Hide your number and I won’t pick up

I don’t understand why people in business withhold their phone number when they call. When my phone buzzes beside me and I glance over there’s that split-second where I decide if I’ll answer or not. To some people that’s a sacrilegious thought. “Why would you not answer the phone?” I’ve been asked. Well I have some specific thoughts about that.

First, just because it’s convenient for you to call me doesn’t mean it’s convenient for me to pick up. Sometimes I’m in class, or with someone in an important conversation, or maybe I’m just concentrating in a vain attempt to get stuff finished and off my to-do list. I reserve the right to focus on what I need to focus on.. and I don’t apologise for being focused.

Second, if I don’t want to pick up the phone I won’t. I don’t need to explain to anyone why I don’t want to pick up. I’m an adult and a human with full choice in every moment. I accept the consequences of not picking up and bear them comfortably. If I can see who’s calling I can make a decision about whether I choose to converse with that person. If I can’t see who’s calling then I reserve the right to deny that person my time and attention.

If you call me and hide your phone number why, other than pure curiosity, would I pick up? You may have your reasons for withholding your details. I therefore have my reasons for not answering your mysterious call.

Business, like most things in life, is built upon trust. Hiding your details is not a great trust-building decision. It’s your decision to hide or reveal, but ultimately it’s my decision to pick up or not.

A stolen Starbucks card and nobody’s home

I have a Starbucks card. It’s very handy because I never seem to have cash with me these days, and it seems silly to take out the Credit card for a €3 cup of coffee. Last week I walked into a Starbucks but my card was nowhere to be found. “Surely it’s at home somewhere” I figured. 

Having searched the house since and no sign of the card I was of the opinion that it must have fallen down behind some table or chair in the house. That was until tonight when new information came to light.

I got an email from Starbucks this evening telling me my card had been auto-recharged to the amount of €15. It has that ‘feature’ which seemed like a good idea for the last 2 or 3 years – and now seems like a terrible idea. Someone used my card today somewhere in Dublin. They spent €15.80 of my money earlier today and just now Starbucks let them put another €15 of my money on the card. 

I immediately went to the Starbucks website and looked for a link for ‘Report a stolen or lost card’. Nothing. I searched for info, any info and found their ‘Card FAQ’. Again nothing of use to me in there. I looked for an email address, sent them a tweet and even considered calling them in the US – probably another €15 phone call if I did. So far I have had no response. Everyone is gone home it seems. I mean it’s Sunday right. Nothing ever needs attention on a Sunday after 4 PM right?

So, what’s up with that Starbucks? I am a loyal customer, or at least have been up to now. How you respond to my messages will speak volumes. Right now though, knowing someone is out there spending my money and you’re making it easy for them and hard for me.. that’s just not good enough.

The enduring love affair with ‘normal distributions’ in business

A couple of weeks ago I came across a really interesting post on LinkedIn and I did what I always do in these situations. I read the post a couple of times, and then went looking for the original article or source for the LinkedIn post. I found it easily enough.

The post in question was about this much-discussed idea of ‘the normal curve of performance‘. It has been a constant in conversations about performance, particularly at performance review time, for about 20 years or so – at least that’s as far back as I can remember it showing up. 

The idea is simple enough. Human performance ‘fits’ the so-called normal distribution curve. End of explanation. Nobody ever questions this ‘fact’ and so it has been used to make all kinds of decisions about the distribution of incentives, bonuses, promotions and to decide who ‘actually’ is a top performer. Year on year managers are forced to fit their assessment of their people into this normal distribution curve. I mean if it’s a fact and if everyone seems to agree on the fact then what’s the problem. 

I cast my mind back to the last time I was forced to fit my people into this distribution curve. It was 2008 and before that 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004. Before 2004 there wasn’t such pressure to do this fitting of people but I’m not sure why. In any event I sat down and looked at my team and assessed who was giving it everything and who was taking it easy. I didn’t find that my ratings matched any kind of normal distribution curve but I was told to make them fit. This felt very wrong in 2004, 2005, 2006 and every year after. It still feels wrong.

