K.E.E.N. skills | The Fourth Revolution Blog

How to overcome interruptions

Interruptions is the scourge of our modern life. It becomes increasingly difficult to concentrate on creating something without being disturbed.

time between interruption — Time between interruptions today is… Zero s

The curve on the right is somewhat ironic, but doesn’t it represent what we feel on a daily basis? Can you remember how life was before emails and mobile phones ? (I have difficulties on my side, although I lived the start of my adult life in that faraway time).

Actually I dropped twitter because its value is based on being constantly connected – tweets disappear after a few hours or even minutes.

It is essential to keep in your life moments without interruptions. There are even some paying applications that shut down internet on your computer! Yes, some are even paying! (visit for example the page for “Freedom” (10$) or “Self-Control” (free). [Curiously these applications seem to be only for Macs; either PC users don’t have internet or only those creative Apple freak seem to need paid applications to shut down internet on their computer!!]

Anyway, there is one simple way to avoid being constantly interrupted. It’s free even! The image on the left is self-explanatory.

When was the last time you did turn your gadgets off to enjoy a real, quality time without interruption?

Do you master the Art of Asking?

How well do you master the art of asking? In a recent talk at TED, Amanda Palmer (the singer that raised more than a million on Kickstarter) speaks about how connection can be triggered by asking (and not just giving first!). And how by asking her tribe she got everything she needed during her trips.

“By asking people, you connect with them, and by connecting with them, they want to help you“. This redefines the economics of many fields, in particular music and arts in general: you create a connection by asking first; and then you can nurture this connection into a great relationship that is mutually beneficial.

Artists can and should be supported by fans, as broadcast of their art is becoming free. Like Amanda, can we make an art to ask?

From now, how are you going to Ask better?

How to Cut Through Complexity: Using Compelling Purpose

Cutting through complexity and simplifying complexity is a key value proposition for organizations and individuals. That’s why good consulting or coaching is about simplifying complexity.

One of the most elegant ways of achieving this result is to find the organization’s or individual’s purpose, and let them align their actions and issues with their purpose. If the purpose is strong and compelling enough, the rest will be certainly simplified:

what’s not a priority will be easily abandoned in favor of what’s important
what’s a priority will be clear, compel action-taking and destroy all sorts of procrastination.

Are you doubting it? Well, remember the last time you were madly in love with someone. It was a purpose. Didn’t your life suddenly appear simple, and wasn’t action-taking made easier? Didn’t you do things you would never have dreamed of trying before?

It all comes down to the compelling factor. To passion. If, when you think about your purpose, you don’t feel emotion, it’s not your real purpose.

Find your real compelling purpose. It will simplify your life.

How to Really Being Productive in the Collaborative Age

“Being productive isn’t about wringing every last minute out of every day doing something or checking stuff off a to-do list and building a relentlessly efficient system that allows nothing through the cracks.” – Amber Naslund

Productive Ape — Is that the way you are productive?

Now that’s quite an interesting thought, which is further developed in this blog post “Rethinking Productivity“.

Amber Naslund is an entrepreneur and she’s working in social networks business. She’s quite advanced in the Fourth Revolution. So, no wonder that when she looks at productivity, she looks at it from the point of view of the K.E.E.N. (Knowledge Exchanging Enhancing Networker): productivity of the K.E.E.N. is very much about creativity, not about repeating tasks efficiently!…

Let’s leave the last word to Amber:

“We need time to float along on the breeze. Have a casual, spontaneous conversation. Enjoy some silence. Write a bunch of random stuff that we never finish, and be okay with that. Productivity, at its essence, means being able to bring things about.”

The good thing, is that it just killed our guilt of doodling around (next time you’re asked, say that you are growing your next ideas)!

Focus means saying no. How often do you say no?

Here’s a famous quote from Steve Jobs about creativity:

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other ideas that they are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done.”

Again and again, in my coaching practice, when people develop plan to evolve and change their life, I encounter that one very fundamental question is:

“What are you ready to stop doing?”

It’s a tough question. It is hard – but necessary. You can’t just add up stuff to your life. Letting go of something you are doing shows commitment, prioritization, focus.

