Month: May 2020

I almost always dislike trying new things, or doing something for the first time.

I love to eat familiar foods, but am not adventurous. When I’m in situations where it would “rude” not to eat something I employ the missionary prayer, “Lord, I’ll put it down if you keep it down.” This does not help my digestion.
I get anxious traveling to places I haven’t been before.
I don’t like playing new games against experienced players, because I don’t like looking like an idiot.
I start many things privately but give up before going public with them.
I’ve tried a few times with things like piano, learning Spanish, sketching – and quit because I’m not good instantly and everything feels awkward and difficult.
I experience a strong compulsion to change the topic when a conversation wanders into an area I know little about.
I can think of only a handful of times I liked a surprise.

Indeed, I’m loaded up with limiting behaviors. See how every item started with “I”? That shows part of the problem – being overly self-focused!

I shared this list with a colleague recently and she was floored. “But you write books! You’ve been all over the world! People think you’re brave.” All nice to hear, of course, but mostly proof that I’m a modestly good actor.

The discipline for me, and perhaps for you, too, is to act in spite of my initial preferences. The joy on the “other side” is worth discomfort now.

The place I have the most opportunity for growth is to stick with important new things long enough to get good. I need to get through the awkward stage by reframing it as a natural part of skill development. I need to stop letting myself off the hook with excuse after excuse – training, not trying.

There’s a small % of people who have a keen awareness of deep things, far different than the common mass of people who sleep-walk through life. They have a heightened awareness of what’s really going on in the world.

I think it’s maybe 1% of the population. (Yes, 62% of the population thinks they are in this group. It’s like 92% of people believing they are an above-average driver.)

I think it’s 1% of the population on a given day, in truth. I’m in that population some days, but not every day. I write that with some trembling.

It’s a gift.

I’ve read many biographies and accounts of these rare geniuses. For many, their gift was a terrible curse which led them to drinking and depression and self-destructive distraction. When you see clearly, you’ll see pileups of crap around glimpses of beauty.

What’s the cure for this curse? To see yourself as a steward of the responsibility. Run your race, not the race others make up for you. Work within your circle of influence. Work patiently. It’s a stewardship of adventure, so not every chapter is loaded with laughter and fun. Don’t go for numbness. Turn your face into the wind. Prevail.

The time has come: You want to apply for an open position.  

Open positions exist because someone has a problem (or set of problems) that need to be solved.  Your goal is to help them see how you will solve that problem.  Tailoring your resume takes effort, and it helps people see you being successful in a completely new role.  Far too many people use one resume for every position.  Be smarter.  If someone doesn’t choose to interview you, let it be for circumstances beyond your control, not the quality of your effort.

The purpose of the cover letter is to induce someone to look seriously at your resume.  The purpose of the resume is to persuade someone that you’re a fit for the open role and worth interviewing. 

Open secret: Hiring managers don’t like to work hard.   Therefore you need to create a path of low resistance by showcasing your skills and experience in a way that it’s easy to imagine you being successful in the position. 

Start with your cover letter.  It’s not enough to have some perfunctory, “I’d like to talk with you about this role, thanks, looking forward to hearing from you.”  Give one or two sentences in the cover letter that highlight how your experience is a fit to specific requirements.  Said another way, translate your work history into results-driving skills which match their need.  That entices them to look more carefully at your resume.

You resume must highlight results (quantification, quantification, quantification) that demonstrate relevant skills and experiences.  I’ve seen gobs of resumes which state “excellent project management and people management skills” but it’s just words without some evidence.   

Project management is a common skill requirement.  What quantitation could you include about delivering on-time, on or under budget, with what team size, to deliver what $$ or measurable benefit to the organization?  Was there any recognition for what was delivered?  These speaks volumes more to a hiring manager than “PM certified” statements without specifics.

If the open position calls for driving change, what’s in your history that demonstrates you’ve done it successfully?  What numbers and results back that up? 

If the open position requires influence without full authority (very common), what stories can you highlight that demonstrate your skill that can be believably reproduced in the future? Use numbers and specifics. 

Many roles require learning areas, and repeatedly developing new skills.  What could you call out from your role transitions throughout your career (again – quantitatively demonstrated) that showcases adaptability and rapid information acquisition?

