Care to Dare: Unleashing Astonishing Potential Through Secure Base Leadership by George Kohlrieser, Susan Goldsworthy & Duncan Coombe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The concept presented in the book is the importance of a leader which provides a secure base so that the people in the team are able to take risks through daring while maintaining safety for them through caring. To be a secure base to others you need a secure base yourself , both in your personal and professional life.

The way a leader builds trust and influences others by providing a sense of protection, safety and caring and by providing a source of inspiration that together produces energy for daring, exploration, risk taking and seeing challenge.

The characteristics of a Secure Base Leader are

1. Stays Calm
   Remaining composed and dependable especially when under pressure
2. Accepts the Individual
   Accept and acknowledge the basic worth of the person as a human being, not just an employee
3. Sees the Potential
   See beyond the current functioning state and see the long term potential which someone has perhaps 10 to 20 years in the future.
4. Uses Listening and Inquiry
   To help people work things out themselves rather than telling or advocating a particular way.
5. Delivers a Powerful Message
   A short sentence or gesture which impacts people deeply on a bullseye target.
6. Focuses on the Positive
   So they can see the potential and the opportunity for learning, even in a crisis or time of difficulty.
7. Encourages Risk Taking
   This is actively pushing people to do things which they may feel that they can’t, so they are in a position which they can learn and develop fast.
8. Inspires through Intrinsic Motivation
   Focusing on potential, learning, development, passion, contribution and meaning
9. Signals Accessibility
   People knowing that when they need you you are able to discuss or be a sounding board is useful to people to feel they are not alone.

This is more than just being nice to people this also requires Feedback – even painful feedback to help someone grow, Push – really challenging people, inspiring courage and not using fear, Accountability – they don’t accept excuses and will disagree with people taking the easy way out.

Key to being a secure base for others you need to build a strong and deep attachment that creates more energy than the person would have on their own. This attachment is what leads to high levels of caring. To be able to attach you need a strong feeling that the attachment is worthwhile, that you truly value that person and for that person to truly trust you.
A key part of attachment is to acknowledge and embrace loss – the person will grow and leave, the project will end etc. All things come to an end and by embracing this you can boost your attachment quality and speed of attachment and reattachment. At the end everyone goes through the stages of grief – celebrating etc can accelerate this process and move on together.

1. Denial
2. Protest – Anger
3. Sadness – Missing
4. Fear – Terror – Panic
5. Rationalisation
6. Acceptance
7. New Attachment or Renewal
8. Forgiveness
9. Gratitude

Always look out for the positives and keep people focus on the benefits rather than tha negative pain so that they can Play to Win an not just Play Not to Lose.
Care must be taken that the past does not become a self fulfilling prophecy, as such taking a growth mindset is required to influence the “Mind’s Eye”. Through training you can focus on the positives and learn but not dwell on the negatives of the past. This can adjust how your see your current state and can have an influence on the results which you achieve. It is through developing the “Mind’s Eye” that you can lead to high levels of daring.

Playing to Win – “Together we can achieve great things” which needs courage

Playing Not to Lose – “Let us be safe and not take too much risk”

Playing to Dominate – “Who needs others?  I can do better by myself” which is where you are in total control.

Playing to Avoid – “I want to be left alone”

Rate your Secure Base Leadership on a 1 = never to 5 = always scale the following:

• Remains calm when under pressure
• Are dependable and predictable in terms of moods and emotions
• Remains approachable for support, even in stressful situations
• Value your team members as human beings, not just as employees performing a role
• Accept people’s limitations and weaknesses in a supportive way
• See the core goodness in people before judging or criticising them
• Establish and hold a concrete vision of each direct report’s unrealised potential
• Encourage each of your direct reports to realise his or her full potential
• Ask your direct reports about their hopes and dreams for their careers
• Listen actively
• Ask open-ended questions
• Ask questions before telling people what to do
• Deliver powerful, memorable messages
• Speak clearly and succinctly
• Use non-verbal signals and gestures to accentuate our memorable messages
• Keep your team focused on the goal even when under pressure
• Focus on opportunity and possibility more than problems and difficulties
• Find and express the positive in situations
• Encourage those who work for you to take risks
• Provide real stretch assignments
• Give people freedom and responsibility (vs micromanagement)
• Determine what is really important to people and use that insight to motivate them
• Stress the importance of learning, growth and development
• Focus people on achievement and fulfillment rather than financial reward
• Return calls or emails in a reasonable amount of time
• Remain supportive of people even when you have little direct contact
• Make yourself available to others when they have questions

Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Feedback is only useful if people actually act upon it, improve and get better. There are three triggers which mean we react defensively to the feedback we receive.

