MentorWords

A young man in Chicago (the son of a friend) was ticketed yesterday for rear-ending the vehicle ahead of him. The road was quiet, it was light out, and the weather was perfect. When his relieved+angry dad asked him “why weren’t you paying attention?” the boy replied, “I was!”

        “You couldn’t have been paying attention if you ran into the car in front of you!”

        “I was paying attention to the car behind me,” the shaken boy replied. “The driver was all over the road and kept getting too close, and I was afraid he was going to run into me.”

Last weekend my niece totaled a parked car and did significant damage to her new jeep (she is fine). She was heading to our house, and had a stack of DVDs on her dashboard. When the DVDs slid toward the passenger window she reached out to grab them and lost control of the car in a split second.

Seven years ago, two days after we bought our daughter a brand new RAV4, she completely bashed up two of the hubcaps, leading to replacement of all four in order to have a matched set of tires. The reason? A dog ran across the street in front of her, narrowly avoiding a deadly collision. As the dog ran up the curb and down the sidewalk, her eyes remained glued to him, and the car followed her line of sight.

The car always follows your line of sight. We know this. We were all taught this in driver education, and some of us have reinforced the lesson the hard way.

In fact, everything follows line of sight – whether that line of sight is visual or mental. People who fully expect – and can picture – healthy relationships tend to seek healthy partners. People who fully expect – and can picture – going to college and graduating, tend to complete their education. Children who fully expect to do well in school tend to do just that.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute,” you’re thinking. “That’s not right. I had a bad relationship, and it’s not because I went looking for one. I had a failed business, and it’s not because I was trying to fail. I’m having a terrible time with my current manager, and it’s not because I wanted to hate my job.” How can I possibly assert that everything follows line of sight?

Consider this. Sometimes, what we want and what we focus on are two different things. If what we want is a good relationship, but all we can focus on is that we can’t trust anybody, the dominant focus is lack of trust. What happens when all we think about is how people are so untrustworthy? We tend to find ourselves in relationships with people who reinforce that belief.

I went through a time in my life when all I wanted to do was work for myself, write, and spend more time with my family, but what I focused on was that there was never enough time, never enough time, never enough time. Sure enough, there was never enough time! Only when I turned my focus – my line of sight – to the idea that I was making enough time, making enough time, making enough time, did I make enough time. Wanting it didn’t make it so. Focusing on it did.

Business owners who have taken the time to envision a successful future, including the types of customers they will serve and the products and services they will offer, tend to achieve their goals. Moms who have taken the time to envision what it will mean for their children to be successful adults – and not the needy children they are now – tend to do a better job of preparing their children for ultimate independence. Individuals who have taken the time to imagine themselves as successful, including all the qualities necessary to achieve their goals, tend to be more satisfied and confident.

But it’s not enough to simply imagine the future – then resume focusing on all the less-than-desirable aspects of now. Once imagined, you must turn your focus to the aspects of success you have imagined. You must properly train your line of sight to where you want to go – not where you’ve been or where you are right now. You’ve already achieved ‘now’. ‘Now’ doesn’t require any more of your focus, and telling historical stories is good for the campfire, but not for your day-to-day business of living.

You’ve heard the saying if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. That’s just a pithy way of saying that if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re lost. With no clear line of sight, you will be running into the car ahead of you, down undesirable side roads, and rocketing into ditches. Do yourself a favor. Paint a vivid picture of the future, and start living it. Now. You’ll not only get there faster, you’ll enjoy the whole adventure much, much more.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

The New York Times ran an article yesterday entitled “Angry Ads Seek to Channel Consumer Outrage.” In this article, they offer insights from major advertising agency executives responsible for Harley’s screw it advertisement, Miller High-Life’s don’t cheat the regular guy advertisements, and Jet Blue’s CEO-taunting advertisements. The Madison Avenue crowd insists they are simply responding to a climate of fear and worry by channeling the angst felt by regular people over the “stink of greed . . . billion dollar bankruptcies . . . something needed to be said” experience of the past 24 months.

The agencies report that their angry advertising is working for them, that they have received thousands of consumer compliments, market share is up, and that they are striking an emotional chord. I find it interesting, however, that nearly all 52 comments posted online following the article reflect consumer cynicism that the advertising agencies are channeling anything other than the desperate desire to figure out how to sell things when consumers have finally learned that withdrawal from the national addiction to shopping is unbelievably painful.

Still, I’ve personally encountered folks who think the Harley ad is awesome (disclaimer – I do live in Wisconsin). Never mind that the ad was written as a sort of adolescent outburst to criticism of the company published in the New York Times, the ad turned consumer attention away from the aging demographics of Harley and other legitimate corporate concerns and focused that attention squarely on the economy.

What a glorious excuse for years of business ineptitude (American auto industry), waste (Joe Average cashing out his home equity to buy a vacation to Hawaii and two snow mobiles), and greed (all the above, plus the entire financial system) this recession has turned out to be. We are like the collective owner of the house that just burned down, freakishly pleased that the fire has wiped out all evidence of the murdered guy in the basement, and on the road to convincing ourselves that we didn’t off him in the first place. This recession is the financial equivalent of what every tax evader in the country was hoping for with the Millennium Bug, only it never happened for them.

