Vince Poscente's Speed Blog

Respond - Win. React - Lose.

I first noticed the respond vs. react juxtaposition in an Aikido class. Lynn Sensei kept saying, you must respond, not react.

When you flinch, recoil or push back you’ve reacted. Do this and you’ve lost control. Yet if you step off the line, keep your extension and blend with the energy you’ve responded and maintained control.

In an unstable economy companies make decision to either react or respond. Reacting by canceling a meeting might seem like control but it sends the exact opposite message. The organization’s shift to panic mode with sweeping budget cuts leaves a damaging effect. Companies canceling meetings is a huge mistake!

It’s better to respond. Economize the budget but maintain control. Bring your team together under more austere terms and motivate them to rally around the challenge. Lead by example. Prove that you are in control and responding to the situation.

We face choices of reacting or responding everyday.

Look at leaders, teachers, customer service representatives, parents, teenagers, spouses, newspaper editors - anyone with a pulse. Evidence of reacting versus responding is quickly evident.

One time I was speaking to a group and there was an interpreter for the handful of hearing impaired people in the hall. If you’re hearing impaired… FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED. (sorry, couldn’t help it…) She was lower and off to my right, yet still visible to all 1,000 people in the room.

For some speakers this might be distracting. A reaction would be to move further away on the platform or comment on how distracted you are.

As you know, my filterless dorkiness is always waiting for a chance to jump in and play. In mid sentence I turned to the interpreter and said, “Shmur, shmur, shmur.” The interpreter stared straight ahead and made a rubbing action with her hands.

I jumped in and said, “Cool, this means shmur.” Then I said, “Oogada boogada.”

All eyes shifted to the interpreter who continued to stare straight. She then proceeded to hold her index finger towards the right side of her head and rotate said finger in a clockwise fashion (a.k.a. the international sign for cuckoo). She glanced sideways with a knowing grin.

The place erupted in laughter. The playful interchange was a dance of responding as opposed to a reactionary tussle. She stepped off the line, blended with the energy and continued on with her job.

What stuff in your organization or personal life is pushing you to react? Take a moment to think of a response that keeps you in control of the situation.

Response keeps the pace up. Reaction grinds things down to an agonizing stop.

When you respond you win. When you react you lose.

This blog is posted for those of you who want to react or respond.

Inter - ruption

There’s a reasonable chance that before you finish this article (in 70 seconds from now) you will be interrupted. Although we have found our way to tolerate interruptions, I believe…

Hold on.

My text message just dinged. It’s my buddy with Cowboys tickets for next Sunday.

I’m back.

A recent study found; people get interrupted every eight minutes. In another study specific to task interruptions, people were interrupted on average 11 minutes into a task. They were able to get back on task 30 minutes later, if at all. Translation: you and I are interrupted about 50 times per day. That means that you…

Hold on, it’s the home phone.

It’s Nordstrom’s make-up counter calling to tell my wife the new Lancôme night cream is in. FABULOUS!

I’m yours again. Where was I?

Oh yeah, interruptions are slowing us down. This is not news but it seems to be largely ignored in our world today. We allow the interruptions and somehow, at the end of a day, wonder why we are so exhausted while feeling like we accomplished less than we should have.

Interruptions last five minutes in a typical day. If you do the math, that’s up to four hours or 50% of every workday. But get this, researchers found that 80% of interruptions were rated as “little or no value.” We’re being sucked into the black hole of interruptions and we don’t even know it.

If there’s one thing that…

Hold on. My daughter needs help on scanning a photo.

I’m back.

I forget the “one thing” I was going to say, but I bet it was good.

Anyway, if you add up all the little or no value interruptions, we have about three hours of every workday wasted. (The phone just rang, I’m ignoring it).

This means that every person wastes about 744 hours every year on interruptions.

Multiply this by the number of people that you work in your company.

10 employees = 7,440 hours wasted.
100 employees = 74,400 hours down the drain.
1,000 employees = 744,000 hours in the “little or no value” abyss.
10,000 employees = 7,440,000 hours of a major corporate disease.

Interruptions are a drag. They are a drag on execution, efficiency, productivity and even mental health. Get this; frequent email interruptions cause a drop in IQ two and a half times greater than the drop in IQ from smoking marijuana. You know it’s bad when HR breaks out the bong.

