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Taking Networking from Talk to Action

It is quite awkward when a fellow consultant tells me that I should be working with them, without really giving me a concrete reason why.

I find that it happens often here in the region with other consultants, who appear to think that the fact that I know their name is enough to be “networking.” This issue afflicts foreign and local consultants alike, but the impact on local professionals is higher because the business conditions are much more difficult.

Now and again I get the desperate call or email from someone asking me “if I know about any work or project opportunities.” I know them, and I might like them, but I actually don’t know them in a professional capacity — to their detriment. In other words, I cannot qualify them because they have done none of the legwork with me to give me a first hand experience of their thinking, their abilities, their skills or how well they can work together with me.

The problem is that they then drop off the radar altogether… never to re-appear until they need some more leads a few months later.

Recently, I put together a project that required 10 consultants to perform a specialized, public training. The stakes were rather high and it just could not fail.

I found myself reaching back to professionals in the U.S., partly due to the fact that my network of consultants in the U.S. is a rich one, and the fact that I could qualify their abilities to execute to some degree. They were used to delivering at a high standard, and this was a program that required nothing short of flawless execution.

There was no-one I could think of who was based in the region who I trusted to have the skills to deliver the project.

Part of the problem is that while I know people here, I don’t know their skills — so that disqualified many. But as I thought about it some more, I realized that none of them were taking the steps to build the kind of bridges of trust that are needed to be staffed on larger, more difficult projects.

I think that the primary obstacle is the kind of peculiar “professional fear” that our region’s professionals have of being “taken” — that someone will steal their ideas, their relationships, their projects, their livelihood, etc. In a prior blog, I spoke about the willingness to have the ideas in this blog stolen and used wherever possible.

I think there are some simple ways in which other consultants in the region could network more effectively with me, a fellow consultant. I would advise another consultant in the HR field to:

  1. Participate
    I write 2 blogs, my firm sponsors CaribHRForum, and I regularly ask for sources of new ideas. A fellow consultant could easily join in online discussions, ask questions, give ideas for future content and make public comments, just using the channels I have set up for myself. I other words, they should become a pest to me and others who are either delivering or paying for consulting engagements in the different fora that already exist.

  2. Volunteer
    Very few people ask: “How can I help?” If asked, they infrequently respond affirmatively to opportunities to work with me in a volunteer capacity. The truth is, that I work with people I trust, and that trust can be developed easily by stepping up to help when our livelihoods are not at stake.

  3. Ask for Project Advice
    I think that reaching out for help when projects get difficult is a great way to build bridges. I spent an hour with a consultant doing just that a few months ago, and even if he didn’t use any of what I suggested, I thought that it showed a willingness on his part to learn and to think out of the box. (N.B. Just remember to close the loop after the project is over.)

  4. Request Project Collaboration
    Sometimes it is useful to bring other people in on projects just because the alliance would make you both stronger, and possibly lead to further opportunities. It costs real dollars to do so, and it takes some risks, but the value created from sharing the work can surpass the short term cost.

  5. Say Yes!, Even When You Must Say No
    Another recommendation would be to demonstrate enthusiasm to the idea of being asked to work on projects when I happen to call. It may be that the project is not a good fit, and may not work, but the enthusiasm goes a long way.

  6. Don’t Drop Off the Face of the Earth
    I recently staffed a project with a consultant that I had completely forgotten about. He only came to mind when the client mentioned him as a possible candidate. What they could have done to stay in my awareness was to find some way to stay in touch. I had to hunt them down through other people, because the contact information I used was already old. Plaxo.com, a contact updating system, is a powerful and free tool for getting this done.

In addition, I send out some 500 Christmas cards each year — at great expense and effort — to contacts from all over, in an ongoing attempt to remain “top of mind.”

Unfortunately, a consultant who is not prepared to do the activities I have listed above is only making it harder on themselves.