So, on to the subject of this article. Where does the idea that human performance mirrors the normal distribution curve come from? Loads of scientific research? Peer-reviewed and rigorous research? Tested and repeated time and again and confirming the same conclusions? Nope. None of that. It comes from a statement in an article in 1947. Yes, a statement that simply said ‘ratings for a large and representative group of assistant managers should be distributed in accordance with the percentages predicted for a normal distribution’. Hmm. Anything else to back up this assertion or instruction? No.

In the absence of data to contradict this idea then perhaps we’re best to stick with it, right? I mean if it’s the best working theory then we are best to stick with it absent any contradictory evidence.. right? Wrong. You see that’s the thing. There is contradictory evidence and it has been around for a few years now. And it’s very compelling, in fact it’s highly compelling. It suggests that this notion of human performance fitting the normal distribution curve is utterly ridiculous, and it proves why. Better still, it suggests that there is in fact a better profile for the likely shape of human performance. The shape of this profile is closer to what’s called a Power Law or paretian distribution. Without jumping completely onto this idea and saying that it is the absolute truth of human performance, I spent the time reading all the research I could get my hands on and it’s amazing.

I pondered whether to share this new insight with my colleagues in the past week or two. Honestly I thought they wouldn’t be able to handle what this is saying. It shatters much of what is taken as read in HR and organisational behaviour theory – and frankly that’s a good thing because much of it is so wrong. I laboured over discussing it and against my better judgment I decided to bring it up last week. I shouldn’t have bothered. I explained clearly and simply what the latest data are saying. Blank expressions and attempts to move the conversation on were what I encountered.

This won’t go away. Our love affair with the normal distribution curve as a way of fitting people’s performance into neat little cost-managed buckets is doomed. Maybe not this performance review cycle, maybe not even the next, but it is doomed. Maybe then we’ll start assessing people on the basis of what they actually achieved, how they actually performed, and we’ll finally feel a whole lot more honest about the process we’re using.

To close, I want to apologise to my team for those years where I dished out ratings you and I both knew didn’t mirror what you delivered or what I truly believed about your contribution. I know better now and I know why now.

After-shocks and managerial mistakes

There was a fascinating TV programme last night that set out how policing is being influenced and improved as a result of using predictive algorithms. The show set out how the Los Angeles PD in one particular area have been using the algorithm to effectively show up in the right place at the right time to anticipate criminal activity and to deal decisively with it or deter it altogether. The numbers are impressive, the reduction in the level of crime is hard to ignore. So much so that the use of ‘predictive policing’ is now being rolled out all over cities in America.

The use of predictive algorithms has come about because academics at UCLA spotted the potential to marry what they had learned from earthquake aftershocks with the massive database held by the LAPD.

The use of powerful algorithms to use past behaviour to attempt to predict future behaviour doesn’t just extend to criminal behaviour. Obviously marketers are hugely interested in being able to anticipate demand, planners would love to be able to anticipate where to build roads, drains and other infrastructure and so on.

The one that I was thinking about though was managers. It struck me that a lot of problems in business these days are not new problems. They often involve people making bad decisions in an eminently predictable way. “I knew when he spoke to them like that they would refuse to co-opererate”. “I knew the minute the email went out that people would get the wrong idea”. Many of the stupid things that happen in business can probably be predicted because they closely mirror mistakes made previously.

So if the algorithm is vitally important because it can help to find meaning in the data, what about the data? Well that’s surely the problem when it comes to learning from managerial mistakes. I’m not sure that managerial mistakes are actually captured in data form anywhere, in any company. Why is that?

If people are our most important asset (do I hear you yawn?) then surely we should be learning about the way we manage and treat our people to find out if we are being effective. We should have data, data which we can mine to find out how to predict the problems and avoid making them in the future.

Obvious, isn’t it?

Pop music and coffee shops

I came to a coffee shop this morning to grab some quiet time away from the office, some time to think about the day and the various things I am working on. I got here expecting to sip my americano while Ray La Montagne or Sade gently croons in the background. Instead I have had Kylie Minogue belting out her high energy high tempo vocals in my ear for the last 10 minutes. I have nothing against pop music by the way.

This all got me thinking about how important the climate really is when it comes to getting things done. In the same way that a poor choice of music can spoil the atmosphere in a coffee shop for me, the wrong ‘background music’ in the office can derail the best efforts of your people to do great work. So what is the ‘background music’ of work? In some cases it can literally be music, but in most cases it’s the tone that is set by the manager or group leader, the way they go about their own work and how they interact with others. If the tone of the workplace is frantic, disorganised, adversarial or in any way negative then that becomes the backing track for the group.

