strategies for great work

8/14/2019 Strategies for Great Work

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Please give this book away...

If you find this book useful and I hope you will Id love you to spread the word. Help

others get access to some of the wisdom and resources within.

But I have a request.

Please dont send them your copy. Please send them to www.boxofcrayons.biz to

download the latest version with the most updated links and informaton about products

and insights. As a bonus, theyll get Outside the Lines for Managers & Leaders our

newsleer with practcal and provocatve insights and tools to get more Great Work into

your life.

And now for the legal bits and pieces...

2008 by Michael Bungay Stanier. All rights reserved. Published by Box of Crayons, a

division of Maida CC Inc. No part of this publicaton may be reproduced or distributed in

any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior

wrien permission of Maida CC Inc.


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St r at eg ies f o r Gr eat Wor k

Would you like more Great Work in your life?

If you ask most people in most organizatons whether theyre doing as much Great Work

as theyd like, the answer is No.

And that includes the leaders of the organizaton. Its not like theres a small group of

senior people plong and planning to keep everyone else doing less Great Work than

theyd like.

So, if you are reading this and thinking that youd like to be doing more Great Work and

less Good Work well, youre not alone.

The challenge of doing Great Work

But, in the succinct words of football coach Lou Holtz, when it comes to Great Work

when all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.

The challenges are numerous and here are just some Ive come across.

Im too busy dealing with the day to day to even figure out what Great

Work might be for me.

I could spend every waking hour just on my email. How can I get outfrom the minutae?

Great Work involves taking a risk and if you make a mistake around

here, youre doomed.

We say we want Great Work but in fact, what we really value is the

safety and reliability of Good Work.


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Five strategies to help

In these short artcles originally published in our Outside the Lines newsleer I

explore five different disciplines to help you get more Great Work into your life.

In the first artcle, were looking at just what is the difference between Bad, Good

and Great Work.

In What Rules Are You Making Up, we uncover some the assumptons about

how stuffgets done around here and help think about what rules you might

be able to break.

In No Going Back we explore three different ways you can increase the level of

commitment you have to the work that maers.

In How Do You Want To Be Remembered? we look at how freeing it is to stop

taking yourself and your work quite so seriously.

And in the final artcle, we look at the art of the Afer Acton Review a tool that

originates with the military which provides a powerful structure for any debrief.

Each artcle has a From Idea to Acton: Something to Practce secton, to help you get

these ideas in your bones and translate them so that theyre real and relevant for your

life.

My hope and wish is that you find some insights and tools in these artcles to get more

Great Work in your life.

With warm wishes,

[email protected]

PS - At Box of Crayons, we help organizatons do less Good Work and more Great Work. If youd like tolearn more, theres more informaton on Box of Crayons at the end of this document. And youre alwayswelcome to drop me a line.

PPS Sign up for Outside the Lines for Manager & Leaders at www.BoxOfCrayons.biz for practcal and

provocatve insights and tools to get more Great Work into your life.


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Ar e you do ing Gr eat Wor k?Or mer el y Good Wor k?

Let me introduce you to Milton Glaser

Im almost certain you havent heard the name of Milton Glaser.

But you probably know at least one of his works of art the famous logo:

In his book, Art is Work, Glaser says that all the work we do and by work hes not just

talking about your 9 to 5 job but EVERYTHING you do falls into just one of three

categories

1. bad work

Have you ever caught yourself at work thinking: why on earth am I doing? This is an

hour of my life Ill never have back

Thats Bad Work.


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In organizatons, it ofen comes under the label of bureaucracy.

Its the meetngs that go on and on and on with no end in sight.

Its the paperwork that they need you to complete for no apparent purpose.

Its the processes that date back to the 1970s and create ten steps when there

needs to be only one

Richer Sounds is an audio and hi-fi store in the UK. Its highly successful in fact, its

been in the Guinness Book of Work Records for years for its sales success.

And it has something called the Cut the Crap Commiee.

And for Bad Work, the test is simple. If you suspect there would be work for a Cut the

Crap Commiee of your own, then youve got Bad Work on your hands.

(Remember, the test here is not how well you do the work. In fact, part of the curse of

Bad Work is that most of us can deliver it at an excellent standard!)

2. good work

Good Work is what most of us do most of the tme.

There is certainly no shame aached with doing Good Work. Youre doing work that

uses your skills, it gets stuffdone, it pays you a wage.

Organizatons love people doing Good Work because this is the work that is profitable,

efficient and largely error-free.

