Problem-solving: a questions of know-how or self-confidence?

"Maybe we need a course on creative problem-solving" said a manager of training and development services at a local university. She had just finished telling me an anecdote about a woman who refused to help her process some paperwork because "it was not her job and she did not know how". The lady who usually took care of those tasks was away on sick leave and the manager was told that she would just have to wait until the lady returned to get the forms processed. Well that was not going to work! There were time lines to meet and people who counted on her to get the work done. The manager asked to meet with the reluctant woman to explore what could be done. It was a fruitful conversation. Together they managed to find a way to get the work done in the required time lines."I asked her a few probing questions and suggested some alternate ways of considering the situation" the manager said. "We managed to find a creative solution together. It was a win-win for both of us."

Well, in this case, the problem was not just an inability to think creatively I think. There might have been a lack of motivation on the woman's part or maybe she did not have the self-confidence to take action.

If I were to put together a course to help address these kinds of situations in the workplace there would be two parts: know-how to DO and know-how to BE.

In the know-how to DO part of the course we would cover the different theories and tools for problem-solving. Tools like Six Thinking Hats to encourage lateral thinking pioneered by Edward De Bono. Tools to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas such as Tony Buzan's Mind Mapping process. Techniques to challenge your thinking and collect your great ideas in learning journals such as the one developed by Ed Bernacki, Wow What a Great Idea!

Ironically, an impediment to creativity is thinking. Thinking too logically and rationally. To find creative solutions to problems, we need to rely more on our right brain abilities: seeing the big picture, making free associations, using symbols and metaphors.

In his book entitled Drive, Daniel Pink talks about an experiment called the candle problem that was devised by psychologist Karl Duncker in the 1930's. Subjects are asked to sit at a table by a wooden wall. On the table there is a candle, a box filled with tacks, and a book of matches. Subjects are asked to find a way to attach the candle to the wall so that the wax doesn't drip on the table.

What would you do?

Many people start by trying to tack the candle to the wall. But that doesn't work. Some melt the wax on the side of the candle with a match and try sticking the candle to the wall. But that doesn't work either. After 5 or 10 minutes people usually stumble on the solution. They empty the box of its tacks and tack the box to the wall. Then, they stick the candle to the bottom of the box.

In order to find the solution, subjects have to overcome what is called "functional fixedness" or, in other words, what their mental model is regarding the function of a box. At first, they don't see alternate uses for the box outside of holding tacks. Their mental model of what a box is meant for prevents them from finding the solution at once. They have to challenge their current view of the world in order to stumble on the solution.

If experimenters leave the tacks out of the box at the outset of the experiment, subjects find the solution to the "candle problem" much quicker. The empty box triggers a different mental model: the notion of a box is a container. The jump to the solution is facilitated by the sight of an empty box.

In short, what this means is that one of the first step to finding creative solutions to problems is to cultivate our ability to, pardon the pun, "think outside of the box". Creativity requires a willingness to let go of what we think we know and be open to new possibilities.

The second part of my workshop on a creative problem-solving would focus on know-how to BE: personal leadership.

That is the most difficult...

How can you motivate people? The truth is you can't. You can only help create the right conditions for someone to find their own source of motivation. According to Daniel Pink, the three key elements to true motivation are autonomy, purpose and mastery.

Determining what your source of motivation is requires some introspection. Reflecting on questions such as the following would provide some precious insights:
Does my work define who I am?
Do I look forward to coming to work every day? Why?
What are my interests? Aptitudes?
How can I find ways to better use my skills and abilities in my work?
Is it time for me to make a bold move and change jobs?

How can you build self-confidence? That is another tricky.

Part of the answer lies in helping individuals reconnect with their own personal leadership. Everyone has demonstrated initiative in their lives whether in their work life or personal life. Helping people remember that they have what it takes to be courageous and successful is the first step in building self-confidence.

