Friction Free
June 9, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
An underlying technology of the machine tool industry I was involved with was tribology, concerned with friction, lubrication and wear. Round and cylindrical parts last longer when the hardness and smoothness is improved and continually lubricated. The need for tribology grew when tolerance for friction decreased as engines became smaller (example: compact cars) and applications became more critical (example: artificial hip joints).
Without tribology applications, anything from grit to human antibodies will abrade, erode and eventually destroy surface finish.
Its a good metaphor for how to respond to the changes and uncertainty resulting from an increasingly smaller and connected globe, lack of tolerance for bad systems and replacement of worn-out structures.
Worry, doubt, ego, hubris and what Julia Cameron beautifully describes as giving in to “the temptation of despair” will just as quickly erode individual and collective human potential as a speck of dirt will destroy a bearing. Self-aware people and organizations are vigilant about thinking, assumptions and expectations. The result is a mirror-finish belief system or culture that deflects what’s not wanted and functions smoothly, regardless of circumstances.
Relationships, networks and social capital provide the lubricant.
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Is Critical Reasoning Dead?
May 22, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I’m not surprised that the most inspiring essay I’ve read in years is written by a motorcycle repairman, who also happens to be a great writer and who has a Ph.D. in political philosophy. His essay contrasts the levels of critical reasoning, intuition, judgment, experience and metacognition in both the bike shop and in the think tank. The former wins hands down.
Although I’ve never been a mechanic I did work for a decade in the machine-tool industry, both as corporate controller and entrepreneur/start-up partner. But the industry was in decline so I got an MBA and a year later started my career as a knowledge professional, specifically a Web 1.0 strategy consultant. It didn’t take long for my elation to turn to disillusion.
I remember a conversation I’d had with one of our solution architects, which in Web 1.0 meant he could write a paragraph and include a diagram. I showed him a brochure from my former company that I’d co-founded, highlighting one of our portable, lathe-mounted superfinishing machines that we designed and manufactured. He smirked and remarked “boy, you’ve come a long way”. The web consulting company merged several times and was eventually absorbed by a larger Web 1.0 company which then went away several years later. I think my co-worker ended up in financial services. After a another short interactive strategy consulting position I became self-employed. The machine-tool company I’d co-founded was under-capitalized and it folded. I lost touch with my former partners but occasionally drive through the industrial park where we were once located.
Its been 10 years but reading the essay reminded me exactly how I felt when the people who made concepts disparaged the people who made capital equipment. I’m grateful that I still have the traces of grease and oil in my blood to be able to appreciate one of the writer’s examples of the kinds of crises that industrial workers and mechanical engineers experienced on an daily basis.
I once accidentally dropped a feeler gauge down into the crankcase of a Kawasaki Ninja that was practically brand new, while performing its first scheduled valve adjustment. I escaped a complete tear-down of the motor only through an operation that involved the use of a stethoscope, another pair of trusted hands and the sort of concentration we associate with a bomb squad. When finally I laid my fingers on that feeler gauge, I felt as if I had cheated death. I don’t remember ever feeling so alive as in the hours that followed.
But what I most identified with in this essay, is author’s description of the “feel” of the knowledge work jobs he’d had and how most everything about management and process contradicted anyone’s ability to produce great, creative work in order to churn out banal, yet profit-maximizing, output. Perhaps I’m over-idealizing my former life, but I don’t remember that kind of creativity stultification in my machine-tool days. But I still cringe to remember how as Web 1.0 consolidated, management continually tightened the throttle on critical reasoning and creative ideas that didn’t fit with their formula. They hated it and I couldn’t live without it. So, like the writer, I got out, not by opening a motorcycle repair shop but by starting my own solo professional service firm. I’d had enough of a taste of “process management” as a Web 1.0 knowledge worker to realize that if I wanted to create and produce at and beyond the level of which I knew I was capable, I’d have to do it as an independent.
