Measuring True Performance

When I first wrote about productivity and performance, I wasn't sure what other measures might be worth tracking besides standard productivity numbers. I only knew that I've seen instances where individuals contribute to a team's overall performance without necessarily having numbers to prove it.

While I still don't have a concrete suggestion for metrics worth tracking, the Houston Rockets and Shane Battier may provide a clue. If nothing else, their story is an excellent illustration of what I'm talking about. And I believe it validates my original assertion.

I don't want to turn this into a Justice Potter Stewart "I know it when I see it" moment, so let's talk about what measures might be useful. The Rockets are changing how we see and understand basketball for the better. Let's do the same in business where it can make an even bigger difference.

We can start by analyzing what you've done or seen other people to that helps improve performance and talk about how to measure that.

What difference are you making today?

Fail Big - Count Me Out

When startups are encouraged to fail big, I'm pretty sure no one had in mind the recent troubles with Count Me In, the same company Small Person's soccer and baseball teams have used over the years to handle registrations. I'm just glad now that I did not end up working with them as I'd imagined a year ago that I would. Sometimes there does seem to be some grand design in the universe.

At the very least, it's one more reason to believe the adage, "it's better to be lucky than good."

For those impacted and those associated with the company who I know to be good people, I wish the best. I'm sure this isn't an easy situation, but hopefully it can all be resolved with a minimum amount of damage all the way around.

For the rest of us, I'm sure we're just glad to be clear of the blast zone.

What are the potential long-term consequences of today's decisions?

Tales Worth Telling 2 - What IS That?

I keep up pretty well with current events - at least the sort that make it into the newspaper and broadcast news anyway. So a lot of times I understand what some of the hot searches are all about. Google Hot Trends searches are also a great way to catch breaking news, such as the crane collapse at the refinery in Houston the other day.

Then there are those entries in the top search list that make me scratch my head. I have no idea what they're about until I go look. Sometimes I'm sure I don't want to know or that finding out will simply be feeding some prurient interest. Sometimes I worry that by following the links to learn more, something bad might happen like I'll be placed on some government watch list or something. Of course, if it's on the Hot Trends list, in all probability I'll have lots of company there.

Today, there are a few of these. The first "Wha-aa?" is at the very top of the list, Green Gulch. On investigating, though, it turns out just to be one of those "I know what you're watching" things.

It seems that CBS News Sunday Morning profiled Green Gulch, and it must have sparked people's innate curiosity to learn more. Of course, Voice of America did a similar piece on Green Gulch nearly a month ago and I don't recall seeing that kind of spike in searches. Best guess(es)? CBS got the idea from VOA and more people watch CBS Sunday Morning News than listen to Voice of America.

For a while, I was confused about what that story had to do with "stone by design", considered by Google to be a related search. Then I discovered that Lew French's Stone By Design had been profiled by CBS News Sunday morning back in November. A-ha! Mystery (probably) solved.

Lake Placid Ironman competition - seems pretty self-explanatory. I'm not sure I'm all that curious about it or the results.

From the looks of it, not as many other people are all that curious either. As I write this, that search has dropped to number 17. The occasional spikes in searches on the Lake Placid Ironman probably have to do with coverage from CNN or people wanting to find out more about race results. And, having looked into it a bit more now (see there's that curiosity thing again. Really, the internet is a black hole), I can imagine that thunderstorms today and an expected finish time of midnight for some really would pique a bit more interest.

Roomsaver, pass. Probably featured in some news report and people are even more interested than usual right now in saving money. The most interesting aspect of this hot search item is that I can't seem to get to the website at the moment. That tells me they may be pretty new, perhaps not yet built for scaling, and some news piece grabbed enough people's attention that they're overwhelming the site at the moment.

Which brings me to my favorite on the list. Katie Holmes and her purple hands. Why would I care about Katie Holmes in the first place? And why in the world are her hands purple? Should I care about that?

Guilty pleasure or not. Inquiring minds want to know.

Investigating that one pays off with interesting stuff. Google Hot Trends searches are indeed helping create news. I'm not the only one finding out new things because of what other people are searching. Are her hands really purple? And if so, is it because of some kind of Scientology ritual?

You know what, after finding out that much, suddenly my curiosity has died. It's really not something I care about after all. There are way better things to think about than whether or not some celebrity's hands are purple, and why.

