Career V Lifestyle - Walking The Line

How much is enough when giving to your career?

A simple question was asked of me a while back “how much do I have to put into a startup for it to be a success?” Well my first thought was if you do everything right, you can still fail in a start up. The environment controls many critical elements of a successful outcome, which you can only influence at best.

Enthusiasm is a great asset, but if experience has taught me anything, it needs to be tempered to a wider frame of life.  If we don’t succeed in reframing to a wider view of life, we can get trapped in eternal failure by unrealistic ambition, over dedication to work and vulnerability to those who would abuse our commitment to their own ends. A great way to stay framed to a wider view of work is to think of where one is at and what they will get back in return for all their commitment. What will all those late nights of work bring? Money, status, influence, power and/or promotion??? Maybe, but can’t your boss “steal your credit?” Yes he can but the fact is that overfocus on our desire for money, status, influence and power has made us vulnerable to its dark side. We need to be smarter and think about what we WILL get from all those late nights that is ours and ours alone? If happiness is not on the list, then one is not at the races for a decent lifestyle! In such a case, lifestyle then becomes a career of servitude and unhappiness. It does not need to be that way if we assert our true nature in society! We need to find our own way and own our future!

As with startups, careers working for others require goals, a reward and a limit where we call it a day and continue our search for a better working arrangements elsewhere. Here are some points I have found to be helpful over the years when trying to balance career and lifestyle. Bear in mind I learnt more from my mistakes than from my successes.

• Core Values - Write them down, “I value... “ This may sound strange, but in order to think about our core values, we need to detail them and when they are offended, know when to call it a day. If our deep seated values are not defined, then others will invariably push against them allowing us to become derailed from our true selves.
• Passion - Always too easy to think… “ohh, I’d love to be an astronaut but the family need me to be an accountant, so I won’t think about it!” Well spaceman, if being an accountant doesn’t inspire your passion, find something that does and plan your route to it. If you really can’t join NASA, then find another passion to become your next career and plan your way there in detail. As the old saying goes “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life!”
• Goals - Write down your goals in life, your “bucket list” if you will! If you want to get married and have children, then make sure your path in life leads down that road. However, if you also want to be a 90 hour a week Wall Street executive, then maybe you should reconsider your goals in life; for realism is the ointment on which we heal from bad decisions and see in a better day!
• Balance - Balancing work and personal life is never easy but if you need to take a break from your personal life to make a work dream come true (or vice versa), make sure it’s short term and is defined by a plan to achieve a detailed objective. It invariably requires sacrifice, so be sure the cost is worth it. For example, I have sacrificed much to train up as a Software Developer and at this early stage am starting to see a return for my sacrifice in increasing competency in programming along with an increasing thirst for more knowledge in the software area. Such change is a very tough yet rewarding process. That’s part of ‘my journey’. What’s yours?
• Flexibility - Like all things in life, our intended plans rarely go as planned so be prepared to be flexible based upon your deep seated core values. Maybe a career setback becomes an eye opener as you see a chance to find your way to a career you love, not tolerate “a job” for a paycheque! Being flexible in a grounded manner is a way of life, which demands sacrifice to say on the right path. However, if you travel the right path, opportunity will invariably come knocking and being flexible is key to grasping it in whatever form it takes. Many paths lead to the oasis of happiness!

The above are guiding principles, which I hold dear based on a good upbringing and sometimes harsh experience in life that has knocked me on my ass more times then I care to remember. What I’ve learnt is that truly successful people won’t worry about failure, falling down or what the peanut gallery of doubters think of them. They focus on their journey, how they will achieve and when knocked down by life’s tribulations, they focus on getting up and brushing off the dirt so they can get on with their journey to a bright, brand new day!

Sources/Credits;

Pics;

www.pain-freelifestyles.com

www.boldbeautifulblissfulu.com

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1444069265785-78ef227de54f?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&s=3497761ffdc6be3a9ede9247c902c6be

Credits;

Feature photo by Angela Litvin on www.unsplash.com

Gifted with hope… The reward of the Continuous Learner

Learning becomes a vocation in life for those who truly embrace it finding… the value of passion, understanding and purpose

When at school, my main aim was always the gate, to get home in the evening, the summer holidays and of course for my ‘education’ to be ‘over’! When I finally completed my secondary education, I was relieved it was all over and was ready to be an adult...woohoo.. I’m all “grown up!” <<sigh>> Anyway, I eventually become a real adult and with it came maturity and perspective. The giddy hum of the teenage idling mind became a curious, passionate and purposeful drive to find out more about my place in the world and what my passion is... my “raison d’etre” if you will.  After the Military and Financial Management, I found a deep passion for Technology and with it a natural curiously for how things worked. If I had only connected with this sooner???

