Stuart Harker

Born & Raised in County Durham, Husband & Father, always with a smile.

Change the World by Making Your Bed – by Admiral William McRaven

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Admiral William McRaven, author of “Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life… And Maybe The World,” explains how making your bed every morning can have a positive impact on your well-being and behavior throughout the rest of the day.

McCraven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, relayed several lessons he has learned in 36 years as a Navy SEAL, starting with some advice that was music to the ears of exasperated mothers everywhere.

“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day,” he said. “It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.

The human brain is wired to favor routine over novelty, even if that routine is unhealthy. A recent study published in the journal Neuron(link is external) found that habits and goals are stored differently in the human brain. Specifically, a region known as the orbitofrontal cortex is responsible for converting wishful goals into solid, automatic habits via the neural messengers known as endocannabinoids.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6OoCaGsz94

Change for the Better

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The only prerequisites for successful change are a willingness to learn and make small incremental changes that will result in increased levels of resilience and an ability to deal with change that does not result in negative stress.

Change both inside and outside of the business world is becoming increasingly complex, fast-paced and ambiguous resulting in feelings of uncertainty, confusion and fear.

Our ability to deal effectively with the nature and pace of change is being tested daily and resulting in reduced resilience levels and increased negative stress. This is UNSUSTAINABLE.

When Dealing with Change and Building Resilience you should understand what’s going on in your brain when faced with unprecedented levels of challenge:-

  • move through the change process quicker
  • change your current perspectives about how you think about change
  • bounce back out of the dips of work and home life
  • return to thinking clearly and rationally regardless of the levels of pressure
  • make informed, balanced decisions and
  • problem-solve in a calm and considered state    

Explore at a deep level what good and bad stress is, the nature and origins of change from our earliest of times and how you can override our evolutionary instinctual reactions to be able to respond and tackle life and work challenges head-on – with a calm and considered demeanour.

The ability to stay cool under pressure is a critical element of being an effective corker, manager or leader. You need to role model the behaviours we expect in others and that includes understanding your emotions, your emotional responses and how to dampen down heightened emotions and respond calmly.

You should leverage leadership and management experience that deliver strategies that work, making lasting, sustainable behavioural and attitudinal change.

Focussing on the work to deepen knowledge and understanding accompanied by an appropriate and comprehensive set of reflection questions, should be the guiding light, with a vision that leaves your teams well directed with targets to deliver.

Attitude is Everything – Brian Shul – From Butterflies to Blackbirds

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This video by Pilot/Author Brian Shul is an inspiration. Brian was born in Quantico, Virginia, in 1948. He graduated from East Carolina University in 1970 with a degree in History. That same year he joined the Air Force and attended pilot training at Reese AFB in Texas.

Brian served as a Foreign Air Advisor in the Viet Nam conflict, flying 212 close air support missions in conjunction with Air America. Near the end of all hostilities, his AT-28 aircraft was shot down near the Cambodian border. Unable to eject from the aircraft, Brian was forced to crash land into the jungle. Miraculously surviving, he was severely burned in the ensuing fireball. Crawling from the burning wreckage, he was finally found and rescued by a Special Forces team.

Watch his Story below

Thoughtfully shared with me by John H. Russell

Building Processes that Reduce Waste & Create Capacity

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Building processes that work, is quite a straightforward task, we can take out our pens, and sit and record how it works, but building processes that reduce waste is a whole different ball game.

What Exactly is Waste?
The simplest way to describe waste is as “Something that adds no Value.”  Would you be happy if you received a bill in a restaurant that included a meal that was prepared in error? No; you would argue and demand that it was removed from your bill; yet if you buy a product in a store the price that you pay will contain costs that you would not want to pay. Would you want to pay for the machine operators wages whilst they sat idle waiting for a delivery, or for the rework processes that had to be undertaken because the machine was incorrectly set, or even for storing your product for three months before it was delivered to the store? These wastes are included within the cost of your products, either inflating the price you pay or reducing the profit of the company.

Why Remove Waste?
Profit is your selling price less your costs, no matter how you think about the selling price it is very much dictated by the market not by yourself. If you charge too much then your customers will go elsewhere, even if you charge too little you may lose customers as they will perceive there may be something wrong with what you are offering. Therefore the only way you have to improve your profits are to reduce your costs; this means removing all elements of waste from your processes.

