Month: July 2004

As I mentioned in my first post, I put in my resignation at work. It’s an extremely liberating experience. But unlike others, I put in 3 months notice. At work I do a billion and 3 things. I’ve created that niche position just for me and I’ve become “irreplaceable”. Which really means, there is no way in hell I’m ever going to be able to get a new position at least at the company I work for now. So when the window of opportunity open I said “why not”. Now the interesting things about it all is the reactions. There are people who are thrilled for me leaving, some aren’t but happy, there are the people who honestly don’t care, and then there are the people who don’t talk to me anymore. It’s funny to here the reaction or when people start the conversation as “I heard a little rumour…” or “Say it ain’t so”. I haven’t told anyone who hasn’t come to me with it first. It’s actually becoming my little interest to see where the rumour mill is going next.

I always considered myself open and receptive enough to look at the whole picture. To really see how people see me, but as this process goes I start to wonder. What else goes with the rumour? It’s the first time really that I’ve ever wondered. I’m not going to go down the path, because I personally don’t agree with the gossip gravy train, and I slap my own hands when I do it. But it’s still a wonder. How many times have people talked about you?

Welcome to the Fight Club of the business world: ChangeThis

Rule One: Everyone Talks about ChangeThis
Rule Two: Everyone Talks about ChangeThis!

It’s all about spreading the word in the underground. I can picture all of us in dingy, dank, club basements. It’s all It’s all about the Fight. But instead of exchanging fists and blows to the gut it’s about the exchange of the manifestos?.

Half of me is kind of skeptical. Will these “Manifestos” really be the statements they claim to cause the stir? Will they really cause the blood to boil or will they simply become glorified over-worded haiku’s

A tiger can smile
A Snake will say it loves you
Lies make us evil

• Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

The other half of me is very supportive. I think something like this to spread around the office is good. If people like Tom Peters and Seth Godin are involved it could turn into something interesting. I’m going to do my part so take a read
at the first Manifesto. Sign Up to read more. My full judgment is still holding out until I see my own blood boil.

Reading through my blogs this morning I came across a post from Johnnie Moore about Culture vs Strategy. The point about people interaction is a very important one, but what caught my eye was his example:
A while back I heard how the boss of a US hotel chain wanted his IT people to create a system to identify returning guests at check-in. The idea being that the receptionist could say “Welcome back Mr Bloggs” and win points for recognising him. The IT people tut-tutted and came back saying “Yeah, we can do this and it will cost x million dollars”. The boss was unimpressed and frustrated by the cost.

A few days later, he was in the lobby of one of his hotels and overheard the receptionist at work. Several times she said “Welcome back” to people. Our hero bowled up to her and demanded to know how she managed this feat of recognition.

“Well, see that bellboy who carries guests bags from the entrance. I have a deal with him. He asks “is this is their first visit?” and if it is, when they all get to the reception, he puts their bags down parallel to the desk. If it’s a return visit, he puts them at right angles. Then I know.”

This little example rang a few other bells in my ear about what I like to call Corporate Elephantiasis.

Elephantiasis of the system

So easily with technology do I see everyone looking more and more to the IT department for solutions. I agree that automating anything you can can have a great impact on business and open up doors and avenues which previously didn’t seem possible. But reading something like this reminds me of the simplicity of human thought. It was an easy solution. When reading this I felt a little shaken, because being a bit of a computer geek I fall into this pit all the time. “Let the computer do it”, “Automation is the future”, but this solution is easy and elegant.

It’s easy for companies now a days to make systems. They use the IT departments to find technologically “simple” (I say simple but with tech it never really is) ways to communicate information. But we find this kind of change takes time. As systems get bigger the get clunkier they become slower to change and less innovative. I’ve seen example after example of systems that if you want to change anything, it takes a committee 3 months to even decide if it’s something to investigate. Sure, at first it’s a cutting edge cheetah that speeds the process and holds back the demon. It helps and makes things better. But over time it’s like the human body and it solidifies. The skeleton after times starts to look more and more brittle. Rather then the ugly duckling it becomes the ugly duck. It didn’t take a million years or a million dollars to come up with this solution. And it took 2 people.

