I was in the car driving home from work when I suddenly realised something. Big actions often come from deep seated unconscious feelings that we really don’t understand. Think about the decision to have children, was it a rational choice or something that you felt you had to do. What about the choice to follow a career in the field you are in? Was there something about that kind of job that just spoke to you? A lot of the time the choices we make, especially those from the heart, cause us to take huge actions.

There is a thing called post-hoc rationalisation which I lectured on the other day that says we often take actions and later justify them by making sense of what happened because we don’t really know why we did what we did. Take me for instance. I am attracted to things that are new. No, not shiny things… new things. I like to create stuff and make it. In my job I don’t get much of a chance to do that at present so I have been a bit tired. But, when I am working through something new and ideas are flowing I feel like I have had a fire set under my backside. It’s truly wonderful. Why is that? It’s because deep down that’s me and when I see that in the world it’s me coming out.

As small step we need to begin to pay attention to what we do and trace it back to what we think and then some kind of underlying feeling or emotion.  These deep things we ignore are us.  I have once heard it put this way you are not what you think about you are the bit behind the thoughts.  I think in business we need to pay more attention to these things and take them more seriously.  I think this is an interesting topic and I will be posting more about this in the next few days.   Thanks for reading.

Technorati Tags: unconscious, feelings, decision, actions

Have you ever been stuck to come up with cool ideas? Today I thought that it would be nice to share some of the things that have worked well for me over the past few years. So here goes: 4 ways to come up with cool ideas.

1. Write (journal) your ideas down

There is a lot to be said for the art of writing. One of the most helpful things I have found in coming up with cool ideas is to write about the topic and see what flows out of my pen. Now this is really the free flow of intuition coming out of your pen. I don’t really know why but writing is a really easy way to find new ideas. Try this: take a blank piece of paper (or open up an office document… open or MS variety for you lovers of Bill Gates) and simply start writing about the topic. Those of you who have experimented with journaling before will understand what I am talking about. This is a wonderful way to find new ideas. When you switch off your reasoning process and move to the right side of your brain you will begin to think in a creative manner. Writing stuff down is a great way to do this.

2. Build a mind map

Mind mapping for me is a fruitful activity. It’s helps to see your assumptions about an idea right there on the page. I have used many modelling techniques over the years but this one is the simplest and quite possibly one of the best (maybe with the except of rich picture building) techniques available. If you aren’t familiar with it I would recommend reading the wikipedia article. Remember though, you can make more than one and then compare your results. This is also very important!

3. Synthesise

This is the art of putting two old ideas together where it was previously thought impossible (roughly speaking). To synthesise means you take one idea and add others to it to see what results. The process of brainstorming is a good example of this. Of course synthesis is flawed because it relies on the premise that you can put two things together and there will be a good result. Clearly this is not so (consider the Pug?). However, sometimes the right amount of synthesis can be a good thing. Adding one idea to another can spark a revolution of creativity which leads to new perspectives not previously available. Try it!

4. Talking to yourself (meditation)

In the bible we find the term ‘meditation’ which I think really means talking to yourself or thinking out loud on one concept for an extended period of time and doing so from different angles. I am not sure why this is so but I have to admit when I talk to myself about a topic my creative processes (I would argue intuitive processes) take over. Once I was stuck on a topic for a model I was building for one of my lectures on the Mobile Workforce. I began to think it through and talk about the concept from every possible angle when suddenly the idea spontaneously formed within me. The students in two classes responded so positively to it I believe most intuitive things are like this. We are often one good meditation session away from the answer!

Remember that when you are creating you are building things up from the inner you. Our minds prohibit this in general because of our capacity as humans to build overly large mental structures which form rules for us to live by. I think that when we engage in creativity we are putting the logical process aside so we can create new things to build. That is, when we build things from the inside we are creating things for the outside. I honestly believe our educational processes set aside creativity and intuition as a second order concept. In a later article on faith I will develop this idea further. I hope you have enjoyed this post and I look forward to hearing from you if you would like to add some techniques to the very short list I have here. Thanks for reading!

Technorati Tags: cool ideas, creative processes, creativity

How do we even know we have a problem? Well this post will show you four ways you can know you have a problem.

1. Look for symptoms.

The first thing you need to do to consider carefully the evidence you have before you. What are the facts? Write a list of everything you think the symptoms are and consider them carefully. What is the evidence telling you? Remember problems belong to people and people form the world around them largely in their heads. Evidence can be created and facts manipulated. Look carefully at these things and see if a conclusion can be drawn… does a problem then become evident?

