Using a slide-show for reflection

The format is pretty simple, guests, who are normally famous or highly regarded in their field, chose 8 pieces of music, one book and one luxury they would take with them if stranded on a desert island. Previously presented by Michael Parkinson and Sue Lawley, it is now hosted by Kirsty Young (r).

While the music is played in full, the real interest comes in the conversation between Young and the guest as she probes into their past lives, gently but without shying away from revealing questions. Since by definition they guests have all be successful, it provides a fascinating insight into how they got where they did. If success and successful people interest you, it’s well worth a listen.

If you want to give it a go, it’s on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday at 11:15 and repeated on Friday at 09:00, or you can get it as a podcast.

The islands were of strategic importance to both the Allies and the Japanese as a launch pad for both aircraft and ships patrolling the Pacific Ocean. At different times, both side set up bases on the islands and with them brought many of the accoutrements of Western civilisation. Manufactured clothing, medicine, canned food, tents, weapons and other goods arrived in vast quantities for the soldiers, who often shared some of it with the islanders who were their guides and hosts. Such luxuries were previously unheard of and had a significant impact on the quality of life of the Melanesians.

With the end of hostilities in the Pacific theatre, the military shut up shot and the soldiers, sailors and airmen headed home. Gradually the remains of the supplies they had brought dwindled until nothing was left.

With little understanding of the events that had brought the cargo into the islands in the first place, some of the islanders began mimicking the activities and clothes of soldiers, such as performing parade ground drills with wooden rifles.

Hoping to attract more aeroplanes, others carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on marked out runways and lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.

Of course the planes never came and the supplies never arrived. While it’s tempting to write this story of as an amusing tale of a ‘backwards’ population getting the wrong end of the stick, we should be careful. ‘Cargo Cult’ behaviour is not as unusual in modern life as you may think.

Take this story from a US company for example,

I was employed at a company and I happened to be at reception at closing time. The receptionist pulled out a binder, and her fingers flew across her telephone. I asked her what she was doing. She replied that each night she would have to punch in a 30 button sequence to put the phones onto night service. The receptionist had forgotten the why of what she was doing.

Anyways, after analyzing the button sequence, it turned out that the receptionist was redirecting the line pools of Department A to the phones of Department B. Department B was a 24hr department… at least it used to be. It turns out that both of those departments had been disbanded long before I started there.

If we operate without knowing the reasons why we do, we function perfectly as long as the situation doesn’t change. However, if it does change, without understanding the reasons, we can’t know if our behaviour is still useful or if it needs to change.

Almost every sector has its own examples of cargo cult behaviour. Millions of children will sit down tonight to do their homework yet plenty of evidence suggests it doesn’t help their learning. Rescuers carry hot drinks to help hypothermia victims, even though there is no evidence it helps. Even checking your horoscope is an example, thousands of studies have shown that they have no truth in them yet millions of people use them daily for guidance.

The adoption of practices because they have worked in the past is natural, but it needs to be tempered with an understanding of why those practices worked and whether they are still relevant.

What practices take place in your sector because they seem to work? What are your Cargo Cults?

Photos by PhillipC and pareeerica used under Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0)

[Click for full size]

While the handwriting is much better than some of our staff, if you can’t read it here is what they have written.

• Work together.
• Put 100% into everything you do!
• Support each other.
• Walking boots will be your new best friend!
• Find a positive in everything.
• Be on point at all times.
• You need to each as much as you can.
• Stay up beat at all times – a happy group will progress.
• Negativity is infectious.
• Challenge yourself, you are not doing to die.
• You will only ever do this stuff once.
• Think outside the box.
• Work with [what] you know, work out what you need.
• NO restrictions means NO restrictions, use whatever you can.
• CAN’T is not a work in your vocabulary.
• Sleep a lot.
• Get ready to push yourself to the ultimate limit.
• Do not argue, resolve instead.
• PLAN, do not dive in head first.
• Bring supplies! (junk food, fizzy drinks, etc)

We’re not sure about the last one but otherwise I’m not sure we could have written a better list ourselves.

