A few questions that I have been asked on a couple of occasions (e.g. after All-Energy and EUAA events) started me thinking – and what seems apparent is that some perhaps have the wrong impression of the purpose of being involved in events like this. read more »
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Paul Klaptocz pointed me at this interesting blog post from Stephen Few entitled “Malcolm Gladwell, modern problems, and the analytics age”.
With us having read two of his books many months ago (Blink and the Tipping Point – sorry, no book reviews up yet) and having previously discussed the follow-on from his 3rd book (Outliers) in my post about the 10,000-hour rule, I was curious to read further. read more »
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In recent times we have been looking to the future, trying to be more thoughtful about how we structure the many things we need to get through each day in order that we can achieve our growth targets.
Hence, I pulled out an old copy of the article “Job Sculpting – the art of retaining your best people” (by Timothy Butler and James Waldroop) which I had been given a number of years ago.
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This week I was interested to read an article in the AFR titled “Picking leaders the brainy way”. For internal staff, the PDFed article is in eLibrary.
This was of particular interest to me, as I know that this is a challenge that we have struggled with over the past 10 years. Hence, we’re keen to improve at it, as much as we can (and, by extension, if you can help us do so, we’d like to hear from you).
Note that this is not to say that we have a bad bunch of employees currently – just that we’ve had to do a bit of “getting the right people on the bus” in the past, and probably will have to do more in future.
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Following my previous post (book review of “Tale of Two Systems” – but really a consideration of Agile & Lean Software Development) I have continued to read, and think (yeah, dangerous, I know).
The following two posts will be of interest:
1) This post from the HBR Editor’s Blog titled “How do innovators think?” provides many good points (and some of the added comments at the bottom are great as well) but I want to cut to the chase and highlight the “5 Discovery Skills” included in the article:
Skill 1 = Associating – a cognitive skill that “allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas”. Like being able to find your way without needing a map.
Skill 2 = Questioning – like asking the “5 why’s”
Skill 3 = Observation, and (particularly) doing it really well – well enough to pick up nuances in behaviour, etc….
Skill 4 = Experimentation – try a lot of things and keep what works, as noted by Collins and Porras.
Skill 5 = Networking – the post notes that the key is that the networking is done with smart people who have little in common with them, but from whom they can learn.
2) I read in the comments that someone has already made the link with Agile Software Development. Here’s commentary by Bob MacNeal on his blog.
In particular with respect to Bob’s post, he has omitted the 3rd skill. I am not sure why he has done this, or if it is deliberate.
However one of the comments underneath sums it up when they note “To write great software you need to observe the detail that’s not included in the written version of the requirements.” (my emphasis added, as I totally agree)
Given the challenges, opportunities and uncertainties our business faces, we need all 5 in spades!
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An article “How to make the rats run harder” in the AFR recently pointed me in this direction, which is great. The article was written to promote a book “A whole new mind”, and references another, “Predictable Irrational” by Dan Ariely. We have dutifully added both to our Amazon cart and will review in due course.
The article, and associated materials, is very relevant to discussions that are ongoing within our company about how to meet the challenges of the next 10 years.
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As is noted ad-nauseum these days – the lower paid, unskilled or semi-skilled work is being outsourced to other countries, or automated.
For people in OECD countries like Australia, that leaves everyone who remains chasing a growing number of jobs in the “knowledge economy” [replace with your favourite buzz-word here].
To motivate such people (where creativity is a core part of the job), a fundamentally different system of incentivisation and motivation is required, compared to the previous (Taylorist) world in which a crude combination of carrots and sticks was good enough to achieve an outcome.
For those who found value in the previous post about the 10,000 hour prerequisite required to achieve “Guru” status in your chosen field, there was a related article in the AFR recently.
The article “Open your mind to growth” (15th September) was written to promote the release of the book “Mindest: the new psychology of success” by Stanford psychology professor, Carol Dweck.
As noted previously, I have challenged all employees (and a few absent shareholders might participate, as well) to select an area of value to the company and undertake (in that area) to progressively develop their capability till they reach “Guru Status”.
That’s why we found these three articles to be of great interest.
”A star is Made” by Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt
New York Times. 7th May 2006
(note, Dubner and Levitt are from Freakonomics)“Success is all in the mind” by Shelley Gare
The Australian. 24th January 2009“A wealth of explanations for earthly riches” by Sue Halpern
AFR. 7th August 2009
For employees, there’s copies of all 3 articles saved for each in our eLibrary:
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