Digital Digressions

Cake or Death?

This is the standard question at the beginning of meetings in the cake-eating capital of Europe, Denmark - where cake eating has been elevated to an intrinsic part of any get-together.. I'm joking of course, but this wonderful rendition of Eddie Izzard's sketch about the fact that extremism and the Church of England really don't go together very well at all and if it did - it would be a question of cake or death!

Great Moments in History Captured in LEGO

Mike Stimpson has been using LEGO to re-create some classic photographs. On the BBC site is a small selection of his work. One of my favourites is this one, Marc Riboud's 1967 photograph of an anti-Vietnam protest in Washington, with a cheeky Star Wars spin to it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/in_pictures_inspired_by_classic_photographs/html/1.stm

To see more of Mike Stimpson’s work go to: www.flickr.com/photos/balakov/

What I'm Talking About When I Talk About Cycling*

This title is inspired by an excellent new book by one of my favourite authors, Haruki Murakami, whose first non-fiction book (for a long time anyway) talks about the balance brought about by combining work (he writes 4 hours every morning) before going out for a run (he runs 10km every day). Murakami has completed 27 marathons and talks in depth about how his life philosophies have been informed by this deliberate search for balance between the physical and mental.

For me it is very much the same, but my sport of choice is cycling as opposed to running. Not sure why I could never get my head around running (I was a sprinter at school) and sprinting I was fine at, but this jogging thing I just can't figure out. It's too slow for running(sprinting) and too fast for walking so I'm forever searching for a pace I can sustain, yet frequently end up accelerating to stop the ceaseless pounding on my knees (should you run on your toes like when you sprint and what I'm used to, or should you run on your heels like when you walk.. this I can't get right.. running on your heels just feels too harsh on your knees!). So there is a trick to running which obviously some people, Murakami included, have deftly figured out and turned to their advantage and then there are folks like me, who just can't get off on running, but are truly, madly and deeply in love with another sport instead.

Now admitting to loving cycling these days is like saying I also fully condone the use of performance enhancing drugs, bribery, lying about one's whereabouts and pretending that someone else's blood is my own. However, there is a big difference though and that is the difference brought about when you do something for a living versus doing it for fun. When you do stuff for a living, the stakes are higher and the cost of failure is huge and therefore it is reasonable to believe this stuff is not only limited to the sport of cycling, but present in any profession where you get paid for pushing your body to the limits (now in that broadest definition we can even include models, who get paid for being a size 0 (often with the help of dietary drugs or caught with some even saucier stuff at parties), but could not run to the bus or cycle up a hill, because they may be skinny, but so weak they can't even carry their own luggage. (now that IS depressing)

Back to cycling for fun though. For me that still means trying to cycle further, faster and for longer than what I did last week or the month before or even last year. It is a wonderful outlet, a kind of flow you get into, a meditation where the pedal revolutions function like the meditation chants of 'Om', but much faster and there sometimes comes a point where you forget that it is your legs making the pedals go around, it just seems like you are flying. Armstrong's US Postal team used to say it was like having 'no chain' and I sincerely believe I know what they mean.

The pleasure of getting into a rhythm, moving effortlessly, it is the childhood dream re-lived over and over again, that sense of freedom, of going where you want to go, not where parents cart you off in a car or drag you by your hand. You discover things are not as far as you thought, you discover you can go faster than you thought, from this early pushing of boundaries comes a lifelong desire to keep pushing them further, trying to overcome ourselves and marveling at how much you can achieve by simply putting your mind to it.

And your mind is sometimes the last one you should ask for advice, because whenever experiencing the pain brought about lactic acid burning in your legs going up a really steep hill, your mind (mine at least!) instantly goes into this, aah it hurts.. you should really stop now.. go on .. just a little break? lobbying to my other self that goes.. naah.. just a little further.. to that tree.. to that corner.. almost there.. stay on target.. and comfortably engaging both parts of my mind and becoming more confident at trusting the latter is something only sport can teach you. Interestingly, that same little voice follows you to other parts of your life too, making you nervous before delivering a presentation, going for a job interview, embarking on a big project, but training yourself to chew the elephant (or that hill) one bite at a time, you train your mind to not fear the effort of learning, improving and enabling yourself to celebrate and enjoy the pleasure of achievement.

* Haruki Murakami: What I'm talking about when I talk about running

The Apprentice in LEGO by the Boleg Brothers

So now we know - Lee McQueen is the next apprentice and clearly no amount of fibbing on your CV or pterodactyl impressions is enough to dissuade Sir Alan that he is a worthy candidate. I do wonder how much we actually learn about the nature of business through shows like this and does seeing it on telly make it acceptable is the next question? Obviously values like honesty, integrity, pulling your weight, treating your customers with respect and the list goes on.. these are all redundant attributes in an apprentice?

