Archive for January, 2011

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Copying IS Genius…

Friday, January 21st, 2011

I came across this wonderful article in the Telegraph which hypothesises that humans (and to some lesser degree great apes) have a unique ability to learn from each other by copying and this is one key reason for our accelerated progress.  We don’t need to evolve to create new functionality, we can simply reproduce the actions of our peers.

Interestingly, the ‘Not Invented Here’ syndrome flies in the face of this key strategy, and can block progress in Change programmes.  Of course you need to adapt what you copy to ensure it is a comfortable fit with your own situation, capabilities and resources, but it is this very tailoring that creates the next step in the chain.  Something doesn’t need to be original to work, it might just need to be different.

Copy from the best but never slavishly.  Always walking 5 paces behind someone else may get you where you need to be, but ensure you never copy without asking if this strategy fits your needs and circumstances

“A woman is handicapped by her sex, and handicaps society, either by slavishly copying the pattern of man’s advance in the professions, or by refusing to compete with man at all.”    Betty Friedan

“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.”   Anthony Robbins

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It’s all a matter of interpretation

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Sitting in a Costa Coffee in an anonymous Surrey mall nursing a half-finished  coffee, watching a parade of young mums pushing buggies in and out and I was aware of feeling suddenly sad.  At another time, I might have felt something very different.  I realised that there was nothing in what was happening that was intrinsically emotionally charged, it was just the places it took me to that triggered these responses.  This generally true too, most things,   are emotionally neutral but can trigger powerful emotional responses. 

This is something we need to remember when working with Change; sometimes we get unexpected responses to what is said or suggested and this can be because of the listener’s own internal wiring has added a very different flavour & meaning to our content.  It is a fundamental facet of communication that meaning is something overlaid onto content.

So, if you get an unexpected response to your message, it’s time to explore and listen and to avoid making assumptions and judgements (which is the usual response!)

“The meaning of your communication is the response you get.”   NLP Precept

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Posted in Communication, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Personal Blog, Personal Change | 4 Comments »

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley”

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

I went for a walk in a local spot that which has the interesting distinction of being incredibly marshy and also cover with huge areas of sand.  This place has more different species of dragonflies than anywhere else in the country, and was so sandy that polar explorers used it to train as the best surrogate for walking through snow.  Today it was very wet and we simply couldn’t walk the route I’d planned so we just followed the driest path, out over the board walks over the marsh, until we found a drier path into the sand ‘dunes’.  The light was simply wonderful; the frost made all sorts wonderful patterns on the trees and, as you can see, the ice over the ponds and mires was just incredible!

All-in-all we had a perfect walk, in the most beautiful light followed by a rather nice lunch.  The lesson for me is sometimes, not knowing where you are going can bring all sorts of unexpected delights your way, so maybe we should not be so distressed when our plans can not be implemented…. So if your plan gang agley today, I hope that it bring unexpected gifts your way too!

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Posted in Personal Blog, Personal Change | 2 Comments »

A Personal Update: Role and Identity… which comes first?

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

I was writing to a friend today and sharing some thoughts on the difficulty of breaking out of my virtual ‘egg’ and starting over.  What am I meant to be doing with my time and my life these days?  Who am I now that I’m no longer half a partnership.  Like all parents, we had realised that we were entering that phase where our children would soon be flying the nest and we were looking forward to that in many ways, and, hopefully, also to the fruits of their new nests too.  I was ready for that change, but not the one that happened, but that is the the thing about Change, you often don’t choose it, but you have to deal with it none-the-less.  So most of last year was spent dealing with the various after-shocks of Carys’s death and now is the time to begin once more, but saying that is easy.  What is much harder is saying what I should begin. 

I know I am not alone in this dilemma; everyone who has been made redundant or lost a significant other knows this question.  Being well versed in this area does not necessarily help me either.  I know what I want to achieve, but not really how to approach it.  It is a bit like Gandhi saying “I want to free India”, but that doesn’t take you very far on its own.

The thing is we tend to wrap up who we are with what we do so much that it is very hard to disentangle them.  Think about it… I go to the office each day so I’m a businessman; I ride a bike so I’m a biker etc.  But if I stop visiting the office, am I still a businessman, if I sell my bike am I still a biker?  It reminds me of the question we used to be asked when we we were little “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Mid-fifties feels a little late to be asking this same question! 

I suppose it is a bit like someone like Jonny Wilkinson coming back to the game after a long injury.  Do you play the same game the same way as before, or do you change your strategy?  Maybe you don’t need to place yourself in harms way every Saturday any longer?  I suspect he might have found these questions a little easier to answer than I do.