Dealing with fears and erroneous judgments is another step towards self-confidence. In the situation I described above, could it be that the woman was afraid to overstep some boundaries if she did her colleague's job while she was away? Could it be that she was concerned about her boss' or colleagues' reaction if she did a job that she was not trained to do? Could it be that she was afraid of making mistakes and being judged harshly?

Have you ever heard of the expression "a career limiting move"? In government, where I used to work, that expression was rampant. It meant be careful what you do or say. Tow the line, don't make any waves and keep your head low. Could that type of culture have a negative impact on someone taking some initiative?

In conclusion, problem-solving is not as simple (or as difficult - depending on your perspective) as finding a solution. The key is to have the initiative to look for it...

Yin and Yang - Balance

I have long been fascinated by the Yin and Yang Chinese symbol. This symbol represents the complementary yet opposite nature of the masculine (Yang) and female (Yin) energies. The shape of the yin and yang sections of the symbol, actually gives you a sense of the continual movement of these two energies, yin to yang and yang to yin.

The shapes are not completely black or white. They have a "seed" of the other color within them as a reminder that things in life are not completely black or white. Everything is inter-connected.

The Chinese refer to the sky as yang and the earth as yin. Yang is active and yin is restful. Thus, as activity culminates in rest which in turn culminates in activity, yang becomes yin as yin becomes yang. These two elements are inseparable since they imply each other.

Yin
Yin energy is female, shady, dark, cold, water, night, space, rounded, nurturing and soft. Even personalities can be yin. Those who express themselves with thoughts more than action are said to possess yin personalities.

Yang
The attributes of yang energy are male, sunny, light, warm, fire, day, time, sharp, movement and expansion. Yang personalities are concentrated, active and projecting. These types express themselves through actions.

If personalities can be predominantly Yin or Yang, could jobs, every day chores and leisure activities have a Yin or Yang quality?

We could say that jobs in teaching, sales, policing, business, and even government depend on Yang energy. They involve a lot of interactions with other people and demand that you project your energy outward.

On the other hand, computer programmers, researchers, librarians, artists like painters or pottery makers, for example, have jobs that could be characterized as Yin jobs because they spend most of their time on their own thinking and creating. Their energy is focused inward.

What about every day chores?

Yin chores: folding the laundry, ironing clothes, dusting furniture, and depending on your mindset, vacuuming, washing dishes, cooking, raking the leaves outside, etc.

Yang chores: helping your kids with homework, taxiing the kids to and from hockey games or dance lessons, grocery shopping, running errands to the dry cleaners, pharmacy, etc.

Assessing if daily chores are Yin or Yang is tricky because a lot of it depends on the mindset you have as you do the chores. For example, I have a friend who loves ironing clothes because she finds that the back and forth motion with the iron is soothing. Ironing gives her some precious "down" time away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I have another friend who likes vacuuming for the same reason, she finds the admittedly much noisier back and forth motion comforting because she is alone with her thoughts and feels an immediate sense of accomplishment seeing clean carpets. The activities can be deemed Yin if they help you tune out and be alone with your thoughts. If you are expending a lot of energy getting things done quickly and with gusto, the activities have a more Yang quality.

What about leisure activities?

Team sports like hockey, volleyball, basketball, soccer, etc are definitely Yang activities.

Yoga, meditation, gardening, and even running are leisure activities that allow you to go inward and spend time with yourself.

Do you have a balanced life?

For me, the symbol Yin and Yang reminds me of the importance of balance. Is your energy usually expended outward or focused inward. Are you doing more than you are being?

Most of us spend the majority of our day expending our energy outside of ourselves. As a manager, you need to get the job done while attending to the people who count on you for guidance. As a homeowner there is an endless list of chores to do around the house to keep things going. As a parent, your kids' needs often (if not always) take precedence over your own. As a member of a sport team or the Parent Teacher Association or the church choir, you have responsibilities to fulfill because others have expectations of you.

