I see that the FDA and NFL have both published rules / guidelines on how to use social media recently. Really?
We have two articles: FDA issues first social media rules for drug companies and NFL: Players can tweet during Pro Bowl game, not with phones. Both of these seem foolish and a waste of energy. At least the FDA and pharmaceutical companies have a long history of trying to figure out how to say things without over-reaching on claims of efficacy (advertising rules). But now they are telling pharma companies to NOT engage publicly with customers and doctors and others when they ask questions on social media. Shouldn't we want them to engage publicly so that the next person who has the same question can find it, rather than going through the same back-channel to gain the information. Of course, we know how this will work. People already get the information from "non validated" sources online, and they will continue to do so until the FDA and other regulatory agencies open their minds to the idea of companies engaging with their constituencies online. If the companies lie or go too far in their statement, that should be out there too - so that other people can call them on it.
The NFL policy is just silly. It's not that I want players tweeting from their huddles or taunting their oponents after impressive touchdowns. It's just that the NFL should not be making these policies. The coaching staff should tell their players to put their phones away and FOCUS ON THE GAME. That's why they've been hired, and that's what they should be doing. Forcing the teams to buy a purpose-built kiosk for 'net access? You've got to be kidding.
Okay, back to my irregularly scheduled programming.
A friend is setting up a new personal blog (yes, people still do that), and he asked me a few questions about the style and layout. But this got me thinking why it is that blogs are still valuable - at least for me.
Even though I haven't been blogging as much as I would like*, the blog is still the one place where I keep interesting-to-me stuff stored and sorted. I cannot do this with Twitter or Facebook or GooglePlus. Sure I can write long-form stuff on GooglePlus, and I usually get much more interaction there and on Facebook when I have a relevant topic for my followers. But I haven't had much look in finding the materials when I try to remember where I posted it and when I did so. On my blog - it is always in one place, and I can (usually) find it again.
So, I promise to continue blogging stuff that I find interesting. Maybe I'll even find some time to blog again with regularity.
* I haven't been on Twitter, Facebook or GooglePlus with much regularity either. I've a new project that is consuming my time and energy as I learn the ins and outs of the client and what they need. (What they need is different from what they've asked of me.)
[Photo: "x is the new y" by Roo Reynolds]
Another day, another new-book reference in my blog. This time, it is an American Management Association article on Why You Need to Drink from the Fire Hose. It's a brief interview with Christopher Frank and Paul Magnone, coauthors of the new book Drinking from the Fire Hose: Making Smarter Decisions Without Drowning in Information.
The key to their story seems to be asking good questions, rather than allowing yourself to be overwhelmed with the (possible) flood of information coming to you. Here are their questions, in brief:
- What is the essential question?
- Where is your customer’s North Star?
- Should you believe the squiggly line?
- What surprised you?
- What does the lighthouse reveal?
- Who are your swing voters?
- What? So what? Now what? Expose insights.
The gist of these questions is that "information overload" is the wrong statement of the problem. Sure, there is a lot of stuff out there. But if you know what you are looking for - or why you are looking - it is a lot easier to hone in on the right things.
Ask yourself - and your colleagues - some good questions, rather than worry about getting buried in information. Somehow I tie this line of thinking into my own personal effectiveness ideas. It's so easy to get lost in the "stuff" without really knowing why I am there. I think this is one reason so many people get lost in "dealing with email" without ever getting things done. Here are a few more questions that come to mind as I ponder this blog.
- How is this (activity, information, meeting, etc.) going to help me answer the question? (Reflecting #1 above.)
- If I answer the question, what then?
- Do I need to do this right now?
- What would be surprising to learn in this context?
- Can anyone else help me with this?
- How can I make this work better the next time? Should there be a next time?
Take a peak at the article for a little more detail. Or read the book. (And tell me how it is.)