“People like me need to remember about the people like them.”

Elephantiasis of Head Office

The other thing that rang in me when reading this example was this: During coming up with solutions for this dilemma/idea, why didn’t this solution get sent back to the head office? Something like this should be communicated through and through. But then I was reminded of something from Tom Peters: Tom Peters’s True Confessions.

“Don’t always bet on the little guy, but do always bet against headquarters. Because headquarters politics will invariably and inevitably “bland up” and then kill any worthwhile project.”

Head Offices are nasty things. It’s a place where change becomes a monster. Like the system, the original cheetah becomes an elephant. Ever try to stop a charging elephant? Head Offices make “Committees”. And for me, who’s working on trying to build my own company, if I ever hear the word “Committee” in my office…shoot me. They are these mysterious entities with cultural memory. Every mistake that has ever happened is remembered in the head office. I slapped my own hand because I remember being part of this mob. Every new person who comes into the organization is a fresh set of eyes, but for some reason the old ones tell horror story after horror story until the new eyes have been beaten down, in a relatively quick amount of time I must say. Plus, so many “big wigs” should not be there. For those who aren’t in a management position and in a head office, take a look around people. Take a look at the amount of hidden fear that is around you. Take a look for the number of “yes”-people. Take a look at the percentage of suck-ups. It’s a war zone of politics and favouritism.

As you can tell, I don’t like “Head Office”

Interesting…I’m not a full scientist and even the dumbed down version is a little complex to understand but essentially people could be addicted to decisions. Take a look at this post on Corante.

“Contrary to the intuitive sense that we passively receive signals from the outside world and that our experience reflects this input, evidence is growing that sensations are usually preceded by a decision process.”

The article goes on to say that our systems will actually inject us with endogenous opioid peptides (??) which actually can act as pain suppressors, after a decision is made. And like the real thing, pain killers are addictive. This could definitely explain the term power hungry, it’s not that they are hungry for the power, they are merely addicted to the decisions, and the large rewards, that people of power make.

“Hi, I’m Nick and I’m addicted to decisions.”

When I was younger I was fortunate enough to learn some Ojibwe lessons. I was taken under the wing of a native woman who thought that everyone should learn these lessons, and so she decided to teach some of us wasitchu’s. It was a great experience to learn about cultural beliefs and ways. Since then we have parted ways but the lessons are always close to my heart, and embedded themselves in my beliefs. Where is this going? Let’s fast forward.

Everyone who has taken Organization behaviour has been introduced to needs theories: Maslow, Herzberg, Alderfer and McClellan. Now I’m sure there are other theories out there, but here are the introduction staples. Let’s take a closer look at Alderfer. His theory was a simple 3 tier needs theory: Existence, Relatedness and Growth.

Existence – The basic needs to survive.
Relatedness – The desire for relationships
Growth – A desire to improve

Now lets rewind. There is a native lesson I learned called the 3 Sacred Fires: Blue, Red, Yellow. The analogy goes, like this, like a fire there are many colours. But to truly have a fire that lasts there must be a blue flame in the center, your center. As you meet that the red and then the yellow flame will follow

Blue Fire – The will to be, the will to know.
Red Fire – The fire of equanimity, generosity, and compassionate wisdom
Yellow Fire – The fire of creative mind. The wisdom to succeed

All through these fires, if you have successfully solidified your blue flame, you can choose to help others with their fires, by lending your fire to help ignite theirs.

Sound like a needs theory to me. It also has a nice twist of community to help others with their needs. Tribes are high performing collective work groups. I’m sure I’m not coming up with a new theory here, but I’m thinking if there is a parallel between needs theory and the 3 fires, what other leadership or organizational lessons could be learned. The Native tribes like the Ojibwa survived through organizational behaviour. They were the masters of it and had to be to survive. So, what I’;’m going to do is take a look around and look for some other lessons or folklore from some or the native stories I know and some I don’t to see what else there might be out their. Who knows a little spark could go off and we could see an interesting old new theory emerge.

