Have you ever tried using your left hand to write if you’re right-handed? Or maybe tried driving on the right side of the road? Recall the first time you’ve tried riding a bicycle or learned how to skate (I have to admit that I still don’t know how.) How did that feel? Here’s what’s worse. You’re trying a totally different approach related to your area of expertise. Like the accountant learning how to use TurboTax for the first time.  He knows the spreadsheet in-and-out but just couldn’t get the software’s user interface. This reminded me of how users reacted to Microsoft Office 2007 when it first came out. And because change is constant and inevitable, we’ll always feel like a noob. ALWAYS. And it feels awkward. ALWAYS.

But just like learning how to ride a bicycle, we get used to it. The awkward feeling starts to go away and we start feeling confident. When you’re riding your bicycle without holding the handle bars, you never think about how many times you’ve fallen off or the number of scratches you got. You probably couldn’t even remember. You went from being a noob to being an expert and riding the bicycle no longer feels awkward. You now feel great about it. But it definitely took a lot of trying it out and getting used to it. The path from being a noob to becoming an expert is never an easy one. That, in fact, was the thesis of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers and the idea behind the 10,000 hours road to expertise. With the right investment of time and effort, anyone can move past the feeling of awkwardness fairly quickly.

But I think it’s more than the awkward feeling of being a noob. Behind all of that is the feeling of PRIDE. Admitting that you have to throw away all of your efforts and investments does feel a bit awkward. And that feeling where you suddenly have to slide down the ranks from up top all the way back to the bottom. When experts feel that they’re back to being a noob. And because they’ve gotten used to the feeling of being an expert, they no longer want to go back and re-experience how it all started – the fear, anxiety, and frustration that comes with it.

Didn’t I say that change is constant and inevitable? This means we have to get used to being a noob because we will always have to learn something new. But we need to put our pride aside or we’ll never get past this awkward feeling.

Now, go ahead and ride that bicycle.

Right-hand drive by EdwinMSarmiento

I’ve skipped a couple of weeks of blog posts in preparation for my presentations at SQL Server Live last week in Orlando. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make up for the lost time.

I don’t want to claim that I have an OCD but most people think I do. Let me explain. I was raised knowing how to keep things in tip-top shape. I keep my personal stuff clean and orderly. I remember the time when my step-sister paid me a visit before I was about to go to college. She looked at my closet and was shocked to see that it was way, way better than hers. I think my army reserve training made it worse that I ended up folding my shirts with the aid of cardboards and lining up my shoes according to color and usage. I brought that with me today as I travel. I’ve always tried to fix my bed before I leave my hotel room. Aside from my OCD behavior, it’s my way of helping the housekeeping crew make their jobs a lot easier. With my hotel room well maintained, it’s one less room that they need to worry about. I’ve always done that whether it’s a motel room or a hotel suite.

Until this past week. I stayed at the wonderful Loews Royal Pacific Resort in Orlando, FL as part of the reservations for the SQL Server Live conference – nice rooms, great ambience, wonderful staff. I had a whole day workshop on Day 1 and I wanted to make sure that I had a good night’s sleep, a nice meal and a prepared mind. I woke up at 5AM which was unusual for a night owl like me. Since I can no longer get back to sleep, I started preparing for my whole day workshop. While getting ready to take a shower, I started all of my virtual machines to see if they are in a state where I wanted them. I was surprised to find out after getting dressed that my iSCSI storage allocations were all corrupted. My instincts tell me to start fixing them before my workshop starts  but my eyes started to glance at the bed and the sheets, waiting to get done. I know I won’t be able to fix them all in time but at least I can get started and fix everything that I need for the morning session.

A story was told about the great violinist Jascha Heifetz who skipped doing his bed every morning to start playing the violin. At a very young age, he understood the leadership law that Dr. John Maxwell taught on his best selling book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Having done so has led him to become one of the most important and influential violinists of the twentieth century. He knew how to say no to the urgent to say YES to the important. Dr. Maxwell taught on the concept of the Pareto Principle that states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle has been applied in business and time management throughout the years and has helped me as lot in my personal as well as professional life.

We are all prone to responding to the urgent things in our lives. I, for one, would have ended up fixing my hotel room and leaving it the way I wanted to at that time. It would have been easier for me because I’m already used to it. But understanding that my priorities need to define the difference between what is important to me versus what is urgent helped me decide. It was a no brainer. I started working on my virtual machines knowing that my bed was left undone and my suitcase all messed up. When I left the room, I knew I was ready to deliver my workshop with confidence and expecting a great reward. Dr. Maxwell outlines three key questions that we need to answer to evaluate our priorities.