[Photo: "Firehose" by joevans1234]
Context matters. I've said this for years. And now, Sam Sommers has a new book
The idea that he talks about both makes sense and runs counter to prevailing wisdom. The prevailing wisdom is that people have a fixed way they respond to any situation - their personality. And if you understand their personality, you can then predict (or guess) how they will respond in any given circumstance.
The problem is that this isn't right. How people respond has so much to do with what is going on with them that "personality" is only one element of that. Just think about the last time you ran into screaming children (yours or on a visit to Ikea). Did you get annoyed? Did you just laugh? Something else? Is that the way you respond every time? I know that in my case, I respond differently, depending on all sorts of factors: stress, health, relationships, what you just said to me, etc, etc.
So, what do you do in response? Remember that, just like you, everyone else brings their world with them in your next encounter. What they've been reading, seeing, hearing, doing, not doing - it all creates a context for people that no one can fully know.
Respect is something our kids are learning in grade school. It's also a good reminder to respect the world around me - it's always providing lessons for me to learn.
Erik Jackson's Forbes column showed up at the top of LinkedIn today, remembering an article (and book) from eight years ago: The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives.
Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, published “Why Smart Executives Fail” 8 years ago.
The "anti-habits" discussed here are familiar, but good reminders. The thing that caught my attention, though, is are "warning signs" associated with each of the habits. Specifically, the first habit is "They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment." And the warning sign? A lack of respect.
Respect for others is something that the elementary school is attempting to impress upon my children. The fact that it needs to be taught suggests that it isn't something that comes naturally - or that it is easily unlearned. If I don't respect the people around me and the environment in which I operate, I stop watching for opportunities to grow. I stop watching for the mistakes that I will inevitably make. Yes, I make mistakes. So do you. So do your colleagues and friends and opponents. It's those mistakes that give me an opportunity to learn and grow and see things from new perspectives.
Without a healthy respect, I start taking on more and more of the anti-habits discussed by Finkelstein.
The why smart executives fail website appears to be a treasure trove of case studies and reference materials on failures of leadership and management. If you are interested in that kind of thing.
[Photo: "failure" by Beat Küng - cool stop action of an incandescent lightbulb failing]
I received a review copy of Leandro Herrero's Homo Imitans: The Art of Social Infection: Viral Change in Action
To create change we have to move people to a new way of acting with each other (behaviors). The concept behind Viral Change is to make those behaviors infection: spread, copy, reinforce, and spread more.
The title comes from the wide body of research that shows how people learn by imitating one another. In particular, it is behaviors that are imitated through an organization or community. There have been a variety of studies that show people with good and bad health behaviors tend to mimic each other. And the same can be found in organization. When people model desired behaviors, these get reinforced by the people around - especially when that reinforcement is in the form of explicit thanks and organizational story telling. Those same good behaviors vanish when they are ignored or opposing behaviors are rewarded. Classic example: asking people to be collaborative (whatever that means) but rewarding people for individual / heroic efforts.
The book and writing are in Herrero's usual casual and comfortable style. I thought it was more discursive than previous books - more information to set the stage and describe why he suggests that Viral Change should be done in this way. That is neither bad nor good, just different and noticeable to me, having read the previous installments and expecting faster-to-consume segments.
As is typical in my reading, I draw connections to many other things. There were elements of the idea of tribes in that people use behaviors and other norms to reinforce tribes. This can be both good and bad. Viral Change is looking for those behaviors that create the desired outcome.
I could see thinking about child-rearing: one of the refrains is that children need consistent direction from their parents. Having direction that is unclear is very confusing to children. It's confusing to adults as well. Create clear behavioral direction and link that to your reinforcement mechanisms.