Don’t create a list of skills or certifications.  Demonstrate those by the results you highlight in your work history.  Weave these into a deliverable when the job posting calls for specifics (e.g., “PMP certification required”).

When I applied to an R&D role to “bring the outside in, more effectively” I showcased what I’d done in IT roles which required effective 3^rd-party interactions, selling the external to internal audiences, and delivering a better result because of it.  I had applied for an operations role earlier on, where I used the same set of experiences to emphasize my ability to streamline operations and improve efficiency.  When I was asked to apply for a non-IT role that required substantial writing I showcased both my internal writing in the context of leading IT projects and teams and highlighted published work outside the company to demonstrate breadth of ability.  That scored an interview for me, even though the hiring manager said “I never imagined an IT guy could fit this job.”  

The most important things you can do with your resume is accentuate perspectives on your work history which make it easy for a hiring manager to imagine your success in the role.   Bonus: This work of tailoring your resume is excellent down payment for preparation for the coming interview. 

Additional recommendations on content and formatting:

• One page, and dense with results.
• Skip the fancy fonts and colors.  HR systems of big companies is that submitted resumes and cover letters are scanned and stripped for keywords.  If you’re apply for a role where artistry is required or a plus, then send people to a link with example work displayed.  You can use the space on one page better: Pack it with results.
• Group your experience by role, listing results for each.
• Double-check dates.  Ask someone else to spell-check (our capacity for spelling blindness seems endless).
• You should have references lined up as you go into job application mode, but you don’t need to list references on your resume. Interviewers will ask.  Smart interviewers will certainly check with references before making you an offer.
• Only list affiliations and “non-work” activities which are relevant to the open position.

(Note: I’m a fan of the Manager-Tools.com guidance on resumes.  Their podcasts are free. This guidance reiterates much of what they teach, and they go much further.  Recommended for professionals!)

“But what do I do during this crisis for my business?  I can’t take a vacation now!”

I was speaking with a group of business leaders about taking vacations and sabbaticals away from your regular work.  It’s healthy to both disconnect and explore life in other ways.  There are times and seasons when this is more difficult.

Very senior leaders in times of crisis don’t get to take a 2 week vacation to “unplug.”  Yet they have to craft practices which give them endurance.  Let’s look at some historical figures for ideas

Winston Churchill kept us his daily patterns throughout the war with Germany.  He had an eccentric love of afternoon baths, disappeared from his office to talk with citizens on walks during the London bombings (much to the dismay of people trying to keep him safe), took a nap almost every afternoon (he would work late into the night after dinner), took random afternoons away from his war office to travel back to his home (Chequers) to paint and lay bricks and putter with manuscripts.  But there were only a couple of days in the entire war that he, as Prime Minister, did not work on official correspondence, reading reports, phoning international and domestic leaders, etc.  He only missed a few of the weekly face-to-face updates with King George while he was traveling away from London.  Overall he was incredibly productive in his work life.  He had a long-established rhythm of breaks and hobbies during the afternoon and evening which gave him space to be productive.

Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt famously spent a couple of days at Marrakesh (in Morocco) after a conference there planning the invasion of Italy.  Even then they both kept up with wartime correspondence.  When Churchill spent 3 weeks at the White House over Christmas they set up a British war room so he could continue to oversee the global effort. 

The US Presidents in my lifetime routinely get away from the White House for a rhythm break (Camp David is set up for this), but they get a daily briefing and keep up with phone calls and diplomatic visits.  Multiple presidents took exercise breaks; Harry Truman power-walked around D.C., Teddy Roosevelt boxed with sparing partners, Ford and Obama golfed. 

There’s a similar pattern with religious and movement leaders: Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, John Calvin,  John Wesley, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Lech Walesa were all somewhat like Churchill – they developed ways to shift up the rhythm of what they did in a day and a week, which gave them great sustaining endurance.  All were prolific and spent a great deal of time with people.

There are also these kinds of stories about even the most fanatical of successful CEOs.  They used their time well and paid attention to their energy levels.

Here’s the key:  Build daily and weekly habits which give you endurance.  Experiment. Discover what works for you.  Do this now, and you’re far more likely to be successful as your range of responsibilities increase.

Finally, one absolute recommendation: Take one day in seven to be completely disconnected from your work.  You will find this ancient wisdom a blessing. 

