Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Susan Jeffers

This book provides an insightful and engaging look at the destructive effects of fear in all aspects of our lives and guidance on how this fear may be overcome.

Anyone engaged in creating change will face their own fears and those of others and this book provides both an understanding of the roots for people’s fears and an understanding of how people may be helped to understand and better deal with fear.

The book highlights the paradox that whilst we seek the security of a fear free life, this creates an environment in which we are denied the satisfaction of achievement or advancement. The result is the catch-22 of fear of change and fear of staying the same.

The conclusion is that fear is a necessary and essential element of life and pushing through fear is actually less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness, hence ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’.

The first part of the book creates a picture of the widespread and damaging effects of fear, in its many forms such as fear of changing jobs, fear of illness, fear of failure, etc. It introduces a progression of truths which serve to illuminate the effects of fear and build the case for the active choice of how fear is addressed. A simple but powerful picture presents the option to address fear through positive power rather than as a victim of passive pain.

As you work through the book the emphasis shifts towards the actions that you can take to change your attitude and approach. A number of simple models and techniques are introduced which are presented in an easily understood form. When strung together these provide a structured programme with which to set about changing your attitude and behaviours.

The book benefits from a liberal scattering of first hand accounts of people at various stages of succumbing to or addressing their fears. These stories do much to help explain the approach and provide an engaging dialogue and encouragement that lightens up the message and creates the feeling that improvement is possible.

The book rightly confesses that though the message and techniques are relatively easy to understand their application presents more of a challenge, not because they are of themselves difficult but they have to be applied and sustained. The challenge therefore for any such book is to leave the reading list and bookshelf and become embedded in the actions of the reader.

Does this book meet the challenge? I have adopted some of the techniques and recognise that others will be of benefit. Having read the book I know that I will return to read it again and I hope will have felt the benefits of conscious active use of the techniques over the next few months. Time will tell as to whether the book helps create change so I hope to return to this review in a few months time.

In the meantime I recommend this book for its insights into a topic that affects us all. My personal perspective is that the effects of fear can become so ingrained in our lives that we fail to recognise the fear and simply feel the numbness of dissatisfaction and a vague inability to focus on doing anything about it. This book will help create focus so you start to question the way things are and why you allow them to remain so. The challenge of addressing them is by definition a life long journey and this book will provide an excellent platform from which that journey can begin.

The Ultimate Book of Business Thinking

The Ultimate Book of Business Thinking
Des Dearlove

For those dealing with change or dealing with people dealing with change this is an invaluable reference book. It’s subtitled ‘Harnessing the Power of the World’s Greatest Business Ideas’ which I think over eggs the pudding a little, but in its around 300 pages it does a pretty good job of introducing most of the improvement initiatives you are likely to come across.

It is structured in alphabetical order by name of initiative and covers around 50 business ideas, tools or techniques from Action Learning to The Virtual Organisation. A quick calculation reveals that there are 5-6 pages for each topic but this is ample space to provide an overview and each is supported by a list of further reading should you wish to find out more.

What I like about the book is that it doesn’t present a purely technical summary but also includes some personal perspectives and reflections on the approach, its application and the way in which it is perceived. For example the section on downsizing identifies the major problems that this approach created in companies who shed jobs and also the failed politically correct attempts to rebadge it as ‘rightsizing’. In addition each entry has a section called ‘Ideas into Action’ which provides a brief example of the approach used in a real business environment. These sections provide some real insights into the application of the approaches.

I like the fact that the book doesn’t set out to advocate any of the approaches, but provides a very useful introduction which can form the basis for further reading. If you find yourself in the sea of acronyms applied to the current fashions of business improvement this will help you unscramble your JIT from your BPR and your Emotional Intelligence from your Strategic Inflection Point.

