I love the quote from American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, John Dewey: "We don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflection on experience."
Despite the fact that organisational values are virtually ubiquitous, we don't see a corollary explosion in great businesses. From public values failures (like the banking sector here in Australia) to private conversations, implementation of values desperately needs a new approach.
"0.4% improvement is competitively significant." High stakes decisions, performance expectations, ambitious projects, adversity, balance, prioritisation, transition and change. We're all living and working under uncertainty, stress and pressure. Rather than just surviving, what can we do to thrive in these environments as individuals and teams? Dr Chris Gaviglio is the Head of Strength & Conditioning at the Queensland Academy of Sport with nearly 20 years of strength and conditioning training experience with Olympic sports and professional codes (Wallabies, Gold Coast Suns, QLD Maroons Rugby League). He's an applied sports science researcher (performance biomarkers, blood flow restriction training, warm-up and peri-competition strategies) and speaker and consultant on enhancing human performance: From World Class to World Best. He's also a product designer/entrepreneur (Thera-wedge, Backsak, Sports Rehab Tourniquet), husband and father of two.
The first time I used the 2 chairs game as a decision making technique was when I was invited to go to the Australian Institute of Sport on scholarship for a year straight after finishing high school. Frankly I was terrified.
When I think about flying, it's essentially a tin can thousands of meters above the earth travelling at hundreds of kilometres per hour. It's a humbling reminder of how precious life is.
When I was up to my eyeballs in water polo, a part of my training was weekly martial arts sessions with Andy Sutton. Back in early 2002 he introduced me to the principle: "Go slow to go fast." This wasn't just counter intuitive when I first heard it - it seemed plain mad. We'd been training one on one in a park in West End in Brisbane and it really didn't make much sense to me. At the time I opted to file it away in my subconscious in the "too hard basket".
I've just finished Marshall Goldsmith's great book: "What got you here, won't get you there - How successful people become even more successful". What is the book about? My one sentence answer is: It is about removing your personal obstacles to further magnify your strengths.
It’s an existential question I asked myself after reading Ben Horowitz’s blog post: Lead bullets. Fortunately I was reading Ron Baker’s book Implementing Value Pricing at the time.
I read once that your gut feeling is the sum total of everything - everything you know, everything you've ever been taught and everything you've ever experienced - boiled down to a yes/no, right/wrong choice and impetus to act. I absolutely agree.
Consider your schooling for a minute. What if you had lectures for home work and exercises for class time? What if you could have spent more one on one time with your teacher to help you really grasp the details of concepts, and help you solve problems rather than sitting in a classroom trying to concentrate on the 5th lesson of the day? What if you could have rewound the teacher to listen again to the part that you didn't quite understand? Would it have made a difference? Would you have learnt faster (or at least at your pace), been more engaged, been more interested? It's underway.
Look hard at how your industry works now. Then see what might happen if you do the opposite. If you were looking at the web design industry, the exercise might start [and I mean start - you could definitely get much more hard core than this...] in a list looking something like this:
In the workshop which Adam and I both attended, Liz organised a 5 minute exercise to get us in the groove of relentless questioning - one of the top traits of all great leaders from her book. We picked an issue then chose roles. Adam asked the questions first, and I answered, then we switched it over. I was excited! Even in 5 minutes, I had a much clearer idea of the problem we'd been discussing. I made a mental note to use it in the future if I was stuck on a problem. Sure enough...
Here's what I wrote to Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown as feedback on the session: I can’t tell you how energizing it was! It’s incredible to watch people around the table really identify what is the absolute best in their team mates. Then the reaction of the person in the “hot seat” - as they come to realise what others believe is their strongest quality, understand what it is that really drives them and realise how it translates not just to work, but across all aspects of their lives – was inspiring! The formal reviews we had scheduled for the next day were quite different as a result too.