But Good Work has its limitatons. At an organizatonal level, its work that will sooner

or later become commoditzed. And at both an organizatonal and personal level, its

work that creates a comfortable rut. Its work that doesnt bring out the very best of

the organizaton, and it doesnt call forth the full potental of the people doing it.

And the real danger is that in todays lean, outsourced and tech-savvy firms, theres so

much Good Work that could be done that it eclipses the tme and space to do Great

Work.

3. great work

Great Work is that work that challenges and inspires, which brings with it risk and

reward, exhilaraton and sometmes terror.

At an organizatonal level, Great Work is something that every CEO proclaims as

important innovaton, Blue Ocean Strategy, differentaton and finds a challenge

to implement, as there is an inherent tension between the promise of Great Work and

the reliability of Good Work.


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And on a personal level, Great Work is a place where impact and effect trump efficiency

and process. It is a place of inspiraton, where suddenly all your past makes sense

(A-ha! Thats why I did that, learned that, screwed that up, experienced that!). Great

Work is a place that honors your skills, your passion and your experience.

Great Work is also a difficult place to be. The temptaton to downgrade to the comfort

of Good Work is constant. Your inner critc is rampant, whispering Who are you to try

this? Who do you think you are to be this ambitous? Dont you know youre doomed to

failure?

From Idea to Action: Something to Practice

Heres a quick exercise. In this circle below, divide it into three segments that represent

the proporton of each of these types of work in your life today.

How much Great Work are you doing? Good Work? Bad Work?

Having asked thousands of people this queston around the world, the typical answer is

something like this:

Bad Work: 10 40%

Good Work: 50 80%

Great Work: 0 25%

And knowing this now, youre faced with the realizaton that its your decisions what

you say Yes to, what you say No to that has the great impact on what this pie looks

like.

So, thinking about your work right now

What would you have to say no to, to double the amount of Great Work

in your life?

What would you have to say yes to, to halve the amount of Bad Work in

your life?


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What r ul es ar e you making up?

The way things are done around here

Some years ago, I worked for a company that helped create new products. My job

ttle was inventor and part of the process was running sessions that would generate

hundreds and hundreds of ideas as solutons to a partcular challenge.

One of the best games I knew to come up with ideas was to list all the rules about

what could and could not be done with that challenge. This in itself is a powerful

process, because for the most part these rules are rarely made explicit. Theyre just the

unquestoned way things are done.

Who makes up these things?

Of course, many of the this is the way we do things around here are part of the

company culture you found when you walked through the door on your first day at work.

But the sad truth is, many of the rules youre dutfully following and sometmes chafing

under have been invented by you. Were all terrific at making up or assuming the rules

and then carefully following them.


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What rules do you operate by?

Here are some of the primary rules that I see people create:

timeThis is urgent.

It always takes this long to do this task.

This is the deadline, and it cant be changed.

responsibilityOnly I can complete this task.

To be a good [insert role: mother, manager, leader, acrobat, etc] I must

statusI cant approach that person.

Im not allowed to ask for help

costSomething like this must cost this amount.

The price is fixed.

Its not negotable.

I cant ask for what I want.

processThese are the steps you must go through to complete this task.

This is what it means to be successful.

This must be done in person.

Its considered rude if...

Does this mean Anarchy?

So what do you do with all these rules? Ignore all of them? Of course not. I rather like

the former Commander of the USS Benfold, Mike Abrashoffs, suggeston:

If a rule doesnt make sense, break it.

If a rule does make sense, break it carefully.

From Idea to Action: Something to Prac tice

Think of a challenge youre facing right now, something youd like to get unstuck on.

Review the list of rules above and work out what youve made up about your challenge.

Pick three rules youd like to break.

Break one of them.


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(Go on you know you can).

No Go ing Bac kCan you think of a tme when you fully commied to something?

Went full out? Took a leap of faith? Went, What the heck, why not? Put your money

down? Went past the place of no going back?

Did you feel your body react as you recalled that moment? Did you notce that you held

your breath, that you shifed your body slightly as you reconnected?

Such is the power of commitment.

Here are three insights about taking the plunge, stepping up to the plate, and what that

commitment looks like.

1. Commitment = feeling fear

If youre struggling to commit to a bold task, then youre almost certainly struggling with

fear. Fear of startng, fear of failure, possibly even fear of success.

It just comes with the territory.

Whats needed is courage. Courage is possible once fear is acknowledged and the

decision is made to press on regardless.

Courage comes from knowing that the fear is there, but that the goal youre striving for

is more important than that fear. Courage comes from breathing, and seeing fear shif

into excitement.


