Month: November 2014

The Meaning of Giving

/ Jim Lynde / 7 Comments

A couple of weeks ago a close friend asked me “What do you think is the meaning of life?” This holiday season, I’m sharing my response with all of you.

Having, creating and building meaning is likely the deepest “want” most of us have. We want to know that our time here, together, truly means something. For leaders of all teams, creating meaning is the key driver of engagement and commitment because when we know what we are doing means something important to us, we want to do whatever it may be better, faster and smarter.

I believe most people already know the answer to the question my friend asked me, though many people get confused and misled by more superficial things. Here is my reply to my friend:

A few years ago, the VP of Marketing for my business (a large global company with many billions of dollars in sales) was in my office around 7pm. We’d been talking about a number of business issues and were getting ready to wind up our day, when I randomly asked him what he thought the meaning of life was. He was (and is) a very good man.

His answer was breathtaking for both its accuracy and its candor in a corporate setting:

Love.

I asked him if he had read Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning“–which a survey conducted for the Library of Congress ranked as one of the ten most influential books of the 20th Century. He had not, so I shared the essence of the book with him.

WAR & CONFLICT BOOKERA: WORLD WAR II/WAR IN THE WEST/THE HOLOCAUSTViktor was a young psychiatrist in Vienna when Nazi Germany took control of Austria.  As Jews, he and his wife were both taken to concentration camps. The first half of his book is about how he survived the atrocities of that experience. The second half is his own approach to helping people which he called “logo therapy.” Logo in its original definition is not about brand symbols—logo is Greek for “meaning.” Logo therapy is literally “meaning” therapy.

Viktor’s big insight about meaning is very simple. He got through the concentration camp because he believed that he needed to survive to take care of his wife. He knew that his life mattered because he decided to do whatever it took to survive so he could care for and love her. No matter what. He wasn’t important. She was. So he could put up with anything. The worst things people could do to each other. He and other prisoners in the concentration camp also found meaning by giving to and caring for each other.

Viktor’s wife didn’t make it. He did, remarried and had one daughter. He wrote his book, and spent the rest of his life helping people apply his wisdom–all over our world.

Our lives have meaning because of what we can do for others, not because of what we do for ourselves. This is why one study after another shows that buying some new toy or gadget gives us a temporary emotional “high” that is quickly gone. Doing for ourselves produces only a brief moment of joy and meaning. Doing for others? We know we made a difference and feel great inside. And we remember the feeling.

“It is better to give than to receive” is often quoted but perhaps we don’t fully appreciate the truth in those words. In many ways the giver actually gets more than the receiver–because the giver has validated that their life matters and has meaning. Christmas (and all similar holidays) are likely such a wonderful time of year for so many people because we feel so great about giving to others. It is those who have no one to give to who feel sad and depressed during the holidays.

police-give-away-secret-santa-money-Recently, a “Secret Santa” in Kansas City used his wealth to create meaning, change relationships and build trust between police officers and people in need in the community they serve by giving. He gave a large group of police officers $1,000 each to give to those they saw in need, $100 at a time (letting each officer give to ten different people).  The reaction of drivers of beat-up older cars after being pulled over and receiving some much-needed cash instead of a traffic ticket was priceless. Instead of being seen as the bearer of bad tidings, the police officer was seen as a caring person, there to provide help. The whole relationship between law enforcement and the people involved was redefined in an instant. Instead of preparing to argue over their driving, people opened their arms to share a hug. These acts of giving created meaning for the police officers, the people they helped and, of course, the “Secret Santa” himself. You can learn more about it here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sheriffs-deputies-kindness-brings-drivers-to-tears/

Meaning comes from giving to others. Helping them. Making a difference in their lives. Of course, the biggest meaning comes from choosing to make one person your special partner in life. A lifetime of meaning and giving is a lasting source of happiness, if it is built on the right foundation.

To achieve meaning for your team (the most important want of all)–give and lead them to give too. Give thanks. Give a helping hand. Give your knowledge. Give a smile. Find a cause worth giving to as a team and then do it. For when we give, we create meaning.  When we know and feel what we are doing truly means something, we will do all we can to make it happen. Because now, we care.

Image Sources: Wikipedia, CBS

Building Value: Can + Want x Do = Results

/ Jim Lynde / Leave a comment

Can Want Do Chart

Can, Want, Do. The three core drivers of performance and achievement for individuals and teams. Today, let’s explore the combination of these three drivers as a whole a bit more fully before we get into the specifics of each and how we can simply and powerfully leverage them personally and for our teams.

These three combine to make results happen—and none of them by themselves is sufficient to do so. Can, Want and Do are not the proverbial three-legged stool of equals. They are a formula for delivering and improving results, once you know what you want to do.  Before Can Want and Do can work their magic, you must know what you want to accomplish– something that creates more value than what you began with. Can, Want and Do are no substitute for vision and purpose or, for a business, a business model that “works” by creating profit when executed.  Simply put: Can + Want x Do = Results.  First, you must define what you value and the measured results you will achieve.

Value

Can, Want and Do are the building blocks of growing value. Most of us first think of value in the financial sense of the term. How much more money do we have today than yesterday, last week, or the year before?—and how that money compares to others with whom we compete or compare ourselves. Growing $ value is certainly important– and essential for a business in order to survive, grow and continue doing things that create other forms of value. Growing financial value is one of many forms of creating value in the complete definition of the word. Value can include social good, survival, pride, personal growth, making a difference (more on meaning to come in future posts) and more. What brings value to you in your life?

Can, Want and Do are the ingredients that let us achieve whatever we have decided we value. By building, improving and measuring Can, Want and Do effectively, we significantly multiply the potential of creating whatever we choose to value—including financial growth.

