Story Telling Conference

Andrew Rixon of Babelfish is organising a conference on organisational storytelling in Melbourne, Australia on October 8th and 9th 2009.

Storytelling is a powerful mechanism for tapping into culture, emotion and archetypes within an organisation and is extremely relevant to managing change, exercising leadership, and managing relationships with internal and external stakeholders. 

The conference brings together a world class set of speakers and presenters on storytelling from across the globe. You can view the conference agenda at CelebratingStoryConference.pdf

Andrew has generously made available to me 3 tickets to the conference at a discount rate. I have two to pass on. If you are interested and will be in Melbourne Australia at the time, leave a message (with your email or phone number) and I'll get in touch to give you the details. 

Scenario Planning for our Planet's Future

Consider this. It's 1,000 years in the future. How many people are on the planet? How much of our natural resources (metals, oil, forests) are left?

Take oil as just one example. Oil is not used just for gasoline to power cars - only around 7% by volume of oil is used for transport. The rest goes towards asphalt for roads, cheap plastics for computer cases and other uses, and various chemical products for cleaning and other products that are based to some degree or other on petrochemicals. 

Peak oil theory tells us that if we review historically the amount of oil discovered over time, there is a bell shaped curve of discovery of oil over time - and we are already past the peak. Lagging this discovery curve by just a little is another bell curve, describing the extraction or production of oil from the discovered reserves. It is suggested we are near or just past the peak of production.

There is a lot to say about peak oil theory, but one central point is beyond dispute: sooner or later we as a planet run out of oil. When this happens, we need to find viable energy alternatives on a massive scale. Not only energy, but we have to source viable alternatives for asphalt, plastics, and other petrochemical based products.

The same can be said about virtually any other resource where we have a fixed volume available for discovery and extraction, say for example iron. At some point we pass the peak for discovery of iron ore, and a little later we pass the peak for production of iron. Eventually we reach the point where iron is cost prohibitive or we run out.

And if we push the scenario far enough out in to the future, we have a planet with a population of however many billion people - and no non-renewable resources such as metals or oil.

Now, this may not be 1000 years. It might be 10,000 or 100,000 - or 500. But sooner or later with an increasingly large population demanding a modern (or future!) energy and resource intensive lifestyle, we as a planet run out of non-renewable natural resources.

This means: eventually we won't be able to make a car out of metal. Or a spade. Or a rocket ship. If we build a road for our wooden carts, we won't be able to make it out of asphalt. If we have computers, they won't be made out of metal and plastics. If we use cleaning products they won't be based on petrochemicals.

What will happen to communications, to media, TV? Will we still have television of some type made from other renewable materials? Antennas not made of metal? Cases not made of plastics?

Will the world be able to support the same volume of people? Will society be as sophisticated and 'technological' or will human society change in some fundamental way?

A variety of scenarios can be drawn of what will happen as (when) resources become scarce. What's your view?

The Ten Roads to Riches

I have recently been reading Ken Fisher's book The Ten Roads to Riches and enjoying and learning a thing or two from it. 

Ken should know a thing or two about riches: as founder and chairman of Fisher Investments, he manages around $45 Billion of other people's assets - and gets to talk to a lot of rich people about how they got that way. Also, in the book Ken tells us that his personal assets (at the time of writing) were around $1.8B. Modest by his standards yes, but nonetheless giving him great credentials for writing this book!

For Ken, true "riches" start at around the $100M plus point. You have to have some standards! This book is about what kind of paths you can take to get there. 

