 407 | ### Links: 408 | 409 | - Lindsay McGregor's Presentation: https://hello.cultureamp.com/culturefirst-2018-videos/lindsay-keynote 410 | - https://app.vegafactor.com/reports/ba035684-f415-4041-b388-a89b05f3c9b9 411 | 412 | ## Chapter 8: The Fire Starters 413 | 414 | Firestarters 415 | 416 | 4 types of leadership. 417 | 418 | Did anyone identify themselves in these types? 419 | 420 | We mostly identified as the hands-off style. Which lead to a conversation about motivation and identifying people who are other types. 421 | 422 | A firestarter leader: 423 | 424 | 1. Provides you with time, space, and encouragement to experiment and learn, 425 | 2. Makes it clear what it means to be performing well, 426 | 3. Challenges you to solve problems yourself. 427 | 428 | Our conversation focused on what it really means to be performing well. Without the traditional measures, how do we define that in a high TOMO environment? 429 | 430 | 431 | ## Chapter 9: Identity 432 | 433 | We talked about commander's intent. Nelson's key work was done in the years previously. The years of dinners and conversations and constant learning. This helped his captains be confident they knew his intent, even without orders. 434 | 435 | ### Behavioural code 436 | 437 | We're very interested in these ideas. Values we all write down and share, but what about other concepts, processes etc. Shopify sends around 'books' of cultural material that has accreted over years - this helps new people with context. thoughtbot has a playbook, a handbook, and guides: for customers, staff, and coding. 438 | 439 | 440 | ### References 441 | 442 | #### Ch 9 Ref 2 443 | ##### Self-control as a limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns 444 | 445 | [This document](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.585.317) did not appear to actually study what the book said it did. To provide the benefit of the doubt, it is likely that this reference was a mistake. Study 1 did ask participants to squeeze a handgrip, however, they were asked to watch a movie with or without regulating their emotions. The handgrip was used as a measure of effort exerted while regulating emotions. 446 | 447 | #### Ch 9 Ref 17 448 | ##### Effects of Work Values on Job Choice Decisions 449 | 450 | [This study](https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1354&context=cahrswp) surveyed 87 students, primarily of Human Resources, of which 67 completed usable surveys. While respondents were ages from 20 to 49 years, the average age was 26 and the average years of job experience was 3.1 years (median was not supplied in either case). 451 | 452 | > Half of respondents were currently interviewing for jobs, with the rest of the students expected to interview within a year 453 | 454 | > Forty-five percent of respondents expressed a preference for a generalist human resource position, 32% preferred a specialist human resource position, and 23% expressed a preference for some other type of position such as general management. 455 | 456 | > A mixed experimental design (Keppel, 1982),incorporating both within-subjects and between-subjects components, was used. The within-subjects design permits researchers to infer the relative importance of particular factors that are related to an individual's decision making. 457 | > 458 | > The factors were pay, promotion opportunities, type of work (all identified from the pre-test), and the four value factors derived from Ravlin and Meglino's (1987) value classification. 459 | 460 | The four values were achievement, helping others, honesty, and fairness. 461 | 462 | > The seven within-subjects independent variables were completely crossed which permits assessment of the independent effects of each factor on job choice decisions. Crossing the factors resulted in 128 scenarios ($2^7$) which contained all possible combinations of the independent variables. The scenarios were presented in the survey in random order to minimize order effects. Each participant was asked to assume that they were offered a job possessing the characteristics included in the description. 463 | > 464 | > The dependent variable, probability of accepting a job offer... was measured by a question using a seven-point Likert scale. 465 | > 466 | > The between-subjects part of the design permits assessment of inter-individual differences based on individual attributes. Work values were assessed by the Comparative Emphasis Scale (CES) 467 | > 468 | > The CES presents 12 statements describing each of the four values. These 48 statements are divided into pairs such that a statement representing each of the four values is paired with each other value four times. For each pair, the individual is asked to check which value the respondent feels should be emphasized most in their own behavior. 469 | > 470 | > Primary value orientation was defined as the value preferred over the other values. 471 | 472 | 5 of the 67 respondents preferenced multiple values equally. They were considered not to have a dominant value preference, and their results were excluded. 473 | 474 | > The results presented in this paper suggest that individual value orientations have an important influence on job seekers' decisions when information about organizational value systems are known. The within-subject analyses found that concern for others, achievement orientation, and fairness all tended to exert more influence in the decision making process than did pay and promotional opportunities. The power of values relative to pay and promotional opportunities warrants comment. Pay and advancement potential have been shown to be important determinants of job attractiveness. 