A truly skilled leader exudes a kind of calm in the swirl and uncertainty which influences everyone around.  

An acquaintance told me about a business conference he attended a few years ago. The audience had gathered in one of those big hotel ballrooms. The crowd noisily bantered while waiting for the session to begin.

A Buddhist monk entered the room and sat down on a stool at the front.  He said nothing.  He was motionless. He was a picture of calm alertness.

After a few moments a calm spread through the room.  The monk remained silent for 10 full minutes.  

No one spoke. My acquaintance said you could have heard a pin drop.

The entire room was electric with anticipation by the end of the ten minutes. Every ear was listening, attuned. “I can remember thinking I should make my breathing very quiet,” he told me. Everyone was primed to hear what the monk would say.

There is power in silence. Power in the state of calm.

A related story that Peter Drucker shares in his introduction to “The Effective Executive”:

“Alred Sloan headed General Motors from the 1920’s until the 1950’s.  He spent most of six working days a week in meetings — three days a week in formal committee meetings with a set membership, the other three days in ad hoc meetings with individual GM executives or with a small group of executives.  At the beginning of a formal meeting, Sloan announced the meetings’s purpose.  He then listened.  He never took notes and he rarely spoke except to clarify a confusing point.  At the end he summed up, thanked the participants, and left.  Then he immediately wrote a short memo addressed to one attendee of the meeting.  In that note, he summarized the discussion and its conclusion and spelled out any work assignment decided upon in the meeting (including a decision to hold another meeting on the subject or to study an issue).  He specified the deadline and the executive who was to be accountable for the assignment. He sent a copy of the memo to everyone who’d been present at the meeting. It was through these memos — each a small masterpiece — that Sloan made himself into an outstandingly effective executive.”

It’s not hard to imagine Sloan’s calm, nearly silent demeanor in these meetings having a profound influence on the seriousness and depth of the discussion. 

I’ve often coached leaders that they have positional authority, but it should be the last tool to come out of their toolbox.  Use all your tools of relationship, engagement, and persuasion before you get down to “I’m the boss, do X.”

There’s a related skill leaders should cultivate: in a conflict situation, allow the “loser” options to save face. 

Sun Tzu advised military commanders to always allow the enemy an option to retreat, unless you needed to utterly destroy them.  An enemy force with no retreat option will fight more ferociously because they have nothing to lose. 

Teddy Roosevelt developed the big stick diplomacy model after his famous statement, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”  The model had 5 parts:

1. Possess superior military capability
2. Act justly towards all nations
3. Never bluff
4. Strike only when prepared to strike hard
5. Allow a defeated enemy to save face

Your organization is not about warfighting or geopolitics, but there is still a lesson for intra-organization conflict:  the best leaders allow the “defeated” party to save face. 

I’ve written about John Boyd’s OODA loop before (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) as a successful strategy for rapidly adjusting in ambiguous situations.  

This is Boyd’s preferred diagram, which is more complicated than what is usually shown for OODA:

Brett and Kate McKay published an excellent article about the physics, thermodynamics, psychology, and philosophy underlying OODA.  I recommend it for your reading pile.  

OODA works well because of its strong foundations.  Principles, bedrock stuff.  Therefore OODA is fractal and broadly applicable.

These are excellent times to become good at OODA!

We all need to operate successfully in two circles:

Circle of influence – the set of things which we can directly affect through our decisions and actions

Circle of concern – a large set of things which affect us, our organizations, and everyone we care about

This is my mental picture:

Your Circle of Concern is large and has a dotted-line edge because expands with no conscious effort on your part.  Your Circle of Influence has a finite range, though you can expand it through hard work. 

When stressors come, when you find yourself fretting over possibilities, ask yourself “Is this in my circle of influence, or circle of concern?” 

Our collective experiences demonstrate two mistakes to avoid:

1. Ignoring the Circle of Concern altogether.  We must pay attention to evolving situations and possible scenarios, to anticipate and avoid problems where possible.
2. Fretting so much about things in the circle of concern that you fail to execute within your Circle of Influence.

I strongly recommend you consciously structure time and discipline your mind to spend 80% of your energy in your Circle of Influence.  Execute well.  Work to expand your influence. 

Also, teach this concept to people in your Circle of Influence!  It will be a blessing to them.