Mindful Things

Whenever I have time on my hands, I often find myself thinking about time. Take a look at your calendar over the past week. What kinds of things did you invest your time in? How do those investments relate to your goals? And what about next week?

From our answers we can deduce some some vital things:

• What we value
• What we don’t value
• What we think is valuable to us but don’t actually invest time in
• What we actually spend time on but don’t consider as necessary and/or valuable.

Through analysing and reflecting on our answers, we can verify how we’re progressing towards our goals. It closes the feedback loop we need so that we can adjust our course. More fundamentally, it helps us figure out what’s truly important to us. How we spend our time tells us a lot about ourselves.

Party of Five

Some years ago, I stumbled across a completely novel way of thinking about how we spend our time. The interesting question isn’t just What, but Who. With whom do you spend your time? More specifically, who are the five people you spend the most time with? The more specific a question, the harder it makes me think.

I first came across the idea in “The One Minute Entrepreneur” by Ken Blanchard, Don Hutson with Ethan Willis. In the business novel, he remarks how we become the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.

Thinking of time in terms of who we spend it with opens up a whole new perspective. His remark also helped me realise why parents so often worry about the kind of crowd their child hangs out with.

Learning from others to learn about yourself

One way to get value from your party of 5 is by looking outwards and asking yourself: What are the attributes I like about an individual and what can I do to learn how to do more of what they do?

Another way to get value from your party of 5 is to look inwards by asking yourself: What do I think about someone and what does what I think about them tell me about myself? How can I use those insights to help me improve?

Time to Think

One of Ken’s “insights” is that we’ll essentially be the same, year after year, except for the people we meet and the books we read. To that list, I would also add the choices we make and the things that we do. For me, one of Ken’s most enduring insights is this: “The legacy you leave is the legacy you live”.

What do you do when you have time on your hands? Who are the people that make up your Party of Five?

Think “Fringe”

I recently went to my first social enterprise conference, a fringe festival to the Skoll World Forum called OxfordJam. Three words to describe the conference? Inspiring, creative and vital.

“Inspiring” – Because of the variety and range of strangers who came together to share ideas and experiences of how they’re contributing to greater good in the world. Most of the attendees were social entrepreneurs, people who strive to do good in the world and create a sustainable business to fund that work.

“Creative” – From the venue (the event was held in a building that used to be a jam factory, hence the name of the event) to the conference booklet (in the format of a funky university newspaper, jam-packed with interesting information). I especially liked the washing line for ideas contributed by participants held together with clothes pegs.

“Vital” – It was refreshing to be surrounded by such a large number of people united by a common purpose “To make the world a better place”. Everyone was part of a project or some endeavour, however big or small, to help others.

With great power comes great responsibility

Many people expressed what they do and how they do it in terms of “the bigger picture”, with a clear emphasis on the need to better understand the consequences of their actions and the impact of social enterprise in a community, a globally optimised example of the Chinese proverb from “Give a man a fish AND teach him how to fish”.

As the day unfolded (I was only able to attend 1 out of 3 days), I was surprised by the number of parallels between my daily work and that of social entrepreneurs:

• Make a positive difference: Help make things better.
• For greater good: Think and act in terms of global optimisation.
• Made to last: Quality is key to making a lasting impact. Enduring change is crucial to sustained improvement.
• WIN-WIN: Maximise value and create alignment by asking “What’s in it for all of us?” For you, for me and for others.
• Baby steps: Small steps can lead to big changes. Like Lao Tzu, the Chinese philsopher, said, “A journey of a thousant miles begins with one step.”

Spread your own jam

Following the adage of “eat your own dog food”, the most impressive thing about OxfordJam was the congruence between the beliefs on which the event is founded (what the organisers believe in) and how it worked in practice (how the event was run).

An example of this was that the conference was based entirely on a gift economy for the participants, with free entry for all. Even The Jam Factory offered the use of their venue for free in support of the event. The idea of a gift economy is that it’s up to you to give when you want, as much or as little as you want and how you want. It’s this recurring “free giving” that helps the economy go around. Following this spirit, many of us bought drinks and snacks to support the Jam Factory and some made personal donations in support of the event.

Thanks a million!