The irony of wasting time on things we think others want us to do and then struck for time chasing our true passions and place in life is nothing new. It’s something we all feel and the opportunity cost can weigh on us in an unfair manner when we eventually come to terms with it. At that point, we always look back on that part of our lives with the clarity of hindsight connecting the dots accurately.  Needless to say, it’s not so easy to be that wise in the moment ergo the challenge life has laid out for us on our path is duly set. So, how do we overcome this conundrum and find our passion in what we do before it’s too late?

After considering this at length, I have come to some realisations as follows:

• It’s never too late to find your passion and start again. If you find your passion, remember it’s a key ingredient to your happiness.
• Society may expect a certain standard, if its your path to rewrite the book of standards, make sure it’s a good read and you fit into your own narrative.
• For every problem, there is a solution. As Lao Tzu said “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Analyse and develop a step by step plan to change career and/or occupation and/or lifestyle based on passion, ability and real interests.
• Learn to love the world you’re living in. Be bold and curious about the world and harness your remaining time in it to become richer in character for being here. It’s not enough to skirt past life hoping no-one will see you and/or will not like you... embrace your passion and the world around you with both arms. Without the negative, you can not really live in the positive. 

 If we can do that, then the tenants of continuous learning become very relevant and useful indeed. What might once have seemed like a hostile concept becomes a cherished companion on life’s journey lighting up our minds and hearts with understanding along the way. If I was to say anything on continuous learning, it is that the more I learn, the less I know. Its that fascination with the world around me that drives my passion, purpose and contentment becoming a little wiser and happier at the end of every day when I think of lessons learnt, both good and bad that have been visited upon me during the day. When all's said and one, I can say... “hmmm that was a good day”. Not a bad ending for the bad days and only getting better from there… What do you think? Can understanding lighten your load along life’s path? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment…

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

www.communication4m.blogspot.com

www.digitalpromise.org

https://stocksnap.io/photo/1YE1LLNXGB

Credits;

Meetup.com - An evolution in community

Successful networking from the Country Club to Meetup.com is about community. Get the most out of yours today…

There is no doubt that despite the luxury branding of country clubs, the real value of membership lies in the networks you build there. Such networking has been going on since the dawn of time. Technology today has produced a great platform for networking called meetup.com which brings such formality to cyberspace with the ability to join like minded people in your area, which can be just about anything you can think of.

Like all groups, meetup.com groups are about the alignment of like minded people interested in a singular pursuit in a formal setting that society recognises and credits as such. The status associated with such groups is considerable IF that group gains credit and respect for masterful accomplishments. With formal networking effectively democratised via meetup.com, the skills of networking at the “County Club” once again come into focus.

Before starting out to network on meetup.com, be sure of what you want from it as much as what you are prepared to give to it. The benefits are different based on what brings people to the group. If you have not thought out what the appeal and return is for you, then you will not gain value from it. Some core motives for networking I’ve seen thus far are as follows:

Sharing - Passion for a topic is a huge driver in successful networks and indeed in successful groups. The will to share expertise, knowledge and understanding is a core virtue of the successful networker who is there to share.

Personal Brand - Those who are building their personal brand for job seeking purposes or business development purposes will do well also with a well prepared skill set they are willing to share on the networking circuit. The return comes in the form of gaining access to relevant like minded professionals, credibility for their skills and awareness of their offering. In essence, those who have the intention to share their personal brand in their hunt for a new job or new business will do well ONCE they share their business brand and establish a reputation as a credible professional first.

Professional Development - Those who look to stay current do well from networking, getting to know professional peers along with understanding the movers and shakers. Getting known per the above point is a definite benefit to anybody’s career. Get known, get accepted and get respected for your contributions.