Ken's thesis is that, putting aside factors he considers beyond our control such as winning the lottery or benefitting from an inheritance, there are really only 10 ways that people get really wealthy: 10 roads to riches! These are illustrated in his diagram:

The 10 roads, in a nutshell, are:

1. Build your own business ("the richest road") - and to build it either to sell or to last 
   
2. Become a CEO
   
3. Become a "ride along" - a trusted second in command the CEO needs and trusts who profits with the firm
   
4. Become excellent and successful at what you do (sport, writing, music) and famous - or better yet manage a portfolio of other people who are excellent and famous
   
5. Marry really really well
   
6. Steal it legally - become a Plaintiff Lawyer
   
7. Manage other people's money well, and both win
   
8. Invent income - create an ongoing income stream you own, from an invention, a song, a merchandising line, movie rights to stories, and other means
   
9. Become a real estate Baron
   
10. Save and invest wisely, consistently and effectively ("the road most travelled")
    

The roads can be combined: for example Ken founded his own company (road 1) which focused on managing other people's money (road 7).

The first thing I did after buying and opening this book, of course, was to scan through and see which road or two I related most strongly to. 

But the most fascinating thing was how much I learned from and enjoyed each chapter, even those I did not expect to gain a lot from. For example, I have no intention of becoming rich by marrying really really well (if I marry really really well my first criteria for "really really well" is not how much money my potential partner has). But the chapter contains a story about a young woman who developed a strategy for meeting wealthy men and put this strategy in to action in a way that was fascinating. 

On another note, his strategies for gaining the CEOs job are terrific!

The best thing though was the pithy insight. Ken has clearly learnt a thing or two along the way after 24 years of running his company. 

I really like this book as it dovetails well with some of my own independent ideas (related to how to get started from where you are now towards getting to where you want to go to).

I'd recommend this book. Even if you do not particularly want to reach the mega wealthy status at the end of the road to riches, there is plenty of useful advice about success. 

Book Review: Problem Solving 101

A colleague of mine commented recently that one of his tests when presenting powerful ideas to business audiences was to see if his 5 year old daughter could understand it. If it passed that test, then the idea was probably simple and powerful enough to be communicated effectively in a keynote presentation or workshop for a business community.

Ken Watanabe, a former management consultant with McKinsey Consulting, has taken a similar approach with this book. In 2007, Japan's Prime Minister made education the nation's top agenda item, promoting the need to shift from a "memory focused education" to a "problem solving focused education." As Ken recounts, he felt compelled to do his part. He left his job with McKinsey, and wrote a book on problem solving for Japan's children. Then something surprising happened. The book took off and became a best seller - and not just for kids. It became a best seller for adults in Japan, and then internationally.

Problem Solving 101 does not just teach problem solving skills, it is a charming book that teaches a consulting way of thinking but in a simple, logical and fun way. For those with an interest in the larger context, in terms of content the book teaches essentially the McKinsey consulting thought process, including breaking the potential problem in to a logic tree (McKinsey call this process MECE or Mutually Exhaustive Collectively Exhaustive) and developing and testing hypotheses to surface and address the root issue underlying the problem. As Ken mentioned by email interview:

"Problem Solving 101's basic approach is the approach Mckinsey uses.  At the end of the day, I wrote Problem Solving 101 because I thought we should all get a chance to learn McKinsey-type of thinking when we are young."

Clearly, however, describing the McKinsey consulting process in specific detail (like Rasiel and Friga have done in their book The McKinsey Mind) would not be the most engaging way to teach school children. The genius of the book is the way it takes the essence of this thinking process and makes it accessible to children - and adults - in 4 short lessons in a small book, having fun along the way.

The book makes its ideas accessible to children through the use of characters and scenarios that children can relate to. For example, "problem solving kids" with a constructive and effective problem solving mindset are contrasted with "Miss sigh" who gives up before she gets started, "Mr Critic" who shoots down other people's ideas but never does much himself, "miss dreamer" who never does anything about them, and "Mr Go-getter" who charges off with heroic action (possibly in the wrong direction) without thinking what the real issues or goals are.

