Feeling success

The process of learning how to ride horses has been, and continues to be, a very interesting process. Compared to when I did my A Levels at the age of 18 (Oxford was a different kettle of fish), learning by rote or by memorizing facts was actually relatively easy given that I was a fairly dedicated student who had a short term memory of acceptable ability. Without wishing to generalize centuries of equestrianism, I would contend that learning to ride horses is more complex and operates on multiple layers. The first levels of education are all about learning (and then understanding) some guiding principles of riding. The second phase is about understanding both the morphology and the mentality of the horse – just like all humans don’t walk or think in the same way, all horses don’t walk, trot, canter or react to the same stimulus in the same way. Once you’ve got the basics down, then it is all about feeling your way around a horse to understand how you need to readjust the application of the handful of principles to a given animal depending on its own unique way of thinking and moving. After having ridden for a few years now, I can confirm that the part that is the most delicate is the feeling bit. What can make this part of the apprenticeship longer is that at times you don’t initially always know what the right feeling feels like. However once you’ve experienced and recognized the right feeling, then everything after that becomes a search to try and recreate that feeling on the same and different horses. I was reminded of this process of trying to understand what the end game feels like when I read the following article about how to try and psychologically vaccinate soldiers against the trauma of war http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21566612-it-may-be-possible-vaccinate-soldiers-against-trauma-war-battle-ready. I also started to think about what this meant in the context of business. For me it is fairly obvious – it’s all about being able to tell people and teams what eventual success looks and feels like. Whereas the current obsession is always about what are the financial metrics we need to fulfill in the current quarter, I wonder if we wouldn’t be more successful if we could explain to our teams what the office and client sites would look and feel like if we achieved the financial targets we set ourselves – what type of behavior would our eventual success engender in our managing executives, how many new faces would we have in the team, what is the way that we’d expect the team to interact with each other to get to the desired result, what type of client feedback could we imagine receiving… I believe that the knowledge of what success looks and feels like is massively important – maybe that’s the reason why companies pay a premium for people who have come from successful companies. It’s just a shame that so few of our left brain fact memorizing leaders in positions of authority can actually articulate what success feels like rather than just what it looks like in an Excel file. 

Limbic Leaders

At times I am concerned that the only publications I read on any sort of regular basis are Triathlon 220 and the Economist. (Let’s not even talk about reading novels). However work has been quiet since the start of the year. This has actually allowed me to get up to date with all my back editions of the Economist, and take the time to discover some other sources of information including the FT plus various podcasts (of varying quality) including Freakonomics, Tim Harford’s Pop Up Economics, Pop Tech Audio and the Guardian’s Business Podcast amongst others. I’ve also downloaded a number of new apps for my iPhone including both the TED and Facebook ones. As much as I try and steer clear of the “self-help” category, and genuinely wish I could follow more of my Dad’s advice of “fewer business books and more of the literary classics”, I couldn’t help but be drawn into Simon Sinek’s “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” TEDcast on my iPhone this morning despite trying to do something else at the same time http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html?utm_expid=166907-15&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Fsearch%3Fcat%3Dss_all%26q%3Dsimon%2Bsinek. The talk started off in a fairly predictable “let’s think outside the box” type of way, but it got increasingly interesting as the 18 minutes progressed, and it even prompted me to do some more reading about the limbic brain which controls emotion, behaviour and  memory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system) and the diffusion of innovation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations). By the end of it I was thoroughly delighted to have listened to someone who could articulate two things that I know are right, but could never explain as eruditely as Simon does here; namely that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it; and the fact that there is a clear difference between leaders i.e. people who hold positions of authority, versus people who lead who understand that people follow leaders for themselves, not for the leaders per se. All interesting stuff…now back to the day’s onslaught of emails (surely it shouldn’t have to be this way, or, shouldn’t I be thinking about how I can avoid this being the inevitable outcome that it is… although that, at a minimum, sounds like a different blog post).

My own social mess explained

Despite some of my oldest friends winding me up about the fact that I flick through back editions of the Economist to wind down, I continue. I found a couple of interesting articles about the new internet super firms of today – Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. The initial article (http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21567355-concern-about-clout-internet-giants-growing-antitrust-watchdogs-should-tread) talked about the key challenges they are facing, but it was the second more recent piece that I found more thought provoking (http://www.economist.com/news/business/21569766-social-networks-shares-recover-it-fixes-its-search-problem-search-me)… Until reading the article I hadn’t appreciated that “Social Search” was the third pillar of Facebook’s strategy after its Timeline and News Feed functionality. Although I personally don’t think social search has lots of legs, at least not in the same way as Google’s search has even become a verb in the English language, clearly this social thing isn’t going away (something which I think is a good thing). Effectively this article inspired me to sort out my own social mess... In addition to my recent (non-ethnic) cleansing on Facebook (username Aidan O’Brien), I have also started to have a clearer view on when I use this blog, Garmin Connect (username ajdobrien), and when I use my Twitter account (username @ajdobrien).  Facebook will be for glib, flippant or what I consider to be mildly amusing remarks, Twitter will be for geographically or place related musings – often for when I am travelling, Garmin Connect will be for those people who want to keep up with how many calories I've burned and kilometers I've covered during my various runs and bike and horse rides around the world, and this blog will be to keep family and friends updated on how the family is getting on, and some of my more half-baked two bit ideas. So, with my metal free arms and 20:20 eyesight I’m not just ready for 2013, I’m now all social and ready for the 21st century; although I am pretty sure that my young cousins and ex-au pairs are already lamenting the fact that Facebook is just so passé and that I should already be looking at the likes of Four Square, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+…I suppose I should really just be thankful that my children are too young to be embarrassed by me yet.

