Few businesses in history have had the total market dominance of Microsoft.  In June 2007 it totally ruled the desktop and PC market and was used by almost every business in the world.  It was no doubt full of bright, motivated people who thought the sun would never set on them.  This chart, posted by Benedict Evans, shows exactly when it started its downhill slide when it went from almost 100% to nearer half the market.  It began with the fragmentation of the market after the launch of iPhone and iOS and later Android. 

There is many a good business that is merrily ticking along and perhaps unaware of the impending precipice, or perhaps even sadder, fully aware but unable or unwilling to do what is required to change.  Change is always scary, always threatening but the price of not changing is often far worse!

Don’t leave it too late…

Picking up from yesterday’s post. You need to understand that there are no good guys and villains in this model.  It may seem that if only the elephant wasn’t so easily distracted we’d be fine but it isn’t that simple.  The elephant is big and powerful and can do much to get us there.  The rider is prone to doubt and can fall victim to analysis paralysis, which can prevent us committing to something we know intuitively is right.  You therefore have to enrol both elements to enable you to move forward.

There are three key components in Switch

1. What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity:  You need to be clear what you want, so people can not only understand but do what you want.  The rider needs certainty of direction, or the elephant gets nervous
2. Self control is an exhaustible resource:  It is tiring overturning deeply ingrained habits and behaviours, especially if we are under pressure.  When we get tired or forget, we revert to type.
3. To change behaviour, you must change the situation:  You need to shape the path (or environment) to support the new behaviours whilst they take root.  In a business environment this might mean changing where people sit, office layouts, business systems and procedures.

“To change behaviour, you’ve got to direct the rider, motivate the elephant, and shape the path.  If you can do all three at once, dramatic change can happen, even if you don’t have lots of power or resources behind you.”

“We’ve deliberately left out lots of great thinking on change in the interests of creating a framework that’s simple enough to be practical.  For another, there’s a good reason why change can be difficult: the world doesn’t always want what you want.  You want to change how others are acting, but they get a vote.  You can cajole, influence, inspire, and motivate — but sometimes an employee would rather lose his job than move out of his comfortable routines.  Sometimes the alcoholic will want another drink no matter what the consequences.”

“We created this framework to be useful for people who don’t have scads of authority or resources.  Some people can get their way by fiat.  Ceos, for instance, can sell off divisions, hire people, fire people, change incentive systems, merge teams, and so on.  Politicians can pass laws or impose punishments to change behaviour.  The rest of us don’t have these tools.”

It is a fact that change is hard; even when we know there is a good reason for changing, we still struggle to live into our good intentions.  Phrases like “Well I know I shouldn’t …BUT” emerge from our lips.  Two American brothers called Dan & Chip Heath wrote a book called “Switch”, where they borrowed a metaphor first coined by Jonathan Haidt, which neatly explains this, the rider & the elephant.  There are a three key components to change:-

1. The rational mind (the rider)
2. The emotional mind (the elephant)
3. The environment (the path)

The video below explains it very succinctly.

I have long said that people need a reason to change, the What is in it For Me factor.  However, if it is just a rational reason, we tend to waiver.  How many of us have failed in our resolve to lose weight or get fit?  There has to be something to fight the need for comfort and instant gratification or just bad habits.  This is the path, or our environment.  If we want to lose weight, don’t fill the fridge with yummy treats.  You have to make it easy for people to build new habits and behaviours and reward them for doing so.

    More on this tomorrow…

I was out walking last weekend, and our walk brought us back to town from a direction that was new to me.  I really enjoyed seeing it from a whole new perspective, laid out before me, looking at it from the opposite hill. I was then struck by the idea that here I was stimulated by seeing the landscape from a new viewpoint, and then realising when I get into a disagreement with someone it was different.  It was a little light-bulb moment.  Why shouldn’t I be just as stimulated to look at something from someone else’s viewpoint as a bit of landscape?  The answer is obvious… I like being right as much as anyone, or perhaps it is I dislike being wrong.  However, shifting to the position of simply enriching myself by enjoying a different point-of-view is a win for everyone.  I may end up in the same place, but my journey is so much more pleasant for everyone…. Just a thought. 

