This Christmas, I’d like to share with you 4 magical gifts you can use right away.

If you wish to get more organised…

… and become more effective and efficient in 2012, you must read and try “Personal Kanban” by Jim Benson and Tonianna Demaria. It’s a light and enjoyable read that shows us why and how important it is to a) visualise our work and b) set work-in-progress limits to achieve the goals we set ourselves. You can practice by applying Personal Kanban to make more of your holidays with friends and family!

If you wish to follow your dreams…

… and dance your dance but are hesitant to do so, let Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat Pray Love” guide you in this beautiful talk on the genius behind art and creativity we all secretly aspire to. Learn to externalise the anguish of creativity and get a little help from your very own daemon (think Dobby, the friendly house elf).

If you wish to help yourself…

… and your tribes live happily after, prepare for the journey of transforming your workplace into a place where you long to belong with “Tribal Leadership” by Dave Logan et al. To learn more about Tribal Leadership in action, check out my interactive workshop based on the model. Like Dave says, “Birds fly, fish school and people tribe.” Go forth and tribe – why not try out the model with your friends and family?

My special wish this Christmas is…

… for all of us to have a safe, playful and fun-filled holiday. What better time to play then during the festive season? Make a gingerbread house, build a snowman, play Lego’s latest invention “Creationary“. Practice playmaking to magick any chore (such as large amounts of washing-up) into fun and games!

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

My First Job

Working with graduates reminds me of my early working years. Many years ago, after a series of interviews, I landed myself a job working in online publishing.

Every day, I would go to work in a building shaped like a magnificent ship. Where the CTO would ride around the office on his Muji bike. Where in the kitchen were Smeg fridges filled with an infinite supply of still and sparkling bottled water. Where there was a Playstation and a pinball machine and we were encouraged to play. (“It helps to get the creative juices flowing don’t you know?” the designers would say.)

What’s more, on the top floor of the building was a bar-restaurant that bore an uncanny resemblance to the one in Ally McBeal. Those were the days during the dot.com boom.

The Way of One World

During this time, I learned a lot. That most of the “real business” got done down the pub over a beer. That if you wanted to succeed, you needed to work for a “big boss”. That some people went to work to do a good job while others did the minimum yet expected to get paid more.

Those were the days when managers would educate graduates like myself. The most memorable lesson was one from a recently- hired manager. He’d been with the company for less than 2 weeks.

“Portia,” he said. “If you want to get on in this world… The moment you get a new job is when you start looking for another!” This comment would be followed by raucous laughter from some of the crowd.

I didn’t know what to think when I heard both the advice and the laughter. My mind crowded itself with questions. How can you learn and improve if you’re constantly on the lookout for something better before you’ve acquired and developed your skills? As a manager, how much can you possibly care about the people and why would you help them grow if your mind is already somewhere else? Most important of all, how can you build something that lasts and why do it if you don’t expect to be here tomorrow?

Uneasy questions demand game-changing answers

It’s taken me a long time to reconcile my thinking and actions with the lessons I learned back then and continue to learn everyday about how organisations work.

Instead of accepting the status quo and playing the same game day in day out, recognise that we each of us have the power to change the game.

Instead of leaving behind any old legacy, let us create “inheritance” – something of value for those who come after us, an organisation that is at once prosperous and adds value to the world in which we live.

Instead of “doing deals” down the pub, let us reward people based on meritocracy – based on their performance at work; how much value they add and the amount of personal potential realised.

Instead of teetering on a knife edge performing an unsustainable balancing act of work and life, let us figure out what’s really important to us so that we can unite the two instead.

Last, but not least, instead of being caught up in the tide of commoditisation of everything we have and everything we are, let us figure us what’s for sale and what is not. Because once we realise what we have that even money cannot buy, we discover what it takes to change the game.

Christmas has come early for me this year. I know this because I’m carrying holiday weight two weeks in advance of the big day itself. That’s when I decide to step up my visits to the gym and reduce my daily intake of “Christmas-in-a-cup“.

What’s Bodypump?