After yesterdays little debacle, this morning I started working through my list of people to call and was delighted by the results of my first two calls and their reaction at hearing from me after all this time.  One step at a time and follow your nose seems to be the only way forward for me…

The same friend I referred to at the beginning said that the first two weeks of the new year were a kind of no-mans land where we drifted in a nether world between two years and in this foggy uncertain place we should be open to possibilities and allowing the possibilities to unfold.  In the meantime, I’m trying to work out if I am an ex-egg or new chicken…. or indeed a future egg-producer?!

“Man’s role is uncertain, undefined, and perhaps unnecessary.”   Margaret Mead

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Rivers of sh*t… or deep in the doodos!

Monday, January 17th, 2011

Never say Life doesn’t have a sense of irony and timing.  This morning I had ear-marked as my day to make a ‘new start’; the day I was going to knuckle down and begin to get the business ramped-up after a necessarily quiet year last year (regular reasons will be familiar with the back story to this.)  I’ll be honest and admit that I was apprehensive about how best to approach this, but I had made a list and that is always a good place for me to start.  So I was just taking a little quiet ‘me’ time after a disturbed night when my eldest came back through the door only 15 minutes or so after having left for work, and before I had time to wonder why, she came in and announced she’d had had problems driving through the flooded roads and had to abandon her car. 

I sprang, gazelle-like, out of bed and donned my wet weather gear and got ready to rush to the rescue (‘cos that’s what Dads do!).  She was concerned that sorting it out in the pouring rain, on a busy, bendy road in the rush hour wasn’t smart so persuaded on me to wait.  So I waited.  She then prevailed on me to call the breakdown people, who declined to come out on a technicality.  So I stewed and waited.  Luckily, when we got there the engine had recovered from its little feinting fit and started fine so we were able to get her home safely.  I thought the best plan was for her to drive it to work, both dry it out and prove that it was fully okay now, so I drove behind her just in case to the park-and-ride and then ran her into work (‘cos that’s what Dads do too.) 

It was now mid-morning and I wasted my best part of the day which, for me, is the very beginning of the morning.  I thought that as I was fully kitted out in foul-weather gear that I might as well finish clearing the gutters as we always have issues with fallen leaves from all the tall trees round here.  Then, I thought, “Maybe I’d best check the drains are not flooded too..” (‘cos that’s what Dads have to do too.)  Here I ought to explain that we have rustic drainage which means no mains drains and they too are prone to blockage.  I opened the final trap and it looked fine, “Oh good!” I thought.  Then I was just walking back when  I saw a bit of flood round the second trap and thought “Uhh oh!” because that doesn’t auger well.  I cautiously raised the lid to discover a veritable mountain of brown, smelly stuff that we so often refer to and joke about but most of us seldom have to confront quit like this!

So I got out my drain unblocking kit and knuckled down to clearing it all, and then the gutters too and I thought that people say “When Life gives you lemons, make lemonade”  I wonder what I was supposed to make from these raw ingredients…. sh*t cakes?  I have a wise friend who believes that our Flight/Fight mechanism is so clever that it will create just this kind of day to help us avoid the challenges that we don’t truly wish to confront.  I’d hate to think that I would self sabotage to this degree but the World is a complex place…

I wonder if you have any good stories of this kind of phenomenon and how you dealt with it?  I decided to share it with all of you and as it is now lunch-time, to sort out a few more things that just need attention and to start afresh tomorrow.

“When life gives you lemons just shut up and eat your damn lemons”

“When life gives you lemons, squirt the juice in his eye”

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Posted in Flight / Fight, Personal Blog | 3 Comments »

Into the Unknown

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

This picture of a potholer descending into a Lancashire cave captured the feeling of going into the Unknown for me.  So many people and businesses know that things aren’t right but remain inert watching their problems multiply because they, unlike this brave man, are unable to take a step into the Unknown.  Whether we like it or not, as I know only too well, the future is always unknown.  We may expect the good times to continue to roll but Life has a funny way of intervening at times.

If you aren’t happy, if your business isn’t prospering then the danger comes from staying still like a rabbit in the headlights.  Sometimes it only takes a tiny change to open up new opportunities.  Sometimes it is only one phone call or one visit that makes all the difference.

When you don’t know what to do, doing anything is often much wiser than doing nothing…

“When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly”   Patrick Overton

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Corporate Change & Strategy and the Blackberry Bold 9780

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

This is one of an occasional series of blogs that look at my latest techie toys.  More than 2 years ago I bought the original Blackberry Bold 9000 and it is was widely regarded as the best ever Blackberry, and was certainly the best phone I ever owned.  It was a big step forward and like many trend-setting devices, RIM found this difficult to follow up and as a result I have not upgraded despite the seductive charms of the iPhone and android offerings.  All the subsequent new phones from RIM were minor changes and, in my mind (and that of many aficionados) none represented a significant improvement.

