Rushing

We wake up and we're rushing to get ready and get out of the door. We are then rushing to get to work (or to school and then to work) where we are rushing to get through our emails and morning tasks. We may even rush through breakfast, have it at our desks and perhaps not even notice it. Then we rush for coffee ( or tea if you're special), have a couple of quick chats but don't really have time for deeper conversations and we are back at our desks rushing through more emails, meetings and reports.

We are then rushing to get a sandwich and have it at our desk while reading the news or more emails. Our afternoon is very similar with mor emails, meetings and reports an perhaps another coffee (or tea if you're special). Before we know it it is time to rush back home.

And there we are rushing to prepare diner and clean and wash and rush through bath time and the however many good nights we have to say. It finally feels like we can stop rushing so we sit and rush through a glass of wine (or perhaps water) while having a rather chaotic exchange of thoughts and quick plans with the wife or husband and then it is all over. We feel it's been a busy day and we did a lot. We may also feel that time flies and we find it difficult to understand why.

If this resonates with you then stop. Stop eating your sandwich or whatever else you might be doing right now. Stop and take a deep breath. Do it slowly and repeatedly. Focus on the quiet. Focus on the nothing. Focus on your breath. Try not to think about anything but your breathing in and breathing out.

How did that feel?

The skill of mindfulness

I will not be explaining what mindfulness is in these lines as it has been already superbly explained by many. I would just note that the word has sometimes been misused but it is easy to find the true meaning.

What I am going to talk about is why the skill if mindfulness is not more common? Why are we not educating everyone to practice mindfulness? Why our world has not yet realised the potential of mindfulness and made use of it?
Just imagine a world with a lot less violence, a world with a lot less crime, a world with a lot less cheating, a world with a lot less fraud, a world with much more love and compassion. Can you?

If you can or if you can't but think it would be good then that's great. Then you can help make it happen by discovering and practicing mindfulness and by helping others discover it. Why aren't more people helping?

If you can't or think this is how the world is and you love it then you have some way to go. You need to look at yourself and consider your life. You need to look around you and recognise the violence in the world. Understand that it must stop.

Perhaps only then, only after a critical mass of people are capable of making the step towards compassion we could start building the better world. The one with less crime, less violence, less fraud, less cheating and much more love.

The path to success

Whatever you do do it responsibly. And make it count. Just good is not good enough. People will no longer spend money or even time on your "thing" unless it is exceptional or you're way too lucky. ( If you're too lucky you don't need to read this for now). And most things that are exceptional and last do so because they are made in the most responsible way possible.

Some tell us it is all about the value things provide. However in today's world you get very little time to attract attention. More often than not this time is not enough for people to discover the value of your product therefore your chance of capturing attention is by being remarkable.

Once you get people's attention then it is about value. And your "thing" must be good. Very few can get it right with just good effort. Which is why the second ingredient is to do things in the most responsible way known. And yes it is your responsibility to discover what that means in your present time.

If you care enough - make change happen

Things are what they are. Accept this as a fact. I don't suggest you should give up. But making others aware of how unhappy you are about things as they are is unlikely to make any difference. And more often than not you are welcome to make that difference.

The only thing is - you would need to learn how to approach it so that it works. And that I am not suggesting is easy yet it is possible. If you just complain this is unlikely to have positive impact. There are tried and successful strategies for making change work - find one and use it. And as part of it find support - it is a step in most of the change strategies anyway.

So stop moaning and make things happen Things are what they are. Accept this as a fact. If you care enough then be the one who makes the difference or else shut up and don't moan (it gets annoying).

Why Agile Management Is the Best Way for a Company to Grow (Guest Post)

Agile management is a management style that has slowly evolved to replace traditional management in many of the most successful companies. Rather than simply focusing on the end result of a particular project, this style of management encompasses programs that are designed to be implemented for all projects. These include the following:

Leaders at Every Level

Decisions affecting the company are going to be made at every level. It follows that all levels of management, from senior executives and project managers to supervisors and line managers, need to have access to the tools they need for decision making, the framework for leadership and the business knowledge they need. This is true even if these different levels of management do not necessarily get the same information.