Truth Triggers are where we feel the substance of the feedback is somehow off, unhelpful or we perceive to be untrue. As a recipient it is key to search harder to understand the feedback. Once we understand we might still consider the feedback wrong – some of it will be but some of it might actually be covering a blind spot we did not know about.

Relationship Triggers are because feedback does not occur in a vacuum and the relationship between the giver and receiver. So we react based upon what we believe about the giver. Here people respond by “switchtrack” where the person responds with the relationship issue and the original feedback gets dropped. The issues is not them or you it’s them and you – the question to answer is what’s the dynamic between us and what are we each contributing to the problem?

Identity Triggers are no about the feedback nor the person giving it but the feedback challenges our identity – our sense of who we are. Understanding how we react to such triggers help us identify when it is occuring. When they then occur it is easy for our mind to exaggerate, being aware that we are doing this can help us keep things in perspective. Seeing the feedback as useful in helping us grow means that we take the feedback better than believing that we fixed.

There are three different types of feedback.

Appreciation – to see, acknowledge, connect, motivate, thank. Different people need appreciation in different ways – this could be through words, acts of service, quality time, physical contact or gifts. As well as tailored to the person it also needs to be authentic.

Coaching – help receiver expand knowledge, sharpen skill, improve capability or to address the giver’s feelings or an imbalance in the relationship

Evaluation – to rate or rank against a set of standards, to align expectations, to inform decision making

The challenge is when you ask for one type of feedback (e.g. appreciation), you receive a different one (e.g. coaching) and how you interpret it (e.g. as evaluation). This “cross-transactions” means that the feedback is wasted. To improve this when you are asked for feedback you should enquire why they are seeking it. Secondly you should try to remove evaluation from coaching and appreciation. Evaluation always comes along as the loudest.

Feedback arrives with generic labels e.g. be more proactive – its key to go from “that’s wrong” to “tell me more”. This is a challenge because givers and receivers interpret the label differently since the giver naturally knows what is meant and the receiver imagines something based upon it. Ask where is the feedback coming from? This is because people jump from data to interpretation and for you to fully understand the interpretation you need more of the data. When we receive coaching it’s important to know what their suggestion would look like.

There are blind spots which we can not see, such as our facial expressions, our tone of voice, our patterns, our email etiquette, etc. There are also some amplifiers – such as our emotion which others see as doubly important, I will attribute things to the situation and others will attribute it to my character, us judging ourselves by our intent and others on our impact. You can not see more by looking harder, only external people can provide the feedback needed – to do this ask “What do you see me doing, or failing to do, that is getting in my own way?”. Feedback is a mirror but some mirrors are honest and some are more supportive. Alternatively videoing or recording a meeting provides an undisputable mirror.

Switchtracking is when we have an emotional response to feedback – we respond with something based on our feelings. Normally we then continue with the conversation, whereas what should be done is that we acknowledge the two tracks and deal with both of them independently.

Taking a perspective of seeing feedback as part of a broader system

• One step back : you and me interactions – From here we see the interaction of you and me as a pair. What is the particular you + me combination that is creating a problem, and what is each of us contributing to that?
• Two steps back : role clashes – This view expands our perspective to look at the roles each of us plays on the team, in the organisation or in the family. Roles are often a crucial but largely invisible reason we bump into each other.
• Three steps back : the big picture – From this frame of reference we can view the entire landscape – including other players, structures, and processes that guide and constrain the choices we each make and the outcomes we get.

People distort feedback in their mind – and this distortion is hugely different with different people with some people able to get back to normal quickly and others taking a lot longer. For feedback it is good to consider the following so that things are put into proportion.

• Be prepared, be mindful
  • Know your feedback footprint – what do you do? Blame, switch track, cry apologies?
  • Inoculate yourself against the worst – imagine that the feedback is bad, this highlights that things are not so bad
  • Notice what happens – slow things down and take it as positive ways to learn
• Separate the strands : feeling, story and feedback
  • Our stories shadowbox with the past – we can over react to feedback because of other history
• Contain the story
  • Time – the present does not change the past and can only influence not dictate the future.
  • Specificity – being bad at one thing does not mean you are bad at everything.
  • People – One person does not mean everyone, and everyone usually likes something about us and people’s opinions change over time.
• Change the vantage point
  • Imagine you are an observer – an outside view puts things in context
  • Look back from the future – in 10 years how important will this moment be?
  • Cast the comedy – humour offers a release of emotional tension
• Accept you can’t control how others see you

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing and Influencing Others by Daniel H. Pink
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book starts by highlighting how the environment for selling is changing – increasingly the number of people who are in sales are larger than they might realise with the rise of “none-sales” selling. This could be selling ideas or trying to get people to act safely – rather than traditional selling.

