Jul 20
Simplicity can be a choice, a feeling, or a guiding light. You can tell pretty quickly when you’re in a place that believes in it and when you’re in a place that doesn’t.
Simplicity has its own kryptonite in the equal and opposite force of Complexity.
– Ken Segall in Insanely Simple, p. 7 and 8
Obsession with simplicity is front and center in Insanely Simple by Ken Segall, the man who put the famous “i” in Apple’s product names. Even if you’re not an Apple fan, this book offers insight into the ways our organizations function. Segall looks at ten behaviors and values that support Apple’s value: simplicity.
He tells sticky stories about Apple and other companies. Sticky because they stick in my mind. I’ve been telling these stories to family and friends as I read, not waiting to finish the chapter before I’m saying, “Jon, listen to this one.”
The titles are based on Apple’s Think Different advertising campaign. The ideas focus on managing and leading effectively:
Keep your highlighter handy for the pithy quotes. Keep family and friends handy for the sticky stories. Choose the idea you’ll work with first. This book is light enough to be a summertime read and compelling enough to share with others in your organization.
How do you “Think Different”?
Read the entire article or browse the summary below. What are your meeting “pet peeves?”
Meeting after meeting after meeting quietly corrodes our spirits and our organizations. We are used to boring meetings, long meetings, meetings without a purpose. We are used to mediocre and downright bad meetings. We like to call them, but there are often limited benefits from attending.
Beyond the measurable wasted time, meetings matter. They matter because our organizations use them to make decisions, to have social interactions that create vital connections, and – most of all – they support change. Here are 10 “Golden Rules” that, when followed, can help to create more effective meetings:
These “Golden Rules” sound like good ideas. Yet, we still go to ineffective meetings led by outside agencies, bosses, team members, and peers. Why? We feel obligated. But if you ask the meeting organizer, they will say that they feel obligated too. The meeting is a gathering called by someone who has no choice, attended by others who have no choice.
The good news: you can choose. The meeting system can change. Act. You are too effective and competent to put up with meetings that don’t work. Choose to change your own meeting behavior. Choose to make your own assessment of which meetings are worth your time, energy, and budget dollars. Change happens when each leader and manager chooses to transform themselves and their organization. The opportunity is presented. Game on.
Jul 13
It’s been almost two years since I did a series of posts on Gordon MacKenzie’s Orbiting the Giant Hairball. Recently Jon read the book. He read “hairball” stories aloud and told stories of his own as ideas percolated.
Reminded of the book’s continuing relevance, I’m choosing to run the risk of getting more emails and links from companies specializing in hairball management of the feline sort. I’m bringing the “hairball” posts back to the top of the reading list. And, if you want a light, but thought-provoking read for the upcoming summer season, I highly recommend the book!
Start here (Orbiting thought – Over and out) and follow the thread or begin with Orbiting thought #7 and thread your way to #1.
Related posts:
My teacher got rid of my imagination…
Meep, meep …!
If you choose to read the quotes or the book, which experiences come to mind as you read?
This past weekend I visited the Kaufman Museum’s exhibit: In the Fields of Time. On a card, tucked into an experience station, I discovered a card with Dr. Emil Haury’s rules for his anthropology courses.
Several of these rules resonated with me. Patricia Crown included these in Remembrance of Emil Haury. She writes, “He repeated these rules in every course he taught and he lived them.” I share them here, hoping that some of them will speak to my readers as they have to me:
From: Crown, P. L. (1993.) “Remembrance of Emil Haury,” Kiva, 59(2):261-65.
Which rule connects with you? Do you have a story to illustrate a rule?
Silence is lyrical. Silence is energy. Silence is time: The space of time between the pulling back of the arrow in the bow and its release.
Or …
Teams are fun. Meetings and parties are energy. People are motion: The speeding motion between the arrow’s release and the explosive arrival at the target.
Not long ago in a hiring discussion, I overheard someone proclaim, “Of course the person we hire needs to be an extrovert.” I cringed. On the Myers-Briggs introvert – extrovert scale, I fall slightly toward the introvert side. Surprised? You’ll find me leading organization processes, delivering training, and speaking publicly.
The confusion arises from a misunderstanding of the scale. In the original Myers-Briggs’ definition, the introvert and extrovert get their energy from different places. Extroverts are energized by the outer world of people and action. Introverts gain energy from an inner world of ideas and concepts. The scale has nothing to do with whether people get along with others, are confident public speakers, or provide good leadership.
The fact that different types of experiences energize people is not a sound hiring metric. Opportunities and challenges exist across the extrovert – introvert scale. For example, research with groups at the University of California, Santa Cruz demonstrated that while extroverts talked more in the groups, they had a wide-range of topics and were “light-hearted.” The introverts talked less and focused on one or two serious topics. The extroverts appreciated feeling understood by having someone actively listening. The introverts appreciated the relaxed ease of the conversation (Quiet, p. 238-239).
Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking describes the value of extroverts and introverts in organizations. She offers ideas about using the strengths of both sides of the scale to build organizational effectiveness. Wherever you fall on the introvert – extrovert scale, one key is tuning into the energy of those around you. Adjust your communication patterns to meet them in their comfort zone and invite them into the conversation.
How does your organization work to embrace the strengths of extroverts and introverts? What does your preference on the scale mean in your life?
Susan Cain’s blog: The Power of Introverts
Susan Cain’s book: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
Related link forwarded to me by a friend: The Introverted Leader
Note: I followed Cain’s choice to use the word extrovert from the common usage, rather than the word extravert which is found in the research literature (Quiet, p. 271).
May 11
Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist
but the ability to start over.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald
My Aunt Elizabeth and I were talking last night about the fact that each of us remembers different shared experiences. What she recalls easily – I do not, and visa versa. I remember my Uncle Don taking us for a drive on Interstate 80 in Nebraska before it was paved. We drove down the paved ramp at Beaver Crossing onto the eastbound lanes, then covered only in gravel. We cruised with the convertible top down at 20 m.p.h to the next exit at Milford. What makes that memory so strong for me? Are memories personal or are they constructed through the stories we tell?
Neuroscience is still exploring how memories are made and persist. Yi Zuo of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her colleagues assessed how dendrites (branches between neurons) form in mice based on three different types of activities, compared to a control group that did nothing out of the ordinary. Her results: dendrites appear, grow, persist, and disappear in response to training and learning.
“I think it is a very active process,” Zuo says. “The neurons work very hard to form clusters, to place spines close to one another. Even after a short training period on the first day, a mouse makes a lot of new spines—they might make double what they make in an ordinary day, but these spines are not clustered. Only after repeated training are they clustered.” Previous work in her lab demonstrated that new neural connections form within an hour of the training session.
As human beings, memories are created because our brains are constantly open to change. Memories grow and persist when we are actively experiencing, discovering, learning, and telling our stories. Life-long learning is essential.
What are you actively learning and discovering? What memories have shaped you or your organization?
The Biology of Learning
Spine Tuning: Finding Physical Evidence of How Practice Rewires the Brain
Friesen Group 