Connecting with the source of your creativity can be scary at first. It involves taking an honest look at your true self. We need to see ourselves as we are, not as we want to be. For many people this is too much to bear. It means seeing our failures as well as our successes. Seeing our ugliness in addition to our beauty. It means acknowledging that we may not be the rock stars we thought we were. Like I said, scary stuff.

The upside to all this honesty is seeing the truth of who we are now. For we can only become who we want to be by first seeing what we need to improve upon. It's an eye-opening process. And it can hurt. The self-image we've taken so long to build up may be torn down in an instant. Honesty cuts deep. If you hope to reach your creative self, you must expect to be cut.

This experience is not something to fear. You need to embrace it. The truth is that a shallow person will only produce shallow art. A person who explores the depth of his psyche can achieve meaning in his work. You will only get to know the outer world only by going inside yourself. If this sounds like a paradox to you, then you get it. The better you understand yourself, the clearer you'll perceive the world. It's the yin-yang principle that has come to life in you.

The creative individual is fearless. He is willing to explore the unchartered depths of his soul. The unknown realm of his psyche is his playground. He returns to this place again and again for he knows that true creativity can never be taught, it can only be discovered from within.

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I never really thought about the difference between monitoring and controlling until I was forced to. When my team began to perform poorly, I knew it was time to switch from watching the action (monitoring) to influencing the action (controlling). The first thing I had to do was identify what had gone wrong. I had to identify at what point the team had veered off the plan. No rose-colored glasses here. I had to bring the team's activities into the harsh light of reality. Something went rotten and I needed to identify it quickly. This is where the monitoring aspect of managing a team becomes crucial. If I hadn't been following the team's progress I never would have known where to look. The lesson here is to maintain situational awareness at all times. Now that I understood where we went wrong, I could attempt to re-align the team to move towards the right direction. This is where a manager's control skills come into play. At this point it's best to call a meeting of the whole team. This will allow everyone to hear the same thing and to ask clarifying questions. It's important to gain buy-in from your team so that they take co-ownership with you for the solution. Be constructive in your criticism and careful not to blame. Remember monitoring and controlling work together. With continuous monitoring, a small nudge may be all you need to get your team back on track.    ... << MORE >>

Every weekday morning I commute into Grand Central Station in New York City. And it appears so does everyone else. It's called the hub of transportation for good reason. I need to be very alert coming off my the train or I may just get run over by all the other commuters whizzing through to their destinations. There is one specific intersection where I'm amazed that there aren't more pedestrian accidents. You see the upcoming traffic well in advance, so you have time to anticipate a future collision and adjust your pace, stride and tempo accordingly. However you're not adjusting for one or two people. There are at least 10 near misses within a 5 second interval. Yet for all this activity I don't remember the last time I bumped into anyone. The human brain...it's a wonderful computer. That's not the only thing that makes this particular intersection interesting. As you're sizing up the situation you realize that everyone else is sizing up you too. No one wants to have an accident. However different people approach this intersection in different ways. I notice that some people will look me in the eye and silently signal whether they will cross in front of me or allow me to cross in front of them. Conversely, others will keep their head down, plow through the intersection inattentively and force me to navigate around them. In addition, I notice that some people adjust to oncoming traffic well in advance of the potential point of impact. While others wait until the very last moment to veer away. So much to learn about human nature at one intersection. With a little self-awareness you can learn a lot about yourself there as well. No psychiatrist necessary. So next time ... << MORE >>

Golf is a great sport. You get to spend time with friends in a park-like setting for 4 to 5 hours. Throw in some friendly competition and you have all the ingredients for a great day. But the fun doesn't stop there. When you get home golf continues to give. That is, if you know how to decipher it's underlying lessons. Here's a few gems that I've gleaned from the great sport of golf.

1. Be Humble
I'm an average golfer who sometimes breaks into the double digits I've been playing for more than 5 years. On good days I can pick up one or two birdies per game. It's a great feeling to be able to score one shot below par. When I started playing, I'd get all pumped up when these rare holes occur. No more. This is because I now understand that more often than not, my score on my next hole will be below par. Why? Because golf teaches you to be humble. There's a very fine line between hitting a ball 250 yards and landing in the center of the fairway. Or hitting the ball 180 yards and have it land in the rough or worse, the woods. Consistency is hard to achieve over 4 or so hours of play. That's why pro golfers earn big bucks when they win. They've learned to master their game. But they also know that there will be days when their game will is off. It's just a natural part of golf, and life.

2. Stay Focused
There's one thing that invariably will screw my game up. ... << MORE >>

Developing a plan of action is like developing a blueprint for the future. The plan identifies all of the aspects of a project that need to be executed...tasks to be completed and when, products that need to be delivered and to whom, people who will be working on the project and their responsibilities. The plan is indispensable.