Update on the Roomsaver website - it finally loaded. It's a website (who'dathunkit). It helps you save money on hotel rooms (surprise!). They provide coupons for saving on rooms such as you might find on road trips. Okay, not a bad idea. Not super sexy either, but hey, who am I to judge? Saving money is saving money. Just remember to keep the coupons in the car.

Huntington Bank is a little trickier. It could be a bank robbery, but that was back in April and the most recent news story on the subject was three days ago. It could be because of recently posted profits when we're all feeling a bit skittish about the viability of some banks but again, that story came out Friday and none of the other banks mentioned in it are that high in the searches. Hmmm, still no joy. Time to give up for now.

On the creepy side of that search though, my concerns about randomly following links from the Hot Trends list may not be completely unfounded. It turns out there is a website called Businessuu that seems to operate by taking some of the text from top searches like these and then turn them into something vaguely... icky. I can't tell for what purpose, but surely it can't be good. I'm not linking to it. Trust me, you do not want to go in there. And if you ignore that recommendation and decide to go look for yourself and come across something unseemly or contract some gross virus, don't say I didn't warn you.

On that note, it's time to turn my back on the moving target. So, no storm chasing with Tropical Storm Dolly. I'm going to perhaps indulge in some voyeuristic tendencies and check out the Danica-Milka video of some exchange/fight they apparently had recently while trying real hard to ignore some of the idiotic comments by others. And then I'll see if The Long and the Short of It family can manage to combine some bicycling and ice cream to celebrate National Ice Cream Day.

Happy Sundae!

What puzzles you?

House Divided

Dealing with differences of opinion, especially those founded on deeply rooted emotions, can be a difficult task. It's important to respect the other person's opinion without getting walked upon in the process. Staying calm and avoiding personal attacks are helpful too. When it's family, remembering that you are family and that you love each other is an important ingredient. When it's the work environment, it helps to work on building interpersonal relationships and focus together on the common cause. And all of these skills will be tested very seriously over the next couple of weeks in my house because everyone in my family is a Seattle Seahawks fan... all of us, that is, except my sister who lives in Pittsburgh.

I have to say that this is not a Super Bowl matchup I'd ever worried about before. For starters, the Seahawks had done so poorly over the past few years that I'd nearly given up paying any attention to them whatsoever. After all, I am primarily a baseball fan anyway. But we did used to have season's tickets to the Seahawks and I have spent many a lovely Sunday in December inside the Kingdome, usually watching them lose. More painfully, it was often the only decent weekend day(s) out of the month, which made it that much tougher to be indoors. That's beside the point though.

This year, the Seahawks have given us something to be excited about. Although they've gotten very little respect from everyone else until they started beating teams during the play-offs, they've been a well-oiled machine this season. That's fine; perhaps that means they'll be able to sneak up on the Steelers in what is certain to be a tight game.

Sure, as a franchise, the Steelers have the upper hand with previous Super Bowl trips under their belt. But how many who will actually be down there on the field will have Super Bowl experience to share? This is where Seattle has the advantage of numbers and we're hearing already about how that's helping bolster the team for the upcoming showdown. And I'm hoping that not having been to the Super Bowl yet in their own franchise history will make the Seahawks that much hungrier for a win.

My sister, of course, feels differently and is completely confident Pittsburgh will take the day. I have faith, though, that we'll be able to keep our senses of humor even as we begin to engage in the requisite trash talk. And I know that we'll somehow manage to avoid any kind of personal attacks (I swear, if I tell any "Pittsburgh fans are so stupid they..." jokes I won't mean the members of my own family; honest!) and by the end of the day on Super Bowl Sunday, one of us will still find a way to be happy for the other. Hopefully it will be my sister of course, recalling that she did originally grow up here in Seattle!

Fortunately for me, I've had plenty of practice in dealing with these kinds of situations because I also happen to live in what we've affectionately come to call a "bi-species" household. As a UW grad (Husky) married to a WSU grad (Cougar), it's made for some tense Apple Cup games some years but usually we've managed to escape them with dignity mostly intact and still willing to celebrate Thanksgiving together.

Of course, this also means that I'm well versed in the tradition of talking trash to the "enemy" though it is always in good-natured fun and never meant maliciously in our circle. We're able to do it and not get hurt feelings because everyone understands that and we pay close attention to whether we might be in danger of crossing the line though sometimes we do tread awfully close! Speaking of which...