Additionally sales used to be based on an imbalance in information where the seller used to have all of the information whereas with the rise of the Internet this imbalance has shifted so both the seller and buyer have near knowledge parity.

The book presents the new ABC for selling:

Attunement

The ability to bring one’s actions and outlook into harmony with other people and with the context you’re in.  This hinges on three principles:

1. Increase your power by reducing it – people in a low power situation are more likely to understand the perspective of the other parties.
2. Use your head as much as your heart – perspective taking and empathy are closely related but not identical.  Getting the perspective of the thinking of the other party is more conducive to selling than getting the perspective of their feeling.
3. Mimic strategically – Humans like it when we see echongs of ourselves, these make us feel that we are both in tune.  As such mimicking is a good way to win people over but care needs to be taken since if the other person feels this is forced this becomes fake.

People who are ambiverts (part way between extrovert and introvert) are better sellers than either extroverts or introverts, who both sell relatively similar amounts.

Buoyancy

How to stay afloat in an ocean of rejection. There are techniquest before, during and after an interaction.

1. Before – Asking yourself if you can do this is a powerful way to prepare yourself for a selling interaction.
2. During – Positivity, people who have 3 – 11 times more positive emotions compared to negative ones allow people to flourish. Sometimes it is good to engineer some positive experiences into your day (e.g. seeing friendly customers to balance our negative ones)
3. After – Optimistic explanatory style, seeing rejection as temporary, specific and not universal, and external not personal.

Clarity

• Finding the Right Problem to Solve – People fall into two groups, problem finders and problem solvers. Problem finders are creative. When you try to focus on helping the customers requires creative solutions e.g. recommending competitors products if this is the best thing for the customer.
• Finding Your Frames – Clarity depends on contrast.
  • Experiences frame – experiences are generally more valuable to people than material purchases, so selling a car based on its leather interior is less likely to have a return customer than describing the experiences the car could take them
  • Label frame – just labelling a group a something encourages them to be it, e.g a school class the “neat” class results in the classroom being neater.
  • Blemish frame – having a small negative can make the positives more attractive, but only if the negative information follows the positive
  • Potential frame – “the potential to be good at something can be prefered over actually being good at that very same thing”
  • Finding an Off-ramp – providing a clear way for people to take the action which you desire

What to do

The book covers a number of different ways to pitch an idea.

Improvide – from improv theater

• Hear offers – active listening
• Say “yes and”
• Make your partner look good

Serve – make what you do in the service to others makes it more meaningful, move from upselling to upserving

• Make it personal – e.g. show pictures of patients to x-ray reviewers
• Make it purposeful – e.g. a sign “Hand hygiene prevents patients catching diseases” outperforms messages about the person washing their hands or a catchy phrase

• Aim to make the buyers life better. 1. If the seller buys this will their life improve? 2. Will the world be better as a result?

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book presents 20 habits which cause issues when people progress up the career ladder – these are all on the soft skills as the technical (e.g. accounting) skills have to be there for people to have got to this level to start with.  People start from the position of:

1. I have succeeded to get to where I am (past)
2. I can succeed, because I believe in myself (present)
3. I will succeed (future)
4. I choose to succeed, so I am committed to do this

Because of these preconceptions we believe that we are better than we are and that we feel we can succeed further by repeating what we have already done.

The workplace habits which we have to break are:

1. Winning too much – The need to win at all cost and in all situations : when it matters, when it does not and when it’s totally beside the point
2. Adding too much value – The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion
3. Passing judgement – the need to judge people and impose our standards on them
4. Making destructive comments – the needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound smart and witty
5. Starting with “No”, “But”, or “however” – the overuse of these negative qualifiers wich secretly say to everyone “I’m right and your wrong”
6. Telling the world how smart you are – the need to show people we are smarter than they are
7. Speaking when angry – using emotional volatility as a management tool
8. Negativity, or “let me explain why that won’t work” – the need to share our negative thoughts even when not asked
9. Withholding information – the refusal to share information in order to maintain our advantage over others
10. Failing to give proper recognition – the inability to praise and reward
11. Claiming credit when we don’t deserve it – the most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success
12. Making excuses – the need to reposition our annoying behaviours as a permanent fixture so people excuse it
13. Clinging to the past – the need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from the past; a subset of blaming everyone else
14. Playing favorites – failing to see that we are treating some people unfairly
15. Refusing to express regret – the inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong or recognise how our actions affect others
16. Not listening – the most passive-aggressive form of disrespect from colleagues
17. Failing to express gratitude – the most basic form of bad manners
18. Punishing the messenger – the misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually trying to help us
19. Passing the buck – the need to blame everyone but ourselves
20. An excessive need to be “me” – exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.
21. Goal obsession lead cheating – being focused on the goal is positive but if the goal is too tough and we are too focused then this can cause less than ethical things to happen such as lying or cheating to appear to achieve the goal