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It’s that they can’t see the problem -G. K. Chesterton 

There are a number of systematic ways of solving problems. Some are useful in very specific situations, while others are powerful but very complicated. One of the ways we teach people to solve problems at Totem is using the 5 eyed method.

IDENTIFY what success looks like

You can only really solve a problem when you know exactly what outcome you are after.  When the problem is solved, what situation will you be in. Step one is to sort out what it is you are trying to achieve.

ISOLATE the real problem

If you have ‘flu which has given you a headache, you can stop the headache with an aspirin but while it might make you feel better, you will still have the ‘flu. You have tackled the symptom not the cause. The key to problem solving is to be able to look at all the symptoms and decide what the underlying problem that is causing them is.

INNOVATE multiple solutions to the problem

Once you have isolated the problem, you should come up with multiple solutions to the problem. It is unlikely that your first idea will be the best so produce as many as you feel necessary before committing to one course of action. This is known as ‘divergent thinking‘

IMPLEMENT the chosen solution

You then must chose a solution from the many that you came up with. Consider the merits of each and the drawbacks, eliminate one at a time if you need to until you have your chosen path of action. This process is known as ‘convergent thinking‘.

Once you have chosen a solution you must implement it to the best of your abilities.

INVESTIGATE whether the solution solves the problem

Finally, it’s important not to assume that because you chose the best solution from the ones you thought up, it will automatically work. Put a system in place for investigating whether your problem has really been solved. Make sure that all of the symptoms have gone away and the underlying issue has really been resolved.

Sleep

Via TED

Music can also change our perceptions of what we are looking at. Here is a great example of that, YouTube user Mscharosch has edited some BBC Life footage to Lux Æterna from Requiem For a Dream and the result is, well…..epic. It is worth putting on full screen and turning your sound up.

Epic Frog

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.”

-Galileo Galilei

Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience.

Traditional education expects participants to learn about the topic from books, lectures, tutorials and worksheets.

Experiential education places them in situations that provide similar challenges to those they might face and evokes similar emotions, and that require similar skills and behaviours to overcome.

By using an adventurous environment such as the outdoors, we can provide a ‘laboratory’ in which facilitators can create challenging and demanding situations and in which apprentices can experiment with different behaviours, without that behaviour having a negative effect in the workplace.

An Experiential Learning Cycle

This is one of many learning cycles that helps us to conceptualise and understand the complicated, messy process of learning.  (For other cycles, see this great article by Roger Greenaway)

In order to learn through experience, it is not only necessary to ‘do something’. After we have performed an Action, three further things take place before that action alters how we act in the future.

First, we Reflect on the action we just took and the experience it generated. This is looking back and thinking about what happened and the feelings it generated, in ourselves and others and the effect it had on the environment we are in.

Then we conceptualise, that is, think about the reasons that it had those effects and understand those reasons. This leads to Learning.

Learning on its own is no use if we don’t then do anything with it, so we then have to Plan. This is about applying that learning next time you undertake that action and, importantly, similar actions in the future.

We all go round this cycle as we learn from experience, sometimes it takes a few seconds to complete a circuit and sometimes it might take us years. Typically, the more intense and complicated the experience, the longer it takes us to go round the cycle.

Different people favour different parts of the cycle, Peter Honey and Alan Mumford have a system for working out which area you prefer to spend your time in, which we occasionaly use on Totem courses.

There is of course, much more to experiential learning that these basic concepts, but they underlie much of what we do. Space to experiment, reflective practice and onward planning are at the core of Totem’s work.

via Brian

The fact that you can read it means the handwriting isn’t mine but I love the fact that, for one course at least, it is possible to pinpoint when all the ideas came together. [Click for a larger version]

Have you got 5 minutes each day to help improve your life, across the board? This article suggests that it might be a good idea to find the time.

The best way to use the last five minutes of every day.

Via Lorna (again), photo from Slack12′s flickrstream under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“…and of course you can make the task harder by giving a vaguer brief.”

No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! and No!

Giving a vague brief doesn’t make tasks harder, it makes them more frustrating. Participants spend more time looking to their facilitators to get clarification about what they need to do than looking at themselves or each other. It puts you in the position of power and takes away their ability to operate without your intervention.

