See the whole board

Some people just get it.  When faced with decisions they seem to see what others can’t.   One second before they gave their view, you were floundering, not sure which way to go.  Now it seems so obvious it’s almost embarrassing.

We know this ability when we see it.  Here’s a 3-minute clip so you can see an example for yourself (link here if you can’t see anything):

At 2:20 Sam Seaborn says “I don’t know the word”, as he’s trying to work out how President Bartlet pieces it all together.

Well….there is a word.  Two words.  It’s called cognitive capability, Read more…

The five factors of individual performance (it’s not personality)

I think out of the box, I'm a type J.A.C.K

Managers in Australia love to try to ‘get into the mind’ of their people.  Robert Spillane’s book The Rise of Psycho Management in Australia‘ contains an excellent analysis of how this came about, and the effects that it has had.  One fact that might be startling to some is that the empirical evidence shows that the amount of performance difference that is due to personality is 4%.

Yep, 4%.  In other words, 96% of the variation in performance is due to something other than personality type.

So what are the factors that determine performance?  I like to use the model put forward by Elliott Jaques, if you want to go to the source, track down either Executive Leadership which he wrote with Stephen Clement, or Requisite Organization.

Here are his factors:

Cognitive Capability: does the person have the ability to handle the amount of variables, options and choices the role requires.  This Read more…

Have you created meaningful work?

I was given a great book by a colleague at work – it’s called “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, and it looks at the factors around success.  It builds a great argument that although a certain seed is there in all the ‘successful’ people that we know, an amazing run of right time, right place, upbringing and cultural heritage is also required to coincide for the tree to ultimately grow.

It’s an excellent read, if this stuff interests you, don’t hesitate to get it.

There was one bit which particularly caught my attention – a description of the New York City garment industry in the late 1800s, which sowed the seeds for a group who’s grandchildren would become some of the most powerful businesspeople in New York.  The garment industry required 18 hour days, back-breaking labour over sewing machines and often atrocious unsafe conditions.

It’s not a surprising image, and these work days were repeated in farms across America.

But Gladwell makes a key distinction for those in the garment trade: Read more…

Explain how it matters

I was catching up with one of our most talented younger people the other day, discussing some good advice she’d received recently about motivating people.  She spoke about the importance of providing context for people when you ask them to do things, like taking the time to point out how the task or the job fits into the rest of the work going on, and why it matters.

All good stuff.

The reason its true is that it goes right to the core of human respect.

Asking people to do something without explaining why sends a message that they are not as important as you.  It says that you don’t deserve an explanation because you’re not worth it.  If we take this to the extreme, we can arrive at serfdom or even slavery, where people have the same status as firewood – a resource to be used up.

But as humans in the world, we want to matter.  To our friends, our family, our colleagues, or failing all of this, even to the police or the jailer.  Whether it ends up good or bad, we want to matter.  It makes us real. Read more…