Managing White Space

Musicians get it.  

      Creative writers understand it.  

                   Marketing folks thrive on it.  

White space is a concept known in many fields for a number of reasons, but the underlying theme is always to give a mental pause.  In music, a phrase of notes, a movement, can be separated from another with a rest or a pause.  The pause gives your mind time to absorb the melody and accept a change of direction.  In creative writing, whitespace takes the form of blank lines, paragraph markers and tabs.  You can express a great deal in a written story by adding an extra blank line or space in just the right place.  Marketing people live by whitespace. This is why billboards are not crammed with images, but rather have a few select targeted images and words surrounded by clear space. Clarity. White space.

In the practice of people management, the concept of white space is also important.  Over the years I have made a great deal of mistakes and learned from them the hard way.  One of these things was an understanding that people need processing time, they need to gather information, sort it, sleep on it, let all the pieces fall into place.  Several times in my career, I have taken on a leadership role with a team of people who needed some redirection - usually because the company direction and goals were changing.  In these cases it is more important than ever to tread softly, but in all cases when taking on a new leadership role, it is important not to make sudden changes.  After all, the team already has one huge change to deal with  - you.

What I have found is that there is always some upheaval in the initial days, just because you have taken on this new role.  Even if the team knew you before, the relationship changes, the politics have to be recalculated, the pieces all need to be resorted.  What people need is some white space.  People need some mental time to process the change and understand that there is no threat to them or their families or station.  That is what it is really all about when you think about it - 60,000 years of evolution and we still think about tribe hierarchy and wether the new leader is going to cut off your head or leave you for jackal food in the desert.

So what to do in that first several days while you are leaving your new team with whitespace to clear their thoughts?  You ask questions, learn their strengths, research the landscape and do your best to understand the challenges that need to be addressed in the next steps.  No sane person expects a new manager to make immediate changes because that always leads to failure.  People need the clarity of whitespace in between the big announcement that you have taken on the job and the time you need to act on that responsibility, there needs to be some time for processing.  White space.

Another important lesson I have learned is that this pattern repeats when major changes occur even after you have been leading a team for a long time.  When there is a large adjustment to make, make it - but make it with clarity and with all the information, then leave people with time and space to process.  People need whitespace and your job as a manager it to keep it in it's place. 

Be awesome change the world.

Exceeding Expectations (AKA: How to do it like Disney)

Earlier this year I blogged about my admiration for Disney and how they differentiate themselves. Having just come back from Disneyland park (yes, again) I just had to gush some more.  Before you start thinking this is going to be a long advertisement for Disney parks, I want to let you know it is actually about the concept of exceeding expectations in general.  Disney just happens to be exceptionally good at it.

There is this concept in customer service of exceeding customer expectations and it is more than just a passing fad.  Companies that do it well profit enormously from spin-off revenue, repeat business and free referrals.  There is a cost involved and many companies tend to cut corners or not really put any effort into it at all.  One company that does an exceptionally good job of exceeding expectations is the Walt Disney Company.  This is not a particularly easy thing for them since Disney has set such a high bar for excellence already that exceeding it is difficult.  However, they continue to do so and push that bar even higher.

This past week, I was at Disnelyland park in California (again) and took a series of photos of areas that the Disney Imagineers have created that were not necessary for the attraction, but only add ambiance for enhanced customer experience.  This is a key part of the concept - enhance the things that will make your customers love you even if there is no possible financial return.  Sometimes it is purely expense and the only return is increased customer satisfaction - but that is the important thing to remember.  Happy customers will talk, and word of mouth advertising like that is absolutely priceless.  The value from one good verbal, trusted referral is worth 10 billboards of advertizing.

Take a look at the set of photos below.  If you have never been to Disneyland before, these are all shots of places that are not functionally required for the attractions.  They are pathways, or sitting areas, or transitions, or even the back side of an attraction that most people never would see.  These are things that Disney could have easily NOT done and people would still pay to visit and go on rides and buy churros - but how many people would return?  Understanding that return customers are more valuable than new ones is the real key to exceeding expectations.  The incurred expense of the areas in these photos serves only to turn "customers" into "ambassadors", but that has proven to be a valuable formula for Disney Corp.  More companies should understand that concept.

If you are a Disney nut, I challenge you to guess at where these photos were taken.  It is a fun exercise and interesting to see where Disney puts money just to enhance the customer experience. I have posted the answers on a separate page at http://mairs.ca/tom/blog11092012pics.

Be Awesome - Change the world.

