Category: K.E.E.N. skills

Why you should first depend on trust… and still put it in writing!

Contracts and how to behave with them are one of the most frequent issues in many instances, in particular in professional activities. In my case, it applies particularly in the field of project management activities.

contract photoShould we have a contract? What should be in there? How should one behave with respect to the other party? Be extremely contractual and formal or be relatively informal and rely on the contract only as a last resort reference? Opinions on the matter vary, behaviors are tainted with cultural differences.

One of the best guidance I found is: “Get it in writing but depend on trust“. It is a quote from an excellent book by Gerald Weinberg, ‘the Secrets of Consulting‘.

It sums it all: those that are coldly contractual are wrong. Those who are all in talking and not in writing are wrong. Both won’t get anywhere.

In all instances I have found that whatever the contractual environment, the bureaucracy and the expectations of compliance, trust needs to be created, maintained and developed between parties for things to happen. And the best project managers and managers understand that. They will try to develop trust with their counterparts.

Depend on trust. You’ll go far. Just put it in writing too!

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Why You Need to Reboot Your Life

Mitch Joel is a well known blogger, founder of a marketing agency specialized in social media. He published a few months ago his new book, ‘Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It‘.

This book is excellent and is based on very much the same philosophy as the Fourth Revolution. An entertaining slideshow and even a video are available to explain the basic concept of the book (and take an other view on the Fourth Revolution!). Enjoy!

So, are you ready to hear that you need to change to remain employable in 5 years?
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Why You Should Stop Asking for Permission

In the Industrial Age we’ve been raised to ask for permission before doing anything. That was part of our basic education as polite and obedient workers.

If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permissionThe thing is, nowadays and as at any time, to create great stuff, it is essential not to ask for permission.

When you are in an organization or any kind of social setting and you have a great idea, if you start asking for permission, you’ll never get it or you’ll become upset before you get it.

Practice the Jesuit saying: “It is much easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission“!

Just go and do it. Even if it means diverting some resources here and there. If the idea is good they’ll follow.

The next time you’ll realize you are about to ask for permission, pause a second and ask yourself if that’s really the right thing to do!

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Why Don’t You Start What You Want to Do NOW?

The quote on this picture I encountered in internet by chance struck me.

the most dangerous riskIndeed it is a great risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the consideration you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.

It assumes a bet on life, on the future. Some people indeed work like mad looking for an enjoyable retirement without ever taking advantage of it.

Is it really the most dangerous risk of all? In terms of personal balance it is certainly a great risk. Still sometimes it is great to have the possibility to take advantage of available opportunities to fund or prepare a future venture. I don’t think it is a problem if it corresponds to a clearly defined period that does not exceed a pair of years, and relates to a clear plan.

If you are like me, it is still good to remember sometimes that it is important to take advantage of the present moment and not bet everything on the future in particular further than a few months away.

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Why We Should Strive for Complex, but not for Complicated

I loved this Gapingvoid cartoon by Hugh McLeod. Remember first why Complex is not the same as Complicated.

strive_for_complexAccording to him,

Complex is intrinsic. Something is complex if it involves a lot of moving parts, even at its most basic.

Complicated is extrinsic. Something is made complicated by external factors, made complicated by stuff that’s non-essential.

Even the most simple of lives are complex… so much that can go wrong, so much needing taken care of. That doesn’t give one an excuse to make things more complicated than they need be. In fact, the opposite is true, especially in business.

Add to this that in a complex world, good (and bad) surprises and discontinuities can appear that can be exploited as opportunities.

So, when do you ditch Complication for Complexity in your life?

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What Luck is Really About

“Victory awaits him, who has everything in order – Luck we call it. Defeat is definitely due for him, who has neglected to take the necessary precautions –Bad Luck we call it” – Roald Amundsen.

"Lucky" Amundsen at the South Pole - December 1911
“Lucky” Amundsen at the South Pole – December 1911

Amundsen is known to be the leader of the first successful expedition to the South Pole, beating Scott who was comparatively very ill-prepared and died on the return journey (after  the heart-breaking discovery of Amundsen’s Norwegian flag at the South Pole!).

 

 

This probably summarizes a philosophy of luck that many of us should adopt as a general approach to life!

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Do You Have the Courage of Persistence?

In the post “What’s Your Brand of Courage“, Danny Iny insists upon the different brands of courage: either the fiery exuberant type, or the day-to-day persistent type.

Which one is the most effective? Except in a few occasion (which should not be underestimated as sometimes lives can be deeply changed in those rare events), it is probably the persistence courage that is probably the most important to achieve our goals.

Courage does not always roar
Will YOU try again tomorrow?

This quote by Mary Anne Radmacher that Danny Iny’s refers to made a great impression on me. Courage is indeed often the quiet voice at the end of the day saying “I will try again tomorrow“. It is courage against complacency, the courage to build up something stone after stone, step after step.

Those of us that show this courage of persistence are possibly more courageous overall than those heroes society shows us on film, books or TV. It’s less glamour, but it’s what changes the world.

Remember. When you’re persistent, you show great courage. Be proud!

