Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

I was pointed to this post on the Esther Derby blog by some discussion on one of the many groups I’ve joined on LinkedIn.

With Shirlaws reminding me that one of the enduring roles of the CEO being to coach (and not play), I am keen to learn as much as I can about this increasingly important part of my role in the company.

In my 20 years of professional experience, I’ve gained a fair exposure to a wide range of aspects of the competitive electricity market – and have some clear ideas about the needs of our broad range of clients, and how we can delight them with the software we develop.

The role of “coach”, however, is not something in which I have gained extensive experience.  Hence I’m keen to (and need to) learn as much as I can.

Nothing else to say now – just want to keep a record of this post for future reference.

This is the 2nd post on the topic.

The first post was made almost 2 months ago, and remained incomplete whilst I focused on higher priority issues (such as the recruitment of our GM DDD WCW).  In the meantime, we have had several conversations internally with respect to the implicit responsibilities of the position.

This post is intended to be a starting point, from which further refinement can be made once our GM DDD WCW has started with the company.

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The self-made man and his rags-to-riches struggle is often glorified in our society, especially in Australia.  The most endearing is the story of Donald Bradman: his relentless practise with a cricket stump and golf ball leads to one of the most illustrious careers in sporting history.

The Don is a perfect example of an outlier.  His batting average is a freakish 4.4 standard deviations above the mean, a statistical anomaly that hoists his success well above any other sporting hero. Michael Jordan has nothing on Donald Bradman.

The story of The Don is also typical of an outlier.  He emerged from Australian bush leagues to make a lasting mark on international cricket.  His habit of hitting a golf ball against a water tank has become part of Australian lore.  We attribute The Don’s success to the hard work he put in as a youth - he is self-made. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell contends that there is much more to success than a bit of hard yakka.
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I believe in synchronicity.  Yesterday, I experienced another small example:

1)  As noted recently, we’ve streamlined our working week to set aside Fridays for working ON the business.

2)  As part of Autopsy 2, we have all accepted personal responsibility for a range of tactically-focused projects designed to deliver “quick wins” within the scope of our current levels of competence.

3)  Hence, just yesterday (Friday) we had a number of meetings organised by a couple of different people as part of their role in gathering input & stimulating discussion in their areas of responsibility.

None of the meetings were outstanding, in terms of the input received, or outcomes generated.

So it was a very welcome point of input to open Scott Berkun’s book “Making things Happen” at the place I had last left off (p206), and read the following: read more »

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Had to chuckle one night last week when I saw (in one of the many books I am reading at present) the following passage:

When I was studying [about software] at [uni], it was common to talk to professors and students about new products.  We’d focus on what components these new software products used and how they compared against what could have been.  Value was … how much of the latest technologies they used.

Generally, we thought everything sucked.  Very few products survived our critiques.  We wondered why the marketplace was packed with mediocrity and disappointment.

We’d even invented geek conspiracy theories to explain the evil decisions, which we thought were made against engineering purity and thus made little or no sense to us.

Often, we’d focus blame on the marketing departments of these companies (not that many of us understood what marketers did).

Even in my first few years in the industry, the same kinds of conversations took place again and again.

Actually, it was more of a liberal dose of belly-laughter than just a chuckle, which brought a look of consternation from my wife.

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In the book “The Myth of 9-to-5” the authors note that it is a mark of growing maturity when an individual can reconcile the truth in two apparently paradoxial points of view.

Given this is aligned with my own personal philosophy, and the fact that I’m likely to need to refer to this point again-and-again, I thought it would be easier to extract this point to a separate post (here). 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 »

Dear valued clients (that means all of you),

This week we have had new business cards printed and I have personally changed my email signature. My new job title is “Magician, Miracle Worker and Mind Reader”, which is so much more fun and interesting than my old title “Product Manager”.

Of course I am not actually a magician, do not read minds or work miracles. I do, however, seek to understand your needs better so that I can better serve you and grow myself as an individual.

When I say I seek to be a mind reader, what I mean is that I wish to understand and learn about your needs. When I say I seek to be a magician, I mean that I desire to be able to conjure the best solution to your problems. When I say I seek to work miracles, I mean that I wish to provide you with service so exceptional it will appear miraculous.

Obviously I have a long way to go and learning how to do these things is a large part of my professional growth. I would be particularly interested in any comments or suggestions that you have in how I can better accomplish my goal of being the best product manager around. Please let me know what you think, I’d love to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Stephen Hurn
Magician, Miracle Worker and Mind Reader

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Having completed our business autopsy back in July and implemented a number of changes resulting from this, we have not left it at that. Rather, in a similar way to our philosophy of lifetime learning, we also support a principle of lifetime improvement (from a combination of numerous small increments, or larger step-changes).

Hence, we met with Ross Jolly of Sound Reasoning recently (following on from Evan Fortune’s presentation at an IIB event), and he mentioned this book.

This had been read and reviewed many months ago by someone else, but I did not recall the details**.

** This is one reason why we have instituted the process of having book reviews posted on the blog, for future reference as memory joggers (basically, to ensure we actually gain better value from what we read).

1)  Binary Review

Maybe because I could not recall the previous review, this book was not what I expected….

The Book	What we thought
“What got you here won’t get you there - how successful people become even more successful”by Marshall Goldsmith	. … but I found it excellent!

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