Small Teams = High Performance

By keeping the size of a team small, decisions are able to be made quickly, and accountability is almost instantaneous. With such a small team, hands on learning is facilitated, the team members learn to communicate with each other effectively and they also learn to work together. The large teams that are popular in traditional management systems tend to bog down the entire decision making process.

Cultivate a Learning Culture

Agile management encourages mistakes, as well as learning from those mistakes. By taking the time to learn, the results are examined, discussed and reviewed. Cultivating this open exchange of ideas that worked or did not work enables a team to formulate solutions as an ongoing process.

Focus on Feedback and Accountability

By allowing team members to control a problem and giving them the ability to take action, they are more likely to come up with solutions. With this type of feedback, innovative thinking and decision making are encouraged and expanded on. Accountability allows all team members that work on the project together to become invested in the project. They also know they have coaching and feedback from their peers and management team, if they need it.

Celebrate Diversity

In today's business world, diversity encompasses a range of different attributes such as age, nationality, gender, nature, background and race. Within this rich group of differences, ideas, thoughts and processes can only benefit. These different experiences allow team members to bring their differences to the table. This allows them to learn and exposes them to different ideas and cultures. Innovations are often the results of such mergers.

Allow Transparent Access to Information

Enabling management to access all information such as customer feedback, internal talents and financial results allows them to determine what areas are strong and which ones need work. Managers can find the talent they need from within the company to complete a project when they are able to see the strengths of other employees.

Nimble, innovative and diverse, agility management is a proven way of handling the inner workings of a company. All companies, no matter their size, can benefit from the framework in which agility management operates.

Author

Katie Goddard has 15 years experience writing about business and educational technology, with a special interest in the inner workings of the business world, as well as a passion for management. When she's not contributing to college resource site DegreeJungle.com, Katie is spending time with her husband Mark, and her two lovely daughters.

Reference

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2012/05/26/agile-management-7-keys-to-success

Change is NOT hard

Change is not hard. I really mean it. Smart people have already invented strategies for making change happen. These strategies are out there in books and articles and videos and you only have to find one and learn how to use it.

Change is not hard. Not as hard as figuring out what to change. Now this is hard. Sometimes you would think it is obvious what needs changing yet once you make the change the results may not be what you expected.

Figuring out what to change is what you need to spend enough time doing. It is tricky to ensure you spend enough but not too much and not too little. Most people around you will have many solutions before even hearing out what the problem is and they'll insist you hear them out.

Your change effort whatever strategy you choose begins at this point. To get it right you're very likely to need help in finding out the one or more root causes of the problem. So make friends, choose a strategy and figure out how to identify the root cause for your problems. This I believe is your best chance of making change happen.

Agile and the “Semantic stretch”

I have recently come across the term “semantic stretch” while reading a book called “Made to stick” by the Heath brothers. In short the idea is that at some point a term becomes so over used that it no longer has the strong meaning it used to have before. I have noticed this with phrases like “very cool” which has become too common and was then replaced by “super cool”. The example in the book is a little more credible – the authors have researched the use of the words “unusual” and “unique” in American newspapers over 20 years and the established that “unique” has gained a huge popularity while “unusual” was in decline. The Heath brothers also point out that since unique things are also unusual things (subset) the trend is unlikely to be because of increased number of unique things because that will also increase the number of unusual things.

I have recently been thinking and communicating with friends about how the use of words like Agile and Scrum has become less credible, in one instance I even suggested that these terms have been vandalised and therefore we may need new ones. Thanks to “Made to stick” I think I found a better suited explanation. The term Agile and some more in that area have been semantically stretched. They have been overused, used in inappropriate ways and to describe things and contexts that are so very remote from what the original  meaning meant. Therefore I suggest that we need new term( s ). Could this be the ones suggested by the Rightshifting movement?

How to destroy a (successful) company - a step by step guide

The ultimate guide to destroying (successful) companies - suitable for both your own unwanted company or acquired companies.


Before you continue take the following test. 


Question 1: Do you care about your company? (the one you might be looking to destroy)
Question 2: Do you care what happens to the people who work for the company?
Question 3: Do you care for the product/service you offer?