Are you as proud of the things you have stopped doing than of the stuff you’ve been recently starting?

Stop blaming, and take responsibility for once!

Naturally, we almost always blame someone or something else for our powerlessness to achieve what we would like. And the worst is that we often don’t realize it because it has become so second-nature to us! It sometimes take someone else to pinpoint this awful habit.

Whenever in a workshop or a meeting, for example in organizations, I instill the rule of ‘no blaming’, it soon becomes apparent how natural it is for us to find (good) reasons why we did not do what we committed to, or what we intended to. When you pay attention to it, you’ll find people fall all the time into the blaming mode. Not only blaming others, but also blaming the weather, the system, their family and/or their origin, and so on (our inventiveness in the field of excuses is truly fantastic)…

By the way, the higher ranking the participants are, the easier they will find excuses, which makes it even more fun to instill that rule of no blaming in executive or board meetings!

What if we would take responsibility more often? What if we would take responsibility for the delay, for the screw-up, for our incapacity to exercise more or eat less? Just taking responsibility changes everything. It makes us in charge of our own life. It stops creating this tyranny of unchangeable fate and destiny.

Once you are aware of it, you’ll realize each time you use blame and excuses. You won’t bear it any more. And slowly you’ll become more responsible. You’ll become more human. And you’ll change your fate and destiny.

What if we were all somewhat insane (and what we can do about it)

A nice definition of insanity is: to do things over and over again – and expect a different result.

How much of a creature of habit are you?

It’s quite amusing to think that we are probably all insane to a certain point. In our lives we often repeat behaviors out of habit and still, expect that something different will happen. That, somehow, fate will overcome our lethargy. Look at yourself and ponder how often we tend to fall into this mode.

It is so prevalent that it is sometimes incredible. Is that not the dream of the average person to somehow become rich and famous (refer to all the relevant TV shows) – and still… not to change anything, not one detail, to their daily behavior and occupation?

So, stop doing what you have always done, stop blaming everybody and anything for the fact that things don’t happen in your life the way you’d like. Change, introduce new experiences, even serendipity if you can. In summary – stop being on the brink of insanity by repeating ever and ever again the same routine! Come back to sanity by changing something – or even everything if you dare!

Why Conventional Organizations Are Not Adaptable

The basics of the ability of decision-making in uncertain environment is “confidence in the people and the flexibility of systems“. That’s the feedback from decades of military wisdom.

Did you realize that it is exactly the opposite of what large organizations do! They typically:

remove responsibility and initiative from the individual in the bureaucratic and hierarchical organization
build very inflexible systems (anybody has experience with an ERP system?) for the sake of ‘discipline’

It is amazing how much of my consulting work in the field of large complex projects can often be summarized in giving more confidence and empowering the people; and releasing them from the tyranny of complicated and inflexible systems.

I am almost keen to see a bit more of shake-up throughout the world to destroy those organizations of the Industrial Age that won’t be able to adapt because of these two basics principles which they have forgotten. Systems in particular are often used in such a complicated manner that organizations lose all agility to face unpredictable circumstances.

Maybe those organizations thought they could shape the world as a predictable world.

Luckily giving back power and leadership to people is what worked and what will continue to bring us to the next Age. Why did people forget such basic principles during the Industrial Age illusion of scientific management?

Quote from General Vincent Desportes in his book “Decider dans l’Incertitude” (in French)

What the World Needs is More People that Are Alive. How Alive are You?

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive” ~Howard Thurman

In the Industrial Age, not so long ago, society wanted us to become a standard conforming commodity. A class of weird artists was (barely, sometimes) tolerated. It is now quite obvious that boring conformity is not the best solution, neither for society as a whole (its needs increasing innovation), nor for us as individuals (we need purpose for happiness).

Yet most people are still asleep and need to become alive in the Fourth Revolution. They are not connected with their purpose or whatever would make them enthusiastic.

While it is difficult to envisage an organized world where everybody would be following its passions (some compromise might be needed at some point!), there is certainly a huge leap that can be made to reveal our common potential.