In addition to improving profits you will find that waste has a major impact on your customer’s satisfaction with your products and services. Customers want on time delivery, perfect quality and at the right price.

Leadership is Different to Management

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Leadership is very different to management, and yet it is easy to consider them both as the one in the same. Management, is ensure processes are followed, reports are completed and targets are achieved. Management by Objective.

Leadership is enabling your people , to be the best they can be, helping to work with pride, feeling valued and adding value.

Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position in the hierarchy of a company. Too many talk about a company’s leadership referring to the senior most executives in the organisation. They are just that, senior executives. Leadership doesn’t automatically happen when you reach a certain pay grade.

Leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes. Say the word “leader” and most people think of a domineering, take-charge charismatic individual. We often think of icons from history like Winston Churchill or President Lincoln. But leadership isn’t an adjective. We don’t need extroverted charismatic traits to practice leadership. And those with charisma don’t automatically lead.

Leadership to empower others to self-organise. Providing clear direction while allowing employees to organise their own time and work is an important leadership competency. No leader can do everything themselves. Therefore, it’s critical to distribute power throughout the organisation and to rely on decision making from those who are closest to the work.

Leadership is Fostering a sense of connection and belonging. “communicate often and openly” and “create a feeling of succeeding and failing together as a pack” build a strong foundation for connection. We are a social species — we want to connect and feel a sense of belonging. From an evolutionary perspective, attachment is important because it improves our chances of survival in a world full of predators.

Leadership is showing openness to new ideas and promoting organisational learning. they encourage learning; they don’t, they dont stifle it. Admitting you’re wrong isn’t easy, and the negative effects of stress on brain function are partly to blame — in this case they impede learning. To encourage learning among employees, you must first ensure that they are open to learning (and changing course) themselves.

Leadership is Nurturing growth. Think of the people to whom you’re most grateful — parents, teachers, friends, mentors. Chances are, they’ve cared for you or taught you something important. Showing a commitment to peoples growth, will enable employees to be motivated to reciprocate, expressing their gratitude or loyalty by going the extra mile. While managing through fear generates stress, which impairs higher brain function, the quality of work is vastly different when we are compelled by appreciation. If you want to inspire the best from your team, advocate for them, support their training and promotion, and go to bat to sponsor their important projects.

These seven areas present significant challenges to leaders due to the natural responses that are hardwired into us.

Deep self-reflection and a shift in perspective (perhaps aided by a coach), there are also enormous opportunities for improving everyone’s performance by focusing on our own.

Building Technology that Works – Agility

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We have built business here in the Western World based on a Financial model including Departments, Budgets and a Project & Programme Managers to keep technology builds on budget and on time, leading a Sequential Development, or the Waterfall methodology..

Agile is a term used to describe a general approach to software development. All agile methods, including Scrum, emphasize teamwork, frequent deliveries of working software, close customer collaboration, and the ability to respond quickly to change.

Where Did Agile Come From?
In 1970, Dr. Winston Royce presented a paper entitled “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems,” which criticised sequential development. He asserted that software should not be developed like an automobile on an assembly line, in which each piece is added in sequential phases. In such sequential phases, every phase of the project must be completed before the next phase can begin. Dr. Royce recommended against the phase based approach in which developers first gather all of a project’s requirements, then complete all of its architecture and design, then write all of the code, and so on. Royce specifically objected to this approach due to the lack of communication between the specialised groups that complete each phase of work.

It’s easy to see how the “waterfall” methodology is far from optimised compared to agile methodology. First of all, it assumes that every requirement of the project can be identified before any design or coding occurs. Put another way, do you think you could tell a team of developers everything that needed to be in a piece of software before it was up and running? Or would it be easier to describe your vision to the team if you could react to functional software? Many software developers have learned the answer to that question the hard way: At the end of a project, a team might have built the software it was asked to build, but, in the time it took to create, business realities have changed so dramatically that the product is irrelevant. In that scenario, a company has spent time and money to create software that no one wants. Couldn’t it have been possible to ensure the end product would still be relevant before it was actually finished?