I would venture that most of us have lives that are heavily weighted on the Yang side of the equation. How can we regain a sense of balance? How can we incorporate more Yin like activities in our lives?

How do you feel about spending time on my own? A friend admitted to me recently that she did not know how to spend time by herself. She is actually afraid of those solitary times so she fills her calendar to the brim. And when she is alone, she throws herself into activities like reorganizing the storage space in her closets, redecorating a room or doing strenuous yard work. Does that describe you too? Or have you developed the personal discipline required to stop the merry-go-round regularly so you can replenish your energy.

Using the descriptions above as a guideline, evaluate if your life is in balance or out of balance.

As for me, they say you teach what you need to learn... I still have a long way to go to incorporate more Yin time in my life. I would love to hear how you do it. Can you teach me a few tricks?

A Management Paradox: Autonomy Leads to Higher Engagement

The idea of management, (as in management of people as opposed to supply chains for example)is built on certain assumptions. Daniel Pink, author of the book Drive says management "presumes that to take action or move forward, we need a prod - that a absent a reward or punishment, we'd remain happily and inertly in place. It also presumes that once people do get moving, they need direction and that without a firm and reliable guide they'd wander."

"When we enter the world are we already hard wired to be passive or inert? Or, are we wired to be active and engaged?" Pink asks.

Pink is convinced that we it is in our nature to be curious and self-directed. Have you ever seen a child who is not curious or self-directed? If by the age of 13 or 44 we have become passive and inert, it is because life has taught us to be that way, something flipped our default setting.

In my father's generation, companies viewed human beings as human resources, simply cogs in a wheel to keep the machine running. (Some would argue that many businesses are still stuck in 1950's when it comes to this mindset.) But today, economic accomplishment, and of course personal accomplishment, depends on allowing our nature to surface and thrive rather than stuffing it in a rigid box. It means that as managers, we need to resist the temptation to control people. Instead, we need to create an work environment that reawakens people deep-seated sense of autonomy and initiative. That is the key from moving from blind obedience to inspired performance in the workplace.

A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance. Recent behavioral science studies have shown that autonomy leads to more innovation, higher productivity, less burn-out and an enhanced sense of well-being. For example, a group from Cornell University studied 320 small businesses. Half of those companies granted autonomy to their employees and the other half used a top-down approach to management. The businesses that gave their employees more freedom of action grew four times more rapidly and had one third less staff turnover than the business that had a command and control style of management.

So why is it then that the majority of companies are still relying on a style of management that still largely revolves around supervision, "if you do this, we will we give you that" type of rewards and other forms of controls?

Pink tells the story of a software company in Australia called Atlassian who tried a bold experiment in 2002. The owners of the company, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, wanted to jump start creativity and innovation in their organization. They decided to set aside an entire day once a quarter for their engineers to work on any software problem they wanted as long as it was something that was not part of their regular day-to-day job. The day begins at 2:00 pm on a Thursday and at 4:00 pm on the Friday, engineers come together for a celebration with cold beer and chocolate cake to show off their progress. Many employees worked through the night for the fun of it.

Over the years, these creativity sessions yielded a whole variety of software solutions that might not have emerged otherwise. In the Spring of 2008, Atlassian announced that for the next 6 months, software developers could spend 20 percent of their time, rather than one intense day four times a year, working on any project they wanted. In a blog post to employees they said: "our hope is that 20% time gives engineers back dedicated stack time - of their own direction - to spend on product innovation, features, plugins, fixes of additions that they think are the most important."

A surprising fact is that one of the companies that pioneered this approach was the American company, 3M back in the 1940's (!) The president and chairman at that time, William McKnight, believed in a simple credo "Hire good people and leave them alone." 3M technical staff could spend 15% of their time on projects of their own choosing. The creator of Post-it notes, Art Fry, came up with his very profitable idea during his 15% time! As a matter of fact, most of the inventions that have carved 3M such an envious niche in their field came from those experimental periods of playing around with ideas.

