Clarke Ching's Rocks and Snowballs

The paradox of progress - by Dr James Willis

I just came across the full text for "The Paradox of Progress" by Dr James Willis. 

Trouble is ... I've only read the first two chapters and I enjoyed them - thoughtful, touching, funny - but I don't know where the book is heading.  So, for the time being, this blog entry is for me - so I don't lose the book.  Take a look though.  He's got a nice way of writing.

[via Johnnie Moore]

Millipedes and consulants

A nice post from Johnnie Moore's weblog:

Once upon a time, a millipede met a management consultant. (These insects do sometimes run into each other.)

The consultant admires the amazing walk of the millipede and says, "That's a remarkable skill you have there, the way you coordinate all those legs so beautifully. What a marvellous metaphor for organisations! Will you let me model it? Then I can sell the idea to my clients and transform the world of work!"

So the consultant spends hours with the insect, making it examine the minute details of its actions. After which, the consultant has a massive best-selling book and training course with which to amaze and mystify his clients: "The Seven Management Secrets of the Millipede - Maximising Profits for 21st Century Organisations." Meanwhile, the creature is so stressed at the sudden realisation of how complicated its legs are... that it can't walk properly anymore.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - tertiary phase

The first episode of the BBC's new radio Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - tertiary phase, series, is now online for your listening pleasure ... for the next 7 days only.

Enjoy.

Speaking of Scottish headlines. I

Speaking of Scottish headlines. I smiled when I saw this one from my local freebie Linlthgow Advertiser

I mean, it was quite good news given my recent downsizing.  There's no double meaning or anything, honest.

Great headline: First round in second fight for third Forth bridge

Great headline from today's financial times, with a Scottish Theme:

First round in second fight for third Forth bridge
By Mark Nicholson
Published: September 21 2004 03:00 | Last updated: September 21 2004 03:00
 

The first Forth Bridge was completed in 1890, the second in 1964. Now, transport authorities and environmentalists are gearing up for battle over a third Forth Bridge.

Some interesting (hmmmm) facts about Frasier

Some interesting (hmmmm) facts about Frasier:

• I just saw Hellboy and although I didn't know what  was happening half the time I quite enjoyed it.  David Hyde Pierce, aka Frasier's little brother Niles Crane, played the voice of one of the creepy crawly good guys. 
• Anthony LaPaglia who played Daphne Moon's brother Simon, is also the lead character Jack Malone in the missing-persons TV series "Without a Trace" (2002).  It took a very eagle-eyed wife to spot that one ... and I didn't believe here with out checking imdb.com first.

You'll probably sleep easier knowing this.

Beware the Busy Manager

A few months ago I interviewed for a company that I desperately wanted to work for - but I didn't get the job. 

It was a great place.  I know several of their employees, I like and trust them, and they all raved about it.

But in retrospect one thing really bothered me: their project managers were all very very very busy. 

I've never met a manager who appeared busy, that was also productive.  Never.  But, I've met several calm and relaxed managers that get tons of good work done.  They were a joy to work with/for.

At the interview I only spoke to one PM.  He was 10 minutes late and all over the place during the interview - he said that he didn't like to read CVs before the interview, but I really wish he had, I think it was an excuse.  On another occasion, I spoke to a different PMs on the phone and he seemed to be having a conversation with someone else at the same time.  Busy Busy Busy.

On the plus side I did meet with one of the senior managers and she was not only on time (an hour early, in fact) but she was calm, relaxed and the gave the impression of being totally on top of things.  Didn't seem busy at all.

Take a look at the excellent Harvard Business Review article, Beware the Busy Manager (free pdf), by Bruch and Ghoshal:

Our findings on managerial behaviour should frighten you: Fully 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities.  In other words, a mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner.  This article will help you identify which managers in your organisation are making a real difference and which just look or sound busy.  Moreover, it will show you how to improve the effectiveness of all your managers - and maybe even your own.

[Of course, this could just be me rationalising the fact that they didn't want me for the job :]

3 quick tips and a recommendatiron

A few tips:

• Visio has a well hidden shape-numbering-tool.  Look under Tools > Macros > Visio Extras > Number Shapes.  I wish I'd known about this years ago.
• You can put the blogs with new entries at the top of you Bloglines feed list, by clicking  Reorder/Sort, and selecting By number unread.
• If you've got spare gmail accounts, invite yourself, and setup a new account to use for saving important files.  When I'm writing my book, I do File > Send in word every so often, and mail the current draft to my spare gmail account.

Plus:

• www.mailblocks.com has a surprisingly effective challenge/response spam blocker system that only costs $10 each year.  It takes a bit to get used to but it works with your existing pop email accounts (with a bit of fiddling) and your normal desktop client (although the web interface is pretty cool).  It helps if you import all good email addresses from your email client - no need challenging a friend if you don't need to. 

 

Old rules

Last week my wife, daughter and I holidayed at my brother-in-law's holiday home in the tiny seaside Cullenstown, County Wexford, Ireland.  The "Town" part of Cullenstown is a gross exaggeration - place next to the sea with a dozen houses, a dozen donkeys, and one pub (run by Mr and Mrs Cullen) that only opens on Friday and Saturday nights, after 9pm is more accurate.

We've been coming here for 7 years and a well established family rule is that Cullenstown is hard to find.  So, if you have visitors coming then you meet them in nearby Wellingtonbridge and they follow you in from there. 

But, on Friday night a guests mobile battery died and he had to find Cullenstown using his wit and guile. 

He did this easily, he claimed, by following the road signs, then picking the house with familiar looking cars. 

But this was - according to family-lore -  impossible, so Saturday morning I drove to Wellingtonbridge and followed the road signs back to Cullenstown and they worked just fine.  They were old signs too, pre-dating our arrival there.

I wonder: What was different when the rule was established? 

• Have trees, that once obscured the signs, since been cut down? 
• Did young men once - in the early hours of a drunken morning - point the signs the wrong way? But someone has since fixed them? 
• We're my wife's family just a bit slow on the uptake?  Some of them do find simple concepts - like left and right - challenging.

No idea. 

How much time have we wasted over the years because of an old rule that hadn't kept up.

 

Crucial Confrontations

I've previously recommended the Crucial Conversations book.  So go and buy it.  Now.

Then go get the new book - Crucial Confrontations - by the same authors.

Tom Peters says it better than I can (I presume he's actually read it but with Tom Peters you never can be sure - he confessed to making up a lot of his In search of excellence research data):

Crucial Confrontations is an original and a bold leap forward. No doubt at all. But like all good science it is built upon a rock-solid base of what has come before. The neat trick here is imaginatively applying the best of psychological and social psychological research over the last half century to this very particular, precisely defined topic … crucial confrontations—on topics such as performance and trust—that promote or destroy relational or organizational effectiveness.

The basic hypothesis is profound. The application of proven research is masterful. The explanations and supporting stories are compelling and lucid. The translation of the research and stories into practical ideas and sound advice that can be implemented by those of us who have floundered on these paths for decades is nothing short of breathtaking.

Hey if you read only one “management” book … this decade … I’d insist that it be Crucial Confrontations.

— from the forward by Tom Peters

Oh and here's the forward and 1st chapter in pdf.