P.S.
One of the activities I am undertaking this year is to deliberately deepen my own network of HR consultants. We plan to offer a training in the Lights!Camera!Action! techniques later this year — probably free of cost — in a hope to do just that. More information on these techniques is available as a free download by sending email to fwc-lcaintro@aweber.com

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FirstCuts ezine 8.0

FirstCuts Framework Consulting logo

A Framework Consulting Online eZine

High-Stake Interventions — New Ideas Issue 8 February 15, 2007

Delegating in Caribbean Companies
by Francis Wade

Editorial

This week’s issue is one that I had to break up into at least two parts, due to its length. This is the first time that I have had to do this, and I think that wherever it makes sense I will try to break up lengthy issues.

I am aware of the studies that show that it is easier to read from paper than it is onscreen, and that the writing and spacing needs to be quite different. At the same time, I have a hunch that my average reader is more used to the British than American style of
writing — more heft and pomp, but also less of a quick read over breakfast at your desk.

Next month at this time the Cricket World Cup will be underway across the region. It will be the single largest undertaking for our region, and the most important collaborative effort by our relatively small countries. I am hoping that it benefits all our people, as intended.

Time to start to Rally Roun’ the West Indies… now and forever!

Until next month,

Francis

Delegating in Caribbean Companies

In Caribbean companies, and especially in growing start-ups, executives often complain that they cannot find good people to work for them. In our work at Framework, we have found that executives, in particular, have an acutely difficult time filling positions that they themselves once held.

They look for professionals with the best credentials, thinking that the new hire’s education should help them to do a job that others before them had to learn on their own. They bring them on board, give them all that they need, including a substantial salary. Success seems to be a “sure thing.”

That is, until the new hire shows a lack of “basic common sense.”

That is exactly how executives put it to me when they complain that they cannot fill key positions reporting to them in the corporate hierarchy.

The star they hired appears not to be a star at all.

According to the executive, in a series of critical moments, the new appointee demonstrates an appalling lack of judgement that leaves the executive distressed, and forces them to swoop in to
save the day. When it occurs it is stressful, tiring and disheartening.

It leaves them wondering why exactly they are paying such a tremendous salary, and how it is that they, themselves, could have learned the job armed with less training, help and pay.

Unfortunately, the end-result is often disastrous. The new hire fails, and fails again, until they are fired. In some companies, the cycle continues, as a number of people are hired into the same position, only to fail within a matter of months. No-one seems able to succeed.

At one Caribbean company, the key position of VP-HR remains unfilled for over ten years. The company has been through a series of incumbents, none of whom stayed for more than a few months. Interestingly, the President actually performed the job capably at one time, and continues to hold the position in his portfolio while the search for a new executive continues.

What exactly is lacking? Is the educational background of the new hires inadequate? Or are the expectations too high? Are executives somehow being unfair when they hire replacements in our
region’s companies?

Our work in the Caribbean has taught us a few lessons in this area: executives do not properly “systematize” their work, they don’t delegate it systematically and they do not establish
appropriate feedback loops to be successful.

“Systematizing” Work

The chaos of day-to-day Caribbean business life often seems to be enough to force a manager to operate in perpetual crisis mode. While moving from one problem to another, each and every day brings with it unique challenges that require significant energy and ingenuity just to stay above water.

In one company we worked with, there is a policy that managers must answer the phone when it rings, and to reinforce the policy there is no provision for voicemail. The result? Highly trained managers with no control over their personal schedule, as the culture of the company is one in which everything stops when the phone rings.

In another company that prided itself on being customer-centric, even the CEO would drop everything when a customer had a problem. It had to be solved immediately at all costs, disrupting meetings and any other activity that happened to be underway.

Unfortunately, managers who work in these environments learn not to make plans, and instead surrender themselves to whatever might be happening in the moment. Many compensate by coming to work early, leaving late or working on weekends and holidays — when everyone else in the office is hopefully away.

Michael Gerber’s book, The eMyth Revisited, offers a brilliant prescription in the form of an insight: the very best managers not only work IN their jobs, they work ON them. In other words, they
set time aside to examine the way in which they do their work. They purposefully spend time thinking about their job, how they are executing it, how they are measuring their own success, and what techniques they should use to take it to another level.

Better managers take the next step and “systematize” their job function. They have determined that it is not enough for them to be effective, but they also have decided to assure the success of
their successor by documenting HOW the job is done when it is being done well. They look deeply into the heart of what they are doing, in an effort to develop processes that help them to automate key aspects of the job using the best methods possible. For example, when they find a piece of software that makes their job easier, they document it for future use.