For those of you unfamiliar with Bodypump, Bodypump is weight-training en masse to pop music. In the early days, mainly only women went (something to do with it being perceived as “aerobics with weights”). Nowadays it attracts both men and women because it’s up to you how many weight plates you want to stack onto your bar. What you get out is what you put on.

Each class is made up of the usual sequence of warmup, followed by squats, then upper body training (biceps and triceps), followed by either lunges or more targeted training and finally always finishing with abs work. How good you are at crunches (and its variations) is a fair indication of how squishy/toned you really are. What they call your “core strength”.

Physical and Mental Training

Now imagine you’ve just signed up for a Bodypump class. The warmup’s gone fairly well and you’re not yet out of breath. You feel “warmed up”. Suddenly, from out of nowhere comes a steady stream of existential questions.

Booming Voice: “Why are you here?”

Voice-in-own-head: “That’s a very good question. To work out I guess. I’ve put on a bit of holiday weight and I’m hoping to work it off before the holiday binge.”

Moments later, displeased with the class’s progress or the answer, the Booming Voice poses a different question during the toughest of squat tracks.

Booming Voice: “What are you waiting for?”

Voice-in-own-head: “Another great question. It’s not an uncommon question I ask myself. I’m trying to give it my all, honest I am.”

Then a longer period of silence, leaving one more time to reflect on one’s previous answers to such wide-reaching questions confined to so stuffy and small a training room.

Finally, we get to core strength and we do the plank followed by side plank with rotations, same number of agonising reps on both sides. You have to try it to appreciate how tough it really is.

Booming Voice: “We won’t be here for long.”

Voice-in-my-own-head: “Best make the most of my time here then.”

And as the class wraps up with a cool-down, the Booming Voice leaves us with one final thought.

Booming Voice: “Well done. Good job. See you next Tuesday.”

Being a Work-in-Progress

Moments afterwards, as I get ready to return to work, I wonder how often we get asked such profound questions that truly shape our lives. And it is in searching for the answers that transforms us from who we dream of being to who we ultimately become.

Isn’t it time we all have more fun at work?

If your answer is “Yes!” then join us at the home of my new blog “Playmaking – Transforming Work Through Play“. Looking forward to seeing you there!

A Hundred Years of Solitude

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always yearned to find a place where would I truly belong. A place where I’d spend most of my waking hours actively participating in what I call the 3 Cs: Communication, Collaboration and Community.

Communication: A place where my finger’s always on the pulse, a place where people say what they mean and mean what they say.

Collaboration: A place where people work together, play together, win together, working towards a common goal.

Community: A place where we care about one another, look out for each other and create opportunities together.

Then one lunchtime, as I peruse the shelves of business books at my local bookstore, I stumble upon a book to help me turn my dream into reality. To create a place where I long to belong at work.

The Power of Tribes

“Tribal Leadership” by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright is a book based on the ancient concept of tribes. In it, they describe how organisations operate in a 5-stage model based on organisational research from numerous U.S. companies. The book is packed full of practical tips of how to “upgrade” your tribe from its current stage to the next in order to create an organisation that doesn’t merely survive, but thrives.

According to Dave and his co-authors, a tribe consists of a group of between 20 – 150 people who would stop and greet each other when their paths crossed. A small tribe (the equivalent to a small organisation) is between 20 – 50 people large, whereas a large tribe (a larger organisation) is between 50 – 150 people. The concept of “tribe” scales in that a large organisation is made up of a tribe of tribes. And what do all tribes in a single organisation have in common? Organisational culture, of course.

What Dave’s research tells us

The supporting research of Tribal Leadership is based on workplaces in America.

Stage 1: A person at Stage 1 is usually alienated by the world of them. Around 2% of professionals are at this stage. People at Stage 1 take shotguns to work. Tribes at Stage 1 are reminiscent of prisons in culture.

Stage 2: A person at Stage 2 is constantly complaining, wondering “Why me?” Dave refers to this stage as the “ghetto of corporate despair. Around 25% of workplaces operate at this stage. According to the model, Dilbert is at Stage 2.

Stage 3: A person at Stage 3 is all about “Me! Me! Me!”. Knowledge is power and they hoard it and keep it for themselves. A whopping 49% of workplaces are at Stage 3.