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Whats possible here, as Aeschylus writes, is.to Overcome fear and behold wonder.

2. Commitment = moving

Theres an old joke: five frogs sing on a log. One of them decides to jump off. How

many are lef? Five because deciding doesnt mean doing.

Youll know you are commied when youre on the move. It might be geng out

of the house, it might be making the phone calls, it might be rehearsing that tough

conversaton.

But unless theres movement, theres no commitment.

So ask yourself this queston: if people were watching you, how would they know that

you were commied?

3. Commitment = persistingAn insistence on perfecton (and for nothing but perfecton) can immediately deflate the

balloon of commitment.

Whatever you are comming to, it is almost certain that you will stumble and quite

possibly fail. And then you can decide whether that failure is permanent or temporary.

I had dinner with David Allen, author of the internatonal bestseller Geng Things Done,

and he told me that it took a year to write the first draf of the book and then he had

to abandon it.

And he decided that this was a temporary failure, not a permanent one. And so he wrote

the second draf.

Where have you given up? Was it too soon?

The low down on burning your boats

You may have heard of burning your boats as a metaphor for commitment. Legend has

it that Hernando Cortes, en route to dismantling the Aztec Empire, burned his boats on

arrival so his rebellious crew had no opton but to press on.

The truth is, he didnt burn his boats but ran them aground, and not as a way of geng

his crew to commit to baling the Aztecs.

John H. Coatsworth, director of Harvards David Rockefeller Center for Latn American

Studies, puts it like this: Cortes beached the ships to prevent anyone from heading


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back to Cuba to report to the Spanish nobilites that he was engaged in an uerly

unauthorized and illegal expediton. He was running for cover.


Whats the big thing, the Great Work that you want to commit to?

Out of ten, how would you score your current commitment?

And now youve done that, realise that this is a trick queston. There is no half way on

commitment. You either are, or are not. (Its either a ten or its nothing).

So, imagine youre now fully commied ten out of ten.

What wouldnt you do to make this a success? (This is a more powerful queston than

jumping to what would you do?)

And now youve wrien that short list, whats lef?

Pick one of those actons.

Make it one that excites you and also scares you.

Write it down. Write down when youll do it.

And now write down who youll ask to support you, by creatng accountability


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And heres what youll tell them: What youll do. By when. And how youll come backto let them know.

How do you want t o ber emember ed?

A single blue and white plate

Last year I visited Istanbul for the first tme. Its a brilliant, beautful city, full of the swirlof history youd expect at a place where Europe and Asia meet.

I explored the Tokapi Palace in Istanbul, the 15th century home of the Ooman sultans.

Amongst the stunning architecture and tles, jewelry and armor there was one part of

the complex dedicated to showing the vast collecton of Ming Dynasty porcelain.

I couldnt help reflect on how hundreds of years ago an anonymous Chinese poer had

created this beautful plate with its beautful paerns of blue on white...

Which had traveled across land and seas to end up in Istanbul...

Where it humbly hosted the various dishes of the Sultan...

And where it provided inspiraton for the Iznik poers, makers of


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the famous tles that now adorn palaces and mosques...

And where it contnues to provide inspiraton for artsts,

tourists and Turks who visit the Palace.

Vanished

Later in the day, outside the Palace, I came across a small stub of stone by a tram stop.

On it was a sign that had this poignant declaraton:

This stone pillar is all that remains of a Byzantne triumphal arch from which road

distances to all corners of the empire were once measured.

The arch, like the empire, had vanished.

The porcelain bowl had survived.

Will I matter?

What I took from this is not so much that the fragile survives and the seemingly

immortal has vanished. Rather, it strikes me how random and how unlikely it is that

there will be any lastng legacy of who we are and what we do.

In The Eight Irresistble Principles of Fun a short movie on the internet you can see at

www.eightprinciples.com I ask, in a hundred years, will it maer? I might as well ask,

In a hundred years, will I maer?

The answer? Probably not.

Feeling a little down?

It would certainly be easy to sigh and shrug and ask, Why bother?

For me though, that answer in a hundred years, I probably wont maer is

liberatng.

It points to the paradox of our existence: both overwhelmingly meaningful and

overwhelmingly insignificant.

It is freeing. It means we can do the work that maers and that inspires us without the

burden of it being perfect, or tmeless or right. We are granted willingness not to take


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it too seriously AND to strive for Great Work.

And so, feeling liberated and inspired while I look out today at the morning bustle of

Istanbul life, here is....

