The difference between winning and losing is often by the smallest of margins. Everything worthwhile in life is a product of effort. In most endeavors, the degree of success that we achieve or the things that we accomplish are proportional to the effort that we put in to them. An argument can be made that working smarter, not harder, will yield greater dividends; however, that's out of context. Working smarter actually means concentrating your efforts to make more effective use of your time; the effort is still there, it's just re-purposed to better align with your goals and objectives.
The recent Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver are a good example of the small distance between winning and losing. The New York Times published a clever tool to illustrate how close the difference between 1st place and 10th place actually is in competition at the Olympic level in various sports (most of which are individually timed so we can't really grasp the differences). Click here to check it out.
Just a tiny bit of additional effort can put you on the podium of your dreams!
One of the most interesting (and tragic) comments from a Ph.D. defending the premise that only those with doctorates should be professors -
"Individuals who want experience and to learn from experienced mentors should go to work."
Funny, I thought people went to college to prepare themselves for the workplace. It's apparently a different world in the Ivory Tower.
The one common theme to most of the ensuing discussions was a definitive disconnect between academia and the workplace. While I center on the learning, the teaching, and the students, the Ph.D.s defending their positions centered on the faculty. Some even went off on a tangent about end of course surveys (performance and accountability are scary things in the Ivory Tower).
To be fair, there were a lot of Ph.D.s who were rational, respectful, and open minded in the discussions and I would surmise that most are fine teachers (and the students attending their colleges and universities are receiving a first rate education). My position is that we're short changing the students when we artificially limit the universe of professors to only those with a terminal degree.
I recently posed a question to three of my LinkedIn groups that pertain to higher education - Why is a doctorate necessary for attaining professorship at most colleges and universities? As always, the responses were well thought out, cogent, and representative of divergent views on the subject.
Before I offer my view, I need to pen a disclaimer. The doctoral level credits that I've earned are in statistics and research. When I was in the program in the mid-1990s, I had a different take on pursuing my doctorate (like that's a surprise to anyone who knows me) - I was going after the dissertation first, thus the statistics and research courses up front. I never finished the program because of various reasons, but got a taste of what it's like to pursue that level of scholarship. On the plus side, most of the regional accrediting agencies have cleared me to teach statistics and research at the graduate level because of my doctoral credits - I'm considered academically qualified as well as professionally qualified.
I am not against pursuing a terminal degree (or degrees), to the contrary, I believe that the constant pursuit of knowledge is a noble endeavor at any age and is consistent with the human thirst for understanding. However, I strongly believe that the doctoral requisite for attaining professorship is wrong headed and irrelevant to the pursuit of scholarship. We've gotten away from what education is really about and that is the learning. Is a Ph.D. really required to teach? Absolutely not. I would go so far as to say that an undergraduate degree is not required to teach. Bill Gates is not a college graduate; however, I'd bet dimes to dollars that if he were a professor, the level of education (read: learning) in his courses would be of the highest caliber. Steve Jobs would not qualify for a professorship yet his speeches alone are worth a few college credits (I actually use several of his speeches to exemplify effective presentation and communications skills in the curriculum that I write). There are literally tens of thousands of very qualified persons working in both the private and public sectors today that would make wonderful teachers and professors, but they lack the sanctioned "credentials" to do so. If this is true, then isn't this sanctioning (or gate keeping) a net harm to the education profession and to students?
The mandate of a doctorate for professorship and state certification of teaching credentials are anachronisms. In another time, when knowledge was concentrated, the doctoral requirement and state sanctioned credentialing probably made sense; however, in today's environment where knowledge is diffuse and democratized, it no longer makes sense.
The accrediting agencies themselves give credence to the qualifications of of those who are "doctorally qualified", but sans a terminal degree For example - the AACSB distinguishes between academically qualified (AQ) and professionally qualified (PQ) and establishes a minimum AQ/PQ ratio to maintain academic integrity and stringency. AACSB standards do give allowance for those without a terminal degree as long as they are “fully participating faculty.” Most of the regional accrediting bodies have similar definitions of doctorally qualified faculty. The point is, a professionally qualified rather than academically qualified professor is recognized by the accrediting bodies.
As for the research argument, it's a non-starter because possessing a terminal degree doesn't make anyone more adept at research than would an MBA make someone more adept at business or an education degree make someone more adept at teaching. As with everything in education, it's the ability to apply the knowledge that counts. I do grant that someone who has gone through the rigors of a dissertation will have a better baseline than most with regard to research methodologies, etc., but that doesn't necessarily translate to the ability to teach nor does it translate to the ability to conduct practical research.