Why Agile?
Agile development methodology provides opportunities to assess the direction of a project throughout the development lifecycle. This is achieved through regular cadences of work, known as sprints or iterations, at the end of which teams must present a potentially shippable product increment. By focusing on the repetition of abbreviated work cycles as well as the functional product they yield, agile methodology is described as “iterative” and “incremental.” In waterfall, development teams only have one chance to get each aspect of a project right. In an agile paradigm, every aspect of development — requirements, design, etc. — is continually revisited throughout the lifecycle. When a team stops and re-evaluates the direction of a project every two weeks, there’s always time to steer it in another direction.

The results of this “inspect-and-adapt” approach to development greatly reduce both development costs and time to market. Because teams can develop software at the same time they’re gathering requirements, the phenomenon known as “analysis paralysis” is less likely to impede a team from making progress. And because a team’s work cycle is limited to two weeks, it gives stakeholders recurring opportunities to calibrate releases for success in the real world. Agile development methodology helps companies build the right product. Instead of committing to market a piece of software that hasn’t even been written yet, agile empowers teams to continuously replan their release to optimize its value throughout development, allowing them to be as competitive as possible in the marketplace. Development using an agile methodology preserves a product’s critical market relevance and ensures a team’s work doesn’t wind up on a shelf, never released.

The Power of Positivity when Job Hunting & Applying

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Looking at changing jobs can be one of the most stressful things we can do as an individual, and getting results, while looking for career move is not as easy as it may seem.

The answer may lie in you. Any good salesperson will tell you that people buy from people they like. Similarly, employers give jobs to people they like. Of course, you have to have the skills and experience as well, but when two or more candidates rank equally, the job is more likely to go to the person who formed the best relationship with the potential employer.

To make a good impression, you need to be positive and engaging.  Being positive is a vital pre-condition for your job search: if you feel negative or unenthusiastic, it could come across when you meet people, and they won’t buy you. Even providing any kind of constructive feedback can be received on a negative bias.

We all need different stimuli to help boost morale. For some, a few days break from the grind of job searching will do the trick. Others will find that a good workout in the gym, or regular sport, helps to re-energise and motivate them. Some people will find their positivity through spiritual means, or with the help of friends or colleagues. Or maybe a professional or career coach will help to keep you motivated and on track.

To help stay positive, remember your achievements. You should have a bank of achievements that you keep for your CV anyway, so that every time you apply for a job you can include those which are most relevant. These demonstrate what you do when you are performing at your best and could come from any area of your life: work, family or social. Reviewing this list can help you recall the mood of success.

Another technique to keep you motivated is to listen to your favourite music just before you make an important call, go into a meeting or interview, or even while you are writing a job application. We all know how important music can be for our mood: use it to your advantage while applying for jobs.

But remember, it doesn’t matter how positive you are, there will always be times when things go wrong. Motivation won’t solve everything. It’s important to understand that the current job market is fiercely competitive and, in many cases, a bit of a lottery. If you get turned down, it may be disappointing but it’s not always because there is something wrong with you – it’s just that someone else got lucky.

If you really do feel knocked back by a rejection, however, take a deep breath, get up and do something else to take your mind off it. You can’t always force an emotion to go away; you have to wait for your mood to lighten. Go back to your achievements, focus on what you do well and remind yourself that you are good. If you need to, find a shoulder to cry on – it can help.

Staying positive is not always easy; in fact, it’s the hardest job search technique of all. It can feel artificial and pointless – and trying to stay positive and failing can even make you feel worse. But it’s critical that you don’t get bogged down by job seeking and that employers can see your motivation.

Building Extraordinary Relationships

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Professional success is important to everyone, but still, success in business and in life means different things to different people.

But one fact is universal: Real success, the kind that exists on multiple levels, is impossible without building great relationships. Real success is impossible unless you treat other people with kindness, regard, and respect.

What Steps? I hear you ask:-

Take the hit – A customer gets mad. A stakeholder complains about poor service. A mutual friend feels slighted. Sometimes, whatever the issue and regardless of who is actually at fault, some people step in and take the hit. They’re willing to accept the criticism or abuse because they know they can handle it–and they know that maybe, just maybe, the other person can’t.