Without a plan, there can be no effective management. Let's go one step further, you're not a project manager if you don't have a plan. Because without a plan, what are you actually managing to? Let's say you have an idea of what your customer wants, but you don't have a plan to deliver it. You, as the PM, will not be able to monitor or control what your team is doing. You won't know if you're on schedule, within budget, performing to scope, going in the right direction. That's what a plan tells you and you don't have one. That's basic project management 101. It may be harsh to hear, but it's the truth...you're not a project manager if you don't develop a plan.All you'll be is a person following your team down one dark, dead-end alley ... << MORE >>

Pick up any business-related newspaper or magazine and your bound to find at least one reference to how evil it is to multi-task. The authors inevitably conclude that either multiple-tasking will somehow either lower your productivity, contribute to your loss of focus or make your brain ooze out your nose. Well I say that's all rubbish. First these authors don't understand what multiple-tasking really is. It's not doing two or more tasks simultaneously. That's impossible. Our brains can only process one thing at a time. What feels like simultaneous processing is really high velocity switching between two distinctly different tasks. And there lies the problem. We switch from one task to another so fast that we don't even notice that we've done it. When we're not aware that we've switched then there is a strong possibility that we're not fully working on one task at a time. When this happens we get mixed up and try to work on both tasks at the same time. Not good. Not even possible. The secret is to become aware of the switch. Fully acknowledge that you have dropped one task to focus on another. When the former task starts to creep into your mind, treat it like an annoying fly and just swat it away. So the next time you see an article about the harmful effects of multi-tasking, just ignore it. Something can't hurt you if it doesn't exist. ... << MORE >>

Find a quiet place and listen to the silence all around you. After a few minutes doing this, you may start thinking..."this doesn't make any sense, how can I listen to something that doesn't exist?" Don't give up just yet. Ask a musician and he'll tell you all about it. There's so many types of music. From classical to jazz to rock to hip- hop. The actual sound of these various formats are very different. However all these musical formats have one main thing in common...the space that exists between the notes. I mentioned earlier that silence doesn't exist. That's true to a certain extent. Taken in isolation there's nothing there. Taken in relationship to the music it comes into being. I'm not talking philosophy here. Put in your ear buds and listen to your favorite song. Turn up the volume higher than you typically would. Relax, don't do anything special, just listen. Get two minutes or so into the sing and find a spot where the music and singing stop completely. Now pause your music player. (Many, but not all, songs have silent spots. You may need to do some research before coming up with an appropriate song). Did you hear it? Softer than a whisper, but it was there. It's more of a feeling than a thing. It helps to maintain an introspective focus when doing this exercise. Sound exists in relationship to silence. Silence exists in relationship to sound. Your creativity will be enhanced if you can hear both. ... << MORE >>

I don't quite understand why some cashiers choose to keep my penny in change. Granted it's not much money but they don't even ask. They just assume I don't want it. Is it something in my body language that says "I don't want to be burdened with this coin". Does anyone have a rational explanation for this behavior? ... << MORE >>

We make a sh*tload of decisions each day. And consequently, we make a sh*tload of mistakes. One of my favorite quotes is that "the only difference between a fool and a wise man is that a fool makes the same mistake twice; a wise man does not". It's not important to me to become a wise man. However, I certainly want to learn from my mistakes. The Japanese call this "kaizen". In English it means "continuous improvement". While it may sound difficult to learn from our mistakes, it's the first steps that are the hardest to overcome...recognizing and admitting you've made a mistake. Once we get over those obstacles, it's smooth sailing. Stay tuned to this blog to learn how to learn from your mistakes. ... << MORE >>

"The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions."
-Peter Drucker

"If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
-Abe Maslow

"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
-R. Buckminster Fuller

"A problem, to be a problem, must contain an unknown. If all was known, the problem would vanish."
-Alan C. Walter

"Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists."
-Edward de Bono

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"A goal without a plan is just a wish."

-Antoine de Saint-Exupury

 

"He who fails to plan is planning  to fail."
-Anonymous

 “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”
-Thomas Edison

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
-Dwight Eisenhower

“Happy people plan actions, they don't plan results.”

-Dennis Wholey

And a bonus 6th quote by the guru of convoluted wisdom, Yogi Berra:

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is."

Just one more...

