Month: August 2019

The value of understanding value

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I recently read a post – Hypothetical Value and Real Value by Fred Wilson, partner at USV. It was thought provoking – not only its comparison of tangible and yet-to-be-tangible business scenarios – but also in its potential application to other areas;

  • how we spend our time
  • the choices we make in prioritizing business activities
  • where we put our personal investments
  • decisions we make with raising our kids
  • …

It’s often difficult to know for sure where the best bets are placed, what you should invest in (time, money, effort). The “sure bet, no regrets” are often the baby steps in choosing where to put resources, but at one point you’ve got to make a decision on a direction. The balance between real and hypothetical value can help to bring perspective to that decision:

  • what are we actually valuing?
  • what are the trade offs?
  • what’s the risk/ reward profile
  • value today vs. tomorrow

I find it helpful to understand how thinkers and doers from a variety of disciplines approach decision making. Let’s use time as the example. If I were thinking about the “real value” of time, it’s in the direct trade off to some tangible value – work for pay, exercise for endorphins, tutoring a child. The “hypothetical value” of time is a future state bet – the things we can’t see today. Some of the actions may be the same – exercise leads to better health, lower healthcare costs in the future, greater longevity. Building skills which may not be as visible today and are a lot of work could yield tremendous benefit in the future. Spending time with a child to nurture brings joy (or not) in the short term, but a supported child returns 10x in their future life experiences.

How do you think about your investment decisions? Food for thought.

 

Return on time

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The choices we make about how we spend our time don’t just speak to what we value, but often more about the habits and routines we’ve developed. Time is scarcest of resources and yet we often waste it on frivolous things. Can we calculate return on time so we understand the tradeoffs? Our actions are based on three primary motivations

  • We are obligated to – if we don’t we get in trouble – Fear of repercussion
  • We like to – this is intrinsic motivation in the activity – Joy of activity
  • We don’t think – these are automatic motions – things we do without much thought – Habit and formation

The last category is the most wasteful, but likely eats up many hours in our day – flipping on the television, surfing the web (I just procrastinated for 40 minutes writing this post on irrelevant content), looking through unimportant emails amongst others etc.

So what would we measure? Below is how I would think about return on time.

  • Impact / Outcomes:
    • Pleasure
    • Financial gain
    • Recognition
    • Building relationships
    • Improving our health
  • Effort / Energy
    • Physical
    • Financial
    • Mental
  • Time Value
    • The value we place on the time

I’d visualize it something like this:

Return on Time

It’s an interesting exercise to go through to plot how we spend our time. If we approached all of our actions with this kind of evaluation, I wonder how it would change our decisions. What would your matrix look like?

Flip the switch

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I’ve been obsessed this summer with the idea of flips. A flip is the moment when the intent and context of something changes to have the opposite impact.

The idea first started with the new red dice in the game of Monopoly. They call it the speed dice which helps move what could be a many hours game along. The premise is you can roll the dice and it gives you a series of move options. If you roll Mr. Monopoly, you get to move the number spaces rolled on the other two die AND THEN move to the next available property. Once all the properties are purchased, rolling Mr. Monopoly then sends you to the first property NOT owned by you so you have to pay rent.

This rule is actually quite a startling metaphor for many things in our lives. For the entire first part of the game, you want to role Mr. Monopoly to accumulate more properties. Then, somewhere along the game, once all the properties are gone, it’s value completely changes from creation to destruction. You now need to pay on the property you land on that’s not yours.

There are so many analogous situations in life.

  • Spend your entire life saving and contributing to a retirement savings plan, but once you hit a certain age or if you have to start taking it out, you get hit with tax bills if you didn’t understand there were penalties for saving so much.
  • Start Ups are another great example. Operating models that work when they’re small, will hurt them when they grow. Changing the ways in which work is done and valued is critical.
  • ….

There are many other examples of flips. More to come on this topic.

