Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Archives for November 2020

Dining Out: Rule of Six

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Meal manners entail pacing yourself with others—starting and finishing each course of the meal. I’ve previously written,

At the table, wait until everyone is served. Begin to eat only after the host or the most important guest does. Follow this guideline for each course of the meal. Pace yourself such that you finish at about the same time as everybody else at your table.

A subtlety: if you’re dining out in a smaller group, wait for everyone to be served before you begin. If you’re joining a larger party (say, ten or more,) the “rule of six” prescribes that you can start eating as soon as six people have been served.

At buffet meals, collect your food and wait until three others join you at the table before beginning to eat.

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  4. How to Reduce Thanksgiving Stress
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Make a Habit of Stepping Back from Work

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“Busyness” often initiates as a lack of focus. Our culture has been seduced into thinking that we can achieve anything if we try harder and work longer.

Besides, good jobs are overwhelming. Many company cultures count on employees to compartmentalize their lives and prioritize work over all else. Managers expect that employees become what sociologists have identified as “ideal workers”: folks who are entirely dedicated to their jobs and are always on call, sometimes at great expense to their personal life. Such dedication is detrimental not just to employee wellbeing but also to the bottom line.

Being productive requires acknowledging that you can’t work for extended periods and maintain a high-performance level.

Make a habit of stepping back. Taking your mind off work can help you overcome mental blocks. Being productive requires creative thinking more than perseverance.

You’re more likely to find breakthrough ideas when you temporarily remove yourself from the grind. The best solutions uncover themselves when you step into the shower, go for a run, have lunch away from your desk, or set off on holiday.

  • Up the Good Stuff. To feel less burned-out, do a little more of the things you love and a smidgen less drudge work.
  • Seek Breathing Room. That’s a metaphor for space to catch up with yourself, regroup, think over whatever’s happening, and know how you feel and what to do next.
  • Thwart Decision Fatigue. You have a limited capacity for concentrating over extended periods. You can restore your executive function and overcome mental fatigue through interventions—short rest, engaging in creative purists, and increasing the body’s glucose levels.

Idea for Impact: If you want to get more done, start taking breaks. Busyness is very different from effectiveness.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Zen in a Minute: Centering with Micro-Meditations
  2. How to Clear Your Mental Horizon
  3. Personal Energy: How to Manage It and Get More Done // Summary of ‘The Power of Full Engagement’
  4. Niksen: The Dutch Art of Embracing Stillness, Doing Nothing
  5. To Rejuvenate Your Brain, Give it a Break

Don’t Surround Yourself with People Like Yourself

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It’s easier to hire people you naturally feel comfortable with, and you’ll feel most comfortable with people who remind you of yourself and your in-group. This is instinctive—it’s part of what psychologists identify as implicit bias.

However, clone-hiring initiates groupthink. There’s much value in surrounding yourself with others who are not like you—people who may make you feel a little uncomfortable and bring a different perspective. As the Bay-Area career coach Marty Nemko cautions, “We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don’t.”

To build a team with diverse talents, look for people with complementary skills and agreeable temperaments. As I explained in my article on competency modeling, identify the traits, characteristics, and behaviors in the star performers on your team and not in the average performers. Then, hire and promote people who have demonstrated the distinct traits and behaviors of the star performers.

Idea for Impact: Don’t try to hire clones. Instead, look for people who’re a complement. You need people less like you and more of a complement to you. Compatibility is not about being similar in nature; it’s about co-existing and thriving in harmony.

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Inspirational Quotations #866

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Common sense is anything but common.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

A person who knows little likes to talk, and one who knows much mostly keeps silent. This is because a person who knows little thinks that everything he knows is important, and wants to tell everyone. A person who knows much also knows that there is much more he doesn’t know. That’s why he speaks only when it is necessary to speak, and when he is not asked questions, he keeps his silence.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

The more you adapt, the more interesting you are.
—Martha Stewart (American Businesswoman)

It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.
—Bette Midler (American Actress, Singer)

The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
—Vincent de Paul (French Catholic Saint)

Talking and eloquence are not the same.—To speak and to speak well are two things.—A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
—Ben Jonson (English Dramatist)

In a choice between bad company and loneliness, the second is preferable.
—Spanish Proverb

The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.
—Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (Indian Politician, Diplomat)

My definition of a philosopher is of a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down
—Louisa May Alcott (American Novelist)

Investors have very short memories.
—Roman Abramovich (Russian-Israeli Businessman)

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.
—William Penn (American Entrepreneur)

Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people.
—James Russell Lowell (American Poet, Critic)

Better to die than to live on with a bad reputation.
—Vietnamese Proverb

Science is but an image of the truth.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
—Richard Dawkins (British Ethologist, Atheist)

Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
—Arthur C. Clarke (English Science-fiction Writer)

Making It Happen: Book Summary of Bossidy’s ‘Execution’

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It’s back-to-basics in Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan’s Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (2002.) Bossidy is a retired business executive (General Electric, AlliedSignal/Honeywell,) and Charan is a distinguished business consultant.

Execution was the best-seller that defined the corporate zeitgeist in America after the dot-com meltdown and the Enron and WorldCom scandals. Catchphrases such as “execution,” “shaping the broad picture,” “straight talk,” and “robust action” became caricatures of how American companies got things done.

Here’s a distillation of the main ideas in Execution.