Few acts are more selfless than taking the undeserved hit. And few acts better cement a relationship.

Step in without being asked It’s easy to help when you’re asked. Most people will. Very few people offer help before they have been asked, even though most of the time that is when a little help will make the greatest impact. People who build extraordinary relationships pay close attention so they can tell when others are struggling. Then they offer to help, but not in a general, “Is there something I can do to help you?” way.

Instead they come up with specific ways they can help. That way they can push past the reflexive, “No, I’m okay…” objections. And they can roll up their sleeves and make a difference in another person’s life. Not because they want to build a better relationship, although that is certainly the result, but simply because they care.

Answer the question that is not asked – Where relationships are concerned, face value is usually without value. Often people will ask a different question than the one they really want answered. A colleague might ask you whether he should teach a class at a local college; what he really wants to talk about is how to take his life in a different direction.

A partner might ask how you felt about the idea he presented during the last board meeting; what he really wants to talk about is his diminished role in the running of the company. An employee might ask how you built a successful business; instead of kissing up he might be looking for some advice–and encouragement–to help him follow his own dreams.

Behind many simple questions is often a larger question that goes unasked. People who build great relationships think about what lies underneath so they can answer that question, too.

Know when to Reign it In – Outgoing and charismatic people are usually a lot of fun… until they aren’t. When a major challenge pops up or a situation gets stressful, still, some people can’t stop “expressing their individuality.” (Admit it: You know at least one person so in love with his personality he can never Reign it back.)

People who build great relationships know when to have fun and when to be serious, when to be over the top and when to be invisible, and when to take charge and when to follow.

Great relationships are multifaceted and therefore require multifaceted people willing to adapt to the situation–and to the people in that situation.

Prove they think of others – People who build great relationships don’t just think about other people. They act on those thoughts. One easy way is to give unexpected praise. Everyone loves unexpected praise–it’s like getting flowers not because it’s Valentine’s Day, but “just because.” Praise helps others feel better about themselves and lets them know you’re thinking about them (which, if you think about it, is flattering in itself.)

Take a little time every day to do something nice for someone you know, not because you’re expected to but simply because you can. When you do, your relationships improve dramatically.

Realise when they have acted poorly – Most people apologise when their actions or words are called into question.

Very few people apologise before they are asked to, or even before anyone notices they should. Responsibility is a key building block of a great relationship. People who take the blame, who say they are sorry and explain why they are sorry, who don’t try to push any of the blame back on the other person–those are people everyone wants in their lives, because they instantly turn a mistake into a bump in the road rather than a permanent roadblock.

Give consistently, receive occasionally – A great relationship is mutually beneficial. In business terms that means connecting with people who can be mentors, who can share information, who can help create other connections; in short, that means going into a relationship wanting something.

The person who builds great relationships doesn’t think about what she wants; she starts by thinking about what she can give. She sees giving as the best way to establish a real relationship and a lasting connection. She approaches building relationships as if it’s all about the other person and not about her, and in the process builds relationships with people who follow the same approach.

In time they make real connections. And in time they make real friends.

Value the message by always valuing the messenger – When someone speaks from a position of power or authority or fame it’s tempting to place greater emphasis on their input, advice, and ideas.

We listen to Deming. We listen to Taiichi Ohno. We listen to Peter Senge, The guy who mows our lawn? Maybe we don’t listen to him so much. That’s unfortunate. Smart people strip away the framing that comes with the source–whether positive or negative–and consider the information, advice, or idea based solely on its merits.

People who build great relationships never automatically discount the message simply because they discount the messenger. They know good advice is good advice, regardless of where it comes from. And they know good people are good people, regardless of their perceived “status.”

Start small… and are happy to stay small – I sometimes wear a Newcastle Football Club shirt. At the supermarket the other, the checkout operator said, “Oh, you’re a Newcastle supporter? My team is Manchester United.”

I always engage in little interactions, and I said, “You think Man U can win the league this year?”

He gave me a huge smile and said, “Oh yeah. We’ll crush everyone!” (Too bad he will be wrong.)

Now whenever I see him he waves, often from across the store. I almost always walk over, say hi, and talk briefly about footy. That’s as far as our relationship is likely to go and that’s okay. For a couple of minutes we transcend the customer/employee relationship and become two people brightening each other’s day. And that’s enough, because every relationship, however minor and possibly fleeting, has value.