475 | > 476 | > While these variables did achieve statistical significance in the current study, they emerged as somewhat less important than three of the four value orientations. Rynes et al. (1983) very clearly demonstrated that pay increases in importance as it becomes more variable. They also concluded that the effects of non-pecuniary attributes were interpretable only when pecuniary attributes were specified within the relevant range that subjects might expect in actual job choices. 477 | > 478 | > For all values except honesty, the values present in a job best predict offer acceptance when the value emphasized matched the primary value orientation of the individual. 479 | > 480 | > While this study contributes to our understanding of the role of values in both the job choice process and in person — organization fit, replication of the results using different populations is necessary, particularly those with different education levels and opportunity wages. The similar results observed in the two university samples, despite some important differences between the groups, suggests that the results may generalize to several types of workers and job seekers. 481 | 482 | ## Chapter 10: The Playground 483 | 484 | Chapter 10 described Taylorism 485 | 486 | > Production efficiency methodology that breaks every action, job, or task into small and simple segments which can be easily analyzed and taught. Introduced in the early 20th century, Taylorism (1) aims to achieve maximum job fragmentation to minimize skill requirements and job learning time, (2) separates execution of work from work-planning, (3) separates direct labor from indirect labor (4) replaces rule of thumb productivity estimates with precise measurements, (5) introduces time and motion study for optimum job performance, cost accounting, tool and work station design, and (6) makes possible payment-by-result method of wage determination. (from Wikipedia) 487 | 488 | Although it lauds Taylor for treating job design like a playground, it criticizes the theory heavily, saying that flexibility and empowerment in a role is much more important. Several examples are given. 489 | 490 | One of us added another example: Fighter jets have been made safer because there’s no such thing as average. They used to be built to cater to the average pilot, but as there’s no such thing, they didn’t suit anyone. Nowadays, they make them adjustable to suit different people, and accidents have reduced. 491 | 492 | An aside from Lachlan: 493 | > If you have two equal candidates, you might as well just flip a coin on them instead of inventing a reason to choose one over the other. Both internally and externally, people feel better, because selling the invented reason is difficult and people can tell it’s not sincere. 494 | 495 | ## Chapter 11: The Land of a Thousand Ladders 496 | 497 | They seem to be suggesting that personalised career ladders are possible, we think that perhaps this actually isn't, but perhaps the separation between people management roles and staff developer roles are more what they mean. 498 | 499 | ### Adaptive Performance Cycles 500 | 501 | There are 5 steps to a enabling an adaptive performance cycle. 502 | Impact Theory 503 | 504 | > To become a high performer capable of both tactical and adaptive performance, your job must enable you to understand how your work creates impact. 505 | 506 | This was a consistent question today, in our industry, how do we design roles to encourage play? Examples are given in the book for roles focused around menial tasks, but we questioned their relevance to us. 507 | 508 | An example of a role designed to foster inspiration (and ToMo) is apparently the workers in Wholefoods, apparently, they are free to build ramps for disabled customers and visit producers. We are skeptical about how true this is. 509 | 510 | #### Inspiration 511 | 512 | The Toyota example is trotted out again 513 | Prioritization and planning 514 | 515 | They use a metaphor of the Tortoise vs Hare, unfortunately they change every aspect of the famous story, killing any impact this metaphor will have. Tortoise ideas are old school slow moving ideas, and are antithetical to giving people independence an flexibility, quite unlike the old story. 516 | 517 | Waterlines – What ideas will sink the ship (hitting below the waterline), or be fine, even if they fail (above the waterline)? How do we tell whether we’re hitting above or below the waterline? 518 | 519 | Analogy to Shopify’s does this make commerce better for everyone? Guideline to help people decided whether to do a project or not. 520 | 521 | A good example of below the waterline planning, can be accepting large enterprise customers. When companies build custom stuff for big customers, it can have an anti-productive effect. Atlassian had a good example of rejecting customers for these reasons. 522 | 523 | #### Performing 524 | 525 | They bring up Agile and try to explain it for outsiders, somewhat hilariously. Apparently it’s a big thing! 526 | 527 | They claim that flexibility of where and when people work (remote work and flex-time) don’t increase adaptive performance. We are quite confused by this, as in our thinking, they should help cut down on some of the negative motivations of ToMo. 528 | 529 | Instead, they claim that flexibility in how people work is the important thing. 530 | 531 | We think that perhaps their ToMo model just isn’t good at measuring the benefits of remote work and flex-time. 532 | 533 | #### Reflection 534 | 535 | You need to be able to see the outcomes of any experiments you take to improve adaptability. 