The challenge is that quite a lot of people don’t want to hear feedback and secondly lots of people don’t want to give it.  For successful people proving people are wrong is not going to work in helping them change.  Depersonalising to talk about the task not the person works but some people are so liked to their task that they can’t separate the two.

For the people who give feedback they need to make a commitment too, if they don’t commit to them then don’t include them in giving feedback.

1. Let go of the past – you can’t change it now it’s happened
2. Tell the truth – lying won’t help things get better
3. Be supportive and helpful – not cynical or negative
4. Pick something to improve yourself – so everyone is focused more on improvement than judging

Receiving feedback just reply with “Thank you”, don’t criticise, object etc this will stop you getting any more feedback in the future.

For executives the asked questions are, does the executive…

• Clearly communicate a vision
• Treat people with respect
• Solicit contrary opinions
• Encourage other people’s ideas
• Listen to other people in meetings

The reason feedback is critical is because:

• It is a whole lot easier for you to see flaws in other people than it is to see flaws in yourself
• Problems we are aware of we might be able to deny to ourselves but they may be very obvious to people who are observing them

Feedback is not just written or verbal, small signs (such as people leaving a room etc) are also clear feedback if consistent that we should used to help us correct our actions. 

1. Make a list of casual remarks made about you
2. Watch how people are “with the sound off”
3. Repeat complete the sentence e.g. “If I get in shape …” can drill down “If I get in shape will live longer”, “If I get in shape feel better”, “If I get in shape be a better role model for my children”
4. Listen to your self-aggrandizing remarks.  “I’m no expert on” aka this person feels like an expert on. “I’m always on time” someone who is never on time.  Psychologically the things people boast about can actually be their own weakness.
5. Look homeward.  Peoples problems rarely just exist at work they tend to exist at home too.

To move forward

1. Appologise for your mistakes, this means people know you have heard them and ask them to help you improve
2. Advertise, it’s the only way for people to see you changing
3. Listen, don’t interrupt, don’t finish someone else’s sentence, don’t say “I knew that”, don’t agree just say “Thank you”, don’t use “no” “but” or “however”, don’t be distracted, ask intelligent questions, eliminate striving to impress the other person
4. Thank people
5. Follow up – regularly measure how you are progressing towards the change you want to make
6. Feedforward – ask someone for two things which would move you in the direction you want to go.  Such as “I want to be a better listener” two suggestions someone might make are “focus your attention on the other person” and “don’t interrupt”

Not everything can be changed this way, such as doing this process will not make you better at maths.  Coaching and feedback only work with people who want to change, if people don’t then it is just a waste of everyone’s time and effort with no benefit.

Tribes : We need you to Lead Us by Seth Godin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Managing is manipulating resources to get a job done. Managing a process they have seen before striving to make it as fast and cheap as possible. Leadership is about making change which you believe in.

Improving the tribe requires:

• A shared interest
• A way to communicate – up, down, sideways and to people outside of the tribe

To measure they success you should not count a tribes members, a tight tribe can have much more impact than a large tribe.

Lean in, lean out but don’t do nothing.  Leaning in to get things moving, lean out to give it space to grow on its own but don’t just sit by and expect it to work fully on its own.

Understanding the tribe you lead.  While the music industry was fighting its tribe it is no wonder that they stumbled.

Sleepwalking -businesses don’t die unexpectedly.  They die because the people who can see the world changing are not courageous enough to say it and for people to hear them.

Micro movement

1. Manifesto
2. Make it easy for followers to connect with you
3. Make it easy for followers to connect with each other
4. Realise that money is not the point of a movement
5. Track your progress

Movement principles

1. Transparency is the only option
2. The movement needs to be bigger than you
3. Movements that grow thrive
4. Movements are clear when they challenge the status quo or go in the opposite direction
5. Exclude outsiders
6. Building your followers up far outweighs bringing others down

Its ok to be wrong, as long as you did it for the tribe they will understand e.g Steve Jobs had a number of failures but the tribe we happy to accept him for them.

