Note: This is a guest post from Lisa H of Getting to Zen 

We have all worked at places that we were less than excited to get up in the mornings and go to; this is an awful feeling. It is much more pleasurable, and less stressful to go to a work environment that is filled with positivity and enjoyment. A positive work environment is not only important for our physical, mental and emotional health, but is also important for the results that we produce for the company. The better we feel at work, the more likely we will take pride in our job activities and be loyal towards our place of employment.

So let’s look at some ways to create a positive working environment.

1. Accept the right position

The first step to creating a positive work environment is to secure a position that positively suits you. Before you accept a position, you should know what your key skills are; what type of work you want to do, what kind of role you would like, where you see yourself in five years, and what kind of environment you thrive in. Knowing the answers to these questions will help you to recognize those opportunities that meet those criteria, giving you a running start.

2. Be a positive person

Present an attitude of positivity and approachability. Show coworkers that you are available and wiling to help them. Walk around with a smile, and make eye contact with those you pass in the hallways. Be friendly, pleasant and nice. Talk with kindness, encouragement, civility, and respect. Ask questions before making assumptions. Be fun to work with. Listen to others with interest; and finally, don’t complain, whine or gossip.

3. Take responsibility

Take responsibility for the direction of your career. Ultimately you are responsible for creating an environment in which you can learn and grow. The longer you stay on a “dead-end” career path, the harder it will be to stay positive. If you are not happy with the current directions of your career, communicate that to your manager if you wish to stay with the company; otherwise, look for another job that you feel is a better match.

4. Communicate with your manager

Meet with your manager regularly to ensure you are on track for meeting his or her expectations, and your performance goals. Don’t always wait for your manager to reach out to you. Informing your manager about the status of the activities you are performing shows that you are credible, trustworthy, interested in the business, and committed to your job. You may even consider sending a weekly status report indicating what you are working on, what you have completed, and what you have pending.

5. Be social

Interact with your colleagues in a non-working way. Join a company team or group. Bring a few games in that you can play over your lunch break. Celebrate birthdays, and other special events. Cultivate working friendships. Organize a competitive sporting event. Organize a departmental pot luck lunch. There are so many things that you can do to connect with others while at work.

So, if you are wondering what a positive work environment looks like, here are some signs.

• You are doing a job that you enjoy
• Your ideas are valued
• Your creativity is encouraged
• You feel appreciated
• The job matches your skill set
• You have work friends that you can talk to
• Your manager is approachable
• There is room for you to grow
• You are recognized when you do good work
• You feel like a part of a team
• You look forward to coming to work
• You are respected
• You are happy while at work
• Work is fun

See you in the comments.

Lisa H (aka RunningBear) is a technical writer living in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. She enjoys long distance running, cooking, sewing and blogging. Her blog, Getting to Zen, includes articles on personal development, enlightenment, consciousness and awareness.

Photo by mudpig

Do you have a set of productivity tools that you consider essential? I do and here I’d like to share them with you. But, to prevent the post from being all over the place, I limit the scope only to programs that I install on my computer (which is a Windows machine). I don’t include any web application here.

Of course, the tools that work for me don’t necessarily work for you. But I hope that you will find something useful here.

I’m not the kind of person who likes to change my tools whenever something fancier comes out. Once I find a tool that works, I usually stick with it unless I find a very strong reason to move to something else. That’s why I’ve used most of the tools below for years.

Here are my essential productivity tools:

1. Firefox

Firefox with its add-ons has become an integral part of my online life. I often don’t realize how important it is until I come across a computer that doesn’t have one. I feel powerless when I use such a computer. I can no longer do things that have become second nature to me. That’s why the first thing I do when I use a new computer is to install Firefox and my favorite add-ons.

Here are the add-ons that I consider essential:

• Scrapbook
  Scrapbook has been my reference system for years. There are already thousands of articles and clips in my Scrapbook library.
• Alexa Sparky
  When I come to a site, I usually take a quick glance at its Alexa rank to have an estimate of the site’s popularity. Alexa shows the traffic rank of a web site, so the smaller the number is, the higher the traffic it has. Alexa is far from perfect, but it serves as a rough estimate for me.
• SEO Quake
  Being a blogger, I often need to do an online research about other sites or certain search engine queries. SEO Quake has become an indispensable tool for this. It makes my research way easier to do.
• Xmarks
  I often bookmark interesting sites I come across. Xmarks backs up my bookmarks and synchronizes them across different computers.

