Vision: It can still help!

In today's over-demanding fast paced life we all have felt overwhelmed by the responsibility? If not, you are probably still in elementary school or you are in college on a full-ride scholarship. As for the rest of us, the demand doesn't seem to stop.  The world we live in now expects us all to cover the 24 hour shift. Unfortunately, I don't think that demand is changing anytime soon. By establishing a clear vision for yourself, your family, and your organization, you can help prioritize and clarify the scrambled demands around us and perhaps bring back an integrated sense of self that we prefer to exist in.

Setting Sail Through Transitions: Are we depending too much on the predictable?

Smooth Sailing...This is an often quoted phrase descriptive of a peaceful and predictable state that most everyone would love to exist in. The quote infers that your affairs are in order and that you are the captain of the S.S. My Life sailing towards your proper future. In other words, you believe to be resourced and well equipped for the predictable. The statement smooth sailing is also often associated with the phrase "famous last words." The problem with a smooth sailing aspiration is that life has never promised to be predictable. So why then do we struggle so much when it isn't? Could it be that the state of predictability that we associate with our smooth sailing is an infiltrator to be wary of instead of longed for?

Investing your time today or spending it?

"Today you're going to do one of two things with your time.

You can invest it or you can spend it." - Nick Saban

Have a dream? Have a goal? Then let's get with it!  Today is Monday and for some the prevailing culture of today has convinced them that Monday's are bad days. The start of a long week. Ugh!  Why are we allowing this type of low living mindset determine our lives when the reality is that Monday marks the beginning of opportunities to be had.  For successful minded people, Monday morning is a starting gun for opportunity. 


Still, we all need an attitude adjustment once in awhile, because the truth is that life is tough. However, we can't let the tough demands of life suck out the flavor of living.  Recently, Nick Saban, the Head Football Coach at the University of Alabama, made a speech to begin their summer football camp. No matter what your opinion of Coach Saban is, or your opinion of football, the outlined principles in his message are timeless and Coach Saban's success is indisputable.  Today, we can either invest our time or we can spend it on fruitless perpetual motion activities. If you need a fire up speech to get you moving one step closer to a life you envision,  I believe this one will give you the extra charge that you need. 

Win Today!

Victor

YOU ARE HERE

I wake up with a yawn.

The beaten path is familiar as are the same steps of routine that take me through the day.

Out the door here we go.

So much to do in the immediate now that my potential will have to wait.

If only I could grasp.

If only I could arrive.

"When I grow up" seems farther away each day I live.

Where's the starting gun?

The finish line is almost here.

I hear my breath and feel the elements.

Life is happening now without me in it.

I must admit that I missed the sign.

But now I've come to realize what it said.

YOU ARE HERE.

No more banking on the potential that kept me sane at night.

Its now or never to begin my journey.

YOU ARE HERE.

Pack what love I have and leave behind the bitterness that decorates my walls.

I'm leaving now to meet my life.

What I hoped for hasn't waited for me.

Yet, I'll take the first step to consummate our treasure.
Me and life together as one.

Author - Salvador Cross

Win Today!

Victor

Digital Street Smarts - 6 Suggestions for Managing Your Digital Self



Half Human Half Digital - Art by Nick Gentry

 I am a self-declared old school type of guy. Yet, the inevitable has now become my reality.  Welcome to the digital age! Like most Americans, my work communications rely more heavily on email than actual voicemail. As a matter of fact, if I really want to get an answer in a timely manner, I have to text instead of email or voicemail. This post is not a complaint or a nostalgic call for the return of the good ole days, but rather a statement of observed behavioral norms that must be recognized in order to navigate and manage our "digital-self" both socially and economically. 

Phronesis and the Vantage Point principle

In my June 11, 2011 post titled "Vantage Point: Valuing Perspective for Daily Performance Demands" I cited a May 2011 Harvard Business Review article titled The Wise Leader; How CEO's can learn from practical wisdom to help them do what's right for their companies, written by professors Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi. They have recently posted a YouTube video interview that I believe adds real value to any of our own spheres of influence and responsibility. The video is particularly relevant as it pertains to how we apply the Vantage Point principle.  The leadership paradigm that they build is based on an over-arching Aristotle idea called Phronesis. Phronesis is a mindset that they believe is fundamental to building a bridge between the tensions of the daily transactional demands of the bottom line and the social justice demands that we've become more and more aware of. When questioned regarding the relevance of such a paradigm, Nonaka and Takeuchi associate Phronesis as a key to the success of leaders like John Chambers, CEO, Cisco.  No matter what your rank or role may be, I believe that looking into a phronesis paradigm can help provide a substance rutter to our daily living. This video can help us all begin to appreciate the context and opportunity afforded from each other's vantage point. Enjoy the video.

