Ownership of Ideas
May 8, 2006My eldest daughter Madelyn (9) just received her first school assignment, which requires her to research a theme and choose from a number of different topics and presentation methods. On the weekend, I was enlisted to help out.
Helping was much more difficult than anticipated because, whilst I was able to come up with many great concepts and ideas; I found myself acting like it was MY assignment. My role in this excercise was to assist Madelyn to come up with her own ideas and thoughts and provide her with some direction, not to add my own ideas.
During this experience, I was reminded of an article that I read recently, which discusses the temptation to impose one’s own ideas on other people in the persuit of adding value and the effect that this has on the committment and ownership of ideas.
Therein lies the fallacy of added value: Whatever is gained in the form of a better idea may be lost six times over in the employee’s diminished enthusiasm for the concept.
So–upon reflection–I learned a couple of valuable lessons:
1. Be careful how you ‘encourage’
2. It’s better to “teach someonehow to fish” rather than to “feed them the fish”.
This is probably a lot harder to put into pracice than it sounds. So, do you let other people be winners?
IR Reforms and Job Security
April 3, 2006I read an article the other day in the Herald Sun entitled “Insuring against a job loss.” Now, I don’t usually read this type of of trashy, tabloid publication but it’s a no-brainer while you’re on holidays and want to catch up with the latest sports scores, but that’s a whole other story–but this article sparked my interest. It noted an interesting fact that in Australia job turnover is far higher than the net rate of job creation or loss. However, it’s main thesis was that we (the royal we) need to develop appropriate policy responses to counteract the consequences of the government’s new IR reforms.
At the risk of sounding rude … what a load of rationalist crap. For better or worse, the jobs environment of yester year–where there was some notion of stability, structure and security–is gone. And this is not a recent phenomena. It went a long time a go.
What we need to do as individuals is to respond creatively and decisively and take advantage of the situation rather than becoming a victim of it. We need to free ourselves of the master-slave mentality and forge our own path. As quoted here before … “security only comes from controlling your own destiny.”
Scanner or Planner?
March 24, 2006This post over at the [non] billable hour fits in nicely with my ‘generalist’ thread.
“If you’re a Scanner, you are a very special kind of thinker. Unlike those people who seem to find and be satisfied with one area of interest, you’re genetically wired to be interested in many things.”
I am too.
Improv on the Beach
December 14, 2005My friend Tony, along with pommy blogger (and facilitator)
Johnnie are running some Improv activities at Brighton beach next Monday (19th December — 6:00pm). Johnnie writes more about it here. Should be a fun night. If you’re interested in coming along, ping me.
Mindmapping your Blog Posts
December 5, 2005Darren over at ProBlogger has been writing a fantastic series of posts about “Battling Bloggers Block“. His latest tip is to use mind mapping to help you organise your thoughts.
I’m a big fan of mindmapping and I wholeheartedly recommend this method — I use it all the time — not only as a tool to beat writers block, but as a way of structuring ideas. I usually start with a notepad and some colored pens, which I carry in my laptop bag. I have mind mapping software too, but find that the creative process works best for me without it to start off with. I often re-create them in the software later for posterity.
Mindmapping is also a great way to ‘draft’ stuff before you commit to writing it. I’ve got a number of ‘draft’ blog posts as mindmaps, which I’ve yet to commit to. But importantly, my initial thoughts and ideas are captured for when I find the time to craft them.