Herrero brings in the ideas of push and pull, which naturally makes me think of the Theory of Constraints work I have been doing. I also think of the recent books by Hagel, Pull, and Denning, Radical Management, which both look at creating pull within organizations to move the organization in new directions. Connected to this thought of pull, I latched onto Herrero's discussion of "what gets attention, get multiplied" when thinking about creating visual status boards for project teams. When they can't see what is going on, it is difficult for them to know where to focus. But when things are visual, the teams can have a different conversation about the status of their work. Herrero mostly focuses on using stories to help spread the word and reinforce, but I think visuals can be quite powerful as well.
An important element of the methodology behind Viral Change is exploiting the network of people in the organization (or society). And that then reminds me of many of the social network analysis thinkers, Anklam's Net Work in particular, as Herrero makes many references to the simple fact that work gets done through the network, rather than via the hierarchy. (Yes, I know a hierarchy is a form of network.)
Having just finished the book, it was top of mind in the SIKM Boston meeting this morning. The topics in the book seemed particularly relevant to our conversation. The idea of you-will-do-this dictates came up over and over again. (They don't work, except in extreme cases.) I also liked hearing about "centers of excellence" that seem to get ignored or left behind. This relates to some of the topics Herrero discussed in relation to moving the change from something simple and small to something that becomes viral. It has to grow from a small cluster to more and more of those clusters. Not one-to-one-to-one (Chinese whispers), but one to many to many to many.
There are many little tidbit winners throughout the book. Too many to catalog. I suggest you pick up a copy, if the above has been intriguing.
The local weekly in our area has a piece on multitasking by a local psychiatrist and author, Dr. Blaise Aguirre, The myth of multitasking. The article centers around helping kids do better in school, but he also summarizes a lot of the recent research on the topic in less than a thousand words. I particularly like this quote:
Worse, we waste time when we multitask as it takes four times longer to do two tasks effectively than it takes to do each one individually.
While there is no additional attribution (it's a newspaper after all), this is in line with my observations. And how often are people doing only two things at a time? Note that this is talking about tasks that require attention and focus, not the more automatic tasks that can operate in the background. People often use the term "task switching" to be clearer about which variety of multitasking is being discussed.
Look at organizations where people are dependent upon one another to get things done - just about every organization. Working in a multitasking (or task-switching) mode makes it look like everyone is busy, but that isn't what people need. People need to FINISH things. Multitasking in this way ensures lots of stuff is happening, but it doesn't get things DONE.
The take away? Please learn how to say, "No" to attention-sinks from yourself and to your colleagues. Finish what you've started, and then move to the next thing. You will be surprised.
Just don't ask me how long it took for me to get everything in place to write this simple blog entry.
[Photo: "Myth" by liquidnight]
No, I am not suggesting measuring knowledge work from the perspective of "productivity." This link suggests a way of monitoring the health of a knowledge work organization.
James Slavet has an interesting set of Five New Management Metrics You Need To Know on the Forbes technology blog. Rather than look specifically at throughput, he suggests some internal metrics that might be leading indicators. These kinds of ideas are geared towards organizations that have more knowledge workers - people doing work that you can't SEE.
- Flow State Percentage. What percentage of the day are people able to FOCUS and get stuff done? Slavet suggests it is going to be incredibly low, and I can't help but agree. If your business relies on people doing design, or coding or intense documentation, it won't be very successful if they keep getting pulled away from that work.
- The Anxiety-Boredom Continuum. People like some anxiety to keep them on their toes, but not too much. I'm not quite sure how you would measure this, other than getting a sense of people.
- Meeting Promoter Score. Just like the net promoter, how do people perceive meetings in your company? While killing meetings altogether is attractive, maybe making the ones that are necessary more interesting and useful could be just as valuable.
- Compound Weekly Learning Rate. How much are your people learning? Do they keep learning, or are they getting stuck?
- Positive Feedback Ratio. How much are people providing each other with positive feedback vs negative? I would ask if they are taking the opportunity to provide ANY feedback. Slavet suggests that the ratio of positive to negative interaction needs to be close to 5:1 - a number from John Gottman's analysis of interactions amongst married couples. Clearly "feedback" is different from "interactions," but the concept still fits. Negative feedback and interaction can create a death spiral.
