In my work as a technology leader, I am known for setting goals that people think they can’t achieve and have lists of reasons why they can’t hit them. I’ve been coached to “set realistic goals” for the past 20 years but I never do and I don’t understand why I ever would. In fact, nobody has been able to define what a “realistic” goal is or why it should be something lower / easier than what I requested. The conversations go something like this:

Me – “Hi, person xyz. Lets discuss your goals for the year. ”
XYZ – “I have set a stretch goal of doing 5% better than last year.”
Me – “Great to see. How did you determine the percentage?”
XYZ – “well, 5% seems achievable given ”
Me – “Ok. What does the business need to be world class?”
XYZ – “I didn’t look at that but some are operating at a level much, much higher than this.”
Me – “Ok. Would you prefer to be 5% better or world class?” Before they can answer, “Let’s agree to have a goal of being world ass because I have no interest in being #2. Don’t worry, you won’t be in this alone. The company needs you to be a success and so the team will pitch in and help you every step of the way. I know you can and want to do this.”

The conversation has shifted and now I have the burden of proof to demonstrate that the much higher goal is achievable and worth the effort. This is very important and often a fatal flaw of companies. In every market there is someone inventing a disruptive technology, process, ad campaign, whatever which will make others obsolete. Has 5% or some other micro improvement ever really made a difference? Has it made an employee happy to be barely better than before and be done? Or do people / companies get motivated by being on a path to excellence? How will you feel when our area becomes obsolete and you are looking for the next thing?

My son is taking Tae Kwon Do now and is doing really well. He is young has not been bound by normal rules of society yet. He is inquisitive and excited by many things. He comes home from TKD excited to become the “ultimate” – a black belt.  Two years of training is a very long time for him and is world class in his mind. He talks about being a black belt every day without fail. But he does something else that I love and want to adapt to the business world – he is super excited when he gets a stripe or a new belt or a new kick / block / punch. It is important to k ow the advancement process. First you learn a new move, then you practice it, then you demonstrate it for the “Master”, & then you get a stripe. You repeat this process for 5 stripes and after that, you test for a new belt. There are 15 belts from white to black and it takes about 2-3 years to attain 1st degree black belt. My son gets excited about the new moves, the stripes and the belts. But why … because he wants to be an “expert” or “master” not because he wants to be just 6.7% better (1 belt further of the 15).

He is intrinsically motivated to be an expert / master and extrinsically motivated to get a new belt. His goal is Black Belt not the next belt. I believe he will make it too. Little does he know that the ultimate belt is 10th degree which has an asymptotic path because you achieve that after death and a lifetime of TKD.

In the end an expert is not just someone who has attained something but also knows that they are not finished learning to be an expert. When my son gets his black belt, he will be one of the 5% that start and actually make it to black belt. Then, I will tell him about his asymptotic climb to 10th degree.

-Dana

Urgency is defined as having a sense of imperativeness. That’s just so academic. If you say that or something similar in a room full of people, everyone will nod their head and agree. Then, of course, they will leave the meeting and do the same old thing. We all know that humans are creatures of habit and we need to start working harder on organizational muscle memory. As we lead our teams, we need to keep in mind that urgency needs to occur at the individual person level, the overall organization level and the leader of the team level.

To help people connect with the concept of urgency, I speak about two laws which are in different degrees known in corporations – Parkinson’s Law and the Pareto Principle. Perhaps the lesser known of the two is Parkinson’s Law. I jokingly refer to Parkinson’s Law with my team and the conversation goes something like this:

“Do you know how long it takes to write code?”
“Well, it depends on how you many requirements you have”
“Not exactly – things takes as long as you let them”

Cyril Northcote Parkinson created his law as “Work expands so as to fill time available for its completion” and he thought of this while serving in the British Civil Service. Modern adaptations tend to be geared towards computers and as such “Data expands to fill the space available for storage.”  Let’s stop for a second a think about what we do in the normal day.  A quick glance at my calendar tomorrow shows a day full of meetings starting early in the morning for EST and ending at close of business for PST. In between, I can almost guarantee that I will answer phone calls which serve less than expected, I will answer email as it comes to me, and I will receive close to 1 instant message every 2-5 minutes.  At first glance, perhaps there is a correlation to Parkinson’s Law?  I am pretty sure there is.

The next step will be to look at the contents of my day.  And first, we can take in a quick reminder of Vilfredo Pareto’s Pareto Principle or Pareto Efficiency. It is used as a common rule of thumb in business and I am sure that you have heard of it something like “80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients” or a derivative therein. This can be interpreted as it is wise to do the 20% that will give you the 80% of results you are looking for. Even though, we all agree … we will all try to answer every single email, every phone call, etc.