To The OxfordJam team: Ben Metz, Amanda Jones and Jonny Mallinson – am looking forward to OxfordJam 2012!

To The Jam Factory: For providing a great setting for the event!

The Gift of Giving

What was my biggest takeaway from the event? Instead of worrying about whether or not we’ve individually got enough to give or if we’re individually contributing enough, give what you can on your own terms. Every little bit helps. Together, we can turn the concept of a gift economy into a reality.

How can you introduce a gift economy at work?

“Only a mediocre person is always at his best” – Somerset Maugham

Personal Development

I started my career back in the Dot.com days when we celebrated the launch of new products with champagne and strawberries on a weekly basis. Back then, the going was good and everyone was encouraged to invest in training in order to deliver more value through personal development.

During the boom, I attended conferences such as JavaOne in San Francisco and TheServerSide Symposium in Las Vegas where I learnt a great deal from peers and thought leaders.  In spite of being a software developer, I even attended a course on Project Management where I gained invaluable insight into how project management can add value when it is applied correctly. All the training I participated in helped me see the bigger picture beyond writing code, my core competency at the time.

Then came the crash and organisations no longer seemed to care about the return on investment when it came to training. When the training budget eventually shrunk to almost a taboo, I got creative.

Get creative to learn

During the crash, I got into the habit of investing in my own personal development with my own money and holiday. At first, it was by setting aside a modest book budget. Then I extended it to include conferences. As a result, I learned a great deal by focusing on value when others were busy concentrating on budget cuts.

Nowadays, my learning budget includes events and trips that help increase the value I deliver. It’s not a big budget so I make sure I get the most value out of what I invest in.

Get personal about your development

Over the years, my attitude and approach to training has evolved immensely. My view is that training is a means to continuous learning. This means that anything which helps me learn qualifies as “training”.

Tip #1: Take responsibility for your own learning
You are your own greatest asset. Learning increases the value of that asset. Since you are the primary beneficiary of your personal development, it’s up to you manage that development, not your manager or anyone else.

Tip #2: Put your money where you mouth is
If you truly believe in the value of personal development, you need to invest, be it through time, money and/or effort.

Up close and personal

Here’s a list of things I do to maximise my investment in personal development.

1. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Most organisations have a training budget. Find out how much of it can be invested in you. Get details of training options, from training providers to ways of learning such as courses, conferences and 1-2-1 mentoring.

2. Identify your learning preferences to maximise the value you get from the different ways of learning. Do you prefer lecture-style learning or interactive learning? Get smarter by mixing and matching what your learn and how you learn.

3. Think of each training request as a business case. Identify the value you and your organisation will get out of the investment as well as the costs. How will you give back after getting training?

4. Present your training request as a set of options with varying value and costs. For instance, I like to come up with between 3 – 5 options for each course or conference I attend with the aim of getting the training request approved. My goal is to ensure that my request contains so much value that the cost is negligible by comparison. Think “Value for Money”.

Ways to increase your value proposition

For many people, learning is a passive activity such as being an “attendee” at a conference. The key to increasing the value of an investment is become an active participant.

Here are some ideas on how:

• Define your goals and success criteria before the course/event and regularly track progress in terms of your goals and criteria throughout the course/event. It’s also useful to reflect afterwards to determine the estimated vs actual ROI
• Active participation during sessions through personal contribution – This helps you exercise the theory of what you’ve learned right away and increase the effectiveness of the learning cycle
• Share what you learned with your colleagues through a series of lunch-and-learns – This helps generate conversations with others or give rise to new ideas
• Submit a proposal to the conference – This is a great way to get feedback as well as learn how to receive feedback and take improvement actions
• Present a session at the conference – Similar to submitting a proposal and at least 3 times more valuable in terms of learning through session R & D, public speaking and face-to-face networking. For me, it’s a great test of personal agility

Ways to reduce the cost of training requests to your organisation

• Become a conference presenter (presenters usually get free entry) – It’s a great WIN-WIN formula, as a presenter you get more value AND it reduces cost
• Offer to pay for one or more of the following where the number of $ denotes the relative and estimated cost of items: conference entrance fee $$$, accomodation $$, travel $$, expenses $ and days off work (by taking it as holiday – the value of holiday differs from person to person) $$

Learning as a personal investment

Something sobering happens when you start thinking about learning as a personal investment in terms of time, cost and effort. The most poignant moment is when you translate what you’re personally prepared to pay into $$$ value for an opportunity to learn. You know you’re serious about learning when you really put your money where you mouth is.