536 | 537 | An example is given, where improving role design, led to people working longer hours. We don’t think that the occasional reference in this book to encouraging longer working hours is a good thing, since there’s plenty of evidence to show it reduced overall performance when people are pushed to work long hours. 538 | 539 | A long example about Salesforce.com is provided, apparently switching to agile saved the company. 540 | 541 | ### Finally 542 | 543 | The chapter finishes with a checklist of questions around role design 544 | * Does the role allow you to see enough of the end-to-end experience to enable you to fully connect cause and effect for VUCA 545 | * Does the role give you ways to source new ideas and be inspired by different ways of doing the work? 546 | * Does your job give you enough insight to figure out which ideas should be tried quickly (hares), versus which should be driven through consensus (tortoises)? 547 | * Does the role clearly delineate where tactical performance is required and where adaptive performance is required? 548 | * Is the zone of adaptive performance—the playground—designed to solve for the VUCA of the role? 549 | * Does the role give you time to reflect? 550 | * Does the role give you clarity into your performance and impact? 551 | 552 | ## Chapter 13: The Hunting Party 553 | 554 | > If your kitchen were infested with bugs, you would have a few options. 555 | > You could hire ten people to stand guard and squash them whenever they appear. 556 | > Or you could have those ten people give your kitchen 557 | > a thorough cleaning and keep it spotless thereafter. 558 | 559 | ### About free-rider behaviour: 560 | 561 | > Free-rider behaviour was greatest 562 | > when the person felt the activity itself 563 | > had little intrinsic meaning or value. 564 | > Free-rider behaviour was also high 565 | > when the person’s individual contribution could not be determined. 566 | 567 | *Free rider effect reminds us of the law of diminishing returns. 568 | Maybe the problem is not always visibility but complexity.* 569 | 570 | #### Eliminating free ride behaviour: 571 | 572 | - Increase intrinsic meaning and value of the work to the person 573 | - Define how contributions are accomplished and measured 574 | - Role design 575 | - Knowing the other people - an early step to building community 576 | 577 | ### Marketplaces vs societies 578 | 579 | #### Benefits of strong community: 580 | 581 | - Reduces emotional pressure. 582 | When you’re working in a strong community, 583 | it feels safe to be vulnerable. 584 | Because you feel safe, your play and purpose are not canceled out by anxiety. 585 | - Reduces economic pressure by making you feel less afraid of punishment. 586 | - Increases your sense of purpose because the identity of the group is naturally stronger. 587 | - Inspires sharing knowledge, sharing perspectives, and drives curiosity and play. 588 | 589 | Marketplace economic dynamics do not work the same at a team or organisation. 590 | People believe it does because of four faulty assumptions: 591 | 592 | *Some companies do operate as a marketplace to some degree. 593 | Various companies do compete for time, resources, or budget.* 594 | 595 | 1. Organisations don’t need citizenship to scale adaptive behaviours. 596 | 2. Cooperation and consistency among players in the organisation is not needed. 597 | But consistency is critical for tactical performance in an organisation. 598 | And adaptive performance can’t occur without cooperation and citizenship. 599 | 3. Organisations don’t need participants to improve shared resources. 600 | 4. Organisations don’t carry the costs of cobra effects. 601 | 602 | #### Society, a different model for community building 603 | 604 | > In a society, ToMo drives behaviour, not monetary signals or Darwinian forces. 605 | > Identity, performance management, compensation design, and leadership behaviours 606 | > are all pieces of the puzzle. 607 | > But there is one more cultural key that we have yet to describe: 608 | > the overall structure that brings all those parts into harmony. 609 | 610 | #### Dunbar number 611 | 612 | Social interaction is mentally taxing, therefore, 613 | there is a strong connection between size of brain and the group size we interact with. 614 | 615 | > Dunbar has shown that if you don’t interact meaningfully with someone within four months, 616 | your feeling of emotional closeness will quickly degrade. 617 | 618 | - Villages (150-200) 619 | - Bands (50) 620 | - Hunting parties (15) 621 | - Confidants (4-5) 622 | 623 | *Villages, bands, parties, and confidants matches 624 | how the army structures their team, squad, platoon, company.... 625 | 626 | It's important to have time for social grooming!* 627 | 628 | #### Questions to consider, to encourage bands: 629 | 630 | - Is there a natural grouping where the knowledge 631 | that comes from play should be pooled and exchanged? 632 | The group could form around a topic, or a specific objective. 633 | - How can you help each band form a common identity, 634 | based on trust and caring? 635 | - How does the band build credibility? 636 | - How do you encourage the band to include apprenticeship 637 | in its behavioural code? 638 | - What routines and resources are needed 639 | for the band to share knowledge effectively? 640 | - How will the band learn together? 641 | 642 | > The relationship between the performance of a hunting party 643 | > and its cohesiveness is highly reciprocal. 644 | > Bonding leads to high performance and high performance leads to bonding. 645 | 646 | #### To encourage confidants: 647 | 648 | - Mentorship program. 