The Obvious?

Another quote from Simon Parke which sums up for me the real power of social media:

…. after most revolutions, only one more thing is required: a further revolution. There is no system of government that can improve the lot of unexamined lives. Unexamined lives are asleep to all things. Such lives frequently know what they do not want, but do not know what they do want. So they may cry with passion and power, ‘Reform the system!’ But they can never improve the system.

…………

Revolutions can execute the king. But they cannot execute transformation. So we are not concerned here with political revolutions. Rather, we are concerned with the more significant revolution of self-observation. Once we have recognised and greeted manipulation, fear, control and judgement, we can begin to say goodbye to them.

from The Journey Home

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Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

Our lives are run at such a fast pace these days, and you often hear people say "I just don’t have time to think". However, you never hear this from the truly successful people as they protect their reflection time each week. It’s their reflection time that helps them to make sense of their week’s experiences and get clarity on the week ahead.

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Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

What becomes our life is really determined by how we define the purpose of our life, and this sometimes is based on our focus to either give or get. The happiest and most successful people have determined the difference they can "give" to the world, and realised that the more they give, the more they get.

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The Obvious?

Following on from my previous post about fear I re-read this passage in Simon Parke’s wonderful The Journey Home:

Imagine if I murdered someone. Perhaps I would then drive their body at night to a lake: I would then weigh it down with stones, and throw it into the depths. The body sinks, and the water returns to calm. And as the days, months and years pass, I begin to believe that I have got away with it.

But twenty years later, I am driving alongside that water with my son. My son turns to me and says what a wonderful lake it is. Outwardly I agree. But inwardly I die. For I know what lies beneath the surface.

We die inwardly at everything we cannot bring to the surface.

I have had a recurring dream about doing something very similar – murdering someone, believing I had got away with it, hiding it so effectively that even I forgot, and then when I wake from the dream each time I am left wondering if it was in fact a dream or a deeply buried memory. [My confession of this in such a public place is an expression of my belief that this is in fact a dream!]

When a youngster I was wandering in the fields behind my house with some friends. We were all carrying newly purchased air guns and I had in my hand a pistol. In the sky above us appeared a skylark and without really thinking I took aim and fired. Against all the odds, in such a huge sky, with such a small target and ineffective gun, I hit the poor thing and killed it. I have never since been able to hear the wonderful sound of a skylark without being wracked with guilt.

We all hide the bits of us we don’t like or even aren’t sure of and kill our own and other people’s songs. How many of your own dreams are you going to bury today or how many other songbirds are you going to kill in the office?

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Max Blumberg

They say that when jackals start worrying about the welfare of sheep, you know there’s an election coming. So I guess I was naive to ask a recruitment agent whether he was interested in a joint venture selling my system for accurately identifying the right employee for the job.

The system is simple enough (except for a bit of statistical analysis): you psychometrically test a sample of employees from the role in question. Then you work out which personality traits, competencies and values separate the high from the low performers. New applicants applying for the role then do the same test and you simply select those who look more like your high performers.

This approach gets it right about 70% – 85% of the time which is a hell of a lot better than flipping a coin which is what businesses are effectively doing by using off-the-shelf psychometrics and untrained interviewers. But the proof of the pudding is that clients typically report 15% – 30 performance improvements. Whether this is our system or simply because it makes people pay more attention to new personnel is an interesting debate, but the point is – it gets results!

But perhaps asking a recruiter to partner to sell it was naive. As he pointed out: “Max, your system might reject applicants that I put forward”.

“Well, doh, yes” I said, “Isn’t that the idea? We reject the candidates who look like low performers and progress the ones who look like high performers”.

“But that’s bad business for me because then I need to go back and try to find them a high potential candidate. That’s more work for me”.

“So are you saying you’re happy to take the money from the client even if you aren’t providing them with high performers?”

And that was the end of our conversation.

The bottom line is that good science is effective, but it won’t win the support of intermediaries who make money whether or not they perform.

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Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

People always feel more "ownership" for something where they can see their input has helped to create it. For organisations, the direction is that something where it’s important to get everyone’s ownership…as direction determines destination. Involve your key people in setting the direction and get their ownership.

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The Obvious?

Funny how things come together sometimes to remind you of the obvious.

First I read Dominic Campbell’s account of the incidents that happened around the march in London on Saturday. I was unsure of some of the rights and wrongs on both sides of what happened but felt almost envious of the intensity of the situation.

Second I met some potential clients today who hope to do something that I consider brave with social media – but which is also really interesting and has not been done much before if at all. I felt a mix of fear and excitement on their behalf.

Third I watched Merlin Mann’s talk at Webstock in New Zealand which he called Scared Shitless. I found myself not sure about the talk but drawn in by his bravery at doing it. It reminded me a bit of the feeling of intimidation I felt when I did my Do Lecture last year.

The pressure on us, both from ourselves and others, to take the easy route, give in to our fears, and not risk disapproval or ridicule is constant and insidious. But I know, and need to keep constantly reminding myself, that I will regret the things I didn’t do more than the things I did ….

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Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

The feeling of being in control makes us feel safe. However, feeling safe is not helping us to grow fast. Successful people like being in control as everyone else, but don’t equate it with feeling safe. They know that control is a matter of feeling responsibility and that their action provides the feeling of being in control.

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Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

Look at an organisation, and if the two are present, they are doing amazing things. Passion provides ability to put all of us into what we do, and it’s the challenges that drive us to put of us into our work. It is at the intersection of passion & challenges where breakthroughs are created.

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