Tuesday - Jujitsu Practice

Tuesday - Jujitsu Practice

We had a great night with 8 people on the matts.

Tonight we studied take downs - Single Leg, Ankle Pick, 1/4 Nelson, Firemans' Carry, Baby Fireman's Dump, Under Arms Spin to Knees, and Double Leg Take down.

Hope to see more people on the matt soon

Preparing for Tomorrow

As a leader, what can you do to prepare for tomorrow, today. While you dont have to execute the tasks, you can plan what needs to be done, so that you know how much time you need to complete the task, what dependencies there are, and what assumptions and unknowns need to be answered. And, if there are simple tasks that can be done today, then by all means, do them.

Democratic Leadership

I’ve been watching a strange phenomena though my life where people always want to give others the right to vote.  Everything decision has to be voted on, and if the majority feels that the decision shouldn’t be carried out, then opportunity that presented the choice is dropped. But is that what is really needed, fair, or even appropriate in a business context?

Politics

I define politics as:

The ability to insure that your voice is heard.

Politics doesn’t mean that your opinion, reasons, or facts will be taken into account when the final decision is made, but that you are given a platform to insure that you are heard. There is, however, an inherent problem with the understanding most people have concerning the right to vote, especially in a business environment.

Business / Managers

Businesses have been forced to adjust to employee demands for managers become better leaders.  On the face of this, it is an important growth step to keeping workers happy and productive.  Where, it has been found that micro managing employees, their work and how they do it, tends to cause highly creative people to leave. Reducing the overall productivity of a small company or a companies department. 

Most employees have understood that a managers role was to distribute work and monitor metrics. Now a manager must negotiate how the work is to be done. Managers allow employees to decide how they want to do the work, and only enter into the fray when a tie needs to be broken. But, what most employees have forgotten that managers also represent them to their superiors.

This aspect of management, the representation, doesn’t allow for the employees to vote on the direction of their work or working group. And, in turn causes employees to demand more transparency into the decision making process that affects their daily work schedule.  While, at times this can be good, it also has it’s downsides as well.

Having a right to vote in a business means that a business could miss strategic opportunities to invest or capture market share, as employees vote against these opportunities. This method of voting, means that companies have to spend more time engineering campaigns to explain to employees how an opportunity will affect the business and their work.  And, maybe even their employment.

For example, in one instance, the company may decide to buy a division or startup to add a product to their existing mix.  Complementary positions may become redundant, and thus employees who are not needed would vote “NO!” on the proposal in order to secure their job.  However, other employees who see the potential for growth and future investment would vote “YES!”.  But, if the nay’s out way the yay’s. then the companies ability to grow and prosper for all involved, withers and dies.

A companies ability to strategically move assets throughout it’s business life cycle would be seriously hampered if democratic voting were allowed at this level.  The sheer amount of bureaucracy would unduly burden the companies ability to swiftly take advantage of any opportunity that came along.

Personal Democratic Relationships

Which brings me to the point of my article on this topic.  I’ve recently had the opportunity to see every decision be nit picked through the democratic process.  And, I’ve come to the realization that it’s F*cking Annoying.  Here’s why ...

As I pointed out above, when the minority needs the majority to vote on a decision it slows the decision making process down. And, it also gives the minority permission to be upset with the decision of the majority.  

This however should not be construed that the minority don’t have a voice. They most certainly do. And, require advocates to help them be heard.  A recent example is GerryMandering - where a professor finally found a formula that allows the Judicial System to review GerryMandering to determine if Vote Wasting is actually happening.  This in it’s worst form disenfranchises a population from being properly represented, and allows a minority to remain in power, even though they don’t represent them.

But this example is at a macro level, and I’m discussing a problem at the micro level.  A group of 3 to 10 people, vs 3,000 to 1 million people.

At the level of 3 to 10 people, a form of leadership that allows everyone to be heard is needed, yet the decision to act needs to be executed by one person. Why this method of democracy?  It’s just like the version described in a business environment.  There may be an opportunity that the minority wants to take advantage of, while the majority doesn't.  But if the minority is constantly excluded from group participation, then the minority begins to wonder why they joined the group to begin with.  Thus the leader has to balance the competing desires and help everyone feel included.

And, the person who makes the decisions doesn’t have to be the same person all the time.  There is a commercial playing where 2 kids, a mom and dad are all stating what they want for dinner.  Dad says, “Taco’s it is!”, which was not one of the options listed by any of the other participants.  Yet, everyone seemingly agrees to go along with the decision.

Conclusion

In a personal democracy, I’m not advocating that there be a czar or authoritarian in control all the time, but that 1 person be selected to hear the arguments of the group ... pros and cons, alternatives, or other information ... and then make a decision.

In my case, I am usually soliciting ideas for places to have brunch, and then mediating between different factions vying for where we should go.  And, in most cases, all I want is bacon and eggs, scrambled with cheese, onions and green peppers, and pico degio spooned on top. =)

University of Michigan researchers have revealed an incredible prototype technology - a braille tablet. Current designs only allow for one line of braille, but the new prototype displays full pages of text. Find out more and watch the project leader, Dr. Sile O’Modhrain, discuss the developments at BGR. Pair with our eReader cheat sheet.

Finding Motivated People

Your job as a leader is not to motivate people. It is to find people who are already motivated to solve the problem you want to solve.

Monday - Grappling

On Monday night, a student wanted to roll for an hour. He has a lot of upper body strength and energy, so I didn't quite wear him out, but he did enjoy being rolling around.