By all means make your tasks harder, but at least have enough respect for your participants to make the briefs clear.

Photo from Martin Kingsley’s flickrstream under CC BY 2.0.

We’ve had Mission Specialists from the Welsh Space Agency chasing members of the Ukrainian Warfare Department across the hills of Snowdonia.

We’ve had loyal Comrades of the People’s Liberated Taldovian State recovering gold from the bottom of the Cripsian Sea.

We’ve helped apprentices recover the parts of a top secret battery from across Dartmoor.

(However, unlike one of the organsations we work with, we haven’t, to date, had anyone arrested for  impersonating a member of the local CID.)

Yesterday, Lorna, (whose producing some great material at the moment) has come up with a team exercise that makes our situations look humdrum and everyday.

We have a running discussion at work about how we would survive the zombie apocalypse. It all started with a quickly scribbled map to show someone where a meeting was, then someone added a zombie horde and little stick figure colleagues running away. This developed over the course of a couple of team lunches and idle mornings into a full blown plan.

Our plan has been getting gradually more complex. It started off with vague intentions to head to the Isle of White (where a colleague’s mother lives), an easily defensible spot. But then we wondered if that was too obvious, will people continue to flock there until the island sinks? Other ideas involved shopping centres (too many entrances), castles (bit obvious, also drafty) and a colleague’s houseboat (can zombies swim?).

This has the makings of a great team building exercise. What better way to find out the strengths of your team than to think about their very survival! Lorna cites some great examples about members of her team who suddenly revealed an ability to shoot, or to grow vegetables. The humour and fun in the exercise will likely engage your participants and encourage them to push forward their strengths and stop the exercise becoming mired in deep self-reflection.

You can read the whole article here. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and if she ever tells you how to stop Zombies attacking you, don’t trust her…

[Update: This is wonderfully related. Are you Worthless?]

Picture [Updated] from James Kim’s Flickrstream under CC BY 2.0

“I want to go to work each day to a job I find challenging and satisfying…”

How would you describe your values?

They’re wrong.

Less Income means Working Smarter

With less income coming into the company, managers are required to do without resources they previously took for granted. Their teams need to produce a higher output with no extra inputs. They could work harder but most of us are working as hard as we can anyway.
If you can’t work harder you need to work smarter. Better communication and team skills  will increase the efficiency of a team, saving money normally lost on mistakes. Problem  solving skills allow people to remove obstacles that are preventing them from reaching their goals, saving time and resources.
There are two ways to give people these skills. The first is to let them develop naturally over the course of a few years, maturing as the person settles into their role.

Have you got that long?

The second is to provide your staff with some training.

Teams who have been ‘Downsized’ need Reforming

Nobody likes redundancies but they are an inevitable consequence of an economic  downturn. After a wave of job losses your team are likely to be shell-shocked and in  chaos. A change of working pattern and culture can take a long while to become accepted, probably longer than you have got.
Rather than being just a jolly day out, good team-building events can push your team through this chaos and help them reform and start performing again. Training in team
kills can help them understand each others position and bond together, helping the  company back onto its feet.
So smart managers realise that now is not the time to cut back on training but a good
time to invest in your staff and to help them start to really perform.

Photo by left-hand used under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Choosing the right form of review is a skilled task, more art than science. Here are 10 questions to ask yourself before you dive into your next review

1. Do we want to review what just happened?

Sometimes it’s important to review as a group, sometimes it’s best to let the action speak for itself. The individual’s reflection over time may be enough.

2. Are we ready to review yet?

Even if we want to review the action, are the participants in a state where it will be useful? Could they do with more time to process what just happened or are they bursting to share their thoughts?

3. Is this the right time to review?

Even if we feel ready to review what just happened, is it worth leaving until we have eaten or are less tired, or do we need to capture the learning now?

4. Are we in the right location to review?

Sometimes it helps to be at the scene of the action, sometimes some distance is useful. Is this setting inspirational, will it help anchor the learning. Are there distractions and are they useful?

5. Are the right people here to ensure a successful review?

Do we need the whole group here? Should we split into smaller groups? Do some people need to reflect on their own? With or without leaders/trainers?