2. Microsoft OneNote

OneNote has become an “extension” of my brain. Getting Things Done states that you need to put everything out of your head into a trusted system. OneNote is a core component of my trusted system. I put practically all of my notes and ideas there. I also use it to manage my to-do list.

I especially like OneNote’s collapsing and expanding feature since it helps me see my notes and ideas in the level of detail I desire. When I want to see more details, I just need to expand the node. When I want to see the big picture, I can just collapse it. This feature has helped me tremendously over the years.

On a side note, I’m currently exploring Evernote. I recently bought a Mac and I need something that works on both my Windows and Mac machines. Evernote fills this need nicely because it syncs data automatically between machines. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have OneNote’s collapsing and expanding feature (or perhaps I miss it?). My primary note-taking tool is still OneNote, but I might expand my use of Evernote in the future.

3. Microsoft Outlook

I use Outlook to manage my calendar, not my emails. I actually hesitated to include it here because it’s easily replaceable with other alternatives (such as Google Calendar), but I decided to include it anyway because calendaring system is an essential part of my productivity system. I use Outlook simply because it synchronizes with my cell phone.

4. Cool Timer

There are many benefits of using a timer. In essence, using a timer helps you become more productive. I use timer a lot in my daily workflow and Cool Timer has become my timer of choice for several years. It’s a simple timer that you can set to function either as a countdown timer or as a stopwatch.

5. WinKey + MemoKeys

I’m a fan of using keyboard shortcuts. WinKey allows me to set shortcuts for commonly used programs and files so that they are only one keystroke away.

On the other hand, MemoKeys gives me shortcut keys for commonly used text. For example, I have a shortcut for my email address. Whenever I need to give my email address in an online form, I just need to press the shortcut and it’s done.

6. Everything

Have you ever forgot where a file is in your computer? Perhaps you have to create a report and forget where a file you need is. I often found myself in such a situation and it was frustrating.

Everything solves the problem for me. Unlike many other desktop search tools (such as Google Desktop) that searches the content of all files, this tool searches just the names of the files. That’s exactly what I need. Furthermore, since it works only with file names, it’s also way lighter and faster than other desktop search tools.

***

In addition the the tools above, there are other tools that aren’t directly related to productivity but which I consider essential. Here they are:

1. Microsoft Money

Money is the tool I use to manage my personal finance. Though I miss some transactions here and there, I’ve been recording my financial transactions in Money for years. Money makes it easy for me to see where my money went in any period of time. It also helps me see how my investment portfolio performs.

Money is now discontinued by Microsoft, so you might want to use other programs like Quicken or Mint to manage your personal finance.

2. KeePass

If you want to have a secure online life, using good passwords is important. Moreover, you should use different passwords for different sites. This way when someone stole your password for one site, he wouldn’t be able to use it to attack your other online accounts.

KeePass is the solution I use for this. It helps me generate good, strong password for every site I ‘m interested in and store them in an encrypted file at my local computer. I need to remember just one password, the one used to open the KeePass file.

3. DropBox

Isn’t it nice if you have all your important files backed up automatically without you even being aware of it? That’s what DropBox does. DropBox is the newest tool in my toolbox. I now save all of my important files in the DropBox folder so that they will always be backed up to an online storage.

4. iTunes

This tool is essential for me not because of its music playing capability but because it helps me find a lot of great content. I love to learn and iTunes has become an important source of materials in the form of podcasts and lectures.

***

These are the tools that I use practically every day. What about you? What tools do you think are essential?

Photo by flattop341

Do you have idle potentials that you don’t develop? I have one: coding.

I remember that when I was in high school I often spent time coding just for fun. At that time, I had a 80386 computer with 4 MB memory (it’s amazing how people could live with just 4 MB memory back then – it’s not enough to run even an empty browser window today!). I could spend hours writing programs (mostly simple games) and enjoyed every moment of it. But in the last few years I no longer did any serious coding. I still coded a bit because I teach programming, but I no longer considered it a fun it used to be and spent most of my time on other interests instead.

I recently realized that to live my life to the fullest, I need to make the most out of my potentials. Just think about it. If you are capable of doing something but don’t do it, can you say that you are living your life to the fullest? I don’t think so. You can only say that if you develop your potential.