Roughhousing - When risk is worth it

This morning I came across an emotional intelligence news feed about a new book written by Anthony T. DeBenedet M.D. and Lawrence J. Cohen Ph.D. advocating roughhousing as a vital component to the E.I. and social development of children.  The book is titled "The Art of Roughhousing: Good Ole-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It," (Quirk, May 2011). In light of all the current educational budget debates, Benedet and Cohen take the position that classes like gym and P.E. should be taken off the chopping block and put back on the critical to quality priority list. Moreover, they suggest that the innate need for physical roughhousing is being substituted by potentially more adverse risk in that of virtual roughhousing, i.e. video games.

The reviews that I've read are intriguing and may even call to question the standards by which my generation of parents have been titled  (aka "The helicopter parents"). As a dad, I for one am guilty of erroring on the side of over-protection. To my defense, I am so blessed to be called their "Dad," and for that, they in return make up the highest of priorities in my life. At the end of the day, when I take account of my Win Today scorecard, I want to be able to say that my parental responsibilities were successful. With that said, its books like this that make me have to check my own vantage point and review if my parental practices are best for my kids' own win today development. 

While life experience benefits me the knowledge of potential dangers, this book reminds me that winning today isn't about having everything in complete order or control. Not possible! We are human beings. Our life consists of growing, falling, growing, falling, growing. Discovering and experiencing the richness of emotion that at times comes through risk. It's at those peak moments, when we do have full control, that we can often be at are very worst. Even more, at those times in the valley when we do fall, we may perceive it as such an injustice that we quit all hope and respond with dysfunction. Allowing for the rough and tumble interactions that the book prescribes may in fact cause a few tears from the bumps and bruises, but in the end, the behavior nurtured by living in a bubble could become even more detrimental. Let's be honest, every great success story is characterized by risk and unknown (Loyd Dobler, 1989). Without risk, there is no reward. Without pain, there is no pleasure.  Winning today is not about earning the perfect life, but rather about living a full day of faithfulness to our responsibilities by appropriately working, loving, resisting, laughing, communicating, responding, planning, confronting, organizing, collaborating, and forgiving. Lastly, at the end of the day, it is a matter of being humble enough to check yourself when you missed on a moment. Having everything under control is a fools paradise. 

I'm not sure if I'm all in with the roughhousing thing, but I am willing to pull down some of the bubble wrap that's stapled to the walls of my house.  The timeliness of this book is perfect for me since my oldest (9yrs) just joined a free wrestling club at the local high school.  He is really enjoying it, and I am also seeing how his E.I. is being developed since the club experience has presented him with some new physical and challenging social settings. Most of all, its worth it when I see him smile as he and his friends roughhouse on the mats.

Win Today!

Victor

How many habits does it take?!

7 habits? 9 habits? 4 habits? 3?  Or are they principles? How about suggestions? 

I recently tweeted about Heidi Grant Halvorson's February 25th, 2011 HBR post "Nine Things Successful People Do Differently." I think it is a great read for anyone who is trying to Win Today. However, it did make me think that how in the sea of this new era we live in where predictability is relegated with the good ole days and the "knowledge" economy is in, we can be convicted by thought or circumstance of a need to change or improve our present selves. It can go a little something like this...

 1 - We may hear a sermon or a media show giving an abundance of compelling motivators and personal agreement to change.
 2 -  We leave the building or turn off the show with a ball of energy to discover the "new" us.
 3 - If the passion makes it through the night, or even past the next meal, we may even go and buy a book or join or acquire a new membership. "And this time we mean it!"
 4 - The abundance of reality that makes up the current you takes hold and we fall back into the comfort zone (which is actually our trained nervous system falling back into efficiency).
 5 - Guilt and disappointment over our inability to make those life changing "habits" assimilate into the new envisioned you. And sadly, the guilt feeling makes it even harder to start a personal change effort the next time, because your mind is naturally failure adverse.

To our own disappointment, we have all gone through such a cycle at some point in our life. Most of us will never publicly admit responsibility for the lack of change. Usually when asked how our self-advertised change was coming along, we will relegate the responsibility to some outside reason for its failure. But once a new and improved sequence of habits or suggestions emerges at the bookstore or in the mainstream media it can once again capture our passion and we go right down the same path.  Now let me stop here for a moment to insert my disclaimer for what I am about to suggest to make your next change attempt a manageable one.  If what you are trying to change has anything to do with a medical condition or addiction, please seek the advice of your own primary physician. Let's move on.