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How to do your best work

Looking back at when I have done by best work – that is, the work that changed people or organizations, I realize that it is always linked to situations where I exposed myself. And the more I exposed myself, the more effective the result was.

When I was younger I thought you could change the world by the mere power of ideas and intellectual research. That is not the case – or at least it is a very slow way of changing things. Change happens much more effectively through direct intervention – and exposure.

Speaking microphone
C’mon, what are you waiting for? Speak and say what you have to say!

Exposure is tough. It involves overcoming the inevitable feeling of vulnerability. But be it giving a speech on stage, standing up facilitating, giving tough one-to-one feedback, change happens best when the occasion is at the brink of a crisis. When I feel that I am crossing the yellow line just so slightly by not staying in that nice cozy world of unsaid issued. Saying up and loud something people don’t want to hear, showing inadequacies, and at the same time showing the way to change is the most effective way to create change the world needs.

It’s tough to expose oneself. It involves risk. It is emotionally draining. That’s the only way to be an agent of change. Expose yourself!

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Best Single Word Career Advice: Squiggle!

I had an inspiring read of the latest book by Mitch Joel, a leading digital marketing guru, titled ‘Ctrl Alt Delete: reboot your business, reboot your life. Your future depends on it‘. It is an excellent book on the Fourth Revolution (which he calls the ‘business purgatory’), with one half about business reboot and the other half about personal reboot. (Unfortunately the book does not seem to be available in Kindle format, only paperback or hardcover, which might make it harder to get).

careerAdviceAnyway, I found there an excellent career advice, and a new concept, the squiggle:

Very few people set out in life to be the people that they have become. Even fewer know that they are going to be in a specific industry from a very young age. The most successful and interesting entrepreneurs and business people don’t have a very linear career path. In fact it is actually very squiggly. Always bear that in mind. Embrace the squiggle.

Let’s push a bit the concept. You won’t ultimately be successful in what you are doing now – both because what you’ll be doing tomorrow might not have been invented yet, and because it is by having a squiggly career that you will finally bring together the knowledge that will redefine your field.

Be squiggly to be successful. Ready to squiggle?

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How to Exploit the Fact that Life is Richer at the Interfaces

It is a constant biological observation that life is always richer at the interface. Take intertidal zones (the zones that are covered and uncovered by tides), the interface between the sea and the air, between earth and the atmosphere etc… On the reverse, life is much poorer in the middle of all single environments. And those animals and plants living at the interface are also much more adaptable to all sorts of new circumstances.

Rich life in intertidal zones
Rich life in intertidal zones

It is the same in life and business. However we have been educated to live best in a single environment and we are often unconfortable to sit at the edge of our environment or at the interface between two disciplines.

This is a mistake because opportunities are much richer there. First, there is much less competition because it means that you are able to be comfortable in at least two different environments. Second, it gives great opportunities to connect people and resources of both environments to create something new of high value. Third, it is the source of fantastic creativity when it comes to transferring to an other environment the knowledge gained elsewhere.

Don’t develop your career in a single environment. Make sure you can be comfortable at the Interfaces, at the fringe. This will give you an edge and allow you to create unprecedented value.

Next time you think about where to develop yourself professionally or personally, think about interfaces and how rich they can be in opportunities!

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A glimpse into the developing world of online freelancing

ODesk, one of the online marketplaces for freelancers, released an interesting figure of the ‘long tail’ of freelancers, based on its database of job openings vs skills.

ODeskFreelanceLongTail smallWhat this figure shows is that although the web-related specialties obviously dominate, a number of other skills are now visible on these marketplaces. What’s even more interesting is the emergence of more specialties including Engineering and Architectural Design.

An other interesting source of information on the freelance market is the ‘state of the freelance‘ study by Elance (an other freelance market place) in Sept 2012. Some of the data needs to be considered with caution as it is somewhat an infomercial, but there are some interesting observations:

  • lots of on-line freelance (38%) are from generation X, and not all are millenials!
  • most online freelance are full-time
  • overall, all these freelance marketplaces see a healthy grow in jobs and freelance revenue transiting.

It will be interesting to see how much this trend will spread in the next few years. While the number of skills will expand, my prediction and experience is that online freelancing is somewhat limited to simple tasks and cannot replace the need to organize a project team, which will remain the key competence, in particular if it comes to organize a project team of online freelancers!

More on the figure data origin and interpretation on the ODesk blog.

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Are you another victim of the illusion of risk avoidance?

“If you risk nothing, you risk everything“

No risk, no view! At the edge of the cliff
No risk, no view!

That’s a famous quote that is too often forgotten. Our Industrial Age civilization tries to make us forget about risk. It provides all sort of ‘protections’ which might not be protecting us so well after all (think for example, unemployed persons’ management) and tends to hide sickness and death. It makes us think that great education can provide a risk-free life as an employee of some large organization.

It is an illusion to think we can live without risk. It is an illusion to try to avoid risks. Doing nothing, not moving is the biggest risk of all. Even if it is successful, it means avoiding so many opportunities, avoiding contributing your bit to the world.

There is just one single truth: our risk of dying someday has 100% probability. Our risk of dying someday without having contributed to build our world is… based on how much risk you take.

What about trying to take some reasonable risks just now?

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