The carrot and stick approach used to "motivate" employees in the workplace is seriously disconnected from what behavioral science is demonstrating: autonomy leads to innovation and to a sense of job satisfaction.

What about you? Does having freedom of action a factor in increasing your level of motivation? What has been your experience in the workplace? How could we make a solid business case for increased autonomy in workplaces? Would love to hear your ideas about this...

Souvenir from Cuba

I relish in the warm embrace of the sun,
The caress of the tropical breeze on my face,
And the heady smell of the spicy earth.

At my first glimpse of the ocean, I catch my breath.
I am in awe as I drink in
The turquoise color of the water
The rythm of the waves, like a strong heart beat
The soft white sand beneath my feet...

As I walk along the beach, the sun is rising on the horizon
Projecting new patterns of light on the water.
I feel my heart growing wings.
Joy seeps into my being.
I feel a huge sense of gratitude
For the wondrous gifts of nature.

I am reconnecting with the child within.
She kneels down in the sand
And picks up treasures from the sea:
An orange sea shell;
A broken nautilus that looks like a rose bud;
A minuscule sand dollar, perfectly round;
A pristine white clam shell with a hole
That becomes a pendant on a silver chain.

People I meet say hello.
They smile a real smile
They are happy like me

I find a sheltered spot
And I practice my Qi Gong, face to the sun.
I feel the energy moving through me
And with me.

I am far away from home
And at the same time, I am home.

I am on an adventure.
An adventure of the soul.
My soul expands and grows.
My soul is elated.
I am in communion with the universe.

I am here.
We are here.
We are one.

Leaving a legacy

Today we celebrated my father's 80th birthday. Isn't that something? He was born in 1930 and was a child of the Great Depression; lived through the horrors of the Second World War; was in his early twenties when Elvis Presley was making girls swoon; was a new dad when the Beatles invaded America; saw the advent of the computer that took up a whole room to computers in the palm of your hand. He has so many stories to tell.

He is the patriarch of a big family, four daughters, one son, and twelve grandchildren. So many lives he touches.

The thing that I admire the most about my father is the fact that at fifty, he had the courage to go back to school to do a Masters Degree in Counselling. This was a big departure from his work as a biologist working for the federal government for over 35 years. He had always had the desire to help others. As a young adult, he had seriously considered becoming a missionary working in third world countries but life's unexpected twists and turns led him to studying science instead. Like a thirst that has not been satisfied, he felt drawn to revisit his earlier dream of helping others find peace and happiness. For one of the first time in his life, after raising five kids, he put himself at the top of his list and gave himself the permission to spend some time and money on himself. I remember watching him doing his homework on the kitchen table at night with the same verve someone would devote to writing the next Booker prize worthy book. If he was going back to school, he would do it with pride and get straight "A's".

Seeing my dad fretting over his homework, studying relentlessly, and wanting to succeed so badly was an inspiration to me. My parents both went to university and valued education. They had socked away enough money to allow every one of their five children to go to university or college. I had always known that I would go to university one day and because my parents were paying for my education, I don't think that I valued it as much as I should... I took it all in stride. Seeing my father work so hard gave me a new perspective about learning. It is a true privilege to pursue post-secondary studies in a domain of your choosing.

Education is such a strong value for my dad that he has invested money in Registered Education Saving Plans for each and every one of his grandchildren.

By going back to school at fifty, not only did my father show me the value of education, but he also gave me a more lasting lesson: it is important to honor and love your dreams and...yourself.

When I was growing up, I did not wholly appreciate my parent's self-sacrifices. They always put their children first. But I did sense that they were not completely happy or content. My paternal grandmother had suffered through raising seven children in very difficult circumstances and my father learned along the way that being a parent was tough work. Being a parent, in my father's experience, was years and years of endless responsibilities, physical and mental exhaustion and self-denial.

At some point along the way though, my father decided to rewrite the family history of the good but unhappy parent. He took the plunge. He went for it. He believed it was not too late to pursue his long time dream. He did something about it. He chose himself for once.