For example, before my first visit to DisneyWorld as an adult several years ago, I happened to buy a book with the title: “How to Enjoy DisneyWorld without Kids.” The book gave a unique
perspective on how to enjoy the different theme parks while avoiding lines, escaping the heat and skipping attractions that would have no interest for adults. I had a wonderful time, thanks
to the work that someone else had done to document insider tips, practices and information that
were unique to my needs.

Gerber advocates writing a very similar document for each job, and argues that this is exactly what the very best managers do. They document their short-cuts, process descriptions and tips in a way
that allows almost anyone with common-sense to do the job effectively.

According to him, it is the single most powerful technique that Ray Kroc, the founder of the McDonald’s chain, used to create the world’s first mega-franchise. After buying a single hamburger
restaurant from the McDonald brothers in California, he discovered and documented what made it successful, and built a chain on the contents of the unique manuals he was able to assemble.

The result? Today, identical-tasting hamburger and fries are sold from thousands of restaurants worldwide to 54 million people daily.

Systematization is a powerful method that is very rarely used in our region’s companies.

When it is not done, incoming managers are forced to learn job from scratch, based on little or no basic information, let alone the kind of detailed and nuanced insights that the executive needs to
pass on to a new hire. It may seem that the new hire is failing to demonstrate common sense, but the real failure occurs when managers are not trained to systematize their work and to produce the
turnover documents the new hire needs.

Turnover Documents

Turnover documents include all the information that new hires need to be successful. At the very least, they start with a generic kind of job description. At the very best, they are the end-result of a
long, hard process that a manager has undertaken to work ON their job. They describe the innovations and improvements that a manager has implemented, and if a new hire is lucky it can span several years and managers.

There is no set format to the documents that I have seen and written. They are informal, and meant for immediate application. They are filled with inside knowledge of how things _really_ work — as opposed to how they are supposed to work.

In Jamaica this informal knowledge that is critical to success is known as “the runnings”. Here in the Caribbean, it often means the difference between profit and loss.

For example, the turnover document written for a VP-HR position could describe how to obtain a work permit for an expatriate professional. It would detail who to contact within the Ministry
of Justice and Immigration and who to avoid, which forms are really needed, what the true cost is and how the number of trips to various government offices could be reduced.

A well-written document would save the new VP-HR many hours of time and effort. Yet, in the example cited above, it could only be written by the President of the company — the last person to
successfully perform the job.

However, when the turnover document is missing a new hire could flounder, and make the kind of mistakes that the President might call “a lack of common-sense.”

Make no bones about it — developing a turnover document takes tedious, quiet work with no immediate payoff. Most managers prefer to focus on the job at hand, and the results they have to produce in the next few days. Any improvements are incorporated into new practices on the fly, as the learning shifts to other competencies.

As new competencies are mastered, over time the original, primary learning recedes into the subconscious.

In most Caribbean companies that we have worked with, the idea of turnover documents is quite foreign. While it is possible to reverse-engineer them from a manager’s experience and memory, the
process is a difficult one.

The best method we have used with our clients involves intense interviews that are essential for getting at the aspects of the job that are done without conscious effort. Sometimes, using this
approach is the only alternative a company has, but the very best approach is to develop a culture in which turnover documents are the norm, rather than the exception.

In the cases in which a manager leaves the company altogether, turnover documents are impossible to create, requiring an injection of new costs and time in order to bring a new manager up to speed.

A Turnover Culture

There is no single approach to developing a culture in which systematization is the norm, but the best companies start by engaging their managers in building a long-term future for the
firm.

These companies clearly describe the rationale behind systematization, and the need for turnover documents. They ask managers to start writing them once they change jobs, and create
the expectation that their ability to turn the function over to another person is a requirement of the job.

Managers also learn that they will not be deemed ready for promotion until their turnover documents are in order, and fully updated.

There is a natural resistance to writing these documents that we have found in Caribbean companies, however, and it must be dealt with it at some point.