People who build great relationships treat every one of their relationships that way. (That’s a good lesson we all need to take to heart)

Are you able to improve your Business Processes effectively?

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As businesses we are always striving to be better, meet customer’s ever-rising demands, and remain competitive. There are many methods, practices, and philosophies in which they engage to achieve this (Innovation Management, Continuous Improvement, Lean Management, 6-sigma etc.), and organizations invest heavily in tools and consultants to implement these effectively.

One of the often overlooked methodologies is BPM (Business Process Management). Organizations, when asked, will normally state that they feel their processes are under control, but if asked how they make sure they are constantly improved and modified to meet changing needs; their answers get a little blurry.

It turns out; most organizations do improve their business processes, but usually as a reaction to a problem. Even though they engage in some of the above mentioned improvement methodologies, they are usually product and service centric, and not Business Process centric. They lack the tools and culture to proactively engage in Business Process improvement like they would in their manufacturing and service delivery processes.

If we follow the WikiPedia definition for BPM (Business process management is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients), we realize that Business Processes actually govern all other processes engaged in by organizations. We actually need business processes to accomplish all other processes in the business cycle.

Most organizations will have tools and procedures to enable their team members to identify and execute on improvement opportunities in their products and services. This is because of tangible gains (normally reflected in the bottom line) to be had with the execution of improvements. The tools used will ensure the improvement is captured (process flows, instructions and standards are updated in central repositories), communicated, and translated to the bottom line. The tools and processes used ensure teams impacted upstream and downstream are in-the-loop.

However, organizations seldom invest in tools and expertise to effectively manage and improve their business processes. A major reason for this is that they do not look at business processes as being equal to, or more important than a manufacturing process.

The benefits of improving these don’t automatically translate to the bottom line, and thus organizations usually do not take a proactive approach to improvement. Problems with poor business processes are usually reflected in wasted time (usually made up by employees working overtime), and are normally not addressed unless they have an adverse and measurable effect on the bottom line – sometimes leading to a real line-stoppage (i.e.: someone did not place an order for parts using the ‘new process’).

These types of line-stopping (and consequently very expensive) events are usually a result of not having well defined standards and procedures to manage the business process lifecycle. This can be quickly identified by two critical missing elements:

a) Business Process Maps:
Just like a manufacturing process flow-chart maps the flow of material and value-add activities at each station in the process, the Business Process Map shows the flow of objects (Usually Information) and activities performed at each step. There are specific sets of instructions, standards, documents, roles and resources related to each process step. The business process map becomes the standard baseline from which change can be made.

The result of not having Process Maps can be illustrated by team members having poor knowledge of upstream and downstream processes and how they fit into them. This in turn makes it hard to identify upstream/downstream areas that will be impacted by change, as well limits the ability to measure and justify change (specially improvements). This normally means Status-Quo is the rule, and change is only initiated after a business ‘catastrophe’ occurs.

b) Effective communication tools;
We have all experienced the occasion when we followed a known procedure, to later find out from a downstream process that we did not follow the ‘new’ process, or used an outdated document, thus resulting in repeating the work. (This specific scenario probably causes billions of pounds in wasted effort every year.)

In a manufacturing process, where a line stoppage can lead to enormous costs, it is imperative to communicate changes to ensure downstream stations are prepared and don’t receive a ‘line-stopping’ surprise. Business processes should be no different, however, seldom are business processes tied to exact execution times, and thus communication is not given high importance. In fact, it is typical to see communication happen reactively like this:

  • Dept. B changed a form, and everyone in Dept. B. knows.
  • Mr. X from Dept. A. uses the old form and submits to Dept. B.
  • Mr. X is told the form is outdated and has to resubmit it to Dept. B.
  • Mr. X now warns his Dept. A. colleagues to make sure they use the new form.

Effective communication tools and methods are critical to ensure everyone relevant to a change is instantly made aware of the change and the impact to their work.

In conclusion, when looking to improve your business processes ask yourself this: Do I have a documented process standard (typically process maps), and the right communication tools in place to ensure changes and their impact are immediately known across the organization?