The Value of Silence

It's been nearly a month since my last blog entry. Back when I kept my first blog (silentgriot.blogspot.com), I tried to publish a new post every day. Some days I published multiple posts. This time around, I am not so obsessed with daily posts.

It isn't that I haven't thought about anything - this time of the year always seems to be a time of great reflection for me - it's just that I haven't had anything to say. I guess I have come to recognize the value of silence.

It is almost a cliché to say that we live in a time of information overload. It doesn't matter where we are or what we are doing or even what time it is - we are constantly riding an avalanche of data that threatens to carry us away. Not that we mind. We accept that communication is meant to be instantaneous. We embrace the ubiquity of the messages. We believe we have the right, and maybe even the responsibility, to add our voices to the collective din that is our wired world.

The only problem is that there is more to communication than simply sending out a message. Communication is an exchange of messages between different parties. That's how ideas get shared. That's how relationships get built. That's how problems get solved. It's an exchange of messages, and that exchange requires us to talk sometimes and at other times to listen.

I guess for the last month I've been content to listen.

What Gets Measured?

“What gets measured gets done.”

This saying is ingrained in business culture. It is the cornerstone of management by objectives. It is derided by skeptics who retort that what gets measured gets managed. It is used so often that it has become a cliché. And yet, like so many other clichés, there is a lot of truth in this saying.

Measurement is important. Measurement is especially important in times of transformation. Businesses – like the individuals they employee – simply cannot afford not to know whether they are moving forward or not. And so we get to the critical question: what gets measured gets done, but what gets measured?

There is, of course, no single answer to this question. What is important to one department may be of little consequence to another. There is, however, a yardstick by which you can measure prospective metrics: is it an indicator or a result?

To use an analogy from baseball, it’s the difference between measuring batting averages, home runs, wins and a World Series championship. The first two are indicators; the last two are results. The former track the behaviours and performance that enable the team to achieve the desired results.

Whether you are thinking about organizational performance or your own personal achievements, you will have to identify the metrics that truly measure results. Sometimes it will be easy; other times it will be complicated. As difficult as it may be, however, it is important to make sure you measure the things that truly count. After all, only the most statistically-obsessed fans remember Manuel Lee’s batting average in 1992 but almost every Toronto Blue Jays fan can remember who won the World Series that year.

A Closer Look at the Stages of Grief

In an earlier post, I mentioned the restructuring at my company that saw my team lose two colleagues. In the aftermath of the change, I heard a five-word mantra repeated by those who remained: denial – anger – bargaining – depression - acceptance.

In retrospect, I should not have been surprised. After all, it is almost a cliché to refer to the five stages of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s model for how people deal with loss. According to the model, almost everyone experiences these five reactions when facing a loss, even if the specific timing and sequence of the stages varies by individuals.

The model is commonly involved in times of change – especially in times of imposed change – and yet Ruth David Konigsberg, the author of The Truth About Grief, suggests a number of reasons why Kübler-Ross’ framework is an imperfect response:

·         It was originally created to describe people’s reaction to their own impending death, not to describe grief or reactions to change or loss

·         The theory is based on anecdotal evidence rather than empirical data

·         Kübler-Ross originally viewed the five categories as responses to impending death and not as stages in a process

·         Other authors applied the Kübler-Ross model to grief, change, and loss without engaging in studies to determine whether it actually applied

·         The Kübler-Ross model and similar models fail to take into account how resilient people are

·         Recent studies suggest that people who embrace and learn from new experiences feel less stress than people who avoid or feel threatened by them

·         There is no empirical evidence that people respond to change or loss – including job loss or organizational restructuring – the same way they respond to death or grieving

Naturally, Konigsberg is not without her own detractors but her book does raise some interesting questions. Kübler-Ross’ five stages are probably too entrenched in the collective wisdom of our times to be discarded entirely, and perhaps that’s not entirely bad. After all, it forces people to acknowledge the emotional impact of loss and downsizing and other kinds of change.

