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Sun, 16 May 2010 18:04:01 +0000

Just a test.

Improvement Frame

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:35:54 +0000

Photo by Hamed Saber

As a mentor at work, I like to checkpoint results. While I can do area-specific coaching, I tend to take a more holistic approach. For me, it’s more rewarding to find ways to unleash somebody’s full potential and improve their overall effectiveness. Aside from checking against specific goals, I use the following frame to gauge progress.

Improvement Frame
Here’s the categories I use:

Thinking / Feeling
Situation
Time / Task Management
Domain Knowledge
Strategies / Approaches
Relationships

Improvement Frame
Here’s a sampling of the questions I use.

Area	Prompts
Thinking / Feeling	Do you find your work rewarding? Are you passionate about what you do? Are you spending more time feeling good? What thoughts dominate your mind now? Is your general outlook more positive or negative? Do you have more energy or less in general? Are you still worried about the same things? Are you excited about anything? Have you changed your self-talk from inner-critic to coach?
Situation	Are you spending more time working on what you enjoy? What would you rather be spending more time doing? Do you have the manager you want? Do you have the job you want? Are you moving toward or away from your career goals? If your situation was never going to change, what one skill would you need to make the most of it?
Time / Task Management	Are you driving your day or being driven? Are you spending less time on administration? Are you getting your “MUSTs” done? Are you dropping the ball on anything important? Do you have a task management system you trust? Are you avoiding using your head as a collection point? How are you avoiding biting off more than you can chew? How are you delivering incremental value?
Domain Knowledge	Have you learned new skills? Have you sharpened your key strengths? Have you reduced your key liabilities? What are you the go-to person for? What could you learn that would make your more valuable to your team?
Strategies / Approaches	What are you approaching differently than the past? How are you more resourceful? How are you finding lessons in everything you do? How are you learning from everybody that you can? How are you improving your effectiveness? How are you modeling the success of others? How are you tailoring advice to make it work for you?
Relationships	Are you managing up effectively? Are your priorities in sync with your manager’s? Has your support network grown or shrunk? How are you participating in new circles of influence? How are you spending more time with people that catalyze you? How are you working more effectively with people that drain you? How are you leveraging more mentors and area specific coaches?

Using the Frame

I’ve found this frame very effective for quickly finding areas that need work or to find sticking points. It’s also very revealing in terms of how much dramatic change there can be. While situations or circumstances may not change much, I find that changes in strategies and approaches can have a profound impact. My take on this is that while you can’t always control what’s on your plate, you can control how you eat it.

My Related Posts

Make Knowledge the Path 3

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:43:07 +0000

Make knowledge path. Become knowledgeable in a wide array of supportive studies. Each area alone is not the key. The key is integrating the various studies. In the book, Peter Drucker writes about making knowledge a path.

Lessons Learned from the Essential Drucker
Make Knowledges the Path to Knowledge. Drucker writes:

Without such understanding, the knowledges themselves will become sterile, will indeed cease to be “knowledges.” They will become intellectually arrogant and unproductive. For the major new insights in every of the specialized knowledges arise out of another, separate specialty, out of another one of the knowledges.

Both economics and meteorology are being transformed at present by the new mathematics of chaos theory. Geology is being profoundly changed by the physics of matter, archeology by the genetics of DNA typing; history by psychological, statistical, and technological analysis and techniques. An American, James M. Buchanan (b. 1919), received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics for applying recent economic theory to the political process and thereby standing on their heads the assumptions and theories on which political scientists had based their work for over a century.

Specialists Have to Make Themselves and Their Specialty Understood
Drucker Writes;

The specialists have to take responsibility for making both themselves and their specialty understood. The media, whether magazines, movies, or television, have a crucial role to play. But they cannot do the job by themselves. Nor can any other kind of popularization. Specialties must be understood for what they are: serious, rigorous, demanding disciplines. This requires that the leaders in each of the knowledges, beginning with the leading shcolears in each field, must take on the hard work of defining what it is they do.

All Knowledges are Equally Valuable
Drucker Writes:

There is no “queen of the knowledges” in the knowledge society. All knowledges are equally valuable; all knowledges, in the words of the great medieval philosopher Saint Bonaventura, lead equally to the truth. But to make them paths to truth, paths to knowledge, has to be the responsibility of the men and women who own these knowledges. Collectively, they hold knowledge in trust.

