360 Feedback and 360 Participation – Part 1

As I’ll reference briefly in my write up about Taos, I’ve been part of an exciting but demanding project at work known as a PLT - Performance Leadership Team. The project is being run in parallel with 3 other projects, all of which have similar dual objectives: substantial improvement in our department’s effectiveness, and personal leadership development.

The projects were chartered by the senior management team in our department, and are following a facilitated approach as laid out by a consulting partner. The partner firm has used this approach at our company over the past few years with tremendous results.

The specifics of the project are not relevant to my blog, but the personal development aspect and the techniques we’ve learned are what prompt me to jot down the following thoughts.

360 Participation

In the course of getting our project off the ground, our team of 10 people had specific planning tasks to perform in a 3 day workshop. Most of the “real work” was initiated with the following technique, which I’ve labeled “360 Participation”. This technique can be used to analyze or plan nearly anything.

• 5 to 15 minutes of individual analysis / idea generation, with each idea or comment written on to a post it note. Sometimes the notes were color coded for various purposes.

• As a group, each person supplies one post-it comment at a time to a facilitator, who collates them into groups of related items (on a flip chart, white board, window, etc.). Exact duplicate comments are often just passed forward en-masse.

• As each item is presented, it is explained, but not judged or discussed, along the lines of the traditional “brainstorming rules”.

• Work around the table / room collecting one comment per person until all comments are aired.

Once the groups of ideas /comment are assembled, the analysis phase begins. This might be selecting the top N ideas, prioritizing all ideas or mapping out interdependencies – at this point it’s based on the topic and intent of the exercise.

The value obtained by this technique is powerful for multiple reasons:

• Using written comments allows for more ideas, criticism and wild-ass fliers to be put forward without judgment

• Everyone’s voice is heard. A strong personality cannot dominate the discussion.

• No analysis is done until all comments are presented (classic brainstorming)

• Duplicate submissions of the same idea create a kind of built in voting / prioritization system (in most cases)

• The process is so simple it requires almost no explanation or preparation

• And also – it’s FAST.

• And it’s really (REALLY) effective

Right away I used this approach with one of my teams to analyze our first use of a new process - what went right, wrong, and so on. I can guarantee that the quality of the content produced was above and beyond what we normally produce in free form group discussions. Besides causing me to shut up, it brought the ideas out in an orderly fashion. We spent exactly 10 minutes to get comments written and organized, then spent 15 minute planning next steps. Very, very efficient, with much higher quality in our ideas.

I’ve since used it in other team settings, including in an executive level session related to hurricane response planning.

Summary - this is an interesting and effective technique that can be applied in many situations. All you need are a few sticky notes.

2007 In Review - Part 2

5. A couple good and a couple memorable rounds of golf. Father in law Pete spent much of the month of February with us. We played several rounds together, as well as Pete getting a few weekday rounds in with Paul S. I think I played well - around 80 at my home course, Deerwood - as I remember saving a card for posterity. Same with my dad in December. 39 on the front side of Deerwood in 40 degree weather, soft fairways, fast greens and a double on #1.

Other top rounds of the year: Birdied 18 for a 76 at Redstone with Paul C the day before going to Alaska (also a nice surprise getaway that day). 80 at Erin Hills, beating JN - who admittedly was still recovering from a wrist injury - but that score on a tough track in high wind was great. 79 at Deerwood just after Christmas in same cold, wet conditions - birdied 10, 11 and 15, tap in par on 18 for 36 on the back.

6. NY Times crossword - moved from Mon-Thur caliber to Mon-Fri, with some Saturdays. All Sundays are now in range too. This was aided greatly by NYT providing access to premium puzzles to regular paper subscribers, and the discovery of Rex Parker. Without the analysis from Rex, I would probably stumble more often on recurring obscure words, and would not have the insight into the difficult Sat puzzles. Now getting about 1/2 of Saturday done most weeks, and have finished a few without help.

7. Classical Guitar. Got hold of a beautiful Giambattista G6b this summer, and realized that waiting until retirement to pick up classical guitar was foolish - why wait? Using the 30 minutes or so in the late evening when M. gets ready for bed, I no longer watch the news, or whatever, and play instead. Add to that are some early weekday evening time, including bedtime songs for Amy. This holiday break I had a couple long sessions (1 to 1.5 hours) which were very enjoyable.

Working through studies assembled by Ben Bolt which include Carcassi, Sor, Guiliani, and others. Also have gotten hold of 4 tablature transcriptions of Sor's Opus 35, 25 studies for guitar. These are among my favorites. Last night while playing #1, Amy made up words to her own Opus 35 #1 song and sang along.

8. Blogs, the Thursday Quiz and some cool bloggers. I was lead to other blogs by links from the Rex Parker blog. I fell instantly for the Thursday Quiz in the Life & Times of Michael 5000. Wish I could do the Monday quiz, but the images don't render onto my office PC. From there launched into the blogs of many others around the country. Most of the more conscientious bloggers seem to be academics or artists, and many of the blogs are somewhat angst-driven by younger bloggers. But to glimpse into these people's lives is intriguing, and leads to various personal reflections: "I remember.....", "Thank god I'm past.....", "What if I had done.....". Mostly good thoughts.

9. What Tom Cooked. This here blog, Notes from the 3DBB, serves a only couple simplistic purposes. Specifically, it's an easy way to post the China Adoption articles to share them with others. Secondly, it's an outlet for a few mildly amusing stories, reportage and introspection. A few minutes at lunchtime in the office, or at home the in evening, and voila - there's a simple post for my own posterity.

What has really gotten me jazzed up about blogs is What Tom Cooked. I've always regretted not keeping a cooking journal, and can't even put my finger on why I've not done so. However, to quickly dash off a post to the cooking blog seems effortless.

The benefits:
- Capturing the non-recipe stuff - some are pretty good, but all are easily forgotten. Especially if a creation is based more on leftover ingredients, or pantry items - it's easy to never think through the same process again.
- Provide original sources for menus and recipes - too often I lose track of where a dish came from. Even if I know it was from a Gourmet issue, it may be monumental to determine which issue if I want it several years later. Though I create menus for big parties and holiday meals, I don't always note the source. This is a key purpose of my WTC
blog.

Future benefits:
- I've always wanted a forum for reviewing the recipes in Gourmet each month, and same for the limited number of cookbooks worth using. Doing a monthly review of Gourmet's offerings may be beneficial to many. And an archive with cookbook reviews may be good too.
- The day-to-day messages I've composed in my head for years on how to cook now have a home. Maybe the "Everyday Cooking" idea can take better root, by first capturing my many lessons and observations on cooking via the blog first.

[[[[[ Insert witty and insightful first post here ]]]]]]


Instructions for new bloggers:

1. Demonstrate an initial burst of enthusiasm with several soul searching and heart-rending posts.
2. Publicize blog among friends and family
3. Build on the momentum by demonstrating true cleverness and humor in daily posts
4. Be sure to tell us EVERYTHING about your dog. Use verse if possible.
   
5. Ditto on cats.
   
6. Let enthusiasm wane slightly, then don't post for 2 years.
   
7. Return with a vengeance, committing to yourself to post regularly because gosh darn it there are people out there that want to read about the random details of your life.
   

Or just write down some interesting stuff once in a while.