CAN: Do I (and my team) have whatever it is we need to do what we would like to do?  Do we know how to do it? Are we good at doing it? Can we get better? Do we have the tools to do it? Supplies? Are we better at doing it than others? If not, it might be time to get better at doing it or let someone else do it and do what you are better at doing than anyone else.

Can is essential. If there is something we value that truly can’t be achieved, we need to redefine what we value and let go of that dream until a time comes when it is achievable.  (That’s rarely true but does apply to some goals. For example, traveling to another solar system with today’s technology). With a challenging and possible to achieve goal, figuring out what it takes to say Yes, we can! is an essential part of the formula.

WANT: Is this something We/I truly want to achieve? Do we intensely and passionately value it? Are we committed to it? Could we become more committed to it–so we do it even better, faster, more cost-effectively and with more value creation?  Can we grow our Want to an even greater and more powerful level? Does everyone on the team want the same result? If not…what are we going to do about that?

Without Want we can have all the Can in the universe—but very little Do will happen. To the degree Do does occur without much Want, it will be easy for someone else who has more Want to out-Do us, even if they have less Can. Because they will use the Can they have with greater energy and purpose—eventually building more Can as a result of their Want.

Want is in the middle of Can, Want, Do—because without Want, neither Can nor Do will create much value.

DO: Nothing matters until we Do it.  Before that, it’s just a dream. A possibility of what could be real. Of course, everything starts as a vision of what could occur. It is the aligned, purposeful and always improving execution of that vision, powered by Want and Can that makes it real. There are lots of tools to help us focus, align and measure our Do so we get better at our Doing every day.  Doing and doing better all the time is where Can and Want meet the road and make whatever we choose to value happen.

Did you notice the multiplier in Can + Want x Do = Results? Doing multiplies the commitment in Want and the ability in Can into actual, real world value. Without Do, Can + Want = 0.

Future posts will explore Can, Want and Do as distinct concepts.  I’m hoping this will become a conversation among us. So bring on your ideas, reactions, debates and build-ons!  I will certainly share insights and examples on what I have learned from those who taught me—and hope that you will share your insights and experiences too.

My next post will explore the deepest, most important Want of all.

The Three Essentials of Performance or Yes, We Can (if we want to)

/ Jim Lynde / 15 Comments

Words.  Do they matter? A few sound waves. Some symbols on a page—today they are gone with the touch of a delete key or swipe of your finger. Yet, we all know that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” right?

Indeed, without the words, there would BE no sword. For words let one sword maker pass knowledge and skills onto the next, who further refined his craft and passed that knowledge onto the next and so on.  Without words, swords would never have been developed or refined. It would be easy to argue we would be better off without swords. Yet without words we would not have physics, song, engineering, novels, history— or civilization as we know it. Without words our communication would be stunted— our relationships and connections reduced to their most basic level. Words make true communication possible and communication makes humanity at its best, worst and in between possible. Words make us uniquely human.

Simplicity

Slide1

Some people take great satisfaction in utilizing complicated words to communicate. Big words can make us feel sophisticated and masters of some special body of knowledge while everyone else gets to figure out “what did that person just say?” Complicated words may feed our egos-but they often block understanding. How about we use simple words we all understand?

Slide2True simplicity is valuable. Albert Einstein got that. So did Steve Jobs. Yet, we often stay mired in complexity.  When we get through complexity to the essence of something, we find a core truth that can spark innovation and action in many dimensions. I think of complexity as a mountain of “stuff” that we must work through to get to the powerful, simple truths on the other side of it.  Einstein did that by working through huge complexity to develop the theory of relativity. The relationship between energy and matter is certainly a simple and very powerful truth.  iPhones aren’t quite at the same level—but they are both simple and sweet!

Performance

Almost every team, business, non-profit (or any group of people) will answer “Of course!” when asked if they’d like to improve their performance.  Getting better tomorrow is built into our DNA. But how? There are a huge number of theories, frameworks, models, hypothesis, concepts, tools and really big words on the topic of improving performance. There are so many possibilities to pick from: Capability, talent, competencies, knowledge, skills, engagement, commitment, passion, training, motivation, purpose, execution, extrinsic rewards, discipline, learning, performance, development, accountability, recognition and so many more. All of them with lots of syllables. What if we could reduce the complexity of all that and identify the fundamental drivers of performance?  What if we moved through the confusing academic and HR-ish language to what really makes a difference?   We might be getting to something that we could all understand, act on and use in many ways to do better tomorrow than we did today.

Simple words are clearer. More powerful. Unmistakable in their meaning. They get to the essence of things.

When it comes to improving our performance, there are three truly simple ideas on the other side of “Mount Complexity.”

Can—do we have the ability to do what we have in mind?

Want—do we want to do it?

Do—are we doing it?

Nothing happens until we get to Do.

Do doesn’t happen without Can and Want.

If we have Can but no Want, nothing happens.

That’s why Want is always the fundamental driver of individual and team performance. Desire beats require— because when we truly, deeply Want to do something, we will do whatever it takes to figure out the Can and then Do it.  When we Want to do something Together—almost anything is possible (like putting a man on the moon with less computing power than we have in our “simple” iPhones today).  You know it’s true— look at what you’ve accomplished in your own life that makes you proud. What role did Want play in that?

Can. Want. Do. is about these three simple truths that are the formula for performance and results for all individuals and teams (I like the word teams more than organizations—it is simpler and more real).

I’m looking forward to exploring Can, Want and Do with you. That’s exactly what this blog will do. Our journey has begun.  Let’s learn together.

P.S. Yes, words are more powerful than swords. After all, if we take words out of swords, all that will be left is an “s”—and there’s not much we can do with that. No matter how much we want to.