Good questions and well-being at work

I am a big believer in the power of (good) questions. Actually I have not really come across "bad" questions so far. Yes, there are questions that bother me or questions I cannot answer or questions that are indiscrete... however that does not make them "bad" questions. Let alone that the sheer fact of dividing the world in "good" and "bad" is seldom a source of harmony in my opinion, for there is always one within the other in our world. Of course, the question begs: why should there be peace and harmony in one's life and especially their professional life? Let me renew a promise I made onthis blog: I will write something about the importance of harmony (even in business), as soon as I feel ready to do it.

Anyway, here are three questions asked by Ricardo Semler, a highly successful business manager in Latin America. He shares his experience in Maverick! and The Seven Day Weekend and I think both are worth reading. Now the questions:

1. Why do we think that the future is in God's hands and
then pre-plan every moment of it?

2. Why do we think intuition is so valuable and unique - and find no
place for it as an official business instrument?

3. Why do we agree that living well is living every moment, without
reinforcing past of future - but then spend most of our work lives
dealing with historical data and future budgets?

It's interesting food for thought and I realise that the more I read, think and write about those aspects of business that I experience, the more I come to ask questions that cannot be restricted to business life.

So perhaps after all life is One and the distinction between principles that would be applicable to my business life and principles that I choose to apply to my private life, is essentially artificial. Perhaps it is even detrimental to an individual's well being. Perhaps it is fragmenting that which is One, ie an individual's higher self. Perhaps thinking, saying and doing something about the well being of people at work is substantially more powerful as a means to improve the odds for a business than rigid procedures, ill-formatted templates and cost cutting programmes.

But of course, we may feel uncomfortable considering a different path from the obvious and established one. Do we feel uncomfortable doing something for its own sake and because we (not other people) feel it's the right thing to do?

To conform or not to conform?

Found on the site of the University of Michigan, this text is quoted from The Corporate curmudgeon (Dale Dauten). Quite interesting and thought provoking...

"A university once was thought of as a place for
freethinkers. Not now. The thinking is never free; it is expensive and shackled.
In the absence of freethinking, college has become a vo-tech for bureaucrats. A
diploma proves that you are a card-carrying bureaucrat, that you are willing to
do what you are told for years at a time. thus, you are qualified to work for
major corporations.

And when you go to the placement office, think about the
sort of companies that would want to come to a university to hire employees. Ask
yourself: If these corporations are such great places to work, why are they the
only ones other than the Army to have 'recruiters'?

If you want to live your own way, it is important to understand
that those who make a difference are nonconformists, rugged individualists. What
school prepares you for is a life as a hard-working non-individualist, a rugged
conformist.

You arrive at graduation ill-prepared for the life-long struggle
against conformity. Refuse to concede. Start by refusing to take the obvious
job, the one that pays the most. You've heard that old lie about 'He who has
the most toys when he dies wins.' Change the 't' in 'toys' to a 'j' and you'll
be closer.

And if you have to give up a few thousand dollars a year to join
a small, lively organization, remember that each $1,000 in salary is only about
two dollars a day, take-home. Would you leave a $5 bill on the dresser every
day to have a lively, energizing career?

So, if you want to have a chance to slip the bonds of bureaucracy,
you will have to look beyond the placement office.

You will have to search among the oddballs and black sheep, among
those whose shoes aren't shined and whose smiles aren't rehearsed..

No, do not go in search of a job, but an inspiration. Find a
leader, a guide. Find friends. Look until you discover true individuals and
then plead with them to take you in."

Talent?

I remember a comment made by Mike on this blog a couple of months ago
regarding how to identify talent. Let me quote something from Closework:

"[...] we talk about gifted people, but the most important
gift may be the talent to practise. The inner strength and desire to
keep practising on and on. That's something you can't teach."

Well, I am too optimistic about human potential to agree with the fact
that you can't teach or motivate someone to practise his or her art,
but I agree with the fact that, as Gandhi used to say, "an ounce of
practise is worth more than a ton of theory".
So perhaps one way of identifying talent is to assess how big a person's propensity to apply tools and knowledge is and how well they can practise their art... which is not necessarily well predicted by how "big" the names for which they worked in the past were.

This is not theory. This is what we did together with Mike when we recruited the development team of a small software company we ran together. We assessed technical knowledge, the ability to use that knowledge in practise, personality characteristics and fit with the requirements of a risky start-up. And you know what? That team was pure talent!

Closework!

Benoit, a good friend of mine was kind enough to send me a book he said would provide food for thought. The title is Closework and I found it incredibly engaging and definitely interesting. It's a business book that is woven into a novel or perhaps the opposite. The authors wanted to write a different business book that would not be "damn academic". Well, this one is not and it certainly feels like very practical stuff from the real world out there.
The authors argue that what ultimately makes a difference in business is the willingness to be in the field with the people who actually do the work and to facilitate their activity. What Closework is about is the absolute opposite of what big strategy consulting houses do for a living, i.e. engaging with Boards and senior management on consulting projects based on apparently flawless thinking. Flawless but not necessarily right in the real world out there, because at the end of the day it is people actually doing the work who hold the keys to sustainable competitive advantage.

Well, I kind of like that! I believe in the importance of people as key contributors to lasting success. And you know what? The places and "big names" for which one decides to work (or not) are not good predictors of one's ability to contribute. So much for old-world criteria for selecting talent.

I agree with most of what Closework asserts and I can say that working with people in the field has been the common characteristic of every single successful endeavor of mine. At the same time,  I feel it is important to keep watching the world, to keep learning (and unlearning) "theoretical stuff" and see how they can be actually applied and to be building actionable visions of the future. The combination of sound thinking and effective action is a key to lasting success in business in my opinion. I have not found my ideal mix yet, but I am working on it... in field conditions!

True. Especially in business

"If you want to know the past, look at who you are. If you want to know the future, look at what you are doing now" - Buddha

Mike's favorite quote

I found it quite funny... Thanks Mike.

"Never trust a tall dwarf, he's lying about something"

How infotech can help intermediaries strengthen their position

It's been a busy period lately... that's in part because I had tons of things to finish before taking a break. I plan to spend most of my next week improving my windsurfing / funboarding skills. One of the things I really like about windsurfing is the parallel to business life: using the environment, setting course and optimising my way of sailing to achieve better results.

When fundamental parameters of the business environment change and new ways of achieving results become reality, there is a need to adjust people, models, practices and organisations. This story is about IT and web technologies being used to strengthen the role of an intermediary rather than to disintermediate a business. Intermediaries can be extremely useful if they perform activities in which they add the most value.

A couple of days ago I spent an interesting half-day with one of my customers who is an insurance broker. His environment is changing  as some of the insurance companies he works with attempt to alter the balance in their relationship: they want to take over activities the broker used to execute simply because the organisational structure and tools currently in operation on the broker's side are not able to cope with demands for more rigorous management of the business. Clearly, the insurance companies have a point, but they also push the envelope a bit in the sense that they want to increase their control and reduce the intermediary's commissions. This challenge triggered my customer's decision to seriously review the core processes of his business and to set a strategic objective of becoming a value adding service node that owns customer trust and defines customer experience. The broker also needs to revamp their IT infrastructure and better exploit web technologies to be able to provide adequate reporting to the insurance companies and to better serve their customer base. The beauty of this project is that it could lead to the definition of the model insurance brokerage for the XXIst century in their geography. What I personally find exciting is how IT and web technologies can help an intermediary stay in the loop and be valuable again.

Disintermediation is not the only way to go with technology, contrary to what has been said over the past few years by consultants in dire need to prove the business case of their proposals by removing players from the chain leading from the production of a good or service to the customer.