The ‘background music’ could also be the mood, whatever is in the air around the group. It could b a generally negative aspect towards work or one another, or worse towards customers.

While I can’t go behind the counter of the coffee shop and change the CD, the good news is that the manager or leader of the group has a huge influence over the ‘background music’ and can make changes when they need to.

One great place to start is to just spend a few minutes on some random day discretely observing the work for a few minutes, watching how people interact with one another, the pace and energy of the environment, and the things that people would not perhaps be proud about if they could see what you see.

The climate does have a big bearing on how people work and how they feel about their work and colleagues. It is relatively easy to adjust and little things can instantly boost the climate. If you don’t
believe me try showing up tomorrow morning with donuts for everyone?

And that’s the other point about climate. Just like the weather workplace climate is like a moving cloud above you. The things you do to create climate work but they don’t last for long, so you have to keep working at it to keep the climate regularised. Think of it as ‘climate control’. As the manager you are always responsible for climate control. It’s an active responsibility.

Kylie has been joined by Robbie Williams. It’s time for me to leave.

The gap between pedants and pards

Pards are of course Shepards. You know the ones, the ones that have pies named after them. Indeed.

I was in the UK last week attending a management development programme. One of the participants made a point at a few stages of the programme to be quite pedantic on a few points of detail. At times he was observed to say “ah, but you didn’t say we couldn’t do X” where X was some remote and minute and obscure possibility that none of the rest of us had even considered.

I understand pedantic. It’s the hallmark of someone who is obsessed with things being 100% right, perfect if you will. Except in real life there is no perfect, and there is no 100% right. So sometimes a tendency to be pedantic can come across as an unrealistic boss, colleague or friend.

At the other end of the scale are the ‘Shepards’. I came across one of these ‘Shepards Pie’ situations in Heathrow Airport on my flight home on Wednesday night. There it was, written in chalk, on a sign outside one of the airport restaurants in the terminal building. At the risk of being pedantic, I felt the need to rush in and inform the owner/manager that there is no such word as Shepard. I decided not to.

I recognise in me that sometimes I like things to be 100% right, and almost always find out that it’s impossible. This is particularly true of standards I set for myself and for others. I have learned the hard way that my standards may be too exacting and not remotely realistic at times.

I also recognise that others may have much lower standards than I do, and that sometimes these standards are actually too low for everyone’s benefit. Shepards Pie is an example of that. As a manager, as someone charged with the responsibility for setting and maintaining standards, the burden falls to you to take an honest and adult view of what is good enough.

If you are the kind of manager who allows standards to drop and to remain low because ‘it hardly matters, does it?’ then you’re the root cause of failure in your team and your business. You might not fail today but the seeds of failure are sown when you ignore standards, and watered every time you elect not to take action when you and everyone else can see that standards have gone out the window.

Leadership lessons from Lemmy

I was watching a programme about Lemmy, the lead singer from the band Motörhead on TV last night. The programme was a virtual ‘who’s who’ from the world of rock and roll, with many stars commenting on Lemmy’s place in the world of rock music and the scene in Los Angeles. A number of contributors made the point that Lemmy is a genuine “bad ass”, meaning that he does whatever he likes and doesn’t care what anybody else thinks. This got me thinking.. What can leaders and managers learn from Lemmy?

And the answer presents itself quite simply. All too often today leaders and managers worry about how others expect them to behave. They try and work out “the game” and act and think based on what they believe others expect of them.

But this is not authentic and usually ends up in employees and peers noticing that the manager or leader has a little ‘act’ or ‘routine’ that they go through while at work.

What’s striking about the Lemmy programme and all the comments from his Music industry peers is that people really respect him. While they say that they respect him for being a “total badass” really what comes out strongly is a respect for Lemmy because he’s just being who he really is.

Lemmy is not perfect, none of us are. So he just keeps true to who he is and people love and admire that about him.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if managers and leaders just stuck to being who they really area at work, instead of trying to behave, speak, and think according to what they think would please others?

You can find out about the Lemmy programme here.

How many things can you get done in one day?