The issue isn't how many habits does it take to become the enlightened and efficient you, but rather what is your current capacity for change? You see, we all have a current capacity, or ability to efficiently and effectively perform.  If we set out to change a habit or acquire a new one, we first must take inventory of our current condition. I'm a big fan of any habit that can help us discover a more excellent personal and professional life! As a  matter of fact, in an effort to increase my win today "W" column I will keep abreast of the latest personal and organizational management trends. Yet, as I learn more about proposed "habits" I find that I have to actually pass on attempting some, or modify them. You see, I don't have the capacity to actually make some of those habits a new norm for me in their outlined state.

For instance, at a previous position of mine I had to attend a seminar regarding day planner organization. Admittedly, organization is not a natural tendency of mine. It wasn't until I worked for this manager who sent me to the seminar (who by the way was the most organized man I've ever been around) that I actually began adopting the organizational skills that I deploy today (fear of losing your job can do wonders). Yet, as I left the seminar with my new passion, planner tools, and education, I was never able to deploy the techniques at half the level of what the seminar prescribed. The reason was that my capacity for such a discipline was juvenile relatively speaking to the prescription that the seminar suggested.

You see, in the athletic world there are 4 principles to change that must be understood before we ever attempt to reach a new physcial capacity. These straightforward athletic training based principles are fundamentals to the physical training world, but to my knowledge, have not been clearly interpreted for the application of the personal and professional management world. 

The 4 principles are:

- The overload principle: Any load above and beyond your normal routine (capacity) will be stressful. It takes overload to make the adaptation process begin, but do not overload yourself too much. For example, if you never even walk as a normal routine of your day and want to start exercising, then walking 2 laps around a track will surely be above and beyond your normal routine. If this is you, do not do the new years resolution jinx and run a mile the day you decide to change. You will break yourself. For now, a mile is far beyond your capacity.

- The principle of progression: Capacity will change faster than you think, but will not change overnight. If walking 2 laps was originally above and beyond your normal routine than you will need to progress in some systematic form to 3 laps. In my experience, people can up the load in intervals of one week without over exhausting themselves as long as the progression of the load is realistic.

- The principle of specificity: If we are to change something, acquire a new habit, we must be specific. We can't just run into a weight room and lift sporadically each day.If we are to measure progress, we must focus on one discipline or in the case of athletic training, one exercise. Usually the personal management technique gurus do a great job of providing the specificity.

- The principle of rest: This is often times the largest hurdle for the new habit disciple that wants change NOW! Again, using athletics as an example, I cannot demand that my players perform the same lift at the same load sequentially. I must prescribe that there is at least a day off in between the load attempt if they are to grow their capacity. You see, the rest factor is when the muscle is actually building its capacity since the taxed muscle fibers will heal in such a way that they will be able to operate efficiently the next time that load is applied. Rest and progression go hand in hand.

In hindsight, here's how these 4 principles could have helped my day planner organization change effort. First, I should NOT have measured myself against my manager. His capacity to perform all of those finely tuned day planner duties with an unconscious competence was far beyond my newbie self. While all of those day planner techniques were sound and beneficial, to take them on all at once like I did provided more frustration and distraction to my day than efficiency. I should have prioritized the techniques in an order of relevance (overload/specificity). Next, the progression by which I was held accountable for was unrealistic. My manager required that we all communicate and plan with the methods prescribed by the seminar starting the next day. The accountability was certainly a motivator, however the expectation was unrealistic. Instead of applying the majority of my energy towards my organizational responsibilities and some towards my day planner learning, the exact opposite occurred. I began to measure my success for the day in term of my day planner efficiency instead of my actual employment responsibilities. As I mentioned above, in terms of specificity, I should have prioritized the day planner disciplines in regards to relevance to my job demands instead of attempting all the day planner duties at once (specificity). Lastly, myself and my manager should have reviewed the week's day planner performance to see exactly what I was performing effortlessly and what I was still grinding away at. Then, and only then, we could have come up with a outline of what I should attempt to tackle the next week (progression/rest). Remember, the idea behind any of the habits that the guru's prescribe is to make you more efficient and enlightened. That can only happen if and when it becomes a natural schema for us instead of a constant workout.


The wow factor of an entertainer's endorsement may be inspiring, but the motivation will quickly fizzle if you aren't aware of the key fundamentals to growth. In my own life, I will always begin a change with these principles in order to pull back the curtain regarding workout plans or personal behavioral change initiatives I'm attempting. Inevitably, I will fall off the path to change, but when I look back to the principles it helps me to re-focus and continue the journey. Once you figure out the fundamentals of these 4 principles you can give yourself good odds for change. At that point, it only becomes a matter of how many habits, principles, or suggestions that you have the capacity to change.