Who, exactly, wasn’t to blame for the bubble that just burst? Yes, yes, I know, the vast majority of us did not and likely never will earn million dollar salaries with multi-million dollar bonuses. But are we conducting a trial-by-assets here? An economy is a collective entity, and we are the collective that created it. Running around blaming folks today is useless, petty, and one of the most cynical social activities I have ever witnessed.

So what does this have to do with personal development? Just this. If someone else is responsible for us – our pain, or our joy, doesn’t matter – that means we are not responsible for ourselves. And if we are not responsible for ourselves, then we have no control over our future. If we have no control over our future, the future is hopeless, because every adult human being ultimately craves the responsibility, the joy, and even the hardships of carving our own experience out of the stuff of life.

If you want to have a highly satisfying financial experience right now, you can. If you want to have a fun, recreational healthy summer with your family, you can. If you want to find the job of your dreams, you can. If you want to be a screaming business success, you can. Here’s how: Turn off the cynical advertisements that are catering to the woe-is-me-I-hate-rich-people proletariat, turn off the 24-hour-news cycle which has turned its attention back to the economy now that Swine Flu has proven to be far less deadly than desired, turn off your neighbor who is screaming about taxes and deficits, and turn your attention to what you do want. Run your business, create your art, design your designs, pay your bills, call your customers, make those sales, make that investment, and live your dream.

The doomsday reaction that has become our national background music is stultifying. The truth is, people are still selling houses, buying houses, finding jobs, taking vacations, making investments, buying products, and even getting raises. Perhaps they’re not making as much noise as the rest because they’re too busy. I am not denying that the economy has stumbled or that many people have lost their jobs and homes. True, roughly 13.7 million people do not have a job, which represents 8.9% of the working population. Even one family living out of the car or in a hotel is not something to be taken lightly. To compare, in May of 2006, seven million people were unemployed, which represented 4.6% of the population. Still sound like a lot? Consider this – anything under 5% could be considered to be virtual full-employment (depending on the economist). So we’ve not gone from zero to 13.7 million in the past year, we’ve gone from seven million to 13.7 million in three years. When we’re speaking of 13.7 million people not working (of which labor analysts estimate that as many as 4.5 to 6.5 million may not want to be working right now or are in previously scheduled career transitions), we are also saying that 140,233,000 people are gainfully employed. That’s the other 91.1%.

The best thing we could do for families suffering without income is to get busy so the economy can start growing again. Let’s get out of the national pout-mobile and back onto our uniquely American horse. Let’s choose to embrace life with a spirit of what’s possible, what’s positive, and what’s-available-right-now. Let’s reject cynicism, blamerism, victimism, and fearfulism, and replace them all with healthy, wealth-creating, life-affirming optimism and action. Let’s get on with it already. Wouldn’t you rather be having your independent fun, making your own assessments, determining your own value, and doing your thing? Are you really so unformed that you would allow someone else to tell you how you should feel? I didn’t think so.

Of course, that’s what Madison Avenue is ultimately afraid of. It is not in big advertising’s best interests to have a consumer economy that is comfortable with dancing to the beat of their own drummer. Better to stir up populist anger and rally us around irrational shouting points than to lose us to introspection about how things could go better during the next go-round. But my vote is with the individuals who can look at what has happened with a mixture of dispassion and humor. My vote is with the guy who has already turned his attention to the future and is energetically pursuing his next entrepreneurial success. My vote is for everyone who can use this as their rallying cry:

Yep, we did that! Funny. I wonder why it had to unwind in that way? Oh well, what do I want to do next? I think I’ll turn my attention to that now. No time for looking back . . .

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

A dear friend recently went on her first date in many years; a blind date arranged by a cousin she has good reason to trust. The date was with a man of high professional regard, one who had been married for nearly 20 years before losing his wife to cancer, whom he cared for until her death. My friend’s expectations of him, based on her cousin’s description, were fairly high. She anticipated excellent conversation, a capacity for empathy, a certain amount of groundedness, and general respect for others.

What she encountered was nothing of the sort. Her date was sarcastic about the wait staff, lacked basic manners, only attended to the conversation when the topic turned to horse racing (and how she got there she wasn’t even sure), and spoke scathingly about a number of his acquaintances. The date, as you might imagine, was a disaster. Even as we laughed and laughed about the multitude of discomforts the evening had provided, we couldn’t help but wonder, had he sent a stand-in for his date? A down-on-his-luck friend in need of dinner, perhaps? So sure was my friend that this had been the case that she asked her cousin if she had a picture of the man. Yes, she did, and it was the same fellow. Did he have a twin, perhaps? No, he did not.

My friend is a big girl and we all needed the laugh, but the situation brings to mind the dissonance that occurs when a business does not manage all its details. The most obvious comparison is when a customer visits a retailer she has trusted for some time and she has a bad service experience. The result is a feeling of betrayal, even if the customer understands that one bad employee does not a business make.