Yet like him, I can imagine the possibilities of a more entrepreneurial, post-crisis economy and some resurgence of industry, the trades and the artisans. And I have faith that there’s even a chance for new and better knowledge work as hierarchies flatten and social business models and technologies replace conformity, formula, centralization and control with collaboration, networks, sharing, ideas and critical reasoning. He eloquently describes how our quality of life depends on it.
Our peripheral vision is perhaps recovering, allowing us to consider the full range of lives worth choosing. For anyone who feels ill suited by disposition to spend his days sitting in an office, the question of what a good job looks like is now wide open.
Space
May 20, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
We’re made up of more space (dark energy and dark matter) than visible form and matter, but we spend most of our lives totally identified with the latter. Its one thing to think about the concept of spaciousness but yet another to experience it, for even a short period of time. Anyway, why would we want to and how do we do that?
We want to because we now know that the physical and conceptual structures that we’re identified with are unstable and will be replaced with new ones that are yet to be created. We want to be part of that. But fear and worry about that instability, and how it will affect our lives and businesses, lead to more attachment and rigidity that then shows up in how we respond to change: protection, judgment, guilt, resentment, complaining, blame, etc.
So instead of a desired growth direction we get stuck on the survival path. Life and business experience becomes relentless reactivity to an endless series of crises and lack . We know that the way towards new and better experience is through creativity and innovation, but forget that creativity comes through us. Its not something we can reach out and attain. Rather, we have to make space for it and knock down the walls that block it.
Making space for creativity in challenging times requires vigilance over individual and collective thought and action. Space is created by ceasing thinking and constant doing, and by softening the physical and conceptual boundaries constructed in attempt to keep out everything not wanted, like vulnerability. It can be as simple as taking deep breaths and setting time aside for short periods of stillness. It can also be more challenging and require a lot of courage, putting oneself on the line without a safety net for one’s convictions, so to speak.
The challenges we’re dealing with now are opportunities for dropping resistance and defenses to receive the wave of creative energy that is always available. It comes through us when we let it. It takes faith. The biblical metaphor for our self-constructed creativity barrier is the Wall of Jericho. When we blast ours down, we’re then freed to enter our Promise Land. That’s the metaphor for the place and point of power from where we can expand our natural influence, and contribute the best of who we are to what is yet to be created.
The Prequel to Your Show
April 26, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I’m a big Battlestar Galactica fan. I’ve watched most episodes several times to understand the story’s complex arcs, but always had some unanswered questions. The producers and writers clearly wanted to challenge the audience, and succeeded.
Despite my passion for BSG, my expectation for the recent first episode of the prequel, Caprica, was fairly low. The initial reviews were lukewarm so I figured it wouldn’t live up to the BSG series and might confuse me. I was wrong. It was great.
Since watching it, I’ve been thinking about the value of the backstory to bloggers, speakers and solo professional and creative practitioners.
You know how the prequel is usually done in business. The writer or speaker either begins with, or interjects some version of “now let me tell you a little bit about myself”. Its a literal and linear approach, although sometimes effectively interjecting anecdote and humor as it explains. The Ron Moore (BSG and Caprica Executive Producer) approach is much more interesting. It doesn’t explain, it unfolds. The audience has to be more attentive in order to connect the slender threads between past and present. So its a compelling and inclusive user experience and not a boring account.
Your backstory can be woven through your content. Its your personal myth: defining moments, experiences, insights, synchronicity, dreams, joy, metaphor, suffering and learning that you made happen or let happen and that changed you. Your readers, viewers and listeners won’t be bored, and they won’t be confused about what they really most want to know: who are you?
Claim Your Clients
April 22, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
A friend told me she and her partner had been looking at a mirror in Ikea for 6 months. It started at $70 and although it kept getting marked down, they didn’t buy it because they didn’t need it. The other day it was $9.99 so they bought it and put it away for now.
