Make It Happen

Some great news: The Indie Book Awards has named Personal Balance Sheet by Randall Craig a Gold Medal Winner in the Career category. It was also named one of the top Business books of the year.

The Next Generation Indie Book Awards is one of the most prestigious American book awards. All books are judged for their content; the judges include expert editors, writers and publishers in the book publishing industry.

I have to admit, when the actual gold medal arrived at my office, I thought it looked a bit silly, but then again, I'm thrilled to have received the honor, and it's not like I will be wearing it when I go out to meet clients.. I probably should mount it. I'm pretty excited about the gold stickers (I have both "winner" and "finalist" ones) though.

Hopefully the award will result in more exposure, and a more orders.

The book is available on Amazon, at Chapters/Indigo, and at www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com, or at your favorite book retailer.

In a departure from my usual analysis and perspective, I thought that I would comment on some of the most useful gadgets that I regularly use. Each of them share one thing in common: they save me time, reduce frustration, and are generally very clever.

Not in any particular order:

The Flip: This is a cell-phone sized video camera that has one-button simplicity, as well as a built-in USB plug that "flips" out of the side. Time from filming to YouTube upload is measured in minutes. The Flip records one hour of YouTube quality video.

Olympus Digital Voice Recorder WS-210S: Like The Flip, this has a built in USB plug. It records up to 138 hours (or a bit less with higher quality) It's great for quickly recording ideas and practicing speeches.

Logitech remote pointer for PowerPoint, model R-R85: This small remote has all of the required functions, but doesn't overwhelm with buttons. Bonus: a count-down timer causes the unit to vibrant at present intervals, to give a sense of timing.

CardScan Executive: This handy device scans business cards, and then synchronizes them with Outlook. While the character recognition isn't perfect on cards with bizarre fonts, it is a truly clever timesaver.

Dymo LabelWriter 400: This printer only does one thing - print labels very well.

Tablet PC: In my case, I use a glacially slow ThinkPad X41T, but to be able to use a stylus to annotate, draw pictures, and highlight existing documents is huge - and cool.

iPod and iTunes: Any model will do; these clever devices allow a relaxing escape while travelling, or greater accessibility to professional development. And the iTunes store, while not a gadget in its own right, has opened up a world of music.

How long does it take - or should it take - for you to master a new skill? Conventional wisdom suggests that after doing something several times, you should know it fairly well. After doing it for a few months, you should have proficiency. And after a year, you're an expert.

Or are you?

The knowledge that is embedded within an organization is often found in long-time employees - those who have been around for 10+ years. Typically, these are the people who can answer questions about long-time clients and suppliers. These are the people that have strong organizational knowledge - they are the organic databases and walking knowledge management systems. Their skills and experience have developed with time.

Businesses are now (or soon will be) at an interesting turning point. The last generation of long-time employees will soon be moving into retirement. A new generation of "millennials" - all apparently with short attention spans - will be taking their place. Will these younger employees have the skills and the patience to develop the deep knowledge necessary for corporate (and national) success?

This issue came to mind in the strangest of circumstances. I had demonstrated a lengthy karate sequence of moves to my karate sensei the other night. After a demonstration, there is usually a fair amount of critical feedback. In this case, I was told that it was a wonderful demonstration, and that I had finally mastered the sequence.

It had taken me twenty years.

(After a year, you're an expert? Inexperience prevents many people from seeing how much further progress is possible.)

A typical way to develop perspective is to consider issues from different vantage points. A less common - but perhaps more valuable - way to develop perspective is to expose yourself to different ideas.

One way to do this is to read books that are at the fringes of your "typical" interest area - and then apply those concepts in your area of expertise and in your dealings with others. Here are some recent books that I have read, along with the interesting lessons that they taught:

Working the Room (Nick Morgan): If it is important enough to get up in front of a group and say something, then it is important enough to rehearse.

The Trusted Advisor (David Maister): Personal credibility and relationships are what develop long-term relationships with clients - not price.

Chaos (James Gleick): The seminal book on the origins and uses of Chaos theory; The biggest advances in science are often discovered by those whose training started in a different field. Conventional wisdom sometimes prevents progress.

Freakonomics (Steven Levitt/Stephen Dubner): Personal motivation and incentive are often at the heart of behavior.

Growing an Engaged Church (Albert Winseman): The connection between personal engagement and the development of a community of interest.

Getting to Yes (Roger Fisher /William Ury): Wear the other person's shoes: helping others get what they want is the first step to getting what you want.

Linked (Albert-Laszlo Barabasi): It's not the "nodes", but the connections between them that make the network.

Carpe Diem: How to become a latin lover (Harry Mount): This book is a description and primer on Latin; it illustrates what can be learned from a culture from it's language. (And conversely, how hard it is to learn about a culture if you don't know its language.)

Death Sentences (Don Watson): This book rails against the use of weasel words and management-speak.