The first source of resistance comes from a bureaucratic unwillingness to make self-replacement easy. Managers often try to protect their positions by keeping key information close to their
chests, and thereby ensure some job security. Developing a turnover document can look to them like career suicide.

The second source of resistance comes from the fact that the time spent to develop a turnover document has little immediate and practical benefit to the incumbent. The benefit to having them
comes in the long term in most companies, in the form of the firm’s success. Many managers are just unwilling to wait that long.

Companies that are able to create cultures whose values surpass this resistance are able to tap into something very powerful: a technique that builds the company from the inside, with all the
employees working ON their jobs as well as IN them.

Summary

Presidents and CEO’s, systematization assures the success of the company in the future, and helps to build a true Learning Organization along the way.

Gone is the expectation of instant success, as it becomes apparent to the executive that mastering the job is largely a function of how well it was systematized when it was the incumbent’s
responsibility. When the executive turns over a position they once held to a new hire, they have a much better appreciation for what the job entails.

From the turnover documents, common sense appears to be not so common after all, and executives can clearly see how their subordinate’s success is up to them, and their ability to systematize their jobs.

In next month’s Issue: Learn why accountabilities in turnover documents must be gradually delegated to prevent failure, and also why solo entrepreneurs also need to systematize their work.

The FirstCuts Bottom Line: Begin to systematize your work now.

*

What are some of the things you are doing to systematize your work? Let us know at the Framework blog by following this link and leaving us a comment: http://tinyurl.com/26m3u9

Useful Stuff

Tips, Ads and Links
I referred to Michael Gerber’s book in this Issue. His website is also filled with information: http://www.e-myth.com, most of it geared towards entrepreneurs. The ideas that I have extracted for this issue are at the heart of his approach.

Back Issues of FirstCuts can be found at http://tinyurl.com/pw7fa

We are on the lookout for possible contributors to FirstCuts. If you are interested, send email to francis@fwconsulting.com to be included in a future mailing. Please send this request along to
others.

To manage this newsletter, we use an excellent programme called AWeber that you can explore here:- http://www.aweber.com/?213577

Subscriber Q&A
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Nigger-itis

In Jamaica, we have a name for the post-meal laziness that supposedly afflicts Black people: “niggeritis.” The truth is, it has nothing to do with race because as far as I can tell, it afflicts everyone.

It looks like researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health agree, and they think that we should pay attention to it because we ignore the mid-day urge to take a nap at our own peril.

The report starts with the following:

Like to kick back for an afternoon siesta? Good news: a new study shows that regular napping may cut your risk of dying from a heart attack or other heart problems.

In the largest study to date on the effects of midday snoozing, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of Athens Medical School in Greece, tracked 23,681 apparently healthy men and women, ages 20 to 86, for more than six years.

I like the part that says Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially in the United States, where employers are not exactly known to encourage workers to nap.

Now that’s what I call a good reason to move back to work in the Caribbean.

If I ever work for someone else again, I plan to tell them right up front that I have a congenital heart condition that requires occasional naps to prevent it from one day killing me.

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Improvements in Presentations

Awhile ago I gave a presentation that seemed to be a good one. The crowd’s reaction was strong to the half-hour presentation, and a few people came up to find out more about our company and what it was doing in the region.

However, one woman went a bit further, and made a complaint. She said that the slides could be improved, and offered her help to make them better.

I was a bit taken aback. Although my PowerPoint presentation had been put together on the plane on the morning of the presentation, I thought that I had done a creditable job in putting some words together that would help people see what I was saying more clearly.

After all, most of the other people who spoke did not even have slides that were tailored to the conference material, so I considered myself a step above.

A year later, the presentation I gave is almost embarrassing to me, and I can never do such a presentation again.

Her comment moved me to be open to some new approaches, and when I can across a book by Jerry Weisman called ______________ and a blog called PresentationZen, I knew that it was time for a radical upgrade in the way I presented my materials.

Here is one of the slides from the presentation entitled “Using the Service Inventory to Create the Customer Experience” delivered in October of 2005.

Contrast that with a slide I presented at a recent speech I gave at a client’s internal meeting in November of 2006:



While I don’t intend to go into the different reasons for using a slide like this one in this blog entry, I can say that I have found that a slide like the one above touches an audience in very different ways, and at many levels.