If you only ever do the things that yield 80% (i.e., follow only Pareto’s Principle), what is to keep you from doing that 80% in the time you have available as opposed to the time it should take which could be more or less?  If you speed everything up (i.e., the reverse of Parkinson’s Law) what is going to keep you from burn out or worse a medical condition due to stress?

When I think about urgency, I think it is very important to take into account both items – Parkinson’s Law and the Pareto Principle. Do what is important as efficiently as possible without cutting corners. The key to being a good leader and manager is to help employees understand the difference and how both come together to make personal productivity and ultimately satisfaction increase. The net result is Smart Urgency.

-Dana

The first feature that strikes you when you start the app is the News. NPR has high quality news as you know and now it is right at your fingertips. The stories are updated all day long and at times have accompanying audio. The audio can be listened to immediately or added to a playlist for later. The news is broken into three main categories – Top Stories, More Stories or Newscast which is a 5 minute piece that is updated every hour.

In addition to standard news articles and the newscast, NPR makes all of their shows available to you. If a show is on the air at that time, there will be an “on-air” logo next to the program and you can tap into it live!

The NPR iPhone app also lets you listen to live broadcasts from any NPR member station. You can search by state, by zip code, or let the iPhone GPS app locate the nearest one for you. The stations will let you listen to the live stream or any other program from the recent past.

To download the free app, go to iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews or search for “NPR News” in the iTunes App Store. I hope you enjoy it like I do!

-Dana

So, after a brief discussion of the logistics of how we manage the kids as we bushwacked our way along side Stony Creek, we headed into the woods. As usual Brennan repeated a number of times that he didn’t want to go his way or that and Claire eventually convinced Jill that she should be carried instead of walk through the woods. All that said we did make our way through successfully.

Brennan did great for the most part and seemed to enjoy the time in the actual woods. Jill explained to him that when she was younger, she used to call rotting trees – chicken – because they pulled apart like chicken. Brennan took a few moments to pull of a few pieces of chicken. After a little bit of time we climbed over some other trees and brush.

Brennan ran quickly over to some fallen trees to find the cache! Claire was very excited to see what was in the ammo box and Bren was too. When Jill opened it up, the kids eyes popped open wide. Claire was immediately ecstatic when she saw a McDonald’s Doc car in it. Jill convinced Brennan to take a key chain level on her behalf because she “didn’t have an iPhone level like daddy”. Brennan loved it but I bet Jill ends up with it – clearly yet anoher power struggle to occur in the Edwards house. For those wondering how Kentucky fits into the picture, the cache was apparently named for the musical University of Kentucky bottle opener which was in with the loot and yes I did test it and it does still play some music.

A couple of pictures later and we were on our way. Jill and Claire’s first caching trip was a success and I am pretty sure that they had a blast.

Oh, and yes we did get Brennan registered for tee ball!

- Dana

- Dana

So, your first thought is probably “that flies?”  It sure does.  It’s actually pretty fast and travels a long distance, all things considered. It took all of a few minutes to build.  Needed a few things:

• Tape
• a 3×5 index card
• a straw

To build was very simple:

1. Cut the index card into three 1 in wide strips.
2. Make 1 strip into a circle and tape on the inside and outside
3. Take the other two strips and make into a circle, also taping inside and outside.
4. Cut the flexy part off the straw.
5. Attach the hoops to the straw at either end. I bent the bigger hoop a little bit so that it would sit upright.  Look at how it is attached in the first picture on the left.

Using it is pretty simple too.  Throw it hard and watch it zoom.

I’ll post a video of results tomorrow when he wakes up.

Dana

1. Take better care of myself
   1. Find an exercise I like
   2. Determine frequency of exercise
   3. Do the exercise on that frequency
2. Help the environment
   1. Find a way to save water by the end of January 2009
   2. Do that way of saving water
3. Build stronger relationships with my kids
   1. Spend 1 day per month with each kid solo
   2. Build a science experiment each month with Brennan
   3. Attend all of my kids’ school events
   4. Attend all of my kids’ sports events
   5. Enroll Brennan in soccer
   6. Coach Brennan in basketball again
   7. Help Brennan learn to swim
   8. Help Claire learn to swim
   9. Take the kids to the snow
4. Help around the house more
   1. Find a chore that needs to be done better by end of January
   2. Pick that chore up and do it for the year.
5. Be home for dinner 3 nights per week
6. Call my parents once per week
7. Build stronger relationships with friends
   1. Restart “guy’s night”
   2. Restart the bi-monthly gatherings
8. NEW ADD: Attend all of Bentley’s meetings.

Well, that is my list. I tried to stay away from the “lose ten pounds” and “be better” resolutions as those never get done.  If you read this and have any thoughts, please feel free to post them.

Dana