An excellent TED presentation by Dan Pink on how money doesn’t work…
Archive for project management
ignite your presentation
This seems like pretty good advice for all presentations – along with use lots of pictures, no more than 4 bullet points and don’t read out the words on the slides…
“If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.”
does time help make decisions?
The Paradox of Choice at work in decision making
“More time does not create better decisions. In fact, it usually decreases the quality of the decision. More information may help. More time without more information just creates anxiety, not insight…”
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/i-need-more-time.html
boundaries help you achieve more
“Blank Page Syndrome: when presented with infinite choice, it’s sometimes hard to get started”
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000407.html
Without a boundary it is too easy to drift inefficiently, to strike off in different directions, to take your first idea, to freeze and stare at the blank page or to spend way too much time or money on something.
Cirque Du Soleil : The Spark, Igniting The Creative Fire That Lives Within Us All by Lyn Heward and John U. Bacon
“Oh, we’ve got budgets and deadline, all right,” she said. “Without them, I don’t think we’d be half as creative as we are. They force us to come up with solutions we’d never think of otherwise. Constraints on time, money, and resources can be incredible motivators!. Some of our most inspired ideas have arisen from the most Spartan situations.”
“So how do you turn these random ideas in to an act?” – “Deadlines!” He laughed. “Of course, they always come too fast, but without them, your mind is not focused. With them, on the other hand, your panicked mind starts coming up with crazy ideas it would never otherwise. If you have two days to design a transition from a trapeze act to a trampoline, you will think of something!”
recognition is the bell
“Pavlov was on to something. Ding… Recognition is the bell that drives human behaviour”
The Recognition Microscope: Fuel for Human Acceleration
Recognition or game rewards should be;
- Positive – recognition is not a time for correction or feedback, it is a time to detail the positive
- Immediate – the closer to the event or behaviour the better
- Close – best presented in the same environment as the behaviour
- Specific – recognising specific behaviours have the greatest impact, clear and direct link to an event or behaviour
- Shared – peer feedback is as or more valuable than top down
phone for a coach
Ask questions following this sequence of subjects, don’t suggest answers or tell someone what to do;
P – what is the Problem?
H – what is the History of the problem?
O – what are the options available?
N – what are the next steps that you want to take?
E – Exit or End, when will you speak again?
design language : target fixation
“Target fixation is a process by which the brain is focused so intently on an observed object that awareness of other obstacles or hazards can diminish.
Also, in an avoidance scenario, the observer can become so fixated on the target that they will forget to take the necessary action to avoid it, thus colliding with the object.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation
A case of priming and visualisation helping to achieve a goal, either intentionally or unintentionally. Overly focusing on risks and potential negative outcomes could increase the changes of them happening.
design language : simplification failure
Simplification failure; the process of allowing a simple elegant concept, to slide with the addition of needless complexity or overly fussy details during a detailed design phase.
Fear of something simple not being enough, encourages people to add complexity and detail.
predictions are hard
“Predictions are hard, especially when they are about the future”
Yogi Berra
big numbers
In general, are more influenced by big numbers, regardless of the value. People tend to overestimate differences between small quantities/numbers and underestimate the differences between larger one.
“You would probably never sell out your friend for $5. But 500 cents? Now you’re talking!Sure, the value is the same, but researchers have found that people are often lured into making decisions by numbers that seem bigger than they really are.”
5 temptations
temptation #1 choosing status over results
temptation #2 choosing popularity over accountability
temptation #3 choosing certainty over clarity
temptation #4 choosing harmony over conflict
temptation #5 choosing invulnerability over trust
The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, Patrick Lencioni
risks in over simplifying the complex world
“The market movements in the eighteen months after September 11, 2001, were far smaller than the ones that we faced in the eighteen months prior – but somehow in the minds of the investors they were more volatile. The discussions in the media of ‘terrorist threats’ magnified the effect of these market movements in people’s heads. This is one of the reasons that journalism may be the greatest plague we face today – as the world becomes more and more complicated and our minds are trained for more and more simplification“
from Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
always looking for simple solutions?
“It’s now a well-documented that we in the West have a strong cognitive bias to simplistic explanations. And thus simple solutions.”
The geography of thought: how culture colors the way the mind works – Richard Nisbett
• The West is reductionist, the East is holistic
• The East is accepts contradiction, the West must be consistent
• The West focuses on the object, the East observers the context
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the effect of cultural legacy on behaviour and success. E.g. Eastern cultures with a history of rice farming that demands consistent attention tending to be better at maths, than western cultures that have more ‘fire and forget’ crop systems.
11 commandments of leadership
- Get comfortable being uncomfortable
- Working is not about you…
- Results matter, always
- Management is 90% thinking and 10% doing
- There are no random acts of management
- People will make important what you pay attention to
- Make BIG jobs
- You can only respond to behaviour
- You don’t have to respond to everything
- Think before you act or speak
- Reflect and learn
is your work meaningful?
Malcolm Gladwell : Outliers
“…autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward – are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.”
it is all about to change, only more so…
Shift Happens
http://www.slideshare.net/jbrenman/shift-happens-33834?type=powerpoint
simple facts presented nicely, offering huge implications
in command and out of control
“the first thing I told our staff is that we would be in command and out of control,” Van Riper says echoing the words of management guru Kevin Kelly. “By that, I mean that the overall guidance and the intent were provided by me and the senior leadership, but the forces in the field wouldn’t depend on intricate orders coming from the top. They were to use their own initiative and be innovative as they went forward….” Paul Van Riper, US Marine commander.
quoted from Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
Arsenal team psychology
The team:
* A team is as strong as the relationships within it. The driving force of a team is its member’s ability to create and maintain excellent relationships within the team that can add an extra dimension and robustness to the team dynamic.
* This attitude can be used by our team to focus on the gratitude and the vitally important benefits that the team brings to our own lives. It can be used to strengthen and deepen the relationships with it and maximise the opportunities that await a strong and united team.
Our team becomes stronger by:
- Displaying a positive attitude on and off the pitch
- Everyone making the right decisions for the team
- Have an unshakeable belief that we can achieve our target
- Believe in the strength of the team
- Always want more – always give more
- Focus on our communication
- Be demanding with yourself
- Be fresh and well prepared to win
- Focus on being mentally stronger and always keep going until the end
- When we play away from home, believe in our identity and play the football we love to play at home
- Stick together
- Stay grounded and humble as a player and a person
- Show the desire to win in all that you do
- Enjoy and contribute to all that is special about being in a team – don’t take it for granted
productivity list
1. Do one thing at a time
2. Know the problem
3. Learn to listen
4. Learn to ask questions
5. Distinguish sense from nonsense
6. Accept change as inevitable
7. Admit mistakes
8. Say it simple
9. Be calm
10. Smile
http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue8/fischliweiss_workingitout.htm
would not could
Would you help me is more powerful and effective than could you help me…
Would focuses on willingness, could is more a question?