Listen; before I get interrupted again, the point is to take control of your time. Happiness in the Age of Speed has a lot to do with how you manage interruptions. Turn the email dinger off your PDA and computer. Turn off your cell phone while you are supposed to be present with that person sitting across from you or talking with in your car. Improve one thing each day until I visit your email box next week.

Whew, we made it without one last interrup… RING, RING.

Flinchlessness - Mental Toughness in Sales and Life

You flinch… you lose.

Imagine skiing at over 130 mph and you catch an edge. One instinctive flinch to catch your balance and you lose any chance at winning the race.  The challenge is overcoming the protective instinct to throw your hands out for balance while maintaining stability and maintaining your line.

In a sale, negotiation or even a debate, flinch and you lose ground.  In a world of incredible speed the lost ground might be too much to recover from.

Imagine you are a sales person selling a high-ticket product and the prospect questions your intentions. Picture negotiating a deal where the other side gets the notion you might settle for less. Suppose you are debating a point and you pause with a wide-eyed blink at a critical point. In any of these three situations a shrewd challenger will likely counter punch with his agenda.

How then do you overcome instinct and not flinch?

Think of something in your job or life where you would benefit from not flinching. There are three approaches that can assist in your quest for flinchlessness:

1. Expand your risk tolerance – When speed skiing it was clear that being mentally tough would translate into better results. Overcoming the instinct to flinch on the racecourse could be prepared for in unconventional ways.

On my non-speed skiing days I would take to the slopes on short, flexible slalom skis at high speed. Skis made for slower finesse turns would become chaotic boards akin to squirrels on crack. I would train my body to relax while the skis drastically shot every which way.

In the summer I would rocket down rocky slopes on my mountain bike. Instead of putting a death grip on my handlebars I would teach my nervous system to relax and let the bike bounce and shimmy underneath me.

Expand your risk tolerance by putting yourself in higher risk situations.

2. Anticipate problems – Before your sale, negotiation or debate, anticipate inflection points, objections or problem areas. By simply being aware of what might happen during real time speed, you can get the feeling “Hot dog, everything is going as planned.” as opposed to “Oh crap, now what do I do?”

3. Breath deeply – Use simple physiology to your advantage.  Oxygenate that five inches between your ears. There’s a part of the brain called the amygdala and it is triggered into fight or flight with shallow breathing. Fight of flight is an instinctual stress response. If you hand over your reactions to instinct, get ready to flinch. Stay calm and flinchlessness is yours. So breath deep before and during your sale, negotiation or debate.

Now get out there and conquer the flinch.

A Fun Look at eMail and Mental Health

If you send excessive emails and texts, you may have a mental illness. According to study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, addiction to texting and emailing could be another form of mental sickness.

Dr Jerald Block, the author of this study, states there are four indicators of this kind of addiction:

1. Withdraw symptoms if a computer cannot be accessed. Which I would think is followed by howling at the moon and delusions of all buttons being “send/recieve” buttons.
2. An increased need for better equipment. No comment.
3. An intense need for more time to text or email. If it feels like your life is similar to the maniacal flurry of a Nascar pit crew, you’ve got a problem.
4. And, experiencing the negative repercussions of your addiction. Repercussions like skipping bathing for a week or two, channeling Bill Gates or phantom vibrations in your pocket every 3.2 seconds.

Instead of expensive medication, hours of psychotherapy or a lifetime of twelve step meetings, (“Hi, I’m Vince and I’m an email-aholic. Hi Vince!”) let’s find the solutions on our own.

First, recognize that the gadgets and computers that you hold so dear are designed to work for you not control you. This may sound simple but rethink the purpose of your Blackberry. It is designed to save you time. Emails were invented to improve connectivity. If you feel a disintegration of your time or the value of connectivity you must take steps to get back to basics.

Second, as the saying goes, Tony Roma’s wasn’t built in a day. Undoing years of disintegration is a process. Reverse your addiction one step at a time. The cornerstone of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) is, “One day at a time.” (Not to be confused with the other AA - American Airlines. Theirs is, “One delay at a time.”)

Third, seek an outside perspective. Ask friends and family to keep you accountable. If you slip and need to sneak a gadget peak at a movie, show or child’s play, give them license to remind you of your commitment.

