Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘My Views’ Category

Aim for Smart Failure
If you want to encourage people to take healthy risks, you need to make sure they’re not afraid to fail. The first step in doing that is defining what a smart failure — a thoughtful and well-planned project that for some reason didn’t work — looks like. Chances are that everyone in your organization knows what success is. Far fewer know what a smart failure is. Specify what guidelines, approaches, or processes characterize smart risk taking. Provide clear examples of both smart failures and dumb failures and discuss why they’re different. Point out what the smart ones have in common, so people know how to structure their experiments. If you don’t define it, all failure looks risky and that kind of mindset will kill creativity.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “To Increase Innovation, Take the Sting Out of Failure” by Doug Sundheim.

“There is only so much energy available to us in life.
Spending it on solving problems is one possible way of living your life, but this may leave you empty-hearted; spending it on what excites you is a lot more fulfilling and fun — and effortless; and usually, the previously experienced problems vanish on their own. We don’t have to battle against the darkness when all we need to do is turn on the light.”

— Andrea Moritz

My tweet message on a Dawn news item.

This scandal is a fit case for suo moto action of the superior judiciary. Rs10bn to be injected into power sector | Pakistan | DAWN.COM http://dawn.com/2013/04/17/rs10bn-to-be-injected-into-power-sector-80pc-of-outstanding-power-bills-found-fictitious/ via @dawn_com

My tweet message on a Dawn News.

@nayyarahmad: Mush must thank his stars bc losing with security forefeiture is bigger disgrace. Musharraf thrown out of election race |@dawn_com

Determination is firmness of purpose.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

Henry Ford (1863-1947);
founder of Ford Motor Company

How to Connect With a
Remote Colleague

It’s challenging to work with someone you don’t chat with every day at the coffee station. But you can still build strong connections and work successfully together. Here’s how:

Talk openly about the challenges. Discuss obstacles on both sides. Clarify expectations up front, and agree on how you’ll communicate.

Use technology. Include someone in a meeting with a laptop and Skype. Use Google Docs to simultaneously work on a file and watch one another’s edits or comments in real time.

Err on the side of over-communicating. Set up regular times to catch up on the phone. Keep a running list of things to discuss and share important announcements. Communicate even little details — the fact that someone has had a death in the family, for example, or is under pressure with a big project deadline.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from the
HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across.

“Grudges are a waste of perfect happiness. Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you can’t change.”

— Author Unknown

Gold prices plummeted by $114 to the lowest rate of $1348 per Ounce.

Teaching-By-Example is serving as a desireable model to others.