Building and momentum

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Yesterday I wrote about the behaviour behind streaks. Today, a similar topic on momentum and positive fly wheels. I’ve been working over the past 9 months on a new initiative. One which requires alignment of many many … did I say many … stakeholders. Over this time, it’s been a roller coaster of highs ( we’re getting somewhere! ) and lows ( we’re just talking in circles without direction ). In the last two weeks alone, there have been multiple cycles and loops.

This week though, something has changed. The energy has shifted and the air smells different. The initiative has carved out a foothold. The right instigations, right time, right place, right context – everyone has gotten on the train.

That’s the power of momentum when building something. You need the small wins to fuel the big wins (we’re not there yet) grounded in the grind. There is so much in the foundational set up for success. We need to align people, align problems, align intentions … and all of that alignment takes time.

I didn’t truly understand the time it takes until literally this moment. But once the ball gets rolling it gathers momentum and continues down it’s path. This is the double edged momentum sword. If it’s not going down the right hill,  the sheer energy it takes to bring it back can be crippling. Once you get it going on the right path – that’s when the magic happens. So what is your the rolling rock you will use build the next game changing product or service.

The power of streaks

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Streaks are an extremely powerful motivational tool that act as a positive flywheel to achieving your goals. Streaks are typically a continued set of daily actions with a specific goal. Examples of streaks from wildly different applications:

  • Snapchat streaks – when you send direct snaps back and forth with a friend for several consecutive days
  • Pokemon Go catch streaks – when you catch Pokemon for several consecutive days
  • FitBit active days – when you reach your step / activity goal daily
  • Starbucks challenges – some challenges require purchase / try a new product for several consecutive days
  • Streaks – there’s even an app that helps you form habits!

This gamified mechanism is powerful for a number of reasons:

  • They’re habit forming. The longer you do the same thing, the more your brain and or body become familiar with the action(s).
  • Streaking is self strengthening and highly addictive – every day you successfully complete a streak, seeing the progress motivates you for tomorrow.
  • The positive momentum of streaks taps into loss aversion theory – once you are on a roll, you don’t want to stop for fear of ending your success

I personally love streaks and it’s an extremely powerful tool.
I’ve used streaks in the past to:

  • Track daily exercise / walks
  • Cut something out of my diet – caffeine and booze
  • Write daily
  • ….and many others

These were all successful while the streak was going. That said, once you miss a day, it is very easy to fall back to old habits. That’s the downfall of streaks – there is no mechanism to continue the motivation once an activity is stopped which has a rebound effect.

What do you think about streaks?

How to set your priorities

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If you’re like me, the days are packed to the brim with an unending set of meetings, events, coffees and to dos that seem important but ultimately have little impact or outcome. And, if like me,  you are on the hunt for a model to help you set priorities, this is the right place:

Big Rocks, Pebbles, Sand:
Fill a jar with big rocks (the most important things you have going on),  then pebbles (the things in your life that matter, but you could live without), then sand (remaining filler – material possessions). If you start with sand in the jar, there won’t be room for rocks or  pebbles. Keep your big rocks to 4-5 at a time, manage the pebbles and try not to have too much sand.

The Urgent / Important Matrix:
This one is fairly self explanatory. Do and Plan the important things, Delegate and Eliminate the unimportant. And do them on the appropriate timescale mapped to urgency.

Priorities Matrix

Timeline Model:
The final of the models is to look out 10 years (any longer isn’t tangible enough) and imagine what you would like to accomplish across key categories such as your health, family & friends, career, finances, spirituality, etc.  Once you have a clear understanding of those goals, bring it to the near term with near term steps that will help set you on journey. Then go back out and connect the dots from today until tomorrow. Anything that deviates from the goals and that line should not be made a priority.

These don’t need to be independent models – in fact I use them in conjunction depending on the context I’m in. Regardless of which one(s) you choose, using these frameworks will help guide how you spend your days.

Identity wrappers

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This morning I had a virtual coffee meeting with a bold, “say it like it is” entrepreneur and speaker – let’s call her K – who I’m lucky to call a friend for the past 15 years. Among the things we talked about – the pendulum between insignificance and ego, an ethnography of corporate culture and the reality of just trying hold life together with tape and string.