The tendency of most speakers is to read from slides that are dense with information, and the content acts as a crutch for those who are insecure about getting lost in the presentation.

When the slide is used to make both an emotional point and a logical point, the impact is quite different, and the speaker interacts with the slide as an aide to the larger point that he/she is attempting to make, and to the intended result of the presentation.

Here is another example:



The point here is that slides are playing a different role in my presentations, and one that I think would be more interesting and emotionally compelling to the audience.

What a distance to come.

One caveat is that it no takes several hours of preparation to get the right combination of images and words to produce the intended result of the presentation. Finding the right image is no easy task, and it takes hours of looking at hundreds of pictures that do not fit the bill to find a handful that do. Sometimes, the search is fruitless and I have to resort to words. Often, the images are not Caribbean enough, as there are very few pictures reflecting the primarily African-Indo blend that we have in the English-speaking region.

Given that presentations are an important tool in the work I perform, making this shift has been gratifying, and hopefully my audiences have benefited from the change. Kudos to the unnamed and unknown woman who gave me a wake-up call a year ago.

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DB&G — not becoming db&g

I have been watching the takeover of DB&G by ScotiaBank and wondering what I would do if I were involved at any level.

If I were an employee, I would be concerned.

Although the previous and new owners have promised that there would be only a few changes, human behaviour would predict otherwise. The truth is that in acquisitions, everything changes, and very few things remain the same.

In fact, they MUST change, because that is the very purpose of the activity.

Scotiabank is not taking over DB&G for the fun of owning another institution. Instead, it wants to achieve particular business objectives and sees DB&G as the vehicle to accomplish them.

This is just about THE most fundamental change that can happen in business, as it is only a matter of time before Scotia’s business goals percolate down, affecting every single employee and every single customer. In the case of ScotiaBank and DB&G, Scotia cannot help but affect DB&G’s culture, morale and values. Their relative sizes guarantee an inordinate impact.

I imagine that the employees of DB&G have probably already developed the us vs. them language that I have seen in every M&A I have studied or witnessed.

Experience tells me that the best way to reduce DB&G, the brand to just “db&g,” a small part of a much larger bank, is to deny the reality that massive changes are coming, and to insist that everything is going to be the same. Unfortunately, the message that “things are going to be the same” is quickly followed by its evil twin: “things are fine.”

Most managers of M&A’s stick to these two scripts, even when their employees are telling them over and over again that they are wrong.

The effect of this inauthenticity is a separation between management and employees, and a loss of trust. Managers either lose touch with reality, or their people, and the predictable result is a drop in morale. Like George Bush and Dick Cheney on the Iraq War, they continue to assert that “there have been tremendous successes” and “failure is not an option” in the face of mountains of contrary, public evidence.

Managers find themselves in what they think is a catch-22: they try to “stay focused on the positive,” thinking that they cannot tell themselves and others the truth of what they think and feel, because it would destroy what little morale and trust they have left.

What they don’t appreciate is that employees want the very opposite. If the situation is dire, and bad things are likely to happen, then it is much better for everyone to acknowledge them together, rather than try to deny that they will ever happen. While some sad, fearful and even angry feelings may come out at first, it is more likely to help morale, productivity and the long-term future of the company if the truth were openly acknowledged at each step of the way.

The old DB&G has passed away. To prevent a broken, busted “db&g” from crawling out from the remains, the management of the new entity will need courage to talk about the changes that are likely, and predictable, and even those that are unwanted, and unpredictable.

This kind of courage actually gives employees faith that the leadership is fully in touch with reality.

What becomes possible is that an entirely new company could be created from the old. By freely allowing the old company to pass away (while mourning its death) the space might open up for a new DB&G — Subsidiary of ScotiaBank — to be created.

It is a natural progression of events that only managers can thwart by continuing to insist that what is dead is still, somehow, alive.

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More on the Skills Certificate and Trinidad

The following excerpt appeared in the Jamaica Daily Gleaner:

But there are still some wrinkles to seamless movement, for example, Barbados must still set up a free movement committee, said Steven MacAndrew, regional specialist for the free movement of skills and labour.