Here for information is the list of business ideas covered.
Action Learning – Activity-based Costing – Adhocracy – Agility – The Balanced Scorecard – Benchmarking – Boston Matrix – Broadbanding – Channel Management – Core Competencies – Core Values – Crisis Management – Decision Theory (including Kepner-Tregoe and Ringi) – Discounted Cash Flow – Downsizing – E-Commerce (including Customer Relationship Management) – Emotional Intelligence – Employability – Empowerment – Four Ps of Marketing – Game Theory – Intellectual Capital – Interim Management – Just in Time (JIT) (Kanban) – Kaizen (Quality Circles) – Knowledge Management – Leadership – Lean Production – The Learning Organisation – The Managerial Grid (Blake Mouton) – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – Matrix Model – Outsourcing – Porter’s Five Competitive Forces – The Psychological Contract – Re-engineering (BPR) – Relationship Marketing – Scenario Planning – Scientific Management – Seven S Framework – The Shamrock Organisation – Shareholder Value – Strategic Inflection Point – Strategic Management – Succession Planning – Supply Chain Management – Theories X and Y (and Z) – Thought Leadership – 360-degree Feedback – Time-based Competition – TQM and the Quality Movement – The Transnational Organisation – Value Innovation – The Virtual Organisation

Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work

Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work
Jack Cranfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Maida Rogerson, Martin Rutte & Tim Clauss

This is one of a growing series of books. It began with Chicken Soup for the Soul which has now appeared in several servings and has led to a range of books which provide Chicken Soup for specific target audiences such as mothers, teenagers, even golfers and in this case for those at work. The Chicken Soup referred to is not literal but the nourishment of your soul and spirit. Each book contains 101 true stories of human experience which in this volume serve to inspire by sharing experience of compassion courage and creativity in the workplace. This sort of book isn’t to everyone’s liking but even with the American bias I find these collections extremely powerful. I always find examples in the stories that stick with me as role models and as examples of what people can achieve that I can then share with others. I’ve read several of the series and was attracted to this one for its focus on the workplace.

The stories, rarely more than a couple of pages long, are grouped within nine sections, each a business theme such as ‘The power of Acknowledgement’ and ‘Overcoming Obstacles’. The book contains no editorial attempt at instructing the reader on what is right or what to do and simply leaves the stories do that. Each story is preceded by a relevant quote typically from a business leader.

For example a story about training Shamu a 19,000lb whale to jump 22 feet out of the water and perform tricks at Sea World is preceded by Tom Peters quote ‘Celebrate what you want to see more of’. The story outlines how the training of Shamu is based on reinforcing the behaviours they want to see. They start  by ensuring the whale can’t fail. The rope it has to jump is actually submerged at first and the whale is congratulated fed and patted each time it swims over it. If it swims under the rope it isn’t punished, no constructive criticism, no development feedback and no warnings in the personnel file; its taught that its negative behaviour will simply not be acknowledged. Using this approach of positive reinforcement the whale achieves its remarkable performance. The story makes the point that most of us get most things right most of the time, yet we often find we focus our attention on those things we don’t want repeated and didn’t want in the first place, rather than what we do well.

Stories such as this provide real practical examples written by ordinary people of what we might do differently. In the space of 300 or so pages we have 101 opportunities for most readers to be inspired to change something for the better. This is no mean achievement for any management book and a delight in a book that is so easy to read.

Another story which stuck in my mind was that of an act of generosity and encouragement without which Scott Adams would never have achieved his aim to be a cartoonist. As a fan of Dilbert I wonder at how easily we could have been denied his creation and am led to think about how better I can encourage others.

One thing you find when reading these books is the desire to want to share some of the stories.

In summary a collection of real life experience stories all relating to work. If you are the sort of person who is inspired by stories of what can be achieved, some of which will tug on your heart then you’ll enjoy this book and probably others in the series. If you want an academic treatise on management approaches this probably isn’t for you.

Who Moved My Cheese?

Who Moved My Cheese?
Dr Spencer Johnson

The subtitle ‘An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and In Your Life’ is a little spurious. This is a simple book that will take less than one hour to read from cover to cover. On the basis of a word count, or if you’re looking for a management book with answers, this will score very poorly. However that’s not what the book sets out to do.

It presents a rather whimsical story of life for two mice and two small people in a maze. The maze represents the environment for change with unknown futures and the accompanying fears. The four characters are used to represent different attitudes to change. The mice Sniff and Scurry represent the fairly straight forward reactive approach to change. As mice they’re not credited with great intelligence but when their source of cheese is moved, react by setting off to find new cheese supplies.