Or does it?

Every detail of your business speaks volumes. If luxury is one of your defining characteristics but your boxes and bags are cheap, the customers experience dissonance. If your brand and business culture convey warmth and connectedness but the first late-pay contact is through a collection agency, your customers will be shocked. If your business identity is related to youth culture, but you only advertise in the newspaper, you’re proclaiming a certain stodginess (as well as missing the mark).

The most difficult consistency to maintain is among employees. We all know that micro-management is damaging and ultimately useless, but many business managers constantly fight the temptation to monitor every word and action of employees lest they misrepresent the company. Even this careful monitoring can backfire. I remember laughing heartily a few years ago when I asked a young lady working a cash register about the colorful band-aids on her nose, beside her eye, the tops of her ears, and up her forearms. I fully expected her to say it was a high school prank – the band-aids did not seem to be covering injuries, she was obviously in no discomfort, and the band-aids were clearly chosen for their animated character representations. She explained (with a grin) that her employer did not allow employees to show piercings and tattoos other than one earring per ear, and they were required to cover any other ornamentation with band-aids. My first thought was that customers would be far less intrigued by the piercings and tattoos. My second was to register dissonance – the establishment was what I thought to be a fairly hip, independently owned coffee shop.

We know from study of psychology that children with inconsistent parents grow into insecure adults, that marriages with inconsistent fidelity eventually break under the strain, and that pets trained by inconsistent owners become unruly. We drift away from friendships in which the other party is inconsistent in behavior or attention, inconsistent managers do not develop trusting relationships with their employees, and inconsistent quality leads to business downfall. Consistency is clearly a key to success in many things.

Just as the key to individual consistency is a clear sense of self and of one’s beliefs, so is the key to business consistency a clear sense of purpose and business identity. The development of individual character begins at birth, and so does the development of business identity. Principles, self-awareness, and purpose together form the character structure of a person. Strategy, value proposition, and brand provide the same character structure for a business. Any parent who has launched a young adult into the world knows that his or her child’s success will be largely dependent on the ability to consider ideas, decisions, and behaviors based on the character they have wrought.

The business owner who takes care to develop a strategic plan, who considers carefully the value proposition for the business, then crafts a brand identity as the outward expression of those plans is off to an excellent start. But unless he makes every hire, every operational decision, every marketing plan, every customer service policy to be consistent with the initial plans, he will not make a consistent, controlled impression in the customers’ minds. Unless he considers his own goals, desires, and self-discipline within the context of those plans, he risks going on expensive or ill-advised tangents that do not serve the ultimate business interest. An inconsistent business fails to control its brand image. It is as jarring as feasting your eyes on Brad Pitt two booths away in a restaurant, only to have him start picking his nose.

My girlfriend’s blind date ultimately only cost the price of dinner, and she claims the entertainment value was worth it. Unfortunately, just about any business mistake brought about by failure to build consistency will cost more than $57.95 plus tip. The next time you’re inclined to cut that corner, hire that warm body that you know isn’t quite right, buy that cheaper bag or box, or run that self-serving ad on your phone system, remember what your mother said. Never pick your nose in public.

©  2009. Andrea M. Hill

Last week over cocktails, several colleagues (I among them) had an argument about whether or not the current recession was a necessary correction. In one corner was “J-,” who stressed vehemently his belief that our current economic experience is essential to a healthier country, world, and future. In the other corner was “E-,” who became angered at the idea that the current experience was correct or necessary – certainly not both. The rest of us did not hold such strong opinions as either J- or E-, so we participated peripherally and protected our drinks.

Since that evening I have returned to the argument again and again. I’m not particularly concerned whether the current economic environment is necessary or correct – it simply is. But the experience shines a light on the choices business owners face every day, during both good times and bad. Do we stick to what works, or do we try something new? Do we protect what we’ve achieved, or take a few risks?

These questions are increasingly analyzed, expounded on, and answered in the business press, which causes me to suspect that these questions are currently in vogue because we are faced with a down economy. The Chinese have a proverb that says wealth will not pass beyond the 3^rd generation. Family business scholars have opined that this saying is ultimately about risk-taking. The first generation in any business has little to lose and everything to gain. So business founders take more risks and reap more rewards. The second generation views risk as a means to losing what they have already gained, so they take less risks to protect their assets. I’m not sure why the 3^rd generation is the failure generation (mostly likely the silver spoon effect). The first two generations and their relationship with risk are what interest me.

Modern businesses experience these two “generations” as phases, because a business can evolve so far in so few years compared to when the ancient proverb originated. In the beginning phase of a business the owner is hungry, impassioned, willing to take risks and try new things. Once the business has experienced some success, the business practices standardize and risk is less appealing. There is finally much (or at least more) to lose. But ongoing success demands that we explore new ideas, challenge the traditional, take chances, fail, and try again.

A little reported fact about the huge wave of layoffs rolling across the country is that many companies are laying off workers because the current economic conditions provide the perfect screen – excuse – to eliminate their “C” players. After all, the argument goes, it has now become a seller’s market, making this the perfect time to upgrade a workforce.