Reflecting on our conversation – I couldn’t help but think that our approach to the world is through how we wrap our identity – what skin we’re wearing. These skins both protect us and guide our intentions and behaviour. Who am I as a corporate exec – as a leader – as a designer – as an entrepreneur – as a parent. When we surround our identity in these casings and then reflect on how we’re doing in them, it can elevate and us into ego or cast self doubt. Add to that, the fluid and rapid way in which these skins can change daily – and even hourly.

It can be both exhilarating and debilitating.
It can both define and be defined by.
You can both find and lose yourself.

Both. At the same time.

Energy ebb & flow

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There is no doubt you have a million things on your plate. With the demands of work and personal life – how you manage energy will make or break you – literally. Speaking from experience (and still trying to figure it out every day), energy drives outcomes, whether desired or undesired. Managing the ebb and flow of energy in high performance, high pressure environments is incredibly difficult – but for those who have found it, all the power to them. To help manage my energy, I think about this idea:

If the house isn’t on fire, don’t worry about it
If the house is on fire and you do your job, it will go out
If the house is on fire, you do your job and it didn’t go out, it wouldn’t have anyway

Put your energy where it will matter. Avoid putting out fires that aren’t there or dwelling on fires that couldn’t be stopped after 100% effort.

Leaders as a team

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Often when we talk about teams, we refer to working teams on projects. Groups of people tackling code, or a program or delivery of customer experience. While teaming is important at the execution level, it’s even more important amongst leaders. This may seem obvious but it is not common reality – especially in large organizations where you don’t get to pick your leadership peers.

In the past 9 months of being in one of the worlds largest corporations, I’ve seen and experienced this directly.  It’s rarely a product of intent (unless individuals are highly political and self-serving). Rather, unless there is a deliberate focus on creating a sense of one team – something that happens naturally in a start up where the goal / mission of the organization is more acute. Structures in large organizations cause silos due to defined mandates. Within silos, leaders have responsibilities for their own success, not necessarily success of the portfolio or area.

How do we organize and lead to deliver on bigger mandates? Well – I’ve been experimenting with a few things in the past months:

  • Try to get everyone in a room as much as practical
  • Force conversations out into the open that were previously 1:1 outside rooms
  • Create a trusted forum without fear of speaking up
  • Have no ego (this is a running theme)
  • Have no fear of losing your job
  • Document and action
  • …

As a leader, what are your strategies and tactics for teaming with your peers?

When ego gets in the way

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Today I encountered two instances of ego getting in the way good decisions – one personal and one professional.

For the personal project, I designed a house, engaging a well known and reputable architect. We did all the right things, consultations with the city, discussions with neighbours, thoughtful design. When we submitted to the city, despite support from city staff, neighbours and current planners, one voice in the room (the city’s ex-planner who’s outsized ego and outdated point of view is well known) – chose to oppose it, swaying the group to deny the application. I appealed. This was 4 months ago. Today was the appeal hearing. Typically taking days or weeks with witnesses, expensive lawyers and experts, the tribunal chair took 39 minutes to declare in favour of the project.
One ego caused hours of wasted effort and months of wasted time.

At work, a similar story emerged. Strong personality + ego + impatience + stress = an explosive combination. Cultures build in an environment of openness, not when there are directives and an unwillingness to question. Respectful opposition is seen as undermining when it should be additive. Building a high performing organization is not a straight line but iterates and pivots over time. Ego gets in the way by driving towards the bullet answer. The danger with ego at work is that there are too many other factors – concern for financial security, career and reputation impact.
Ego can throw meaningful work and culture into disarray. 

From my experience, some hallmark signs of ego include:

  1. Unable to let go of a firm belief even when faced with clear evidence to the contrary
  2. The inability to see issues from different perspectives
  3. A lack of listening and a focus on talking “at you”
  4. In the extreme – delusional reality and distorted memory
  5. The clear need to be right (even when no one else cares)
  6. …

What are signs you’ve seen?