As a coach, what I am achieving most of the time is to make people become alive around a burning passion that they discover within themselves and that they realize can do more of it in their lives.

How alive are you in your daily life? How about NOW for a good time to wake up and start living?

If you want to read more about coming alive, visit Manal’s excellent blog post “What Makes Us Come Alive“, from which I noted the quote that inspired this note.

Why “Crisis” is a Subjective Concept You Need to Overcome

A crisis is “any event that is, or expected to lead to, an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community, or whole society” (Wikipedia).

cannons fortress — Preparing for the crisis

Actually a crisis is often felt as such for people who have something to lose. For people that have something to gain from the situation, it is often called “opportunity”. It is the same event though. It’s just the way we look at it.

An event that is felt as a crisis leads to all sorts of defensive measures. It is important to isolate oneself and one’s belongings and entitlements from a threat that is sometimes difficult to understand. One hides behind walls and prepares cannons to respond to the enemy. It is a very sedentary reaction.

Nomads with a light luggage will be more on the side of the opportunity. They will see a crisis as a possibility for change, for the better or worst.

Crisis is a subjective word. It all depends how you feel threatened and how you respond to the situation. Be on the side of those that take changes for opportunities!

8 Lessons from One Year into Entrepreneurship

It’s now a bit more than one year that I am really on my own as an entrepreneur and it’s time to look back and reflect.

Business Plan — Keep your business plan simple!

After starting my consulting company Project Value Delivery on my own as the single… everything (employee, director, accountant, webmaster, technical writer etc etc) we are now 3. Are a real Fourth Revolution company, we still have no office as in our consulting work we are mostly in our client’s premises. The market has been tested, and it is clearly there to sustain the company. The business model has been slightly revised but remains grossly what was anticipated at the beginning.

Here are 8 lessons learnt from this first year:

Entrepreneurship is not risky if you don’t over-develop before checking the market. The key is not to spend too much time developing a great glitzy product to find out nobody wants it. The philosophy is – do some homework to be sure you can do it but get the contract (i.e. a paying client) before you develop it!!
You need to define a niche where you are the best and only in the world – and have the discipline to stick to it! (say ‘no’ to other opportunities and to your other ideas if they are not aligned. Even if you are hungry, better say no to what is not aligned)
Don’t over-plan. Forecasts are wrong anyway. I am working with a 6 months plan that’s quite enough.
Be conservative in your finances. Keep sufficient money in the company. It will give you freedom: freedom to invest, to take time off to create, to say ‘no’ to an annoying client or because you want to stick to your niche.
Everything is in the relationship with the clients. Integrity and commitment are key to long term relationships
What prevents you from starting your activity (or asking for a client to pay the right price) is in your head, nothing else. It’s purely psychological. The lizard brain creates that fear of the unknown. Remember, today employment is possibly more risky than being on your own!
Make sure to have a permanent council of advisors you can rely on (if needed, get them interested in your business)
Once you have found a great idea that resonates with clients, the harder part is to figure out how to scale your idea (I am not yet there but working on it)

I am now looking forward working as a team with exceptional co-workers that have complementary skills, and not any more individually like we started working. Our biggest challenge for the year to come is to figure out how to scale and expand geographically. Stay tuned!

Shun the Critics. Create a Tribe and Connect with It

Seth Godin makes a great point in the Icarus Deception.

“Shun the non-believers. First you must pick yourself, then you must pick your audience”

Seth goes on to explain that the key is to grow your own tribe of believers so that you expose yourself often to people who know you and believe in your ideas. That’s also an other way to deal with critics. Make their voice disappear in the background of your tribe.

The thing is, it takes time, patience and consistent production and interaction to slowly create a tribe that is well connected with you to a point of supporting your initiatives. It is something that needs to be started early. Still it can be done. It must be done if you want to benefit from a louder voice in the world and from support for your projects.

It also requires to take a stand on a number of issues that are unconventional or outright contrarian. Because growing a tribe is like marketing: you need to define a narrow niche market where people that are particulary interested will join immediately.

How can you grow your supporting tribe to deal more easily with ever more difficult projects and endeavors? How can you define better your voice niche?

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