Win Today!

Victor

Vantage Point: valuing perspective for daily performance demands

When I was a boy, my father would occasionally take me fishing after school.  It was in those moments when I would learn some of my most lasting lessons.  On one particular trip we searched for a secret fishing hole that someone had told us about. Finding the spot took a bit longer than my limited patience could take. Sensing my anxiousness, my dad led us up to a higher plane in order to get our barrings. In a spirit of frustration I asked , "Why are we walking up the hill when we were told the secret spot was in the valley?" My dad patiently looked at me and and said, "Vantage point." "From this higher place we could expand our line of sight and better understand the landscape of the valley." Once on the top of the hill, the markers we were told about to find the fishing hole began to make much more sense. This was the first moment in my life that I began to understand the value of vantage point.

 

      Depending where you are on the mountain, your frame of
reference,your criticism, your reactions, and your decisions
are critically influenced by the vantage point you hold.

In our daily attempts to win each day, the principle of vantage point can play a major role in such areas as; conflict resolutions, assets management, and overall context. In a the May 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review, professors Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi wrote an article titled The Wise Leader; How CEO's can learn from practical wisdom to help them do what's right for their companies. In the article they write
"The world needs leaders who will make judgements knowing that everything is contextual, make decisions knowing that everything is changing, and take actions knowing that everything depends on doing so in a timely fashion. They will have to see what is good, right, and just for society while being grounded in the details of the ever-changing front line. Thus, they must pair micromanagement with big-picture aspirations about the future (2011)."  Nonaka and Hirotaka give us some food for thought regarding just how critical an appreciation for the principle of vantage point can be for our daily competitiveness.

As leaders, parents, friends, and employees, we can all benefit if we take a step back from the moment to assess the context that our vantage point is feeding us. For instance, as the head football coach of a college team I am surrounded by a wealth of opinions. Initially, I may agree with some, however as the HC, I may disagree with others based on my more expansive vantage point. You see, I'm held accountable for leading the entire program to a greater good. While an opinion may be presented to me with sincere passion and conviction, my position allows me the perspective of knowing how decisions and circumstances can be intertwined with other cause and effects. Conversely, as time goes on, I may begin to loose the prospective of my front line people since I am further removed from what their daily reality is. Ironically, like most leaders, I am judged by the daily performance of my front line people instead of my over-arching vision. Therefore, a default response of mine to the front line frustrations can never be "they just don't understand." It is imperative that I never loose awareness of just how impactful my decisions can be to the front line since such power distance implications of vantage point can be the root of underachievement and organizational dysfunction. I have to keep my interpretive context  full of fresh insight from the top and the bottom.

 





Application of this principle within the context of the grass roots, vantage point can be the root of family and relational dysfunction. You see, depending where you are on the mountain, your frame of reference, your criticism, your reactions and your decisions are critically influenced by the vantage point you hold. At every level, everyone wants to win, this is why we can be so passionate about our personal positions and opinions. Our position can be  functional, or dysfunctional based on our perception. While a parent has the vantage point to restrict their teen from a potentially detrimental social situation, all the "rebellious" teen has to work off of is their vantage point that places tremendous value on the social currency implications of not going. Such a difference in vantage points can produce a lack of empathy between leaders and followers since they do not experience each other's consequential line of sight (see Vantage Point Index).



To win today, lets give room for the vantage point principle. As leaders, push for fresh perspective of the front line. Your macro directives may be right for the greater good, but will rely on the buy-in of your front line people. As followers, push to empathize with the responsibility demands effecting the greater good that leadership is accountable for. A follower's behavioral agenda may be short sighted in light of the grand scheme. 

In terms of communication, it is the responsibility of everyone to resolve the end by means of relying on the maximum line of sight that we have, while appreciating the line of sight that others bring to the table. By doing so on the daily, your relational unit around you will reciprocate some incredible nuggets that add value to your envisioned reality. Nonaka and Hirotaka state it this way, "When leaders cultivate such knowledge throughout the organization, they will be able to not only create fresh knowledge but also to make enlightened decisions (HBR, May 2011)." Practicing the vantage point principle fosters an environment of openness and trust since we recognize each other's vantage point reality.  As organizational leaders, the strong warning to not applying this principle is that we can tend to think too much of ourselves and our own opinions, essentially flipping the index upside down, resulting in severe organizational dysfunction and collateral damage. In the end, our desire and abilities are useless if we can't find that secret fishing spot in the valley!

Win Today!

Victor