When networking, it’s always good to be:

• Yourself, don’t pretend to be someone you are not. Those you seek to impress will see through any charade and penalise you for such an effort.
• Knowledgeable, if you have expertise and knowledge in an area, share it, give people useful takeaways from your understanding of a topic
• A good listener, those who listen more then they talk will come across as more credible, likeable and interesting.
• A concise yet honest speaker, if possible share your understanding in a concise manner
• Confident, don’t be afraid to introduce yourself around and work the room. Business cards are a good aid for this and if you don’t know something, don’t be afraid to admit it confidently. People like honest professionals, not pretend “experts.”
• Follow up, if you make a good connection at an event, connect via LinkedIn and Twitter (& maybe Google+). Don’t wait for them to reach out if you have something to share with and/or to say to them. Also, if you don’t engage them in follow up conversation, just making the social media connections is enough for now but be sure to chat with them for a few minutes at the next face to face event. Great professional relationships are built iteratively.

On attending meetups, presenter and group reputations are built mainly on the content of presentations so be sure you are getting some good “take away” understandings that you didn’t have before it. Chat with other members on what they thought of the meetup and what take aways they got from it? If folks are laden with happiness and insights then that meetup is a good one. If not, then the inverse applies.

The modernisation of an age old group skill called networking is viable today because networking still underpins real group relationships and is still the way to go for sharing of knowledge, expertise and developing your own career through learning/networking with like minded peers. If you are at a professional or intellectual crossroads, be sure to use networking as part of your action plan to get the out of your resulting direction. With it, your chances of success are good indeed!

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

https://images.unsplash.com/39/lIZrwvbeRuuzqOoWJUEn_Photoaday_CSD%20(1%20of%201)-5.jpg?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&s=decf952dc9ba21c5f5523b15a943e4f5

www.en.wikipedia.org

www.shopify.com

Credits;

Charles Forerunner for feature pic on www.unsplash.com

http://www.meetup.com/

Measuring Success… Taking the “Twitter” Challenge!

If at first, you don’t succeed… DON’T lower your standards!

They say “when you surround yourself with like minded people, you can do great things!” Often, we think of this in a startup context, but whether you have 2 employees or 200,000, this saying is equally as important for any company to enjoy continuing success and longevity.

Too often, the quarterly culture sets in and the mindset is over focused on “pleasing investors” with management lenses fixated a high level of revenue growth when the real casualty can be a longer term view of the company and its ability to grow and/or even survive past the short term tenure of serving senior executives and/or the next earnings call.

Twitter recently decided to clean house and unceremoniously laid off 8% of its workforce in a cost cutting measure. Some previously valued members of the team were laid off by tweet. As a developer, would you work for a guy who can lay you go by tweet? #NoThanks ! Twitter’s misfortune grew from the bad PR they got for their poor handling of the lay offs with a “poor earnings” quarterly call, which saw Twitter stock drop 20% on the markets. The fixation on pleasing investors apparently lead to overfocus on costs. Even with this cost reduction focus, Twitter still took a huge market hit on their below expectation revenue numbers. The reasons why didn’t matter apparently so how does this resonate for sustainability at Twitter?

Creating value requires a different mindset to the austere process of cutting costs, which is what Twitter must now be challenged with. How can Twitter raise revenue levels whilst at the same time be reasonably cost conscious? It seems like a big project proposal is on the way but what is actually lacking is a connection. I submit it’s not a matter of cost, it’s a matter of structure and resources. In short, if you want to grow, you need to harness the power of your people and connect them to innovation!

So, taking the ‘Twitter Challenge’, can your company realign itself to organisational structures, business practices and a company culture that has the following features:

Horizontal Workflows in organisational charts that formally allows cross functional communication, workflows and temporary dotted line reporting relationships to happen with view to (value creating) cross functional projects.

A documented process of employee innovation that provides a structure to generate, harness and return (employee) new product ideas into a proposal to project workflow building esprit de corps amongst participants.

A company culture that is flexible such as a clan or adhocracy culture. Such a provision will come from flexible two way communication, active management engagement with employees and systemic project resourcing for vetted new product ideas along with organisational refinement and continuous improvement projects. The new cultural norm should be change. It’s an exciting thought when it is structured, process driven and recognised by management as a key value attribute in their organisations success. To set project resourcing in context in a company, every job should be 4 parts function and 1 part project

Trust, managing collaboratively. If you want your employees to invest in you, you need to invest in them. Good employee health plans and 401ks are not enough. Involve employees in creating a sustainable future for your company and you will not only gain their trust, you will gain their engagement, commitment and expertise as they commit to a common longer term success. In such a context, you are asking them to live upto their potential, not to the limits placed upon them by their job description. Collaborative leadership turns “you” and “I” into “we!”