  • Ideas are well and good, but how thoroughly you implement them is what “determines success in today’s business world.” Companies are hindered by the gap between what the company’s leaders want to achieve and their ability to achieve it. “The real problem is that execution just doesn’t sound very sexy. It’s the stuff a leader delegates.”
  • There’s no room for fluffiness if you want to get things done. Straight talk is “live ammo.” “You need robust dialogue to surface the realities of business the kind that can leave people feeling bruised if they take it personally.”
  • The leader sets the tone and leads the change. A good motto to follow is, “Truth over harmony.” Focus on “raising the right questions, debating them, and finding realistic solutions.” Avoid discourses that are “stilted, politicized, fragmented, and butt-covering.” “Candor helps wipe out the silent lies and pocket vetoes, and it prevents the stalled initiatives and rework that drain energy.”
  • Informality is critical to candor. Formal and ceremonial conversations and presentations leave little room for debate. Too often, communication is scripted and predetermined. Informality encourages questions and is more likely to promote intuitive and critical thinking.
  • Strategic, people, and operational processes are the building blocks for execution—and they’re interrelated. “The foundation of changing behavior is linking rewards to performance and making the linkages transparent.”

Recommendation: Skim Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan’s Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (2002.) Most of the book is about setting expectations, holding people accountable, and following through. There’re no instructive case studies. There’re no new magic pills. The substance is genuinely elementary, and the tone self-righteous. You don’t need a book for exhortations like “put the right person in the right job,” “know your people and your business,” “test critical assumptions,” “follow-through,” “deal with non-performers,” and “expand people’s capabilities through coaching.”

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. Heartfelt Leadership at United Airlines and a Journey Through Adversity: Summary of Oscar Munoz’s Memoir, ‘Turnaround Time’
  3. Fire Fast—It’s Heartless to Hang on to Bad Employees
  4. General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers
  5. A Guide to Your First Management Role // Book Summary of Julie Zhuo’s ‘The Making of a Manager’

Constraints Inspire Creativity: How IKEA Started the “Flatpack Revolution”

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In the mid-1950s, Gillis Lundgren (1929–2016) was a draftsman living in a remote Swedish village of Älmhult. He was the fourth employee of a fledging entrepreneur named Ingvar Kamprad.

Kamprad’s business was called IKEA, an acronym combining his initials and those of his family’s farm and a nearby village. He had founded IKEA in 1943 and got his start selling stationery and stockings at age 17. In the 1950s, Kamprad had launched a low-cost mail-order furniture retailer to cater to farmers.

Constraints have played a role in many of the most revolutionary products

In 1956, Lundgren designed a veneered, low coffee table. He built the table at home but realized that the table was too big to fit into the back of his Volvo 445 Duett station wagon. Lundgren cut off the legs, packed them in a flat box with the tabletop, and rushed to a photoshoot for the IKEA furniture catalog.

And in so doing, Lundgren unintentionally birthed the flatpack furniture industry. He modified his simple design and drew up plans for a disassembled version of the table. Lundgren’s Lövet table (now called Lövbacken) became IKEA’s first successful mass-produced product.

IKEA and Its Flatpacking Took Over the World

IKEA’s trademark, easy-to-follow assembly instructions are a central ingredient to the company’s success. Manufacturing and distributing prefabricated furniture via flatpacking has proved enormously successful. It has dramatically facilitated the shipment and storage of pieces that otherwise took up much more space.

According to Bertil Torekull’s Leading by Design—The IKEA Story (1998,) the concept of ready-to-assemble furniture is much earlier than that. But IKEA was the first to systematically develop and sell the idea commercially.

Flatpacking contributed to many of IKEA’s products’ enduring popularity—they’re affordable, sleek, functional, and brilliantly efficient. In 1978, Lundgren designed the iconic Billy bookcase, the archetypical IKEA product that currently sells one in three seconds.

IKEA’s aesthetic of simplicity and efficiency reflects in its exclusive design and marketing approach. IKEA constantly questions its design, manufacturing, and distribution to create low-cost and acceptably good products.

The method has been adopted by numerous other business enterprises, transforming how products are made and sold globally.

Out of Limitations Comes Creativity

One problem with creativity is that sometimes people face an open field of creative possibilities and become paralyzed. Constraints can be the anchors of creativity [see more examples here, here, and here.]

Constraints fuel rather than limit creativity. Use constraints to break through habitual thinking and promote spontaneity. The mere experience of playing around with different constraints can stretch your imagination and open your mind’s eye for ingenuity.

Idea for Impact: Use constraints to help stimulate creativity. As the British writer and art critic G. K. Chesterton once declared, “Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.”

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. Overcoming Personal Constraints is a Key to Success
  3. How You See is What You See
  4. Restless Dissatisfaction = Purposeful Innovation
  5. Unlocking Your Creative Potential: The Power of a Quiet Mind and Wandering Thoughts

Inspirational Quotations #865

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When you make the right decision, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks.
—Caroline Kennedy (American Attorney, Diplomat)

Inertia accounts for two-thirds of marriages. But love accounts for the other third.
—Woody Allen (American Film Actor, Director)

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something.
—Truman Capote (American Novelist)

Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (Roman Poet)

Having leveled my palace, don’t erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.
—Emily Bronte (English Novelist, Poet)

When someone we love is having difficulty and is giving us a bad time, it’s better to explore the cause than to criticize the action.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When a field has been carefully prepared and planted with seeds, and all favorable conditions are present, such as temperature, moisture, and warmth, the seeds will germinate and grow into crops. It is said that there is nothing, however difficult, that cannot become easy through familiarization. If you persevere in the practice of these instructions, you can be sure of achieving results.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist Teacher)

Think about any attachments that are depleting your emotional reserves. Consider letting them go.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

The man that shows off, to that one who wants to convince of his value is to himself.
—Domenico Cieri (Mexican Writer)

One of the saddest lines in the world is, ‘Oh come now – be realistic.’ The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were realistic. They were fashioned by those who dared to look hard at their wishes and gave them horses to ride.
—Richard Nelson Bolles (American Self-Help Author)