Category: Observation

Live, and learn

Well after a few days of hard work, confusion and other stuff….I feel a bit of a chump. The book is going to materialise alright, but not with me as a co-author. I’m a little disappointed, but the reasons are clear enough to me, and I can live with them. The venture continues and I believe it will yield positive results. My hard work has not been in vain, a lot of what I’ve done will be used as copy for a supporting web site.

I feel a bit awkward as a lot of people gave me some great inspiration on hearing I was on this journey; I will use it to fire me up to write my own book so I assure you it won’t be wasted, thanks folks. You can read what I received and I hope it will inspire you too.

The Booker Prize will just have to wait, onwards and upwards.

OK, the question I asked was:

What do you do when the chips are down, it’s midnight, you’re frazzled and you need inspiration, motivation? Do tell.

Dave Campbell-Watts offered this:

Me at that point, I jot down my current thought, blockage, idea and go to bed. I know that I work completely inefficiently when I’m tired (or hungry) so I take the brave step and sleep. Let the sub-conscious do its magic. I come back to the work with fresh zeal and new ideas.

Start the next day by focussing and planning. Focus on the dream and the outcome, get excited again. Then plan the day, set targets, work out what needs to be done. I work in 45min-1.5hr bursts towards the target, once I feel my brain hit treacle its time for a breather and a change of scene.

Moving about is important for me to keep the energy flowing. Walking about the office, presenting to myself (people do wonder sometimes – a private space can be better for this!); a real brain pile-up might require a walk on the mountain with a notebook and pen in pocket.

I aim to enjoy the process as well as the outcome; if I’m having fun I’ll work a lot harder and the output will be far better!

Helen Peters suggested:

“involve others”, to create false deadlines (get someone to proof read something – that will make you finish it, and improve the end product), share questions, blockers.

The other one is take the dog for a walk across the fields.

John Coleman is somone I’ve not known for long but I like his style, and his willingess to chip in. He thought I might check out:

Prentiss Ingraham (1843 – 1904), a prolific American dime novelist who was known to write a 35,000-word book overnight.

And the very wonderful Mark Field, well he thought:

Great to hear you have set yourself a challenge.

When I end up in this situation there are several things I do:

* break it down into small bits (yes – I am not the first to say this) – set out my chapter headings / section headings – normally there is some of that which I already have floating around in my head in reasonable shape and I can commit with ease – hence giving a sense of some achievement and reducing the size of the remaining challenge

* when the words stop flowing I take some exercise – normally swimming as I find that I don’t need to think too much about the actual swimming up and down the lane and my mind can start to drift and things start to bubble up (perhaps I need to be careful here – I seem to remember your wife is a very accomplished swimmer) (again, I am not the first to say this – no different I suspect to taking the dog for a walk, going for a run or walking a mountain)

* once started keep working even if it is odd hours to avoid being interrupted or side tracked – for me both late at night and then keep going until I run out of things to write or starting immediately I wake up and again keep going until I run out of things to say work – don’t break for meals and stop the flow (but I do have quality coffee – I’m a caffeine addict)

* finally, when stuck call someone and talk to them about it – someone who knows nothing about the issue and hence is not fettered by any preconceived notions

What strikes me is that this is what I do but has a lot in common with what others have written – if it works for us perhaps it will work for you …

Thanks to all of you, and to Chris Plush whose great tips I feature a couple of days ago.

No Talent Required

I keep reading that the recession is over? There are an increasing number of indicators that seem to support this claim. When I was employed by BT I recall listening to and reading stuff from on high about the need to change as recession bites so we (BT) can emerge stronger and quicker. Makes sense, I can relate to that. I was surprised then to hear on last night’s news that BT is to halt its graduate recruitment scheme, at a time when we appear to be slowly emerging from a recession. Consciously shutting off a vital inflow of new talent. How does a move like that make BT stronger, or quicker?

In my humble opinion, the Grad community in BT was a very good one. A lively bunch, keen to learn and keen to bring their enthusiasm and new thinking to bear inside an organisation that’s extremely resistant to sustainable, purposeful change. I loved working with the Grads and was always happy to forgive their understandable lack of experience in exchange for their challenging, constructive attitude. Whether we like it or not, most large organisations have a tendency to wrap themselves around people and achieve conformity after a while, thus the Grads were a scarce and valuable resource. They created a culture within a culture, and they try hard to let that breathe and in turn, infuse the organisation. It’s a difference, and big business should be about integrating difference, without losing it. Tony Tjan writes compellingly about culture as competitive advantage. I like what he has to say and I think the Grads make a vital contribution to that aspect of the business.

BT is blaming recession and headcount reductions for the scheme’s cessation. That’s a shame. This small annual intake of new blood is vital for the organisation to thrive, it needs it. Against this backdrop BT says it needs to lose 15,000 people from the organisation. I don’t doubt that and my experience shows me it could and should lose many more. There are huge swathes of ineffective, fearful managers clogging up the machine. Insufficient numbers of them don’t add value, in fact they take it away from the business, and BT’s inability to rid itself of them at the expense of the Grads speaks volumes. I don’t blame these managers personally, the culture that exists within ferments fear, duplication and job justification among other things. That said I really don’t see how turning off a scheme that allows 130 new bright brains in every year is going to help take the company forward.

BT closes Grad recruitment scheme – how unimaginative, how dull. Who’s going to challenge the grey suits now?

Classic Customer Feedback

A man gets his guitar busted by an airline. He gets no joy from customer service depts so one year down the line (patience of a saint) he writes a song about it, sticks it on youtube and it gets 4m hits and a long overdue sorry from the airline. As a geetar man I love this idea, I hope you enjoy it too. Thanks to David Shanks for telling me about this.

Anyone got any other creative examples of customer feedback they’d like to share?