1. What is REQUIRED of me? I was in Orlando for a reason and that is to deliver a presentation. I’m not there to clean my hotel room nor to keep the housekeeping crew happy (although those were reasons I try to keep whenever I travel.) Keeping myself focused on my primary reason helped me make those decisions.
2. What gives the greatest RETURN? I’m very good at keeping my stuff clean and organized. But doing that is simply for personal satisfaction. Delivering a great presentation in front of a large audience gives me a much greater return because I know that those who will attend my sessions will go back to their work with new ideas to implement. Empowering others gives me the greatest return.
3. What brings the greatest REWARD? Living out my personal mission statement gives me a high. Call it addiction but I feel the most satisfaction when I see someone grow and develop their full potential. While I know that keeping my hotel room well organized and clean also gives me some sort of personal satisfaction, it’s nothing compared to the feeling I get when I get to do what I am called to do.

As a leader, we need to get our priorities right because other people depend on us. Doing so will help us intentionally ignore the inessential.

Question: What things do you intentionally ignore to keep your important priorities? You can leave a comment below.

Several weeks after the project went live, I was having a conversation with the project manager about the way we manage our relationships and dialogues we have with the people that matter to us. She mentioned the fact that even after celebrating her birthday just a few days ago, most of the greetings that she received were all in digital format – text messages, emails, Facebook messages, etc. The conversation concluded with the fact that greeting cards have now joined the ranks of dinosaurs and the Dodo bird on being extinct. I have to admit that while I like sending hand-written notes and letters to people, I save the reader the agony of reading my hand writing. I still remember the gruelling writing exercises that I had to go thru in grade school just to improve my hand writing – write, scribble, erase, write, and so the cycle goes. And while most people say that practice makes perfect, I just couldn’t get my hand writing right. I can’t even read my own hand writing sometimes that I always resort to typing my notes after meetings so I could legibly read and recall the ideas I wrote.

A few weeks ago, I sent the project manager and one of the application testers books that I think would be valuable to them.  Dr. John Maxwell’s book  – Everyone Communicates Few Connect  – was the latest book that I have read from the author and decided to send a copy to the project manager. For the application tester,  sent a copy of the SharePoint 2010 branding book because I believe that the book would be very helpful in her day-to-day job. Included with the book was a hand-written note thanking them for their contribution to the success of the project and described how the book would help them improve their productivity at work. I think I’ve scribbled on a few sheets of paper before finally tucking one inside the envelope and headed over the post office. I was more concerned about the recipients having a hard time reading my handwriting than the impact that it would have in their lives.

In today’s digital age where social media has taken over our modes communication, it’s so easy to take for granted the value of  inter-personal relationship. It still amazes me how people in the workplace would send an email response to a colleague that’s a few cubicles away rather than take a few steps and have a face-to-face conversation. Oh, those lovely email threads spanning multiple responses when it could have been made even clear with a phone call. Social media and the digital age only thrives because they leverage on the most important ingredient in the marketplace : PEOPLE. We humans desire to feel special and important. We love receiving feedback for the work that we do and long to be connected with the people that matter to us. That’s why people flock to Facebook and Twitter. We want to join conversations, share our uniqueness and simply feel validated. And that’s why I feel that the pen-and-paper approach of connecting with people will never go out of style.

After coming back from the PASS Community Summit in Seattle, I received a hand-written card from the project manager thanking me for the wonderful gift. She was also a big fan of Dr. John Maxwell and his books. But what really struck me was how she related the story of the application tester who received the other book. The gift came at a time when she felt really discouraged and was starting to believe that her work in the company didn’t matter. The book and the hand-written note from me made an impact in her life: it validated her value. It didn’t just make her day, it literally ignited her to become excited again with the work that she does. Most importantly, I’ve gained another level of appreciation for the hand-written letters that I send out, knowing that they do have an impact on the lives of the recipients. I’ll still make sure that they’re legible before I send them out.

Question: Have you been encouraged recently by a hand-written note? When was the last time you sent out one? You can leave a comment below.

