Networking surprises - Some recent unexpected (but successful) outcomes

In her post Find yourself a good mentor, Pamela Stewart suggests finding a mentor in your field of interest, someone who has a thriving, successful business. She goes on to say:

See if they are willing to spend some time with you so that you can find out what it really takes to grow a successful business. [...] For the most part, people love to talk about themselves, so don't be shy to ask someone you admire for a bit of their time. Hopefully you can return the favor when you become successful and famous!

Since I'm training myself to be a personal productivity coach, I appreciated her advice.

This brought up a surprising networking experience I recently had. I asked Pamela if she'd had any experiences in which the person you introduce yourself to reacts in a competitive way. She responded:

Yes Matthew that has happened to me! I tried to get in touch with a guy once about a project I was interested in co-sponsoring. I know I could have helped him as much as he could me, but he never responded after many attempts. I have learned that a fundamental characteristic of a good mentor is not just subject matter expertise, but a real, genuine desire to nurture and grow others. For the most part, I find people to be very open and generous.

I won't go into detail, but two recent experiences surprised me, and made me realize that there are many directions networking with someone can go. In one case I talked with an established professional organizer in the area, who started the call with the very emotional speech "What makes you think I'd be willing to talk to you?" The outcome? No I didn't (politely) hang up (I did seriously consider it). Instead I stayed with her, asking if there was a way we could talk that wouldn't be threatening. We ended up talking for well over an hour, and discovered mutual friends and compatible ideas.

In the other case I met a woman who's also getting into time management training, and wanted me to teach her GTD. (You could almost hear the tables turning.) I would have done it, but I'm booked up now. However, I just discovered that she's teaching a class on stress and time management at a local college. Competitors? Who knows, but I do want to keep in touch because we might be able to help each other in the future. We're both learning!


What I've taken away from this is that I need to continue staying open to outcomes when networking, and more generally when exploring this new field. I know I'll be making mistakes (I like Curt Rosengren's article The genius of mistakes), but I plan on sticking it out.

This also makes me deeply grateful for the great networking experiences I have had - people have been so generous with their time, sharing their wisdom, and being available to me. I only hope I can give something back in return...

Finally, I want to finish with some great quotes from the comments section of Ramit Sethi's Why is networking a dirty word?, in which he gave away copies of Never Eat Alone for the best and worst networking experiences. My favorites:

• The best part about this opportunity was not the job, but more networking, and mentoring. Every time I fixed a partner's computer, they taught me a lesson: what to major in, where to go to school, where to work, what to learn, how to communicate.
  
• [...]the bigger lesson I took from this is a lot of successful networking comes from just being open and willing to share resources, and hook people up when the opportunity arises.
  
• Especially for a young person, mentorship is an absolute must. Every single interaction [...] has been accompanied by lessons in life. Stuff that no textbook or school will teach you. [...] Well established business men/scientists are keen to help you out [...] and let you know if you are making the same mistakes as they did.
  
• [...] try to focus on the joy of meeting interesting people with interesting stories as being your reward. This reward should be enough for you to be excited about getting contact information and keeping in touch with people. If you happen to profit economically later on, consider it a bonus and nothing more.
  
• Moral? Networking is all the time, not just when you think you should turn it on.

Great stuff!

An idea for 2006: Track completed GTD projects (plus some "greatest hits" for 2005)

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. -- Fr. Alfred D'Souza

In Creating your own "productivity guidelines" for 2005, Sally McGhee et. al. suggest we review accomplishments in the previous year, reflect on lessons learned and successes (hopefully WILD), and apply them to the coming year.

I thought it would be useful to do something similar for 2005 in GTD fashion by looking at completed projects. Sadly I haven't been tracking finished projects (I've simply checked them off and moved on), so one of my projects for 2006 is to record completed projects. I hope that this will help me re-focus on those small "stealth" projects that I find sometimes slip by, in spite of my discipline.

However, in the spirit of openness and experimentation, I present my partial GTD Projects "Greatest Hits" for 2005. In no particular order:

• Adopted GTD "100%"
  
• Got unpleasant dental scaling done (more to come - ugh!)
  
• Started this blog
  
• Got picked up by the OfficeZealot.com Getting Things Done Zone (thanks, Marc!)
  
• Started exploring GTD consulting, and coached 1/2 dozen practice clients.
  
• Committed to designing and delivering a GTD seminar at work
  
• Got our research lab to try "Boss blogs" (see Applying 'Boss' Blogging to a Research Lab)
  
• Lost 15 pounds (and it's running around the neighborhood, so don't be alarmed if you see it. Repeat after me: "Fat has no teeth. Fat has no teeth...")
  