In certain fields a terminal degree may be quite necessary to teach the subject matter at a level of scholarship required to impart the knowledge; however, a blanket requirement across all professorships seems to be at cross purposes with the intent of most institutions (explicit or not) - to provide an education that can be put to productive use in the workplace (which, in most cases, a pure academic cannot do). I do not begrudge the doctorate, not by any means, but I do begrudge the requirement of a doctorate for professorship.
The purpose of education is to employ knowledge to productive and useful purposes, not to regurgitate facts and figures without context. In most states, our secondary schools "teach to the test" rather than a mastery of the subject matter. This results in frustrated students, parents, teachers, administrators, and college professors/employers who must deal with the inadequate preparation.
My daughter is currently a high school sophomore. Her math teacher recently refused to answer a student's question pertaining to how and why logarithms are used in practice, saying that it wasn't important and they'd talk about it later in the course. Now I don't know if the teacher was masking ignorance or not, but the student was bringing up a good point - context. The how and why questions are extremely important in education; however, they're routinely ignored in favor of mechanics. The mechanics are important, but are fairly useless when taught without context.
Last week, the very same teacher did a demonstration using a paper plate and string to explain the concept of radians. Wham...the students got the concept! My daughter told her teacher that the demonstration helped her to understand radians and that examples like this would be helpful in the future. The teacher may take it to heart or not, but my daughter instinctively knows what works and what doesn't work in her education and it revolves around context. The timing was fortuitous because my wife and I had a parent-teacher conference since the radian demonstration and we were able to mention to the teacher how much better our daughter found that teaching style.
All curriculum and instruction should be in context, not only within the body of knowledge itself, but in its relationship to other educational disciplines and practical applications.
One of the best management philosophies to put in place in any organization is the allowance for challenging existing business practices. As a matter of fact, it should be incorporated into every job description. There is a reason for doing things a certain way, but time and circumstances will change the foundation for those reasons, sometimes making them moot and irrelevant - not a very good standing for moving forward.
There's a story by Zig Ziglar that paints a caricature of status quo thinking; it's paraphrased here:
One Saturday morning a good ol' boy hunkered down in his favorite chair to spend the afternoon watching college football on TV. His wife soon appeared and asked him if he could go to the store to pick up a ham. "Sure, I'll go at halftime" he said, "I need some more beer anyway." On his way out his wife reminded him, "Honey, make sure the butcher cuts off the ends of the ham." "Yep, got it" and he was on his way. When he got back he asked his wife, "Honey, I've always wondered, why do you have the butcher cut off the ends of the ham?" "Because that's how my mama taught me." He was still curious, "Well, why did your mama cut off the ends of the ham?" "I don't know honey, but let's ask mama when she's over for dinner tonight." That night as they finished dinner the wife asked her mother, "Mama, why did you cut off the ends of the ham?" "Well, sugar, that's the way Nana taught me." "Well, why did Nana do it?" "I don't really know. Let's give her a call and find out." They called up Nana and asked her. Nana replied, "Oh dear, my pan was too small for the whole ham, so I cut off the ends."
"Nana had her reason, what's yours?"
This story is a perfect example of status quo thinking and not challenging the foundation of why something is done a particular way. You can probably think of dozens of instances in your organization where the status quo doesn't make sense, but has never been challenged. How do we move beyond the current state when we can't get past the status quo?
The only way to move forward is to constantly challenge the current state of affairs. This isn't to say that we should purposely mess up a perfectly good brand or change just to change, but it is to say that we should always look for new ways of doing things. By new, we mean effective and up to date.
For example, before spreadsheets were commonplace, cost accounting was very departmentalized, done by the "green eye shade" people with calculators running overtime against pages and pages of ledgers. Information was fed manually or through mainframe systems that produced data which couldn't be ported to any useful application. The information was extracted manually and formulated by the cost analysts and accountants. Spreadsheets changed everything. Now data could be manipulated in almost any fashion so desired by the consumers of the information. Data could be presented in ways that made sense to non-accountants and the data could be ported to and from relational databases with ease. From this came integrated financial systems that pulled information from every quarter and worked seamlessly with other enterprise applications. Financial data was no longer the domain of the "green eye shade" people, it belonged to everyone. Data was at everybody's fingertips and could be used however they needed it to be used. Spreadsheets, in essence, "democratized" data - there was no reason to stick with the old systems.