I’m not sure how many different Time Management or Personal Effectiveness programmes I have attended over the years. I reckon it must be a dozen or more. Throw in to the mix another dozen or so books about time management including ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People‘ and ‘Getting Things Done‘. The combination of all these ideas and techniques coupled with what we each observe our colleagues doing means that the mind is in one of two states:

1. The mind is full of amazing ideas and has organised them beautifully into the perfect daily routine. 
2. The mind is like a professor’s office with ideas and papers strewn everywhere, and somewhere under all the mess is the important stuff that somehow gets done.

For me it’s definitely scenario 2. I find it very difficult to ignore new ideas and new learning which means I am constantly open to trying new things. I thought I was perfecting but it turns out I am replacing. Instead of developing a highly-honed approach to time management it feels more like trying to change a tyre on a moving vehicle.

So, let’s go back to the question at the very top. How many things can you get done in one day? For me, the answer is determined by whether those things are big things or little things. My experience tells me that I shouldn’t try to achieve more than 2 or 3 big things in a day because it just can’t be done. I routinely see experienced people trying to burn their way through a list of 10 or 12 big things in a day, usually ending up with the laptop on in bed last thing at night and still not getting everything finished.

For small things I tend to think of the story of the jar of stones, pebbles and sand. You can easily fit lots of little things into a day but the key is not to be seduced by the joy of getting little things done. This is where hours can be lost sending and replying to emails.

Recently I rediscovered some wonderful old wisdom from the mind of Benjamin Franklin. I was pleasantly surprised to see him advocate setting very few priorities (and sticking to them). It turns out that all these years later, with all the innovation we have seen, the basics of getting things done still come down to that simple idea. Pick a couple of things that matter and focus on getting them done.

You can read the article about Benjamin Franklin’s views on time management here.

The seduction of THE Truth

I was watching a football match with my 10 year-old son last night and there was an incident during the game. Just before the incident the game was finely balanced, and suddenly the referee made the decision to dismiss one of the players for foul play. The effect of this dismissal was quickly felt and the balance of power shifted for the remainder of the game. After the game there was what can only be described as an outpouring of rage (from fans of the team that suffered the dismissal) and justification (from fans of the team that benefited from the dismissal).

This reminds me of a wonderful idea that I came across a few years ago in a book written by Charles Tilly. The book is simply titled ‘Why?’. The subtitle perhaps gives more away: ‘What happens when people give reasons.. and why?’

In the book Tilly, a university professor at the time and who now is sadly no longer with us, explains the role of ‘reason giving’. This is how we each make sense of situations and often lies at the heart of how two individuals (or groups) can observe the same situation and take fundamentally different views on what happened.

This led me to think about our notion of truth. It would be wonderful to believe that in our society there is such a thing as the absolute truth. We even use that exact expression, saying “I swear, that’s the absolute truth” as if that is some kind of scientific absolute akin to the freezing point of Mercury.

There is no absolute truth about anything it seems, just different perspectives each working hard to justify their reasons for thinking and feeling like they do. So what do we do now if there is no absolute truth? When I think about situations that cause deep division between sides I suggest some attentive listening, some searching questions, and absolute honesty and candour from both sides. Somewhere in the middle of all that lies a form of truth that everyone can accept as the best possible compromise.

Here’s a link to a nice article on Tilly’s book ‘Why?’ from The New Yorker Magazine.

Allow me to explain

There’s a very good chance you have no idea who I am. I’ll introduce myself briefly. I am Justin Kinnear.

A photo of me in action.

I live and work in Ireland. I do my best every day to help managers and leaders do their best every day.

Over the course of my working life up to this point I have been very fortunate that two things have happened to me. First, I have had an opportunity to learn so many new and important things. I am very grateful for this. Second, I have developed a personal habit of pausing to reflect on these learning opportunities and every time I ask myself ‘what can I do with this learning to make it even more valuable?’

I try my best to take what I learned so far and share the best parts with those who could benefit from that learning. I take what I learned and I filter and re-shape it so that it’s easy to digest and easy to put into action.

And that brings me to why I have created this blog. I have had other blogs in the past, each with a different purpose. But this one is different. This blog represents a channel for the things I am thinking about, things I am learning right now, and insights that I’d like to share with as many people as possible in the hope that it might be valuable and useful.

So I begin here. The next post will be the first to share a learning with you.

Thanks.