The Daedalus Diaries

Years ago when I started blogging - before blogging was an actual word - it made sense to post everything in one place.  Today's netizens are more selective and the range of topics I write on are more diverse, so it makes sense to also diversify my blogs.  This week I am launching "The Daedalus Diaries" as a place to explore things that involve gears, wheels and math-like things.

This blog has been a great place for me to vent, educate, stir up controversy and generally spread the message of perpetual awesomeness.  Often this is also a place where I explore more complex things like  energy systems, chaos theory, mechanics and other weird things that involve math.  

While "The Bleeding Edge" will remain an island of controversial opinions, thoughts, and musings, The Daedalus Diaries will focus on alternative energy, automation and other electro-mechanical fun.

Thank you for continuing to follow, I hope you enjoy the posts to come.

As always...

Be Awesome - Change the World.

Recommended Reading

I recently read "My Life as an experiment" by A.J. Jacobs and I have to say I loved it and highly recommend it to anyone interested in improving the quality of their life.  Actually, I think I would recommend this to anyone capable of reading.  This was one of the most insightful and humorous books I have ever read.  By humour, I mean laugh-till-you-fart funny.  Expelling milk through your nose laughing kind of funny.  It was not what I expected from the editor of Esquire Magazine.

In the spirit of chapter three, all about "Radical Honesty", I have to tell my business partner and friend Mike Hillyer that when he recommended this book I was skeptical of its value and I even put off reading it several times, always finding something more important to put on my to-do list ahead of it.  I thought the title was lame (sorry A.J.), I thought the premise was weak (subjecting your life to experimentation?) and I believed there were more important things for me to be reading.   I am sorry I did now because this is one of those books that just "speaks" to you.  At least it did for me, and it did so in a very personal way.  

If you have not read it yet, I encourage you to order it, or go to the library, or borrow a copy from a friend.  The Radical Honesty chapter ("I think you're fat") is worth the price of admission alone, but the chapter on multi-tasking (or actually, uni-tasking) is absolutely priceless.  After reading (and re-reading) it, I am thoroughly convinced my wife needs to meet Julie,  A.J.'s wife, just to prove that I am not completely alone in my insanity.

I don't think I will ever pretend to be a famous movie star for any period of time in order to feel the pressure of fame.  Nor will i likely get a professional photographer to capture me nude to prove a point about vulnerability.  However, I found significant vindication in the chapter "Do I love my wife" now knowing that there is indeed scientific proof of love as a bio-chemical reaction in the brain.  (I told you so.)

For the adventurous thinker, this book is a must.

Be Awesome - Change the World.

The day democracy died

In a year that celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we may have also seen the demolition of the very foundation of the democracy that document protects.  While other countries look to Canada as an example of how to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals, our own government has taken the initiative to trample on the trust we place in elected officials and have eroded effective government at it's core.  On Monday, June 18th, 2012 the sitting Conservative government voted to pass the "2012 Budget Bill" against public outcry and opposition protests.

If you are not aware, Bill C-38 also known as "An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures", is a 451 page doorstop of legalese that I am sure no one has actually consumed entirely. You can read the full document here if you have a few days to burn and a law degree to decipher it.  There are so many things wrong with this whole situation, it is hard to know where to start.  Maybe we should begin with the fact that only a portion of this is actually even related to the actual budget handed down by the Minister Jim Flaherty. The rest of the document is additional items that can be considered tangential at best to the actual budget.

Maybe we should just consider the fact that this is a 450+ page document that was expected to be processed in the same manner as the normal 10 to 20 page documents are in the commons.  The average size of a bill passed in the 1990s was a dozen pages.  Even during the current sitting, Bill C-38 can be considered outrageously huge.  Consider Bill C-2 amending the Criminal code at only 16 pages, or even bill C-10 which itself was considered abnormally large at 114 pages.  The full list of bills presenting in the commons in this sitting is available here.

Let's forget the fact that it is huge and unreadable, which in itself undermines government, this bill is also not what it was represented to be.  Canadians were expecting this bill to be about the budget, about "Jobs, Growth and long term prosperity" to quote Minister Jim Flaherty.  They were not expecting completely new acts to be introduced that affect the Environment, or changes to the Nuclear Regulatory Act to be included in a "Budget Bill".  They were not expecting alterations to the Oil and Gas Operations Act, or alterations to the Fisheries Act.  I really doubt that most Canadians were expecting a "Budget Bill" to include releasing entire sections of the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act.  Add to this alterations to old age security, unemployment insurance, modifications to the parole board, reductions in libraries archives and R&D programs, the list goes on.