Make Knowledge the Path 2

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:40:56 +0000

Lessons Learned from the Essential Drucker
Make Knowledges the Path to Knowledge. Drucker writes:

Without such understanding, the knowledges themselves will become sterile, will indeed cease to be “knowledges.” They will become intellectually arrogant and unproductive. For the major new insights in every of the specialized knowledges arise out of another, separate specialty, out of another one of the knowledges.

Both economics and meteorology are being transformed at present by the new mathematics of chaos theory. Geology is being profoundly changed by the physics of matter, archeology by the genetics of DNA typing; history by psychological, statistical, and technological analysis and techniques. An American, James M. Buchanan (b. 1919), received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics for applying recent economic theory to the political process and thereby standing on their heads the assumptions and theories on which political scientists had based their work for over a century.

Specialists Have to Make Themselves and Their Specialty Understood
Drucker Writes;

The specialists have to take responsibility for making both themselves and their specialty understood. The media, whether magazines, movies, or television, have a crucial role to play. But they cannot do the job by themselves. Nor can any other kind of popularization. Specialties must be understood for what they are: serious, rigorous, demanding disciplines. This requires that the leaders in each of the knowledges, beginning with the leading shcolears in each field, must take on the hard work of defining what it is they do.

All Knowledges are Equally Valuable
Drucker Writes:

There is no “queen of the knowledges” in the knowledge society. All knowledges are equally valuable; all knowledges, in the words of the great medieval philosopher Saint Bonaventura, lead equally to the truth. But to make them paths to truth, paths to knowledge, has to be the responsibility of the men and women who own these knowledges. Collectively, they hold knowledge in trust.

Make Knowledge the Path

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:29:24 +0000

Lessons Learned from the Essential Drucker
Make Knowledges the Path to Knowledge. Drucker writes:

Without such understanding, the knowledges themselves will become sterile, will indeed cease to be “knowledges.” They will become intellectually arrogant and unproductive. For the major new insights in every of the specialized knowledges arise out of another, separate specialty, out of another one of the knowledges.

Both economics and meteorology are being transformed at present by the new mathematics of chaos theory. Geology is being profoundly changed by the physics of matter, archeology by the genetics of DNA typing; history by psychological, statistical, and technological analysis and techniques. An American, James M. Buchanan (b. 1919), received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics for applying recent economic theory to the political process and thereby standing on their heads the assumptions and theories on which political scientists had based their work for over a century.

Specialists Have to Make Themselves and Their Specialty Understood
Drucker Writes;

The specialists have to take responsibility for making both themselves and their specialty understood. The media, whether magazines, movies, or television, have a crucial role to play. But they cannot do the job by themselves. Nor can any other kind of popularization. Specialties must be understood for what they are: serious, rigorous, demanding disciplines. This requires that the leaders in each of the knowledges, beginning with the leading shcolears in each field, must take on the hard work of defining what it is they do.

All Knowledges are Equally Valuable
Drucker Writes:

There is no “queen of the knowledges” in the knowledge society. All knowledges are equally valuable; all knowledges, in the words of the great medieval philosopher Saint Bonaventura, lead equally to the truth. But to make them paths to truth, paths to knowledge, has to be the responsibility of the men and women who own these knowledges. Collectively, they hold knowledge in trust.

4 Types of Problems 2

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:04:59 +0000

Photo by emdot

If you know the type of problem you’re dealing with, you can handle it more effectively. One of the best skills you can master in life is problem solving. One of the keys to effective problem solving is knowing what kind of problem you’re dealing with. For example, is this a unique problem, a pattern of a problem, or an exception? Knowing the type of problem helps you choose the most effective strategy. In The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials) , Peter Drucker identifies four type of problems.