"A study was performed to determined which of the US cities had the highest literacy rate. The mayor of Pittsburgh, being highly competitive, was disappointed to learn that while they'd made it into the top ten, had not ranked any higher than number 6 and so embarked on a city-wide literacy campaign. The effort paid off and the next year, Pittsburgh ranked third in the study, just behind Seattle, which had scored the second place slot for the second year in a row. Figuring they were on a roll, the Pittsburgh mayor issued a challenge to the Seattle mayor, saying they figured by the following year, they'd be number one and Seattle would still be second place chumps.

"When the results of the study came out the following year, the Seattle mayor was pleased with their own first place literacy ranking but was perplexed as to how Pittsburgh had managed to drop all the way to number 8, nearly out of the top 10 altogether. So he called up his Three Rivers counterpart and asked about their reading habits that year.

"Somewhat disturbed with the response, the Seattle mayor fired off a quick email to Holmgren, 'Mike - I think I understand now why they're wearing the white jerseys. You might want to call up Cowher to let him know they get to be the home team and we're actually playing in Detroit; he might not have read the memo.'"

I'm sure you can come up with better (and shorter!) jokes about the Steelers. Send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's get this thing going.

How will you stay fully engaged while detaching from the outcome?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organizaion, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Learning from Lance - Part Trois

The list of business-applicable lessons gained from watching Lance last summer kept on growing. Then I was busy celebrating the history-making Win #6. Then an armadillo ran across the road, sidetracking me for months. Really.

Are you ready for the rest of it? I hope so!

The thing that really pulls it all together is that Lance is a terrific all-around package. The rest of the list just goes to prove some of the ways that's true.

Why is this "total package" thing important? It's because riding well isn't the whole of it. Sure Lance can time trial well and ride up hills like a monster. More than that, though, he uses his head as well as his legs. Lance is a great interview and has the respect of highly rated riders. These qualities and others like them make Armstrong the one other great cyclists want to ride with and it earns him valuable sponsorships. When you are able to assemble a great team and get top of the line equipment and all the other kinds of support you need in a competition as fierce as the Tour de France, it's a tough combination to beat.

Lance uses who he in addition to how well he rides to attract the support he needs and a top-notch team that help him to be competitive. Here's some of the "who" and the "how":

• Think strategically - Lance and his coach have a plan every day he goes out to ride. He knows where he wants to be in the pack, who to watch for and how he wants to finish.
• Prepare, prepare, prepare - Sometimes it's simply a matter of preparing better than the next person. When you've done all your homework and prepared for everything you're likely to encounter, success is bound to be yours.
• Execute well and be a strong tactician in the field - Executing a well-made plan is an important component. Not only does Lance execute well, he reads changes in the field like a master and adapts accordingly.
• Be able to read your team and your adversaries - Lance gets the most out of his team that he can because he fully understands what they're capable of and how well they're doing. He's also reading the other cyclists, figuring out their strengths and weakness along the way so that he can pinpoint the moves he wants to make, when, and how.
• Understand and plan for your adversaries' strengths and weaknesses - So many times during this Tour, I came away with the idea that Lance understands his rivals even better than many of them understood themselves and clearly he used that to his advantage whenever possible.
• Work with your adversaries when it makes sense - When other riders refuse to join up and help each other out simply because they are rivals, no one gains. Lance seems to understand that lesson very well and always has been willing to work together when it furthered his own game plan.
• Minimize your weaknesses and capitalize on your strengths - When Lance was so sick during the 2003 Tour, master that he was, he actually turned it into a strength, playing down his actual abilities even further and fooling rivals into believing that he'd be easier to beat. In 2004 (as in others) Lance concentrated primarily on the mountains and the time trials where he knew he could gain a time advantage, leaving the flats to the sprinters.
• Try not to make enemies - As Filippo Simeoni discovered, making an enemy means there's now someone who's heart and soul is devoted to making sure that whoever wins, it won't be you. It's not a good place to be so do your best to avoid it. Rivals are good. Enemies aren't.
• Don't let your enemies take advantage - Once you have an enemy, it's wise to not ever let them get the upper hand. There's a difference between being "easy to work with" and being a doormat.
• Pay attention to the details - Even small things count. Lance works hard to make his riding stance the most aerodynamic possible. He sheds every ounce of unnecessary weight and nothing that can impact his ability to ride goes unaddressed.
• Stay healthy - Simply put, you can't win if you can't play. All that preparation is meaningless if you overdo it during the training or during the real thing. Pacing yourself has to be as much a part of the formula as knowing when to dredge up that extra juice to make it more than 100% effort.
• Stay with it and don't give up - Voeckler should have been handing over the yellow jersey much earlier than he did. Sheer will-power kept him in the game and now he's created a bit of history of his own. Who knows, perhaps when Lance is done taking home the yellow, we'll be cheering on Voeckler in future Tours.
• Watch for the right time to make your move - Strike out on your own too early, and you run the risk of being reeled back in by the peloton... delay too long and you may miss your window of opportunity. Hopefully it's no surprise that market timing and understanding whether the conditions in the workplace are conducive to supporting a new initiative work the same way.
• Sprint for the finish - Winning usually requires that you give it your all right through to the finish. Slacking off means running the risk that there will be someone else just behind you ready to beat you just at the end.
• Be driven - Find out what drives you and use it to your advantage. For Lance, it was going for the yellow jersey and it wasn't just for the winning; the yellow jersey is what inspired him to go on living and so that proof of vitality is probably a big part of what yellow is all about.