Investors. managing expectations.  Senior Management need to draw a line in the sand for some investors can be obnoxiously hawkish about short term results. Some fund managers make millions on shorting stock every day so if asked to take a chance that doesn’t satisfy a hawkish approach to profitability, they will either dump stock covering any losses on other deals in their portfolio or become very aggressive in their demands. Tim Cook of Apple addressed this issue when some investors became very aggressive on Apple’s position regarding investing in climate change and green technologies. His answer was clear:  “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.” Apple stock held because despite aggressive demands, management was competent and confident enough to stand on their own two feet and speak their minds. Investor relations should be focused on finding the right kind of investor to invest in the company’s vision for the short, medium and longer term future. It’s a meeting of minds not on revenue numbers, but on how a company will operate and what vision will take a company to many times its current size. Revenue can be relatively mapped to a longer term plan that covers all areas of importance.

So that is the high level “Twitter” challenge. It’s a daunting one for a company of any size to do. However, if you have and/or value the right people, you are ahead before you start. Here are some pointers on attracting and managing “the right people”:

Define your basic employee: What attributes does every employee need to have and how do you check for them pre interview, during the interview process and during employment?

Define your vision, culture and practices: What company structures will your employees have to engage in and will they be engaged by collaborative leadership delivering a strong vision for the future that has good employee participation in its formation?

Engage your employees: Are your employees engaged by management proactively practicing consultative leadership?

Provision and distribute an employee innovation workflow: Senior level management should announce, support and policy provision for employee time on projects, sessions brainstorming new ideas and management of the innovation process pipeline (proposal to project) with teams bringing projects from inception to market. Involve your employees in your company’s future and they will involve you in theirs!

The Twitter challenge if taken will challenge leadership to set aside a conventional notion that if a company cuts costs, it will be successful. This is a misnomer distributed by companies who got lucky to date and should not shroud the truth. The consistent creation of value is the only way to remain relevant, competitive and solvent into the future. Take care of your people by making them the drivers of new value creation and they will take care of your business transforming it into a sustainable enterprise that is more reactive to market forces. They will see it transformed into an organisationally flexible company that can react to, rather than consistently absorb market movements.

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

www.usatoday.com

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/03/tim-cook-climate-change-sceptics-ditch-apple-shares

www.forbes.com

www.mercurynews.com

www.thenextweb.com

           

Credits

http://time.com/3839011/twitter-earnings-results/

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/03/tim-cook-climate-change-sceptics-ditch-apple-shares

Communication, do we really mean what we say?

How the science is eclipsed by the art of communication...

We all love to communicate, it’s a part of who we are as human beings and is more deeply inset into our success as a species then we would think. Why? The answer is simple… we take it for granted. After all, who really thinks about one of our greatest evolutionary gifts in detail as we advance through childhood and onto adulthood launching a career or multiple careers? The art of communication is developed as we go and only a few think about the science that describes the process of communication, which we engage in, on a daily basis.

BusinessDictionary.com describes communication as “Two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange (encode-decode) information, news, ideas and feelings but also create and share meaning.” The process can be set out as follows:

Sender encodes transmission>>>Sender transmits message>>>Receiver receives message>>>Receiver decodes transmission.

This is true for all types of messages over all types of mediums such as a face-to-face conversation, a phone conversation, an email, a letter, a text, a social media post, a media article, etc. In the definition of communication, its good to note that there are two main types of communication that are in every message we send. They are verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication is described as “The sharing of information between individuals by using speech.” Non-verbal communication is described as “Behavior and elements of speech aside from the words themselves that transmit meaning.”

In non verbal communication, tone, posture, pitch, hand gestures, use of capitals/bolds/italics/colours/pictures (in written communication mediums) is all relevant to how the receiver receives, decodes and understands the entire message, both verbal and non verbal in content/meaning. When we look at it this way, we can see how even a blog article on communication has a two way communicative characteristic by the way the article is written in content and meaning to how the reader decodes the article. Do all readers get the same meaning and content? I hope so…. but the wider the audience the more impacting subtle inferences of non verbal communication are in the receiver’s decoding of content and meaning. So folks, I guess I need to get this one right then!

Figure d) Communication Styles Chart

As you can see, whilst we are all unique, we do fall into some situational categories when it comes to what style to adopt in our approach to people both in the workplace and in life. The need for mutual understanding is critical in all meaningful communication and thus I submit it should be a key metric in measuring effective communication. If absent, then meaning is also forgone in the message and a message without meaning is not an effective message at all. 

