Work – Page 20 – Achilles & Aristotle

What gets measured…

I’d consider myself to have better than average self-discipline. But I have to concede – what gets measured gets done.

And it needs measuring often. I didn’t see off my half stone of blubber until I started counting exactly what I was eating throughout each day. I didn’t make the healthy changes to my daily routine (and still don’t) unless I tick them off every night.

And at work – where someone once said: ‘We all want to know precisely how we’re going to be measured, but absolutely not be measured precisely’, I’ve decided to bite the bullet, commit to some challenging targets and see if I can fire up people to measure and hit them.

My latest measuring gizmo is the Nike FuelBand: steps, activity and calories counted as you go. It syncs with an iPhone – so there’s instant data and no hiding. And it colour codes your progress all through the day…

The good thing about constant measurement is small stuff gets done a bit more often – which over time can add up to big changes.

Humans are lousy estimaters, expert self-deceivers and eternal optimists. These are three of our vital survival skills – but they don’t always get the job done.

Achilles, Life, Psychology, Sport, Work

Average White Male

Shock news from the Harvard Business Review this week: men who are ‘agreeable’ suffer a 20% deficit in earnings versus those who are ‘disagreeable’. Add this to one earlier in the year, where men who are slim also suffer a 20% deficit – and I’m in trouble.

Average height costs me another 15-20%. And entering the jobs market in a recession (1990) means a £200,000 lifelong deficit versus those who entered the labour market in a ‘boom’. Any more ‘deficits’ and I’ll be paying my employer for the privilege of working my nuts off.

My remedy – West Indies cricket of the 1970s and 80s. Master your sense of injustice, focus on what you are great at, forget the conventional wisdom and play to win.

Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Curtly Ambrose were very tall. Malcolm Marshall was average height, but the most feared fast bowler of them all. Viv Richards took whatever blows were necessary, before whacking everything and everyone all around the ground with controlled power and aggression.

Finally Clive Lloyd. He captained in virtual silence – an inclination of the head, a quiet word. Total authority. His loping, slightly stooped walk to the middle, enough to make the whole crowd pause and pay attention.

The Harvard Business Review says if I respect the average, I lose. So like the great West Indians – time to change the rules of average white males.

Death, Life, Work

A Moment in the Sun

A bit morbid perhaps, but the redoubtable Philosophy Now magazine does throw up some interesting angles on death.

Some say, along with religion, that the main reason philosophy exists, is millennia of thinking folk coping with their own mortality.

So handy to come across a timeless thought from Voltaire, via Schopenhauer:

“Non-existence after death cannot be different from non-existence before birth.”

Interesting. Given I don’t sweat the 8 billion years I wasn’t here before, why am I so put out by those I’ll miss when I’m a goner?

Whatever evolutionary or intellectual remnant of me might persist, I will be returned to Schopenhauer’s ‘pure Will’ – the restless energy of the universe – probably bouncing about in random particle form.

It’s quite a relief. I wasn’t around for dinosaurs and I’m not too sad. So why am I worried about missing the first Mars landing or the discovery of extra-terrestrial life? I wasn’t here for the sparking up of the Sun or the origin of multicellular life. Who was? It all behoves me, as ever, to live for the day, enjoy the moment and focus on the here and now.

I’m sat ‘suited and booted’ on a sunny step writing this, in a lunchtime pause from work. Feels a bit odd not to be bustling about. And the odd passer by is looking at me a bit strangely – but why not sit in a suit on a sunny step?

These atoms will only be in this configuration for another four decades or so – so let’s make the most of them.

Children, Life, Work

Idling

Brain function is low, speed dropped, the acceleration has gone. Lying idly next to my son, with the breeze flapping the blind – in my record third week of holidays – I notice indolence and a mind declined.

Still the body is stronger, the face browner and the belly slimmer so I’ve got some things right. And good times, happy smiles and big hugs from the family are a very significant compensation.

But maintaining an agile mind is like running a high performance engine – it needs quality fuel, high revs and plenty of throttle to go through the gears.

Country lanes and coastal roads are all very well, but I’m about ready for a return to the rigours of the urban cycle. Work is as important as play.

Life, Psychology, Sport, Work

Why Silver is the worst medal of all

Watching the Olympic 10m diving yesterday, one couldn’t help but be struck by the delight of Tom Daley, in third, versus the desolation of Qiu Bo in second. This morning a friend sent me a good reason for it: counterfactual thinking.

Put simply, Silver looks at Gold and thinks about loss. But Bronze looks at the whole of the rest of the field and delights in making the podium at all. Each sees the most obvious counterfactual outcome – what might have been. Gold for one, nothing at all for the other. Each then frames their assessment of their situation accordingly: Dumb luck vs Result!

It’s a fascinating insight. And one which travels to other domains – notably work. People often obsess about the job they haven’t got, instead of being grateful for the one they have.

Instead of lamenting over the top spot, more of us should revel in making the podium. Bronze is a more precious metal than it looks.