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It takes courage to lead a life. Any life.
~ Erica Jong

Do you think this is true? It rings true to me, but I think it’s worth pausing and not dismissing it as one of those quick and glib one-liners that reflect but make no ripple on the surface of the life WE’RE leading.

I’m thinking the key word here is “lead”. That means being in front of your life, pointing to a direction, saying, “this way” and stepping out into the unknown.

I’m finding I’ve been doing that quite a bit recently, as I’ve stepped out of more familiar ways of thinking about life and work and into some new ways of doing things. It’s been uncomfortable and contributing to a touch of sleep deprivation.

Theory, it seems, is always easier that practice. Who knew?

Here’s what I take from all this. If you’re leading a life – any life – by which I mean taking some responsibility for the choices you’re making, then first of all bravo! And secondly, know that this isn’t always easy. And finally, recognize your own courage, something you might otherwise pass over.

If you’re looking for ways to tap into your own courage, you might like to check out this – it might just help.

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“Some years ago I spent a week giving an in-house program design course at a manufacturing company in the mid-west of the United States. On the Friday afternoon it was all over. The DP Manager, who had arranged the course and was paying for it out of his budget, asked me into his office.

“`What do you think?’ he asked. He was asking me to tell him my impressions of his operation and his staff. `Pretty good,’ I said. `You’ve got some good people there.’ Program design courses are hard work; I was very tired; and staff evaluation consultancy is charged extra. Anyway, I knew he really wanted to tell me his own thoughts.

“`What did you think of Fred?’ he asked. `We all think Fred is brilliant.’ `He’s very clever,’ I said. `He’s not very enthusiastic about methods, but he knows a lot about programming.’ `Yes,’ said the DP Manager. He swivelled round in his chair to face a huge flowchart stuck to the wall: about five large sheets of line printer paper, maybe two hundred symbols, hundreds of connecting lines. `Fred did that. It’s the build-up of gross pay for our weekly payroll. No one else except Fred understands it.’ His voice dropped to a reverent hush. `Fred tells me that he’s not sure he understands it himself.’

“`Terrific,’ I mumbled respectfully. I got the picture clearly. Fred as Frankenstein, Fred the brilliant creator of the uncontrollable monster flowchart. `But what about Jane?’ I said. `I thought Jane was very good. She picked up the program design ideas very fast.’

“`Yes,’ said the DP Manager. `Jane came to us with a great reputation. We thought she was going to be as brilliant as Fred. But she hasn’t really proved herself yet. We’ve given her a few problems that we thought were going to be really tough, but when she finished it turned out they weren’t really difficult at all. Most of them turned out pretty simple. She hasn’t really proved herself yet — if you see what I mean?’

“I saw what he meant.”
~ Software Requirements & Specifications by Michael Jackson

A client sent me this just the other day and it made me laugh out loud. What a wonderful story. It speaks to our capacity to make things complicated – and how that generates the Bad Work that consumes way too much of our time and our life.

A model I like – and which I’ve seen both here and here – says that processes can be put into one of three camps…

1. Simple

Like baking a cake.  Follow a few steps, and you’ll pretty much get to where you want to go.

2. Complicated

Like launching a space shuttle.  Or baking a really complicated cake.  Lots of step by steps, project management, flow charts … but get it all done and in the right order, and you’re likely to get that rocket into space.

3. Complex

Like a flock of birds.  Birds don’t have a long list of to-do’s or rules and procedures on how to fly.  They follow two or three key principles, and that allows them to decide the best behaviour.  If you imagine one of those big swirling flocks of starlings, they 1. stay as close to the other birds as possible 2. fly towards to center of the flock, and 3. don’t run into any other bird.

These simple rules allow them to become a self-guided, self-governing group.  (You can learn more about boids, the computer program that first helped describe this, here)

The problem is…

We default to complicated – over-management, excess rules, prescriptions on this that and the other – when we as humans are actually complex, and respond best to clear principles on how to act.

Of course, there are times when detailed and specific rules on how to act are appropriate.  But, as Dan Pink and others have described, this is the work that is typically outsourced and off-shored.  For those of us working in organizations today, over-prescription tends to do nothing but create bureaucracy – and Bad Work.

Great Work requires you to be like a bird, not a piece of machinery.

You’ll know Dan Pink through his cool books Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind.

Here he is giving a commencement speech (and drawing on his most recent book, the manga style The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need).  It’s advice to new graduates – and rings equally true for anyone at any level in any organization.

Out of many, my favourite quote is:

“There are massive returns to doggedness”.

It’s so true.  Hard work trumps time and time again persistence.  My friend Andrea Lee asked me a similar question the other day as to why I’d succeeded to the extent I had.  And I said:  Mainly, persistence.

Here are the two parts of Dan’s speech:

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Arlene Dickinson is founder and CEO of Venture Communications, a marketing and communications company. She’s in the public eye here in Canada as one of the Dragons on Dragons’ Den, a show on national television where budding entrepreneurs come forward and pitch their ideas and their businesses looking for both insight and support. Arlene has a very impressive track record as a businesswoman. She has been one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women for the last 5 years. She’s been Canada’s Business Owner of the Year, she’s been one of the top 100 Women Business Owners in Profit Magazine. She leads one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies. This interview is gold dust for entrepreneurs and leaders in organizations alike, and in it we talk about:

• The power of giving people the freedom to express themselves
• Why thinking time is a critical balance to the busy
• How to manage the tension between creativity and accountability
• The role of marketing in driving Great Work

You can listen to the interview or download it here: http://www.findyourgreatwork.com/interviews/arlene-dickinson/

You can also download the interview from iTunes – just search under ‘Great Work’

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Jody Thompson is one half of a dynamic duo with her partner Cali Ressler and they are trying to change the way work is done in organizations. They are behind the concept of ROWE – Results Only Work Environment – something they first introduced as internal consultants at Best Buy and which they’re now taking out to the world. You get a sense of their style and approach by the title of their book – Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. The connection with Great Work is pretty clear – and in this conversation, Jody and I discuss

• How their first attempt to introduce ROWE almost got them fired
• How “being mediocre” proved to be a powerful strategy (at least for a while)
• Why measuring how much time you spend working is a useless metric, and how busy-ness can end up being a death spiral
• Sludge – what it is, and why it needs to be shifted

You can listen to the interview or download it here: http://www.findyourgreatwork.com/interviews/jody-thompson/

You can also download the interview from iTunes – just search under ‘Great Work’