I tease him. He went back to school in his fifties. I waited until my forties to follow my dreams. Maybe if each generation shaves off 10 years before they allow themselves to be happy, my children's kids will be happy all their adult lives...One would hope.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of spending a day at a workshop with Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. At one point, when he was teaching us the principle of "beginning with the end of mind", he asked us to imagine ourselves at 80 years of age looking back on our lives and speculating what our children, friends, colleagues and neighbours would say was the one thing they gained from knowing us. Covey's challenge to us was to live our lives in alignment with the legacy we wanted to leave our loved ones.

I think that my father can be proud of how he led his life. I hope he knows how much he has given all of us: wisdom, pride and more importantly, love.

If you were 80 years old, looking back at your life, what would you want your legacy to be?

Motivation - it's a very personal thing

How can I motivate my employees to go the extra mile? How can I motivate my kids to do their homework, or clean their rooms? How can I motivate my friend to stop sabotaging her resolution to stop smoking?

Did you know that you cannot motivate people? Motivation has to come from within. You can help create the conditions that may lead to motivation but you can't make someone want to do something unless they decide they want to.

When everything else seems out of whack, having order in my home gives me a sense of control in at least one area of my life. My teenage daughter knows how much order and cleanliness is important to me and that is exactly why she has chosen to create chaos in her bedroom. There is so much stuff spread out on the floor that you cannot walk in without having to jump over piles of dirty laundry, or clean clothes that never made their way to the closet and drawers; drawings, drawing paper, pencils and erasers; posters that fell off the wall but never got stuck back on, and tons of books (she reads maybe 5 books a week). Her room has been our battle ground for months now. Granted, I need to learn to let go a little and I have made some progress on that front. I only ask her to pick up her room twice a month so that we can vacuum and toss out that the half-eaten food before it makes the whole second floor smell like the bottom of a garbage can. More importantly, to give her the privacy she so ardently desires, I am valiantly resisting the urge to clean her room myself when I can't stand it no more.

For a few days now, I have been trying every tactic in the book to get her to clean up her room. I tried to sweet talk her. I tried to give her ultimatums. I also have, I am ashamed to say, tried bribing her with treats. To no avail...of course.

This morning she gets a call from a brand new friend who wants to come and visit. Within an hour her room was picked up, vacuumed, posters hung up and she even made her bed! She was motivated to make a good impression on her new friend (much more potent motivation than to make her mom happy!)

Daniel Pink, the author of A Whole New Mind, has written a new book called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. He demonstrates that while the carrot and stick approach, motivating through external rewards like money, has been successful in the twentieth century it will not cut it for today's challenges. The secret to high performance and satisfaction is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things and to do better by ourselves and our world.

The three elements of true motivation are autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Pink illustrates that point well through a bit of storytelling. He asks us to transport ourselves back to 1995. You are sitting down with an economist and say to her: "I've got a crystal ball that can see fifteen years into the future. I would like to see if you can forecast what I see."

"I will describe two types of encyclopedias, one that was just launched and another that will be created a few years later. I want you to tell me which one will be most successful in 2010."

"The first encyclopedia is funded by Microsoft. Professional writers and editors are paid to write thousands of articles. Well-paid managers will oversee the project to ensure on-time and on-budget completion."

"The second encyclopedia won't be funded by a company. It will be created by tens of thousands of people who write and edit articles for fun. Participants will work for free. The encyclopedia will exist online and will also be free."

Now you say to the economist "In fifteen years, one encyclopedia will be the largest and the most popular in the world and the other will be defunct. Which is which?"

Of course, you have guessed by now that the most successful encyclopedia is Wikipedia.

The people who contribute to the knowledge base in Wikipedia do it because they want to, nobody tells them that it's their job. Choosing your actions or in other words, exercising autonomy, is to the first element of true motivation according to Pink. Contributors to Wikipedia find that sharing their knowledge and expertise gives them a purpose, the second element of motivation. And as they research, write and edit their posts, contributors develop their own personal mastery in the subject area, the third element in motivation.