6. What role will I have in the review?

Should I contribute? Facilitate? Sit quietly? Be absent? Observe?

7. What format and structure will the review take?

Options include: Group discussion, written reports, structured notes, questionnaires, presentations, personal conversations, pictures, slideshows.

8. What tools do I have available to me during the review?

Do I have access to exercises, models, pictures and theories that might help explain my points, or help others to make theirs?

9. Are we going to capture the review for further review?

Is the review of interest to anyone other than the participants? Will they want a chance to revisit the review again later? Will they be building on this review?

10. If we are, how?

Sometimes taking notes is useful, what about video? Is there a formal system in place for reflection that needs to be completed?

In 1967 a journalist is wandering round NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory talking to people involved in the Apollo missions.

He encounters a man wearing the default engineer’s uniform of a white shirt and blue tie, a slide rule sticking out of his top pocket.

“Sorry to interrupt” says the journalist, “but do you mind me asking what you your job is?”

“No problem” replies the engineer, “my job is to calculate the mass flow rate of RP-1 fuel through each of the engines of the Saturn rocket”.

The journalist dutifully writes this down in his note book and thanks the engineer. In the office across the hallway he finds another man, dressed in a dark suit. He knocks politely then asks,

“Hello, I’m doing an article on the staff at NASA and I am trying to find out what peoples jobs are.”

“I’m the Lunar Module Flight Plan Director.” says the man in the suit,  “I manage and approve all changes the the LMFP.”

Again the journalist writes down what the man says and wanders off to find someone else. At the end of the corridor is a man in NASA overalls sweeping the floor. Under the blue and red logo is the word ‘Janitor’.

Sensing the possibility of a human interest story the journalist approaches the man

“I can see you are a janitor”, he says “but what does your job involve?”

“That’s easy”, replies the janitor “I’m putting man on the moon”.

Is “Because it’s there” a good enough reason to do something? Do you want to do it to become wealthier, to be more secure, to learn something or just to get to the top?

Prepare

You need to work out what you resources you need, you need to work out a rough schedule as well. You also need to make sure you’re up to the task and have the right team around you.

Plan Your Route

A map isn’t a requirement if the terrain is easy and recognisable. The more complicated it is, and the more unknown it is, the more you need  to think about where you’re going.

Take Notice Of Paths

Paths are only there because people have done it before. You can use known good paths to your goal, you can use them as rough guides to the direction you should be heading or you can ignore them altogether. The only thing to remember is the well-trodden path is well-trodden for a reason. Is it the right reason?

Stop And Enjoy The View

Enjoy the journey. If you plough on to your summit, you can miss out on what you’ve achieved so far, and there’s nothing better for your motivation than to take stock of how much you’ve done. Take the time to resurvey your surroundings. Is there a better path from your current position that you didn’t spot until now? Are you on schedule?

The Summit

Take time to enjoy it while you are there. If it doesn’t feel satisfying, was it challenging enough?

Other Peaks

Once you’ve reached the summit you wanted, or even before you get there, are there any other peaks worth going to? You’ve already done most the hard work, so sometimes it’s only a minor detour to acheive something in addition to your original plan.

Shortcuts

There are no real shortcuts. The shortest routes are steeper, more dangerous and more difficult. The easier routes are longer, but safer.  You just have to work out how to balance the two.

The Journey Down

Even once you’ve achieved your goal of the summit, there’s still a lot of work to do to finish the job off properly. It’ll be easier than getting to the top, but it won’t be plain sailing.

Thanks to Brian Drought who wrote the first draft of this, Image from Totem staff

Tea still plays an enormous part in everyday British life, and nowhere more so than at work. Nowadays, other beverages are catching up fast. Coffee is the frequently offered alternative but the range of hot drinks available stretches from the sublime to the ridiculous. It doesn’t matter what you, the boss, or that odd lady who does the payroll drinks, as long as you drink something.

Leaving aside the health benefits of drinking tea (green, herbal, camomile or otherwise), or even of just drinking fluids, a cup of tea is an important psychological tool.