How much have you invested lately? How much will you invest this year?

Near Horizon

I started a new job recently. Beyond the glass walls of the building, in the near horizon, is a curious and distinctive message: “Let’s adore and endure each other.” Writing on the wall always makes me think.

At first glance, the message seems like a useful reminder. To remind us of the value of being generous in spirit and kind to our fellow man. One thing’s for certain, the work is by an artist who lets their art speak for itself.

As I stare at the wall from afar, a new perspective starts to emerge. I begin to wonder about the words and what they mean in practice.

“Adore” and “endure” are both emotionally-charged. The first makes me think of love and the second of tolerance. Both are united by passion. Both require us to pass some judgment on the object of our passion, in this case, “each other”.

Thanks to Marshall Goldsmith highlighting the top 20 flaws that prevent people from becoming more successful, I’ve learned that being over-judgmental and passing judgment too quickly is something to be aware of. As with so many things, bad habits die hard.

The Dangers of Loving and Hating

“Loving and hating” is one of the coping stances many of us adopt when we are imbalanced or feel stressed out, according to Gerald Weinberg. Both represent two sides of the same coin. Loving often materialises itself as favouritism while hating often manifests itself as prejudice. Either way, both of them impair our ability to consider a situation objectively.

Tolerance and Thinking

The idea of “enduring each other” sits uneasy with me. It conjures up a multitude of negative ideas. The first is that tolerating someone usually stems from and reinforces a lack of respect. The second is the idea of putting up with a situation instead of looking for ways to improve.

An example of this is when people say, “That’s the way Jane is. She’s got some skills, but it’s her personality”. What if continuous improvement meant that we can turn everything into a skill and a choice? This would mean we could learn, unlearn and re-learn things that define us as individuals. If we choose to change. I’ve seen people go through transformational change when they realise that a) you can only change yourself and b) only you can change yourself.

Strangers to Ourselves

In the words of Marie Curie, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” Acknowledging this is the first step towards making sense of the many tenuous threads of the nest in our heads.

Back in February, I attended my first TedX event, TedX Granta in Cambridge, UK, a city well-known for its academia, research and creativity. Among the many live and recorded talks, the one that moved me most was Sarah Outen’s story of being the first woman to ever row across the Indian Ocean.

How Sarah let go and went rowing

The start of Sarah’s journey began with the sudden death of her father during her time at Cambridge university. In order to come to terms with her grief, she set herself the daunting challenge of becoming an “ocean rowing racer” in order to raise money for charity in her father’s memory. At that time, not only had Sarah never done ocean rowing, she’d not even done all that much regular rowing. But she’d set her mind to it and nothing was going to change that.

While some people might have considered her sudden decision to take up ocean rowing racing as “spiteful” or “whimsical”,  Sarah needed to let go of her family and herself. Sarah described this point in her life as a need to “survive” in order to deal with her grief. What better place to be alone than in a sailing boat in the middle of a big blue ocean with nothing but radio assistance?

The route less travelled

Sarah shared many anecdotes about her first trip from Perth to Mauritius which became a circuitous “warmup lap“. Instead of rowing in a straight-line, it was much more of a squiggle fraught with tenterhook moments like when she literally found herself unclipping her lifeline but for a moment to upright her overturned boat in a storm in order to survive.

“You can do whatever you want”

Sarah attributes her success in ocean rowing racing to 3 things: having a dream, a vision and belief. She learnt to “let go of naysayers” and focused on turning “bad nerves” into “good nerves” and making them work for her.