I asked Ken Watanabe whether creating Logic Trees is more of an art or a science. Ken suggested:

'Creating logic trees is both an "art" and "science."  However, there are tips to make a logic tree.  You do not necessary have to create the logic tree from left to right.
What you can do is to...
  1) Use your intuition and list whatever comes to mind
  2) Group major topics on left, moving to more minor or limited topics to the right. Group similar topics together.
  3) Create more branches by asking 3 questions "What can I call this group to sum it up?" "Are their others?"  and "Specifically what or how?" '

I very much enjoyed this book and think it will be deservedly successful (as, indeed, it already has been). It will be useful not only to teach children from primary school through to high school pivotally important critical thinking skills, but can also be used as a problem solving tool for areas of our adult lives including our personal and professional growth. And, of course, we can learn McKinsey's way of thinking in a fun, powerful and readily applicable manner.

A Periodic Table of Visualisation Tools

I stumbled across this the other day and I love it!

It groups a wide range of visualisation techniques in a 'periodic table'. Hover over any element of the table to see an example of the visual tool it represents.

Using Social Networking to Promote Ideas

Gary Hayes has published a great photo summarising using various Web 2.0 social networking modalities to promote ideas to a wider audience. A small version is here (copyright Gary Hayes under Creative Commons licensing):

Gary suggests that the steps to success in social networking media are to:

• INVOLVE - live the social web, understand it
  
• CREATE - make relevant content for communities of interest
  
• DISCUSS - if there is no conversation around it, then the content may as well not exist
  
• PROMOTE - actively and respectfully promote the content with the networks
  
• MEASURE - monitor, iteratively develop and respond 
  

Nicely summarised Gary!

Performing Under Pressure with the Business Olympian

Olympic athletes need to perform under pressure, and so do business people. 

Gavin Freeman, the Business Olympian, is a former Olympic elite sports psychologist who is now making the connection between olympic sport psychology and elite performance in business.

Gavin delivered a workshop today for the VPS CIN to a group of 24 people on High Performance under Pressure.

Gavin talked about how our thoughts and emotions drive our actions, and that we need to learn what's going on within ourselves. 

During the workshop, participants looked at high pressure situations in their workplaces and their behaviours and strategies under pressure. 

Gavin took participants through the same process he took an Olympic archery team through - examining where and how they will feel the pressure during elite performance, and how to develop not only reactive strategies for dealing with pressure when it arises but also proactive strategies for dealing with possible pressure in advance.

One of the proactive strategies Gavin has used with Olympic Archers was to "take them to the Nth degree" in experiencing pressure situations before the big event. Gavin had his Archery team competing in front of family and friends, under simulated rain (with a high pressure hose) and with recorded sound distractions in the background. Gavin's workshop helped us identify similar situations we can treat with similar strategies.

Gavin also suggested a key to success in the modern business world is the "5 year old test" - if you can deliver your ideas in a way that a five year old can understand, it's probably good! Gavin also exhorted us to "be better than the ball" - if someone passes a ball to us poorly in sport, don't complain but pick it up and do something marvelous with it and we can do the same in business.

I was also interested in connections between the sports psychology perspective and some of my own interest areas. For example, Gavin talked about various "cognitive distortions" or ways of misrepresenting reality to oneself, which from a Buddhist perspective mirror the importance of seeing reality as it is. Similarly, the importance of developing awareness and particularly self-awareness in sporting (and business) performance mirrors the Buddhist emphasis on mindfulness.

For those interested in more detail on the connection between sports psychology and elite business performance, Gavin has written a book on the topic.

Making Magic Moments with Lou Heckler

It's always a great pleasure to hear a master story teller at work, and it's even more so when the master story teller is telling stories to help you understand his craft.

This week the National Speakers Association Australia brought out international speaker and speaking coach Lou Heckler to speak to speakers about the craft of speaking - making magic moments happen.

Amongst other things, Lou talked about asking "what's this like" - scanning your ongoing experience to "take a slice of life", something that you can relate back to your work or to your customers' needs. Lou talked about controlling your focus - putting away visual aids after you use them so the audience's attention returns to the speaker. In response to audience questions, Lou discussed his process of developing a keynote speech in great detail.

Lou graciously gave his time for a video interview with me after the workshop, but due to a technical issue this footage is no longer available. However I can mention that Lou gave this advice to aspiring speakers: find your passion, be an expert in your area, and to be authentic and respectful with your audience.