2. Looking for things that concern us

A clever trick our mind plays on us is that it makes us think that problems are somehow separate to our understanding of them. That is, people will use the language of ‘well I have this problem’ or ‘the problem is I have …’. All the while not realising that what bothers them is in their mind. When you take a good hard look for things that bother you then you will begin to see the areas of life that you think are problematic. If you are from the mathematical tradition you will think I why I just said is rubbish. But consider this, you now have found a problem because I am bothering you!

3. What is effecting us?

Another way you can identify a problem is to look for things that you don’t control that are effecting you. For example, say you are out in the rain getting wet… you are in total control of where you stand but you are not in control of the rain. Problems are exactly the same. However, you can recognise that which comes from the outside and that which falls on you simply by thinking… what are the things I am not controlling that are effecting me in this situation. By doing this you can begin to see bigger picture realities. These bigger picture things are often how other people treat you, how your work operates, how the economy operates and political things. You can’t control those things to suit yourself but you can recognize their influence on you and begin to identify the problems you are seeing.

4. Looking for things that are ‘all in your head’

The final way to identify a problemis the issue of their not being a problem. Now, there are things that effect us in the way the world operates as discussed above but there are times when the problem we have is nothing more than a construction of our psyche. In a recent interchange with a person I work with I noticed that they were greatly upset by something I had said in a group email that was not even intended for them. I ended up having to apologise for something that I didn’t even do wrong. Why was this the case? The person who read what I had wrote took issue as if it was directed at them when it was directed as somebody else. They created the problem. Apart from them thinking it was an issue there really was no issue at all.

These kinds of problems are usually related to underlying issues of the mind and emotions. I ended on this point because it’s a really important one… what you think the problem is… the problem is. If you have a tendency towards technical solutions you will look for technical problems. If you are led by your heart then you will gravitate to heart solutions. Ultimately the rest is up to you but that is another post for another day.

There is a podcast associated with this post which you can download for free here. Thanks for reading.

Technorati Tags: problem?, problems, bigger picture realities

In a recent post I discussed making the right choices. To continue this I would like to say that most choices we have to make are of the heart and of the head. Heart decisions are the effective choice most of the time where as efficient ones are of the head. Head choices are come to through a reasoning process like this one. Clearly there are some choices we make that are the right ones and others which are the optimal ones. Recently I had to move house and thanks to the ridiculous prices of houses in Brisbane I can’t buy. So I have to rent. My daughter started school about 18 months ago so I began this process by figuring that I could move to a cheaper suburb and save some money. I thought I had this all figured out.

Then one night I heard my daughter crying herself to sleep. So I asked her what the problem was. She told me that she didn’t want to leave her school. So here I am with a choice to make. Do I move to save a few bucks or stay where I am and stretch. What’s the trade off in a situation like that. What’s ironic is that I wrote about this not more than a month ago and here I am having to make this kind of choice. What kind of reasoning process will help me here? If I move to save money my daughter will be upset and uprooted. On the other hand if I stay my daughter will be happy but I may have to move in another year because I can’t afford it. One of these decisions is an effective choice and the other is efficient… what do I do?

The pro’s and con’s in the lifehacker post simply do not apply to me and I suspect that a great majority of people find such things innocuous. My family is not a business and I shouldn’t make decisions that are business like so far as my children are concerned. What I should do is do what I can to stay near her school and give her a stable environment. If I can’t then all I can do is make the most effective choice I can. That is the right thing to do.

Effective Choices

Effective choices are often those of the heart. Once I was stuck in the middle of bitter argument between two colleagues which made me feel very uncomfortable. They just decided that (for whatever reason) they didn’t like each other anymore. The problem was, one was the boss and the other was an employee. Ultimately the employee lost because the boss had more power and eventually got rid of the other guy. I was caught in the middle of this and being a young academic at the time didn’t know as much about politics as I do right now. I had plenty of opportunity to warn the person being fired that this was their fate. However, I never did. A few years later the same thing happened to me (I got fired!) in a similar way. When it happened to me I realised I had been making ambitious choices to the detriment of those around me. Since then, I learned a valuable lesson: Always make the right choice. The choice that is most effective over the choice that is most efficient.