That led me to redevelop my coding talent. It’s something I enjoyed doing, but for years I’ve left it gathering dust. I’m digging into it again these days and what an exciting world I find! There are many possibilities today that weren’t possible even a few years ago.

So back to the question: what idle potentials do you have? Here are three ways to discover them:

1. Remember the things you enjoyed doing. Is there anything you enjoyed doing in the past that you no longer do these days? It could be an old hobby or the way you spent your spare time. Whatever it is, there’s a good chance that you can develop it.
2. Remember the things you’re trained in. If you’ve been trained in a particular skill in the past then you can work on it again. You may later use that skill to complement your other skills.
3. Ask people around you. People who are close to you can give you hints about your idle potentials. They could remind you of an event in the past that you’ve forgotten about. Ask them about it and listen to what they say.

After discovering your idle potentials, here are some tips to develop them:

1. Find the fun. It’s hard to dig into something if you don’t enjoy it, so try to find the fun in it. Remember what made you excited about it in the past. Was it the sense of challenge? Was it the thrill of accomplishing something? Once you find the fun, the rest is easier.
2. Find good resources. It will be much easier for you to develop your potential if you have good resources at hand. Obviously, you can use search engines to find them. You can also find relevant links at Delicious. For instance, delicious.com/popular/design gives you popular links in design. Finding relevant videos at Youtube or other video sites is also helpful because it could be more fun to learn something through videos.
3. Work on projects. The best way to develop your talent is working on projects. It doesn’t have to be a big project; it could be a small project that you can finish in just a few days. The nice thing about working on projects is that you put your talent to practical use and you feel the satisfaction of getting tangible results. That will motivate you even further.
4. Find companions. Having good companions around you helps you develop your potential faster. You can brainstorm with them and encourage one another. At the end, everyone wins.
5. Synergize your potentials. Rather than just developing your potentials independently, find ways to synergize them with your other skills or knowledge. If you have a project using talent A, find ways to use talent B to add value to it. This way you will create a lot more value for other people that will in turn open new opportunities for you.

What do you think? How do you develop your potentials?

Photo by ralphbijker

Do you believe in success without risk? I just read The Warren Buffett Way and there’s an interesting passage there about how Warren Buffett considers risk:

He does not add a risk premium to his formula for the simple reason that he avoids risk…

“I put a heavy weight on certainty,” he says. “If you do that, the whole idea of a risk factor doesn’t make any sense to me. Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”

Interesting, isn’t it? This is similar to what Malcolm Gladwell wrote in The Sure Thing. Gladwell argues that successful entrepreneurs, contrary to the conventional wisdom, actually don’t take risk. Instead, they are looking for “the sure thing”, the thing that can give them success with the least amount of uncertainty.

Knowing that Buffett has similar idea makes me really interested. Is it true? Is there really such a thing as risk-free success?

Here are five principles of risk-free success that I learn from The Warren Buffett Way:

1. Build your competence

If risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing, then eliminating risk means you must know what you’re doing. So it’s essential that you build your competence in the field you’re interested in. The best way to do that is by finding a mentor (Buffett was a mentee of Benjamin Graham) but you can also learn by reading books or talking with people. The important thing is that you should test your knowledge in the real world. It gives you the feedback necessary to quickly build your competence.

2. Never move out of your circle of competence

Everyone has a circle of competence. You need to know yours and be careful not to move out of it. Buffett, for instance, never invests in technology companies for the simple reason that he doesn’t understand them. Even during the dot-com boom when everyone rushed to buy technology stocks, he remained unaffected. Doing something outside of your circle of competence invites a great deal of risk.

3. Master your emotions

You might wonder: if people don’t know what they are doing, then why do they do it? The answer is that they can’t control their emotions. There are two primary emotions at work here: fear and greed. When they see that other people profit from a trade, greed makes them follow the crowd even though they don’t understand what they’re doing. And when they see that other people avoid something, they also follow the crowd because of fear. Your emotions make you do something that you don’t know. That’s why essential to master them.

4. Do your homework

It takes a lot of work to be certain about the prospect of a business. In Buffett’s case, he analyzes different aspects of the business such as its economic performance, management team, track record, and more. Only after doing the research can he be sure whether or not a business is worth investing in.