649 | - Create leaderless sub-teams of no more than five people 650 | to work closely over extended period of time. 651 | 652 | *For leaderless groups to be efficient, 653 | they should have conflict resolution training, and different promotion paths.* 654 | 655 | Buurtzorg: where small groups of nurses self- manage and coaches to help them facilitate the work... 656 | https://www.leadershipandchangemagazine.com/reinventing-organizations-a-case-study/ 657 | 658 | #### At Gore-tex: 659 | 660 | > Bill Gore’s own company has no bosses, 661 | > no job titles, 662 | > no “employees,” 663 | > and no organizational chart. 664 | > Project teams—its version of hunting parties— 665 | > are formed organically as people have ideas. 666 | > Through the power of play and purpose, 667 | > they have to convince their colleagues to support them. 668 | 669 | - Sponsors, not bosses 670 | - Leaders, not managers 671 | - Personal commitments, not job titles 672 | - Guidelines, not rules 673 | - Investments, not expenses 674 | - Associates, not employees 675 | 676 | #### Waterline principle: 677 | 678 | > “The waterline principle means that 679 | > it’s ok to make a decision that might punch a hole in the boat 680 | > as long as the hole is above the waterline 681 | > so that it won’t potentially sink the ship, 682 | > But, if the decision might create a hole below the waterline 683 | > which might cause the ship to sink, 684 | > then associates are encouraged to consult with their team 685 | > so that a collaborative decision can be made.” 686 | 687 | ### Questions: 688 | 689 | - Does your organisation behave more like a marketplace, or a society? 690 | - Does every person have the opportunity to form confidant relationships with their peers? 691 | 692 | ### Other: 693 | 694 | > Human beings ought to be treated as ends, not as means to an end... 695 | > -- Kant 696 | 697 | This quote reminds the discussion of calling team members resources 698 | 699 | ## Chapter 14: The Fire Watchers 700 | 701 | A lot of stories without a lot of evidence starts this chapter. 702 | 703 | ### The Mandate 704 | The focus of the fire watchers is to build a culture and a system for continuously improving adaptive performance in every role in the organisation. 705 | 706 | ### Adaptive Performance Metrics 707 | We’ve already seen how companies tend to make the grave error of focusing on easy-to-measure tactical performance at the expense of adaptive performance. Because the ToMo factor measures the motivational state that leads to adaptive performance, it can be used as the primary performance metric for the culture team. The culture team should be constantly seeking to improve the measurement and to see if there are better ways to use it to drive change and experimentation. 708 | 709 | ### Budget and Return on Investment 710 | One organization we worked with spent around $1 billion per year on marketing. To carefully manage and optimize the tactical performance of that investment, they have about five hundred full-time people. This same company spends about $5 billion on human capital. When we asked them how many analysts they’d assigned to manage and optimize the adaptive performance of that much larger investment, they told us they didn’t have anyone. 711 | 712 | ### The Team 713 | A chief culture officer who reports directly to the CEO. The team should comprise core members and rotational members from key parts of the org. 714 | 715 | ### Apprenticeship and Skill Building 716 | Culture officers must be given training and support in order to learn the skills necessary for this work. 717 | 718 | ### Habits 719 | “To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.” 720 | As Winston Churchill is thought to have said. 721 | 722 | Constant optimization requires a process. Consider the well thought-through processes that manage your finance function. Culture management also requires an ongoing rhythm, and a set of tools, metrics, and people certified in the science of culture building. Here is one possible cadence: 723 | 724 | 1. Monthly: Each culture officer reviews the individual learning goals of each person in their village and analyzes the progress of ongoing experiments and projects. 725 | 2. Quarterly culture officer goals development: Culture officers come together to prioritize the magnets for investment. 726 | 3. Quarterly culture team problem-solving session: Culture officers meet to review ToMo measurements, experiments, and adaptive performance outcomes. 727 | 4. Quarterly problem solving on the state of culture with the executive team: Review of ToMo and quality of culture keys. 728 | 5. Annual problem solving on state of culture with the board of directors. 729 | 730 | The point of the cadence is not evaluation. The purpose is to drive adaptive performance by elevating and encouraging problem solving at every level of the organization. This rhythm of constant experimentation is the third step for solving for the coordination challenge. 731 | 732 | 733 | Nick called out this article as relevant: 734 | https://www.cio.com.au/article/664267/atlassian-revises-performance-reviews-mark-down-brilliant-jerks/ 735 | 736 | This led to a discussion about the "10x engineer" thread on Twitter, "brilliant jerks" and the rest. None of us are much impressed. 737 | 738 | We also discussed how to actually evaluate the improvements the Fire Watchers are introducing. How often is ToMo being scored? How many measurement periods do we want to indicate improvement? How many points is considered significant? 739 | 740 | ## Chapter 15: Performance Calibration 741 | 742 | 743 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------