Chrysler and GM are being forced to make drastic changes to their business models by the US government, changes that have been apparently necessary for decades are finally being wrought out of dire necessity and outside force.

But other than upgrading workforces or government mandated change, are business owners using the current economic crisis as a catalyst for a surge of corporate spring cleaning? Are you looking in the backs of desk drawers for those old business hot idea lists, sweeping under the corporate carpets to find the policy dust bunnies, moving the corporate furniture around to figure out what’s broken and either needs to be discarded or repaired, picking a new color palette for the corporate walls, building new additions, or tearing down useless outbuildings?

Emergencies push the anxiety buttons of business owners, which triggers fight or flight responses. But the human fight or flight response ignores one reaction I see demonstrated repeatedly as I drive through the country – both among the rabbit population and among business owners. The urge to freeze. To wait out the danger by blending in. To play dead.

Unfortunately, the rabbit response has an unusually deadly chaser. After the rabbit freezes – assuming it doesn’t have a heart attack from fear – it tends to freak out and run right into the path of the oncoming car. Business owners who froze at the beginning of the recession were showing the same deadly reaction a few months later when they started cutting everything out of their budgets – from quality staff to marketing – in an effort to quell their anxiety.

In the multiple choice landscape of fight, freeze, or flight, only one good solution for business owners exists. Fight. Fighting involves clear thinking, strategy, willingness to take risks, and the capacity to judge one’s abilities.

Now is the time to evaluate your business proposition. Is your business argument still sound? Will it remain sound when the economy shifts into high gear again? What can you do now to evolve your business proposition for future viability?

Are you marketing? Are you taking advantage of all the marketing avenues available to you, from newsprint to social media, from radio to word of mouth, from direct response to public relations? Were your marketing promotions developed in response to your strategy, or did you end up with a marketing promotion based on cheapest possible marketing mix?

Are you planning for future talent needs? Are you investing in your best employees’ education and training, giving them new opportunities to grow and making them feel appreciated? Are you making opportunistic hires as recently freed talent appears in the market? Do you even know what talent you’re going to need to take your company into the future?

How are your operations? They may be sufficient for current demand, but are you using current excess capacity as an opportunity to cut operating costs, or are you using it as an opportunity to build operational capacity for a better time? Do you even know what aspects of your operations must be improved to fulfill the promise of your future strategic goals?

What about your own skills? Are you prepared to take your company to the next level, or even to decide what the next level is? Are you working on upgrading your own knowledge, right now, as an investment in future success?

Ideally you are doing all these things on a regular basis, not just when the economy is in the crapper. But even if you haven’t been vigilant enough about upgrading, redesigning, and improving in the past, you can grab the opportunity to do so now. Because if you can put your business on track to emerge from the economic slow-down stronger than you were when you entered it, you win.

That night, while sipping my Scotch & water, I didn’t have a strong opinion regarding if this was either a correction or necessary. But I feel strongly about making sure that every experience I have produces something positive. Take control and extract your benefits from this melt-down. It may not be a necessary correction for everyone, but you could make it work for you.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

Two year olds have it right. For everything they encounter, they ask why?  Related to this behavioral characteristic is the dramatic learning curve of the young child. In fact, one sure sign of a healthy young intellect is the frequency with which they ask that question.

As we get older, we tend to ask why less often, and more quietly. Why is that? It could be because we are busier and have less time to ask. It could be because we are reluctant to expose our lack of knowledge. It could be because we’re not sure who to ask.

But it can’t be because we have less need of the question why.

Tempting though it may be to assume we ask why less often because we know so much more, that is not the true reason. Sure, we know more than a 2-year-old. But relative to how much we could know, how much we need to know, the question why is seriously underutilized by most adults.  Imagine how your work and life might be transformed if you asked why more often:

• The friendship that has been cooling ever so slightly over the past year may meet with a sudden revival if you paused and asked why.
• If you asked why before every rote task, you may find that some could be significantly altered – or eliminated.
• You may commit yourself more happily to a previously unloved activity once you examined the why of it.
• You might set aside a limiting set of beliefs or ideas.
• You could be pointed in a new direction
• You may even confirm that the things you hold dear are worth every ounce of energy you invest in them.

I’m not sure how many times the average adult asks why in a day. I tracked my own behavior for several days (not easy by the way), and according to my best estimate, I was only asking why five-to-eight times each day. So I arbitrarily decided to ask why 30 times per day. The results? Funny, interesting, irritating (to my family, mostly), and somewhat exhausting.

In order to ask why 30 times per day, I had to ask why about some things to which I believed I knew the answers. In the beginning I was good about asking . . . but not much else. After a few days I realized I was glossing over the answers, to the absolute detriment of the experiment. When I began to evaluate the questions objectively, with some rigor, I began to experience some of the wonder – even joy – of the typical 2-year-old.

The results of this experiment will be as individual as the people who commit to it. But I am able to draw a few conclusions, even as I try to continue asking why 30 times per day.