Several solo business friends commented that if it takes that much discounting to sell a product in this economy, how can professional and creative service providers sell?
Well, there’s always another store discounting their mirrors. But you’re the only one who does what you do and that’s how you (your global microbrand) show up everywhere.
And once a person shows up in your “store”, you have the ability to sense their unmet needs and you have the systems in place to immediately begin sharing with, inspiring and supporting them. When they’re ready to purchase, they’re already your treasured client and the project is already in process. If they don’t buy you still get a return on your natural influence: learning, content and permission assets, social capital.
You’ve shifted your consciousness from being attached to specific results and outcomes to being poised and ready to receive from indirect channels that unexpectedly appear when you’re not waiting and not urgently pushing for them. You’ve released your concerns and worries to a higher power so you can focus on creating and being of service.
I hope these statements hold at least some truth for you. If so, you’re probably unconcerned with discounting to make a sale.
Wormhole image credit: visualparadox.com
the zorba
April 15, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Sometimes you need a big idea, one that might make you feel uncomfortable. If you’re never queasy about your work, you’re too conventional and must take more risk. Hopefully, this post provides inspiration. I got mine from Seth’s post about naming that unique “thing” you invented. Not your business or practice, its the thing you, and only you, do. I knew immediately that my thing is “the zorba” but I had to get past the gulp.
The zorba counter-balances thinking and concepts. The story’s narrator and main character, Basil, represents the barely alive life we succumb to when we’re so absorbed in our thinking that we lose our connection to nature, to our deep human roots, to our sensual experiences and to our robust, creature-based appetites.
“I still said nothing. I knew Zorba was right, I knew it, but I did not dare. My life had got on the wrong track, and my contract with men had become now a mere soliloquy. I had fallen so low that, if I had had to choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, I should have chosen the book.” Basil/Narrator
The zorba is a joyful re-connection with our creaturehood and its attendant instinctual responses, sensual desires and natural aggression.
The zorba is a wake-up call, jolting us out of knowledge and control.
“Why! Why!” he exclaimed with disdain. “Cant a man do anything without a why? Just like that, for the hell of it?
Zorba
The zorba is alignment and identification with a greater power, non-resistance to what’s happening and amazement of the mysteries of the world.
He interrogates himself with the same amazement when he sees a man, a tree in blossom, a glass of cold water. Zorba sees everything every day as if for the first time. Basil/Narrator
The zorba is the conviction that the only path, the right way, is the one in front of us.
But I believe in Zorba because he’s the only being I have in my power, the only one I know. All the rest are ghots. I see with these eyes, I hear with these ears, I digest with these guts. All the rest are ghosts, I tell you. When I die, everything’ll die. The whole Zorbatic world will go to the bottom! Zorba
The zorba is the instinct and ability to sense change before it happens.
The zorba challenges us on the constraints of linear time, fear of change and taking huge risks.
The head’s a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks the string. Ah no! It hangs on tight to it, the bastard! Zorba
The zorba is the courage to live up to our innate entrepreneurial, creative and innovative abilities and the refusal to ignore those desires to follow a more conventional path, even as it saps our soul and betrays us.
Awakening in me was the soul of the first men on earth, such as it was before it became totally detached from the universe, when it still felt the truth directly, without the distorting influence of reason. Basil/Narrator
The zorba is the persistence to not give in to failures or be diminished by them.
The zorba is the return to innocence and uncertainty, seeing what seemed intolerable as the greatest gift and point of power.
The zorba laughs, eats, drinks, loves and laughs…even through failure.
Damn it Boss, I like you too much not to say it. You’ve got everything except one thing: madness! A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free. Zorba
Solo PSF Business Models - Pt 2
April 8, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
In Pt 1: Evaluating solo professional service business models, I pointed out the importance of building content assets. I included this old slide that is somewhat outdated but I think still highly relevant.
A few readers asked: what do you mean by build system (or process) assets?