• Attended GTD | The Roadmap seminar
  
• Sold my mountain bike, and started Tae Kwon Do (after a 20 year break)
  
• Cured my insomnia
  
• Made major mental perspective shift in a back problem, and got some serious pain under control
  

I'd love to hear some of your greatest hits for 2005, and goals for 2006.


Related

• In Planning for the Future, LJ has some insights gained by reviewing completed projects. I particularly like this idea:

  I went over my project list and examined the motivation behind each one. I found that many of the projects had been placed there by other people in the form of "shoulds". I decided which ones were important to me and did a massive culling of my someday/maybe list.

  
  
• In Getting Things Done: the Roadmap, terrie passes this along from David Allen:

  It might be useful to keep a list of completed projects, but don't bother with a list of completed next actions. It's not worth it.

  
  

Transitions: A secret ingredient to Getting Things Done?

A key aspect of making David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology work is remembering to look at the deferred actions - Calendar entries and Next Actions - as often as necessary. (See the Defer It box at the bottom of Allen's workflow diagram.) Forming this habit is crucial - in order for my mind to trust the system I must keep my deferred actions up-to-date and check them when I'm ready to do something.

Until recently I didn't have a good idea of how to trigger looking at these actions, other than trying to apply traditional habit-forming ideas [1]. However, while reading Marilyn Paul's book It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys I had an insight - In the Time Management section she says to be aware of transition time, and ask:

• Where am I?
  
• What did I just experience?
  
• What's next?
  
• What do I need right now to be present with this situation?

With respect to my GTD practice, I've adapted this to mean be aware of environmental changes [2] (either mental or physical), because they often indicate changes in context. Here are some example transitions:

• Leaving the house - Is there anything I need to take, based on where I'm going?
  
• Leaving the driveway - Is there anything on @Errands I can pick up?
  
• Entering the office - What contexts are available? @Phone? @Computer?
  
• Finishing an action - What's my context/time/energy/priority like? Should I activate another action from an associated project?
  
• Finishing a phone call - do I have time to make other calls from @Phone? (a )

And so on.

Of course the ticking of the clock is another transition (time is passing), albeit a continuous one, and requires us to be constantly vigilant of time and appointments. This is where a digital calendar can be so useful, with its ability to set alarms for meetings. (I'm a paper planner type [3], and this feature makes me envious!)


I've found that training myself to be aware of my physical and mental transitions has allowed me to more reliably check my deferred actions, and has made GTD work more smoothly. What transitions keep your GTD system flowing?


References

[1] For advice on forming habits I like Installing a new habit and breaking an old one.
[2] A tip of the hat to Josh Hornick for discussing his ideas on environmental design with me.
[3] I describe my paper-based GTD implementation in Fare thee well Hipster PDA - I barely knew ye. Also, you can find some planner tips in Four Planner Hacks for Paper-Based Productivity.

A review of "How to make people like you in 90 seconds or less"

I just finished How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less by Nicholas Boothman, and I loved it. The title is somewhat misleading and provocative, but this delightful little tome provides a nice tutorial for how to help establish rapport with people you want to connect with, in the crucial first minute or so.

Doing this consciously, and developing the requisite skills, is something I've neither thought about nor needed much in the past (as a research software programmer), but is crucial to my new direction (productivity consulting). I'm now meeting all sorts of people - potential and current clients, fellow professionals, etc. - and I really need to make a connection quickly in order to accomplish our joint mission together (e.g., exchanging information, getting message across, being understood).

The book covers a lot of fascinating ground, and is organized into the three parts of connecting:

1. Meet. "Open - Eye - Beam - Hi! - Lean": open attitude and body, be first with eye contact, be first to smile, say hi or hello, extend hand, say name, and lean slightly toward the person.
   
2. Establish rapport. Four factors: Attitude, synchronizing (body language, voice tone), conversational skills, ability to discover other's dominant sense (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic).
   
3. Communicate. Three parts: Know what you want, find out what you're getting, change what you do until you get what you want (KFC).

Part one of the book talks about meeting, but I'll not give any more detail beyond #1 above.

In the second part the author goes into detail on establishing rapport, including having a Really Useful Attitude (e.g., being warm, welcoming, interested), having open body language, and ensuring congruity between your words, voice, and body language. He then covers synchronizing, including attitude, body language, and voice.