On the other hand, it should not be trotted out in times of change as a way of giving people “permission” to have feelings about change. I don’t know about you, but I do not require permission to have emotions and I certainly do not like being told how I should be feeling. I guess in the end, Kübler-Ross and her model, like so much other conventional wisdom, deserves a closer look.

For more information, check out:

The Truth About Grief – The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss
Ruth David Konigsberg
ISBN-10: 1439148333; ISBN-13: 978-1439148334

It Is What It Is - Or Is It?

Have you ever noticed how certain phrases pop up and quickly imbed themselves into the collective consciousness of our society? Case in point:

“It is what it is”.

I am not entirely sure how long the phrase has been around. I do know that I had not heard it until I started a new job four years ago, and boy did I ever hear it then. People said it in meetings. They shared it in private conversations. I even overheard it in elevator conversations.

Pretty soon I started hearing the phrase in public. People used it in subway conversations. Kids used it in the mall. It showed up on television shows. My mom even included it in an email message.

 “It is what it is.”

It’s a common phrase. It’s also incomplete. You see, there’s a second half of the saying that people almost always forget. And so, as a public service, let me share the complete phrase with you:

 “It is what it is – but that isn’t the way it has to be.”

Transformation from the Trenches

There are a number of clichés in the business world, but the one that irritates me the most is the concept that:

Business = War

I have never been to war, thank goodness, but I think we all know the analogy is an exaggeration.  Business is business. It can be tough and it can be nasty, but it usually isn't fatal. And yet, I slipped right into the business is war cliché yesterday when the firm I work for went through a round of restructuring-related terminations yesterday.

My team experienced its losses early in the morning, which was bad enough. I suppose you could even say we even felt a little shell-shocked. As the day progressed, word of cuts in other departments slowly made their way through the staff grapevine. I felt like someone waiting on the home front as the casualty lists percolated in.

Radio Free Griot: Senegal Fast Food

I love music. I love all types of music played by all types of musicians. I can't imagine even a day without music.

I love music so much that I thought I'd go in a different direction today and share one of my favourite songs. I listen to it in the car on the way to work. I listen to it at my desk on my MP3 player. I listen to it when I'm at my computer at home. It's a great song and it never fails to pump me up.

The song is called "Senegal Fast Food" and it was recorded by Amadou et Miriam (with the rather extensive assistance of Manu Chao). As if the song isn't awesome enough on its own, there is also a fantastic official video.

The Tyranny of Ten

The last webinar I attended got me thinking, but not in the way the presenters had intended. The session offered to teach me about ten social media skills that learning and development professionals should know. It started on time; the obligatory “commercial” at the beginning of the session was not too long; and the facilitator kept the discussion focused on the topic. And yet the discussion about the last three or four skills was hurried and, dare I say, incomplete.

Blame it on David Letterman. Or maybe Moses is at fault. Perhaps evolution or an intelligent designer is culpable. In the end, it doesn’t really matter – trainers seem to be tyrannized by the number ten. How else can you explain the surplus of seminars, workshops, and webinars offering participants “Ten (fill-in-the-blank-with-the-word-or-words-of-your-choice)”?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not exactly a “deca-virgin”. I’ve been known to take the easy way out myself on occasion. I’ve done my share of lame Letterman-inspired count downs. I’ve come down from the mountaintop with my own list of pseudo-Mosaic commandments. The thing is, though, I’m beginning to wonder why it’s always ten.

Sure, ten is attractive. It’s a nice round number. We can count it on our fingers. We’ve been conditioned to think in terms of lists or commandments, so a session that offers ten magical fixes is bound to attract an audience. Ten just feels right. I mean, what would people think if we only offered them seven best practices, six lessons, or five proven strategies?

Maybe that’s the problem – ten just feels right. But don’t you think that learners would feel even better if we were able to finish a workshop or a webinar without rushing through the last third of the material?