Similarly, you need to do your homework for the opportunities that come your way. Just because everyone else says that it’s good (or bad) doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s indeed good (or bad).

5. Be patient

This is related to mastering your emotions, but I think it’s worth a deeper look. Patience is one important lesson I learn from Warren Buffett. He said that one strength of his company is, strangely, inactivity. Other managers are often “addicted” to activity which makes them trade a lot of mediocre stocks. Buffett, on the other hand, is patient enough to wait for the great opportunity to come. This is probably one of the biggest reason why people do what they don’t know: they can’t wait long enough. Greed (to get quick gains) or fear (of not looking good in front of others) are at play here.

***

The next time you are about to take a risk, stop for a moment and ask yourself:

• Do I know what I’m doing?
  • Is it in my circle of competence?
  • Have I done my homework?

• Do I master my emotions?
  • Are greed or fear at play?
  • Am I being impatient?

By being honest with your answers, you can avoid many unnecessary troubles.

Photo by Search Engine People Blog

That’s an important question to ask in your career. Why? Because the stronger your bargaining power is, the higher the price you can ask for your skills. On the other hand, if your bargaining power is weak then you risk being undervalued by the market. You might get paid less than you deserve.

There is a scene in a recent episode of The Apprentice UK (one of just a handful of TV shows I watch, by the way) that clearly describes this principle. The teams were given two vans full of fishes each and they had to sell all of them before 7 p.m. One team, being very close to the deadline, desperately needed to sell all the fishes that were left. They went to a law office and tried to sell the fishes there. The price negotiation between the team and the potential buyer was interesting. It went something like this (I don’t remember the exact numbers so these are approximations):

• Team: 130 pounds  Buyer: 50 pounds
• Team: 100 pounds  Buyer: 50 pounds
• Team: 75 pounds  Buyer: 50 pounds
• Team: 55 pounds  Buyer: 50 pounds
• Final price: 50 pounds

Do you see how unbalanced the negotiation process was? The team reduced their asking price significantly over time but the buyer never increased theirs, not even by one pound.

Why did it happen? Because the buyer’s bargaining power was way stronger than the team’s. The team had no choice but to sell the fishes. The buyer, on the other hand, didn’t need the fishes. That’s why the buyer won the negotiation without conceding even one pound.

I learn one important lesson here:

To be valued by the market, you need to have strong bargaining power.

Here are some ways to increase your bargaining power:

1. Increase your intrinsic value

This goes without saying. Your intrinsic value has a big effect on your bargaining power. Your intrinsic value depends on your personal quality such as your skills, knowledge, and attitude. To increase it, you need to constantly improve yourself.

2. Avoid desperate situation

A homeowner who needs money fast is much more likely to sell her property for less than its real value. She desperately needs the money so she doesn’t have the time to wait for a better offer. Just like the case with The Apprentice’s team above, the buyer can make a ridiculous offer and still win the negotiation.

So you need to avoid being in a desperate situation. Have a cushion. Save money and build an emergency fund so that you have time to find a good offer.

3. Have options

The more options you have, the more you can prevent yourself from being undervalued. If you don’t have options, you have no choice but to take whatever offer you get no matter how bad it is. In career, getting offers from more than one companies increases your bargaining power. So does having alternative income streams.

Here are three ways to have more options:

• Build your network
  You can get information about available opportunities through your network. The stronger your network is, the more opportunities you can potentially get. These 106 tips to build your network might be helpful.
• Start a side business
  It’s not easy to build a side business while you are still having a day job, but you can start slowly. Allocate time in the evening or weekend to work on your business. Over time, it could become a strong source of income. It takes time to build a business so the earlier you start, the better.
• Develop skills in related fields
  If you are a web developer, you may want to learn about web design. If you are a writer, you may want to learn about blogging. This way you have more options in your career because you aren’t limited to just one field. Project-based learning is a good way to develop your skills.

***

Once you increase your bargaining power, don’t let yourself be undervalued. Ask for what you are worth.

Photo by SergioTudela

The more I look around me, the more self-employment seems to be the way to go for many people. I’m not sure if this is just my observation or if it’s indeed a global phenomenon, so I’d like discuss it with you.