What do you think of these? How might you use them? Comment here or on the original article.
Dilbert is often entertaining, though sometimes frustrating in his response to the world. Sunday's comic had me laughing from the first panel, and I think Asok's response is right on. What is your response when you see this opener?
Go ahead, have a look at the response.
I read this to my kids and asked them if they understood the problem. After a little prompting they could see how it might just be a problem to focus on 25 things. But how many times have phrases like this come up in your organization? "I have to focus on everything!" Really?
The whole point of "focus" is that you look at one thing. Ideally, you keep looking at it until it reaches a sufficient resolution.
This is one of the reasons I like systems thinking and Theory of Constraints. The idea is to take a look at the system and look for the one place where a change will have the biggest impact. Sure, you can try to fix everything, but most organizations don't have the time and money to do that. So, given that limitation, maybe it would be a good idea to find the area where a change will make the biggest difference. Make a change, step back to see if it is working, and decide what to do next.
Teleos and the KNOW Network have announced the Latest MAKE Summaries (Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises) with the awards for North America, Europe, Asia and Global. The summaries are PDF's available through their website.
The global winners this year are
- Accenture (Ireland)
- Apple (USA)
- APQC (USA)
- ConocoPhillips (USA)
- Fluor (USA)
- Google (USA)
- Hewlett-Packard (USA)
- IBM (USA)
- Infosys Limited (India)
- McKinsey & Company (Global)
- Microsoft (USA)
- POSCO (S. Korea)
- PwC (Global)
- Royal Dutch Shell (the Netherlands)
- Samsung (S. Korea)
- Schlumberger (France/the Netherlands/USA)
- Siemens (Germany)
- Tata (India)
- Toyota (Japan)
- Unilever (the Netherlands/United Kingdom)
- Wikipedia (Global)
Interesting to see the range of companies. Several have been in the awards lists previously. The summary reports give some hint as to the categories in which the companies took the honors.
Here is a new way to reach Inbox Zero.
LinkedIn had a top article with the story of Tech Firm Implements 'Zero Email' Policy for internal emails. The claim in the story is that Atos, a French company, is going to phase out email for internal communication and shift to instant messaging and other more appropriate tools. The CEO is quoted in the article as saying he hasn't sent email in three years.
I guess this means we are starting to see whether we can live a life without email, as Luis Suarez has envisioned. And there is this discussion from Adam Britten about a conference topic along the same lines: Can a Workplace Survive without Email?
Michael Krigsman has a nice summary of an academic article he found about project management, Six lessons for intelligent project management:
Traditional approaches can isolate project goals from business outcomes. The solution is bringing project managers closer to those working in lines of business.
Be sure to jump ahead to page 2 for details around the six lessons. Here they are in brief:
- Having staff wait for work is better than having work wait for staff.
- Multitasking is more prevalent and more harmful than anyone thinks.
- Eliminate “apple polishing.”
- Don’t overdefine the tasks.
- Be aggressive about business improvement.
- Provide a holistic view for all team members.
I love these. I've touched upon all of these over the years in this blog, and these are certainly elements of discussion with clients in project organizations.
I particularly like the wording of #1. The belief that "idle" people is an evil to be eliminated means that organizations jam more and more work into the system - generating item number 2: multitasking. And with so much work in the system, people have no idea what is important or what should be worked on next: they just have a long list of things to be done and work on the things that they enjoy (or that are associated with the current yelling project manager). This means that all those other tasks associated with all the projects that have been jammed into the system just sit there, waiting for someone to pay attention. Project-based organizations don't succeed by having lots of projects running. They succeed by finishing projects that their customers want.
Idleness is not always a waste in project environments (or manufacturing environments). The waste happens when valuable work sits idle, waiting for people. Be careful how you define these things. Be careful what you look for.
[Photo: "No Idling" by Rob Friesel]
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