First Break All The Rules book summary

First Break All The Rules book summary

Best thing I like about the book:  Equating employee journey in the company with mountain climbing. Getting a positive response to most of these questions should result in effective, thriving employee. 

Base camp - getting started - What do I get?

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the right materials and equipment I need to do my work properly?

Camp 1 - What can I give?

1. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
2. In the last 7 days have I received recognition or praise for good work?
3. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?

Camp 2 - Do I belong?

1. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
2. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
3. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
4. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work
5. Do I have a best friend at work?

Summit: How do we all grow?

1. In the last 6 months, have I talked with someone at work about my progress?
2. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?

Other key learnings.

1. Hiring
1. Hire for talent -  talent is a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied.
2. Skills can be learned
3. Knowledge/Experience gets built by using skills effectively for a period of time
4. Ask real job scenarios with examples to identify talent
2. Leverage employee’s strengths
3. Employees may join the company for benefits, vision, however, how long employee stays is determined by his relationship with his manager
4. Managers doing things right and leaders do the right things; both are needed for effective vision and execution
5. Great managers look inward and leaders look outward

Fearless Organization book notes

It is not enough to hire smart, motivated people. They should have safe environment to take risks to accomplish innovative creative work

The fearless organization is one where fear is minimized so that performance can be maximized

Phycological safety (PS) is a climate in which people are comfortable expressing and being themselves

Good teams don’t make more mistakes; they report more

Trust is at individual level; PS is at group/organizational level

Trust is about giving others the benefit of doubt, and PS related to whether others will give you the benefit of doubt

PS exists where people feel they can speak up, offer ideas, and ask questions without being punished or embarrassed

PS is not about being nice

	Low standards	High standards
High PS	Comfort zone	Learning and high performance zone
Low PS	Apathy Zone	Anxiety zone

PS is important in uncertain, interdependent , VUCA (volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world

Motivation by fear works in certain, well known world. It is not effective in bringing creativity and passion needed to accomplish challenging goals in knowledge-intensive workplaces

A culture of silence is a dangerous culture

Without freedom to fail, people will try to repeat safe options

When you don’t know and you are really listening intently, people want to help you. They want to share

Framework

1. Setting the stage (Shared expectations and meaning)
1. Frame the work:
1. Set expectations about failure, uncertainty
2. Identity what's at stake, why it matters, and for whom
2. Inviting participation (Confidence that voice is welcome)
1. Demonstrate situational humility
1. Acknowledge gaps
2. Practice Inquiry
1. Ask good questions
2. Model intense listening
3. Setup structure and processes
1. Create forums for input
2. Provide guidelines for discussions
3. Responding Productively (Orientation towards continuous learning)
1. Express appreciation
1. Listen
2. Acknowledge and thank
2. Destigmatize failure
1. Look forward
2. Offer help
3. Discuss, consider and brainstorm next steps
3. Sanction clear violations

Neither preventable (process deviations) nor complex (system breakdown) failures are worthy of celebrations

Intelligent (new ideas, new territory, trails) failures should be celebrated

An Intelligent failure second time is not an intelligent failure anymore

When leaders express humility, teams engage in more learning behavior

Rule of thumb for asking a good question

1. The one you don’t have answer for
2. One that does not result in yes/no answer

Productive responses

1. Thank you so much for speaking up

Powerful phrases to create PS

1. I don’t know
2. I need help
3. I made a mistake
4. I am sorry

Questions to ask

1. What can I do to help?
2. What are you up against?
3. What are you concerns?

PS is reinforced by fair , thoughtful responses like sanctioning, firing to potentially dangerous, harmful behaviors

PS does not guarantee effectiveness, it just makes it easier to find out what people have to offer.

Anyone can influence others by modeling 3 Cs

1. Curiosity : Ask genuine questions
2. Compassion : Understand what others are up against
3. Commitment: People believe when you demonstrate meeting goals

Gary Kirsten's coaching method

I read today that, Gary Kirsten, the current South Africa coach is different from others. He believes in players enjoying visiting places during tours and taking breaks to keep them refreshed. he also believes in letting team members take decisions and learn from their experience. This sounded like an excellent idea that we can apply in professional set up too. In fact the second part, that mentions about letting team members decide is one of the top recommendation in Agile setup. Most of the time when people complain about failure due to letting team decide, happens mainly because the team is not coached properly before being empowered. Empowering teams without proper coaching can lead to chaos faster.