My manifesto of insignificance

Knowing that my death is certain and my tme of death is uncertain

Knowing that the work I do maers and also will not last

Ill strive to do Great Work.

I wont take things too seriously.

Ill strive to create things of beauty.

Ill enjoy today.

Ill love the people in my life.


What would make your Manifesto of Insignificance?


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What does that free you up to commit to?

What are the principles you want to live your life by so that you could do more Great

Work?

It s no t what you do it s what you do af t er youvedone it

Moving on

Most of us dont bother with a post-event analysis. But even when we do, they can be

painfully horrible affairs: a combinaton of passive-aggressive politeness with no one

willing to menton the dead moose (or dead elephant or dead kangaroo, depending

on your country of origin) that is in the room. (For those unfamiliar with the phrase,

were talking about the thing thats big and roen and geng in the way of everything).

Two principles & five questionsAn Afer Acton Review (AAR) is focused primarily on learning and building community. It

is founded on two related principles:

This is not to judge success or failure (and hence apporton blame) but

rather the focus is on what can be learned for moving forward.

Theres a belief (what Norman L. Kerth calls the Prime Directve) that


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regardless of whats discovered, the partcipants understand and truly

believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew

at the tme, their skills and abilites, the resources available, and the

situaton at hand.

With that in place, there are five simple and profound questons to ask.

1. what did you intend?

This can be a simple restatement of your objectves.

What were you trying to achieve?

2. what happened?

This is useful for just geng a sense of what really happened. You can rest assured that

your perspectve of events is only one of the versions.

The objectve here is to collect both the facts (such as costs, number of peopleinvolved, figures, etc) and differing opinions on what worked and didnt work, what

circumstances influenced what happened, and other factors.

When commentng on others roles, capture specific behavioural events (what they

did, what they said) rather than your conclusion about what they did (X did a poor job

because...).

3. what can we learn about it?

There will be different levels of learning here, from the very specific (dont wear Brand X

socks - they give you blisters) to the more abstract (this project wasnt close enough to

my life purpose for me to be motvated).

Dont forget to ask here, What did we do well that we need to discuss or else it will

be forgoen? Its very easy to jump to the mistakes. Its most powerful to start with

whats been working.

Capture also what stll puzzles us? You wont be able to figure everything out. Be

explicit about what it is that stll is a mystery.

4. what should we do differently next time?

This is powerful because it plants seeds for the next tme conversaton. Without these

seeds, we default back to a collectve memory of this is how we do things around here

which most ofen does not capitalize on the collected wisdom.


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5. what should we do now?

There may well be actons to take right now: things to do, people to connect with.

As with all actons, set up accountability: what will be done, by whom and by when.


Look back on a recently completed project or event. It might be a family holiday. It might

be a project at work. It might be a date with your girlfriend or boyfriend.

Thinking about what happened, write down your answers to these five questons:

1. What did you intend?

2. What actually happened?

3. What did you learn?

4. What will you do differently in the future?


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5. What should you do now?

If youre feeling bolder, invite the others involved in the process and have the

conversaton with them as well.

Box o f Cr ayons

Box of Crayons is a company that works with organizatons and teams around the world

to help them do less Good Work and more Great Work.

Box of Crayons draws on a range of technologies to help ensure the best possible

support for their clients. These technologies include

Coaching for Great Worktraining

This training program provides coaching skills for managers and leaders that are both

practcal and strategic. The program tackles and overcomes the typical points of

resistance that stops coaching flourishing within organizatons, points of resistance

which include this is important but not urgent and Ive got no tme for this!

Michael did an amazing job partnering with us for our Senior Leader Seminar Winning

by doing the stuffthat maers most. Our people found the short, sharp sessions

extremely valuable - rang them 4.5 out of 5. He hit just the right balance of smulus,

depth, praccality and entertainment! Already, many of the ideas are in the language


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My team recently parcipated in an Innovaon and Risk-Taking session

facilitated by Michael. The goal was to increase our personal knowledge of

tools and techniques that we could use both personally and with our business

clients. As a secondary goal, we also applied the techniques to an exisng team

challenge so we could see praccal applicaon of the learning. The day was a

huge success. My team felt invigorated with the new skills learned and found

it extremely beneficial to pracce the new techniques on a real life example.

Michaels style contributed to the overall success. He gave us some very pracca

tools and insights, but was also flexible and accommodang to the needs of thegroup. I have great confidence that my team will connue to apply the learning.

Melinda Gasson

Director, Management & Organizatonal Development, KrafCanada Inc

Our clients


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