Chinese philosopher T’ien Yiheng said “Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world” and he makes a good point. Stuck trying to solve an intractable puzzle? Give yourself space, go and make a cup of tea. You won’t stop thinking about the problem, but you will break out of the knot you’ve formed in your head. Stuck doing a boring, repetitive task? Reward yourself with cups of tea at appropriate intervals, motivate yourself by thinking “After another 200 rows of customer records analysed, I’ll have a chai latte”.

Tea is also a fine relationship builder. Need to speak to someone about a sensitive issue? Invite them to make a cup of tea and join you somewhere private. Upset someone a few desks away? Make them a “Ginger and Gunpowder Zinger” and take one over as a peace offering. Use it to establish rapport and break the ice at meetings, everyone feels better chatting over a cup of tea.

Establish a community within your company using tea. Offer to ‘make the tea’ occasionally and use it as an excuse to chat to others at their desk. Include everyone nearby in your rounds, leaving someone out of a tea run is akin to being stood up on prom night. Encourage everyone, including the boss, to do a tea run. It takes ten minutes and leaves everyone in the office a little happier.

A tea bag costs about a penny, less in bulk. Even adding in milk, sugar (to taste) and the cost of heating the water, a cup of tea costs less than 3p. In a company of average tea drinkers (3 cups a day), that’s 45p per employee per week.

Is 45p a week worth it for a more relaxed, more motivated, more tactful, friendlier employee?

Photo from Ben Haldenby’s flickrstream under Creative Commons

Let My People Go Surfing

The subtitle of this book is “The education of a reluctant business man” and Yvon Chouinard definitely falls into this category. He practices MBA, or Management by Absence which has meant that everyone in his company has to have a strong idea of what they are trying to achieve. It’s difficult to ask your boss for guidance when he’s halfway up a peak in the Himalaya.

The first half of the book deals with the history of Patagonia, from its start in the back of his truck through to being a multinational equipment and clothing manufacturer.

It should be a tale of how not to do it, with itinerant climbers promoted to senior managers and a staff that has permission to disappear when the surf gets big. However the tale reads as an adventure yarn, with a real feeling of teamwork, tolerance and ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. Instead of despairing at the ineptitude of the participants, you realise that this may be an alternative way of doing business.

In the late 80s, Patagonia started struggling and Chouinard realised that they had overreached themselves. When he had to lay of 250 of his workers, he decided that he needed to clarify in his own mind why he was running a business. The book goes on to explain the “philosophies” that were created to guide the company onwards.

The philosophies are like a 50 page mission statement, split into categories like “Product Design” and “Environment” and are there to guide any member of the company in making the best decision for the company. While his goals won’t be applicable to anybody else’s company, the process of setting those goals will be. If you want to see how important the environment is to Patagonia, look at their philosophies. If you want to know how they expect their suppliers to be treated, looking at the philosophies.

Every business person who aspires to create, run or work in a business that isn’t a nine-to-five, cubicle farm, sweatshop should read this book.

Links to buy: Patagonia and amazon.co.uk

Can you name more than 30?

How does this affect your understanding of other peoples feelings?

¹Tony Robbins @ TED

Photo from Ben Smith’s flickrstream under Creative Commons

There is plenty of of information about the course at www.totemdevelopment.co.uk/anythingcouldhappen

In summary, it is an open outcome course with no fixed programme. We aim to draw together a diverse group of people, put them in beautiful surroundings, and provide challenging activities to create a powerful learning experience. It is aimed at people who are interested in their own personal development and who want to explore their own learning in an exciting and challenging environment.

Since we use Agile Programming, we can’t guarantee what you’ll be doing on the course but previously we have guided blindfolded partners; hunted foam animals scattered throughout the town; created art out of slate; abseiled and climbed; had round table debates; created codes and built a bridge across a lake.

We couple this with meaningful, engaging personal and group reflection and review to ensure that participants come away having learnt from everything they have done.

Some comments from previous participants:

“Thought provoking and loads of fun with plenty to take away to think about and hopefully apply!” -James

“A month of life packed into 48 hours!” -Eeva

“Thought-provoking; knackering but fun and challenging” -Billy

Mark also wrote a short piece about his time on the course, which you can read here.