If you have answered Yes to any of the questions above then I recommend that you do not read this article OR if you still wish to proceed then find somebody capable of answering No to all 3 questions to undertake this task for you (luckily such people can be found easily).


After the unprecedented success of my previous article on destroying successful products I have received multiple requests to expand the guide to destroying successful or not so successful companies as well. Of course with me being busy with creating success at places where success is valued it took me several months to find time to write the new guide. But it is all done now so I can publish it and all of the candidate company destroyers can start benefiting from my wisdom immediately.

(the same) Famous IT magazine (requested to remain anonymous): "Another must read manual for your senior executive team that shows you in ten very easy steps how to get rid of unwanted companies. The author has once again excelled and his proven recommendations are spot on."

You can use this guide at your own risk. While the practices described below have been proven to work you should consider your own context carefully before proceeding. The author assumes no responsibility if your company is still functioning after you have followed the suggested procedure. Some successful companies where talented people create great products will take longer to destroy.

When destroying a company you have two major concerns - the product/service and the people. The rest is a lot easier so I will not expand too much on it.

Let's begin..

Step 1 Ensure that all the senior managers, directors, etc in the company are capable of answering No to all 3 questions above. You don't want somebody who suddenly decides to start caring about people to damage your plans. If you sense that some senior managers or directors do not fit the bill then fire them immediately and get new ones who meet the conditions. You can in fact use the 3 questions above in your interview process.

Step 2 If you don't have an HR department then hire one. If you have another department with more sensible name - e.g. Talent or People managers then rename them to HR - it sounds a little more scarier and works best for our purpose. Also you need your HR people to understand that your intentions are to fire lots of people so they need to be prepared with relevant laws and regulations - it is better to be on the safe side. You may also test them on the three questions above - it definitely helps.

Step 3 Now that you have your key actors in place you are ready to start acting. Firstly I would suggest establishing strong command and control culture. Make sure all managers are instructed to avoid trusting employees. Your HR should start writing procedures and restrictions - the more the better. Your IT department should start cutting off employees access to sources of information including methods of communication except some 10+ years old technology that nobody will use anyway.

Step 4 Restrict the ability of the network to communicate. The people in your company create a social network whether you want it or not. This network is capable of self organising and being creative. You don't want that. so expand on step 3 and implement all sorts of restrictions to open communication - stop access to services like FaceBook or Twitter, internally in teams use the command and control tools to inflict fear. There's several ways to do that - e.g. create policies and publish them on your intranet (hopefully nobody reads that) Then publicly punish employees who do not comply with the policies. Job done. Other ways are to pick up on small issues with employees - e.g. always 5 minutes late, taking too long lunch breaks, taking too many breaks.. the possibilities are limitless but don't forget Step 2 - you need skilled HR professionals who know how to handle all these cases.

Step 5 - If you have a product company for help with destroying the products follow the steps in my other guide on destroying successful products. If you are a service based company you can learn from the same guide and also take necessary steps to decrease the quality of the services you are offering. You can achieve that by actively encouraging an inefficient quality assurance process, measuring things that make no sense, providing no training at all, etc.

Step 6 - Decrease quality of customer service - to help your customers transition gradually to other suppliers you should consider decreasing the quality of your customer service. You can do that by ensuring the people in your customer service department are paid very little so they don't care about their jobs. You can also hire a manager for that department - someone skilled at creating a destructive culture where people blame each other and work in silos without sharing any information. Finally you can also find ways to get rid of some key people in the customer service team which is a great way of reducing quality.

Step 7 - Do the things that feel like the wrong things. Whether you develop a product or offer a service you can always choose to do the wrong things. For example if you offer a cleaning service you can decide to use cheaper materials which will produce worse results and that means unhappy customers. Or if you have a taxi driving service you can buy old cars and do not provide sat navs so drivers take longer to get to places.The idea is to focus on doing things that have either negative value or at least no value. This will help reduce product/service quality and customer satisfaction.

Step 8 - Ensure your directors and senior people are actively working to reduce staff morale. To do that they can show off with things only they can afford or they can ensure any successes are attributed to them rather than the people who really did the work. Another option is for managers to increase pressure on people across all teams without any apparent reason. What also works really well is to create a complicated bonus scheme. One that allows directors to justify whatever bonuses they want to pay or not pay. Bonuses are really good de-motivator when not paid. This is because people get used to them and are disappointed when they don't get them.