Challenging the status quo comes with its own challenges as does innovation. People will resist innovation for a variety of reasons. It may be that they don't understand the rationale behind the need for change, they may have a political stake that they don't want uprooted, or they are afraid of the unknown. In order for innovation to become a norm, a culture of change must be present. A manager must instill a mindset that innovation will be rewarded; it needs to become part of the formal goal setting and review process in addition to the compensation structure. Individual and team goals must reflect continuous improvement through innovation and change. If the goals reflect this, then the work itself will become a conduit for change.
Risk is inherent to change and innovation. A culture of change goes hand in hand with a culture that accepts risk. Again, this is not a blind risk, but an environment where calculated risks are normal and will be rewarded.
The late Daniel J. Boorstin is my favorite historian, not only because he gave an accurate portrayal of American history that was unblemished by political correctness, but he was also an engaging writer with a wonderful wit. The America that Boorstin illuminated is generally hidden from view for most of us because of revisionism and just plain bad scholarship.
Boorstin artfully explains that innovation in America was generally not the product "inspired genius", but a product of practicality. For example, the modern factory that brings in raw materials and yields a finished product ready for market is an American invention - not because someone saw it as more efficient, but because, unlike Europe, the American colonies were more diffuse and logistically the old European guild system could not work here. The modern industrial age began with this platform of practicality.
Up until the middle of the 19th century, foreign travel required planning, a lot of money, a great deal of time, and sometimes risk to life and limb. Travelers were active, they sought adventure, they pursued the experience. And then...
Modern railroads and ocean going steamships started to make long distance practical, if not comfortable. The huge investments in these technologies and infrastructure required that the travel now needed to be sold in large quantities, making it more affordable to the growing middle class. With the advent of packaged tours the active traveler became the passive sight seer. Instead of seeking adventure and experiences, the experiences now came to the "tourist." The pursuit of adventure now became the pursuit of leisure.
If you applied the traveler/tourist metaphor to your life, both personally and professionally, which would you be, a traveler or a tourist? The old English noun "travel" (journey) was originally the same word as "travail." [Boorstin]. To travel then was something that required labor and was sometimes troublesome - a traveler worked and was active. Does this sound familiar, kind of like life?
So, which is it? Do you actively seek adventure, experience, and people...or do you just want those things to come to you? Are you a traveler or a tourist in your life?
I usually write my own material in this space; however, I recently came across a commencement speech given by Steve Jobs at Stanford University in 2005. It's been a few years since I first watched this video, but it still has an impact on me; it's message is timeless for anyone at any stage of their career/life.
I've held up Steve Jobs in curriculum that I've authored as THE bar for a speaker or presenter - and I still do; however, in this commencement speech, he's reading from notes, so a bit of his dynamism is missing. This commencement speech is the best 15 minute counseling session that you'll ever receive.
One of the most damaging behaviors that all of us exhibit is the tendency to over react to circumstances and conditions.
Ignoring context and our bias toward recency results in an exaggerated and questionable perspective of events that leads to flawed conclusions, thus flawed reactions. Case in point - the recent NFL playoffs produced a couple of surprising results that led pundits to declare that these teams are suddenly the "hot" teams and so on. The teams went on to the next round and promptly lost. This happens every year without fail. Instead of looking at long-term fundamentals, key match-ups, etc., the media weight their opinions on very recent emotional events that result in very flawed conclusions. This is a benign example; however, we create hype in other areas that are far more consequential.
We over react in our personal and business relationships. We over react as organizations and as nations. We tend to form opinions with incomplete context. We don't have the patience to explore the facts dispassionately before reacting. We react emotionally rather than intellectually. We treat everyday situations as if they were crises. You get the picture.
When we react with emotion, we do so mostly out of fear. We need to react less and proact more (yes, I just made up a word). Don't let others' over reactions cause you to over react. Take the time to study the situation, to critically think through the issue rather than fall prey to emotional antagonism. Learn to pull back and assess the playing field. Look at every possible frame of reference to gain perspective. Impetuousness causes mistakes.
A word of caution - don't over analyze, get the facts and make the best decision that you can given the circumstances and information available. You can get paralyzed waiting for 100% of the information you need, but, in reality, that information never comes. Assess the situation thoroughly and then be decisive. Will you make mistakes? Absolutely, but you're guaranteed to make mistakes if you over react, and worse, the magnitude of the mistakes will be much larger.
The mission and objectives of an organization are the touchstones around which everything else revolves. Before we get into a discussion on creating missions and objectives, we must first differentiate between them. The mission of an organization is its essence, its purpose - it's the core business of the organization. The objectives are what is to be accomplished, the intent, the goals. Think of objectives in terms of the objective lens in a microscope or telescope; it gathers light coming from the object being observed (the mission) and focuses the light to produce a real image (the goals).