There are two reasons why self-employment seems to be the way to go:

1. Necessity
   Many people lose their jobs because of the recent financial crisis. I read many stories about people with high salary who suddenly found themselves out of work and found it difficult to get new jobs. For them, self-employment could be the only way to go because the job market isn’t as good as it was.
2. Opportunity
   Many other people choose self-employment not because of necessity but because of opportunity. They find that self-employment gives them more freedom and flexibility, not to mention the potentially big financial reward they could get.

I am an advocate of self-employment and over time I become more and more convinced because of the stories I hear from people around me. I often hear about those who lose their jobs and how it could take them months to get new jobs, if ever. I imagine that if only more people went through the path of self-employment, I would hear less such stories.

More specifically, here are some reasons why I advocate self-employment:

1. Your income source won’t depend on one party
   If someone works for a company, his boss could fire him and eliminate his income source. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel comfortable giving the control of my entire income to someone else. Being self-employed means that nobody can fire you.
2. Your income won’t drop to zero if something bad happened
   If someone got fired from his work, his income practically dropped to zero. Those who are self-employed won’t experience that. Sure, you might lose clients, but it’s unlikely that you lost all of your clients at once. If something bad happened, it wouldn’t be drastic. Instead of having your income dropped to zero, it would drop gradually and therefore give you time to work on something else.
3. You can cut work-related expenses
   Since you work on your own, you have more control over the way you work. This often translates to saving on work-related expenses such as transportation costs.
4. Your have more control over your time
   In most cases, you can arrange your own work time. This flexibility means that it will be easier for you to allocate time for other things in your life.
5. Your reward is more proportional to your effort
   When you are in a corporate environment, providing twice as much value doesn’t necessarily mean getting twice as much reward. But when you work on your own, that can happen more easily. You contact with the market directly so any extra value you provide is more likely to be rewarded.
6. The Internet opens new opportunities
   The Internet allows you to deliver your value directly to those who need it without any middleman. In addition, the Internet helps you aggregate potential demand. Let’s say you have a specific skill that only 1 in a million people need. Without the Internet, it will be difficult to find even one client in your local area. But thanks to the Internet, you now have access to over 6000 potential clients. It means that your ability to make a living from that specific skill increases exponentially.

The first and the second reasons are the most important, in my opinion. Self-employment can give you more security. You are less likely to suddenly fall into a deep financial trouble because of lost income.

Of course, there are also negative aspects of self-employment. First of all, it’s not easy to start a self-employment career. It could be difficult to get consistent income in the beginning because of the difficulty to find clients. You might also need to work harder than when you work for a company since you are now on your own.

That being said, I think the freedom and security is still worth it. With the world and the job market becoming more unpredictable, having your destiny in your own hand seems to be the best alternative.

This is just my opinion, of course. I’m interested to hear yours. What do you think?

Photo by mescon

There is an interesting lecture on Behavioral Finance by Yale professor Robert Shiller. In it, he spoke about how people tend to be overconfident. They overestimate their ability to perform. It happens not just in the financial world, but also in our daily life. One example Robert Shiller gave is that students tend to overestimate how their college’s team will perform in a match against other college.

I have an experience with overconfidence myself. A few years ago, I and some friends worked on a software project. We estimated that we could finish the project in three months. Do you know how much time it eventually took? Fourteen months! That shows how I and my team underestimated the complexity of the project and overestimated our ability to handle it.

So, overconfidence is a common problem. Being pessimistic isn’t good, of course. But being overconfident isn’t good either. Here are two reasons why:

1. You may fail to deliver on your promise
   That’s what happened to me and my team. We failed badly to deliver on our promise. That lesson taught me to be more careful and realistic next time.
2. You may blame yourself too much
   This is the other side of being overconfident. When you are overconfident about something and fail, you may blame yourself too much for the outcome. Robert Shiller mentioned a finding in Searching for a Corporate Savior about how companies often fired their CEOs who didn’t perform as expected even when the entire industry actually declined. The CEO couldn’t be blamed for an industry-wide problem, but the board – who had initially been overconfident with the ability of the”charismatic” CEO – still put the blame on him. This happens at individual level too. You may put all the blame on yourself which make it difficult for you to move forward.

Now that we’ve seen the danger of overconfidence, how can we overcome it? Here are some tips:

1. Acknowledge the role of luck

Many people in the financial market think that they can predict how the market will do. The more they make correct predictions, the more they are confident about their ability. They aren’t aware that in many cases they are just lucky. Hard work is important, but luck does play a big role.