Step 9 - Eliminate lines of business. When you frustrate people and decrease quality of service then lines of business will inevitably get into trouble. At this point you have to close them which involves making people redundant and closing off offices. This shall send the right message to those still working for your company to start looking elsewhere. Again to make this work you'd need experienced HRs skilled in this sort of thing and "3 Nos" line managers (see the 3 questions above). Equipped with the right people a task like this will get you closer to your goal.

Step 10 - As you close more and more lines of business and the company gets in trouble you may start getting offers to sell the business. Now that may not be your goal but it may be a good idea to escape the mess with some cash in your pocket. Depending on how much you have messed things up another business might come to the rescue. If you're happy with selling then get the cash and run (And don't start another business ever again!) If you don't need the cash then reject all offers and see the process of closing all lines of business through.

Congratulations!

You have managed to fully destroy your company. Your hard work has paid off and your goal is achieved. Now you can move elsewhere and see if you can be as successful.  

Of course there's always a chance that something might not happen as the guide predicts so if you have tried this step by step procedure get in touch and we can exchange ideas to make it better so it serves more people like you.

I hope it works for you ( or rather it doesn't)

6 months - update on my books reading target

At the end of last year I set my self a target to read as many book as possible and hopefully at least 25 in 2012.

What I really want to achieve is 40 but I think realistically 25 is a more achievable target.

Here’s what I managed so far:


Audio Books (7)
Your Brain at Work  by David Rock   
Getting Things Done When You Are Not in Charge: Second Edition  by  Geoffrey M. Bellman   
Speak to Win by Brian Tracy   
Drive by   Daniel H. Pink   
Influencer by   Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield   
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Effective NLP Skills by Christina Youell, Richard Youell

Kindle Books (4)
Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo
Training from the back of the room by Sharon L. Bowman
Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management by Johanna Rothman & Esther DerbyMade to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Paper books (1 in progress)

The Exceptional Presenter: A Proven Formula to Open Up and Own the Room by Timothy J. Koegel

So almost 12 done and if I want to get to 25 I might have to speed up a little which I hopefully will be able to do now that I might travel by train for a few weeks.

Benefits of Agile and Scrum? (a guest post by Faisal Mahmood)

I am publishing a guest post for the first time and I am happy that this post is by Faisal Mahmood – fellow Agile trainer and coach. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Curious about benefits of Agile and Scrum?

Agile and Scrum enable you to

1. Respond to market changes while controlling risk

2. Increase ROI (return on investment)

3. Continuously improve your process

4. Increase quality of your products

5. Work at a sustainable pace

Respond to market changes while controlling risk

Ignoring Agility is not an option any more in the fast moving markets of today.

Change is one of the biggest project killers. With Scrum and Agile Scrum, you do not need to be afraid of the change. Agile equips you to respond to rapid changes in the marketplace while controlling risk. It is of no use to respond to changes and become bankrupt. Scrum and Agile focus on emergent planning which empowers rapid response to changes while helping you control risks.

Increase ROI (return on investment)

60% of the features in the products never or rarely get used, but still, we keep building and maintaining products and features. This, of course, lowers our ROI. Scrum and Agile help you focus on the highest value features in your products and features. With focus on value, increase in productivity and quality, Scrum and Agile set you on a journey to higher returns.

Continuously improve your process

Scrum and Agile emphasize continuous improvement. Scrum has built in mechanism to help you see the issues that are holding you and your organization back and enable you to leverage collective intelligence of your team to devise solutions to these issues.

Increase quality of your products

Did you know that more than 50% of IT budgets are spent on maintenance? This is caused by low quality products which become painful to maintain. Scrum and Agile help you build quality right in your development process. Quality becomes part of the whole process.

Work at a sustainable pace

Agile and Scrum Teams are empowered yet accountable for delivery. They self-organize to deliver valuable increments of products at a sustainable pace.

Faisal Mahmood is the author of the book Agile Adoption Mistakes You Must Avoid. Faisal is a Certified Professional Scrum Trainer based in London, UK.