LASZLO BOCK = GEORGE S. PATTON

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity" - General Patton

"If you give people freedom, they will amaze you... all you need do is give them a little infrastructure and a lot of room to change the world" - Laszlo Bock, Google Inc.

"BUT WE'VE ALWAYS DONE IT THIS WAY"

I actually heard a client utter this phrase a couple of weeks ago. She didn't even justify it by adding "and it's always worked...". That's because it clearly wasn't working.

So now you and I can occupy the rational high ground and bask in our superiority.

Why not? We've always done it this way.

MINDFULNESS

There's been a lot of interest in Mindfulness recently - particularly in a work context. In our over-active, western business culture, the focus is on how to do it and what benefits it will bring.

Well the benefits are potentially huge, depending on what benefit you are seeking. And practising Mindfulness is simplicity itself, but not necessarily easy.

The biggest hurdle to Mindfulness, and thereby what makes it so powerful, is that its real focus is not doing what we habitually do, rather than doing something new.

Being rather than doing...

MECHANICS, DYNAMICS & GAFFES

I popped into EIE14 this week to check out the latest offerings form Scotland's Start Up community. I had to endure a couple of after-dinner speeches before 10am which was unwelcome, even though something that Sir Brian Souter (founder of Stagecoach) said, struck a chord.

Having made a slight gaffe with a non PC and non funny joke about mental health, causing a sensitive soul to storm out, he went on to talk about the Mechanics and Dynamics of a business.

The Mechanics being the infrastructure, nuts and bolts, operations and processes of the business; Dynamics being the intangible thrust, ambition, direction and strategy of the business. He made the point that the interaction between the two is critical - it's a balancing act. It reminded me of many fundamental polarities: Yin-Yang, Light-Dark, Good-Bad, Hot-Cold, Male-Female etc. And that neither can exist without the other...

CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY

A recent Health & Safety issue prompted a client's management team to talk themselves into a doomsday scenario where no-one was safe to do anything, anymore. And in an engineering machine shop, this spelt disaster.

"Go down, have a look and talk to the people concerned." I urged. "That will just make it worse, there's no way around it and we'd be forced to take action now." they replied, hoping a blind eye would mitigate the risk.

At my insistence, they acquiesced, returning 20 minutes later with smiles having found a very practical solution.

I like this as an example of how easy it is to talk yourself into a hole, when listening to the right people may just fill in the hole for you.

WILL.I.AM - A DESCENDED MASTER?

Having thought of pop legend/impresario Will.i.am as primarily a source of vacuous inanity, I sat up recently when he said: 

"I’m ignoring my problems; I’m paying attention to my dreams"...

I take it all back - the guy knows a thing or two and clearly practices what he preaches.

HENRY FORD DIDN'T JUST MAKE CARS...

... he spoke a lot of sense too:

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."

Question is, is this just a bit of positive thinking, or does it turn our concept of causality on its head?

Whichever you think, you're right.

MANAGEMENT WISDOM FROM DIRTY HARRY

Well, Clint Eastwood actually:

"If you hire the right people, you can give them the responsibility and then keep your mouth shut and get your pay cheque"

After years of doubting, I now take this as an inviolable truth. So if it's not working for you, get the right people and keep your mouth shut.

HOLIDAYS? TAKE AS MANY AS YOU WANT...

I've been struggling to work out a holiday policy for staff at my current interim GM assignment. Making it 'fair' seems to have the inevitable consequence of making it more complex and less practical.

Then I came across Netflix:
Netflix lets its staff take as much holiday as they want, whenever they want – and it works.

What a great endorsement of individual responsibility. Although I'm not sure we're ready for it, Netfilx's radical policy certainly stopped me in my tracks and is making me re-think the whole issue...

WHY FORGIVE OR FORGET?

I've always thought of forgiveness as a big effort which is great for the person that's wronged you - it's let them off the hook - but with not much in it for me, apart from a sanctimonious feeling of superiority as I've been "the bigger person".

Well, my latest revelation is that it's all cobblers. It's nothing to do with the other person at all. It's actually none of their business whether I forgive them or not.

BUT, forgiving and forgetting is great for me as it immediately banishes all those dreadful feelings of anger, hurt, bitterness and being a victim, and releases me from the burden of carrying them around with me. So forgiveness is health-promoting and utterly selfish. And what's wrong with that?