Small changes with large impact

I've just read through Getting Things Done by David Allen and it took me... about 2 months (it's 250 pages). That's bad. But during that time I've also implemented some changes and that's good. I've changed two things so far and they alone have resulted in huge savings of energy and time.

Zero mail inbox

The first thing I did was to go through my two email accounts (job/private) and reduce the amount of emails from 1600 to three and 20 in each inbox. For each account I've created a "archive" folder where all read mail goes except the two or three I still want to do something with.  To be honest I have tree major projects running so each of those got their own folder as well (two at work, one private). But it feels ok since I will archive those folders as soon as the projects are finished.  The simple fact that I now don't have to see a mile long inbox, or that the annoying inbox number now only indicates three instead of 600 emails, takes loads of pressure of my mind. 

Write down thoughts, to dos etc

What happens when you are walking home or just about to turn out the lights at night and your mind wanders? Does billions and things you forgot to do, or have to do, pop up in your head? Well it did for me! I used to be that kind of person who tried keep everything in my head and failed miserably. Instead I never got things done, I never remembered anything and I always missed stuff. Then, maybe a month or so back I started to write things down as soon as they popped up in my head, either in my mobile which I carry with me at all times, on a post it or directly into my note saving program online. The change was instantaneous. Now I get more stuff done, I can relax because I know where to find my reminders and my reminders makes me come up with more new thoughts! 

If there is two things I would recommend people like me to start doing it's those two. I'm far from the whole GTD system and I still want to get priorities and a better organisation of my reminders but it's light-years from the non existent system I hade on New Years Eve. And just as I thought I was the only one who had not grasped this I start to see people all around me who have the same problem I did... they don't manage their inbox and they don't gather their reminders. I might need to hand them that book...

Showing Appreciation

Having attended a six day PSL workshop I have come to understand and appreciate the power of appreciation. When it comes to feedback I have had some problems in the past to balance the ratio between feedback about things to change and things to keep, I find it easier to give feedback about things I think needs change since they seem to be the things that stand out.
During this week of intense training in Problem Solving Leadership we have had a lot of rounds of appreciations. An appreciation is a simple meaning along the lines of: , I appreciate you for . I found it to be a great way of discovering that I did things I didn't think much of that people appreciated and of course the other way around. Not only does it feel good to be appreciated but it also strengthen the bonds between people, expecially if you combine it with touch in some (non intimidating) way. I even found that if I gave appreciations to people I didn't really like it was more difficult to dislike them.

Mobile blogging set up

After a long struggle with many dead ends, thanks to Telenor, my Semc phone and my lack of competense, we can finally use the mobile to blog here.

How you look at your world decides what your world looks like

The book "The 7habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey, which I'll probably have a few more things to say about, contains a very interesting passage in the first few pages. It's about paradigms and paradigm shifts. A small history is presented; the author once went by the subway and by him sat a man that brought his children. The kids were running around, throwing stuff and making big fuzz, disturbing the passengers in the same subway car. The author and probably other of the passengers was understandably irritated over the father that did not take proper care of his children. So finally the author broke the silence and told the father that the children were disturbing and would he please put an end to it. The father then tells that they just came from the hospital and that the children's mother passed away. The author suddenly saw the situation in quite a different light and asked what he could do to help out.

This story is quite something, when I think about it and go through the narration I can feel a sort of shift in my mind. With just a tiny bit of information the situation changes drastically even though nothing has really changed, everything is still the same. The reality depends very much on the eyes that look upon it. This kind of shift can be achieved on purpose for yourself and yes it might be relieving to understand that the world is largely dependent on how you look at it and not only what actually is fact.

I'd like to recommend the book "Mind lines", by L. Michael Hall and Bobby G. Bodenhamer that thoroughly goes in to different ways to look at the present and change your own view of your reality. It's certainly powerful to be able to change your own reality, please try it out!

Reflection

Last week I was invited by a friend to attend one of his classes, he had read a lot about Scrum and wanted to try it in student projects. He shoved me into a room with eight students around twenty years old and told the students that I was as much Scrum experience packed in flesh as they'd ever meet and to make good use of me during the half hour or so I was there. They didn't...