Splitting hairs to stay friends for longer

It’s now the end of January and we’re well and truly into the year even if I personally (and many others based on some informal conversations I have had) am still waiting for final confirmation of my objectives for 2013. I’ve spent a fair amount of this month looking at the Virtual Sales Kick Off (VSKO) videos from the different business units in our company. We are renowned in the market place for being a highly customer centric organization especially compared to the likes of other technology firms such as Oracle or NetApp, and this theme is reiterated in virtually every recording. To this end, I think our customer support organization is indeed living up to that billing. However when I reflect on the other parts of the organization, I start to feel the need to draw a fine line between being client focused and being focused on a specific client opportunity. Admittedly both are better than some other places I have seen that are only focused on increasing the number of bodies that are employed by any given client regardless of the bigger picture or final outcome, but I still think that customer centric or focused means that you should be trying to understand who the client is, and the specific challenges they are facing in their industry at that particular point in time. That is a wider topic that just working every hour God sends to complete a comprehensive response to a potentially lucrative RFP that was released four weeks earlier. I don’t necessarily say that one is inherently more profitable than the other – there is a lot to be said for a strong sales-driven culture. However I can’t help but think that one approach gives rise to stronger more sustainable and longer term relationships.

Bionic, No, Banal Man – Part 2

When you grow up playing football at a decent standard, going to a competitive school, studying at Oxford and then working for Accenture for 10 years, you (or anyone else) don’t really leave yourself much time to be normal. However I honestly couldn’t have been happier than when I sat up from the operating table this morning after my eye surgery and heard Dr. Gauthier-Fournet say to me, “everything has gone fine, your operation was very banal”. I am banal, ordinary, boring! I can assure you that when it comes to matters of eyesight, then that suits me just fine! At that moment, if I hadn’t been so scared that it might have negatively impacted them, I could probably have even started crying my eyes out. As I sit here on my computer only a few hours later, wearing my Steve Wonder style sunglasses with my vision already massively improved (I keep having to remind myself that I don’t have my contact lens in), I am already confident that taking the plunge to have my eyes LASIK’d (Laser In Situ Keratomileusis) was the right choice.

Thankfully after I’d taken the decision to have the operation and had had the initial consultation at the start of January, I didn’t think too much about the whole thing. It wasn’t very “real” even when I was putting eye drops in three times a day earlier this week. It still wasn’t very real even as my friend Laetitia (what a super Mother Hen figure she turned out to be today!) picked me up at 8.30, and drove me 30 minutes to the eye hospital. The long wait after checking in just seemed like any other ordinary long wait, as did sitting in the patient’s waiting room after I’d donned yet another hospital night shirt, plastic shoe covers and a rather fetching little plastic shower cap. The sounding of the fire alarm which interrupted the rather annoying “let’s not offend anyone” Tracey Chapman style music in the background, was something of a relief, especially because the pragmatic French just carried on as if nothing had happened. However, shortly afterwards the nerves did indeed strike. Now it had started to get real. That said those nerves were pretty short lived because a young lady who had just had her operation came out and sat down next to us. She seemed to still be alive, and she seemed to still have her sight, indeed it was noticeably better than it had been 10 minutes earlier. When I asked her what had been wrong with her eyesight beforehand, she then proceeded to list a whole plethora of optical impairments. I stopped her after the fourth, my confidence had already been sufficiently buoyed – if they had managed to fix that blind coot then my operation was going to be a stroll in the park. Whilst I still couldn’t describe myself as being blasé by this stage, I did manage to sigh something that resembled relaxed relief. Unfortunately that was also short lived as the nurse came back two minutes later and proceeded to put some final drops in my eyes which stung like mild chilies. Two minutes after that I was then led to the operating theatre which was about 20 meters away. The operation itself was short, but sufficiently uncomfortable to be memorable. There was no arm round the shoulder, let’s look at your papers again before a final “into the breach once more” cup of tea, it was, “hello again, right lie down, O’Brien, Aidan right eye, focus on the flashing green light”. By the time I pointed out to him that I was here for both eyes, he had already inserted the little plastic discs that were to keep my eye lids where they needed to be, and telling me that yes he understood that, but that he was going to start with the right eye. Oh yes, well I’ll just shut up then and hold on for dear life (really nurse, there is no need to pin my arms down – haven’t you seen the nail marks I’ve already left in the handles either side of the bed?). I desperately tried to do everything to focus on that flashing green light although I couldn’t help but be surprised by the continued presence of the doctor. I thought it was “the machine” that did everything rather like when having an x-ray taken? There was however too much stuff going on which prevented me from working out whether or not I was reassured or concerned by the doctor’s continued presence. On reflection I think the biggest difference between this and last week’s operations (both under local anesthetic), was that hands and arms feel and the eyes see. When my arm was under local anesthetic its ability to feel was taken away. However even though the eyes were unable to feel, the anesthetic did not remove its primary sensory purpose of seeing. As a result I was a lot less serene this week – there was definitely no chance of falling asleep as I did last week and not just because of those bloody plastic discs.

