Every so often, I come across something I consider, an "absolute truth", and I get so very excited to understand it and share it...
An "absolute truth", a core, basic, visceral behavior or "way of being" that materially impacts our ability to find success and happiness in our work or in our lives. These behaviors or "ways of being" have impacts far beyond what we can ever imagine, way beyond the situation where we display them... and we don't realize it.
This is why I write and why I share....
Because I see how some things we write off as "I don't always do that", "It was just that person that set me off.", "It was just that situation" allows us to rationalize and justify behavior that cripples our ability to move things forward...
I speak to success, happiness, joy and I know some business people roll their eyes... but long term sustainable profitability, top line and bottom line revenue growth and "success and happiness" are one and the same - in that - it is the same behaviors that drive both...
A desire and a passion for a life and a business of harmony... hear me out.
EXAMPLE
I walk into a meeting very excited. I was able to pull a set of data that allows us to look at all of the thousands of projects that we executed in this one particular division last year. This will be TRANSFORMATIONAL and will provide massive value to our ability to understand many things, but most specifically how much investment we are making in the final review / QC of our reports and the productivity of those resources. I've done some initial work and I bring it into our weekly meeting and share it with the team.
There are three categories of people (and you can tell them apart by the questions that they ask).
"Well, that data isn't going to allow us to see the profit margin because of our part time resources."
"How do we know that the reviewers of the reports are entering the right information?"
"Pull up project X... See that project shouldn't be included because it was executed differently. It will bias all of the data."
"How can we put measures in place to make sure that the reviewers will enter the data? Maybe we should make hours reviewed a mandatory field?"
The questions and comments went on and on.
I thought about the quote, "Some people prefer problems they can't solve to solutions they don't like" from the Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing that I am reading.
BUT, how do they know they don't like this "solution", if they have never even seen it before?
I was truly amazed. Flabbergasted even.
I will come back to this report in a moment, but I realized some of us are simply wired to
FIGHT meaning instead of FIND meaning
FIGHT value instead of FIND value
If you show up in the world as an agent of "disharmony", an agent that "wishes everything was different"... that is your "way of being". No offense, but a lot of lawyers are of this ilk. It's how they need to be to be good at their jobs.
If you show up in the world as an agent of "harmony", an agent that is committed to understanding and uncovering the truth, and moving it forward in the direction of your want, in the direction of value... that is your "way of being".
There is a MASSIVE difference between EXPLORING and INTERROGATING!
This is the same "absolute truth" or "way of being" that divides those who start from a place of TRUST or a place of DISTRUST...
How we show up in the simplest ways affects EVERY aspect of our lives - and I know that most would say, "yes, but, I was just talking about that one report."
So, here is reality... THREE TYPES OF PEOPLE... PAY ATTENTION, PLEASE...
1. There are those who FIGHT IT!
The first group did nothing with the report, because they chose not to "trust it".
"The data is not right."
"I don't even know how they pulled those numbers."
"Look see - those cells are empty. This report can't be right."
"Every report I see is wrong. I'm not wasting my time."
These folks FOUGHT it from the very beginning - they were committed to disproving it (consciously or subconsciously) and walked away.
THEY BROUGHT MINIMAL or NO VALUE - other than to uncover some important and relevant facts.
2. There are those who ACCEPT IT!
This group started pulling all kinds of conclusions from the report.
They sent me several reports with averages & summary tables.
They took the data and simply PROCESSED it into a FINAL result.
The data and the results in many ways made no sense. These folks ACCEPTED it from the very beginning - and got to work.
THEY BROUGHT MINIMAL or NO VALUE - other than to create the process by which the data could be manipulated and reported on.
3. There are those who FIND IT!
These folks asked iterative and constructive questions.
"How many dollars do these reports represent, how many total dollars?"
"How many cells are empty in this column?"
"Pull up Joe Smith, and lets look at what it shows for him?"
This group uncovered that the "services" were all present, but half of the reviewers were not entered and only half of the projects had fees and data associated with them.
They manipulated the data to find that the top 6 of the 25 services accounted for nearly 90% of the revenue, and ran simple reports on the 6 services that represented 90% of the data.
They ONLY ran the data for the half of the reports that had the full information, and that still constituted thousands of reports and millions of dollars of services.
They were able to show great summary of average times to review based on a huge amount of data.