Stage 4: Individuals and tribes are value-driven at Stage 3. Around 22% of workplaces make up Stage 4. Interesting fact: people at Stage 4 require a common enemy against whom the tribe focuses in order to be better. Reminds me of classic James Bond movies where Bond needs baddies in order to be a goodie.

Stage 5: A person at Stage 5 “makes history”. People at Stage 5 take full responsibility for their words and actions. They are driven by leadership, vision and inspiration. Around 2% of workplaces make up Stage 5. Graduates begin at Stage 5 and usually regress to lower stages.

Tribal Leadership session at XP Days Benelux

For those who know me, one of my favourite hobbies is turning theory into experiential learning to help bring the theory alive and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with Tribal Leadership at XP Days Benelux last week.

What Dave says about the session

Dave has seen the presentation and says, “Amazing work! Would you be open to our posting this on our website? It’s really outstanding!” Having seen the pictures from the session at XP Days, Dave adds, “This is really fun! Love the pictures. Looks like you get people really involved.”

I hope you have as much fun looking through the presentation as I did in building it with help from my tribe!

Where can I find out more about Tribal Leadership?

Sticks and Stones

Some days I feel old. I think about all the hip things the youngsters are getting into these days. Wonder if I should buy myself an iPhone and get into the whole apps-on-phone rave, replace my beloved paperbacks with Kindle versions, accept invitations from strangers on LinkedIn requesting to connect as “friends”.

That’s when I decide to take an alternative route to work. As I go past a familiar row of shops, ABBA strikes up and the music jolts me out of my reverie. Because I’m taken by surprise, I pay attention to the lyrics for the first time. “You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life“. Sounds like wise words to me. (Go on, you know you want to play it loud and play it proud!)

The cheery tune transports me back to my first visit to Sweden a couple of weeks ago for Oredev when I rediscovered an old friend, full of colour, sound and good humour. I’m referring to ABBA of course. And all this reminds me of a niggling notion I’ve been carrying in my head for sometime and it is this: the feeling of Agile.

The Feeling of Agile

Agile to me is a catalyst for personal and organisational change, so if you practice Agile on a daily basis, then you’re bound to feel silly or foolish at least once a day. Just as 5 – 10 minutes of play a day can keep the doctor and priest away, feeling silly is a sure sign you’re out of your comfort zone. And being out of your comfort zone demands courage. It can also lead to learning and personal growth.

The meaning of silly depends on you. Why stand up in front of an entire open plan office for a 15-minute standup meeting? Why try to improve when no one else seems to care? Why invite a new team member you barely know out for lunch?

Silly Me

I reflect on yesterday and scan for signs of silly, like a first aider fingering a wrist for a pulse. Much to my relief, I remember brainstorming ice breakers for a team building session with a fellow playmaker, among other silly episodes.

“What do you recommend?” she asks. To which I reply, “What’s the goal of the session? And the success criteria?” Once these are clear, the real fun begins. “There’s “Mad, Sad, Glad” which helps ground the team by looking back at how far they’ve come and where they are now,” I say, trying to come up with a range of options.

“Then there’s “The Profile Card Exercise” (which always contains surprises like “I love the Queen and I hate mushrooms”). And my all time favourite “The Superhero” – if you were a superhero who would you be? What kind of super power would you have?” This final suggestion gets an involuntary chuckle from my colleagues who overhear the conversation.

It’s true what they say, “you’re only as old you feel”. And I’d emphasise “as young as you want to be”. Silly is the pink flamingo in your drink. Or the cricket in your pocket. Do you dare to feel silly?

It’s that time of year again, Christmas is just around the corner, people are talking about the possibility of snow on Christmas Day and, of course, it’s almost time for XP Days Benelux, the friendliest and most fun Agile conference I know.

I’ll be presenting a brand new session about Tribal Leadership based on the book by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fisher-Wright. I’ve had great fun experimenting with the theory, so I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Tribal Leadership – Create the place where you long to belong

Do you hope that one day all the office politics will be replaced by a common and worthwhile cause? Do you wish you could be part of a winning team? Do you dream of working in a place where you belong?

