What can business teach us?

What can business teach us?




I was at a networking event and chatting to some people involved in start-ups. They were interested in my experience in the Commonwealth Games and as newly appointed Performance Director for Jersey Rowing Club.

I suggested that the worn-out stories about how sporting effort, focus, goals, commitment can be transferred into business are defunct. They were surprised. In truth it is a very odd bunch that want to push themselves to physical and emotional limits and the idea that these experiences can be applied to business is false.

Here is a real story, with false names…

Colin was moving on from his job and was looking for a successor. He realised that Karen was bright, talented and well placed to do the work. Colin suggested that he’d show Karen all the tasks and let her have a go, so that when the promotion opportunity came she would be ideally placed. To his surprise Karen declined the offer, saying “I’m not paid enough to do that”.

For Colin this was a surprise because as an athlete he always assumed that the hard-work, training and preparation would come before any potential reward. Karen however was more cautious of making a commitment that may not result in a reward.

End of Story

The similarities between Sport and Business are in the people, not the nature of the organisation. Highly motivated people in sport or charity are likely to be highly motivated people in business. It’s not the sport or charity that makes them this way, but the nature and nurture of their experience.

What is more interesting, and not new, is what business can teach Sport. Sir Clive Woodward’s book Winning! is the bible for this and I recommend it to anyone.

I have been appointed ‘Performance Director’ for Jersey Rowing. (See link below) I am interested in what local business leaders can teach a bunch of athletes who are starting to get their heads around the idea of winning the Coastal Rowing World Championships within 5 years.

What do you have to offer?

LINK
http://jrcperformance.blogspot.com/


CONTACT

I am a keen coffee collaborator. You could post a reply, but if you’re in Jersey why not accept an invitation for coffee to discuss.

Tim HJ Rogers
Consult Co-Create Deliver
Mob 447797762051
Web TimHJRogers.com
Twitter @timhjrogers

Some audios about Mindfulness

I have been on an 8 week course on Mindfulness and found these audios very interesting. I have shared this for others who may have similar interests.

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/20100405-Jack_Kornfield-SR-healing-1.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/20101129-Jack_Kornfield-SR-lovingkindness.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/A-Few-Mins-of-Mindfulness.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dr-Dan-Seigel-The-Science-of-Mindfulness.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Dr-Rick-Hanson-The-Science-of-Mindfulness.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jon-Kabbat-Zinn-The-Science-of-Mindfulness.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Kelly-McGonigal-The-Science-of-Mindfulness.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/MarkWilliams-MindfulnessMeditations-06-20minSitting.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Tara-Brach-The-Science-of-Mindfulness.mp3

http://themindfulnesssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/mindfulnessofbodyandbreath.mp3

Understanding your need for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.

At the Leadership Jersey Conference Jeremy Cross talked about the SCARF model

This model helps us understand people's needs (hopes and fears) in relation to leadership and change.

The self assessment test is here...http://www.scarfsolutions.com/selfassessment.aspx


Knowing your preferences within the SCARF model can help you:

Understand your own reactions and those of others
Better regulate your emotions
Better communicate your needs to others
Make choices more suited to your own preferences

STATUS

If status is your biggest driver, you are naturally competitive. You love winning but hate coming second. It might be having the highest sales record, or the owning the latest technology or throwing the most exuberant party that drives you. It could be beating your personal best. Whatever it is, being top is key.

If status rates high in your life, you might need to watch your natural competitive spirit. You might find yourself continuing the argument simply for the sake of winning. Or you might easily be bored if the challenge is missing. You might need to remember to ‘just be.’

You are however motivated by a good contest so look for ways to bring this into your working and personal life. Competition is the norm in sales environments, the legal profession, and sporting clubs. Focus on areas where you have natural ability and can continue to improve.


CERTAINTY

If certainty is your biggest driver, you like things planned well in advance and you don’t like last minute changes. You have a natural affinity with systems and processes. You are a list person and often find yourself the organizer in social and work situations.

With certainty as your biggest driver, be aware that you may naturally limit yourself from doing new (and therefore uncertain) things, even those that could be good for you, like learning new tasks or travelling. You may also react very strongly when people leave things to the last minute or constantly change their mind. Remember they are not doing this just to annoy you!

To feel more reward and less threat with certainty as your key driver involves asking questions to make sure you are clear on expectations. Don’t wait for others to come to you.

AUTONOMY

When autonomy is important, you like being in the driver’s seat. You like calling the shots and don’t like being told what to do or how to do it.

Be aware that you may say no to things simply because they are not your idea. You may also need to remember to give other people the opportunity to choose from time to time!

If autonomy is your biggest driver, find ways to create more choice, even if you have to stick within defined parameters. Ask for where you can have clear autonomy so you can exercise this. And watch out for tasks where you have to follow other people's orders precisely.

RELATEDNESS

If relatedness is your biggest driver, you find it easy to remember things about other people. You always make the effort socially and hate it when others don’t. You find it easy to connect with others and love doing things that make others feel important and special.