The little people, Hem and Haw, are credited with the intelligence of men which in many ways provides a hindrance to their ability to change. When their cheese is moved their ‘intelligent’ response leads to a wide range of reactions including denial, recrimination and resentment which disables their ability to set off to seek new cheese. Gradually Haw comes to terms with the need for change and the contrast with Hem is used to illustrate how fear of change can be disabling and how this fear might be overcome.

This simple story illuminates a range of responses to change and provides four different characters to illustrate these response types. These types are inevitably presented in simple forms and can’t deal with the complexity of real change. That isn’t the purpose of the book and is indeed its strength. The four characters provide a vocabulary that many will find useful in describing their, and their colleagues, reaction to change. The approach taken to make that vocabulary accessible is to make the story simple so that the book can be quickly read and passed on to spread the word. The book is so easy to read that I can imagine it being passed on to a colleague to be read in the next hour and moving through a team in a day, rather than languishing in an in-tray for three months awaiting spare time that will never arrive.

If you approach this as another pebble to be tossed into the pool of your ideas. It’s a small pebble but for many a very useful one. It is very accessible and might provide new thoughts, images and vocabulary with which to describe and most importantly share ideas on change. It doesn’t have the answers but no book ever can. People have the answers and the aim of this book is to encourage them to set off to look for their answers, their new cheese.

The Tipping Point.

The Tipping Point.
Malcolm Gladwell.

This is a fascinating and thought provoking book that looks at how ideas and behaviours reach and pass through a threshold beyond which they spread like wildfire. Malcolm Gladwell draws on a number of examples of this phenomenon such as the transformation in the crime levels in New York, the adoption of the ‘once unfashionable’ Hush Puppy shoe or the dramatic growth in the athletic shoe producer Airwalk to illustrate the crossing of these thresholds or ‘tipping points’ at which dramatic advances are made.

In exploring the mechanisms which account for these tipping points he identifies some of the people involved in creating these transformations. and their characteristics that contribute to the spread of ideas. Three distinct types are described; Connectors who contribute through their ability to maintain effective networks to connect ideas with people; Mavens who are the collectors of knowledge and its analysis as information brokers; Salesmen who provide the link to convince the population of the merits of the idea.

The book includes other examples of each of these contributions to the spreading of ideas and for example has some fascinating insights into the work done in the development of the TV series Sesame Street to ensure the stickiness of the educational ideas aimed at children.

This is an engaging, fascinating and stimulating read that provides a number of insights of value to everyone who shares the objective of making new ideas stick and lead to transformation.

Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner.

Freakonomics
by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner.

A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything.

Steven D Levitt is an interesting man. He is a trained and expert economist, who doesn’t really like economics. Someone highly skilled in the use of a suite of tools, but who chooses not to use them in the context or the way in which they are routinely used. He thus deserves the title of maverick as he takes his toolkit of measurement and data analysis and points it, not towards the same questions as his erstwhile colleagues, to be used in the same way to glean the same answers. Instead he focuses his attention wherever his interest takes him.

Mavericks are interesting people, they do the unexpected, and see the unseen, and through this book he illustrates what can be discovered if you truly explore questions rather than being led by the existing answers.

As a maverick he needed the guiding hand of a writer, Stephen J Dubner, to settle the ideas long enough to create a book. Together they have created a stimulating volume which will have you seeing new things in the topics they have covered, which range from how elections are won, how teachers and sumo wrestlers cheat, how your estate agent works or doesn’t work for you, to how profitable it is to sell illegal drugs.

Steven delights in taking conventional wisdom, and examining it through his measurement trained thinking. He discovers that much conventional wisdom, is strong on conventional, but weak on wisdom. As you read the pages you’ll discover that money doesn’t win elections, that its far more dangerous to have a swimming pool in the garden than a gun in the house and that the biggest contributor to the reduction in serious crime in the United States were changes to the abortion law.

For example in one chapter the book explores the often considered question of nature v nurture. As parents this is a question that sometimes haunts us. How much of what our children become comes from genetics and how much from the way we raise them? Through analysis of a mound of data, including that of children adopted and raised by non genetic parents they concluded an interesting result. Their conclusion is that what we do has little impact on our children, what we are being is what matters.