In part three he details the crucial final step of communicating - conversing well. Key points include asking open questions (Who? When? What? Why? Where? How?), using "openers" after saying hello or exchanging smiles (precede with location/occasion statements), offering free information about yourself before asking about others, and using active listening (paraphrase, but don't parrot). He also covers avoiding conversation pitfalls, and making yourself memorable. Finally he introduces the fascinating idea of how people perceive the world - visual (55%), auditory (15%), and kinesthetic (30%) - and how to tune in to their sensory preferences. (A quick example is talking speed; visuals usually talk very fast, kinesthetics more slowly, and auditories somewhere in between.)

In addition, the book has a number of practice exercises to try, in order to improve skills, including "Firing Energy", "triggering Happy Memories", "Words vs. Tone", "In and Out of Sync", "Sound Effects", and "Brain Lock". I didn't try many these, mainly because I wanted to get through the book quickly, and many require a partner. However, I see how doing them would surely deepen my understanding. Something for "Someday/Maybe."

My recommendation? Buy it! It's fascinating, practical, and fun to learn and apply.

It's not about productivity...

That was something Jason Womack said to me the other day, and I think it's right on the money. It reminded me of the following quotes, which I absolutely love:

• Real change focuses not on techniques but on the way people think about themselves, their colleagues, and their work.
  
• Time management is not a technique. It is a way of relating to the world.

(These came from an organization class I recently took at work. I'm sorry I don't have the original references to credit.)

This issue has come up for me lately because I've found it's easy to get caught up with doing (the book is called Getting Things Done after all), mainly because Allen's work enables me to do so much more. I feel I'm able to juggle more balls in the air than before, which is empowering.

So at the "runway" level [1], I'm making much better choices for spending my time, as dictated by the moment, my energy, etc, but I feel the deeper meaning (as I've tried to indicate via the quotes) must revolve around my purpose - how I spend each precious moment available to me, and ultimately how much inner peace the system gives me.

David Allen addresses this at the higher elevations of his approach, but so far the only way I've been able to look at it is this: To me, being productive is more about replacing my old, habitual patterns with new ones that move me in directions that make me more like I want to be. For example, after adopting GTD, I am more likely to view my habitual time wasters at home (mindless web surfing, for example) from a new perspective. In other words, I'm more likely to ask questions like:

• Is this activity one that moves me in a direction I like better?,
  
• Is this making me into someone I like better?, and (at the extreme)
  
• Am I living as if I were to die tomorrow? (apologies to Gandhi)
  

Others have analyzed GTD's "bottom up" approach [2] (Marilyn Paul does it too - just read the title: It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys), and until now I've been a bit nervous about my not having explicitly addressed the highest elevations. I do have Actions, Projects, and Areas of Responsibility, but now I'm starting to experience how getting control of those more basic levels opens me up for thinking about the higher ones.

I'd love to hear from anyone who's had some clarity on this.


Update: Just got something terribly relevant from myself (found in my Read/Review folder just now while exercising): In The Essential Missing Half of Getting Things Done, Steve Pavlina characterizes how GTD is fabulous for the lower-level "doing things right," but is missing the higher-level "doing the right thing." He starts at the top with purpose, then details his goals (divided into need-based and purpose-based), and finally on to standard GTD projects and actions. (In fact, I'm told Allen used to call it Managing Actions and Projects -- or "MAP" -- as mentioned in this early book review.) One thing I don't know if I agree with is Pavlina's assertion that:

The high level element that is missing from standard GTD is, in my personal opinion, absolutely essential. It makes no sense to blindly apply standard GTD unless you've already secured the top level elements of purpose, mission, and goals.

Clearly I'm still working this one out. Regardless, it's a typically excellent essay, and is welcome encouragement. Highly recommended.


References

[1]: Recall Allen's "six horizons of focus":

• Purpose ("50,000'")
  
• Vision ("40,000'")
  
• Goals ("30,000'")
  
• Areas of Focus ("20,000'")
  
• Projects ("10,000'")
  
• Actions ("runway")
  

He says drive goes downward (i.e., purpose drives vision), but we start organizing upward.

[2]: In Doug Johnston's post Where GTD Falls Short there's a discussion that, in his view, GTD is missing depth - "something that penetrates deeper down into what it means to be human".


Related

In Clarifying the Meaning of Productivity, David Seah gives us lots of possible benefits for being productive (he frames it from the personal, rather than work perspective), including: satisfying the urge to create, being recognized, and providing something of value. (Found via Personal, No Really PERSONAL, Productivity.)

Must be quote night: "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." -- Fr. Alfred D'Souza (found via Ready for anything)