September 2010 Archives

A loose continuation of the entry about no-rewards. So what's up with inventions? Where are the people that managed to fly to the moon?

Let's think about the rewards. Bonuses at work, climbing up the carrier ladder, getting famous, having as many citations as possible or getting accepted research grants. Jeff Schatz published a nice joke in his book - "What's your research about? - Getting grants!". This is exactly what the article is about - rewards makes the people concentrate on getting rewards and not the real purpose...

The risks of playing safe is another chapter of the Jeffs book. Everything have to be safe. The research plan, the investment, the work environment, the income, the car, the life, ... But the price for the safety can be sometimes really high.

Is there a way to find financing for a small team and their equipment for at least 10 years without knowing what they are actually going to do? Just based on a fact that those ones are a smart and nice guys? No way, right? So how can anyone expect a break-through innovation when the sponsors wants to know what it will be right now and today? Who will give the money? Government? Corporates? Kingdoms? Monarchies? Rich people? How will it be justified in front of the citizens, employees, committee or in person? Justified? Exactly - we are playing safe!

Now I'm not sure this wrong. This are the rules of the todays game. What I'm trying to say is that we just should not be surprised if the "next big thing" will be "no big thing". And not measured in revenue, let's talk about first use of a metal, wheel, an artificial engine power, the three laws of motion, electricity, phone, computer network, etc. I'm not talking about a better metal, safer wheel, faster engine, theory of relativity, green energy, wireless phone, satellite network, etc. Those are all crazy things too but those are in a way "just" improvements.

Seth asks "Whatever happened to labor?". (<cite>Not Labor with a capital L, as in organized labor unions. I mean labor as in skilled workers solving interesting problems. I mean craftspeople who use their hands, their backs and their heads to do important work.</cite>)The short answer could be "They are rewarded!". Or the contra question "Is there anyone today doing anything without thinking about the reward?...".

Disclaimer: continuing on the journey started by "What if the knowledge is not in the answers but in the questions?" question, I've read a book called Leading with Questions. Here are some quotes, but most important questions that I found interesting:

• p14 Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?
• p17 ... I believe in the capacity of the people who have worked with me. I truly think that leaders who tries to know it all and tells everyone what to do is doomed to failure.
• p23 Did I clearly articulate the goals I was trying to achieve?
• Did I give people the time and resources they needed to succees?
• Did I give then enough training to get the job done properly?
• Why do we do it this way?
• p31 Why is this the way it is?
• Do we understand why we got there?
• p37 What worked and what went well?
• What could we do better?
• p40 Is this really worth my effort at this time?
• Can you share with me why this particular issue bothers you so much?
• p53 Those who have the inability to ask questions have problems with their ego.
• You cannot think your way into courage; you act your way into courage.
• p67 What are your goals?
• How would you describe the current reality?
• p69 What have you tried before?
• What do you want to do next?
• p70 Why did this work?
• p71 Can that be done in any other way?
• What resources have we never used?
• What would happen if you did nothing at all?
• What other options do you have?
• p79 What possibilities does this open up?
• What can we learn from this?
• p90 If you actully meet resistance, the best thing is to stay quiet. You have to give a person time to think.
• p91 Peter Drucker and others have noted that the most important thing in communication "is to hear what isn't being said".
• p105 What inspires us?
• What challenges us?
• What encourages us?
• How solid are our relationships among ourselves?
• How can we keep ourselves motivated and encouraged?
• p111 Sometimes they fear that questions may bring them unwelcome information.
• People don't resist change as much as they resist being changed.
• How do you feel when I ask you questions?
• p145 Whether we are facing a technical or an adaptive problem, the obvious (but unfortunately uncommon) first step is first to be sure the group knows what the problem is.
• p150 What goals re in conflict?
• p151 What does each side want?
• p154 What do you want to keep?
• What do you want to change?
• What do you want me to do?
• What are you afraid I'll do?
• What else do you want to ask me?
• p158 Why do you do business with us?
• Why do you do business with our competitors?
• How and when have we made it hard for you to do business with us?
• What will you need from us in the future?
• If you were me, what's one thing you'd change about my organization?
• What's the most effective way to tell you that we are grateful for your business?
• Suppose this organization could choose just three things to do more differently to dramatically enhance our customers' loyalty - what would they be?
• p168 Leaders need to develop what I call kaleidoscope thinking - a way of constructing patterns from the fragments of data available, and then manipulating them to form different patterns.
• p169 Organizations that create learning environments make change a part of organizational life: after all, learning means changing.
• p171 Asking the right questions enables leaders to discover what is the right thing to do; answering them allows managers to do the right thing.

Accepted Grants for 2010Q3 doesn't make a clear border line and I got 2x congratulations that my grant was accepted. The truth is only the first three each quarter are. I just "scored" at the last 5th, non-rejected place.