4 Types of Problem
According to Drucker, there’s four types of problems:

Truly Generic (individual occurrence is a symptom; Two Different Kinds of Compromises)
Generic, but Unique for the individual institution
Truly exceptional, truly unique
Early manifestation of a new generic problem

Generic or Exception
Is the problem generic or an exception? Drucker recommends starting there:

The first questions the effective decision-maker asks are: Is this a generic situation or an exception? Is this something that underlies a great many occurrences? Or is the occurrence a unique event that needs to be dealt with as such? The generic always has to be answered through a rule, a principle. Strictly speaking, one might distinguish among four, rather than between two, different types of occurrences.

Truly generic
While many symptoms may vary, a lot of problems are actually generic if you look to the root cause. Drucker writes:

There is first the truly generic, of which the individual occurrence is only a symptom. Most of the problems that come up in the course of the executive’s work are of this nature. Inventory decisions in a business, for instance, are not “decisions.” They are adaptations. The problem is generic.

Generic, but Unique for the individual institution
Sometimes a problem is generic, but unique in that you only face it once. Drucker writes:

Then there is the problem that, while a unique event for the individual institution, is actually generic.

The company that receives an offer to merge from another, larger one will never receive such an offer again if it accepts. This is a nonrecurrent situation as far as the individual company, its board of directors, and its management are concerned. But it is, of course, a generic situation that occurs all the time. To think through whether to accept or to reject the offer requires some general rules. For these, however, one has to look to the experience of others.

Truly exceptional, truly unique
Every now and then, a problem truly is unique. Drucker writes:

Next there is the truly exceptional, the truly unique event. The power failure that plunged into darkness the whole of northeastern North America from St. Lawrence River to Washington D.C., in November 1965, was according to the first explanations, a truly exceptional situation. So was the thalidomide tragedy that led to the birth of so many deformed babies in the early 1960’s. The probability of these events, we were told, was one in ten million or one in a hundred million. Such concatenation of malfunctions is as unlikely ever to recur as it is unlikely, for instance, for the chair on which I sit to disintegrate into its constituent atoms.

Early manifestation of a new generic problem
Sometimes a new problem that at first seems unique, is really just the first instance of a new generic problem. Drucker writes:

Truly unique events are rare, however. Whenever one appears, one has to ask, Is this a true exception or only the first manifestation of a new genus? And this, the early manifestation of a new generic problem, is the fourth and last category of events with which the decision process deals. We know now, for instance, that both, the northeastern power failure and the thalidomide tragedy were on the first occurrences of what, under conditions of modern power technology or of modern pharmacology, are likely to become fairly frequent malfunctions unless generic solutions are found.

All Events But the Truly Unique Require a Generic Solution
For generic problems, you can use generic solutions. Tailor the proven practices for your particular situation. drucker writes:

All events but the truly unique require a generic solution. They require a rule, a policy, a principle. Once the right principle has been developed, all manifestations of the same generic situation can be handled pragmatically, that is, by adaption of the rule to the concrete circumstances of the case. Truly unique events, however, must be treated individually. One cannot develop rules for the exceptional. The effective decision-maker spends time to determine with which of these four situations he is dealing. He knows that he will make the wrong decision if he classifies the situation wrongly. By far the most common mistake is to treat a generic situation as if it were a series of unique events, that is, to be pragmatic when one lacks the generic understanding and principle. This inevitably leads to frustration and futility.

Key Take Aways
Here’s my key take aways:

Know the four types of problems. The four types are: 1) truly generic. 2) truly unique.3) generic, but unique for the situation 4) new generic problem.
First identify whether the problem is generic or unique. Misery loves company. It’s great to know if the problem you’re facing is a problem that others have faced. Chances are you’re not alone.
Treat the root cause, not the symptoms. To find the cause, you need to ask "Why?" You might need to ask "why?" multiple times.
Leverage the experience of others. How have others solved the problem? Who can you learn from? Who else might share the problem?
Use a principle-based approach to solving problems. This builds on the idea of leveraging the experience of others. What’s the underlying pattern or principle of the solution. For example, I know one of the underlying principles for influence is "rapport before influence." Knowing this, I adapt that principle to a variety of scenarios, whether it’s pitching a project or coaching a teammate.

