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You are here: Home / Archives for 2 - Professional Skills / a Soft Skills

How Do You Define Value in Your Work?

May 10, 2018 by Matt Perman

From Great at Work, which is now the best book on personal effectiveness I have ever read:

As our study suggested, we should evaluate the value of our work by measuring how much others benefit from it. That’s an outside-in view, because it directs attention to the benefits our work brings to others. The typical inside-out view, by contrast, measures work according to whether we have completed our tasks and goals, regardless of whether they produce any benefits.

This may seem obvious in retrospect, but how many of us intentionally work this way? It is so easy to get caught up in accomplishing tasks, defining our productivity that way, rather than defining it in terms of the benefit our work actually brings.

If we take this outside-in view, I see two benefits. First, we will have more success in our jobs. That seems obvious, right? Second, we will be able to become more efficient, because now we have a criteria that allows us to identify unnecessary tasks or unnecessary steps in our tasks.

Beyond this, the outside-in view is very much in line with the gospel ethic, which is others-centered.

There is one nuance, of course: do not let this stifle innovation or too easily justify the status quo. You know the benefits of your work by how people act, not mainly what they say in response to your initial idea. Focus groups, for example, are usually a bad idea. As Henry Ford said, “If I had asked the public what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” What actually produced the greatest value was when Ford democratized the automobile — something people weren’t asking for initially.

Filed Under: Decision Making, Defining Success

How History’s Most Creative People Organized Their Days

May 9, 2018 by Matt Perman

Fascinating! From the Washington Post.

And it’s collected into a nice chart for easy comparison:

 

Filed Under: Creativity, Scheduling

How Do You Respond to Dissenting Opinions?

March 30, 2016 by James Kinnard

Dissenting opinions are useful even when they’re wrong.

That’s the argument Adam Grant makes in one of his chapters in Originals:

“Minority viewpoints are important, not because they tend to prevail but because they stimulate divergent attention and thought,” finds Berkeley psychologist Charlan Nemeth, one of the world’s leading experts on group decisions. “As a result, even when they are wrong they contribute to the detection of novel solutions and decisions that, on balance, our qualitatively better.”

When we have expertise in a particular area or more context than others or feel the need to move fast, it’s easy to discount dissenting opinions.  Or worse, to be threatened by them.

Humble confidence means truly listening to dissenting opinions, not shutting them down.

Coupling our confidence with humility honors others and (it shouldn’t be a surprise) leads to better results.

Filed Under: 6 - Culture, Collaboration, Meetings

Collaboration is More than “Everyone Plays Their Part”

November 16, 2015 by James Kinnard

You’re likely working with other people to produce or create something this week.

God has put us in this together—different skills and experiences coming together to accomplish way more than we could accomplish on our own.

As Christians, we understand this at a foundational level. We know the call to use our different gifts to serve as “good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). Or how, in the body of Christ, “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you'” (1 Corinthians 12:21).

We believe deeply in coming together for a common mission, and we want the benefits that come from strong collaboration, whether in our church or our workplace.

But in practice we can miss out. More than that, we can experience tension or even conflict with our teammates when we approach “teamwork” or “collaboration” in different ways without realizing it.

As I’ve led and worked in different teams over the years, I’ve noticed two basic levels of collaboration and the challenges that come when we apply collaboration differently.

Here’s what I mean:

Level 1 collaboration looks something like this: 
  • “Everyone needs to play their part for us to do this well.”
  • “I’m responsible for making this decision.”
  • “You do this, I’ll do that, and together we can make a big difference.”
Level 2 collaboration, on the other hand, looks more like this:
  • “You’ve only been here a few weeks, but I really want your perspective.”
  • “Can I suggest another way to think about it before we make that policy shift?”
  • “I read about this new software. Wanted to make sure you knew about it…”
  • “That’s my idea. How can we make this stronger?”

We can limit our productivity as a team if we operate solely in Level 1. And we can actually be counter-productive when some of the team are operating in the former and others are aiming for the latter.

Level 1 collaboration has it’s place, but don’t settle for that. Level 2 collaboration is where the really good stuff happens.

Filed Under: Collaboration, Teams

The 4 Phases of Developing Your Creative Voice

August 25, 2015 by Matt Perman

 

Very helpful, from the 99U. The four phases are: discovery, emulation, divergence, crisis.

Filed Under: Creativity, Innovation

Getting Collaboration Right

July 16, 2015 by Matt Perman

A great post at the 99U: The Collaboration Paradox: Why Working Together Often Yields Weaker Results

A key excerpt:

Most of the heavy creative lifting happens when we’re by ourselves, working on our own. We’re in a better position to evaluate the merits of an idea after we’ve given a topic some thought, not when encountering it for the first time.

For collaboration to work, we need to understand the crucial role of alone time and focused, individual work. Collaboration is essential, but it only yields better results when combined with individual work rather than seen as something that renders the individual work unnecessary.

Filed Under: Collaboration

How Satan Can Set Himself Up as the Guide and Oracle of God's People

November 21, 2014 by Matt Perman

Jonathan Edwards:

One erroneous principle, than which scarce any has proved more mischievous to the present glorious work of God, is a notion that it is God’s manner in these days, to guide his saints, at least some that are more eminent, by inspiration, or immediate revelation.

They suppose he makes known to them what shall come to pass hereafter, or what it is his will that they should do, by impressions made upon their minds, either with or without texts of Scripture; whereby something is made known to them, that is not taught in Scripture.

By such a notion the devil has a great door opened for him; and if once this opinion should come to be fully yielded to, and established in the church of God, Satan would have opportunity to set up himself as the guide and oracle of God’s people, and to have his word regarded as their infallible rule, and so to lead them where he would, and to introduce what he pleased, and soon to bring the Bible into neglect and contempt.

(From Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England, part 4, section 2, page 404 in volume 2 of the Banner edition of Edwards’ works.)

Filed Under: 7 - Theology, Decision Making

Christians and Creative Imagination

October 6, 2014 by Matt Perman

Vishal Mangalwadi, in The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture:

Carey is a classic example of Christian thinking not ruled by fatalistic resignation. Rather than resigning ourselves to a wrong or unacceptable situation, we should use our creative imagination to make a difference….

The spiritual bankruptcy of many Christians in our time is closely related to the bankruptcy of godly imagination. Many Christians seek transformation into the moral image of God, but have little desire to exercise the creative dimension in them of God’s image.

 

Filed Under: Creativity

Being Good with People

September 26, 2014 by Matt Perman

Peter Drucker:

Too many think they are wonderful with people because they talk well. They don’t realize that being wonderful with people means listening well.

Filed Under: Communication

The Goal is Not to Show How Bright You Are By Shooting Holes in Ideas

August 7, 2014 by Matt Perman

Anyone can do that.

Right?

Jim Collins nails the problems with this in his excellent book Beyond Entrepreneurship:

Most of us have been trained to do just the opposite [of acting on good ideas rather than spending hours deliberating on all the reasons they can’t work]. We’re well schooled in criticism, having learned that the way to show how smart we are is to cite all the reasons that something is a stupid idea or doomed to failure.

We’ve noticed many new MBAs, for example, are adept at finding all the flaws in a business idea, but they’re much less practiced at coming up with ways to make the idea work.

Many times we’ve stood facing a self-satisfied person who has just done a marvelous job of demolishing a new product idea during a discussion. Then we ask, “Yes, we know it’s an imperfect idea. But then no idea is perfect. So, now how do you intend to make this idea successful in spite of its flaws?”

Some people rise brilliantly to the challenge when they realize that the goal is no longer to show how bright they are by shooting holes in ideas.

But, alas, others do not. They’ve been trained too well in the ethos of criticism, and to build a great company, they’ll have to overcome this negative training.

Filed Under: Career Success, Collaboration

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What’s Best Next exists to help you achieve greater impact with your time and energy — and in a gospel-centered way.

We help you do work that changes the world. We believe this is possible when you reflect the gospel in your work. So here you’ll find resources and training to help you lead, create, and get things done. To do work that matters, and do it better — for the glory of God and flourishing of society.

We call it gospel-driven productivity, and it’s the path to finding the deepest possible meaning in your work and the path to greatest effectiveness.

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About Matt Perman

Matt Perman started What’s Best Next in 2008 as a blog on God-centered productivity. It has now become an organization dedicated to helping you do work that matters.

Matt is the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done and a frequent speaker on leadership and productivity from a gospel-driven perspective. He has led the website teams at Desiring God and Made to Flourish, and is now director of career development at The King’s College NYC. He lives in Manhattan.

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