Other member states were also lagging but, like Barbados, he added, free movement is still being facilitated, even though from time some problems arise.

The main hiccup, appears to be in Port of Spain.

“The main issue with free movement at this point in time is that Trinidad and Tobago must still implement the decision of the Conference of Governments taken in July 2005 in St. Lucia that Caricom nationals who are entering with skills certificate can work immediately,” said MacAndrew.

The full article can be accessed by clicking here.

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Designing Your Own Time Management System

Individual time management systems are notoriously difficult to implement.

Most professionals are never taught how to manage their time, and cobble together a home-grown system based on whatever software they find on their computers when they get their first jobs. They know little of best practices or universal principle, and get by making lists when they have to, but mostly operate without standard processes.

They do learn, however, how to complain about not having enough time, having too much to do and being stressed by how much the job is demanding of them. Everyone they know who cares about their job has the same complaint, so they find themselves in good company.

The Caribbean manager is no different in this regard. They, like others, look at what other people who accomplish much more than they do with a sense of amazement. These hyper-productive people seem to be using magical methods to get the job done.

In an attempt to close the gap, they may place themselves in a time management course, or pick up a book on time management. Unfortunately, the results are temporary.

The reason is simple: no two people are alike, yet the guru behind any time management approach is advocating a single approach for everyone.

While it is a good bet that the approach works for the guru, it is doubtful that it works for more than a handful of people.

Some of the reasons for this are obvious.

People are different, and the habits they currently use vary tremendously also. Some of the factors include:

  • the availability of the internet
  • choices of software
  • availability of PDA’s
  • whether their jobs involve travel or not
  • the degree of variability they face in an average day
  • their personal level of discipline
  • their preference for evening or morning activity
  • how close their old habits conform to the new ones being taught
  • whether they are more right or left brained, or more of an NT or SP, or their sign is a Leo or Sagittarius, or DiSC, or Black or white, or whatever system of classification they use to differentiate human beings

Certainly, a time management system designed in North America, with its virtually perfect supplies of electricity, water and relatively low crime is a different animal from the best Caribbean manager’s style of time management.

The fact is, the vast majority of professionals are unable to shoehorn themselves into “foreign” time management systems that other people have designed for very long. They fall back into their habits quickly, and are often no better for having taken the course 6 months after the fact.

The lucky few need only make some small changes to fit into the new system, and they are the success stories touted in public.

To further complicate matters, any given system that is adopted can only be relied upon to work temporarily. A time management system is a little like a diet – it must change over time, to accommodate changing goals and different goals.

A time management system for a single individual will be different depending on an individual’s

  • career phase (including retirement)
  • age
  • level of responsibility
  • kind of job
  • work environment
  • country
  • mobility
  • use of, and access to new technology

We in Framework believe that professionals do not benefit from being taught a single system for the reasons outlined above.

Instead, the program we are developing has as its cornerstone the requirement that the user of a good time management system must also be its master designer. They need to be able to make decisions as to how they change their system when, for example, a new version of Microsoft Outlook is adopted by their company, and they find out that it removes some capabilities that they used to enjoy.

In our course we plan to teach people how to design a time management system, by giving them insights into the nature of the problem they face, and a menu of choices that they must make to complete the system. They will start with their current set of habits, and by taking care not to be too ambitious about their capabilities, the system they will design will be one that suits them.

We will also help them to migrate to future systems and to look for the creation of tools that can be added into the system they have designed.

To this, they will need to understand the principles behind the need to manage the flood of demands on their time that they now face, and how it impacts them as Caribbean professionals.

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BOOM!

Last night I attended the first networking event sponsored by Boom networking, a Jamaican-based party/learning/teaching group of young(er) professionals.

The results? Spectacular.

In a recent issue of Framework’s OnePage Digest I had mentioned that:

Boom Networking (fete): If there is such a thing as a business fete, then this is IT. Their newsletter explains everything you need to know about the upcoming “La Investa Fiesta” which I have heard rave reviews about, but have not been able to schedule. If you go, bid on some drinks for me in the “Alcohol Exchange!”