The world changes and if you play todays game by yesterdays rules you won’t last much longer.

The New One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard, Spencer Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

People who feel good about themselves produce good results

Three steps

1. Goals
2. Praise
3. Re-direction

Goals

1. Plan the goals together and describe them briefly
2. Have people write out each of their goals, with due date, on a single page
3. Ask them to review their most important goals each day
4. Look at what you’re doing to check they match with your goals
5. If the task is not aligned to the goal re-think what you are doing to reach your goal earlier

Take a minute to look at your goals.  Then look at what you are doing and see if it matches your goals.

Praise

Help people reach their potential.  Catch them doing something right.

1. Praise someone as soon as possible
2. Let people know what they did right – be specific
3. Tell people how good you feel about what they did right and how it helps.

Pause for a moment so they can appreciate the praise

1. Encourage them to do more of the same
2. Make it clear that you have confidence in them and support their success

Re-direct

1. Re-direct people as soon as there is room for improvement
2. Confirm the facts first  and review the mistakes together – be specific
3. Express how you feel and the impact on results

Pause for a moment so they can appreciate the problem

1. Remember to let them know that they are better than their mistakes and you think well of them as a person
2. Remind them you have confidence and trust in them and support their success
3. Relise that when the re-direct is over its over

Everyone is a winner.  Some people are disguised as losers, don’t let their appearance fool you.

Remote: Office Not Required by David Heinemeier Hansson, Jason Fried
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book provides an overview of remote working and provides suggestions on how to overcome some of the common problems and also highlights the potential problems of people over working.

• The time is right for remote work
  • Why work doesn’t happen at work – there are far more distractions at work than at home
  • Stop commuting your life away – 45 minutes each way is 7.5hrs per week in a car
  • It’s the technology, stupid – for quite a few jobs technology means we are no longer stuck in the office
  • Escaping 9am–5pm – its the work that matters not the clock time, you need to adjust but working asynchronously has some advantages
  • End of city monopoly – there is now no longer a need to live in expensive cities for work
  • The new luxury – flexibility means that people don’t have to work at home but can travel etc
  • Talent isn’t bound by the hubs – this means you open yourself up to more talent from more places
  • It’s not about the money – any financial savings are a bonus but not the motivator
  • But saving is always nice – savings on commuting etc for both the individual and the company
  • Not all or nothing – remote does not need to meet fully remote but could just mean a day or part of the day working from elsewhere
  • Still a trade-off – there are advantages and disadvantages which should be weighed up
  • You’re probably already doing it – its likely you have external accountants or lawyers who already work remote from yourselves.
• Dealing with excuses
  • Magic only happens when we’re all in a room – there are some times when being together is useful but delivering the work is really the aim
  • If I can’t see them, how do I know they’re working? – you have to hire people you trust and then it does not matter if you see them or not if they are delivering the work
  • People’s homes are full of distractions – so are offices
  • Only the office can be secure – there are now tools to let you work remotely which are likely to be more secure than office based ones
  • Who will answer the phone? – remote does not mean there are no commitments, such as the phone being staffed 9-5, this just takes coordination
  • Big business doesn’t do it, so why should we? – big businesses are slow and set in their ways
  • Others would get jealous – why not let everyone do it
  • What about culture? – this does not just spread by in person communication so it will still exist
  • I need an answer now! – your likely to have a better response time than before without the office distractions
  • But I’ll lose control – this is very Theory X thinking and if that is the type of organisation you wan this won’t work anyway
  • We paid a lot of money for this office – sunk cost fallacy