So not only has the government blatantly lied to the Canadian public by the gross misrepresentation of bill C-38, they have used their overwhelming majority in the commons to pass the bill against the protests of the official opposition.  The elected representatives who are supposed to be representing the public interest have completely ignored the calls of the vast majority of the Canadian public to break down the bill into smaller components and as a result have destroyed the very concept of representative government.

Congratulations Mr. Harper, you have killed democracy.

Well, the press, including a plethora of bloggers will not be forgetting about this soon and neither should you.  There is really nothing you can do about it - that is the scary thing here.  Your elected representatives have pushed this through Parliament and it will now pass though Senate to become law by the end of the week.  Such is the way of corrupt governments.  What you can do is remember this and when you do get the opportunity to vote (because this really is still a democracy) you can exercise your right to remove the Conservative government from power.  If this government continues to completely disregard their responsibility to fairly represent the populace, then that may be they only democratic right you have still intact.

Be Awesome - Change the world.

The "beautiful is good" effect

 I had the pleasure of spending the past week with three beautiful women on a beach in Mexico.  I know - tough life, right?  Yes, one of them was my wife, and two friends came along for the ride.  I learned two important things from this experience -
    1) SPF 15 is completely useless under the June sun in Cancun
    2) Men are universally predictable around beautiful women

I am accustomed to getting preferential treatment when I travel with my incredibly beautiful wife.  When we go out for dinner, waiters will always treat us (well my wife, actually) with more preference than other tables.  I started noticing this a while ago when we would go to a place that I also tended to visit alone or with male friends - the attention was always better when I took my wife. Apparently there is also a multiplying effect.

This past week I was vacationing in the Mayan Riviera with my wife and two attractive friends when I realized I was experiencing something called "the beautiful is good effect" and it does indeed seem to have a multiplying effect.  The bar tenders at the resort pool treated me like a king with my own harem.  One of them was offering service of some kind every 15 minutes with complimentary drinks, food service, you name it.  The beach crew even came by and offered a selection of activities (para-sailing, scuba, etc).  While these are normally available to anyone, you normally have to go to them for the service, not simply lay there on a deck chair waiting.  We seem to have proven empirically that the "beautiful is good" effect is very real.

It's not fair, and it sucks for not-so-attractive people, but this remnant of our evolutionary path does serve a purpose.  It is completely logical that more attractive people are likely to be healthier mates, better for breeding and propagation of the species.  It also makes sense, in an evolutionary way, for the attraction to be stronger in groups - strength in numbers and all that.

It got even better on Friday when two more beautiful women joined us for a day on the beach in Playa Del Carmen.  Different location, different environment, different service staff, but same effect.  The server came short of offering us complimentary foot rubs, but I am sure they would have been provided if asked. Needless to say, I highly recommend traveling with beautiful people.  I am sure if Hugh Hefner walked into a New York hotel alone and unannounced people would barely recognize him, but when he appears with five bunnies in his entourage, people say "hey, there's Hugh Hefner… with his harem".

I found it fascinating to watch and it stirred a desire to read more on sociology and anthropology in the future.  OK, maybe that is just the Margarita talking :-)

Be Awesome - Change the world.

Refill anyone? (at 28000 km/h)

Congratulations MUST go out to the amazing team at SpaceX today. I have been waiting a very long time to see the day when private citizens had the power to step into space.

Today is a monumental day in the history if space exploration. The SpaceX Corporation successfully completed the first commercial service trip to the international space station and returned safely this morning.

They did it...
1) On Time
2) On Target
3) Under Budget

That is something that NASA has NEVER been able to accomplish.

The drive and determination of private citizens fueled by the immensely creative thinkers at the corporate level made this possible. This was not just a victory for private science development, but for the changing face of corporate power as well. SpaceX is successful because it values the brilliant minds that make up their teams. This is also a victory for the whole new generation of corporate giants that are led by open minded, free thinking, creative people who grew up in a world governed by the rules of the Internet, unbounded by the constraints of governments and borders.

The future is here and now and being shaped by amazingly creative people who work in "teams" not hierarchies. These new companies have names like Facebook and SpaceX and Valve and Google. They don't care much for traditional corporate structure, they are nimble, inventive, and are crushing old-guard competition.

Congratulations to the entire team at SpaceX on an amazing feat that should not be lost in the wash of news today.


Be Awesome. Change the world.