"Planning bridges the gap between your dreams and your accomplishments."
-PM Guy

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"A winner is big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them." -John Maxwell "Excellence is not a skill. It's an attitude." -Ralph Marston "If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude." -Colin Powell "Excellent firms don't believe in excellence -- only in constant improvement and constant change.” -Tom Peters ”If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.” -Thomas J. Watson Excellence is all about excelling. Excelling is continuous and has no end. Strive to do your best. And then do better. ... << MORE >>

 “It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." -Albert Einstein "Never, never, never, never give up." -Winston Churchill “Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” -Newt Gingrich “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” -Thomas Edison “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” -Nelson Mandela ... << MORE >>

 The world of project management is abuzz with talk of Agile PM, vitual teams, and change management. Those are the celebrity topics of the industry. However, there’s one unglamorous topic that no self-respecting project manager can do without. In fact, without a mastery of this skill, a project manager will be doomed to failure.  I’m talking about the all-important, yet underrated skill of organization. Organization skills are critical to project management success. Without a working organizational system, you’ll find yourself wasting a lot of time looking for things instead of using that time productively. In addition it’s very stressful looking for the valuable information contained within the lost file or folder. Just think about the last time you lost a credit card, keys or your wallet. It feels like your whole life stops until you find the missing item. The key to being organized is understanding how your brain stores information. The brain categorizes information systematically from the top down. Meaning, from big picture to detail. We feel a sense of order when things are stored this way in the external world. For example, when we need to buy milk we go to the supermarket, not a hardware store. When we enter the supermarket, we go to the dairy aisle, not the meat section. And so on until we find the specific type and/or brand of milk we’re ...

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The world is a tough thing to understand. It's just too immense to take in as a whole. We need to break it down and focus on one of its parts...art, science, law, medicine. We go to school, choose a major, get a job and attempt to master our chosen field. Becoming an expert in our field makes us feel good. We feel like we can handle whatever comes our way. We even welcome things we don't understand because we're not afraid to learn. We know the more we incorporate into our worldview, the more situations we can handle with confidence. In other words, we feel as if we're in control. It's a similar circumstance when we plan out a project. The more parts of the plan we control up front, the more chance of success we'll have. We define goals, tasks, schedules, deliverables and budget. We look at potential risky situations and how we'll deal with them if they occur. We identify who is on our team and what each team member's role and responsibility is. We make sure that what the team is producing is quality work. You may hear people complain that you can't control everything. That may be true, but it should never be used as an excuse to not try at all. The key to controlling your project is to develop a plan of action. Without a plan, confusion will surely envelop your efforts. You'll constantly be putting out fires. Your team will be moving in many different directions. Combatting chaos is not the best use of your time. As action warriors, we must remember to first plan the work, then work the plan. It won't work the other way around. ... << MORE >>

You don't have to be an artist to scribble. You don't even need to consider yourself "artistic". In fact, this idea will get in the way of your creativity. Find a pen and piece of paper and start to scribble. Notice I didn't say start drawing. Why? Because drawing implies that you have an idea or image in mind to you want to represent on paper. I'm asking you to move your pen on the paper without worrying about what you're trying to draw. Remember that you're not trying to draw any particular thing. The whole point of ... << MORE >>

Steps
1.Do a quick review of all pieces of puzzle
2. Pick a single piece at random
3.Search remaining pieces for similiar attributes (color, edge) to that piece
4.Park all similar those pieces in their own area for future investigation
5. Pick another piece
6. Attempt to join the two pieces together
7. Don't force them
8. Don't get discouraged if they don't fit together 
9. Continue steps #1 thru 8 until the big big picture solution is revealed

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"Don't rock the boat." "Stay in line." "Be more like us". We hear these words all the time from parents, teachers and friends. And they all have good intentions. They want to share with you what's worked for them. They want you to become like them because they are proud of who they are.

However, if you look closely you'll also see that there is fear behind their words. Fear of being different. Fear of failure. Fear of trying something ... << MORE >>

It's the New Year again and time to look forward. We're all supposed to be thinking about resolutions, goals, and self-improvement. As the band Timbuk3 sang, "the future's so bright, I got to wear shades". It's healthy to think about the future and plan ahead. That's the way we will reach our goals. However before you go too, far ask yourself what your goals are actually based on. Are they realistic and within your potential to accomplish. Or are they just pie in the sky dreams which your could never achieve. How do you even know? The way ... << MORE >>

There's a lot of talk these days about how to be good leader. Wherever you turn there's articles, books and shows dedicated to leadership. With all these leaders around, there seems to be a lack of good followers. By definition, for a leader to be a true leader he needs to have followers. Without people to inspire, motivate and guide, a leader is just a self-important source of hot air. For a leader to be an effective leader, his team members must be good followers. Being a follower should not be construed as negative. The simple truth is ... << MORE >>

We all have strengths. We all have weaknesses. Some of us choose to focus on our strengths; others our weaknesses. This is a decision we all make. When we choose to focus on our weaknesses, we tend to limit ourselves. We may be critical of our abilities. This is not always a bad thing. Identifying our weaknesses can motivate us to improve  on them. Self-improvement is valuable, but it's an uphill struggle. When we focus on our strengths, we empower ourselves. We recognize that we already have a skill or attribute that works for us. This makes us ... << MORE >>