Are you in training to get better at business?

September 03rd, 2009

curls

This summer I’ve been on a fitness kick — walking, jogging, weightlifting, pushups, et cetera. As with past exercise binges, I’ve found myself getting more and more meticulous about my regime, not just going to the gym when the mood strikes me, but planning my schedule around it, and not just jotting down what sets and reps I do, but planning out each workout in advance. It reminds me of the father of a childhood friend, who could consult his handwritten logs to tell you how far and how fast he ran on any day of the previous 20 years.

And then there’s work.

I take my work seriously, and I’m trying hard to get better at is as I tackle new, bigger, and unfamiliar projects. I keep spreadsheets and meeting notes and topical files, and simple force of habit has made me more systematic about this than I used to be. But step-by-step planning and recording of work progressions? Meticulous after-action notes? Uh, no.

So, two things:

  1. I take it for granted that my work will keep improving as I make it more methodical. (Writing this post is one way for me to stick a flag in the ground about being more methodical.) But what do you think — is that a safe assumption?
  2. Why do so many people not approach their work as an area that’s ripe for systematic improvement? Laziness? Boredom? Fatigue? Fear? Institutional inertia? What?

Oh, and if you detect a connection to my many discussions of deliberate practice . . . you’re right.

~

Photo by Richard Giles, used under a CC-Share Alike license.
Category: Productivity

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7 Comments so far

Peter Jones September 4th, 2009 2:26 pm

Hi Tim

I noticed your post above and tweet -

“Going offline to do some pencil-&-paper work. For some things, the old ways are the best.”

- and wondered if you had heard of Hodges’ model. It’s a gift to pull disparate projects threads together and weave creative ideas.

If time permits (I can see you are buzy) check out the blog (totally no sales here):

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/

I hope the pencil and paper delivers, if not please give the model a look ‘c’…

Best,

Peter Jones
http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/
Hodges’ Health Career – Care Domains – Model
http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/
h2cm: help2Cmore – help-2-listen – help-2-care
http://twitter.com/h2cm

Tim Walker September 4th, 2009 3:13 pm

Thanks for the link, Peter — I’ll give your site a look!

Derek McLennan September 5th, 2009 9:01 am

I have read your blog post a few times in the past. It wasn’t until recently I’ve noticed that it is choke full of real value an info.

Keep it comming and great job.

dblwyo September 5th, 2009 11:01 am

Here we go again. The two major problems people have with effective deliberate practice, it seems to me, is it starts with basic skills and then mastery of the portfolio of fundamentals. Learn to block and tackle and run, be in shape. THEN learn to play your position and ESPECIALLY understand how your position fits into the team, the gameplan and so forth. Then practice, practice, practice.
BUT…the real showstopper is facing the fact you will fall off the wagon and finding the cojones to climb back on. We all come to that Ginuga Gap of groundlessness.
What do you do then?

Wally Bock September 5th, 2009 12:58 pm

Getting better is always a challenge. Peter Drucker discussed it for business people forty years ago in The Effective Executive. Deliberate practice is the latest “big idea” about how to do it. The problem, as I wrote in “Getting Real about Deliberate Practice and Leadership Development” ( http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/01/26/getting-real-about-deliberate-practice-and-leadership-development.aspx ) is that many of the things we need to get better at don’t lend themselves to effective deliberate practice the way it’s done for skills like plyaing the piano or golf.

So we have to do something slightly different. You still need a task and a way to measure it. But you may have to make do with a daily summing up rather than multiple trials. Here’s what I suggest to coaching clients.

Pick something that matters, but pick only one thing. Making after-action notes would be a good one. Realize that your measurement might be simple self-examination in the best Ben Franklin tradition.

Then work on improving that skill for three months. Keep records so you know how you’re doing and can compete with yesterday. After three months, pick something else to work on for the next quarter.

Tim Walker September 5th, 2009 1:14 pm

Good advice, Wally!

Tim Walker September 8th, 2009 3:17 pm

Reading through these at greater leisure . . . I’d note that Wally’s comment addresses an aspect of Dave’s: in business, we can’t learn to block-&-tackle and THEN start playing games. We may polish those skills on the side, but they really come into play AS we’re facing the day-to-day realities of business.

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