Oh well, perhaps it's not worth getting too serious about the implications of this show that frequently has made me cringe over the last 12 weeks - it is actually best enjoyed as a comedy, with minifigures (or LEGO people) as highlighted by the Boleg Brothers. (not anything to with LEGO the company - just some good fun!)

http://www.bolegbros.co.uk/home.asp

http://www.bolegbros.co.uk/latest07.html

The LEGO Innovation Model

Innovation is one of those topics rife with debate and often what is innovation to one person is business-as- usual for the next. Communicating an innovation is often half the job of getting it on the shelf and innovators and designers alike, regardless of where they work, often have to be relentlesss lobbyists and use sophisticated tools of persuasion to further their concepts such as fancy presentations, multi-media, eye-popping visuals - you name it, these are the tools of the designer witch-craft. Needless to say, invariably the more skilled you are in all this, the more sought-after you are as a designer.

What we did at LEGO revamping our innovation process flew in the face of a lot of this. We recognised that some of this 'witch-craft' was getting in the way of making solid business decisions. Concepts were bought into, not because they had a solid business case behind them, but because people developed emotional attachments to them or saw it as their ticket to career advancement to push something through, regardless of the cost. To be fair, this happens all over the place, not just LEGO, but the difference is we chose to do something about it. Arguably some of this, along with the very hard work of the entire organisation in many different areas goes some way to explaining our remarkable turnaround from the doldrums in 2003 where our survival as a company was at stake. Last year, we posted our best results ever in the company's entire 75 year history. Perhaps just a little bit of that remarkable turnaround was down to this.

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/About-Design/managingdesign/Design-at-LEGO/

The link above leads you to the full case study published at the Design Council site and it makes not only for some very good reading, but also is a timely reminder of the value a common tool can have in bringing different disciplines together working on innovation that combines design and business thinking instead of encouraging a war between the two. Having a shared language is tantamount to bringing people together and this model in particular has helped us have some hard-hitting, but objective debates about the merits of concepts and collectively understand how to improve them. Only by creating a shared foundation can you have any hope in trying to solve a problem together.

Leadership lessons from John Wooden

Something I wanted to share with you that landed in my inbox earlier and in its simplicity captures more about leadership than many books written on the subject. Leadership is not something you are born with, it is something you do to people, either well or abysmally. We all have sour memories of how it felt when someone did it badly and we may be privileged enough to know someone who really inspires us in this regard. After all, its much easier to point to who is a good or bad leader, than it is pinpointing what it is they do or don't do that makes us say that.

However, John Wooden may be able to help us. He is generally regarded as the nation's greatest basketball coach. His UCLA teams during the 1960s and 1970s won 10 NCAA men's basketball national championships and set records for consecutive victories. But since retiring in 1975, the 97-year-old coach has gained fame as a philosopher and motivator.

[From LA Times]

Wooden sat down with The Times and offered up 10 tips -- one for each of the NCAA basketball championships his players won at UCLA -- for how business owners can become better leaders.

1. Listen.

One thing that is often overlooked in leadership is the ability to listen. Listening is so important to those under your supervision.

2. Care.

Another very important part of leadership is to make those under your supervision feel that you care for them -- not just for the job they are doing for you, but you really care for them personally. You just can't tell them you do that, you have to show it.

While some roles aren't as big or in the forefront as others, they are still very important. I used to use this analogy: It is like having a powerful car. Now the engine, like an Alcindor [now called Kareem Abdul-Jabbar], who played for me, that's powerful. Here's another fellow who is just a wheel. And there is another fellow who is just a nut that holds the wheel on. You have to have them all. You must make every person feel that they are needed.

3. Recognize.

When I was teaching in high school in basketball, for example, [I taught that] my players must never score without thanking someone. Don't run over and shake their hand but look at them and give them a little sign or something of appreciation. Everybody likes to have a pat on the back.

4. Prepare.

[Managers should be aware of] preparation for whatever their job is, little or big, preparation is so important. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail. You must not put things off.

5. Be industrious.

Nothing can be accomplished without work. You've got to work hard. If you are looking for the short cut, if you are looking for the easy way, if you are looking for the trick to get things done, you might get them done. But you are not adding strength, you are not building.

6. Have enthusiasm.

If you don't enjoy what you are doing you are not going to be able to give it the industriousness that you should have. You must have that to inspire others to do their best.

7. Be patient.

Good things take time. And that's the way it should be. We don't want it that way but that's the way it is. I think that is a very important thing that a leader must get across to those under his supervision.

8. Have confidence.

You must believe in yourself. If you don't have confidence in yourself you can't expect those under your supervision to act with much confidence.