Every organisation is made up of tribes, naturally occurring groups of between 20 – 150 people. And even though each tribe is different they have one thing in common: organisational culture.

Join me to learn about Tribal Leadership, a practical model for leveraging natural groups to create organisations that thrive. Learn how you can help transform your work experience into what you want it to be by focusing on language and behaviour within a culture.

You’ll get the chance to identify the stage you and your tribe are in and the next stage you want to move towards. Working in pairs, triads and as a whole group, you’ll leave the session with a roadmap of your own to take your tribe towards “Innocent Wonderment”.

Find out more about the session here.

Looking forward to the fun and games at XP Days Benelux and all the invaluable learning and sharing!

A glimpse of my personal play history

When I look back at my working life to date, there’s a moment that stands out from all the rest.

It’s 2002. I’d been working for several years and had come to terms with what most people would describe as your typical “working life”. I worked hard and always tried to do my best. Sometimes that was good enough, at other times, it wasn’t. Then one day, as I sit in my dentist’s waiting room, I pick up a glossy magazine because my appointment was running late. An article about work catches my eye.

Against a backdrop of glamorous smiles and beautifully coiffed heads, a journalist told me that “We spend more than 75% of our waking hours doing work and work-related activities.” As though that were not sufficiently terrifying, she went on to say, “The average working person will spend more time in their entire lifetime with their colleagues than their loved ones.”

Quick as a flash, a quiet resolve forms in my mind. Life’s too short to spend it on doing what you don’t enjoy with people who’s company you don’t care for.

Ever since then, that’s been one of my guiding principles on how I choose to do my work. It was difficult at first but I found that with practice I could create opportunities for myself and others to do more meaningful work that I’ve come to describe as “Playmaking“.

Where next?

If you want to find out more about Transformative Play and get ideas on how to satisfy your recommended daily amount of play at work, join me at Oredev on 9 November in Sweden where I’ll be presenting on “The Power of Play – Making Good Teams Great“.

In addition to the latest research behind the power of play, there’ll be lots of fun and games including:

• The game of “Play or Nay!”
• The Sorry Story of the Sea Squirt
• Explore your personal “Play History”

I hope to see you there!

Emergency Self-Rescue

Are you having a thrisis? How do you know if you’ve got it? And if you are suffering from a thrisis, what can you do about it?

I recently came across the term “thrisis” and it’s been playing on my mind ever since. A thrisis is a mid-life crisis in your thirties. Given my birthday last month, I’m certainly susceptible. In fact, I think I may have contracted it some years ago but didn’t know what to call it.  The Florence Nightingale in me tells me I should get it seen to ASAP.

An open mind seeks possibilities

Now that I know there may be an issue, I sign up for a seminar on “Happiness” by Charlie Morley, all the while telling myself to keep an open mind. In doing so, I discover I’m an “optimistic sceptic”.

According to Charlie’s research on Happiness, Happiness is “a fundamental friendliness towards life”, otherwise known as “unconditional friendliness”.

To be happy, Charlie says we need to differentiate between what we can change and what’s outside of our control. The reality is, most of what exists outside of us is full of uncertainty and uncontrollable. Trying to control the uncontrollable is like trying to swallow the sun. The only thing for certain is that it’s sure to give you more than a sore throat.

Instead, look around you and observe what’s going on. By observe, Charlie means to simply acknowledge what’s happening, without judgment. This allows us to make friends with our mind and, by doing so, increase our awareness of what is and what isn’t. When we are able to acknowledge what has come to pass with unconditional friendliness, we give ourselves the chance to change the way we see the world.

The 3 Paradoxes

Charlie identifies 3 paradoxes towards happiness:

1. Help others to help yourself. This is also known as “selfish selflessness”. It’s WIN-WIN even though it’s not altruistic.
2. Thinking more about death is good for you. “It’ll shake you up to wake you up,” says Charlie. Pop quiz: what do buddhists talk about most when they get together? Death, according to Charlie.
3. Happiness is a habit. It takes a lot of practice. The first step is to “accept” your unhappiness. By doing so, you acknowledge where you are and that allows you to move forward.