Sarah’s 7 tips for achieving your dreams

1. Focus on your goal. Steel your mind and spirit with the mantra of “Just keep rowing”. The tough get moving to keep going.
2. Persevere. Try, try and try again. Keep going. The key difference between winners and losers is that winners keep trying.
3. Teamwork is dreamwork. Big dreams require teamwork. To reach your full potential, you need great teamwork.
4. Don’t run from fear. Things that make you afraid are often learning opportunities in disguise. Sometimes, the greater the fear, the higher the return on investment.
5. Re-define “safe” in your head. Your comfort zone  is eroding a bit every day. Continuously challenge yourself in order to be at your best.
6. Stop worrying. Concentrate on the things that you can change. Let go of things you can’t. In Sarah’s words, learn to “look at things with equanimity”.
7. Take calculated risks. Be bold and smart to give yourself the best chances for success. In the words of André Gide, “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

When was the last time you unclipped your lifeline and dared to lose sight of the shore?

“A Dip in the Ocean”

You can read more about Sarah’s memoir of her ocean rowing races in her new book “A Dip in the Ocean“. If her writing is half as compelling as her storytelling, the book is sure to to help free your mind from the shore to which its currently tethered.

I met an old friend on the tube the other day. Thomas and I first met in my English class all those years ago when we not only dreamed our dreams but dared to believe they were possible.

By the time I met Thomas, he was already a great English novelist and poet. I went on to read many of his novels so dumstruck was I by their freshness and their fineness in spite the two of us having been born more than a century apart.

Ode to Love

A curious and lesser known fact was Thomas’s own love story. Thomas met the love of his life, a certain Emma Lavinia Gifford, when he was thirty years old. He married her four years later. They eventually become “estranged”. Emma ended up living the rest of her life in the attic while Thomas went on to lead the life of a successful and great writer.

It wasn’t until his wife passed away that, at the age of 72, Thomas went on to write more than 80 poems (1912 – 1913) to reflect on their life together and apart. Many critics consider the poems to be some of his greatest work filled with fairness, fullness and freeness, the stuff that great poetry is made of.

As I recall this love story, I feel certain there’s a crucial lesson to be (re-)learned and remembered on this special day.

One of the toughest moments for me as a coach is when it’s time to say “Goodbye” to my team. After months of intense moments, where we’ve collectively reverberated between Anticipation, Fear, Disbelief, Hope and Self-Belief then back again for the next challenge, it feels like a lifetime worth of experiences. No wonder it’s hard to say goodbye.

Opportunity Knocks

In many ways, the relationship between team and coach has the intensity of growing a friendship for a lifetime. It’s a time when each of us are put to the test because there’s nowhere to hide when the going gets tough. It’s also a great opportunity to learn from each other and, more importantly, help each other grow.

Goodbye is the New Beginning

To achieve, we have to “begin with the end in mind” (Stephen Covey reasons). That’s why the “Goodbye” moment is, in fact, my starting point for team coaching. From my first few days to the rest of my time with the team, I strive to get to know the team members as individuals. Why? So that I can work out what’s needed to equip them with what lies ahead. Why? So that the team will have the tools they need to continue to achieve long after the coach is gone.

Criteria of a Good Coach

According to Sally Gunnell (former Olympic British Champion in the 400m hurdles), a good coach has the following attributes:

1. Treat people as individuals
2. Use feedback as an opportunity to improve
3. Always listen
4. Always learning new techniques.

Being a good coach sounds simple, but isn’t easy. The ultimate test of how effective a coach is how well the positive outcomes of the coaching endures. My ultimate goal is to keep the team yearning for learning and to keep improving long after the coach is gone.

What’s the smallest step you can take today to help yourself and others learn again?

Love, Life and Death are just some of the things I think about during my long commute as a consultant. My mind cycles between these serious themes on a constant quest for ideas to increase the value I deliver – at work, at home and in my spare time.

Begin with the end in mind

Although our lives are enveloped by Uncertainty, one thing’s certain: we’re all going to become grass one day. (Preferably one fine day with clear blue skies and the sun shining.)

Make the most of your timebox

Let’s consider life as one finite timebox. Given we have a fixed amount of time (and we can’t be certain of how much there is), it’s all the more important to:

1. Prioritise our projects by ROI (calculated simply by dividing value by cost while taking into consideration constraints, risks and cost of delay – aka Agile Planning).