As I’ve been getting into the world of business, I’m still an infant in this world, I’ve been noticing a trend. It seems to me that people are afraid of the theological implications of business. Why is it that people are afraid of the spiritual in business? I’m willing to admit that my new eyes in this world are wrong. I’m willing to admit that I’m not reading the right places or seeing the right things, but if that’s the case, can someone please let me know.

With so many people around the world believing in something beyond, I find it strange that it’s not as widely spoken about in business. Words like faith are intently avoided. I came across a post that Curt Rosengren, The Occupational Adventurer(sm), made about meditation. I was happy for the fact that such a world like “meditation” and “centering” made it into a blog about business; I was happy at the fact that he was making a good point about the importance to take a moment to calm. But he then decided to keep going with, “I don’t mean wrap yourself in a pretzel and contemplate the sound of one hand clapping meditation.” What’s that? Did that sound like a little slam? My point here isn’t an attack on Curt, thank you by the way for triggering this little thought. My point is that if yoga or thai-chi or meditative chanting is a tool you’ve found to use, then use it.

You can’t be afraid to believe in your beliefs in this world. If you are where a suit and in an office you can’t be expected to put your spirit away in a little box and hide it. Their is a warning….you can’t shove it in people faces either. If they don’t believe in your belief so be it, move on. I’ve found the most interesting conversations and those most enlightening moments with co-workers are when I speak about the spiritual things.

The other day, I was watching an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. And interestingly enough I actually got a business insight from the Ferengi. Now, for those of you unaware with this species in the Trek world, it’s pretty much a business driven society. They have their “Rules of Acquisition” that they live their lives by. Business is their religion (which on a side note is another post I’m working on…you’ll see) Now ultimately, when you have rules like “Employees are rungs on the ladder of success. Don’t hesitate to step on them’, or “Never be afraid to mislabel a product’ chances are you might not learn a lot of desirable ideas.

But this particular episode had to do with “The Great Material Continuum’. This is what caught my interest. The analogy of this continuum is a great river. By steering the current of commerce “The River will provide”. This particular episode dealt with trying to obtain a certain item. To obtain the item the Ferengi character had to barter items. Now, some items were “borrowed’ and there eventually became a whirlwind of ruffled feathers and nervous people. As the deadline came closer and closer the whirlwind got bigger and bigger. But the Ferengi had faith in The River. Ultimately the task got completed and everything was not only put back, but their were also improvements along the way. Now to the ah-ha. In looking back at my life and decisions I’m guilty of allowing this fear to change the course of the outcome. Now, the outcome was good because of sound decisions, but imagine what could happen with a little faith?

It’s time I started from scratch again. As any of you who have been coming back to my site praying and hoping for any at all some sort of update, you haven’t been getting one. Why? I don’t have a good explanation. It’s just laziness. Well ladies and gentleman, change is in the air! I’ve formally put in notice with my job, and in about a little more than 2 months down the road, I will be officially an entrepreneur. I will be working for myself. All this has accumulated from gut feelings of despair and monotony. I’ve been educating myself, reading various blogs and becoming a little bit of a sponge for leadership and a bit on design. As a result, I’ll be trying to post more interesting articles.

New Look

Off the bat as you can see, I’ve changed the look. It’s the same but different. It’s been XHTML-ified, revamped using a nifty thing we like to call web standards. It’s not perfect and sure, people will always have something to say, but it’s the effort of evolution that counts. Along with the snazzy new colours I’m going to try and do a but of colour coding on these posts. If it’s a post about business, or pleasure, philosophy, or music, you should so see a difference in the post off the bat. I thought about adding more, but, half the appeal about the new look is simplify.

New Thoughts

Well with all of this change I’m sure a question is what will you be expecting with this new leaf? What’s different? What’s changed? You’ll be reading more opinionated and sharing types of post. It seems that I’ve got thoughts and ideas that I’ve been keeping stored in my brain. I’ve been afraid to share but I need to put myself out there with some opinions, some thoughts and some theories. If I don’t then no one will benefit, no one will improve and ultimately, I won’t improve.