Godel Escher Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid (Douglas Hofstadter): The intimate, and sometimes surprising, connection between philosophy, art, and music.

Leaving the Mother Ship and Personal Balance Sheet: More so than reading, writing about a subject in depth forces you to think deeply about it.

What's on your list - and what did you learn?

Not long after writing about the Long Game with respect to career planning, I was thinking about the same thing at the corporate level.

Of course, with corporations, the Long Game concept is usually called "Strategy" and is the result of "Strategic Planning". Or is it? There are two interesting examples that recently hit the news: the contrasting fortunes of eBay and Google.

eBay: In case you aren't familiar, a few years ago eBay spent a few billion dollars to acquire Skype, the internet phone company. While analysts generally agreed that the transaction was significantly overvalued, eBay-boosters spoke about the reasons why the transaction made sense:
- It would improve the "community" aspect of eBay by allowing better communication between players.
- It is a pre-emptive, defensive purchase, against Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
- It would provide access to peer-to-peer technology, in the same way that eBay's earlier purchase of Paypal provided access to payment technology.
- It was a vastly growing segment of the market.
No matter the rationale, recently eBay took a $1.4 Billion write-down. The Long Game didn't pay off. Or, it was paying off, but not fast enough financially.

Google: Google has also had a history of growth, funded both through acquisition and internal R&D. Their acquisitions ranged from geographic mapping, to radio advertising software, to YouTube, to Blogger: over 24 companies in the last two years alone. Beyond this, their engineers are told to spend 20% of their time working on projects that interest them. These Long Game activities turned into Gmail, Adsense, Google News, and a full 50% of Google's new services. (HP in it's heyday had the same type of rule.)

While it is still uncertain whether YouTube will actually be worth what they paid for it, this particular acquisition is a great example of the Long Game: how long before they sell advertising to commercialize the vast library of clips? (They could sell "play-before" clips, CNN style overlays, post-clip banners, etc.)

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The toughest question for most CEOs and planners is figuring out how to have your Long Game look more like Google's than eBay's - especially given the quarterly pressure of the public markets. If you make no investment (and therefore take no risk), then there will definitely be no return. If you invest based solely on hunch (or ego), this is also a gamble. In my view, Long Game strategy is simply putting one foot in front of the other - but with your eyes firmly planted on the horizon.

The Long Game

I recently spoke at an event filled with undergraduate business school students. Before heading to the podium, I talked to a student who was to address the group after me; his topic was how to be hired as an Investment Banker. I wished him luck, and asked how he learned about his topic. (Summer job.) I then asked if he had started the field's key professional certification. (No since it was valueless.) Despite whatever he said at the podium, to me this person demonstrated both arrogance and ignorance. How did he see the certification as valueless? And how can a summer job make one an expert?

While it may have been quite some time since your student days, there is a concept -- the Long Game -- that is more relevant as your career progresses. While instant gratification is satisfying, longer-term fundamental advancement often takes much longer. Said another way, Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither should your career.

Long Game activities meet three criteria:

1. an investment in time (and sometimes money),
2. the return will not be instant,
3. the results are sometimes uncertain.

Here are a few examples:

Volunteer at a not-for-profit. Initially you might work at an event, and eventually manage part of it. After several years, you might work yourself up through the committee structure, and eventually become a member of the Board. While there are short-term benefits to your participation, the Long Game benefits might include a broader skill base, a great network, and solid non-work references. Where will this lead you in the future? Unknown - but nowhere but up.

Attain a professional certification: The vast majority of certifications take (at least) several years to earn, and often require academic coursework, self-study, examinations, association membership, and work experience. While your short-term learning might help you in your current position, going through the process will deepen your subject matter expertise, build a network of others with that certification, and result in greater professional opportunities down the road.

Stretch yourself within your role: Why not volunteer to be on work-related committees or special projects? At the beginning, this will help you broaden your skills, but doing so on an ongoing basis develops your reputation for going the extra mile, always contributing to the team, and generally moving the business forward. And once again, it develops your network.

Other Long Game ideas:

* Learning a new language
* Building skills through a hobby
* Starting a small business on the side
* Seeking a transfer to a different country

This Week's Action Item: Choose two Long Game activities and schedule them into your calendar. Don't expect any recognition from others for these activities, but check back in 18 months - you'll be surprized at how far you've gone.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

Meeting Magic

How many useless meetings have you attended? And how many have you been in charge of? Whether the meeting is a team status review, sales pitch, or interview, following a structured approach can make an appreciable difference. Consider this framework:

Define the purpose of the meeting: Before you even consider scheduling, define for yourself what the best outcome of the meeting will be. "The meeting will be successful if we ___________ ". At the end of the meeting, you can double check to see if the objective is met.

Plan the agenda (and distribute it). If participants understand how the meeting will be played out, they will be better able to prepare. Furthermore, developing the agenda based on the meeting purpose helps determine who should be invited.