BETTER FORECASTING This will allow us to plan our future projects more accurately.
CONFIRM PROGRESS This will allow us to measure to see if through training and process optimization we are making progress against the 2015 data.
IMPROVE THE DATA They were able to show the team the significant data that was unusable because of our inconsistency of data entry, so the data quality will be materially improved in 2016 starting NOW.
UNDERSTAND PRODUCTIVITY of EACH REVIEWER - They are able to show us quantitatively the productivity of each reviewer which will in turn allow us to give better coaching, training and performance reviews.
UNDERSTAND ABILITY OF OUR FIELD RESOURCES - They are able to show the review time by field engineer, so not only will we see performance and productivity by reviewer but also by field resource. The review time is clearly a function of the quality of the initial product and the competence of the reviewer - so we can separate and understand the two!
THEY SPENT MATERIALLY LESS TIME than the SECOND GROUP and BROUGHT MASSIVE VALUE to THE TABLE, and POSITIONED us for MORE value going forward.
THIS WAS THE SAME SET OF DATA / THE SAME REPORTS BROUGHT TO ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE.
HOW EACH PERSON SHOWED UP MATTERED... and the ensuing conversation and dynamic within the team mattered.
IMAGINE A WORLD where people are showing up to FIND VALUE instead of FIGHT VALUE.
IMAGINE A COMPANY where people show up to understand not to interrogate... the difference ofcourse is to explore where the value lies rather than DISPROVE the value.
IMAGINE A COMPANY where we were actually encouraging, developing, and nurturing those skills in each other...
THE TIME WE COULD SAVE...
THE INTELLIGENCE THAT WE COULD LEVERAGE...
THE PROGRESS THAT WE COULD MAKE...
And, then I thought, could we potentially be doing the same thing with EVERYTHING?
When things happen in our lives, when we make mistakes, when we find errors, when our kids fail a test, or fail to study, or when they get an A, when we struggle with a relationship, or when we have an amazing one, when we discuss a situation with our kids, with our spouses...
WHEN WE CONSIDER IN OUR OWN MINDS OUR DAYS... OUR LIFE... OUR EVERYTHING...
DO we interrogate or do we explore?
DO we look to disprove our worth, our value, because we may have failed ourselves in the past?
DO we end up walking away from AMAZING opportunities to learn and to grow because we DISMISS them because we don't like how they feel or how they have FELT before?
DO we just accept things - and keep moving along - blindly, not learning much but consuming a ton of effort?
That one is worth repeating...
DO we just ACCEPT things - and keep moving along - blindly, not learning much but consuming a ton of effort?... our jobs, our kids, our spouses, ourselves...
"I am who I am"... "he is how he is"... "That's just her!"
OR
OR
OR
Do we EXPLORE...
Do we jump in with both feet, diligent but trusting...
CURIOUS but COMMITTED...
CAREFUL but CERTAIN...
That THERE is VALUE in EVERYTHING... And, that VALUE comes in small bits of INTELLIGENCE and LESSONS that BUILD and BUILD and BUILD over time...
IF YOU ARE AN EXPLORER...
IF YOU ARE CONSTANTLY FINDING VALUE...
Then you are GROWING and SUCCEEDING...
You are flourishing...
AND WHAT IS MOST AMAZING... is that you are FINDING JOY IN THE JOURNEY... because it makes sense... it is worthy of your time and your efforts... and your discoveries are clearing the way for better decisions, better collaboration, better results, brighter tomorrows...
HOW WE THINK... HOW WE SHOW UP in the smallest of meetings...
... reviewing the most mundane of data...
can be the unnecessary meeting that you were forced to go before you had your first cup of coffee.., that was one more example of how the rest of the world is trying to waste your time... and isn't nearly as intelligent as you are...
OR
that simple meeting can be the next place to UNLEASH YOUR INDIANA JONES style - TEMPLE OF DOOM, 007, PONCE DE LEONish MOST INSPIRED EXPLORER... It can be the next step on your journey to DISCOVER, to FIND, to UNCOVER MEANING, VALUE, WISDOM...
WHO ARE YOU?
HOW DO YOU SHOW UP?
THINK ABOUT IT... because it matters...
It matters so, so, so, so very much!
How you show up in the moment will define how you show up in your life...
Moments ARE LIFE!
EXPLORE LIFE in the MOMENTS and
FIND harmony,
Nestor