So, did I leave anything out? If so, it's probably because you haven't yet contributed your thoughts on the matter to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - While I've got lots of other topics clamoring for space, it's not too late to add more to this one.

What drives you and how much is that helping you get what you want?

Learning from Lance - Part Deux

To continue what I started...  if it's not just about the technical skill, where does consistent success come from?

Assuming that Lance crosses the finish line tomorrow in the final stage ending along le Champs Elysées, (and he's careful enough about such things that there's no reason he shouldn't), it's practically assured that Lance will take home his sixth Yellow Jersey, an unprecedented accomplishment, all the more impressive because he will have done it all in consecutive years.

While Lance has improved the standing of the sport with the American public, his story is not the only impressive one out there. Jan Ullrich continues to be a formidable force to watch. I find myself curious about what role Andreas Klöden will play next year. Ivan Basso seems to be coming into his own. Tyler Hamilton continues to astound me even though he pulled out of this year's Tour... and even though Thomas Voeckler lost the white jersey today, who couldn't help but be impressed by his efforts and all that he accomplished, sometimes on nothing more than sheer guts and determination?

If you watched any of this year's Tour de France, you would have had an opportunity to see just how much the entire US Postal Team contributed to Lance's (and their own) success and there's a lot of good stuff there to mine for lessons about business and life itself. Here are some more of my attempts at connecting the dots...

• Assemble a great team - This year, as in other years, there is more than one member of the US Postal team who is capable of being a star in his own right. These guys really know what they're doing and they focus all their attention and energies on helping Lance succeed.
• Give your team something worthwhile to work for - One thing I keep hearing is that the work of a supporting cast member for a team like Lance's is rewarding enough to be playing second fiddle... and it must be true to have attracted top talent like they have. Team success, individual success when it is consistent with the team goal, a share of the financial rewards of success & recognition are all some of the possibilities I can think of that might be the motivators for these guys - someone has figured out what makes it worthwhile to the riders themselves because we've seen every stage of the Tour where they give nothing less than their best.
• Instill confidence - One of the things that really amazed me throughout the tour was how much easier it must have been for the US Postal team to have devoted single-minded effort into supporting Lance, knowing that he was capable of doing what he set out to do... compared with how troubled the T-Mobile team had to have been with Ullrich struggling to stay in the running. Here we are on the eve of the final "just make sure you cross the finish line" stage, and Ullrich as team leader is more than two and a half minutes behind one of his own teammates. It's tough to know as an outsider and a non-competitive cyclist what the dynamics actually look like on that team right now but I have to guess that a willingness to support the leader and get the team where they collectively want to be has to suffer in a situation like that.
• Work on the teamwork - A singleminded willingness to work for the good of the team doesn't by itself guarantee success. Lance and his team have clearly prepared heavily for the most foreseeable situations, developed a comprehensive plan and practiced their individual roles in the execution of that plan as much as they needed to until they were able to execute it nearly flawlessly. Every time Lance was led by and surrounded by his guys in blue, you saw it in action and it most definitely worked.
• Control the pace - By making it their game instead of someone elses, Lance's team controlled the field and made it more likely their guy was going to be the one to come out on top
• Be willing and able to do the hard work yourself - Lance has great support from his team and he could not possibly achieve the success that he does completely on his own, but he also knows there comes a time when he has to be the one out in front doing the heavy lifting and he has to do it alone.
• Know who your real adversaries are - Along with the other A-list cyclists, Lance (mostly - okay, he's definitely not perfect) doesn't waste his time or energy chasing down riders who aren't in a position to affect his own standings or the success of his team.
• Work with a great advisor - One of Lance's keys to success is that he has Johan Bruyneel, a coach who understands him completely and also understands the challenges he faces. Johan is a friend, a confident, a sounding board and an advisor who ensures Lance and the rest of his team are at the top of their form on race day. At least part of his top-notch performance comes from the outside perspectives Lance gets from Bruyneel.