Paul Graham once wrote that Bill Gates is a very smart man, but he is also very lucky. Without the luck factor, he would probably end up near the bottom of the Forbes 400 instead of being one of the richest men in the world. Bill Gates himself said on different occasions about how lucky he is.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell discusses the role of luck at great length.

2. Don’t credit yourself too much

Continuing the previous point, be careful not to credit yourself too much when you are successful. Remember that you are probably just lucky.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t need to work hard. After all, successful people are those who capitalize on luck with hard work. But without luck, hard work won’t mean much either.

3. Comprehend the complexity of a project

When you are about to take a project, dig deep into it to really understand the breadth and scope of the project. Be on the lookout for potential pitfalls. Taking the time to really understand the complexity of a project helps you avoid unpleasant surprises later on.

4. Have a cushion

Even after you comprehend the complexity of a project, you still need to have a cushion. Give yourself extra time and resources for unexpected things. But be careful not to give yourself too much cushion. Otherwise you may become less competitive than your competitors.

5. Be prepared for failure

Some people are so confident in themselves that they can’t think of the possibility of failure.

Robert Shiller told the story of Irving Fisher – a Yale professor in the early 20th century – who said that the stock market in 1929 was in “permanently high plateau.” He invested heavily in the stock market, but ended up losing a lot of money in the 1929 crash. Yale needed to buy his house and rented it out to him for him not to be on the street. Did he change his view after all that happened? No. He still insisted that he was right. He borrowed money from his wealthy relatives, invested it, and lost it all.

So be prepared for failure. Doing so will help you recover quickly.

Photo by pincusvt

Do you want to be effective? Then you need to focus only on a few important things. This is the essence of the 80/20 rule. Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done. You might try to simplify your life only to find that you are still doing too many things at once. You might try to simplify your life and still be overwhelmed by your responsibilities.

But why does it happen? Why is it often difficult to apply the 80/20 rule? I think one important reason is that we lack the willingness to let go.

Just think about it. If you focus only on the top 20% then you need to let go the rest 80%. Imagine doing ten things and then letting go eight of them. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound easy to me.

But focus is essential so it’s important to build the willingness to let go. The better you are at it, the more you can focus without being distracted along the way.

Here are four lessons I learn that help build the willingness to let go:

1. You can’t do everything you want. No matter how hard you try, you can’t do everything you want. You simply don’t have enough time and willpower to do them. You will always have to choose and you will always miss something. Some people don’t like to miss something but that’s how life works. Be aware that you can’t do everything you want and it will be easier for you to let go.

2. Focus is necessary to go through failure period. To be successful at something, there’s a period of failure you must go through. You can only go through it if you focus your effort. Being all over the place means that you will never do that and you will end up in failure. Only by letting go can you have the focus necessary to achieve something valuable.

3. You will get more than what you miss. By letting go you will miss something. But you will eventually get more than what you miss. The higher level of focus allows you to achieve a level of success that would be impossible otherwise. Just you need to remember that you won’t be successful overnight so you need to have the faith that you’ll make it.

4. If something is really important, it will get back to you.You might worry that you will miss something important. But remind yourself that if something is truly important, it will somehow get back to you. It could be through the people around you or through other channels. If it doesn’t, then it’s not that important.

Photo by Fr Antunes

Note: This is a guest post from Ian Coburn of Best Possible Choice

We’ve all experienced it—utter disbelief when someone who is obviously ill equipped for a role, typically in management, gets it, or snagged a client we wanted. How do such things occur?

To find the answer, look to the recent Olympics shellacking Russia took at the hands of the Canadians in hockey. Russian goalie Nabokov was pulled less than halfway through the game, after the score became 6-1. Instantly, everyone from broadcasters to people who don’t know anything about hockey denounced Nabokov’s play. Even knowledgeable forums for the sport, like HF Boards, put up threads suggesting Nabokov was the biggest disappointment in the Olympics.

In effort to achieve a goal, businesses and individuals create tools of measurement. Frequently, we find ourselves focusing so much on the measurement that we lose sight of the goal, causing us to make bad choices.