The Age of Speed is about managing our time for the significant things in life.

If you have read this far and don’t feel you have an issue. Remember that denial is the first sign of a problem ;-)

Endless Happiness is Dangerous and Boring - Happiness vs Fullfillment

How’s that for an attention grabber? Dr. Eric Wilson in his book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy concludes “happy types” that run from sorrow are cheating themselves from a richer, more creative life.

Dr. Wilson states, “I really feel strongly that Americans’ addiction to happiness is dangerous. In some ways it’s leading to a kind of superficiality and vapidity that cuts away a lot of creativity.”

Years ago I had the chance to hear Tony Campolo speak in his home city, Philadelphia. As a Caucasian Pastor in a predominantly African American congregation he was a dude that was bound to have a unique perspective. As an aside, he ended up being the “expert” who counseled Bill Clinton in the aftermath of his Monica scandal. (Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall for that conversation? Well Tony I really don’t know why I did what I did. -- Well Bill, I’d say President Johnson doesn’t need to be making any more executive decisions for starters.)

Let’s get back on track. The thing that caught my attention in Campolo’s speech was when he asked everyone, “Parents, what do you want your kids to be?”  In a chorus of agreement, one word was fed back in remarkable unison. “Happy!”

“Happy?” he said. “No, it’s not happy. You can take a pill and be happy. Happy is something of a temporary state. It’s fulfilled. We want our kids to be fulfilled.”

Dr. Wilson’s point is congruent. He feels “standing against happiness” opens the door to for joy. Joy grows out of melancholy whereas happiness is a cursory state. The polarity of joy and sorrow, to Dr. Wilson, is a more complete, authentic human experience. Just as the natural interplay between opposites of day and night and up and down.

Seeking fulfillment in our fast paced world can be challenging. The Age of Speed has us looking for quick fixes. But let’s not be so swift that we vilify instant gratification. If something can improve your experience of life then it can be a good thing.

Consider the BlackBerry for example. The seeming addiction some people have to their PDA can be downright destructive. “Hey, we’re having lunch here. Do you think you could put the CrackBerry away for 30 minutes?’ But, if it’s used in another scenario to allow more time for the significant things in life, it’s a positive tool.

The idea behind pushing against happiness has to do with the broader pursuit of a deeper, richer and more vital life. Being fulfilled truly is the higher order of the human condition.

Zipping past sadness with a pill or the amazingly effective Hagen Daaz coffee ice cream can be a temporary solution. The lure of a beeping email or a frisky intern can be addictive distractions. Dear reader, a full life is not for the timid.

The valuable alternative is to fully engage, embrace and harness those pesky melancholic moments on a path to greater fulfillment and joy.

Which would you rather be? Happy or fulfilled?

Finding Clarity in the Backyard - Life Balance in the Balance

Most of us are looking for ways to find more balance and less busyness in a society that has its foot firmly planted on the accelerator. It’s like my not-so-eloquent buddy says, “I’m busier than a one armed cab driver with crabs.”

My wife and I have jobs that more than fill our days. Our kids are 10, 9 and 7 and they have their weekly commitments with school, sports, music and their friends. Pile on the list of things necessary to sustain our busy gaggle and you’d think there’s no time to think, let alone relax.

Down time is not only precious it is essential. That’s why we have a household VP of Operations named Mary. More about Mary later.

If you were a subscriber 18 months ago you will remember that I was particularly proud of my backyard creation; a 26-foot cascading stone creek and picturesque pond. The adjacent fire pit makes for a serene spot amongst the trees in our backyard.

After my wife and I put the kids to bed I pop out to the fire pit, sit in a rocking chair, take a deep breath and listen to the sound of the running water. Some might think it’s an escape from any number of the honey-do’s that could be delivered on a scroll across the room like a runaway roll of paper towels. I like to think of it as a chance to find clarity without an agenda. Pure downtime.

So there I was in the backyard, either hiding from honey-do’s or looking for clarity, and it occurred to me how we have come to rely on the people that give us the luxury of this kind of freedom.

Instead of spending a few hours each day cleaning, doing laundry, getting meals ready, shopping and picking the kids up from school we hired Mary as our household manager. The pay we offer Mary more than offsets the value of the extra time to hang with the kids, go on a date with my wife or escape to the creek.