My Related Posts

4 Types of Problems

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:00:49 +0000

Photo by emdot

4 Types of Problem
According to Drucker, there’s four types of problems:

Truly Generic (individual occurrence is a symptom; Two Different Kinds of Compromises)
Generic, but Unique for the individual institution
Truly exceptional, truly unique
Early manifestation of a new generic problem

Generic or Exception
Is the problem generic or an exception? Drucker recommends starting there:

The first questions the effective decision-maker asks are: Is this a generic situation or an exception? Is this something that underlies a great many occurrences? Or is the occurrence a unique event that needs to be dealt with as such? The generic always has to be answered through a rule, a principle. Strictly speaking, one might distinguish among four, rather than between two, different types of occurrences.

Truly generic
While many symptoms may vary, a lot of problems are actually generic if you look to the root cause. Drucker writes:

There is first the truly generic, of which the individual occurrence is only a symptom. Most of the problems that come up in the course of the executive’s work are of this nature. Inventory decisions in a business, for instance, are not “decisions.” They are adaptations. The problem is generic.

Generic, but Unique for the individual institution
Sometimes a problem is generic, but unique in that you only face it once. Drucker writes:

Then there is the problem that, while a unique event for the individual institution, is actually generic.

The company that receives an offer to merge from another, larger one will never receive such an offer again if it accepts. This is a nonrecurrent situation as far as the individual company, its board of directors, and its management are concerned. But it is, of course, a generic situation that occurs all the time. To think through whether to accept or to reject the offer requires some general rules. For these, however, one has to look to the experience of others.

Truly exceptional, truly unique
Every now and then, a problem truly is unique. Drucker writes:

Next there is the truly exceptional, the truly unique event. The power failure that plunged into darkness the whole of northeastern North America from St. Lawrence River to Washington D.C., in November 1965, was according to the first explanations, a truly exceptional situation. So was the thalidomide tragedy that led to the birth of so many deformed babies in the early 1960’s. The probability of these events, we were told, was one in ten million or one in a hundred million. Such concatenation of malfunctions is as unlikely ever to recur as it is unlikely, for instance, for the chair on which I sit to disintegrate into its constituent atoms.

Early manifestation of a new generic problem
Sometimes a new problem that at first seems unique, is really just the first instance of a new generic problem. Drucker writes:

Truly unique events are rare, however. Whenever one appears, one has to ask, Is this a true exception or only the first manifestation of a new genus? And this, the early manifestation of a new generic problem, is the fourth and last category of events with which the decision process deals. We know now, for instance, that both, the northeastern power failure and the thalidomide tragedy were on the first occurrences of what, under conditions of modern power technology or of modern pharmacology, are likely to become fairly frequent malfunctions unless generic solutions are found.

All Events But the Truly Unique Require a Generic Solution
For generic problems, you can use generic solutions. Tailor the proven practices for your particular situation. drucker writes:

All events but the truly unique require a generic solution. They require a rule, a policy, a principle. Once the right principle has been developed, all manifestations of the same generic situation can be handled pragmatically, that is, by adaption of the rule to the concrete circumstances of the case. Truly unique events, however, must be treated individually. One cannot develop rules for the exceptional. The effective decision-maker spends time to determine with which of these four situations he is dealing. He knows that he will make the wrong decision if he classifies the situation wrongly. By far the most common mistake is to treat a generic situation as if it were a series of unique events, that is, to be pragmatic when one lacks the generic understanding and principle. This inevitably leads to frustration and futility.

Key Take Aways
Here’s my key take aways:

Know the four types of problems. The four types are: 1) truly generic. 2) truly unique.3) generic, but unique for the situation 4) new generic problem.
First identify whether the problem is generic or unique. Misery loves company. It’s great to know if the problem you’re facing is a problem that others have faced. Chances are you’re not alone.
Treat the root cause, not the symptoms. To find the cause, you need to ask "Why?" You might need to ask "why?" multiple times.
Leverage the experience of others. How have others solved the problem? Who can you learn from? Who else might share the problem?
Use a principle-based approach to solving problems. This builds on the idea of leveraging the experience of others. What’s the underlying pattern or principle of the solution. For example, I know one of the underlying principles for influence is "rapport before influence." Knowing this, I adapt that principle to a variety of scenarios, whether it’s pitching a project or coaching a teammate.

My Related Posts

Hello world!

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:21:53 +0000

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

WordPress Resources at SiteGround

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:20:49 +0000

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