The course fee includes all food and accommodation for the weekend, as well as the training, activities and any materials used. We will be based at the well equipped and friendly Bryn Du Mountain centre.

If you are interested in attending the course, please let us know which dates (11-13 or 18-20) you could attend and which one you prefer.

If you have any friends, colleagues or family who you think might be interested, please do not hesitate to forward this to them.

If you want to know more about this unusual course, please feel free to contact us.

The Four Hour Work Week

Tim Ferris

978-0091923723

Tim Ferriss has trouble defining what he does for a living. Depending on when you ask him he might answer: ‘I race motorcycles in Europe’, ‘I ski in the Andes’, ‘I scuba dive in Panama’, ‘I dance tango in Buenos Aires’. He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the ‘New Rich’, a fast-growing subculture that has abandoned the ‘deferred-life plan’ and instead mastered the new currencies – time and mobility – to create a new way of living. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing first class world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with no management, or just living more and working less, this book is the blueprint.

Recommended by James

“Made me think about what I wanted to achieve from life aside from looking towards retirement”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Three Cups of Tea

Greg Mortenson

978-0141034263

In 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, a mountaineer called Greg Mortenson drifted, cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. Moved by the inhabitants’ kindness, he promised to return and build a school. “Three Cups of Tea” is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome.

Recommended by Nick and Eeva

“Taught me not to accept the limitations and that with perseverance it is possible to achieve anything”

“A great, inspiring story”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Complete Prose

Woody Allen

978-0330328210

Complete Prose brings together Allen’s three outrageously funny collections, Without Feathers, Getting Even and Side Effects. A collection of 52 pieces of writing displaying Woody Allen’s own brand of humour.

Recommended by Billy

“A book that shows you that everyday life is not only ridiculous but funny.”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Quarantine

Greg Egan

978-0575081727

It’s late in the 21st century and bioengineering is now so common that people are able to modify their minds in any way they wish. Now, you can be whatever you want to be, and do whatever you want to do. One night, thirty three years ago, the stars went out. ‘The Bubble’  appeared in the sky, isolating the solar system from the rest of the universe. For thirty-three years, humanity has lived with the religious cults and terrorism which spawned in the wake of the darkness. We are now alone. Humanity has been cut off Quarantined.

Recommended by John

“Mind-bending ideas about the nature of identity”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Let My People Go Surfing

Yvon Chouinard

978-0143037835

Part memoir, part manifesto — legendary climber, businessman and environmentalist Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia, Inc. describes his life and his start in business as an itinerant climber selling pitons from the back of his car. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman offers a look at the guiding principles that Chouinard used to build Patagonia into a global business — a business that has an environmental mission and is a fun place to work.

Recommended by Sam

“This book made me realise that making a profit was a tiny part of running a business”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Effortless Mastery

Kenny Werner

978-1562240035

Effortless Mastery is a book for any musician who finds themselves having reached a plateau in their development. Werner, a masterful jazz pianist in his own right, uses his own life story and experiences to explore the barriers to creativity and mastery of music, and in the process reveals that “Mastery is available to everyone,” providing practical, detailed ways to move towards greater confidence and proficiency in any endeavour. While Werner is a musician, the concepts presented are for every profession or life-style where there is a need for free-flowing, effortless thinking.

Recommended By Mark

“I’ve taken stuff from it about mental processes and performance”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

McMafia

Misha Glenny

978-0099481256

For three years, Misha Glenny has been recording the stories of gun runners in Ukraine, money launderers in Dubai, drug syndicates in Canada, cyber criminals in Brazil, racketeers in Japan and many more. During his investigation of the dark side, he has spoken to countless gangsters, policemen and victims of organised crime while also exploring the ferocious consumer demand for drugs, trafficked women, illegal labour and arms across five continents. The journey begins with an appalling and inexplicable murder in England’s stockbroker belt and continues with stories that are often horrifying, sometimes inspiring, usually bizarre and occasionally funny. But together they build a breathtaking picture of the shadow economy that has grown so fast that it may now account for about 20% of the world’s GDP.