-Abraham Lincoln-

We live in a society where it’s easy to just forget about what we promised – customer satisfaction guarantee, warranty coverage, and even a simple promise made to an employee or spouse. I was just reading a customer satisfaction guarantee form inside a store where I bought my kids’ iPod charger that said they will do anything and everything to keep customers happy. Yet, the owner of the store even pointed out that I was at fault for the malfunctioning charger. Sometimes, words are skilfully crafted to work around so as not to keep what was promised. But what if we did keep our promise even if the cost is high?

US$800 a day is not something I usually spend, considering the fact that our monthly grocery budget is only half that. We keep our costs down as much as we can in order to meet our other financial obligations. So, when the cost to travel to New York City to see my son for his birthday was that much, my initial reaction was to bail out and just tell my wife that I can’t afford to make the trip. I was about to make the phone call when I realized that I promised my son to be with him on his birthday – and I told him one too many times to reassure him. That was more than enough for me to pick up my tablet and booked the flight to New York City. After getting my confirmation code, I kept thinking about how much I have spent just to keep my word. Aren’t we all like that sometimes? We look at how much it costs to keep our word and bail out when we measure it against our balance sheets. Believe me when I say that keeping our integrity is not easy.

But what if we counted the benefits of keeping our word instead? Zappos and 6pm.com turned a US$1.6 million blunder into a great marketing and advertising story that earned more customer loyalty and sales. That could have been a red mark in their balance sheet but they chose to keep their word. Michael Hyatt (blog | Twitter) on his podcast talked about how his former manager kept his word which, in turn, earned Michael’s loyalty. Keeping our word has benefits that far outweigh the costs of not keeping it.

Please don’t make promises you can’t keep. But we would definitely love it if you just work hard to keep the ones you already made.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalImages.net

Bill Barnett recently wrote about Making Your Job More Meaningful in the Harvard Business Review blog. He describes three different attitudes toward our day-to-day job and how they define our satisfaction in the workplace. But even when you consider your work as your calling, the feeling of exhaustion and being alone still creeps in that it sometimes makes you want to give up. It’s natural and there is no sure fire way of dealing with that kind of feeling. It’s when I searched for a deeper purpose in what I was doing – something much higher than my own. I always tell my clients that my work is guided by my personal mission statement – “To help people and organizations grow and develop their full potential as God has planned for them.” Even when they don’t understand why I am doing things, it gives them a sense of security knowing that I am working to fulfill a much higher purpose. And that’s exactly what I did.

From the tangible to the intangible

Most technology consultants get hyped up with the latest and greatest hardware and software. I’m no different from most of them. And there is nothing wrong with that simply because the IT industry is in a never ending cycle of introducing new innovations and products that will help address the current issues that organizations face. But this tends to overlook how technology consultants need to approach addressing and solving problems thru technology. Overall, it’s all about the people and their stories. With this SharePoint 2010 migration and upgrade project I was working on, I tapped into a much deeper purpose and searched for the stories that affected people’s lives.

I found one that resonates deep within me. You see, I fall under the category of an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW). And there are millions of us worldwide. While I may be blessed in my career as a technology consultant, there are those who work as caregivers, healthcare workers, construction workers, seafarers, etc. On a regular basis, they send money back home to make sure that their families have their basic needs met – food, shelter, clothing, education.

Every time I get an opportunity to do so, I listen to their stories and engage them in a conversation. We talk about the challenges we had back home, the loneliness of being away from your family and the hope of a better and brighter future. They talk about the sacrifices that they have to make just to earn a living. I see how their eyes well up in tears when they talk about how they miss their children and looking forward to the day when they can be together again as a family. While I do not have the same challenges as they do (I brought my entire family with me when we left home,) I totally understand how they are feeling – I’m one of them, a Filipino at heart. And that’s when hit me. These people use the services of the company I was consulting with. I saw the project from one that dealt with a newer version of SharePoint, hardware with 64GB of memory and large SAN storage to one that made sure that the families of OFWs had their basic needs met. I saw faces and stories in the midst of technology. And I’m sure not to give up on my fellow Filipino nor my country – ever.

I was still experiencing mild fever last weekend when we finally turned on the switch for the new SharePoint system. As we did so, I couldn’t help but be thankful that I didn’t give up. It made all the efforts and sacrifices worthwhile.

Question: When was the last time you had to search for a deeper purpose in your work? Did you have to do it because you felt like giving up? I’d like to hear about your story. Post your comments below.   