Help like this used to be the exclusive domain of old-money families. According to a 2006 US Census, there were over two million people making in excess of $250,000 per year. This is almost twice the number just five years prior. This rise in family income overlaps with an apparent surge in our ability to fit more life in the same period of time.

In the Age of Speed look for trusted destinations, like Mary, to shift a frenetic existence into a life of more balance and less busyness.

There you go. That’s what occurred to me in the backyard the other night. A little clarity and no honey-do’s thank you very much.

Losing a Friend

I made a friend a year and a half ago. A year ago he died in his sleep from a heart attack. This week’s article (one year anniversary) is about him and some of his wisdom.

Mike Buckley was 52. He had a servant’s soul. His ability to enjoy every waking moment was infectious. Buckley, as people called him, was an extraordinary person. He took a year off his HP marketing job and traveled the world. In that year, he traveled with friends. Visited far away friends. He made new friends.

We met on the India trek in September 2006. The trek organizer, Jeff Salz, described Buckley as “the world’s best human.” Fortunately on the trip, I was able to capture Buckley imparting some of his insights on video.

A few days ago I made a four minute film and posted it on YouTube as a tribute to a life well lived.

The video link

Here is a sliver of wisdom from Mike Buckley:

1. It is important to just stop and take yourself out of the equation. We are all brothers and sisters.
2. Remember the qualities of patience and gratitude.
3. In this journey, be right here, right now.
4. Retirement for you does not have to be your father’s retirement.
5. You are born into your family. You also make your own family as you go. That is a true test of a life well lived.
6. Look at your chosen family and be thankful for that.
7. “Saying goodbye means I don’t want you to go because part of me feels like it is selfish. I want you to go, for you.”

There are times we meet people who set a standard of what is possible. Mike Buckley set the kindness bar very high indeed.

Like you, I try to fit as much life into my days as I possibly can. By doing this I was fortunate to travel to India and become friends with Buckley.

May we all aspire to higher degrees of kindness, a standard that came naturally to Buckley.

Not Too Busy to Speak Out - Beijing Olympics

Sometimes it feels like you can’t add one more thing to your plate. If it could help society be better, it’s hard to say no. In December I got an email from Joey Cheek, gold medalist in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games. “I started Team Darfur to help stop the genocide in Sudan. Can you help?”

The request came in on a Monday and a week later I joined some fellow Olympians and actress Mia Farrow in a protest march. The route started in front of the Holocaust Museum, passed the White House, the Sudanese Embassy and stationed in front of the Chinese Embassy.

A week prior I was eating Cheerios with my kids. Then, on a dreary, overcast DC day, I ended up speaking in front of a bank of photographers and Darfur sympathizers. I related the Olympic principles of international understanding, fair play and excellence related to the upcoming Games in Beijing.

China sells arms to the oil rich Sudanese government. The vicious Janjaweed are backed by the Sudanese military. To date there has been genocide of over 400,000 people and displacement of over one million refugees. Children five years old in Darfur only know hunger and violence. Thousands of women have been brutalized, families destroyed and temporary refugee camps have long outlived their infrastructure.

A simple act by the Chinese government of cutting off military arms to the Sudanese government would stem the atrocities that are happening as you read this.

Since that December march, Steven Spielberg withdrew as artistic director for the Opening and Closing ceremonies. He cited, “My conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual. Sudan's government bears the bulk of responsibility for these on-going crimes, but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more. At this point, my time and energy must be spent not on Olympic ceremonies, but on doing all I can to help bring an end to the unspeakable crimes against humanity that continue to be committed in Darfur.”

Organizations like www.SaveDarfur.org and www.TeamDarfur.org continue to be lightening rods for awareness and change. Gag orders to Olympians by the British Olympic Committee have been rescinded. And Team Darfur has grown to 200+ Olympians willing to stand up and demand that China participate as a leader in human rights.

It took me a long time to figure out how to write this for you. These weekly communiqués are for your enlightenment and enjoyment, not for political reasons. But sometime we find ourselves in a situation where something has to be said and acted upon.

Hopefully you read and forward this article to raise the awareness of China’s complicity in the genocide in Darfur. Hopefully, this article contributes in some way to change in China’s policies. Hopefully it is one step closer to making the world a safer, more peaceful place.