The first conclusion is that much of what we believe to be correct or true is, in fact, open to questioning and interpretation. In some cases, the conditions which had contributed to my original conclusions no longer existed. In other cases, I suspect my original thinking was faulty, and in still others, I’m not sure I developed my own thinking in the first place – likely it was a “gift” from someone else.

The second conclusion is that we limit ourselves when we simply accept our usual answers as true. New people, relationships, ideas, practices, and opportunities reveal themselves, all silently hidden away behind the old ways of doing things.

My third conclusion is that I no longer possess the energy of a 2-year-old. Challenging oneself is exhausting and sometimes scary. The older we get, the more comfort we take in the idea that some things just are. Everything goes faster and smoother when you do it the way you always have.

But for injecting interest, new knowledge, and even excitement into your life, nothing else comes close to the (not so simple) act of asking why 30 times per day. And if that’s appealing to you, I suggest you give this experiment a try. But be forwarned – you may want to make sure you get a good night’s sleep first. Being constantly curious definitely requires a bit of extra energy.

(c) 2009. Andrea M. Hill

As any client who meets at my office in Wisconsin will attest, the views from my windows are breathtaking in any season. Those views, however, can be quite distracting when I need to focus on work. So with a large dose of self-awareness and a small amount of prodding, I ordered custom blinds.

The installer has been here before. He is a private contractor who does window measuring and installations, and he is a marvel of efficiency. When he arrived to do the install he left his car running, a clear signal that he expected to finish quickly. We clocked him. He opened the carton containing our blinds, verified parts and specifications, installed three windows, tested them, and removed all evidence of his visit in 11 minutes.

He mentioned where he was off to next, and I commented that he seemed to stay busy. He paused for a moment, reflected, then said, “You know, I found a real niche with this. I make a very nice living.”

Of course he does. He found meaningful work doing something for which he is particularly suited. He can measure windows and install blinds faster than anyone I have ever seen and he enjoys the work.

This is not just another testimony to the value of doing work one loves. I don’t know if the blinds installer loves his work. He seems to enjoy it. He’s cheerful doing it. But would he rather be a landscaper or a lawyer? That I don’t know. What I do know is that he is good at it. So good at it that he must be an asset to the companies that contract with him for services.

The easiest way to make money is to offer something – product or service – that you can do better than the competition. There may be another activity that you like doing more or that you even love – but if that activity is not something you also do better in some way, you won’t make a great deal of money. You might not even make enough.

One thing I have learned as a professional support/mentor for business owners and executives is that most people are working in something close to their greatest competency, but they’re not capitalizing on their greatest competency in a meaningful way. Financial success and tremendous satisfaction can result when self-evaluation and redirection take place, as these examples demonstrate:

• A talented interior design critic and writer who is less than inspirational as a designer. Now he’s doing what he loves, earning more money, and no longer frustrating himself and his clients by trying to do the designs himself.
• A sales trainer who knew her subject matter inside and out, but who dreaded each new training class and wasn’t earning a fraction of what she thought she was worth. She tripled her income when she gave up teaching her ideas to others and instead decided to deploy them – as a field sales rep for a large corporation.
• The executive director of a nonprofit who calculated she only enjoyed her work 10% of the time – when she was writing grant proposals. Now she’s spending 100% of her time grant writing – earning the same amount of money as before but significantly happier and with more free time.

In our pursuit of a profession or industry we love, we frequently fall into doing activities that don’t make the best use of our talents. Once we start doing those activities – and we attach titles, paychecks, and self-image to them – we are unlikely to question them. But question them we must if we want to continue to grow and prosper.

Take time this week to consider your greatest strengths and whether or not you are spending much – if not most – of your time exploiting them to earn a living. Even if immediate change is not possible (though change can happen much faster than you may think), just knowing what you could be doing and creating a plan will start you on your path.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

When Nike introduced the swoosh and the just do it concept, they were on to something profound. Unfortunately, years of overexposure have trivialized this important idea, and to say the words just do it is to become prosaic, bourgeois.

Today I became acquainted with an artist named Jane Hunt, a painter working primarily in acrylics with a signature texturing approach. As an artist she is noteworthy just on the merit of her paintings, which combine a lavish color sensibility with an uncanny capacity to convey not just the look but the mood of nature. But equally inspiring is her practice. Ms Hunt challenges herself to paint a painting (not just part of a painting, or a study) every day and post a picture of the finished work on her blog. She says in one blog entry that some days she knows what she will paint when she wakes, and other days she doesn’t figure it out until she is halfway through.

The point is, she paints either way.

It calls to mind how often we say we don’t have time. Many days I become frustrated when I do not complete some important aspect of my work because I ran out of time. Yet when I review my day with complete honesty, I realize that each time I sat down at my desk I did something other than the most important aspects of my work. Ten minutes between arrival and my first meeting? Better do email. Only have 20 minutes between meetings? That’s enough time to make a cup of coffee and open mail. Feeling sluggish after lunch? Not a good time to write, then, is it? I guess I’ll file.