  • That wouldn’t work for our size or industry – it has and does work in different size and type of industry
• How to collaborate remotely
  • Thou shalt overlap – to ensure there is cover when needed
  • Seeing is believing – there are tools which you can use to collaborate remotely which are different but the results are as good as in office collaboration
  • All out in the open – tools make it open for people to see what is going on
  • The virtual water cooler – this is a quality break with your co-workers, everyone needs it
  • Forward motion – there needs to be more explicit communication which would happen by osmosis in regular organisations but this can be overcome by a weekly email or similar
  • The work is what matters – it is easier to compare based on what is being produced
  • Not just for people who are out of town – everyone can be remote, even if it is just from the coffee shop down the street
  • Disaster ready – this is distributed by design meaning that things such as power cuts impact very few people
  • Easy on the M&Ms – meetings and managers – working remotely reduces the pressure to fill a day with meetings
• Beware the dragons
  • Cabin fever – people feeling isolated and alone
  • Check-in, check-out – its very easy to work too much and so its more important to limit working time
  • Ergonomic basics – having suitable office desk etc for your posture etc
  • Mind the gut – its very easy to put on weight working remotely
  • The lone outpost – having a single remote worker makes it very hard for them, its better to do it by team or department
  • Working with clients – let your clients know where you are so they don’t expect you to be near their office
  • Taxes, accounting, laws, oh my! – hire a specialist to help you deal with this
• Hiring and keeping the best
  • It’s a big world – remote working opens you to hiring people from all over the world
  • Life moves on – remote working allows people to move without having to change job
  • Keep the good times going – if you have a bad character employee you should treat them the same if they were sat next to you
  • Seeking a human – helping people do things in a human way, like hobbies or sightseeing
  • No parlor tricks – its the work that matters to look and hire for it
  • The cost of thriving – you should not pay people less who work remotely
  • Great remote workers are simply great workers – remote working makes poor performers more visible
  • On writing well – good and clear written communication is very important when hiring a remote worker
  • Test project – give people a test project to see how they actually get on
  • Meeting them in person – its still important to meet people important as part of the job interview
  • Contractors know the drill – they are used to remote working
• Managing remote workers
  • When’s the right time to go remote? – start early in the company and if you are already passed that then start small with a team
  • Stop managing the chairs – this is actually managing on results rather than on time spent on a chair
  • Meetups and sprints – meeting in person is important 2 or more times per year
  • Lessons from open source – intrinsically motivates, out in the open, meet up regularly
  • Level the playing field – treat remote and local workers equally, not as second class
  • One-on-ones – are really important, perhaps video or telephone call
  • Remove the roadblocks – just let people get on with working their own way
  • Be on the lookout for overwork, not underwork – because getting to work is easy people can easily over work and care must be taken to prevent too much of this
  • Using scarcity to your advantage – by having less time together (e.g.) this makes the time more precious and people use it more wisely
• Life as a remote worker
  • Building a routine – so that you don’t over work
  • Morning remote, afternoon local – make a routing that works for you
  • Compute different – to separate work and home life
  • Working alone in a crowd – such as in a coffee shop to give you a community
  • Staying motivated – is sometimes hard but one to ones should support and sometimes a break helps regain focus
  • Nomadic freedom – with great internet everywhere you can move around quite freely without any problems
  • A change of scenery – gives you a different perspective on things
  • Family time – with less commute and flexibility means more time with family
  • No extra space at home – use a cafe, co-working space or a shed in the garden
  • Making sure you’re not ignored – people who produce quality don’t get ignored

Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits by Robert Townsend
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is from 1970 but there are things which most organisations don’t do today even though they are trying to build “Theory Y” type organisations.  The book is also novel as each chapter is presented in alphabetical order.

• Advertising – fire your existing agency and find a new one and make it fun
• Assistants-to and make-working – fire them, they just get in the way
• Big wheels in little companies – great leaders of big companies can kill small ones
• Boss, How to retire the – say your going to retire multiple times a long way out so that the organisation can prepare and structure itself.  When they retire make sure they don’t spend a lot of time at head quarters.
• Budgets – should be decided by the people who have to deliver them.  Use terms such as better or worse than budget, not higher or lower which can be confusing.  Include a contingency in your external budget so that you have room to move.
• Call yourself up – pretend to be your own customer but don’t call rank, listen to how things work for real customers.
• Chairman of the executive committee – it means nothing, so use it – a complaint handled by the “executive committee” will be taken better than “customer retention”.  The executive committee and the chairman can play very useful role.
• Compromise and king Solomon – When you give in give in all of the way and when you win try to win all the way so responsibility lies squarely on you.
• Computers and their priests – Computer technicians are complicators not simplifiers.
• Conference board: what others did, don’t – when big businesses agree then it is already old news so look for something better.
• Conflict within the organisation – a good manager does not try to eliminate conflict but does try to prevent it wasting too much time.
• Contacts – if you want to make a contact just approach them directly instead of going via someone else
• Controllers and accounting – don’t change the accounting system as this change produces inconsistency.
• Conviction vs. ego – “are you trying to do something worth while here?” or “are you trying to just build another monument to some diseased ego?”
• Decisions – all decisions should be made as low in the organisation as possible.
• Delegation of authority – when negotiating pick someone two layers lower than you who would be more impacted by the bad contract, set an acceptable bounds for this person, tell the company who you are negotiating with that what ever your chosen person negotiates is what you’ll agree to (so there is no going over their head).
• Directors, board of: the backseat drivers – they have never done anything useful as they can’t know enough about the business.  Have a mix of outsiders and insiders on the board.  Keep lawyers, bankers, investment bankers off the board where possible.
• Disobedience and its necessity – any manager who conducts a plan which he feels is defective is at fault – he must put forward his reasons, insist on the plan being changed and tender his resignation instead of causing the downfall.
• Do it – sometimes its best not to tell people in advance as people will kill your idea, sometimes its best to just get on and do it.
• Employment contracts and why not – they loose the people they are designed to hold and keep the people you want to get rid of.
• Epaulets for the chief executive – a good chief executive will knock off the niceties, a bad one will accept all the kudos as ego massage.
• Excellence: or what the hell are you doing here? – if its not excellent it won’t be fun
• Excuses – eliminate peoples excuses for failure.  Go out and ask how you can help.
• Expense accounts: Theory X disease – Be honest, even if everyone else is not.  Fire the people checking and start to build a Theory Y company.
• Fairness, justice and other oddities – Judge base on performance alone.  Reward outstanding performers, don’t reward underachievers.
• Family Baggage – Spouses who are pushy for their partner to get promoted or earn more.  Money, if sought directly, is almost never gained but as a byproduct of some worthwhile objective or result which is sought and achieved for its own sake.
• Firing people – Some times it needs to be done for the good of the organisation
• Geography, respect for – Absentee management if fatal.  The larger the distance the more difficult it is to support.
• Gifts from suppliers – don’t accept anything
• Going a little bit public – the value based on a small volume of stock traded is fictitious and is not worth the hassle.
• Headhunters – provide a large amount of feedback on each candidate to help them find more suitable candidates for you.
• Hubris, The sin of – This is the sin of acting cocky when things are going well.
• Incentive compensation and profit sharing –
  • Employees must have sufficient salary to not need to worry about making ends meet.
  • Using Unsatisfactory = 0%, Satisfactory = x% and Outstanding = 2x% distribute the discretionary salary.
  • Bonus checks should be handed out by the line manager.
  • No one should be penalised for things outside of their control
  • Fat cat perks should not be deducted impacting bonus calculations
• Indirection: Don’t neglect it – Give people flexibility to get things done their way
• Institution, On not becoming an – For any form in the company the chief executive must be the first to use it personally.  Have someone who is responsible for highlighting pointless processes.
• Investment bankers – Keep at least one spare lined up so you are not stuck.
• Investors: Keeping them informed – A nominated investor is allowed to come in one day and ask any question of anyone who they wanted, including the chief.  The investor would return a report which was then corrected and sent to all the directors and investors.  This saved time and produced a good internal document as well.
• Job descriptions – strait jackets – job should be able to continually change
• Killing things, V.P in charge of – It is easy to start, hard to stop so its best to have someone who can stop things when they are no longer a good idea.
• Labor unions – create a Theory Y organisation so they are not needed.  If you have one deal with them openly and honestly.
• Lawyers can be liabilities – a good lawyer will give you his home phone, travel and work weekend when needed but an unsuitable one wont.
• Leadership – True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders.
• Management and “Top” management – Top management should be like owl – hooting when management heads in the wrong direction.
• Management consultants – one person shows are effective the institutions are disasters.
• Marketing – take a group of top employees and some from the ad agency and spent some time away talking with them and relaxing.  This will give time and space for important conversations.
• Mars, Man from – Think about problems like someone from a different planet to give you a better view of what you should do.