Recommended by Billy

“An interesting look at organised crime and how it crosses over with the legitimate world”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Who Runs this Place?

Anthony Sampson

978-0719565663

Anthony Sampson has spent forty years dissecting the power-structure, with unique access to people at the top, to produce his best-selling Anatomies of Britain. Now in this intensely topical book, he surveys a much more troubled scene with more anger and impatience. He looks at the whole panoply of power, from an embattled Number Ten to the murky intelligence spooks, from corporate boardrooms to banks and pension funds. Everywhere he talks to the people who really know their inside workings.

Recommended by Sam

“After reading this book, I found it a lot easier to look beyond the headlines and have a better grip of the stories that appear in the news”

Buy from Amazon.co.uk

We were blessed with sunshine and a good amount of wind which meant the racing amongst this very competitive fleet was close, intense and exciting. In this type of event there aren’t many tactics, the short courses and identical boats mean that most races are won by making your boat go faster through the water. A 1% drop in performance will cost you 60m over the race and probably about 5-6 places.

What struck me out on the water that a small yacht like the Sonata, normally crewed by 3 or 4 people, was a perfect medium for team building.

It is a high pressure environment

Yacht racing is a bit like close quarter jousting using 23 foot, wind-powered horses on a field that flows in one direction and bounces up and down. It has a complicated set of rules for defining who has right of way that require constant reference to the wind direction and an understanding of what every boat in the near vicinity is doing.

As you approach a buoy marking a change in direction on the course, you must go around it without hitting it, reset your sails or raise new ones, find the next marker and make a tactical decision about how you are going to get to it. Meanwhile ten or more boats, many within touching distance, are trying to do the same thing as you, only faster and no-one has any brakes.

At times the boats are less than a metre apart, there is frequently a lot of shouting as people claim their right to clear water and the damage if a collision occurs can run into tens of thousands of pounds. This high pressure environment demonstrates clearly that a cool head and the knowledge that your crewmates are doing their jobs are essential.

You have a clear goal

Everybody on the team understands the goal, to win this race. Everybody on the team understands how they are going to do this, by being faster than any other boat on the water that day. Since the boats are identical, everybody understands that the only way to achieve that goal is to do their specific jobs to the best of their abilities.

Everybody has a specific role to play

On a Sonata there are four roles,

The Helmsman, who is also normally the skipper, steers the boat, makes decisions about direction and sail choice and leads the team.

The Trimmer, who handles the main sail, making tiny adjustments, frequently as small as 2-3cm, to gain the maximum amount of power out of the sails to allow the helmsman to sail his chosen course as fast as possible.

The Winch Grinder, who is the muscle on the boat, pulling in the foresail every time the boat changes direction as quickly as possible to allow the helmsman to reset his course. He raises the sails and shifts his weight around to keep the boat as flat and as fast as possible.

The Foredeck who deals with anything that happens forward of the cockpit. Launching and recovering sails, making alterations to the rigging, they also move their weight to where it is most useful.

Bigger boats may have more people on board but the roles are as clearly defined and everybody knows, at each point in the race, what they should be doing.

You have a clearly defined leader

Upon seeing a person on another boat wearing a jumper that had ‘skipper’ on the back, one of the crew quipped “If you need to wear a badge to tell the crew you are the skipper, you are doing it wrong”. Clear, defined leadership is essential at sea, where not only are races won or lost but potentially lives too. The skipper has complete control over the boat and all on-board. They oversee everything going on and make the decisions, which the crew then enact.

Responsibility is automatically devolved

The skipper doesn’t have time to think about how to get the most power out of the sails or whether a fastening is attached correctly so responsibility is automatically devolved to one of the defined crew roles. He relies on his crew to do the right thing at the right time. If the crew take up that responsibility then the boat performs well, if not, they are likely to lose.

It is obvious if you are performing as a team

Since yachts are very difficult to sail single handed, if the boat is moving, you are performing as a team. If the boat is moving fast, you are performing well as a team.

You have to work together

Once out at sea, if you don’t work as a team, you won’t get home. There is nothing like rough seas or the call of dry land and the bar to persuade people to put aside personal differences and to work together. In high pressure environments it is easy to snap at someone or to take affront at an off-hand comment but for the sake of getting home, you must learn to let it all wash over you.