Of course, email, filing, and opening mail are important. But if I add up the five and 10-minute slots I allocated to busywork because those slots of time weren’t valuable enough to do something, well, valuable with, it’s as much as an hour a day. Where did I get the idea that I couldn’t write a magazine article draft in three sessions of 15 minutes each? Why do I think I absolutely must do an important analysis in a one-hour block with no interruptions?

And why, when I get two hours of uninterrupted time at my desk, do I keep peeking at email or checking in with social networking sites to see if I have messages? Social research demonstrates that we’re all wasting inordinate amounts of time checking in with electronic gadgets. Of course, this doesn’t make my procrastination any less shameful just because I’m doing it in good company.

For some folks the procrastination they nurture may be attributable to boredom with what they have chosen to do. For others, it may be a character deficiency, laziness. But I believe most of us procrastinate out of fear or insecurity. In their book Art and Fear, authors David Bayles and Ted Orland address our profoundly human fear of making our best effort and still failing. The fear that our work may not be good enough can keep us from beginning the work in the first place. We choose instead to do numerous other things at which we know we are competent, but which do not contribute revenue to our bottom line or substance to our self-image. We file. We email. We run out of time.

One of the most memorable lines from Art and Fear is “you learn how to make your work by making your work.” This is what Ms. Hunt is doing when she challenges herself to paint a painting every day. This is something to which we can all aspire.

The easiest way to do this is to grab your satisfaction from the process of embracing your most meaningful work every time you have five or 10 minutes to do so. Treat your valuable work as you would a new lover, one you happily draw into any hidden corner for a stolen moment of passion. No, you won’t want to stop when it’s time to go pick up the kids from school, head to your next meeting, or answer the next phone call. But over time you will begin to anticipate those moments of profound creativity and insight that you steal from your day. The process of doing your meaningful work will become your motivation, eventually supplanting the fear of failing at your meaningful work.

So call me bourgeois if you like, but what the hell – I’ll say it anyway. Just do it.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

Once again I return to the topic of how we think, because in an era that has been preceded by dramatic change* capped by our present-day wholesale questioning of accepted dogma, how we think – more than what we think – will determine whether or not we are successful.

Intelligence and critical reasoning skill are quite different. Intelligence is a capacity for reasoning, an ability that could be developed. If you have ever been to a Mensa meeting, you have entered a gathering that celebrates IQ. IQ is the measure of one’s mathematical and spatial reasoning, understanding of language, and logical ability. This means that IQ is not a reflection of one’s life experience, study, discipline, wisdom, or character, and it absolutely cannot be used as a projection of one’s potential worth or accomplishment.

Critical reasoning is the capacity, developed through practice and discipline, to make sense of information. This includes the ability to question one’s accepted beliefs and test them for bias and error. Your success as an entrepreneur, business manager, artist, parent, friend, partner, or teacher depends on your critical reasoning skill far more than on your innate intelligence.

The failure to use critical reasoning is responsible for the current financial collapse. Newton taught us that what goes up must come down (though it’s always Blood, Sweat & Tears in my head), and numerous financial boom & bust cycles have demonstrated this is true in markets as well. Yet none of those pesky factual details deterred millions of people and billions of dollars from pursuing an anti-gravity agenda. The critical reasoning for a potential home buyer about to get in over her head might have included these ideas:

1. Economic history is filled with booms and busts
2. Real estate value historically grows 1% per year over the rate of GDP
3. The mortgage on this house would represent 70% of my take-home pay once the interest kicks in
4. Interest rates go up roughly as often as they go down
5. A big motivation for wanting this house is to prove to my (sister, brother, uncle, mom) that I am doing well
6. I wouldn’t have to worry so much if we bought a much less expensive house
7. Hmm . . . what am I feeling? Greedy? Competitive? Are those good motivations for buying this house?
8. My children would be just as happy in a less expensive house – or in the one we’re in right now
9. I want to start my own business, and I need to save money for that

Had more people entertained those nine ideas – or other ideas like them – less people would be losing their homes right now. And all those ideas were accessible to any curious person, regardless of intellectual ability.

The failure to use critical reasoning leads independent business owners to put themselves out of business – up to 70% of the time according to most business statistics. Most of my consulting customers are doing very well, and all are going to survive the current downturn. But I hear from business owners every day who in one breath say they need help, and in the next breath insist nothing can be done. They claim that all consumers have stopped buying (which, if it were true, would mean my spouse was home right now instead of making a run to Chez Target). The critical reasoning such an owner could engage in might include these ideas:

1. The years leading up to the current economic struggle were good growth years
2. I cut my marketing budget three times during those years – with no discernable negative impact on sales
3. My sales are down 20% and average order value is down 28%
4. To save money this year, I cut my marketing budget again
5. I have reduced my overall marketing budget by 30% in the past three years
6. My new customer acquisition rate is down 50%
7. My current customers are each buying less
8. I am afraid to spend any money right now
9. Cutting costs seems free.
10. My competitors are advertising more than me

Of course, many reasons for business failure exist, but ideas similar to these are present in a remarkable number of cases. A good critical thinker might further evaluate their opinion of marketing (it’s a waste of money, nobody really knows if it’s working, marketing people bug me, it’s all just a matter of taste), consider if their opinion is valid using research and input from knowledgeable sources, and perhaps come to the conclusion that emotions, uninformed opinions, habit, and possibly ego are the real culprits behind their impending business failure.