To begin, the mission needs to be defined by what success looks like. Once success is defined and clear, it needs to be articulated so that there is no room for interpretation. Let's use a military analogy as an example. The mission of any nation's military is to win wars, that's what the organization is about, that is their core, their essence. So a country's military mission may be to "defend the country from its enemies by fielding and maintaining a fighting force that will win all engagements, battles, and wars." That's a solid mission with no ambiguity; one doesn't have to guess as to its meaning. With the stated mission of the military force in place, the country will inevitably have multiple objectives on the world stage that further define the military's role under the auspice of its mission. Here are examples of what a country may be trying to accomplish with its military force:
Maintain a well trained army, air force, and navy that can project power on short notice.
Defend allies and alliance partners against aggression by common enemies.
Defend trade routes and commerce that are in the country's strategic interest.
Use its infrastructure and logistics capability to offer humanitarian aid where needed.
To follow the civilian government's commands and never act on its own authority.
To affect foreign policy decisions through the threat of necessary and appropriate force.
The list could go on and on, but these are good examples of how a military's mission can be activated. A business or non-profit organization can use the same methodology to define its mission and objectives. Its mission may be to "make the best widgets in the marketplace and sell them at a price that is fair for the customer and profitable for the company." It could accomplish this through various objectives:
Recruit, train, and retain the most competent workforce in our industry.
Offer widgets that are of higher quality and of better value than our competitors.
Run the company openly and honestly with the highest degree of diligence possible.
Use our resources effectively and always create value while eliminating waste.
Treat our employees, customers, and partners with the utmost of respect.
Be a good corporate citizen and neighbor, always giving back to the community that we serve.
And so on and so forth, you get the picture. The objectives will become far more specific and detailed as they propagate down line through the organization into functional levels. As long as each division's, group's, unit's, and team's goals and objectives are in concert with the organization's, there will be consistency in purpose. One note, the objectives should use the old SMART principle (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely). If the objective is too broad, there is room to misinterpret. The objective must become part of the key performance indicators for the team, so it must be quantifiable in a way that makes sense. An unobtainable objective is a disaster waiting to happen and will result in morale problems. The objective must be relevant to the organization's objectives and the team's function. The objective must also have a definitive time frame in which it's to be accomplished and it must sync with the organization's time frames.
This exercise can be done from the bottom up if needed. For example, a manager takes over a failing business unit that seems out of sorts and is not performing well. The first task of the manager is to assess how the team matches up against the organization's mission and objectives. If there is dissonance, it's probably due to misaligned goals and, subsequently, misaligned talent. The manager can then sit with the team and realign team goals and objectives to fit the mission and objectives of the organization and the division or group that the unit is part of.
An organization will shift focus from time to time to meet external demands, this is normal and necessary. The mission and objectives need to shift also. No organization can survive and thrive by blindly sticking to an outdated business model, to outdated products, to outdated processes, or to outdated resources. It must continually evolve to stay competitive. It can do this by maintaining a mission based on capability rather than circumstance. Regardless of where the market takes the organization, it can stay current and competitive if its core mission is rooted in capability and competency.
Often we don't get the clarity we need because we're asking the wrong questions. We can't get to the crux of the issue in this environment. Ask a question that is too broad and you're sure to be disappointed. "What is the meaning of life?" is way too big of a story for most of us to understand, but "what is the meaning of my life?" starts to get to the real issue; however, it can be asked more concisely to get the results that most of us seek - "What are the chain of events and circumstances that brought me to where I am now?"
In business, we do the same thing, we ask broad and irrelevant questions, mostly out of habit. Here are some examples of wrong and right questions to ask:
Wrong - “Where do I cut costs?”
Right - “Where are my dollars most effectively spent to achieve my goals?”
Wrong – “Do I have the right staff?”
Right – “Have I effectively matched my staff’s talent, skills, training, education, willingness, and philosophy with the goals of my company?”
Wrong – “What are the risks?”
Right – “Everything else being equal, what is the consequence of failure and can I assume it?”
Joe is an accomplished management professional who has been very successful at challenging “status quo” assumptions in various organizations as a transformer focused on creativity, innovation, and quality. Joe is a natural leader who conceives possibilities and creates insights that translate into bottom line performance.
The difference between winning and losing is often by the smallest of margins. Everything worthwhile in life is a product of effort. In most endeavors, the degree of success that we achieve or the things that we accomplish are proportional to the effort that we put in to them. An argument can be made that working smarter, not harder, will yield greater dividends; however, that's out of context. Working smarter actually means concentrating your efforts to make more effective use of your time; the effort is still there, it's just re-purposed to better align with your goals and objectives.