Nabokov stopped 17/23 shots, earning a save percentage of 74% (you want a goalie to be at 90-100%). If you’re a busy decision-maker in Russia, you take a glance at the goalie stats from the game and base future decisions on them, much like a removed corporate or individual decision-maker. You respond to the quantity. You made a bad choice, though, because you failed to interpret the data. (When we interpret data we examine the quality behind the quantity.)

On the other hand, if you watched the actual game, you observed the quality behind the quantity and realized Nabokov’s save percentage reflected a breakdown in defense, not a slump in his performance. In hockey, the goalie’s job is to focus on the shooter (the player with the puck) while the rest of the team’s job is to take away the passing lanes by playing defense and to make sure an opponent is never left alone around their net. Canada was scoring goals left and right off elaborate, uncontested passes and players standing all alone in front of Nabokov at the net. Soon Nabokov couldn’t afford to just focus on the shooter; he had to consider the passing lanes and the player standing in front of the net. This caused Nabokov to neglect aspects of his own job.

Sound familiar? Ever let some of your own responsibilities slide because you have to pick up the slack for someone else, only to later be reprimanded while they are rewarded?

I once consulted for a corporation who wanted to determine why they were promoting so many morons into admissions management at the proprietary colleges they owned. A key tool they used to measure an admissions representative’s effectiveness was how quickly a rep responded to prospective students’ inquiries (leads). They wanted leads responded to the same day they contacted the school. (Leads typically contact their schools via a form on the Internet.) If a lead wasn’t contacted within 48 hours, it was given to another admissions rep; however, the date the lead contacted the school was not changed when the lead was transferred.

The result? Transferring leads made effective reps appear to be inept while making ineffective ones appear to be top performers. For instance, in more than one case, a rep continually failed to contact leads within 48 hours. The leads were then transferred to other reps, who contacted them immediately. When the corporation ran reports, the lead changes did not show. So the best reps, the ones the schools transferred non-contacted leads to the most, appeared to be the worst because many of their leads weren’t called until 72 hours after they contacted the school, showing their Average Contact Time (ACT) to be 2.83 days; however, these reps didn’t get many of their leads until 72 hours after the leads contacted the school, so the reps were actually contacting leads immediately, but that didn’t show in the report! Conversely, reps losing those leads didn’t have them included in their stats, so it appeared they were contacting leads well within 24 hours because their ACT was .87 days. Guess what? The corporation promoted the latter while reprimanding the former! Hello moronic managers (and low morale).

How did I get the client back on track? What can you do to make sure you stay on track?

Address your real intent. A hockey team’s goal is to win. To what end does a goalie’s save percentage predict a win? A school’s goal is to enroll and graduate students. Does measuring how long it takes admissions reps to respond to new leads predict enrollment and graduation numbers? Dwelling on such stats results in losing sight of the real goals—suddenly we become concerned with save percentage and calling leads quickly. The quantity becomes more important than the quality. Focus on your real intent by considering a broad range of quantitative factors and examining the quality behind the quantity. How did I identify the problem at the corporation? I noticed the reps with a high ACT had a lot more total leads assigned to them. I then visited a sample of their leads. In many of their leads’ personal information it was noted under “comments” that the lead was transferred from another rep. The date of the transfer as well as the other rep’s name was provided. I noticed many of the transfers came from the same few reps, yet noted these reps had the lowest ACT’s. Some of these low ACT reps had been promoted into management positions while none of the reps with high ACT’s had been.

Speaking of ACT’s, when I was in high school, many of my friends enrolled in study courses to improve college entrance exam scores. The courses focused on quantitative data—answer “b” or “c” if you have to guess because they are most frequently correct, etc. I skipped the courses, instead reading texts and studying math. I scored higher than any of my friends—a 32—because I addressed my real intent . . . having the knowledge to be correct.

What tools do you use to measure? I know entrepreneurs who make five cold calls a day. Does that tool of measurement address their real intent of getting new clients? Or would speaking with five new potential clients each day be a better tool? (That could mean many more than five cold calls each day.)