I decided to do a quick retrospective and some problems came up from the group, one being that they had a fellow team member who wasn't attending their team meetings where they did their planning and some coding. When I asked them what they possibly could do about it their response was "nothing, we can't really force him to come here so there's really nothing we can do". I asked if they had talked to him about it and they hadn't, when I asked if a possible solution would be to have their team meetings at his place they responded that it felt unfair that they had to go all the way to his place when he was the problem and when I asked them if it was a problem that he wasn't present they responded that it was a major impediment to the progress of their project.

I left the students feeling glad that I normally deal with professionals that are trained in problem solving and want to improve - what a comfort junky I am! Thinking about it now, a couple of days later, I am annoyed with myself for moving back into my comfort zone and not challenging myself to get those damn students straightened out... I'll get back to my friend and coerce him into having me back and coach those students again! If not for something else, at least to get myself out of my comfort zone and into the real world, I might learn something about myself!

Honest leadership start within

"Think of your life as a house. Can you knock down the walls between the rooms and be the same person in each of them?" To lead a balanced life (and be a great leader?), you need to bring together all of it's elements - work, family and friends - so that you can be the same person in each environment! 

If you aren't doing this today, who are the real you?

From the article Discovering your authentic leadership. Bill George, P. Sims, A. N. McLean, D. Mayer.  Harvard Business Review OnPoint, Winter 2008, © 2008

The more difficult the goal, the greater the achievement - goal-set motivation

First of all, let’s establish our goal. We want to get out more bang for the buck in our development process. Since we believe in an empowered, self organized team which takes responsibility for their actions and work we need method to promote this behaviour. It turns out that using goals to steer and focus is just that method!

In this post we will look at some of the more important aspects of goal-set motivation and why it should appeal to you as a leader.

1. The more difficult the goal, the greater the achievement

This means that situation that the team, or individual for that sake, is commited and posses the ability to achieve the goal, the performance of that team or individual will increase. If not, the performance will instead drop at high goal levels.

2. The more specific the goal, the more precisely performance in regulated

This might sound desirable at first but give it another go. In reality this means that if you focus too much on details you run a very high risk of dampen or kill creativity. This is one reason we preach the usage of negotiable user stories in Scrum instead of function based planning.

3. Goals that are both specific and difficult lead to the highest performance

People do not actually do their best when trying to do their best because, as  a vague goal, it is compatible with many different outcomes, including those lower than one's best. Therefore, goals need to be both specific and difficult to maximize performance. All in accordance with statement one and two above.

4. Commitment to goals is most critical when goals are specific and difficult

Obvious perhaps but I’ll spell it out anyway. Easy and vague goals do not require much dedication and are therefore easy to commit to.

5. (This one is important) High commitment to goals is attained when:

a) the team is convinced that the goal is important

b) the team is convincend that the goal is attainable

6. Participation by subordinates yields higher commitment

For example, participation from the team leads to higher commitment. But the goals might not be set as high as of they where set by their superiors.

7. In general goals stimulate planning and leads to higher quality

Therefore we should strive for using goals in planning and in measurements. And goal setting is in fact most effective when there is feedback showing progress in relation to the goal. The goals help to orient us and affect performance by affecting the direction of action, the effort exerted and the persistence over time.

8. When people strive for goals on complex tasks they are least effective in discovering suitable strategies if:

a) they have no prior domain knowledge or no relevant training (obvious right?)

b) there is high pressure to perform well (a team where failure is not allowed)

c) there is high time pressure to perform well immediately (an already late project)

Here, feedback is very effective in motivating higher performance. But remember, feedback alone is just information. You must relate it to the goals.

9. Finally, high goals might actually lead to less performance satisfaction than easy goals

This has to do with the fact that goals server as standards of self-satisfaction and harder goals demands higher accomplishment in order to attain self-satisfaction than easy goals.

So why should you this leadership technique of self-set goals? Well, because:

• It can help you to provide and communicate an inspiring vision

• Let you act as a role model when aiming for a more self organizing organization

• You can expect outstanding performance if you make it work

• It promotes those who embrace the vision and dismiss those who reject it

• It is a very efficient way of delegating responsibility and ownership

• You express genuine confidence in your employees and peers

• You can actually ask for commitment in public and who knows, you might finally get it as well!