In my professional experience to date, I have experienced issues with communication, knowing when to speak up, hold my silence, etc. There is so much more learnt by experience thus I think it is fair to say that emotion is embedded in all communication driving ‘our communicative art’ over time. In a sustainable world, our ability to recognise emotion for its ever present value and vice is an inherent part of our success and/or failure given the subtle yet impacting influences it has on our ability to communicate and perform on a daily basis.

Figure e) Emotional Communication Wheel

I would offer the following pointers on communication to further the cause of effective communication for all.

Small talk matters. Small talk in in the work place is like walking on hot coals for some. Be that as it may, small talk has proven to be key to group successes big and small, so the next time someone asks you about your weekend, take two minutes at the water cooler to talk to them about theirs and what’s going on in the office. Its small but can aggregate positively to the overall level of group cohesion and performance/success potential within the group.

Watch your body language. Non-verbal communication is a bigger deliverer of meaning then the verbal content of any conversation. Body language showing emotions like anger, joy, sadness, happiness, which contradict your message’s content, inhibits the impact of the content and creates confusion for the receiver whom is having trouble decoding meaning from your message. Unify your message; encode your body language to be consistent with your content, which increases the efficacy of your message with the receiver. As a side, if your situation becomes confrontational and your counter party is aggressive, ensure your body language doesn’t naturally become aggressive in response… always respond to aggression with assertion!

Contextualise what you don’t understand. It is only human that you receive a message you don’t understand at some point. When you do, try to not make assumptions about the sender’s motives and meaning. If you don’t understand, ask the sender for clarification as to message context and what was meant by any content that you don’t understand. Albert Einstein once said, “If you cannot explain it simply, then you don’t understand well enough”. He is right, so don’t be afraid to reach out for clarification and contextualise the message ensuring mutual understanding is reached which after-all is the goal of the message.

Communicate collaboratively even in conflict. Too many people think conflict is an exercise leading to a ‘win-lose’ outcome. The fact is that this is an outdated and to be frank inward view of conflict which needs to be updated for companies and employees alike to suffer less as a result of it. A company will have a company culture and set of business practices for conflict but what has being proven in studies and experience going back over decades is that the more collaboratively you communicate in conflict, the better the chances of a successful outcome. Try to lean on a ‘win-win’ approach and communicate collaboratively based on interest based negotiation principles where you seek the goals and objectives of the other side, and explore ways to make it happen whilst not compromising your goals and objectives. The compromise comes on points of contention that arise in the process with mutually agreed outcomes on a ‘win-win basis’.

Never dilute a strong point with a weak follow up. Did you ever make a great point and wish you had just stopped talking at that point? I know I have done so and thus always try to focus on how I am going to communicate in terms of approach and content. What works for me is flagging these points in my head before I enter the conversation/negotiation. This allows me to keep them as content milestone markers in my communication, thus the conversation stays relatively on track and the milestone marker points deliver the essence of what I would have needed to say.

A stitch in time saves nine! Communication is about balance, when to act and when to not. The absence of communicative action is an act of communication in itself. Too often in organisational settings, the impulse to evaluate a possibly contentious situation using inward facing rationale leads to one accommodating the individual whom may be loud, brash and aggressive in their position on a point which you know is wrong but accommodate it anyway. This presents an opportunity cost dilemma that may come back to haunt the organisation in times to come. If you feel you need to speak up, then speak up based on the facts, communicate clearly and keep emotive responsiveness under control especially if the brash colleague decides to challenge your points which is often done as a defensive measure. Try to ensure the opportunity cost of assertion in a timely manner does not exceed the opportunity cost of accommodation for the company over time.

We all wish we had more time to take things back and redo them if we could, but the arrow of time does not afford us such luxuries, thus leaving us with the tools and measure of our experience by which to navigate one of the most critical and long serving aspects of human existence which is communication. A sustainable world relies on it… a bright future depends on it…

Source Links/Credits:

Definitions;

a) Communication

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/communication.html#ixzz35OholWZR

b) Verbal Communication

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/verbal-communication.html#ixzz35OjkRW7l

c) Non verbal communication

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/non-verbal-communication.html#ixzz35OkPSzmz

d) Communication Styles Chart

http://thecommunicationprocess.com/communication-styles/

e) Emotional Communication Wheel

http://www.problem-solving-techniques.com/Types-of-Communication.html

#Communication, #Sustainable Capitalism, #Sustainable, #Organisational, #HR, #People, #Company Culture, #Development