Meditating on Speed - TM

I didn’t see it in the news. Chances are you didn’t either.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM), passed away at the age of 91.

The Maharishi adapted 5000 year old, advanced Yogic meditation techniques to the Western world. His intention was to simplify meditation in a way that could be integrated into the urban lifestyle. Beyond a technique for inner peace, TM proved to have a plethora of health benefits. Moreover, it even took consciousness to a universal plane with evidence reducing crime and violence in society.

Although I never met the Maharishi I was a student of his since the age of 14. In 1975, following the Beatles exploration of a more natural high, my mom signed-up our family to learn TM basics. My brother (13), sister (6) and parents learned our mantra’s and TM technique over the course of a few weeks.

The result in my own life was astounding. TM, practiced first thing in the morning and just before dinner, improved my school marks, relationships with friends, clarity in a confusing teenage world and even influenced my attraction to community projects. By grade 12 I ended up being the class valedictorian and winning the highest award in our music program.

With a bunch of highlights over the next 20 years my curiosity extended to learning the advanced techniques in the TM Sidhi program; also known as Yogic Flying. After a few months and an immersion program in Fairfield, Iowa at the Maharishi University meditation evolved into a whole new level. “Flying” equals popping off the ground from a cross-legged position. The “flying” is a byproduct of a deep meditative state that takes consciousness to an exceptional level.

Throughout the years I would make it a point of listening to lessons by the effusive Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He never wavered from his mission to introduce TM to people dealing with an ever-increasing crush of more-faster-now.

I’m aware there is distrust in some circles that opening the mind with a repetitive mantra is dubious. I know religious zealots who denounce TM for a variety of ill informed reasons.

Being criticized is something that comes with almost every pursuit. Heck, writing The Age of Speed opened me up to a bunch emails. One bit of feedback I got recently:

The main challenge I see is becoming more thoughtful about our choices (regarding the desire for speed) – and re-establishing a rhythm of renewal to life. We need to balance off the sprints and marathons of focused action with time out to recharge!

The opportunity in our busy lives is to find ways to have more balance, less busyness and even peace. The challenge we each have is to find a way to have what we want faster in a healthy and contributory way.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi led a worldwide movement to make the world a better place.

May his teaching and example continue on.

Speed Up - Feel Special with High Speed Connection

Remote employees can feel out of sorts. They can feel disconnected to the company. They can feel outside “the team.” A solution resides squarely in the realm of speed.

In 2002, Riverbed Technologies was a brainchild of two neighbors who quit their jobs, moved to San Francisco and sought to accelerate data transfer.

Sound boring? Not if you look at what this speedy technology created.

A feeling of belonging for remote employees using it.

You heard it right. This couple of loveable techies found a way for people to have touchy feely connectedness. And I’m not talking about what Facebook or My Space does.

By speeding up the painfully slow and seemly boring exchange of massive CAD files, enterprise document management and the like, Riverbed was able to improve more than the efficiency.

Let’s say a company was working on a project in Korea in collaboration with a Canadian office. The only two options would be to FedEx these files on hard discs or transfer the digital information over the web (which might take longer than an overnight package).

What is interesting regarding Riverbed’s accomplishment is not just the efficient, digitally aerodynamic flow of binary information. Cofounder and CEO, Jerry Kennelly said, “collaboration and inclusiveness is critical to the success of Riverbed Technology.”

An example of this collaboration and inclusiveness is a remote employee feeling disconnected from his coworkers as he suffered through the arduously slow data transfer. Located off site he was not feeling “part of the company.” Yet, according to Riverbed and their platform, transfer time accelerated up to fifty times faster and he felt like he “was part of the team. Part of the company.”

With Riverbed’s focus on speeding up data exchange they changed the experience an employee had in a remote location.

If you work with remote employees how do you facilitate a stronger team experience? What ways can you accelerate the mundane to create a more ‘real time’ encounter?

If you are a remote employee what 1-900 numbers make you happy?

Just kidding.

In the Age of Speed finding ways to accelerate the routine things will enrich the significance of any job. Like Riverbed discovered, speed can give a leg-up on happiness.

To all the remote employee's out there... What slow stuff is driving you crazy? More importantly, what things could speed up to help you feel more connected?