Recharge

October 5, 2020

Good morning! Fortieth week of the year already — and starting the eighth month of the COVIDs. Yesterday here in Central Minnesota was what they had in mind when they coined the word weather. Earlier this morning the whole moon was at near-perfect zenith — and Orion was back on the prowl. Anatomy of a sunrise: we enjoyed an amazing sunrise last Friday morning; if you’d like to experience it virtually, just click me back.

You wouldn’t let your mobile phone or your computer run out of energy… don’t let it happen to yourself, either! Recharge!
- Don’t know how or don’t have time? Find a good consultant to help you.

Avoid Information Bias in the News

A really cool interactive tool from James for determining the objectivity of information and news: Information Bias (Try it for fun and save it.)
Beware those who use binary logic to address the complex challenges facing our society and our world.
Last week I promised to provide a bit of historical muse, a quiz, but after watching every moment of that so-called debate last week I’m without words.
- I will keep my promise, but it’s postponed for a bit while I recharge.

Moms

I haven’t disaggregated the data to know how many of my readers are Moms of young children and adolescents, but I know there are a few of you (thank you!).
- I won’t claim to know how difficult it is to balance and achieve all you do because I’ve never done it.
- I know you’re heroes in many ways and I know these COVIDs have made the endless balancing and prioritizing enormously more difficult.

Creating Value

Creating Value Over the Long Run: Smart Behaviours
- Five McKinsey researchers are reminding us of some pretty good and basic stuff (Sneader, Williamson, Potter, Koller, and Babcock, 2020)
  - Invest capital and talent in strategic initiatives to achieve a winning position;
  - From those initiatives, deliver returns that exceed the cost of capital;
  - Dynamically (i.e., move/ change) allocate capital and talent — by divestiture if necessary — to initiatives that create the most value;
  - Create value for shareholders by way of valuing and respecting employees and customers;
  - Commit to the long-term when times get tough short-term.
- Importantly, and we often forget, Boards play a crucial role in ensuring the CEO has what s/he needs to get the job done — and is held accountable.
  - Ensuring strategic initiatives are fully funded and have been assigned the necessary top talent;
  - Evaluating the CEO on the execution and achievement of the strategic imperatives, not on the short-term;
  - Structure CEO and top management compensation over a long-term horizon, including a period of time post-service.

Make sure your board functions well. Learn how.

Dave, a client I enjoy and appreciate, sent this to me recently and it’s very good, worth repeating here:

Why quiet people in meetings are incredible (Denning)

Meetings can be an odd experience. Before you know it the meeting can get out of control. Leaders with pinstripe suits or hair that is turning grey quicker by the day can lose the plot. They flex their ego with words. In other words, they talk a lot. As the meeting wears on the duel continues. Leaders throw words around. Those looking for their next promotion do the same.But it’s not all bad. Meetings have taught me one valuable lesson: watch the quiet people.

There are these hidden people that attend meetings. They say nothing. You can attend ten meetings in a row and never hear them say a word. Their words are a privilege reserved for the royal family. You find yourself dying to know what they would say. They act like a fly on the wall. With every meeting, they get smarter, by saying nothing at all.

They observe the loud beasts, rather than become a beast…

The loudest person in the room is not the most senior, or necessarily the brightest spark.

Job titles make people do stupid things. One of those misdemeanors is talking too much. You can have a title today and have it gone tomorrow.

What ruins business is people that don’t listen. They think they know the market but actually they don’t know anything at all.

The brightest spark in the room says nothing at all. They are there taking notes and paying attention to what is going on. They watch the duel of egos and see no room to interrupt.

When the meeting is over they go back to their desk and help complete the list of actions. They are a doer, not a talker.

The person who talks the loudest and the most in the meeting is not the smartest. They are drowning out the solutions of the people who do the real work.
It’s okay to sit in silence. It doesn’t make you a loser; it makes you smart.

Bright sparks know when to shut up.

Of course, there are times when you’ll be asked to speak about a topic. You can’t say no, or do hand signals.
The idea is to speak with as few words as possible and make your point. Then, once you’ve said what you need to say in the shortest amount of time possible, know when to shut up.
Knowing when not to talk is an art.
If you can learn to shut up at the right times, you can hear the unspoken people. You can also hear what is not being said.

Bright sparks know when to listen, and learn.

To shut up is to listen.
To listen is to change your life.
Why? When you listen you learn. When I was working a job and was way out of my depth looking after a billion-dollar Silicon Valley Tech company, I listened my way to mastery. By sitting in meeting after meeting and saying nothing, I learned what the customer did and how my employer’s business worked. Nobody in those meetings ever found out that I had no idea.

When you listen, people then assume you know what you’re doing. And guess what? You will know what you’re doing if you listen.

I remember hearing about a guy (forgot his name) that listened his way into meetings. By using the art of listening, he climbed his way up to joining meetings with the two founders of Google.

All he did was sit there and shut up, and simply offer to take the notes for the meeting. Nobody ever questioned him. What he learned in those meetings completely changed his life. He excelled much faster in his career because he was ahead of the knowledge curve, thanks to the meetings he got to attend.

If you listen, you’re going to learn things they can never teach you in a prestigious university. You could argue this man’s education that he got from the two founders of Google was better than his university degree — all by listening.

Praise quietness, not hot air and noise…

Quiet people change the world because they hear things others don’t.
Fall in love with quiet people in meetings.

You too can be a quiet person if you choose — but first, you have to see the magic of quiet people, to be moved to silence.

Two days left… how is your bear bracket looking? Fat Bear Week (I was all-in on Otis!)