That's probably more than enough for now though with input from others, I definitely have more to add to the list. If you'll send your ideas to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com I'll make room for those as well.

What's one thing you could do to improve your own chances of success?

Pacing Yourself

If life (and yes, work too) is a marathon and not a sprint, you can begin to see that pacing yourself becomes an important concept to grab hold of. That might not be enough though. Consider that even a marathon has an ultimate end goal, after which point we expect to rest, and only after.

So what if it's about finding purpose in all that we do, while we're doing it? How does that impact how you work and how you live? Personally, I find that when I focus on this instead of the deadlines, I find much more to enjoy about my work and my life and it is easier to find some sense of balance. Amazingly enough, the deadlines are easier to reach too. Don't ask me to explain that one; I haven't figured out yet how it works but it does seem to.

This week, the end goal was Lawyerpalooza, which came off very well. It was a pretty late night for a Monday night with plenty to do still on Tuesday. Today, I'm taking it a bit easier and pacing myself in the midst of the other things I still have on my plate to get done. It's interesting that instead of really feeling tired, I feel only a greater appreciation for all the effort that went into pulling off the event because I can feel it in my body, in my bones. While we don't yet know how much money was raised, all the bands made great music and everybody had a terrific time. It felt like we were fully living our purpose.

What about you - have you tried focusing on purpose instead of end goals? What have you noticed? Send your observations to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com as well as any tips or tricks you've learned along the way.

What greater sense of purpose drives you?

Creating Luck

When I was a kid, I was fortunate enough to spend time living on a lake. It was a particularly good lake for waterskiing but only if you got an early start in the morning. Near the beginning and the end of the school year happened to be some of the best conditions because of the combination of the weather and the fact that other people mostly had school in mind instead of skiing. Going for a quick pull before school was not necessarily the norm (no one planned it) but if you were awake, had eaten breakfast already, homework done & clothes laid out - short, if you were prepared - when the airhorn sounded... well, you just might have a chance to sample perfection for a half-hour or so and start the day out right. There was nothing like early morning sun on my back, wind in my hair, and the smoothness of the water that time of day.

Why does this matter in the context of this column?

The point is, are you ready for whatever opportunity is right around the corner or perhaps even staring you in the face? Are you even ready to recognize such an opportunity?

There is a project providing scientific proof of a sort that is starting to get some attention that we do create our own luck... and that staying optimistic and keeping a broad focus that makes it easier to spot a variety of opportunities (even those that come disguised as disasters) is an important component to that process. For more information on the Luck Project, go to www.luckfactor.co.uk, recently written up in Fast Company.

For die-hard pessimists, the same can be said about disasters. I carry water with me on desert hikes and matches on hikes in areas with wetter climates. What sort of preparations have you made in your career to be ready for whatever difficulties or opportunities may come your way?

My favorites include:

* Keeping a running list of the projects I'm working on and the skills I'm developing and the results I've achieved
* Using this and other information to keep my resume updated at least once a quarter ("whether I need it or not")
* Staying in contact with a variety of individuals in and outside of my industry
* Making sure I'm doing as many favors for the people I know as they're doing for me
* Add new people to my list of contacts with each new project, job, or role that I'm involved in
* Regular mental run-down on of how happy and satisfied I am with my work, what drives me right now, and where I feel like I'm really making a difference
* List of skills I want to add - these I either make time to add or are the first things I jump into in the event of having unplanned time on my hands, such as happens so often with unemployment.

What it comes down to is this... Some of the most important turning points in our lives, good and bad, don't bother to announce themselves in advance. That means we've got to be ready for them before they arrive.

How do you stay optimistic? What personal disaster recovery plans do you maintain on a regular basis? Send your suggestions to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and I'll share the best ones here.

Just know that when that airhorn blows, you've either got your swimsuit on already or you get left on the dock.