Now, I can safely say that Boom has brought another part of their mission successfully into focus — sharing ideas and networking — in the form of last night’s ScotiaBank sponsored event:

Welcome to Boom Business! We have partnered with ScotiaWealth to bring you cutting-edge workshops and seminars to improve your life. Based on your feedback when you registered, our first topic is:

“Seeing Around the Corner—Exploring Untapped Opportunities”

Wednesday 31st January 2007
at 6:00pm
Talk of the Town, Jamaica Pegasus

This session will feature discussions with Patrick Casserly, Indi Couch and André Hylton as they S.H.A.R.E. how the took advantage of uncommon opportunities in their businesses.

Then, André Bello will share some Global Trends you should be aware of, and give you a new framework for Creative Thinking.

Important – Space is limited! Confirm your attendance by calling Dionne Blackwood at 932-0543.


It was brilliantly done, from the excellent speakers, wonderful presentation, tasty finger-food and high quality wine tasting. A hit on several levels.

I consider myself lucky to be able to attend the first of what I hope will be a long series of events.

And, I can’t wait to get to the next party!

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Self-Interests and Selfishness

Framework cultural interventions rely, in part, on assisting employees at all levels in seeing their self-interests more clearly.

One criticism of this approach comes from a fear that if the pursuit of self-interests are the means, that the result might be mayhem as people do what they want selfishly.

The typical response is a moral one: “people should not be encouraged to be selfish.”

Unfortunately, moral reasoning rarely works, and seems to generate more guilt than anything else. Guilt is more often than not paralyzing, so the repetition of the morality of unselfishness produces little more than a stasis.

Instead, our approach is to deepen self-interest, trusting that if it is pursued wholeheartedly and rigorously, the result will actually be the same as that of the moralists. It is just that the pathway is much easier to follow, and is more likely to produce results than repeating the greatest sayings from any of the moral writings produced to date.

To illustrate, let us look at President Bush’s war in Iraq.

He honestly believes that the war in Iraq is morally correct – of that there is little doubt. However, what he could perhaps be persuaded to see is that continuing the war is not in America’s best self-interest.

The country seeks to live in a peaceful world, and it is obvious that the Iraqi occupation has and will continue to generate more opposition in the form of jihadists, terrorists, nationalists, Islamists and others who are growing up learning to hate America. He might also see that it is in America’s interest to demonstrate that the use of force is not the best way to resolve differences, as it tend to breed further force. Instead, it is in America’s best interest to demonstrate what peaceful approaches can accomplish in the hope that others may be persuaded to follow suit.

I am not saying that this will work or not with President Bush, just that it is more likely to accomplish the result, merely because the self-interests from which he is making decisions is just too narrow to succeed.

The book Freakonomics, makes the case that most drug dealers live at home with their mothers. They cannot afford to live on their own as the vast majority of them “earn” less than the minimum wage from dealing drugs. Only a tiny percentage “make it” to the top (as in any corporation,) and along the way the risks of being killed by another gang member, imprisoned or overdosing is considerable.

Perhaps the only reason that young men choose to be dealers is that they are unaware of the true nature of their full self-interests, and therefore, how to accomplish them. To say it somewhat differently, their choice to enter the gang is based on a very thin slice of self-interests.

A drug addict who takes the very first hit from a crack pipe does not do so with the intention to kill themselves slowly, painfully and publicly, even when there is abundant evidence around them that this is their likely fate. Instead, at the moment before they inhale their true self-interests are hidden from view, or obscured by their need to feel good, be accepted or to numb themselves from inner pain.

Their choice to do drugs is based on a small subset of their true self-interests.
Unfortunately, in today’s world we suffer from accusations of selfishness, and this prevents us from pursuing self-interests openly. Instead, we cover them up by pretending that our actions have nothing to do with us.

All it actually reveals is that we have been thwarted in our thinking, and stopped from pursuing our self-interests a far as we could.

The irony is that the person who has a commitment to deepen their self-interest quickly discovers that (to the surprise of the moralist) it deeply involves and includes other people.

As a thought experiment, take anything or concept of value: love, money, work, sex, possessions, service, giving, having fun, etc. Think of how each of them only makes sense in the company and experience of others.