At the end of the operation I grasped eagerly at my “banal report card” and tentatively started to believe that the immediate visual improvement I was seeing might actually be real. Obviously the result improves over the coming hours and days, but as I sat down again in the waiting room I quietly completed my little personal mental checklist; blind YES/NO, improved vision YES/NO, and on coming out with one YES and one NO (in the right order of course), I offered up a little prayer of thanks. That was washed down with a complimentary croissant and hot chocolate (yes, this is France still), and then I picked up my now redundant glasses before completing all the necessary administrative papers, and a final check-up to make sure that the flap on the lens that had been cut during the operation was sitting flat and now ready to start the healing process. 

The drive back home was lit up with street signs that sparkled with clarity and crisp letters. If there hadn’t been the risk of an exchange of nasty microbes which might have put the recovery of my eyes at risk, then I could have kissed my friend and chauffeur Laetita who had offered moral support and waited patiently for me throughout the whole morning. It is clear to me that the permanent optical improvement massively outweighs the inconvenience of a weekend of Steve Wonder sunglasses that make me look like the octogenarians that are everywhere to be seen in Biarritz (in fact I’m almost even looking forward to going to church on Sunday so I can “be one of them”). And although the whole operation cost in the region of 2500 euros, roughly half of that will be reimbursed by French health insurance companies. Amazing really when you think about it.

Phew, it’s over, job done. We're almost at the end of January and the physical stuff has been sorted out seemingly successfully, now I need to start working out what surgical interventions exist for my various personality disorders…

An Indian Winter?

I think it’s pretty well known that after having worked for Wipro and travelled there on numerous occasions, I have a bit of a soft spot for India and Indians – whilst the country isn’t as pristine as I might like, and without wishing to generalize about a population of 1 billion, I’ve never met a group of people who are so kind, welcoming and hard working. I always tend to read the various India related Economist articles when I find them. However there have been a few articles and a letter recently which make me wonder about whether or not there is a chill wind blowing over the country… This article confirms that winters are indeed getting colder in Northern India, http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21569439-north-indian-winters-are-short-increasingly-bleak-numbed-bones-choked-lungs However on a more philosophical note, the following article suggested that India is lacking something of a new political vision which is preventing it from carrying out the economic reforms that everybody accepts are necessary http://www.economist.com/node/21563720 And the positivity I felt after reading the more upbeat article about the reaction of middle class Indians to a despicable crime in Delhi recently (http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569031-horrible-attack-could-prove-turning-point-indias-women-rape-and-murder-delhi) was dampened when I read the following letter from Vineet Bewtra in London, especially the last two lines… “Sir – Your leader on the shocking gang rape in Delhi placed much hope on India’s emerging middle class to promote women’s issues. Yet the middle class themselves are just as culpable for the deeply ingrained gender bias in Indian society. A study published in the Lancet in 2011 by Prabhat Jha et al found that the selective abortion of girls had increased in the first ten years of this century compared with the 1990s, and that wealthier families and educated mothers were statistically more likely to abort girls. To paint the middle class as modernisers because they are better educated and earn more is naive. Cultural norms in Indian society run deep”. When you combine this with the general view that outsourcing and offshoring are going to go into reverse and that we will see more and more “re-shoring” (http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569739-outsourcing-jobs-faraway-places-wane-will-not-solve-wests), it all makes me wonder what the future might hold for India, especially because the evidence has shown that globalization is not progressing as fast as one might think http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568753-world-less-connected-it-was-2007-going-backwards). Has India missed the chance to make enough hay while the sun shone?

Cat skinning and reptilian micturition

Maybe I've worked for American companies for too long, but despite my inherent repulsion of corporate jargon, I do have to admit that I've always been a big believer in "win-win" situations, and the idea  that there are always "many ways to skin a cat"... However my recent trawling of back editions of the Economist have led me to modify that second phrase. I hereby propose a new version. I now think there are always "many ways to pee if you're a turtle"... http://www.economist.com/node/21564524