Going Solo Presentation - Babson:2005 - Mary Wynne-Wynter
The systems I refer to are unique to the solo professional who may also license or own systems such as financial planning or CAD. You might take your unique systems and process for granted, until or unless you’re expected to deliver equivalent value differently.
The tools you use may be widely available, simple, open source or even free. But how you use, integrate and continually refine and upgrade them to service, support and (hopefully) delight your clients is valuable asset.
For example, I integrate wiki’s, social media tools, tagging and rss feeds as an integral shared learning system between me and my clients. Anyone “could” do it, but I’m the one who does it. Simple does not necessarily mean “easy to copy”.
The solo business model you choose may preclude your building system assets. That may work out great for you as long as you’re aware of, and take the time to evaluate, the pros and cons of the model you choose.
Solo PSF Business Models - Pt 1
April 8, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I was recently talking to a friend, a marketing professional, who was leaving her job to go out on her own. When I asked her if she wanted ongoing contract work, specific projects or to design her own program(s), she said it really didn’t matter to her.
That conversation reminded me of a workshop I gave at Babson 4 years ago about Solo Professional Services. I dug up what I considered the key slide, and the one that caused the most confusion. The audience didn’t understand the evaluation criteria: “building assets”.
Going Solo Presentation - Babson:2005 - Mary Wynne-Wynter
The presentation is somewhat outdated, but I think that confusion about building assets still exists. A model based on branded content ownership and control is not the recommended model for everyone. But as de-jobbing accelerates and independent professional service providers fill the gap, its more important than ever to fully evaluate and understand the short and long-term implications of the model you choose to provide your services.
Related Post: Solo PSF Business Models - Pt 2
The Cast Net
March 13, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I spent several autumns fishing in Menemsha on Martha’s Vineyard.
I found myself thinking today about how I loved watching really experienced fishermen cast net for Menhaden, a prized bait fish that sometimes swam in schools close to shore and the jetty. I admired their skill, grace and timing and the cast net scenes had a fascinating archetype quality.
Today, its my change metaphor. Typically we identify with the caster. We learn the skills, get the tools, make a plan, set the goal, identify the target, try again and again, and eventually succeed and get the fulfillment we expect, or we give up and try something else.
But circumstances are raising awareness that our identification with the caster’s control is illusory. We feel more like the cast: flung out and spinning in mid-air.
Often, the response to that insecure feeling is to give away our power to the caster - the shifting external reality, those difficult experiences and circumstances, the things that we don’t want to be happening to us. The caster is the cause and us in free-fall the effect.
We can change this by shifting our reality: life, always on our side, is the caster and we are the cast. We entrust the ways, means and timing to life - the divine. Instead of free-fall and fear, we’re suspended, yet prepared and poised to claim the best probable outcome at the right place and time.
You Don’t Need to Botox Your Blog
March 9, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Recently, a female celebrity remarked that she’s against Botox because it takes the “warmth” out of a person’s face. I think the result is a blandness and sameness. I see a lot of that in blogs,too.
Sometimes they’re too long. The subject may be interesting and the post well written, but it could’ve delivered the same value in 1/4 the length. They have a “sucking up all the air space” and boring quality that we dread in presenters.
Sometimes they try too hard to retrofit the content to some idealized blog format and the main points get lost. They use too many sub-headings and popular keywords that unnecessarily break up the flow or try to hide that there is no flow. They have a “that’s nice but I don’t really get what you’re trying to say” quality.
Sometimes they’re too reductionist. They over-simplify and strip the rigor and critical thinking out of every strategic and creative topic (including creativity!), reducing it to some version of 10 tips or 7 steps. They have an “I’ve heard it all before - please tell me something I don’t already know” quality.
I’m sure there’s many tactical reasons for the above: wider appeal, standardization, SEO/SEM, less risk. And like a Botox face, they can be very attractive and successful. But they just don’t inspire.
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