Like 75 million of others, I have upgraded to Windows 10.  It has received almost hysterical praise from the tech press.  It seemed that everyone loved to hate Windows 8, so much so Microsoft skipped Windows 9 in order to distance themselves from it. I find this all slightly strange.  Granted their idea of having a single system across all their platforms, that wasn’t a single platform, or ignoring the fact that the vast majority of their installed user-base didn’t use touch screens was a mistake.  However, it was simple to bring back the much needed and loved Start button (it took less  that 5 minutes) and you were left with a stable, usable platform.  Still, the press love to bring down the mighty and everyone knows that Microsoft are bad and Apple is cool.  No one mentions the awful software that Apple releases for iTunes.  Most of the people I know who were persuaded by the svelte, sexy lines of the Mac computers found the transition painful and of limited value. 

Still the good news is that Windows 10 is good… so that is alright.  What interests me is the fact that we label change as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and we then respond to the label.  The truth is that change is always uncomfortable, even if it brings good things.  It always requires some effort, some learning and some abandoning of the familiar. To have any other expectations is at best naive and worst a lie.  Getting married is usually a much anticipated and welcome change, but it certainly requires work and adjustments in order to work. 

So next time a change is coming your way, it helps if you get your expectations right; there will be some pain, but if it is the right change, you will move forward… If not I guess, like Edison, you’ve learnt one more way not to do it!

If you are human, you usually have a small voice in your head telling you that you aren’t good enough.  Sometimes it is identifiable as the voice of a particular parent, teacher or coach.  Even if that isn’t quite you, then you probably have uttered phrases like “That always happens to me!” or “I’m never lucky..” 

However, there is a way to help deal with this kind of undermining.  Ask your self the 3 P’s:-

1. Permanence: How long will this last?  It may feel like forever, but we know that usually isn’t true.  What is more true “I’m not good enough yet” or “I’ll never be good enough”?
2. Personal:  Is it part of who you are or just something that happened?  “I’m never ready” or “I wasn’t ready this time”?
3. Pervasiveness: Is it happen everywhere, an unavoidable law of the universe?  “Good guys never win?” or “I didn’t win this time”

The thing is if these are universal laws like gravity, or happening to everyone like the weather we don’t have to take any responsibility and there is nothing we can do to change them.  However, if this isn’t the case, then maybe we can dare to hope for something better tomorrow and more importantly, do something to make that more likely.  The key is believing that we can be better and investing in that idea.

The other day I had a very difficult meeting to facilitate.  A business was facing a tsunami of troubles, their very survival was at a stake and they needed to plot a course which gave them the best chance of survival.  These things are difficult on many levels.  There are complex business reasons why they are in trouble, some within their control and others outside of it.  However, perhaps the more difficult element of this kind of meeting is the underlying emotions.  They are naturally afraid.  Afraid of failing, and afraid of its consequences.  There is a saying “If you aren’t afraid, you just don’t get it!”

So my job is to not only remain clear-headed, but to help them plot a course through this mine field.  This involves sorting the wheat from the chaff in what is said, and ensuring that everyone hears it too.  However, one of the moments that was most difficult was when I decided to confront head on one of the elephants in the room.  I knew there were some really highly emotionally loaded issues and I took the risk of bringing them into the light.  Some how I managed to do so without triggering any explosions and we could move on. 

The fact is this kind of emotional landmine can blow your leg off even if you try to avoid it so sometimes a ‘controlled explosion’ is the safer option. This kind of thing is always a judgement call, and some people feel more able to do it than others, but like so many things, the secret in is in how you do it.  If you are doing it in an emotionally neutral way, and being honest and unmanipulative about it then you are much more likely to get a good outcome.  If it goes badly, then the chances are it was going to go bang anyway,so better now than later.

In my experience most people are poor at giving good feedback.  Usually they don’t realise there is a way to do it properly and their so called ‘feedback’ often does not come from a neutral place within the ‘giver’.  If you are feeling annoyed or let down by the person, it is likely this will come through in your message.  It is basic human nature that when we feel attacked, we either run away and avoid the message, or attack the messenger.  It is even more difficult when we need to give an unwelcome message to someone who we know is likely to respond poorly.

There is a special technique for doing this, and there is a useful article in the HBR on this.