When relatedness is your biggest driver, be aware that you may expect more from your friends and colleagues that they can give. You may find yourself easily offended when people don’t respond to invitations or get back to you with answers.

To increase reward and reduce threat around relatedness look for opportunities to connect with others who are important to you. This could be joining a sporting team, organizing an interest group, or phoning family at a certain time each week. Watch out for long terms situations that isolate you from others – such as working on your own.

FAIRNESS

If fairness is your biggest driver, you are happy if beaten by a better player but hate someone who cheats the system. People who jump the queue really get under your skin, but you’ll sign up to a roster that ensures everyone contributes equally.

When fairness is important to you, you might find yourself always speaking up for others when sometimes it’s okay just to let things slide. Fairness tends to dominate all areas of our lives, so in your relationships make room for other feelings such as simply caring for others.

To create more reward and less threat around the domain of fairness, look for ways to get involved. Knowing how decisions are made, or having a say in the process will help. This might be through a career in HR, social justice or policy creation, or getting simply joining in at a community level.

THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

CONTACT

@timhjrogers
Tim@TEDxStHelier.com
447797762051

Wanted Generation-Z partners to tell me how the world really works.

One of the things that makes me most proud running TEDxStHelier is the opportunity to share new ideas and novel thinking and also to give people a voice. You’ll see that this year (2015) TEDxStHelier featured a lot of conversation about education from teachers, pupils and business leaders.

2015TEDxStHelier Videos on-Line at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tedxsthelier


I attended Leadership Perspectives: Small Island, Big Opportunities @leadershipjsy #leadershipjsy15

I was impressed by Max Bourcier @MaxBourcier, who, like the fantastic students who spoke at TEDx was full of passion, ideas and enthusiasm.

A number of business leaders said wouldn’t it be great to have that type of thinking to invigorate our organisation and challenge our thinking.

My idea is GenZ-Consulting.

To be fair my idea is simply a name, because to truly embrace the concept what I need to do is engage the Generation-Z people and their tutors, teachers, mentors and inspiration and to work with them to co-create something that can benefit business, offer bi-directional mentoring and perhaps do something novel, interesting, informative and worthwhile.

“Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.” ― Albert Einstein.

So it is madness for a Baby Boomer (me) to talk about Generation-Z things, but I do think there may be mileage and mutual benefit working together. If you are interested in this idea and particularly if you are under the age of 20 please contact me.

CONTACT

@timhjrogers
Tim@TEDxStHelier.com
007797762051


THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

You send the invites, I’ll bring the cake and we’ll have a party!

Lord Sugar in The Apprentice will often ridicule anyone with professional qualifications and if you have an MBA then you are a prime target.

Interestingly most entrepreneurs don’t appear to have MBAs. Maybe that’s because statistically there are more entrepreneurs than MBAs. Or maybe a lack of qualifications, a little naivety and a being nearer to poverty are exactly the circumstances that drive people into being an entrepreneur.

It is interesting to compare this to the delivery of projects. You may have some enterprising people coming up with new products, services or ventures and some bright people advising on the governance and implementation.

The former are internal entrepreneurs, or as James Caan once suggested intra-preneurs. The latter are the programme and project managers. The challenge for the latter is the same for the MBAs which is not to dissect and analyse every critical component, but instead create the environment and context for success.

I have seen programme and project managers monitor meticulously what is on-time, on-budget, to-specification and log the start date, end date, budget and other KPIs only to find that they are plotting a trajectory for doom. The information may provide light on what is happening, but the difference between project management and project leadership is doing something about it.

Project leadership demands being more enterprising, working with or in some cases being the intra-preneurs and taking responsibility beyond the time, budget and scope and being more focussed on the new products, services or ventures.

The success of a project is not that it was on-time, on-budget, to-specification. That is a management measure of success. The success surely must be that the new products, services or ventures achieved their aims for their intended audience.

Delivery of anything to a target is fraught with problems if the success factor is an output and not an outcome. For example delivery of a chocolate cake (£25) by 10:00am on 17 October is important part of a Birthday Party, but the completion of the task is not sufficient to guarantee a fantastic, fun and memorable occasion for all the participants.

One of the quoted challenges of LEAN (making things more efficient, effective [and cheaper] ) is that too often it results in a chocolate cake (£20) by 9:30am on 16 October without due regard to context. This is very often the case in divisional organisations or silo situations where each component might be great in isolation but somehow the outputs don’t come together as planned when it comes to outcome.

Plotting failure can be precise, achieving success is altogether vaguer. The issue is one of certainty. Managers like working with certainty. Leaders are most valued when you are dealing with uncertainty.

The public sector, as a function of their stewardship of public finances, will tend toward management of risk, of outputs, of money in their endeavours to deliver a cake. The private sector ostensibly appears less focussed on the cake and more on the party. Moreover a greater proportion of their resources will be deployed on the party, than the management of it.