Planning to blog regularly again

Hi all, I am planning to blog regularly again about the subjects I am passionate about : cricket, team building, team performance and people management. Please correct/appreciate me with your comments.

World Cup Update (21/2/2011)

India won against Bangladesh as expected with batting firing away and bowling doing adequately as they were not under any pressure. Main worry for India will be the bowling as they will not be able to put up huge scores against other big teams that easily. India's best chance against other strong teams will be to face them on spin friendly tracks.

I have not felt the need to catch action on TV after the first match as there is series of mismatches on offer. Last world cup format was good but ICC had to change after India got derailed in the first round.

Crushing of Kenya by NZ, who themselves are struggling shows gulf between test playing and associate teams.

World cup is like a soap opera where some episodes will be interesting........

World Cup Update
I am residing in Singapore now hence obviously missing all the world cup related hype and excitement back home. I am sad that world's best stage for beloved game does not get the top priority from all national boards as number of star players missing due to injuries.

Based on knowledge on Indian conditions and form of teams here is my take on each of the teams (ones matter). One thing to keep in mind with the format, any prediction is worth only so much as teams need only 3 good days from being out in group stage to world champions.

1. India
This is India's best chance considering the talent, technical acumen, experience and the conditions. India needs to start early to avoid any additional pressure and hope that their batting can provide enough extra cushion to carry their bowling and fielding.

2. England
Prospect look good if their first choice bowling attack plays and stays injury free towards the business end and their batting can click. They have one of the game's smartest thinker in Andy Flower and should do better than last few times.

3. South Africa
SA have a solid team and look good to go all way with probably the best all round team. I will be surprised if they are not one of the finalists.

4. Australia
As always, Australia will do well but will they be consistent enough to go all the way seems little suspect; they require their pace attack to do really well with thin spin resources.

5. Srilanka
Srilanka have a strong team with good top order batting and bowling but their middle order little less certain with Samaraweera and Kapugedra.

6. West Indies
WI have a good batting line up but they lack in bowling with quality and consistency and will have to fight hard to get to the knockout level with Bangladesh in their group.

7. Pakistan
Pakistan have a strong lower middle order and good bowling attack that are huge factors in one day cricket. Afridi and Razaak will be more dangerous in the sub continental conditions. IMO, it will depend on how they perform IN knock out stages as they are prone to inconsistencies.

7. New Zealand
can't be excited about NZ; probably there may be couple of good innings from McCullum and Ross Taylor but honestly they will find it difficult to get past 1st knock out stage.

8. Bangladesh will be confident in home conditions and will be disappointed if they don't make it to knockout stage.

9. Other teams, do they really matter??

Enjoy the world cup; let us see how it unfolds.....

This Week In Cricket (24/1/2011 - 30/1/2011)

Australia - England One Day Series

For the audience's and organizer's(mainly) sake, England won the last match to keep the series alive but tough to keep the interest levels high in a 7 match series in this fast paced world. England have some injuries that could prove beneficial in the world cup preparations. Flower and co must be relieved after Prior's knock in the 4th match else their pragmatic decision would have looked like utter foolish; this is the kind of fine line between good and bad decision in sports.

World Cup Thoughts
1. India and SA seem to be front runners at this point of time considering the kind of batting and all round fire power they posses respectively.
2. It might actually come down to teams with match winning bowlers with pitches favoring batsmen and this is where Australia have a chance with Lee and Tait with their express pace and swing.
3. Bangladesh will be the team to watch with conditions favouring them.
4. Batting second will be an advantage with due problem in the evening but interestingly this could balance out the ever present batting first advantage in cricket.

finally..
World cup could be an opportunity for players to impress some of the IPL franchises; this is true if you follow football and have noticed how players use FIFA world cup as launch pad for their professional careers.