9. Don't fear failure.

Have initiative but don't be afraid of failure. We are all going to fail at times because we are all imperfect. When I had assistants, I always wanted them never to be afraid to make a suggestion. We don't know a thing we don't learn from somebody else in one way or another. If you do agree [with their suggestion] and use it and it works, be sure that they are the one that gets the credit, not you. Now if it doesn't work, you take the blame because you made that decision to use it.

10. Win respect.

You have to have the respect of those under your supervision. You can't obtain that respect unless you are honest with them and they can depend upon you. Don't try to sell them a bill of goods or you will lose all respect.

Some very good rules to live your life by. Enough said.

Train Yourself Smarter

Sounds like the ominous beginning to a self-help book, but there is more truth to the title that what you may think. There are plenty of studies out there that suggest the positive benefits of brain training, often suggesting that doing cross-words and memorising long lists is a good way to get yourself thinking smarter, faster. However, this is like saying that simply doing curls with a dumb-bell will make you an Olympic athlete. It's not purely the muscle fitness that matters, it's the whole package, so aerobic fitness, endurance, stamina you name it - all have a part to play in what finally comes together in an explosive meter sprint for the finish line. Same with your brain.

Or put more precisely, of course intellectual stimulus helps develop your brain, but so does physical training. In fact, research published from Harvard Business Review onwards, suggests that if we want to increase our mental capacity, we have to increase our physical fitness to match. This, because the brain like any other muscle in our body depends on blood flow to do its thing and the higher your metabolism and ability to sustain physical exercise at an beyond your aerobic threshold, the better 'oiled' is the machine to deliver continuously on what makes all of us smarter - learning.

It's hard to learn anything when you are tired, it's even harder when you are stressed and learning is what allows your brain to build more connections between neurons, which can potentially fire and give you ideas, helping you be more creative, think faster or even just make the right decision ahead of the wrong one. Worst of all, many of the high pressure jobs out there today requiring continuously operating at stress-levels, make learning all but impossible, so cycles of burn-out are not uncommon. We work hard, feel under pressure to do things better, smarter, faster so we get stressed, making it harder for us to learn how to do things differently, so we then get frustrated, which of course makes us even more stressed... you know the drill.

Interestingly, it is not all out of our hands however. There is a way of being methodical about it all and making it possible for you to prime yourself for some very steep learning curves, perhaps radical career changes even or new jobs in other companies where the mix of the familiar to the new is radically turned on its head and you have to spend most of your time learning, before you can become productive. This is crunch-time for many of us. Can we not just make the transition, learn what is necessary for us to deliver on the job, but also ensure we keep learning to make sure we stay ahead and begin not just doing the usual but increasingly the extra-ordinary?

Research suggests that balancing our increasingly busy work lives with some well-developed and above all challenging exercise can help us do just that.

From bikeradar A recent study from Illinois, USA gives further evidence that exercise can augment brain power.

Using 110 students researchers looked at a battery of fitness criteria (eg endurance run, push-ups, body mass index, etc) then selected the low and high scoring subjects to represent low and high fitness students [4].

All subjects were also assessed for IQ, visual cognitive speed by presenting randomly arranged pictures and activity. Additionally they were wired up to an electroencephalogram to measure brain activity across various regions of the skull. This allowed researchers to look at how fitness levels related to brain function. Their conclusion is very telling: “We found that aerobic fitness was positively associated with neuroelectric function and behavioural performance in preadolescent children engaged in a stimulus discrimination task”

Put more simply: fit children have better functioning brains. 

This research makes promotion of active pastimes and sports something we older humans should be engaged in for the well being of younger generations and it’s good for you at any stage of life too. Research on elderly subjects from 70 to 90 suggests that walking alone “is associated with a reduced risk of dementia” [5]. Across most age groups it appears that exercise of even a modest amount helps to keep the brain functioning better.

The bottom line is you don’t need to break 20 minutes for 10-miles or win a Grand Tour to gain positive mental health benefits from exercise. As Max Ehrmann wrote in his 1927 Desiderata: “Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself”.

And this is the point exactly, to improve fitness - not accelerate your burnout. I can personally attest to both greater learning capacity and ability to sustain higher workloads since I started a regime of road cycle training. I have gone from 30km nearly finishing me off to losing over 10kg and riding 140km the other weekend at a pace many of my fellow riders had to work hard to keep up with. This is progress for sure, but what it really has helped me do is be the reset-button to hard work, crazy travel, lots of pressure and make sure I stop, get out there, blast around the country-side getting rid of adrenaline and all those nasty stress hormones that make us sleep badly, gain weight and over time get depressed. Instead, by finding an outlet that works I am happier and have made greater leaps and bounds in terms of progress in everything I do, because as the quote goes in Starwars - it brings balance to the force.