My Professional One Slide Summary

Some time last year, I was instructed by one of my clients to put a one slide page together that shows my professional background as a Digital TV Systems Expert, he needed it in half-an-hour. So I knocked this picture together in ten minutes...I'm hoping it speaks to my breadth-and-depth experience of Software/Systems Product Development & Management in TV (Set Top Box Middleware, Application Program Guides, Broadcast & IP TV Systems, VOD, SVOD, etc.):

My One Page Profile

Circle of Control

Last year, during one of my coaching sessions, I wrote a short description of the well-known topic of Circle of Control / Circle of Influence.  I first came across this in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and more recently as the Zorro Circle from The Happiness Advantage.  Essentially it's a way of removing clutter and bringing back control to your life - personal and professional. I'm posting the exercise here as a reminder to myself, for future reference.

Exercise Description

People often worry about a hundred and one things, clogging up their mind-space with things that really shouldn't be there.

Try this for an exercise:

Write down all the things that are bugging you, annoying you, or causing you to stress over.

Then carefully look at each item moving each one to one of two lists:

1) Within my circle of control

2) Outside my circle of control

When you sorted your list out into these two columns - you can

1) Ignore and send all those outside your control to the trash!! And...Feel the relief!

2) Work on the things within your control, set priorities, and try to focus on one small win at a time.

Your circle of control is basically the things you have direct responsibility for, that you have the power to change, and improve.Outside your circle of control are basically stuff that is outside your hands, someone else's responsibility, nothing you can do to change it - i.e. you cannot influence, or effect change in any way, shape or form, so why bother??

Good Luck!!

The New One Minute Manager Snippets

I just completed reading The New One Minute Manager, written in the form of a short-story about how a young man goes in search for inspiration on a management philosophy, the one minute manager way. I found this little book quite insightful, and thus decided to capture the snippets in this post so I can always refer back to it when needed. The authors, Blanchard & Johnson encourage their readers to share with others.

I cannot say that I've practised this particular method, however, I have used the techniques of feedback and redirects, although not consistently, in some of the projects I manage. You don't have to be a line manager, anyone in a leadership position can implement these techniques, and I find it especially appealing in the context of project management, where I have moved more to meeting with individuals on a one-on-one basis (owners and managers that report to my project stream), than having those big round-table status-update meetings, that wastes a lot of time and limits engagement. 

If you get the chance, please read this book, otherwise, checkout these snippets that convey the core message of this One Minute Manager technique. I hope you find it as interesting as I have!

Let's start with a highly apt Dilbert strip, from my daily calendar, that so happens to be the same day as writing this post :-)

One Minute Manager In a Nutshell

Some Powerful Anecdotes

All these are extract quotes from the book, courtesy of the authors Ken Blanchard & Spencer Johnson: