Keep At It — What Else is There?

“Get to Work!  You aren’t being paid to believe in the power of your dreams.”  (from a poster available on the dark site, despair.com). 

Here’s a problem. How do we stay focused on business improvement, business innovation, business excellence, when so many people are simply dealing with business survival?  The news is bad, and not getting any better (that’s a nice way of saying that it’s bad and getting worse).  As I type this, I have just heard the offical prediction for 2009 — the entire world economy will lose 1% in GDP.  This has not happened since World War II.  In other words, things really are bad — and not getting any better any time soon.

I am reminded of Maslow.  We have been living in the upper portions of the hierarchy for quite some time:  self-esteem, self-actualization.  But now we are back on the lower end of the list, worried about basic (physiological) needs and safety concerns.  

So — what do we do now?  Why, in this era when the data is depressing and the proposed solutions seem so tentative, do we even meet to discuss books that speak of innovation and change?

Because we have to.  Work is not just a means to an end (a way to make money), but a central part of life itself.  It is why the independently wealthy have always looked for things to do. Having something to do is part of what makes us human.  And a job is valuable in and of itself. Yes, it pays the bills, but it is so much more.

And besides, to take a page out of the real estate success handbook, when times are tough, you work even harder — market, market some more, stay in touch with all of your clients, get everything in order — so that when the market rebounds you will be ready to take full advantage of the renewed opportunities.

So, for March, our two books are talking about what to do.  Strengths Based Leadership will help us think about how to encourage leadership based on an individual’s unique strengths.  And in Talent is Overrated, we will be challenged to develop our skills more fully.  

We will keep presenting books about business improvement and excellence and innovation and leadership because we have to.  It is our job.  And as we find a few things to use now, we will find much more to keep us in position to do better when times get better — again — as they will.

The underlying message is this — keep working, keep aiming to get better, learn to enjoy any accomplishment, and then strive for more.

Outliers, the 10,000 hour rule, and the Pilot Hero

I was looking over my synopsis of the book Outliers again this week, thinking about the 10,000 hour rule.  That’s the rule that says that it takes 10,000 hours to get really good at anything.   But it’s not just any old 10,000 hours.  It is 10,000 hours spent with the intention of mastering a skill — hours spent intent on getting better.  It really does take a lot of hard, hard work.  Gladwell wrote that “The people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else.  They work much, much harder.”  (p. 39).  And part of that work, (much of that work) is spent in practice.  Here is his definition of practice from a music context:  “Practicing:  that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better” (p. 39).

I discussed the book with a friend of mine, and he said that he would not want a new, young surgeon to operate on him if he ever needed an operation.  He said the ideal age would be a doctor old enough to have seen almost everything imaginable (about 55 years old).

I thought of all this as I watched 60 Minutes this past Sunday, and then read a little about Sully, the hero of the Hudson landing.  I read the article on Wikipedia about Captain Sullenberger, the hero of U S Airways Flight 1549.  Keep the 10,000 hour rule in mind as you read this excerpt from the Wikipedia article:

“Sullenberger has been employed by US Airways or its predecessor airlines since 1980. In total, he has more than 40 years of flying experience, and since 2007 has run his own safety consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc., which provides “emergency management, safety strategies and performance monitoring to the aviation industry”. He has also been involved in a number of accident investigations conducted by the USAF and the National Transportation Safety Board, served as an instructor, Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) safety chairman, accident investigator, and national technical committee member. His safety work for the ALPA led to the development of aFederal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular. He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that is used by US Airways, and he has taught the course to hundreds of other airline members.

Working with NASA scientists, he coauthored a paper on error-inducing contexts in aviation. He has gained more than 19,000 hours of flight experience to destinations across North America, Europe and South America on Airbus A320s and similar planes since joining US Airways. His résumé states that he was an air accident investigator for a National Transport Safety Board inquiry into a major accident at Los Angeles International Airport, which “led to improved airline procedures and training for emergency evacuations of aircraft”. Sullenberger has also been studying the psychology behind keeping an airline crew functioning during a crisis.”

Not only was Sully an experienced pilot, he had put in countless hours learning about safety from every angle.  He had spent a lifetime of preparation for that one crash landing.  Aren’t the passengers and crew, and really, all of us, glad that he was so thoroughly prepared?!

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You can purchase my synopses of both Outliers and Talent is Overrated (a good follow up book to Outliers), with audio + handout, at our companion site,15minutebusinessbooks.com.