Invite the right people. No one will show up unless they are invited. If the purpose of the meeting is to make a decision, then the decision-makers must be in the room.

Give Pre-work. Asking people to prepare - or at least review work that you have prepared - will mean that everyone hits the ground running.

Start and end the meeting on time. Keeping to the schedule shows respect for people's time and priorities. If you're late for a job interview, you probably will not get the job. Why should our mutual expectations change once we're on the job?

Set expectations and rules of order. Will the meeting be free-wheeling and informal, or be managed with Robert's Rules of Order?

Facilitate professionally. Great facilitation ensures that everyone participates, that the agenda is addressed, and that the meeting objectives are met.

Take minutes and note action-items. If you think that minutes are not required, maybe the meeting isn't either? Minutes document the discussions, decisions, and resulting action items.

Follow-up. Check with people just after the meeting to make sure they have what they need to move forward. Then circle back later to check status on their action-items.

While this framework is designed for regular business meetings, with some minor adjustments it also works for job interviews and performance reviews.

This week's action item: Look in your calendar, and commit to incorporating at least some of these items into your next meeting. If it isn't your meeting, reach out to the organizer, and make some suggestions: why not ask for the agenda or volunteer to take minutes? Or better yet, point them to this Tipsheet, and make some meeting magic.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

Nickels and Dimes

If you had a choice to be paid either $50 or $100 for a service that you performed, which would you choose? Most of us would choose the greater amount; after all, if we have to do the work, why not be paid as much as the market will bear? Take the money and run!

Unfortunately, not everything may be as it appears. There is an unfortunate story about a man who boasted that his child was so "dumb" that when given a choice between a nickel and a dime, his child always chose the nickel. Later one day, someone asked the kid why they didn't choose the dime: "if I chose the dime, he would have stopped asking me which I wanted. As it stands, I've earned about ten dollars."

The father never looked at the situation from the child's perspective: instead, he made assumptions that in the end, made him look foolish. More importantly even the child knew that a continuous flow of nickels was better than just one dime. The kid knew not to kill the golden goose, so he played along.

Most people would not put up with the "dumb" label just to earn a few bucks, but the story illustrates an important point: whether you are putting together a deal, negotiating your next job, or just agreeing on your next year's performance objectives, remember that small greed succeeds. If you ask for too much, the risk isn't just that the other party may walk away, but that they will say yes - and no longer send any more "nickels" your way. On the other hand, if you ask too little, you are undervaluing your work.

This week's action item: Knowledge gives you tremendous leverage. Before you next negotiate anything, learn about the other party's motivations, investigate the market, and probe. Don't take the dime only to stop the nickels.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

Secret Sauce

There is no shortage of books, experts, web sites, and computer programs that purport to tell you how to succeed in your job, and often, in life. They exist because of the public's insatiable appetite for self-improvement. When you examine them closely, the vast majority have two things in common:

- Success will be yours if only you follow "the system" to the letter.

- They know nothing about you and your unique circumstance.

Unfortunately, for both of these reasons, many of these resources are of questionable value. If you are unique, how can a generic "system" help you sell yourself? (It can't.)

No one knows you better than yourself, and no amount of generic secret sauce is going to make you successful. Instead, consider these questions about your unique selling proposition:

1) What skill do you have that is better than anyone else's, with the greatest market value?

2) What are you doing to improve that value further?

3) What are you doing to demonstrate that value to your employer, to your family, and within your community?

This week's action item: By all means continue reading, listening, and surfing - after all, you would not have found this Tipsheet article if you weren't doing so! But if you want to get yourself to the next level, it will take more than just reading, listening, and surfing - it will take action. Start by answering these three key questions.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news

Improvisation

Recently I had attended the Montreal Jazz Festival. Over the course of several days, dozens of bands of all styles - blues, big band, dixie, fusion, to name a few - played to thousands of spectators.

For those not familiar with the genre, most jazz follows a similar story line: a melody is played, then individual musicians improvise on that melody, then the melody is reprised.

When asked what makes a great improvisation, many musicians will give different answers:

- It is suggestive of the melody.
- It is completely different from the melody.
- It uses the same rhythms.
- It uses differing rhythms.

Despite the seeming contradictions, there is one thing in common to all improvisations. The musicians are out there by themselves (although with the support of the band behind them), creating something that didn't exist before, and connecting with their audience in an emotionally expressive, impactful way.

Ironically, we don't think of this metaphor when we do a business presentation, or when we are in a job interview, or in a tough negotiation with a supplier. But in each of these situations, we need to stand on our feet, think on our feet, and deliver our message - while at the same time "fit" within the framework of our environment.

This week's Action Item: Musicians don't magically know all of their scales, nor are they always comfortable with public performance. They build up to it with practice, with warm-ups, and with feedback from their audience. This week, identify a time when you will be called to perform. But instead of doing "improv", rehearse, gain feedback, and then do your thing.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.PersonalBalanceSheet.com/news