Learning a new problem space can be a challenge. Especially when there’s no map. While writing books for the past several years, I’ve learned a more effective approach for chunking up and solving problem spaces. Each new book is a new problem domain. I can’t afford to churn or be inefficient while ramping up. I’ve basically learned how to get myself and my teams up to speed faster by using a process. This process has served me well. I hope it does the same for you.

You might have heard the expression, “you get what you focus on.” But, have you heard that what you focus on actually reshapes your brain? The act of paying attention creates chemical and physical changes in your brain. David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz write about how focused attention can physically change the structure of your brain in their article, “The Neuroscience of Leadership”, in “strategy+business” magazine.

It’s one thing to predict your downstream results. It’s another to test it. I’m a fan of scrimmaging against results to find my strengths and weaknesses as early in the project as possible. I encourage others to do the same. In sports, a scrimmage is when you play another team informally. Playing teams in scrimmages before the season starts, helps reveal strengths and weaknesses before it counts.

Here’s a technique I learned back in Microsoft Developer Support. It’s called sweeping. The idea is simple. You periodically “sweep” the mess. You schedule a focused batch of time and sweep your mess. In our case, it was the knowledge base (KB). What happens with content is it erodes over time. You also end up with a bunch of stuff that either doesn’t belong or can be improved. Each sweep was like a breath of fresh air.

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a strategy is a recipe for results. It’s how we order and sequence our experiences to produce a specific result. A simple way to think of a neurological strategy is it’s what you do in your mind when you do something. They are the thought patterns that produce our results. We have strategies for everything we do from falling in love to getting motivated, to feeling depressed. We aren’t usually conscious of them. If we know what they are, then we can use our strategies to get in a particular state more effectively.

You can’t be an expert in all things. However, you can improve your overall effectiveness by rounding out your skills. While it’s good to specialize, knowing the basics in some key areas will help you put your knowledge to work. I’ve found that while it’s important to specialize in some areas, that I get more results by adding other areas to my belt. For example, focusing on business helps me invest my time better. Learning marketing fundamentals helps me get more impact from the work I do.

You need to test your decisions against reality. A lot of decisions might sound good at the time or look good on paper. When the rubber meets the road, you might find there were a lot of assumptions or it simply was a bad idea. Some ideas also become obsolete by the time they’re implemented. To really test your decisions, you need feedback loops that provide first-hand experience. Nothing beats seeing it for yourself. A written report never conveys the same information. I think the key is that first-hand experience includes an emotional aspect that gets lost in translation. It’s that emotional aspect that can be your best gauge of whether something is really working. It’s not that you need to distrust people in their feedback, it’s that you need to distrust communication.

I’m realizing more and more how stories help you drive a point home. It’s one thing to make a point, it’s another for your story to make the point for you. If your ideas aren’t sticking, or you’re not getting buy in, maybe a compelling story is the answer.
Stories at Work
Crafting useful stories is an art, and, now, apparently a science. Srinath pointed me to Stories at Work on 50Lessons.com. The video shares a story about using stories as a catalyst for change and a recipe …

Photo by David Masters
Do you have a favorite set of forcing functions?   A forcing function is any task, activity or event that forces you to take action and produce a result.   If you have areas in your life that you’re finding inertia, try adding some forcing functions to get results.
Slides as Forcing Functions
At Microsoft patterns & practices, one of our forcing functions is building a slide deck.  Building a deck is a forcing function because it forces us to distill the points, close down on issues, identify what …

Happiness is a skill you can develop. Some people are born happy, while others have to work at it. Some have to work harder than others. Rather than work harder, work smarter. Luckily, with all the focus on happiness, we now have a better body of knowledge to draw from. Carlin Flora shares a collection of patterns and practices for skilled happiness from a variety of sources in her article, The Pursuit of Happiness, in Psychology Today.

How can you cut to the chase? What’s an effective approach for clearing the air of ambiguity and getting to facts? Ask cutting questions. A cutting question is simply a question that cuts to the chase and reveals insightful information. The most effective people I see, don’t ask a lot of questions. They ask the right ones.

It’s obvious in retrospect, but I found a distinction between low-friction communication and high-friction communication. By low-friction, I mean “person A” doesn’t have to work that hard for “person B” to get a point. It’s an unproductive energy drain. There’s a better way. It’s along the lines of Covey’s “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

The rule of 3 is a very simple way to get results. Rather than get overwhelmed by your tasks, you bite off 3 things you can accomplish. This puts you in control. If nothing else, it gives you a very simple frame for the day. I’ve been using the rule of 3 for a few years to drive results both for myself and for my teams. It’s the simplest way to go from running around like a chicken with your head cut off to a peaceful calm. It’s one of the first skills I teach my mentees at Microsoft to help them get on track and learn the art of ruthless prioritization.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jay Heinrichs on his top 10 lessons learned in influence and persuasion. Jay is the author of the bestseller, Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion. I originally found out about Jay’s work through one of my mentors. It’s been one of my best investments. Aside from a great read, I’ve used Jay’s insights and actions to improve my effectiveness at work. Like revealing magic tricks, the world makes a whole lot more sense now. My favorite part is how Jay is able to take the lessons of the best Greek orators and show how to use them in practice in today’s world.

Why do people resist change, even when it’s for their own good? Well, believe it or not, your own body can actually work against you. The good news is, if you know how your body works, you can make changes easier, or at least know what to expect. David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz write about two reasons why people resist change, in their article, “The Neuroscience of Leadership”, in strategy+business magazine.

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations." — Elliott Larson
How much do your expectations shape what you get?  A lot.
According to the Pygmalion effect,  you get what you expect.  However, the latest research is showing that your expectations and attitude play a larger role in your perception than we previously thought. 
David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz write about how your expectations and attitude shape your reality in their article, "The Neuroscience of Leadership", in strategy+business magazine.
Key Take Aways Here are my key take …

Why do many leadership efforts and organizational change initiatives fail? The state of the art is not the state of the practice. Luckily, there are some new insights that can help shape new management practices. David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz summarize some counterintuitive conclusions in their article, “The Neuroscience of Leadership”, in strategy+business magazine.

The Boostrappers Bible by Seth Godin is one of the best compilations of actionable, business insight I’ve seen.  It took me a while to go through it and each time I go through, I find another nugget of insight or a new lens.  I’ve been recommending it to friends, family, and colleagues.  The price is right – free – and it’s one of the best consolidations of insight and action I’ve seen in a while.
What I especially like about the Bootstrapper’s Bible is that it actually resonates.  For more …

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by author Jim Kouzes.  Jim is co-author of the award-winning and best selling book, The Leadership Challenge.  This post is a follow up to Jim’s previous guest post, The Top Ten Leadership Lessons, which generated a lot of feedback and some great questions.  Jim’s responses were long enough for another post.  Here it is …
I want to thank all who commented on my post.  I greatly appreciate your graciousness and your questions.  I have tried to respond to several of the questions …