What I wanted was, first and foremost, a very good phone (so iPhones antenna problems were a serious issue for me) a first class communications device and then a means of accessing the web on the move.  I waited a long time for the new Blackberry slider (called the Torch) as it seemed to offer a wonderful package, a much bigger sliding, touch screen and a real keyboard.  When I looked at it I was put off by the shape of the keyboard which wasn’t as user friendly as the the traditional blackberries and the sliding arrangement felt a little unbalanced to me and the new operating system (version 6) seemed very odd.  I freely admit that I might have got used to it if I had plumped for that. 

Yesterday I opted to try the 9780, the 3rd Bold.  They have made it smaller and, at present, I feel that I wish they hadn’t!  It is very handy but I never found the old one too big and the smaller size is affecting my typing speed  but I suspect I’ll adjust.  However, many original Bold fans think they should have kept the form factor the same.  The screen is very bright and clear.  This version is an upgrade of the 9700 and doubles the memory, upgrades the camera to 5 mg (mine was 2mg and the 9700 3.2).  They have upgraded the video to 640×480.  One of the most important changes is this operates on version 6 firmware and they have streamlined the user interface and much improved the web performance.  2 years ago I was thrilled just to be able to access the web on the move.  Now expectations have moved on and Apple & Android deliver almost home speed mobile net access and that is what we need/want. 

The call quality is good and the reception excellent as ever.  When you live in the depths of Surrey you need every half bar of reception you can get and this phone will pull a signal where others can’t.  Another thing that RIM do supremely well is the neatness of their programing; I was able to swap all my data, software and settings from my old phone directly to the new one.  It took half an hour and worked flawlessly.  If only swapping computers was this easy!

It is interesting to observe that at a time when everyone who is anyone has an iPhone, the Blackberry seems to be considered strangely cool and the phone youngsters are all switching to (everyone in my family has one, and so have many of their friends).  They are also cheaper to buy and and run than the iPhone. 

RIM are doing some very interesting things now, and we will see their playbook (their tablet rival to the iPad) coming out in the next month or so; it will use an entirely new operating system QNX, which will ultimately be the basis of their next generation of phones.  They can’t compete with Apple and Android in the high specs or apps arenas but are still doing well financially.  They have been quite clever in in not blindly following the higher and higher spec route as this is one reason why the battery life of their rivals phones are so poor.  They aren’t focusing on just being able to move huge amounts of data but on processing it efficiently in order to reduce the packet size.  It is an interesting to watch 3 such successful companies competing with such radically different strategies.  Apple focusing on design and user experience, but high price and closed systems, Google on open access and a more geeky platform, and RIM who traditionally have focused on the corporate market and security and efficiency, now realising the importance of the consumer.  It is an interesting exercise in Change and corporate strategy.

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Posted in Gadgets & Technology | 2 Comments »

Venus..a new look

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

This picture of Venus was created by NASA using radar data.  I find it an amazing new look at our closest neighbour, albeit 70 million miles distant.  Seeing something old in a new light is one path to understanding.  I often consider this ‘new light’ to be the Mother of Change.  We all see our world, our business and our neighbours through a series of filters such as our past experience, our old judgements and our beliefs but all these cloud the truth just as Venus’ atmosphere clouds from our view.  Dispel these clouds and it is surprizing what shines out…

At the beginning of  this new year, maybe it is time to see something close to you in a new light?  I’d love to hear from you of any relevant thoughts or actions…

“History is malleable. A new cache of diaries can shed new light, and archaeological evidence can challenge our popular assumptions.”  Ken Burns  

Resources:  Reality Model

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Posted in Business Change, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Personal Change | 2 Comments »

Out with the Old…

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

I love this picture (sent to me by a friend) as beautifully visual way to think about the way that things can be washed away, and fresh starts made.  As regular readers will know, 2010 was just about as tough a year as anyone could imagine for the Cooke clan.  Xmas, I’m happy to report, passed off a whole lot better than I feared and thanks to a family and friends, some fun was had amidst the obvious shadows. 

I don’t pretend for a second that we will let go of last year with the completeness or ease that this picture suggests but perhaps, grain-by-grain, some of the scars maybe filled in, and a new surface prepared for us to ‘write’ on.

Everyone will have things they would like to let go of, and I think this time of year provides an opportunity for us to chose to take steps in this direction.  It does take energy to hold onto things and if we can just allow our ‘fingers’ to open, then perhaps the slipping away can begin.  We often embrace and hold onto our hurts as they do, in someway, define us.  We have to decide if we are the person who was hurt and damaged or the one who is beginning anew.

I in no way pretend that this is easy; indeed, I am still searching for the way through, but the first step is a willingness to let go.  For all those out there who were hurt in 2010, I hope and pray that we can all allow the tide to give us a fresh start this year and renew ourselves and write a new and happier story.

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”   Havelock Ellis

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.”    Lao Tzu

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Posted in Personal Blog, Personal Change | 2 Comments »

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