1. Communicate appropriately. Kids, and employees, have different levels of maturity and understanding. We need to know where they are at and communicate according to their level, whether it’s sharing a vision, a plan or changes that may affect them. Use the appropriate words, analogies and stories.
2. Discipline like a father but nurture like a mother. We need both discipline and encouragement. Most managers practice the concept of “seagull management” (I blogged about this here) where they only drop in on their employees when something goes wrong but are nowhere to be found when things are OK or the employee has made an achievement. Mothers are very good at encouragement and nurturing. They notice the smallest things – from the nice color combination on their daughter’s drawing to the bike-riding skills of their son learning without training wheels. Employees need constant recognition, affirmation and nurturing like we all do.
3. Serve with love. Managers and leaders, especially men, feel that serving undermines their authority and shows a sign of wekness. Same is true when the husband helps the wife with doing the dishes or cleaning the house. They feel that since they are the bread winner in the family, household chores and taking care of the kids are the wife’s responsibility. Christ demonstrated servant leadership with his disciples when he washed their feet. Find an opportunity to serve your staff.
4. Delegate. One of my popular Twitter pots, “Only do what only you can do.Delegate the rest.” When kids, and employees, are capable enough to handle responsibilities, delegate.

If you’re a leader or a manager, you may have your own version of leadership lessons from home. I’d like to hear about yours by posting a comment here.

 “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.“

The problem with personal growth is that we don’t intentionally measure it.  So, we end up guessing if there was indeed some improvement or not. And if we do see some improvement, we wonder how it came about.

A few years ago, while helping my brother-in-law look for a wedding photographer, my wife and I got in touch with the pastor-friend of ours who took up photography as a hobby. He actually was our “official” photographer during our wedding  but, back then, it was just simply that – a hobby.  Now, imagine that this has been about 3 years after he shot our wedding so he had almost forgotten about what he did. He specifically asked for our wedding photos to refresh his memory about what camera and, probably, the techniques he used. He was surprised when he saw our wedding photos. In fact, he started criticizing the lighting, the composition  and anything he could possibly bash at (he didn’t physically assaulted the photos). Strikingly, it led him to say, “Did I actually take these photos?” Obviously, he saw the difference between what he did back then and what he was doing now. But definitely not before seeing our now 3-year-old wedding photos.

I was in the same boat as our pastor-friend was these past few days as I was preparing for a presentation. I do a lot of research and preparation before I deliver a presentation and, surprisingly while searching for a sample PowerPoint slide online, I stumbled upon a slide deck that got uploaded for reference. It was mine and it was about 4 years old. And, I did ask the same question, “Did I actually create and deliver this presentation?” To prove my point, I took a slide from that deck and a similar one from a more recent deck. You be the judge.

versus

It’s pretty obvious that there is indeed a big difference. But that also comes as a result of a 4-year difference. A better way to measure growth is to do a before-and-after comparison even as you take small, simple steps. Here’s how you may want to do it.

1. Build a growth plan. This is a must. You can never measure your growth if you didn’t have anything in the first place. It’s like building a house without a blueprint. Your growth plan has to be specific because every goal is different. For example, I have a growth plan for developing my technical skills. That is relatively different from my growth plan to develop my leadership skills and my presentation skills. Software Engineer and author Sid Savara has outlined how you can come up with a personal development plan. The key word here is personal. It has to be your own and not someone else’s.
2. Create milestones on your plan. Once you have a growth plan going, you need to set up milestones on those plans. We use milestones on the road to tell us how far we’ve gone on our travel. Same thing with our growth plan. You can break down your growth plan into sections and define a milestone after completing a section. Those milestones will definitely tell you how far you’ve gone into your growth plan. Trust me when I tell you that they prove to be great motivators.
3. Do the measurement yourself. You’ve got a plan and you’ve created milestones on your plan. Now you work though it and measure your progress – even how small they seem to be. You’d see fitness professionals tell you to hop on to that weighing scale every day and record what you see.  Measurement is a great way to tell you that what you’re doing is indeed making sense because you’re getting results. I measure the amount of time it takes to deliver a presentation by rehearsing to make sure I don’t go beyond the allotted time. I measure how many leadership and business books I read to see if I’m hitting my goal. And since you defined the metrics, you know what to measure. However, be careful in choosing the right metrics. Most people just measure without understanding the right metrics. If I’m just counting the number of books I read, they’ll just be that – numbers. Aside from that metric, I measure the impact of the book in my life by applying key principles I’ve learned. And there is a separate metric for that. That’s why it is important to define the proper and relevant metric so that you don’t end up just recording numbers.
4. Let others measure. This is a scary one. Most people don’t even want others to know that they have a growth plan, let alone asking to be evaluated or criticized. That’s why you need to carefully choose the right people to enlist in your growth plan. This not only gives you the support you need to keep going but also the right perspective when measuring your growth. Being too close to your growth plan sometimes gives you too much familiarity that you tend to lose sight of other perspectives. When I started measuring how I was doing when it comes to preparing and delivering presentations, I thought I was going nowhere. I kept looking at previous presentations while working on a current one and end up getting frustrated because I don’t see any progress. That’s because I’m way too familiar with what I’m doing. Only when I started asking for feedback from others that I got the sense that I was indeed making progress. I wasn’t seeing what they saw and they did provide the right perspective. But it wasn’t easy doing it the first time.