Effective choices are the right thing to do. In any given situation you will know what is right if you look into your heart. Ambition is good so long as it’s mixed with integrity. Why? Being the best should be your goal but if what you are doing is destroying other people to get there then you are not making effective choices. What do you want people to think about you after your gone? He was a mongrel… I am glad he is dead! No. I should think you want people to think about your integrity, your character and how no matter what you always made the choices that were the most effective.

Efficient Choices

We live in a business environment that is ‘process’ and ‘profit’ minded not ‘people’ minded. All you have to do is open up the latest copy of Business Review Weekly to see that most business people are trained as efficient thinkers. I have spent the best part of seven years working with people who can tell you every reason why the economy is failing yet not once mention how people are involved. We can hear of a lack of oil and then fear sets in. What happens next… people panic and the so-called ‘economy’ falls to bits. I recently watched Die Hard 4.0 (Live free or Die Hard) and they used this to great effect. People were in a panic and it caused huge problems for the economy. People are not part of the problem… people are the problem!

Efficient choices are those that are ‘optimally’ satisfying… given the known constraints. We have a whole swag of decision making practice built on the backbone of this kind of logic. The idea of satisficing… making the best choices with the amount of information you have is one such idea. No I know we don’t always have all the information but that doesn’t mean we go on and make decisions that rely on us being ‘optimal’ so far as our heart is concerned. People use such ideas as an excuse to make efficient decisions. Just because you don’t know something does not mean that you can say, ‘well I did my best.’ Nonsense! According to what? You did you best so far as you are concerned but what did you exclude? ‘Well I just didn’t have the information.’ You didn’t have it or you just didn’t look for it?

I wish more business people would start making effective choices and buck the current trend in this nation. This current plague of materialism is informing the decision making process so much that corporate people are forgetting the simplicity of human relationships. It’s very easy to make optimal decisions but much harder to make decisions that are real tough choices. It’s easy (optimal) to remove people out of the way but it’s just not the right thing to do. When it’s time to let someone go do so with tact in such a way that the person is left with their dignity not via text message!

In closing this article I would like to point out that what dictates the right choice is not management theory, not your work environment and not your friends. It’s you. You are totally 100% responsible for you. You can make the right choices right now by always looking at each situation and asking yourself this question: what is the right thing to do in this situation. Don’t ask: what is most efficient or the most optimal but rather what is right? You know this answer already so go ahead and start making these kinds of choices.

Technorati Tags: choices., Effective choices, argument, satisficing

Sometimes I wonder why people forget that human beings are the ones that work in a business. As these people say: it’s easy to maintain your heart and keep your business growing. Recent trends in emotional intelligence point us towards the need to pay more attention to these things. Have you ever noticed that in each place you have worked there seems to be an essence to it? There is a spirit to the workplace. There is a heart. Modern business focuses a lot on making money and profiteering but very few businesses focus on the heart. Now, a wise man once said to me you cannot have a business and have a heart at the same time. Not true.

Some people put profits before people and in their mind separate business from being human. Phrases like, ‘well this is business’ is your way of saying, ‘I value money over human relationships.’ Another one I hear is, ‘I am in business to make money.’ Of course you are but exactly who are you going to make money from? Who is going to help you make money? People. Behind every employee is a heart. Each time you mistreat people you shifting your heart away from business and onto things that are less important.

Heartless people… heartless practice

I am amazed at how people think they can succeed by bullying and coercing people into making them do things. Recently, a person who was working for me was told that they might not have any work. Instead of talking to me directly they went straight to my supervisor and told them I had to hire them because of their qualifications. When that didn’t work they went even higher. My reaction was one of shock… all I said was there might be no work. When I was asked about it I had no idea how to respond and felt as if my role as supervisor had been marginalised. Due to this I was later forced to remove two other people who were less qualified but had more heart. Qualifications are important but not more important than the human spirit.

I have had close personal friends do me this way as well, people who favoured the business end and the money in preference to friendship or collegiality. I have heard it said that we should never go into business with our friends because the heart decisions we will have to make will obscure our judgement. On the other hand I have also heard that if I can’t trust the people I am in business with then my business is unlikely to succeed. I would say it this way, trust people you are in business with and treat them with the heart first. Never allow your desire for money overrule your heart in business. This is a great mistake and one that you will live to regret for years.