Many entrepreneurs are in business to sell something that is produced from the depths of their self identity. They are selling their ideas, artistic expression, and innovation in the form of products.  They struggle to remain motivated and confident as their products and services are buffeted by impersonal market forces. Solid critical reasoning skills can mean the difference between forging on to success or flaming out and returning to the life of the paystub. Successful entrepreneurs engage these types of ideas:

1. I hate rejection
2. What the hell. Everybody hates rejection
3. My products are not selling
4. I am spending less than 2% of my time and budget engaged in selling activities
5. I am truly good at (whatever the list is)
6. I am truly not good at (another list)
7. I need to get some help with doing the things I am not good at
8. I need to devote some of my time to improving the things I am not good at
9. I am desperately afraid of failure and I get immobilized when I am afraid
10. My (mom, brother, dad, cousin, neighbor) would be able to offer me good advice, but I’m not asking for it because I fear that would make me look lame

The act of thinking about your thinking, of evaluating your action (or inaction) as a direct reflection of your thinking, points out the flaws and misperceptions that are playing a role in your ability to be successful.

Intelligence has never been a prerequisite for success, though it is responsible for an inordinate amount of ego. On the other hand, solid critical thinkers (consider Galileo and Darwin, or more contemporaneously Bruce Bartlett or Matt Miller) agitate their peers to a desire to shoot them on sight. Why is that?

Because it is comfortable to think the things we think. We want to continue to believe the things we believe. And the past decade has given alarming credence to the notion that one who does not change his or her mind – ever – demonstrates a desirable character trait.

You cannot wring value from an unchanging mind. On a global scale, time, technology, new discoveries, and continued evolution present new ideas and challenge old ones. On a personal level, exposure to new places, people, and theories — and the accompanying internal and interpersonal debate — throws doubt on cherished beliefs and introduces thoughts previously unconsidered. This is deeply uncomfortable work for individuals and societies. Yet every significant leap forward in world history has occurred on the heels of ideational discomfort. And this, not the comfort also known as intellectual laziness, should be your goal.

* For a 2-paragraph overview of economic & media changes influencing society today, check out the thinking/critical blog. You’ll find it in paragraphs 6 & 7.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

Before we moved across the country in 2008, we permitted our then 16-year-old son to graduate from high school. The prospect of starting over in a small town with a bunch of kids who’d known one another since kindergarten was daunting. Intellectually and emotionally he seemed ready, so we pursued the option of starting college early.

One month after he began taking courses at our nearby UW feeder campus I feared we had made a terrible mistake. Our usually creative, articulate, curious son was producing plodding, average, uninteresting work. For weeks our parental conversation was consumed with whether or not we had made a mistake, if he was ready for college, and if we were damaging his future prospects. It was our daughter who suggested that he was terrified, but covering up.

That was it. He was intimidated by the older students, by his fear that he had missed out on something important by skipping ahead, and by his fear of letting himself and us down. The fear was productive insofar as it was driving him to do his homework in a timely manner and make sure he listened in class. But now he feared something new – that he hated college, and that nothing could be done about it.

I reassured my son by telling him to give things a little more time, and then I did what I always do . . . I called my dad. Dad reminded me of a similar experience in my own past, and asked what had made the difference for me. I remembered my turning point in college was being successful in a class I loved, and I realized that all of my son’s classes were freshman starter classes, nuts and bolts affairs designed to turn him into a good college student. Together my son and I dove into the course catalog and found a creative writing class that was not due to start for another week. Once he started that class, he found his motivation.

There are many psychological theories about motivation, but one of the most dominant divides motivation into two types: aversion and attraction. When we are still relishing our accomplishments as we lay down to sleep, when we can’t wait for the next day to arrive, when we practically wiggle through breakfast in anticipation of getting to our next project, that’s attraction motivation at work. On the other hand, if you are grinding out production because you are worried about paying the bills, or making yourself indispensible in a stultifying job because you believe it is lay-off proof, your motivation is based on the avoidance of pain and suffering – or aversion.

Am I suggesting that you leap from a sure paycheck into the abyss of hopeful self-employment? Not at all. I’m a strong believer in financial responsibility. But what if that sure paycheck job has left you creatively dry, without interesting dinner-time conversation and on the verge of a mid-life crisis? It may be helpful for you to realize that the difference between attraction and aversion motivation can be quite subtle. One woman’s grinding out production is another woman’s joy of independence. One man’s wearisome trade show is another man’s festival of customer conversation.

None of us like everything we do in the course of our work – even those of us who love our jobs. But you can love the job you’ve got – even if it’s just long enough to successfully transition yourself to the one you’d love – with a little change in perspective.