The key is firstly to be very clear what you need to communicate to them.  This may well be different to what you would like to say to them!  So first of all make sure you have a clean, emotionally neutral message, stripped of any blaming.  Own your emotions and reactions to the other person.  Ensure that where possible your message is evidence-based and you can give real examples of their behaviours and the results thereof.  You need to describe what they do, contrast it with what you would like them to do and describe the benefits following the recommended change. There is a guide here.

It is natural to feel defensive when entering what you feel is a lion’s den, and this can change how you deliver your message.  You need to ensure there is no emotional ‘leakage’ in your manner.  You need to maintain a neutral manner, in much the same way as a newsreader would deliver it.  This helps the other person to hear it and not react defensively. 

You also need to ensure that you use temperate language than doesn’t either carry a sub-text or appear to do so.  All of the above makes it more likely that the person will and can respond positively.  Remember the SARA model of how people respond to feedback or bad news (Shock, Anger, Rejection, then Acceptance.)  You have to allow the person to travel this journey and help them through it.

If you approach this correctly, it isn’t about you being right and them being wrong; it should be about finding a way in which you can work together more effectively.  If you genuinely come from this place, you  should be prepared to take on board the fact that you may need to change too, and to listen to what they have to say.  You may have to lead the way by showing you are willing to change too.

This genuinely tough, but a very valuable life skill. Good luck!

The Upgrade

I reserved my copy by clicking on the little Windows 10 logo.  Despite keeping my computer up-to-date, that didn’t spontaneously arrive, I had to ‘prompt’ its appearance (Google this for the trick).  I got notification yesterday that it was available and I clicked download.  I guess that took an hour or so.  First time it didn’t download fully so I had to do that again.  I let it run overnight and in the morning it was all there.  I clicked upgrade and it went through pretty painlessly.  As others have said, everything was where it should be.  I love the new modern look, it seems so much more Apple!

I suggest you don’t take the Express option, you really don’t want Microsoft to overwrite all your preferences.  You also need to go to the WiFi settings and stop it sharing your WiFi passwords with everyone you are connected to on Skype and Facebook… not a good idea.

I checked most of my main apps and they all work fine. The biggest issue for me was it seemed to have ditched my anti-virus software (Kaspersky) and turned on Windows Defender.  I was advised to ensure I had the latest version of Kaspersky and this was fiddly.  KIS2015 is the latest version on their site and it upgrades to something like 15.0.231.  However, there is KIS2016, version 16.0.0.614, and this is better for Windows 10.  However, I had to disable Defender to get this to work, which meant uninstalling, turning it off, and re-installing.  My son’s machine wasn’t so fussy.  Windows blogging software, Live Writer only seems to work, if you run it As Administrator.

We are all guilty of dismissing small talk as a waste of time and I know I’m not the only one who has loudly declaimed how much I hate it.  However, a little more thought and study shows that far from being a waste of time, it is a vital piece of social glue.  Think about monkeys and their mutual grooming routines, these build trust and interdependence.  The thing is we are never going to reveal our secret heart to a total stranger (at least not without a significant amount of alcohol first!)  Think about it, the first thing you want to know about a stranger is what are they like, or more importantly, are they like us?  Do they come from the same ‘tribe’ or background?  We explore to discover if we have the common ground or history we can build a relationship on.  So what happens first is a series of relatively bland questions that create a space which we invite the other to step into.  Think of it like a dance, we each take a turn around the floor and then make space for the other person to follow suit. 

I found it interesting when researching this to discover that people who study this kind of thing have categorised (and ranked) our communication on a scale according to the amount of task related (or ‘real’ content) it carries, thereby dismissing all else as ‘small’ talk.  Feminists have described this as patriarchal disrespect for the important and more female task of building relationships and maintaining harmony.  This kind of language is now referred to by sociolinguistists ‘social language’.

I have often noticed when attending networking meetings, that once I have ‘bumped into’ someone more than about 3 times, I tend to think of them as someone I know and feel warmer towards them; they are a safe, friendly face in a sea of strangers.  Familiarity (and the absence of negative experiences) tends to breed trust.  This then opens the door to a more substantial exchange of ideas and stories.  In other words, you have to earn the right to share and build a relationship and ‘small’ talk is the entrance fee we pay.

So next time you are feeling like it is a waste of your time, think of it a token down-payment on a new relationship.