Keeping the balance

There is however a chance that you will look for heart issues where there are none. You can always put people first and make those kinds of choices but there comes a time when decisions need to be made for the sake of the business. What happens when you can’t pay someone? Wave goodbye and say ‘good luck’. No. There is still a way to deal with this in the heart way. Help the person find alternative employment. Exhaust all avenues, go the extra mile. People love to do the wrong thing and then make excuses for it. ‘Well I just had to let him go.’ Of course … but how did you set them on their way… what did you do to help them? After all, didn’t they work for you for years? How about showing some respect for the time they gave to you outside of regular hours? Sadly, we keep expecting more for less.

In closing this post I would like to remind you that you are a human being first and whatever comes next second. Your identity is born through the fact that you are a human. When you say things like: business is business. You are separating the heart from business. Business is heartless because we have placed the heart on the outside when we make decisions. Even in contemporary so-called spiritual practices we do this by focusing on what we can accumulate for ourself instead of focusing on what we can do for and with others. I would ask you to rethink how you handle your customers and your co-workers. Do you treat them with heart or as a resource to be exploited. People will always have heart no matter how tough their exterior may be. Why not bring the heart back to your business and do what’s right.

The greatest thing you can ever do is make mistakes. I hear people say to me all the time… if only I could erase my past mistakes then I would be free. That, is a misunderstanding of epidemic proportions. If you erased your mistakes you would erase a great percentage of what you know and the information you have already got in your possession. Why would you want to do that? Because of how much it hurts.

The pain we feel we make drastic mistakes is terrible. When I failed in business for the second time I was devastated. I spent about a month in a complete daze because my whole world and all of my dreams came crashing down with it. To say that I was ruined would be an understatement. Then after a period of time I began to realise I know a few things about failing in business I could teach others. I began to share my stories of failure with people at the university where I work. The students gained genuine insight in what NOT to do. As a result of that my reputation as a not-so-bad teacher increased dramatically. The fruit of that was people following me into other courses and a great wrap from my boss.

When I was sharing with people the mistakes I had made I realised that one of the most important things for me to do is milk them for all their worth. It would be a tremendous shame if you simply let them slip through your fingers. What amazed me about this losing experience was that it has become leverage to me. Now, I can see others making similar mistakes and I can warn them about it. They often come back and thank me later. Now, I am still not physically rich but I am rich in knowledge and this I would argue is of much greater value.

Technorati Tags: mistakes, past mistakes, failing

In the ever growing material lives we lead I am amazed and what people will trade off to get ahead. Now, think for a moment what are the right decisions? I think we can say it this way. There are decisions that should be made and those that should not. There are many reasons for me to ask this question when I take a look at the lives of those around me. The conniving and backstabbing I have seen over the course of my life convinces me that people are interested in making decisions that are wrong. The right decision is one that is made on the basis on what your heart says NOT what you think is best for you.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. Say you are a financial manager of a company and there is pressure on you to ‘cook the books’ to make it look like the company is doing better than it really is. Is that the right decision? No it’s not! Why not? Over time your decision will become like poison to those around you. Every decision you make has the potential for consequences that go beyond your local environment. Every choice you make effects other people whether you know it or not. What will the consequences be if you ‘cook the books’. Chances are you may ruin your company or at the very least loose your job.

What about your children? Do you work so much that they never see you? I have been there working 80 hours a week because I thought I had to. I wanted this or that but as I heard a wise man once say, ‘whatever you compromise to keep you’ll lose.’ In Australia there is a crisis of materialism. Everywhere I look I see bigger houses, smaller yards, less community and more business. There are countless books on getting ahead and making more money out of this or that. These books lack heart. There is no moral voice saying, ‘hold on but what about the future.’ We have a daycare generation growing up with parents who would rather spend money renovating their house than they would with their kids.

The cost of a house is so high now that it takes two working people to pay the mortgage and in some cases that’s not even enough. How did we get here? What caused us to think that this was worth it? It’s not. Having a house is not a dream worth having if it means that children grow up in a materialistic society. Money is great and I like it but when you attach your values to it and make your decisions through it you have become something less than human. Ask yourself this question: what are trading off in your decision making process to come to this. Why do you need to work so hard and never see your children?

Making the right decision is doing what’s best for your family first and putting all else second. You can kid yourself if you like and say that making the right decision is to work hard but that’s nonsense. Choose to live a life where you work the right amount of hours and spend the rest of the time loving and caring for those that love and care for you. Buck the trend. Do something different… make choices where you put your heart first and your head second. Now that’s making the right decisions.

Technorati Tags: decisions, decision?, materialism, decision making