Pause for Thought

Come to think of it, thrisis is unlikely to be only an age-related condition. In fact, this condition might be part of what many of us experience day-to-day but don’t call out by name. The French call it “ennui” and I’m sure other cultures have a name for it, too.

My one consolation, the Agile principle of “Fail early, fail fast”. The quicker I discover there’s something wrong, the quicker I can begin to address it and the more time I have in sorting it out which should increase my chances of getting it sorted. Call it “Optimist’s Logic”. What’s more, my spidey sense tells me there’s an adventure in all this, so things can’t be all that bad.

How can you express unconditional friendliness right now? And tomorrow?

From Journeyman to Master

It’s been a while since I last coded, so I jumped at the opportunity when I heard about an Object-Oriented kata run by Sandro Mancuso, the man who started the London Software Craftsmanship Community. Sandro and I’ve exchanged a handful of contemplations about the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto recently, so I was really glad to experience it firsthand last week.

According to Sandro, the thing a craftsman strives to achieve is “Perfect Code”. If that’s at one end of the spectrum, what’s at the other? The code we write at work, our Daily Code. And what’s in-between? The space in-between, says Sandro, “represents how much we suck”. I laugh out loud. This remark warms my heart and tickles my funny bone. I like to think of it as “my room for improvement”. Either way, the gap exists and we can all do something about it. It turns out that something is called “Perfect Practice”.

What does “perfect” mean?

To me, “perfect” is an aspiration. It’s elusive by design. It’s an aspiration because we’re always to make things as great as they can be. It’s elusive because something can always be improved. The pursuit of perfection is striving to always be better. That makes “perfect” a moving target which is why it requires lifelong learning. It’s about being a lifelong apprentice.

Perfect Code requires Perfect Practice

When we’re at work, we’re faced with a whole bunch of challenges. Tight deadlines, peer pressure, insufficient skills, knowledge and/or experience, to name but a few. So what do we do? We make compromises, also known as hacks, false trade-offs, driven by short-term thinking.

Instead of trying to write perfect code during work hours from the outset, Sandro suggests we strive for Perfect Practice. In our own time, on our own terms. Why? Because this creates the headspace we need to learn how to do our job better. To close the gap, we need different conditions from those associated with pure “delivery mode”. The army calls it “Train hard, fight easy.” Software crafts people call it “Perfect Practice”.

“The longest journey begins with a single step…”

Sandro gets us to work in pairs, doing Test-Driven Development to develop a banking application with basic functionality such as making deposits and withdrawals. He repeatedly reminds us that the goal of the exercise is to learn and not, as we might immediately assume, to be the pair to finish first or complete it in its entirety.

“It doesn’t matter how far you get in the exercise,” Sandro says. “The goal is ‘Perfect Practice’. Over time, with practice, this becomes second nature. That’s what will enable us to write better code at work.”

Since it’s been a while since I last coded, I give my pair buddy Dan a brief description of my technical skills, knowledge and experience. I explain I was most definitely rusty at best and that I would strive to be better. As a sign of trust, he plugs in the second keyboard and mouse and we’re good to go.

The Art of Perfect Practice

The rest is “Perfect Practice”. Instead of rushing around like a pair of headless chickens, we took our time to think and talk things through, from the approach we would take (Domain-Driven Design) down to the specifics (Ubiquitous Language, Design Patterns and the careful naming of each variable and method).

The result? Well-crafted code that is easy to understand and maintain. Every decision was conscious and considered. What else? A sense of immense satisfaction. It tasted of euphoria because it brought back memories of all those times when we took care to do a good job. And the many possibilities for improvement. I could hear my heart sing.

And as I looked around the room, filled with 15 smiling faces and furrowed brows, all signs of minds deep in thought and conversation, I have proof. Proof that there are others out there who care about their craft. People who care so deeply that they invest their own time in Perfect Practice.

To think of many things

The kata reminded me of many things. That everything we produce tells us a lot about who we are. That programming is poetry, a transmutation of ideas into words. That it takes 10,000 hours to get really good at what we do. That Perfect Practice can be part of what we do and how we live. Every day.

How will you feed your need for Perfect Practice today?