So often, when a project or product doesn't go well or fails, organizations do "post-mortems" - they go over what went wrong, why, sometimes rushing to blame people first instead of looking at processes.
What if we started doing pre-natals instead of post-mortems? What if our cross-functional teams, at various steps in project or product development, examined why, what and how they were doing, what was working and why, what wasn't and why, and discussed all the things that could go wrong from that point on and why they could go wrong and how they could mitigate or eliminate those risks? Then they could prioritize all that based on probability and possibility, make sure they are on top of those and do this regularly throughout development.
This isn't a fail-safe, but chances are a lot of problems could be caught, corrected and learned from before they happen and the more you do pre-natals, the better you'd get!
There's tons of questions we can ask ourselves to assess our lives, careers, goals, etc. Studies have been done and courses taught on scientifically proven methods to do this assessment. For me, questions should get us to think, to dig deeper and to look at possibilities - not to lead to quick, "do this and you'll be happy" answers. So here are the 3 questions I ask to start a Life by Design.
“What do you like/love to do and are good/great at doing?”
Make a list! These can be hobbies, skills, work, stuff you like learning or doing, anything - don't restrict yourself, take a holistic approach of you - personal, professional, academic, etc. And, if you want, try prioritizing them. You want to do a lot of these things in your life.
“What DON’T you like/love to do and are good/great at doing?”
Make another list. Same guidelines as above - hobbies, skills, work, learning, etc. and try to prioritize them. The goal is to minimize these - maybe you can even eliminate doing some of them, but we all have to do things we don't like so at least do less of them.
“What do you want to learn, explore, discover, experience in the next 2, 3 or 5 years?”
A few years ago, one of my students asked me to help her lay out her 10 year plan. I told her to write it down, put it in a drawer and then we'd talk about the next 2-5 years. Our world is changing too fast to plan what we will or want to do 10 years out, but we can plan, to a degree, who we want to be, what we will stand for, and what we won't stand for.
Think about the next 2-3 years, maybe 5. What do you want to learn, explore, discover, and/or experience? Learn how to code, make bookshelves, do graphic design, become a product manager for 3D-printed products, understand the Patagonian ecosystem, discover biomedical uses of Antarctic sea anemones, para-sail? Here's mine ->
Start thinking about the steps you can take to start! What does it entail? Who do you know who can help or inform you? What 1 or 2 small things can you do tomorrow to start? Go for it!
When is a fact true? This is a major question we’re asking given the pre/post-election. Sometimes, the answer isn’t a simple yes it’s true or no it’s not true. Sometimes the caveat “it depends…” provides critical insight into the context, constraints, veracity and therefore, applicability of the fact.
Let’s take 2 seemingly contradictory facts we’ve heard this past year:
Violent crime is up
Violent crime is down
According to the FBI and other studies, overall violent crime in the USA is at historic lows over the past 30, 10 and 5 years. Yet, when you examine the data in the same studies, it becomes clear both statements above are true:
There is a 5.5% rise is violent crime from 2015 to 2016 with half of that coming from LA and Chicago and yet, the overall rate is still at the “bottom of the nation’s 30-year downward trend.”
Chicago accounts for almost half the increase in murders from 2015 to 2016 with decreasing murder rates in Baltimore and Washington D.C. and New York as one of safest big cities.
Bottom line? Both facts are true. What you do with those facts depends on the questions you ask about those facts. What you ask with the subsequent iteration of answers and questions, is critical for making wise informed decisions. So try asking:
What is the timeframe?
Are there outliers?
What did/didn’t these facts (and underlying data) take into account (what’s missing)?
What do these facts assume?
How long will these facts be true?
Who did the study and who paid for it?
What other questions arise from this fact?
What would it mean if this wasn't true? Who would benefit or be harmed?
etc.....
The ability to interpret truth from facts is a critical skill for success - in business and in life. So starting today, or okay, tomorrow, ask questions when you're presented with facts - sales, recruiting, efficiency, inventory, market trends, anything - just start and see what you learn!
Deb Mills-Scofield
Deb is here to reveal to organizations their beginner's mind while giving them the tools to execute.