I am off to Montreal tomorrow to facilitate a 1200 people plenary session on employee engagement. The organizers wanted the participants to leave the conference feeling motivated and willing to volunteer their time to support their management community. Was there a workshop that I could teach on engagement? "Engagement comes from within" I replied, "you cannot teach it. What you can do perhaps, is create an experience for participants that will help them connect with their own leadership abilities and revive their desire to make a difference. The rest is up to them..."

I believe that if you work or frequent a motivated individual, their enthusiasm and sense of purpose is contagious. Maybe one of the best way to "motivate" someone is to become the best they can be is to model the way yourself...

What motivates you to try your best? Think about it in terms of autonomy, purpose and mastery.

A split second

I was not happy when I finished the race," said Nesbitt, who became just the second woman in Olympic history to win the 1,000 metres speed skating race on home soil. "I didn't think that time would hold out. I thought, 'the worst I can do is a bronze' [Nesbitt posted the first-place time in the second-last pair]. But then I thought, 'I didn't come here to win bronze.'"

Nesbitt, who lives in London, Ontario, ended up winning by 2/100ths of a second, just edging out a pair of Dutch skaters.

She won by 2/100ths of a second! Think about it. A blink of an eye made the difference between gold and bronze. Is that skill, sheer luck or perhaps destiny?

German skater Monique Angermuller, who was paired with Nesbitt, said she had helped the Canadian win gold by providing a draft.

Nesbitt agreed. “She gave me a really good draft for a bit. But that was probably the two-hundredths of a second. She's right. She probably got me there.”

Douglas has dedicated countless hours of his life to train just for this chance at an Olympic medal. He was considered a strong contender for the skeleton race but three minutes obliterated all the blood, sweat and tears that he invested to attain his goal.

“It has happened to athletes before in the past and they received a fine,” said Douglas. “I went to take the runner guards off. I was late for sure, but the security guard let me in. They had just begun their technical checks on the first sled. They hadn’t even got to mine.

“They say I was three minutes late; I say one minute. They let me take the guards off, they watched me do it, then a half-hour later they DQ’d me.”

Douglas was disqualified. He was not allowed to participate in the race of a lifetime. Three minutes made the difference between a chance at winning and a complete, utter failure.

Time. Some say it is the most precious commodity. When you lose it, you can't win it back.

In light of these Olympic stories, I have been thinking about times when a split second may have made a huge difference in my life. Obviously, I can think of many times as an athlete, especially as a competitive runner, when seconds made a difference.

But there are other times too. For example, I am driving along on the highway, wanting to change lanes, but for some reason I hesitate at the last moment. A car who was in my blind spot speeds by and I breathe a sigh of relief. I almost had an accident. (I bet that happened to you).

A few years back as I am leaving the theatre after watching my daughter's play, I decidedly walk to the Theatre Director and I hear myself asking her when I can sign up for the adult acting classes. I had not planned this. Not even sure how those words got out of my mouth. It is as if something bigger than me made a split second decision and acted before my consciousness could even catch up with what was going on. I am so happy I did though. Acting is one of my great pleasures in life. I had toyed with the idea of acting in community theatre for years but until then I had found all sorts of reasons why I should not act. That day, at that moment, my higher self just took over and did not give my mind a chance to stop me in mid-action. In a split-second, a life-changing decision was made.

My husband and I were discussing this over coffee this morning. He says that if something happens in a split second you are not thinking. There is no time in a split second to gather information, analyze, compare options and choose. You are just reacting. In that split second, it is your whole past, your life experiences, and your instinct, that act for you.

Sometimes, we need to let go of our ego and fears and just trust the moment. We need to get out of our own way so that our inner wisdom can act.

What about you? Were there times in your life when a split second made a difference?