This has a very strong resonance with my thinking. To paraphrase; taking your child to the museum has no impact on their development, but being the kind of parent who thinks of taking their child to the museum is all important. The subtlety of this difference, I believe divides those that simply ‘do’ change, from those that become change.

More fundamental than describing new insights, their aim is not to change what you think, but how you think. This is nicely captured in their description in the closing paragraphs of the book.

‘You might become more sceptical of common wisdom; you may begin looking for hints as to how things aren’t quite what they seem.; perhaps you will seek out some trove of data and sift through it, balancing your intelligence and your intuition to arrive at a glimmering new idea. Some of these ideas might make you uncomfortable, even unpopular…. You will find yourself asking a lot of questions. Many of them will lead to nothing. But some will produce answers that are interesting, even surprising.’

This is an entertaining read which will help you question much conventional wisdom, and perhaps spur you on to take this questioning with you wherever you go. So inspired, who knows what power for change this may give you.

Screw it. Let’s Do it. (Lessons in Life)

Screw it. Let’s Do it. (Lessons in Life)
Richard Branson

Richard Branson is well known not simply for his success in business as head of Virgin, but for the manner in which he has achieved it. In this short book he sets out the key lessons that he has learned and which guide his approach to life and business. He manages to cram a lot of ideas into the nine short chapters, and reveals insights into his childhood, the development of his business and the personal challenges he as undertaken as driver of record breaking power boats or as a pioneering balloon pilot.

The book is full of insights which weave lessons learned in childhood, with their application to his life. The role of luck, serendipity or synchronicity, as well as hard work and following your instinct are all brought to life. When we look at someone like Richard there’s a temptation to think that he had something special, something denied to the rest of us. That’s not how he sees it. A key message is that we can all achieve, as he says, ‘I’m a believer in people, and what they can become.’

It is clear that Richard’s success has more than an element of good fortune to it, but this is not something handed out only to a few. Opportunities are all around us is we are able to become receptive to them, and willing to take the risk of succeeding. Once you do there’s no knowing where it may lead.

This is a great little book packed with good ideas and advice, as well as some glimpses into Richard’s life, including the fear and danger that have been part of some of his more public adventures.

Once bought the format and fun style of this book will encourage you to read it, and its messages will prove worthwhile.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert Pirsig

This is not an easy review for this is not an easy book. One thing I think I’m sure of is that it’s not about Zen or motorcycle maintenance.

On the surface the book is the story of the author and his son with some friends travelling across America. However this provides the environment for the author to share and explore a range of questions and issues including rationality, attitudes to technology, philosophies of life and the meaning of quality. What the book does is create the opportunity and invite the reader to explore these questions and others that they are stimulated to identify themselves. It’s a book that provokes and requires the reader to think. In a sense the book becomes and is what the reader makes of it.

What I made of it, and what makes the book exciting for me, is this approach through the vehicle of a novel of creating an environment in which the reader is teased into thinking through a range of extremely challenging philosophical questions. Many readers unwilling to engage in this process may see little in this book of value viewing it as being over complex and lacking in immediate gratification of a standard novel. Others looking not for questions but answers will be disappointed that the book has not the rigour they are looking for and provides no solutions.

However for those who want their thinking stimulated and their understanding challenged this is a demanding but very rewarding read that will probable warrant being reread several times.

I realise that the above says little about what the book is. I take comfort by quoting a passage from the book that I think releases me from having to describe what it is and invite you to find out what it becomes for you.

“The trouble is that essays always have to sound like God talking for eternity, and that isn’t the way it ever is. People should see that it’s never anything other than just one person talking from one place in time and space and circumstance. It’s never been anything else, ever, but you can’t get that across in an essay.”

All I can say is that whilst this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, it’s the kind of book that just might change the way you see yourself, your world and your future. If you decide to read the book I recommend the 25^th anniversary edition as this has some additional explanatory information by the author and also an interesting exchange of correspondence between the author and publisher which gives an insight into the creative process.

IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW SILLY YOUR THESIS TOPIC IS; WHAT MATTERS IS WHOM YOU HAVE AS A SUPERVISOR.