If you are happily attraction motivated, don’t take it for granted. Now is the time to analyze what it is you are attracted to. On those days, or during those dry spells, when your flame of passion is sputtering, you can retrieve your list of attractions and keep the flame from blowing out completely.

If you are already in an aversion-motivation drought, you have my sympathies. I know how that feels, and that you don’t want to be there. Here are a few ideas to regenerate your motivation based on attraction.

Start by considering the things that you are trying to avoid or which are causing you to be fearful. I suggest you write them down. Writing scary ideas on paper seems to remove some of the power they gained while floating around in our heads. Next to each item, rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being “mostly in my imagination” and 10 being “already happening.” Spend a day or two thinking about your list and talking about it with a trusted friend or mentor. Don’t skip the talking part! It is the process of discussing and analyzing with the benefit of another person’s insight that enables us to move past our own stuck ideas and into new ways of thinking.

Undoubtedly you will have one or two big concerns that were rated a 9 or 10. The truth is, everyone does – even folks who are happily attraction motivated. Once you have disposed of the laundry list of less worthy concerns, you can devote your attention to dealing with the real things that are getting in your way. Make a plan for either solving or improving your big concerns, and set that plan in motion. It may be something as immediate as catching up on two months of mortgage payments, or as ongoing as saving for your retirement. Either way, working to address the concern is what returns you to a feeling of control in your life.

Once you have restored your self-confidence (which comes, in part, from feeling in control), you can return your attention to the things you love to do, the accomplishments that will make you proud, and the identity you want to build. You will build your own list of attractions, and you will find that many of those attractions have been present all along. You will also discover that there are some things that consume your time and energy that are neither necessary to avoid real pain now nor generating present satisfaction or future success. Eliminate those things, and replace them with the activities, relationships, and investments that are motivating to you because you are attracted to them or to the opportunities they will provide.

The study of motivation will continue to challenge psychologists, teachers, and business owners as each group attempts to define and use motivation for their own purpose. I’ve chosen a simpler route, and now, so has my son. We’re taking dad’s advice. We’re making sense of our anxieties, doing what we love whenever we can, and finding something to love in what we’re doing the rest of the time.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill

Professionals who spend some or all their time working from home have a challenge unique to their office setting – their families. No matter how often you say, “Not right now honey, I’m busy,” or “ask your dad if he can do that,” or “I wish I could go out with you but I’m working right now,” the interruptions are constant and endless. Being home means being available, and available is something most people – particularly those with needs – can’t seem to resist.

I discovered this when I left corporate life and re-established my consulting firm nearly two years ago. I split my time between a Chicago office and a home office. I noticed that on the days when I commuted back and forth to the city I got to bed earlier than the days I worked at home. Upon evaluation I realized that my work-at-home days were just that. I made breakfasts or lunches or snacks, fixed smoke detectors, ran to answer the door when the UPS man arrived, let the dog out four times, and was interrupted at least three times each hour for chatty little drive-bys. No one person was responsible for all the interruptions, but with a spouse and three kids running in and out all day, the opportunities for distraction were endless.

My initial solution was to mention the problem to the family during dinner. They felt terrible and promised to interrupt less in the future. That lasted about two days and we were back to our old routine. Next, I had my brother-in-law hang a door on the office. My family was polite about opening and closing the door gently, but the interruptions didn’t subside. I resorted to kvetching, which didn’t make any of us happy.

Finally I came across a solution that was so low tech and successful that I share it with all my clients who work at home.

It’s called a white board.

I have long been in the habit of writing my to-do list for tomorrow at the end of each day. My particular approach to to-do lists includes an open box at the beginning of each desired achievement, a bullet that I can put a satisfying check mark in as I complete each task. Yes, yes, I am technically adept and use MS Outlook, etc., but there is something so focusing, tangible, and immediate about a written checklist. Plus, you can take it anywhere and refer to it any time within 2 seconds regardless of battery level.

I bought a white board and hung it next to my desk, where I calculated no one could miss it. Then I wrote my to-do list for that day on the white board and proceeded to check off each task as completed. My family stepped in line. Something about that whiteboard claiming that I was A) busy, and B) productive, caused all of them to stop interrupting me and become my cheerleaders in task completion (though it is annoying to have my 17-year-old son ask me if I really think I should be stopping now). They run to answer the door, let the dog out, and fix their own snacks. Sometimes, I actually miss them.

Not sure whether this success was isolated to my family dynamic or transferrable, I suggested it to a few colleagues who expressed similar frustrations, and it worked for them. I now recommend it regularly to clients who are trying to achieve more work/life balance by working at home, only to find their work-at-home days are completely unbalanced. One client notes the anticipated time to complete each task on the whiteboard, because she said her husband is incapable of understanding how long it takes to do anything.

I still produce my paper to-do list – the whiteboard doesn’t travel well – but in addition to the peace and order it gives me, I find the whiteboard to be an effective attendant on my work-at-home days. After all, if a small check on a paper list provides such tremendous gratification, it’s that much better to make a 1” checkmark with a bold purple marker.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill