Author: simongterry

The Purpose of Procrastiwork

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Procrastiwork is a term coined by Jessica Hische to describe the work you do when you are avoiding the work you should be doing. This blog often forms a part of my procrastiwork. I love the opportunity to work out loud, to clarify my ideas and the conversations that are spun up from these blog posts. I learn so much from my procrastination that it can be quite addictive.

Jessica Hische’s point in coining the phrase is to point out that procrastiwork is a great hint to the work you should be doing. If you choose that work, it speaks to you. I’ve experienced the power of finding purpose in the work. This blog is a big part of my personal purpose of making work more human and it was through posts here that those ideas were surfaced from my work.

Procrastination can be purposeful if you ask yourself the right questions. Work out loud on the work you do to avoid work. The repeated process of transparency and reflection will help you find insights as to purpose.

The Diversity of the Change Agent

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Change agents aren’t all alike. Organisations that fail to embrace the diversity of the change agent fail at change.

Change agents are a diverse bunch. 

Organisations tend to lump them together in an ‘outsider’ bucket. When change agents don’t think & act in the way of the majority then it is assumed their different way is shared. Yet change agents often find collaboration challenging when they don’t understand that a common desire for change can be driven from diverse motives and methods. 

Adam Morgan of eatbigfish describes 10 challenger narratives in The Challenger Almanac.  These narratives that give a sense of the diversity of motivations and approaches to change: 

  • People’s Champion – standing up for the exploited or overlooked
  • Missionary – ethical or ideological advocate 
  • Democratiser – challenging elitism and exclusivity 
  • Irreverent Maverick – the provocateur 
  • Enlightened Zagger – the deliberate contrarian 
  • Real & Human – advocating for the human 
  • The Visionary – transcending current ideas 
  • The Next Generation – improving fitness to the future
  • The Game Changer – rewriting the rules
  • The Feisty Underdog – battling the winners 

Few change agents fit cleanly in one narrative. Often many narratives will be woven into a unique personal approach. There are plenty of opportunities for conflict as to the objectives and methods in the diversity of narratives. 

Change agents and the organisations that seek to foster their work need to concentrate on building connection as to what is in common. Ideological debates and fractious debates as to approach can illuminate the diverse paths but they tend to delay action. 

Change agents need to embrace the action of others, learn from diverse perspectives and leverage alignment of narratives. Broadening the toolkit of change benefits both the change agents and their organisations.

Work Out Loud on Your Job, Your Career or Your Calling

Posted on by simongterry in Working out loud

In their book Creative Confidence, Tom and David Kelley describe the research of Amy Wrzesniewski of Yale University’s school of management. Amy Wrzesniewski has identified that people view work as either a job, a career or a calling. Whatever your view of work, working out loud can help.

Working out loud in a job

If you view work as a job, work is a way to earn money to pay for weekends, holidays and hobbies. Working out loud is a way to make sure you keep your job through recognition of your efforts and growing skill. Working out loud outside of work can take your hobbies to the point that they become a calling.

Working out loud in a career

If you view work as a career, then you are interested in achievements and promotion. Working out loud makes your work more visible. Sharing your work as it occurs accelerates people’s ability to appreciate your efforts. You can learn faster and build your skills in a network. Working out loud connects you with those who can help you find the next job opportunity.

Working out loud in a calling

If you view work as a calling, then you find work intrinsically rewarding. For this group working out loud is a way to connect with others who share the calling. Working out loud helps you build the community of peers that will take your work to a new level and a wider greater impact.

International working out loud week is from 16-23 Nov 2015. Put working out loud to work helping your job, your career or calling.

Mastery takes Time

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Before we connected the world in an instantaneous network, we understood mastery takes time. Now we often forget that we can’t leap to learning.

I’ve had many conversations recently where people have wanted to move quickly to mastery. Stakeholder expectations are high. Everything else is available at the push of a button. Where’s the shortcut to mastery?

Mastery takes learning. Remember the apprenticeships of the pre-industrial era were seven years long. Seven years lifted you to journeyman practice. A lifetime of learning and teaching others lifted you to master.

While access to information has changed, we have not necessarily transformed the pace at which we learn by putting skills into practice. We can find best practices easily but using them and moving to mastery is something else

Mastery depends on context. Mastering your particular purpose in your domain is unique to you. Your practice will be in a specific domain. Other’s practices may not fit. Discovering this context, purpose and clarifying the domain can take its own time.

Mastery takes continuous practice. Mastery is the ever continuing quest to learn, experiment and improve. Mastery is the domain of next practice. Practice takes time. We like to hear sorting superstars talk of their success. We often fail to focus on the decades of dedicated practice that makes that brief moment of mastery.

Our obsession with speed can mean we devalue the slow. That is a mistake when it comes to mastery. Mastery is something we have a lifetime to practice.

Change Management Institute – CMI Disrupt Conference 11-12 November

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

The following Q&A was prepared for the CMI Disrupt Conference in Sydney and London on 11-12 November

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Conference Speaker – Simon Terry disrupts

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What does the future of change look like?

The power of digital disruption is in its power to leverage learning at scale and speed. If we consider our stakeholders as individuals, who we work with and learn from, things change radically. We need to start to apply these new ways of working throughout our organisations.

Are we being replaced by robots?

Automation and mechanisation have been disruptive throughout human history. But in the past, people were only considered inputs to production. But now we have real alternatives. Enabled by digital tools, we can focus on creativity to realise human potential. That’s shifting the game, from one of simple mechanical efficiency to human effectiveness.

How do we change our approach?

Start small. Start now. Start at the edges, with change agents, positive deviants inside and outside the organisation. Look out for rapid and dynamic influences which force change. Adapt and be accountable. Work with and through your people.

JOIN the conversation on Twitter #cmidisrupt

The Network Always Subverts the Hierarchy

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Human relationships are flexible and driven by shared information, influence, trust and other personal dynamics. These dynamic relationships will subvert any formal fixed hierarchical relationships.

We see the fixed relationships of the hierarchy. We obsess about their nominal power. What we don’t see is how the network wins slowly through human relationships. Networks of information, influence and trust shape how the hierarchy behaves:

  • Want a positive decision from the CEO? You know who to lobby to influence his or her opinion.
  • Want to know why some customers can get what they want? Look for their networks and connections into your organisation and into competitors.
  • Why do all employee emails leak within minutes? Look for the gossips and informal relationships outside the organisation.
  • Want to know why some are promoted over others? Look for the networks of previous experiences, trusted relationships and reputation helping careers along.

As soon as a new hierarchy is created or control processes are tightened, human nature starts subverting its effect in the name of relationships of information, trust and influence. The rational slowly yields to the relational. The network wins in the end because it leverages the human social process of decision making. 

Fighting the influence of networks makes life less human. Embrace them as a part of any hierarchy.

Partisan

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

‘Noun: strong supporter of a party, cause, or person…adjective: prejudiced in favour of a particular cause’. Oxford dictionary

Increased connection can bring us together with diverse others. However, they can also make it easy to find and form cliques with those who think like us. Networks can make it easier to be partisan.

The difference between the two outcomes comes down to our willingness to test our ideas and to learn. If we seek confirmation of our views from networks, we will find a niche of other like minded folk to act as echo chamber. The reinforcement we receive runs the danger of causing greater disconnect from reality as we become surer in our beliefs.

If we want the benefits of networks to make us more effective we must be prepared to learn and put our beliefs out for testing in action. Networks that simply confirm our knowledge and beliefs will rarely add value other than a smug sense of satisfaction. We will rightly question the value of participation.

We need to be open to new facts and new experiences in the network. If we respect the views of others and seek to understand, we may not change our opinions but we will be open to changing our prejudices and remaining connected to others and reality.

The Self-aware Self

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

A key part of the value of the quantified self is awareness. We know how to coach ourself when we give ourselves enough purposeful attention.

I’ve been travelling for work recently. Being away from home has put out my usual diet. I just didn’t have my usual options or as much ability to cook. Feeling the effects, I decided recently to start tracking my meals using the Fitbit app. I wanted to know what I was eating.

There were three quick lessons from this experience:
– the Hawthorne effect works: just being aware I was recording my meals ( with no cheating) helped me make better choices.
– after a few days I realised I didn’t need to know the data. If I concentrated on what my body was telling me, I knew whether I was hungry, when I had enough and what I shouldn’t eat. If I listened closely to those messages I could make better decisions without data.
– I enjoyed eating more, because I noticed what I was eating.

A big part of the value of the quantified self is helping us become more self-aware. We all benefit when we step out of busy distracted mode. There can be great value in novel insights from data. Usually, our problems are much simpler. We don’t need machines to tell us things we know but don’t do. We need to learn how to be more present and how to better coach ourselves.

Expertise in the Way

Posted on by simongterry in Learning

Clients often say something to me along the lines of ‘I don’t want to offend you, after all, you’re the expert, but I think we might need to change this recommendation’. I am not offended. I am relieved. I can’t possibly know everything about their problem and circumstances.

Their ideas and knowledge improve mine. I am learning. We are learning together. We can’t let expertise get in the way of mastery.

The advantage of Big Learning approaches in organisations is that they break down the barriers that form around expertise. When an expert says no, trying to move forward can be hard because of both the reactions of other less expert stakeholders and because the expert has now invested ego in blocking.

Shifting the focus to gaining new external perspectives, testing ideas in practice, learning more or experimentation can be a great way to validate all opinions but judge on results. The learning from the tests will move everyone forward. Momentum is your friend.

An expert who doesn’t want to pursue mastery used to be an expert. Never let expertise get in the way of learning more through work.