But businesses fail. Even those of Richard Brandson and Lord Sugar, whereas government cannot fail. If government departments went broke as often as ventures on our high street people might go hungry, homeless or start a revolution.

Is there room therefore for greater public / private partnership with government setting the time, budget and scope and business providing the cake and party?

Answers please.

TEDX AND CICHANGE AT TECH FAIR 6 -7 NOVEMBER 2015

TEDx and ciChange will be at the Tech Fair 6 -7 November 2015

Part of the Tech Fair will be about start-ups, innovation and new ideas . The intention is to run an informal [un]conference style discussion with some flip charts and a white board so that the whole thing is organic and interactive.

Tim Rogers (Curator) will explain what TED Talks and TEDx are about, and give an insight to set-up of TEDxStHelier (speakers, sponsors, supporters, set-up) , and the opportunities for Jersey in 2016 as a result of being invited to the TED Global conference in Geneva in December 2016.

However this isn’t all about TEDx, but is about getting started; having an idea and making it happen.

The idea of an [un]conference is that there is no fixed agenda but instead a collection of ideas and anyone who comes to participate can contribute and steer the discussion. We hope to have participation from Chamber of Commerce, Jersey Business, Digital Jersey and extend an open invitation to anyone interested in start-ups.

We hope to have some of the local TEDxStHelier speakers also attend, so that they can share their ideas, what has motivated them, and what they have gone on to achieve having “gone global” via TEDx.

Exact timing for the [un]conference part of the Tech Fair is to be agreed - ironic because the idea is to be unstructured and without rules! However if you don’t know where and when you’ll not be able to participate. More information to follow, but come along, bring your ideas and challenges, questions and experience and let’s see what we can do together.
More Information at Tech Fair http://www.techfair.org.je/


ABOUT TEDX

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event.
You can find out about TED Talks here http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDxTalks


ABOUT TEDXSTHELIER

We’ve run TEDxStHelier 2014, TEDxStHelier 2015 and are now planning TEDxStHelier 2016TEDxStHelier Videos on-Line at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tedxsthelier


CONTACT

If you are interested in being involved in TEDxStHelier in 2016 please contact tim@tedxsthelier.com.

Tim HJ Rogers
Curator TEDxStHelier
Email: Tim@TEDxStHelier.com
Mob: 07797762051
Twitter: @TEDxStHelier
Instagram: TEDxStHelier Website: http://www.TEDxStHelier.Com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TEDxStHelier?ref=hl
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=5135958

Overcoming Procrastination to achieve change and reform

WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder. (Mason Cooley)

I have previously written about Procrastination in a blog “Procrastination is like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill.” (See link below) so I was very interested when I found this formula for Procrastination.

PROCRASTINATION FORMULA

Procrastination is a function of our self-confidence (do we feel we can do this) and value of completing (the pay-off). If both are high we are less likely to procrastinate.

However on the down-side procrastination is a function of our distractibility (oh look at that other shiny thing) and the time to completing. These are likely to drag us toward quick-wins (often low impact and short-term) and distract us from what is big, challenging and important, and more demanding of our time.

Furthermore the delay in gratification is also likely to create procrastination.

So if you are confident and likely to get big thanks, soon after you have done the task you are likely to do it. If the opposite is true you are unlikely to progress. Additionally if there are other tasks, priorities and demands to distract you, your short on time, and you’re not likely to be thanked any time soon your are likely to procrastinate.

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM

I note Reform to make States more efficient is “painfully slow” (See link below)

I wonder if some of what neuroscience tells us about procrastination can be applied to help organisational change?

Procrastination = ([time to complete task] x [distractibility] x [delay]) / ([self-confidence] x [task value] )

WHAT MUST WE DO

Improve people’s competence, capacity, capability to do the task(s).
Make the rewards fit the challenge, sufficient that the pay-off motivates action.
Remove the clutter of other tasks or demands that distract from what is truly important.
Make the thanks and recognition significant enough for commitment and self esteem.
Phase the challenge so that milestones are not a marathon distance away in terms of time or effort.

REFERENCES

Procrastination is like a credit card: it's a lot of fun until you get the bill
http://projectspeoplechange.blogspot.com/2015/09/procrastination-is-like-credit-card-its.html


Reform to make States more efficient is “painfully slow” - report
http://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/reform-make-states-more-efficient-painfully-slow-report/


I am currently reading, and strongly recommend The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload Hardcover – 19 Aug 2014 by Daniel J Levitin
http://www.amazon.es/The-Organized-Mind-Thinking-Information/dp/052595418X


THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

Tim HJ Rogers
PRINCE2 - MBA (Consultancy) - APMG Change Practitioner
Http://www.timhjrogers.com | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype @timhjrogers | Mobile: 07797762051 Curator TEDxStHelier (http://www. TEDxStHelier.com)
Founder ciChange (http://www. ciChange.org)