• Meetings – should be as few as possible with as few participants.  If a meeting is important enough to have one meeting it is likely to be important enough to have two so people get time to think.
• Memorandum, The last – don’t have any
• Mergers, conglobulations, and join failures –
  • Joint ventures are always bad.  At worst both parents neglect the stepchild.  At best one parent does all the work and gives up half the reward and feels cheated.
  • Acquisitions and mergers should be avoided.  If they do then continue to run your bussiness as if no change will happen (as it might not).  To set up a committee to come up with a proposal which will exclude the chief executive until the last minute to prevent distractions.
• Message to chief executives – Your people aren’t lazy and incompetent.  They just look that way.  They’re beaten by all the overlapping and interlocking policies, rules and systems encrusting your company.
• Mistakes – Admit your own mistakes openly and joyfully.
• Mistresses – results in creativity in peoples expense account
• Moonlighting – usually mean the salary isn’t enough to cover living expenses
• Moving the head office – Get someone to arrange this for you and give them the task to make it standardised,  If it is on time, works reasonably well and cries die within 30 days it will have been a success.
• Nepotism, The smell of – keep family out of the work place
• No-No’s –
  • Reserved parking spaces
  • Special stationary for the boss
  • Bells and buzzers
  • Company psychiatrists (unless they only report to patients)
  • Outside directorships and trusteeships for the chief executive.
  • Company plane, golf club, big office, three secretaries…
  • Conning people
  • Social relationships within the firm
  • Hiring unless people are already over worked
  • Trade associations (could lead to price fixing)
  • Conventions
  • Greed
• Objectives – what is the organisation aiming to do, simply
• Office hours – whenever you want
• Organisation charts : rigor mortis – don’t you need to be nimble
• People – Try to build a Theory Y organisation where there is freedom and responsibility.
• Personnel (People vs.) – fire the department and just have the paperwork with payroll
• Planning, Long-Range: A Happening – Planning is handled by the boss, not a “planner”
• Policy manuals – Don’t bother.
• P.R. Department, Abolition of – let the top ten people speak for the company if needed.  They are just honest, pretend your ablest competitor is listening, don’t forecast earnings.
• President’s salary (Is he really worth $250,000?) – take a modest salary and with shares if the company grows it is win win.
• Promises – keep them
• Promotions, From within – As long as there is someone 50% then promote internally and they will grow the other 50% quicker than an external hire.
• Public accounts and the audit committee – the audit committee should ask things such as “Has anyone pressed you to do anything you-re reluctant to do?” “Is there any subject or incident that for any reason you didn’t include or didn’t give proper weight to in the audit report that you’d like to discuss orally now?”
• Purchasing department – fire them, trust people to get what they need
• Putting on weight – a sure sign of frustration
• Racism – stamping it out is a process and not an act, it takes effort over time
• Reorganisaing – should be done rarely, be well planned and swift.
• Retirement, Mandarotry – retire the chief executive every five or six years.
• Salary review: Annual encounter group – between annual reviews you have to acknowledge that at all times people are either over or under paid and there is nothing which can be done about it right then.
• Salesmen – 20% always produce 80%.  Have a commission structure which is fair.
• Secrecy : A child’s garden of diseases – What I’m doing is so horrible I don’t dare tell you or I don’t trust you (any more).
• Secretary, Freedom from a – have a good pool of staff services rather than a dedicated secretary as this produces much more value for all.
• Small companies – don’t take on big company structure too early it is a burden
• Staff services – great service different people can use to get things done
• Stockholders – turn as management and employees into stockholders because this makes the customer important.
• Stock options and democracy – Give everyone options
• Tax advice – you are looking for someone passionate not some suit
• Teams, Two-Man – Good and Bad – Sometimes a pair of people are the right for a single role as they will have different strengths.
• Telephone operators – make them feel special
• Thanks – a really neglected form of compensation
• Time: Three Thoughts on it – companies should be fun, new people need time to learn and systems take time to bed in – people are quick with torpedoes, some meetings should be leisurely and some brief stand for the latter.
• Titles are handy tools – these are physiological promotions and good sales for menial jobs
• Too much vs too little – space should be on the tight side, people should be a bit over stretched, money should be tight.  Constraints breed creativity.
• Training – only way to learn is on the job
• Underpaid – resign with the reason underpaid, reapply for your old job with the salary you feel you are deserved – you will be the best applicant.  If you can’t be rehired because of regulations this is not a company you would want to work for.
• Vacation policy: go when you please – no reasonable person will abuse this freedom, your worst job will be making sure people take the time off they need.
• Wearing out your welcome – if the chief executive doesn’t retire gracefully after five or six years throw him out

Rate your boss

1. Available – If I have a problem I can’t solve, he is there.  But he is forceful in making me do my level best to bring in solutions, not problems.
2. Inclusive – Quick to let me in on information or people who might be useful to me or stimulating or of long-term professional interest.
3. Humorous – Has a full measure of the Comic Spirit in his make-up.  Laughs even harder when joke’s on him.
4. Fair – And concerned about me and how I’m doing.  Gives credit where credit is due, but holds me to my promises.
5. Decisive – Determined to get at those little unimportant decisions which can tie up organisations for days.
6. Humble – Admits his own mistakes openly – learns from them and expects his people to do the same.
7. Objective – Knows the apparently important (like a visiting director) from  the truly important (a meeting of his own people) and goes where he is needed.
8. Tough – Won’t let top management or important outsiders waste his time or people’s time.  Is more jealous of his people’s time than he is of his own.
9. Effective – Teaches me to bring him m mistakes with what I’ve learned and done about them.  Teaches me not to interrupt him with possible good news on which no action is needed.
10. Patient – Knows when to bite the bullet until I solve my own problem.