Discovering a World of Unlimited Creativity

“Thinking about thinking? That sounds a bit weird!” said my daughters. So much for the open minds of the young. For the last month I’ve been fulfilling a long term desire to lubricate my mind with the oil of philosophy. Along the way I’ve tried to explain to my offspring (clearly with limited success) what I’ve learnt and why it’s important.

Of course I can understand why the idea of thinking about thinking seems a bit bizarre. In the age of Go! Go! Go! even a pause for thought is likely to get you an impatient push from behind.

Australia’s new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently announced a summit of 1000 citizens to ‘harness the best ideas across the nation’.

The summit was dubbed a ‘talkfest’ while the media announcement was still warm. Commentators demanded to know how it would lead to concrete action. The idea that there could be any value in a group of smart people simply sharing ideas, in the hope of catalyzing further, even better ideas, is anathema to 21st century society.

Which is why even a small smear of philosophy could give you an edge. It will help you, to borrow from Rudyard Kipling, keep your head while all about you are losing theirs.

Are We Reaching our Speed Limit?

 

What a buzz. Unexpectedly, on a recent trip to New Zealand, I was able to see, up close, the ‘World’s Fastest Indian’. This was the motorcycle made famous in the uplifting film of that name. 40 years on, Burt Munro’s motorcycle still holds land speed records for its class. It got me thinking about the speed of our working lives.

There’s little doubt the world feels faster. “It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place,” as the Red Queen says in Through the Looking Glass. Faster communication. Faster food. Ever more instant satisfaction. “Buy today and pay nothing for 40 months!” cries a local discounter’s advertising.

But I suspect we are reaching some limits.

Flexible working hours work. Why are they so rare?

One of the principles of creating a simple workplace – a workplace in which it is easy to get things done – is the creation of flexibility. Making it easier for people to do their work when and where they can would seem an obvious way to help employees strike the right balance between work and home.

And it works. I’ve just read interviews with two CEOs – Peter Widdows of Heinz Australia and Tom Quinn of Aker Kvaerner – who describe the significant cultural benefits their organizations have gained from providing their staff with greater flexibility.

A Simple Truth about Work-Life Balance

Speaking of Balance, this month’s article for Business Simplification just happens to be on that topic…

It all started well for Russell. Like a growing number of busy 21st century managers, he wanted more balance. He counted himself lucky when he and his wife worked out they could afford him to cut back to four days a week. His own manager, although hesitant, opted to support him rather than risk losing years of knowledge and experience.

In the first few weeks, Russell relished the new arrangement. He was surprised at how the simple act of picking his kids up from school made him feel more a part of his own family. At how relaxed taking part in routine family conversation made him feel. He even found himself (secretly) enjoying playing umpire in sibling spats.

Meanwhile, Russell also felt that he was much more focused and productive when he was at the office. He put that down to the extra ‘headspace’ he seemed to have.

But change crept up on him. It was his wife who noticed first. Where he’d started checking his email from home once or twice a day, that grew to hourly. Twice in a row, calls to the office caused him to be late for the school pick-up. Increasingly, as before, he complained to his wife about the length of his ‘to do’ list.

Russell’s newfound work-life balance was teetering.

Then a news story prompted an epiphany. During a report about a recent bushfire, Russell heard an interview with a farmer bemoaning the loss of his fences. The farmer grumbled that without effective boundaries around and within his property, he had no control. Russell realized that the same applied to him.

He had not established any boundaries around his time. Russell’s full time colleagues worked, more or less, within the ‘natural’ boundary of the weekends. He had not – in his own mind – properly adjusted his own boundaries to fit his new circumstances. He needed to better separate his ‘work’ time from his ‘life’ time.

He had not established any boundaries around his expectations. In the past he had worked hard to manage the chronic frustration that his ‘to-do’ list always seemed to grow more quickly than he could prune it. Now, working less time, he would have to adjust his expectations further. There are only so many hours…

Finally, Russell realized that not only had he failed to properly establish his own boundaries, he hadn’t made them visible to others either. His boundaries, like a national border, would only hold when respected by those on each side of them. Making his boundaries visible would require discipline on his part, clear communication and support from others.

In short, Russell came to understand that you can’t have balance without boundaries.

It took time, but Russell built his boundaries and before long found himself, again, enjoying both more satisfying family time and a more productive approach to his work. Balance prevailed.

Are you Addicted to being Connected?

Thanks to Leon Gettler’s Management Line for the heads up on a fabulous video showing the managing editor of Forbes magazine struggling to do without his mobile phone and BlackBerry. The challenge was to last seven days – he lasted 40 hours.

This little experiment raises a couple of issues.

First, it is clear from the video that being connected – via email, mobile phone and/or BlackBerry – can be addictive. The experiment’s subject, Dennis Kneile, displays physical symptoms as a result of becoming an isolated island in his connected world. Gettler cites a recent study which has expanded on this.

But the experiment also demonstrates that the real challenge is finding the right balance. Kneile ‘cracks’ because he needs his cell phone to stay in touch with his young daughter – too young to understand an experiment like this. (At 6 years old, she would have no concept of a purely wired world!).

This serves to highlight that all this technology can be useful: who would want to go back to sending faxes and having to find change for public phones – and being out of touch with loved ones?

So – can we have the usefulness without the addiction? We can – but it does take great self discipline. For a start, as I’ve written before, you need to find the ‘off’ button.