You can’t get away

Confronted by a high pressure environment and uneasy team dynamic, the temptation is to walk away and not go through the difficult learning process that is team building. On a 6.9m boat, you can’t go far!

Sadly, our results in the Sonata Nationals suggests our teamwork could be better but it certainly gave me food for thought.

Photo from Roberto Venturini‘s flickr stream. Used under CC-deriv license.

Despite their suspicion, curiosity overcomes one of the villager and he casually asks the traveller what he is doing. “Cooking stone soup” comes the reply. “I’ve never heard of stone soup” says the villager. “It’s the tastiest soup you’ll ever eat” says the traveller stirring the pot, “would you like some?”. Food has been short so the villager eagerly reaches out for the ladle. Just as he is about to take it the traveller pulls it away. “Actually, stone soup tastes even better with a little bit of turnip” he says, “You wouldn’t have a turnip we could add have you?”. Reluctantly the villager admits he may have and returns a few minutes later with the turnip and his neighbour, who would also like to try the soup.

“It’s pretty good” says the traveller after adding the turnip, “but it would be even better with some potatoes”. The neighbour sheepishly admits that he has some and heads off to get them. In the mean time, word has been spreading around the village about the stone soup and the local priest comes by. He asks to try the soup and is told that it is almost ready but, as the traveller explains, it “would be rounded off nicely by some meat”. The priest, who is an honest man, admits to having some dried beef put aside and agrees that if it will perfect the soup then he can spare some of it.

The traveller adds the potatoes and beef to soup and with a flourish serves up several bowls. Just as he is ladling it out, the baker comes over to see what is going on. The traveller, quick as a flash says “We were just sitting down with our stone soup, but we have no bread to eat with it”. The baker has never tried stone soup but the neighbour explains that it is the finest soup known and the baker agrees to provide a loaf of bread to eat with it in return for a bowl.

Shortly afterwards the traveller, villager, his neighbour, the priest and the baker are all sitting down around the fire with empty bowls in front of them. “Stone soup is the finest soup I have ever tasted” said the villager. “Thank-you” says the traveller, reaching into the empty pot and taking the stone out. Wiping the stone, he puts it back into his pocket and begins to pack his belongings.

Picture from NeilsPhotography under Creative Commons.

Green people are fully engaged in the discussion that’s is going on. They form the ‘yolk of the egg’ They will be sat at the centre of the group, often with a piece of paper in their hand, contributing ideas, extracting ideas from other green people and attempting to solve the problem or formulate a plan.

Orange people are following the discussion but they do not feel full engaged. They might have ideas but they won’t contribute them or, if they do, will not fight to make them accepted. People for whom the consequences of the discussion will have little effect often sit in this ‘white of the egg’. Also people who aren’t confident or who are overwhelmed by the green people will be here. They often have useful input to the conversation that will be missed unless they can be drawn into the ‘yolk’ and become green people.

Red people are totally disengaged from the discussion. They are sat at the outskirts of the group, barely even following what is going on. They normally feel totally disconnected from the topic being discussed, either because they feel they can’t change the course of the discussion or because they have resigned themselves to going with whatever the group decide. They make no attempt to contribute and often feel bitter about being sidelined.

People don’t stay within one section of the egg but drift between them as the discussion goes on. The important thing as a chairman, facilitator or team manager is trying to stop people drifting outwards into the white or out of the egg entirely.

As a participant you can be aware that the tendancy is to look inwards towards the yolk and you can occasionally glance behind you and see if there are any orange or red people who can be brought back into the discussion.

So next time you are involved in a group discussion, have a think about where in the egg you sit and where the other participants are. You might be able to help bring people back to the yolk.

Inevitably some are better than others but at about 20 minutes each, they make great listening in the car or while commuting.

The downside is that they are only available through iTunesU which means that if you don’t use iTunes you might struggle to get them. This use of propriety software is frustrating and unnecessary, if you are willing to jump through hoops, you can get around it.

Link to Podcasts on iTunesU