Interpret data by observing, processing, and concluding. When you examine the quality, you must see, listen, process, and conclude. My friend failed to do this at a party once. A pretty woman entered with a guy. She spent most of the night separate from the guy, speaking with my friend. At the end of the night, the guy told her he was ready to leave. She replied, “In a minute.” He went to the front door and waited. She said goodnight to my friend for several minutes then left. My friend didn’t ask for her number because she came and left with the same guy. He reacted to the data instead of interpreting it; he didn’t observe, process, and conclude—she didn’t spend any time with the guy, had an engaging conversation with my friend most of the night, and indicated to the guy he should wait for her while she said goodnight to my friend. To me it was clear she and the guy weren’t a couple. I checked with the hostess, who confirmed my conclusion, informing me the two were friends who lived near each other, sharing rides. Who knows, maybe my friend missed out on his true love?

Data often shifts attention from where it should be, on large scales to small ones. Does it matter what causes global warming? Should we be arguing over data differences or seeking a solution, no matter what the cause?

Make certain data doesn’t deter you from your real intent!

Ian Coburn was a successful comedian for ten years before his passion switched from entertaining people to helping them achieve their goals. His second book, Choice – The Meaning of Life: How to Have More and Better Choices in Business, Relationships, Government and Life is currently available for free at www.bestpossiblechoice.com.

In the post 4 Lessons on How to Get Things Done, there is an interesting comment by Mark Foo:

Bill Gates once remarked that the key to succeed in business is to innovate and make yourself obsolete. If you don’t make yourself obsolete, your competitors will make you obsolete.

I agree completely. We live in a fast-changing world. What is current today may already be obsolete two years from now. For that reason, it’s important to know how to improve yourself. You need to make yourself obsolete. If you don’t, someone else will.

I once read that when a Sony team in one floor launched a product, another team at another floor was already working on a new version of the product. And yet another team was working on an even newer version of it. That’s a company that works hard to make itself obsolete.

The same principle, I believe, applies to individuals. You should improve yourself and make yourself obsolete. Here are some ways to apply it:

1. Upgrade your tools

Can you imagine the difference in productivity between those who use a typewriter and those who use a computer? This example is a bit extreme, but it illustrates the importance of upgrading your tools. If you don’t upgrade your tools, you risk being left behind by those who do. They will produce far more output with better quality than you.

But be careful, don’t spend too much time researching and experimenting with new tools at the expense of doing real work. Remember, your goal is getting things done. Set aside some time to experiment with new tools, but spend most of your time doing real work using the tools you are already comfortable with.

2. Upgrade your workflow

More than just upgrading your tools, you should upgrade your workflow. Find ways to improve your productivity system. Is there any leak in your system? Is there anything you can simplify? Do you take full advantage of your most productive hours? Tune your system to improve your ability to get things done with minimum overhead.

3. Upgrade your knowledge

Living in the Internet age is a great blessing because there are abundant sources of knowledge available. All you need to have is the desire to learn. That’s why curiosity is important. With knowledge being so readily available, the eagerness to learn makes the biggest difference between those who thrive and those who don’t. Curiosity makes it much easier for you to learn about pretty much anything.

4. Upgrade your skills

With the pace of the world we live in now, your skills would quickly become obsolete.I remember a few years ago I learned hard to earn a certification. Now, just a few years later, the certification is practically useless. That’s how fast the world is moving. If you don’t constantly upgrade yourself, you may soon find that the world has moved beyond you.

One important thing to remember is you shouldn’t just upgrade your current skills. What if your field of expertise became irrelevant in the near future? What if the world no longer needed it? So, instead of just improving your current skills, open your eyes for new skills to learn. Is there a skill that could be in high demand a few years from now? Is there a skill that becomes increasingly necessary? Don’t just be a specialist. Be a versatilist.

5. Upgrade your mindset

This is perhaps the most difficult one to apply. People tend to always use the same lens to see the world through. They always see the world the way they are accustomed to. But you need to upgrade your mindset before it’s too late.

Here is an example of mindset change: instead of looking at yourself as an employee, look at yourself as an independent company. Your employer is actually just a client of yours. You should serve them well, of course, but you should also improve yourself and find other potential clients. Your progress is your responsibility. Can you see the difference this mindset has on your attitude?

To upgrade your mindset, you need to admit that the world changes. Don’t expect that the world you live in today works the same way as it did ten years ago. Nor should you expect that the world ten years from now will work the same way as it does today. Admitting this will make it easier for you to change your lens.

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Improving yourself means that you should constantly move beyond your comfort zone. Stretch yourself. Challenge yourself.It’s easier said than done, but you will come out as a winner.

Photo by ground.zero