2. Create a plan to achieve whatever we need to turn our dreams into a reality.

3. Execute the plan, track progress then re-plan based on real-time information.

A lifetime worth of achievements

Somewhere along the way, most of us will “job” our jobs, do some work and discover our vocation. And amidst all this hullabaloo, many of us will continue to dreams our dreams. I like to think of those dreams as my “gold medals“.

Name that Gold Medal

The key to achieving our gold medals is to name them. Next, break them down into small enough steps that we can achieve in the shortest timebox possible in order to build then maintain momentum.

One way is to think of each of these small steps as gold stars leading towards the gold medal. I like to think of the gold stars like the mini achievements I collect when playing computer games. Get enough gold stars and you cash them in exchange for something you really want (like a new super-skill).

So where’s the love?

Love is what fuels what I do and how I do it. Over the last 3 years, I’ve managed to achieve a large gold star: to love what I do (and, yes, that means I love the work I do). Of course it hasn’t been easy, but it is possible and all the hardwork continues to be worth it.

So what’s my next gold star? To love what I do AND do what I love. Of course it won’t be easy, but some things are for certain: it’s not going to be as hard as I fear it would be and it’s going to be a lot of fun! As for the gold medal I’m working towards? Watch this space.

What is it you love doing? How will you achieve your gold medals?

One of the life-changing moments for me back in 2010 was hearing Sally Gunnell speak at a great networking event organised by Women in Technology, hosted by BP.

The subject of Sally’s talk was ‘Rising to the Challenge – How to achieve a gold medal career‘. Sally shared numerous heartfelt stories from her 12-year long career in athletics and, most importantly, shared her insights on success.

Who’s Sally?

Sally is a former Olympic British Champion in the 400m hurdles. She’s the only woman to have held the European, World, Commonwealth and Olympic 400 metre hurdles titles at the same time. (Read more about Sally on wikipedia.)

Sally Says

Think big. Have dream goals. Define your goals. Know what you want in life. Have a role model. Work out what you’re bad at. Focus on what you’re good at. Remember that your comfort zone gets smaller every day.

Understand yourself. Learn how to deal with setbacks. Work hard. Make sacrifices. Believe in yourself. Develop a positive mental attitude. Don’t let people who put you down influence your whole life.

Put yourself under pressure. Live your dream.

Key Ingredients for Success

Nutrition. Your body isn’t so much a temple as the engine that enables you to realise your dreams. Watch what others eat and work out what works best for your mind and body.

Proper preparation. Build training into your schedule. Train lots.

Be professional. Take what you do seriously. Make everything count.

Respect your coach. Listen with an open-mind. Give things a go.

Don’t worry about things outside of your control. Believe in yourself.

Take regular physical exercise. At least 3 – 4 times a week. It’s the quickest way to feel good about yourself.

Plan for you. Define your goals. Take small steps to get you going and get you that gold medal.

The Difference Between a Champion and a Loser

Winners define what success means for themselves. You decide what constitutes a gold medal for you.

Winners know how to shut up that obnoxious voice in one’s head that says, ‘You’re rubbish. You won’t make it, so why bother?’

Winners know what they’ve got to do. They do the best they can. Once they achieve one goal, they set themselves another.

Being a champion is about sustaining excellence. Being a champion is about ever greater expectations of oneself.

Over to You

All this may sound simple, but it’s anything but easy. What are your goals for 2011 and beyond? And what’s your plan?

Make this year a great one. Because we’re worth it.

Play4Agile is the first ever European Agile Games Conference, set to take place next year in Frankfurt, Germany on 18 – 21 February.

It’s a conference designed by and for Agile and Lean coaches, experienced facilitators and game experts who want to exchange questions, ideas and experience on using games in teams and organisations. Find out more about the participants here.

An Open Playground

What I want to learn:

• New games to play with my teams so we can become better than we were yesterday every day
• About games facilitation (and share what I’ve learned about it)
• How to design short, effective games (less than 30 minutes)

And also to:

• Meet others who want to create a game together!
• Share a game or two (and apply what I’ve learned from the conference to improve them lots) so that the games can provide even more value to future gamers!

I’m looking forward to catching up with old friends and meeting the folks from StrategicPlay, the team who’ve turned playing into a serious business!