As you’re on your way to growing on a regular basis, remember to take measurements along the way. You’ll be surprised at how far you’ve gone. I’d like to hear how you’re measuring your growth. You can leave a comment below.

For my 10th year wedding anniversary gift for my wife, I’ve decided to give her a Nikon D5100 DSLR camera with the intention of diving in to digital photography myself. As I was going thru and testing the features of the camera, an idea initially hit me. Instead of simply knowing the features, I’ve decided to learn more about concepts in photography and how those concepts can be applied when using the features of the camera. Quick searches on Google led me to the term Aperture. Wikipedia defines aperture as a hole or opening in an optical system through which light travels. In photography, this opening in your camera lens defines the level of focus an object can have when you take its picture.

The concept of aperture reminded me of what leaders and organizations in this generation should have: focus.  In photography, a big aperture means focusing on a smaller area but with greater impact. The opposite is also the same. Let’s take this photography lesson in the context of leadership.

1. Big Aperture,Narrow Focus. We are all prone to focusing at too many things at the same time. We’ve fallen into the myth of multi-tasking, thanks to the messaging around new technologies that can make our lives easier. As leaders and managers, we also feel the urge to accomplish too many tasks at the same time with the feeling that quantity equals quality. But to be really productive, we need to zoom in our focus to a few things. The level of focus that we set on a particular task determines the quality of the output. I’m pretty sure you’re aware of the magnifying lens science experiment.
2. Select The Important. When taking pictures, we should know which image or object we want to focus on. It’s hard to narrow down our focus if we don’t even know which ones to focus on. This would mean selecting one person in a crowd or an object within a group. Similarly, we need to narrow down our focus on things that have bigger impact. What had the biggest impact on your organizational success within the past year? What was the biggest contributor on your career’s success? Once you know which ones to select, you can then provide the level of focus that it needs to get the best results. I find this really important in my career as well as when managing projects. I’ve identified earlier on that teaching and mentoring resonate as my key strengths. So even when my customers and the technical community perceive me as an expert in my field, they can sense the “teacher and mentor” in me whenever they engage my services. Knowing this gives me the encouragement to further improve my strengths by reading and studying communication, presentation and mentoring skills improvement.
3. Practice. Just like learning photography as a beginner, it sometimes feels overwhelming to know that we’re walking down an unfamiliar path. This is normal. So, when you felt uneasy narrowing down your focus and selecting which ones to focus on for the first time, do it again.  Make it a routine – every month, quarter, or even once a year – you pick your pace. Maybe you prefer having a pen and paper to list down the things that you need to focus on before you can start the actual work. I’m pretty sure we all need to practice these concepts on a regular basis. I still do. But practice does make it easier the next time around.

I’m about to play around with the new DSLR camera to practice with selecting the right aperture for the right image, especially now that fall is officially here. What do you have on your list of item to focus on? I’d like to hear from you.

What’s really amazing is the fact that the business model is built on the concept of compassionate capitalism where their vision is primarily what sustains the business. His explanation on the CGI U meeting with President Bill Clinton highlights that even during this time of economic crisis, they have sold three times as much in the same month as compared to last year.

TOMS story is a testimony of compassionate capitalism at work and how organizations should think about their impact in society. More than just the leader’s vision of growing the organization to greater heights, couple that with being socially responsible is how we can create a sustainable environment and make this world a better place to live in.