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Trading Off
Over the last few months, I’ve slowly started to identify a common theme in life: trade-offs.
You may be familiar with the following phrases:
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
“No such thing as a free lunch.”
“You can’t get something for nothing.”
“Don’t expect to put in 50 cents and get back a dollar.”
These phrases essentially illustrate one thing: everything has its price. No matter what we want, no matter what we dream about, a price is required.
This can be very simple, such as ordering something off the Dollar Menu at McDonald’s. I know if I want a large Coca Cola, I’m going to have to exchange $1.00 (plus whatever the sales tax is). Changing money for products is pretty straightforward.
Trade-offs become more difficult, though, when we are trading our time and energy for certain dreams or ambitions. Often, the cost of what we think is most important to achieve becomes far greater than the price we are truly willing to pay. Consider the lives of too many professionally successful individuals with broken homes, failed marriages, and estranged children. Is that a worthwhile trade-off for personal professional success?
Each day, we make trade-offs with our time. If I get up early to exercise, I lose the extra comfort of sleep. If I choose to sleep in, I lose the benefits of the exercise. If I choose to watch a movie on Netflix, I forgo the chance to read the book I want to finish. If I use my time to read the book, I’m no longer able to watch that movie during that time.
Not complicated, right? The key to making sure we spend our time resources wisely (and that the trade-offs we make are personally worthwhile) is to have a core set of values and direction. Some call it a Mission Statement, others call it an “I Am Statement,” but the goal is the same: ensure you’re spending your resources in a manner that provides the highest value to you. Only you can determine what that will be.
Do you have a current mission statement or outlined set of values? If so, how often do you revisit them to make sure you’re behavior is on the right track?
“Rinsing Cottage Cheese””
I’ve been thinking recently about improvement, and how difficult it can be to keep improving the further you get along the road.
When we first make the commitment to improve something about ourselves, our team, or our communities, it’s relatively easy to pick the most glaring things that we need to stop doing or start doing.
For example, if I wanted to grow a fantastic garden, the first few steps are relatively simple: First, I’ve got to section off a section for the garden. Next, I’ve got to weed the area and clear it of any rocks and obstructions. Next, I need to create furrows, etc etc until I plant the seeds and start watering the garden.
If I keep up the simple practice of plant, weed, water, harvest, I’ll have a pretty decent little garden. But what if I want to have an EXCELLENT garden? That’s going to take some more dedicated effort and resolve.
I first heard about “rinsing cottage cheese” from Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. He used the example of a world-class triathlete who was looking for any additional edge he could find to get better. Because he was already doing many thing so well, the improvements were small, almost infinitesimal. He eventually decided to rinse his cottage cheese every morning, which allowed him the protein he needed while slightly reducing his fat intake. Small change, but this idea helped the triathlete get better.
Returning to the garden example, if I was really disciplined and intent on improving the garden, I would research different fertilizers. I would learn which foods were best to plant. What’s the best way to cultivate certain plants? How long should I water certain plants? Armed with my new knowledge, I will discipline myself to follow through on the actions that will help my garden get better and better. The size of the activity is not what matters; the resulting improvement is what matters!
In what area of your life are you currently succeeding? What small changes can you make to get even better?
It Depends on How You Define Success
Thanks to a friend of mine, I’ve been really fascinated with the World Cup these last few weeks. It appears I’m not the only one, as local and national radio and TV programs have been covering the results and monitoring progress.
Like many Americans, I was a bit dejected about the United States’ loss to Belgium on Tuesday, but felt content and excited about their effort and play. As I listened to a national radio program after the game, however, I was confronted with a completely different viewpoint. In effect, the program host argued that it is embarrassing for Americans to be satisfied and content with anything less than victory. To celebrate a team that won one game, lost two, and tied another was to celebrate mediocrity. Celebration of mediocre results is entirely contradictory to American values.
I don’t intend to be an apologist for mediocrity. I am entirely in favor of whatever it takes to become excellent. But in the case of this radio host, I must make an exception to the argument.
I believe the United States World Cup team transcended mediocrity and achieved excellence by performing to the highest of their abilities. Despite being outclassed in skill, talent, and international experience, the United States held its own through effort, grit, and consistency.
I’m a firm believer in the Coach John Wooden philosophy of success :
Success is self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.
This definition of success resonates with me simply because we cannot expect more than the very best of ourselves, our associates, our teammates, and others around us. Similarly, we should not expect anything less.
Among billions of individuals on this planet, there are varying degrees of skill, talent, expertise, and experience. Among several individuals on an office team unit, there are varying degrees of skill, talent, expertise, and experience. The challenge of a great manager is to facilitate the very best that each individual has to offer, regardless of the “ingredients” they bring to the table.
In regards to the United States World Cup team, I personally felt that they did everything within their power to play their very best. Despite being down two goals, they never quit. Despite being outclassed by a far superior Belgian squad in terms of talent and ability, they were never outclassed in effort. Despite the final result, I’m confident that the United States team was a success.
We asked them to bring their very best, and they did.
Intentions
“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results” –Milton Friedman
I read the above quote by Milton Friedman, a 20th Century economist, early this morning. Though the quote focuses mostly on political, social, and economic programs, I found it particularly enlightening from a business and team sense.
Far from supplying a long diatribe of instances where my intentions and results matched or where they were horribly mismatched, I’m mostly interested in the process by which intentions manufacture results. What kinds of practices incubate a great intention and turn that intention into a satisfactory or excellent result? Below are some simple suggestions:
Communicate
Many an initiative has died a slow death without the nourishing oxygen of communication. Countless books, articles, and blogs speak to its importance, and for good reason. In my experience, communicating the intention is only half the battle. The leader must communicate the process or system by which the strategy will be implemented and accounted. Who is responsible for what? How will it be done? This leads to the next ingredient:
Be Accountable
If our intentions our pure, as we all hope they are, then our activities should be just as pure. If a new manager intends to conduct a great performance review of one of her direct reports, she had better follow through and prepare (and then hold) an excellent performance review. If a new coach wants to instill a more disciplined culture into his team, he had better set aside time in practice for drills that create discipline.
Face Reality
When a leader or manager has communicated the strategy and followed through on the implementation activities, he or she has approached the most difficult phase: determine if the plan and actions are working. Facing reality can be fraught with discomfort. Nobody wants to feel or be viewed as a failure. However, if we’re serious about turning our grandiose intentions into great results, we’ve got to be serious about examining the results of our activities and making changes where necessary.
What tools or processes do you use to turn your best intentions into your best results?
Sticking With It
I will persist until I succeed–Og Mandino
My son just turned one and is starting to walk around the house. One of his favorite activities is to grab my hands and lead me around the living room, crashing us into different pieces of furniture. He never really seems to get tired of this. Long after I’m worn out from it, he’ll drag me from the couch to the chair and back again.
Similarly, he can watch Cars or Lilo and Stitch for hours on end. He just keeps at it.
Observing this from my “grown-up” perspective, I’m impressed by how persistent children are. They never give up. They crash their faces into chairs, start sobbing, recover, and then start crawling around and walking again without any problem. They are unfazed by falling down and scratching their hands. They repeatedly “get after it.”
So what happens to us as we get older? Personally, my persistence muscles could use some building. It feels like the older I get, the weaker my desire to persist can get. I can be easily discouraged, even if success is lurking just around the corner.
Angela Lee Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has devoted her study and research to “grit,” which is the “perseverance and passion for a long-term goal.” She’s found robust correlation between grit (or persistence) and success and happiness.
I’ve had some success with persisting, as well as some failures. I think we all can relate to that. If we really stop and consider the concept of persistence, the question morphs from “are you persistent?” to “at what should you be persistent?”
To understand the characteristic of persistence, and the discipline it takes to build a persistent character, we first need to understand our values. What’s truly most important to us? What activities are worth the persistent use of our precious time resources?
When I feel my desire to persist through adversity and challenge wane, a step back usually tells me I’ve lost connection with my core values that anchor and inspire me. The minute I’ve sold out my activities for something other than these values, my persistence deteriorates.
This being the case, I know that I need to constantly evaluate my time choices against what I know to be most important to me. In and of itself, this can be a heavy undertaking. But it’s better than the alternative!
What tools do you use to remain persistent to your long-term goals? How do you handle, and eventually overcome, adversity?
Activity vs. Achievement
Coach John Wooden
“Don’t mistake activity for achievement.” –Coach John R. Wooden
I generally feel good when I get things done.
Though this is the case, I’ve often found myself as a victim of my own self-deception. Because I’ve been busy “doing things” for an extended period of time, I lull myself into a security blanket that I mistake for productivity. After all, why shouldn’t I feel productive? I’ve been getting things done!
Unfortunately, an examination of my accomplishments reveals a harsh truth: sometimes I’m very busy without really achieving anything. I get busy organizing my email, updating preferences on my computer, or just getting bogged down by minutiae. While I’ve been active and have felt productive, my tasks and behaviors aren’t moving the needle on my most important responsibilities or priorities.
How do we ensure that our actions, tasks, and activities are helping us achieve instead of simply keeping us busy?
Know your priorities
Do you truly know what your priorities are? In a personal sense, our priorities tend to revolve around our family and core values. In an organizational or work setting, our priorities should be our job descriptions. What results are you meant to achieve? Where is the organization paying you to spend your time?
In our careers or in work, our job descriptions are either provided to us or we are given input to define the job descriptions. In either case, we are responsible for making sure our activities promote the fulfillment of these job descriptions.
Stephen Covey calls this concept “beginning with the end in mind.” Where is it that you should be going? What “end” do you want to realize?
Key Indicators/Metrics
Once our priorities have been identified, we choose key indicators or key metrics. These metrics act as signals, warning us of disengagement with our priorities, and predicting the successful fulfillment of our priorities.
A successful sales person has a “priority” of achieving a certain amount of sales in a specific time. She will then choose appropriate metrics that predict the success or failure of the goal: contacts made, appointments set, prospects identified, etc. If she is consistently achieving the goals she has set for her metrics, she will achieve her goal for sales.
With email at our fingertips and news only an app-click away, it can be difficult to discipline ourselves to spend the majority of our time working on the key metrics that lead to the realization of our highest goals and priorities.
By identifying your priorities and establishing key metrics, you can be sure that your activity will lead you to achievement.
Examining Leadership 