Getting more sex involves giving more money. Getting more service requires giving more service. Having more love means giving more love. Having more work means giving more work.

The pursuit of self-interest does not lead to an inward-turning selfishness – not if there is rigour and honesty. Instead it leads to the discovery that when I have more of what I really want, you have more of what you really want.

This simple line may take a lifetime to appreciate, but it need not.

Instead, we can accelerate how we all learn its truth by encouraging each other to learn how true it is from actual, first-hand experience, rather than from someone else in the form of a dictate.

There might be a shortcut available to all of us here. Gandhi said: “If you want to change the world, become the first change.” We might expand that here to mean, “If you want anything, pursue it, and discover the degree to which it involves and includes other people, then act freely to want it for all.”

That might be the way to know, deep in our, hearts that our interconnectedness is real, strong and true. Martin Luther King said “We are connected .. interlocking web of …mutuality.” In Africa there is a word: Ubuntu – which means that I am all I can be, until you are all that you can be.

Perhaps this all works because we humans are all so very similar – made from the same “stuff.”

I want to be loved, and so do you. I want to love, and so do you. Loving is much easier when we both know what we want, and that it is the same thing.

Selfish? Who knows… Motivated by self-interested? Absolutely.

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The Power of Self Interest

In Framework’s cultural interventions, one of the ways in which individuals transform themselves is by recognizing that some of their current actions are not in their own self-interest.

Often, we humans struggle to understand each other. In the workplace, management struggles to understand workers and vice versa, as motivations appear to be not just hidden but alien to their own.

In the not-so recent news, RBTT Jamaica announced that they had accomplished record profits. This week, a strike was averted when the management decided, at the eleventh hour, to change its offer of an increase in wages from 4% to 6%.

I imagine that some workers are wondering why the bank’s management and ownership cannot see that treating them well is the key to making even greater profits in the future. In other words, workers think management cannot see that it would be serving its own interests by granting the increase that the workers are (at this point) demanding.

By the same token, management is probably asking itself why the workers cannot see that putting more of the profits into wages rather than new investments means slowly killing the goose that laid the golden egg, by starving the bank of opportunities to grow itself.

What might be missing at the moment (and this is pure conjecture on my part) is that management and workers do not share the same self-interest. In other words, they cannot see it or separate it from the other points of view that are competing for their attention.

A powerfully defined self-interest would change everything, and it would not even have to be the same for both.

To illustrate, every spiritual and wisdom tradition that I am aware of counsels against holding grudges.

Why so?

Can the truth be found in this old saying: “Revenge is like drinking poison, hoping that someone else will die.”

A grudge is a self-sentence, as it imprisons the one holding the grudge to a life of vigilance – watching to make sure that the person they have mentally imprisoned never escapes.

Unfortunately, the person holding the grudge is unable to see their own full self-interest, and can only see the passing benefit they feel from blaming the person.

In reality, the other person might well be leading a happy, fulfilled life. They cannot be aware of the depth of the grudge (indeed, no-one can.) The torment that the grudge produces is experienced for the most part in the mind of the one holding the grudge.

Holding on to it is just not in their self-interest.

In our interventions we focus on training employees to manage their own self-interest in an enlightened way. We have found that if an employee can appreciate and accept more of their own self-interest, they make better choices.

When coaching an individual, we might ask:
a) What is your self-interest?
b) What are you doing to accomplish it?
c) What are you doing that is working against it?
d) How can you better meet your self-interest?
e) What other self-interests do you now see?

What we have found is that telling someone that they should “be less selfish” does little more than make them feel guilty, and is a difficult leap for many employees to make in a working environment, as companies are not created to accomplish moral goals. Instead, companies are formed with the clear intention to achieve material goals, and at the source of every corporation is a person or group of persons that were unabashedly pursuing a self-interest.

The real problems come when individuals and companies lie about their self-interest, and insist that they either “don’t have one” or are “above such things.” These lies prevent the kind of truthful cooperation that produces partnerships, in which, for example, both managers and workers are honest about their self-interests, and can plainly see that they must cooperate to accomplish them.