It’s a fine sunny day in the forest and a rabbit is sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his typewriter. Along comes a fox, out for a walk.

Fox: “What are you working on?”
Rabbit: “My thesis.”
Fox: “Hmm… What is it about?”
Rabbit: “Oh, I’m writing about how rabbits eat foxes.”

Fox: “That’s ridiculous ! Any fool knows that rabbits don’t eat foxes!”Rabbit: “Come with me and I’ll show you!”

They both disappear into the rabbit’s burrow. After few minutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns to his typewriter and resumes typing.

Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hardworking rabbit.Wolf: “What’s that you are writing?”
Rabbit: “I’m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves.”

Wolf: “you don’t expect to get such rubbish published, do you?”

Rabbit: “No problem. Do you want to see why?”

The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow and again the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes, and goes back to typing.Finally a bear comes along and asks, “What are you doing?

Rabbit: “I’m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat bears.”

Bear: “Well that’s absurd ! “

Rabbit: “Come into my home and I’ll show you”

Scene :

As they enter the burrow, the rabbit introduces the bear to the lion. Moral:

IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW SILLY YOUR THESIS TOPIC IS; WHAT MATTERS IS WHOM YOU HAVE AS A SUPERVISOR.Management Lesson
In the context of the working world:

IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW BAD YOUR PERFORMANCE IS; WHAT MATTERS IS WHETHER YOUR BOSS LIKES YOU OR NOT.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY A MANAGER IS FAMOUS; LOOK AT THE WORK OF HIS SUBORDINATES.

It’s a fine sunny day in the forest and a lion is sitting outside his cave, lying lazily in the sun. Along comes a fox, out on a walk.

Fox: “Do you know the time, because my watch is broken”

Lion: “Oh, I can easily fix the watch for you”

Fox: “Hmm… But it’s a very complicated mechanism, and your big claws will only destroy it even more“ Lion: “Oh no, give it to me, and it will be fixed”

Fox: “That’s ridiculous! Any fool knows that lazy lions with great claws cannot fix complicated watches”

Lion: “Sure they do, give it to me and it will be fixed”The lion disappears into his cave, and after a while he comes back with the watch which is running perfectly. The fox is impressed, and the lion continues to lie lazily in the sun, looking very pleased with himself.Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the lazy lion in the sun.

Wolf: “Can I come and watch TV tonight with you, because mine is broken”

Lion: “Oh, I can easily fix your TV for you”
Wolf: “You don’t expect me to believe such rubbish, do you? There is no way that a lazy lion with big claws can fix a complicated TV“

Lion: “No problem. Do you want to try it?”The lion goes into his cave, and after a while comes back with a perfectly fixed TV. The wolf goes away happily and amazed. Scene : Inside the lion’s cave. In one corner are half a dozen small and intelligent looking rabbits who are busily doing very  complicated work with very detailed instruments. In the other corner lies a huge lion looking very pleased with himself.

Moral :IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY A MANAGER IS FAMOUS; LOOK AT THE WORK OF HIS SUBORDINATES. Management Lesson : IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY SOMEONE UNDESERVED IS PROMOTED; LOOK AT THE WORK OF HIS SUBORDINATES.

corporate world

Two guys were hiking through the jungle when they spotted a tiger that
looked both hungry and fast. One of the guys reached into his pack and
pulled out a pair of Nike.

His friend looked at him and asked “Do you really think those shoes are
going to make you run faster than that tiger?”

I don’t have to run faster than that tiger, his friend replied. “I just
have to run faster than you”.

Welcome to the corporate world!!   

Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.

Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man couldn’t hear the band – he could see it. In his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days and weeks passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.

He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.

It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, “Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.”

TEAMWORK

A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, “Lord, I would like to know what Heaven
and Hell are like”. The Lord led the holy man to two doors.
He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, “You have seen Hell.” They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew, which made the holy man’s mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The
holy man said, “I don’t understand”. “It is simple said the Lord, “it requires only one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other.” It is peoples’ attitudes that make our place of work, a hell or heaven. ‘Help and Seek Help’ – this makes all the difference. Moral :- Success and happiness is all about effective teamwork?bond with your team today.