Archive - September, 2010

Winning in Baseball and Business – The Economy of Actions

September 7, 2010 in Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Leadership, Life with 0 Comments

I was listening to Jon Miller, Hall of Fame announcer for the SF Giants, on KNBR this morning. With the Giants in a pennant race he was talking about relief pitcher Brian Wilson’s high performance as the result of his economy of pitches. Jon was referring to the low number of pitches that Brian has been throwing in relief as compared with when he throws more than 15-20 pitches as a reliever. The point that he made was that Wilson’s performance is much greater when he throws fewer pitches. This got me thinking about the economy of actions.

For me, I like to perform fewer actions but apply these actions to something that is a bit unique to my experience and skill-set so that the actions go a long way. For example, for the small amount of management consulting work that I do, I pursue and select projects wherein I am confident that I can deliver great results 10 times faster, or more, than most people. What that means is that I do very few projects since there aren’t that many wherein I can deliver in this way. What it also means, however, is that I can charge 5-10 times more than what might be typical because I charge for results and by project deliverables, not by the hour. The actions that I perform in these projects have a great return, hence, the term “economy of actions”.

This is a formula that works very well for both parties because the client receives great results at a fair price and I get paid very well, on an hourly basis, to deliver the results.  The only way that I’m able to do this is to find a niche where my experience matches the goals of a company really well. I also have to be excited about the project and they have to be excited about me. It’s this combination that can result in a great success.

Can you find a specific niche for your products or services that allow you to deliver a high return on time allocated? Set a goal of 10x faster than the competition. You will have to be super selective and won’t find as many opportunities as you may currently have, but the return on your time will be much greater and you will deliver better results. Give it some thought – I would love your feedback. If you think I can help you increase your winning percentage, please contact me here.

Cheers.

Learning to Learn – the Dedication of a Great Teacher

September 3, 2010 in Culture, Entrepreneurship, Generosity, Inspiration, Leadership, Life with 4 Comments

Learning to learn comes from the dedication of a great teacher. Like a bunch of kids, my 5 year old Lucas started kindergarten last week. We attended a “back to school” event last night to meet other parents, the staff and, most importantly, Luke’s teacher. Georgina Blackett teaches the Spanish Immersion program at Luke’s public school. His big brother, Zack, attends private school at Town but Luke is a month too young to attend and we thought that this would be a great learning experience for Luke and the entire family.

In a very short period of time it’s easy to see that there are lots of things to like about Ms. Blackett. It’s easy to be impressed by her Stanford and Oxford education and the fact that she worked for “Teach for America” but the things that really impress me are her passion, caring personality and personalized communication; there’s a lot there. This background and her passion culminate in her stated (and written) goals to teach kids how to learn and to be accountable for their learning. She described her goals and her methods of tracking these goals very clearly. She laid out programs to make it fun for the kids to track their own progress and to self assess. These kids just turned 5 and they are learning accountability, goal setting and risk taking from their teacher.

Given that Spanish will be spoken 90% of the time during the school day (10% English), it’s really interesting to think about how they learn both languages, while covering science, math and other courses as delivered in Spanish. There is clearly a heavy focus on learning to learn, which I love.  I want to point out that Luke is very well prepared for this Spanish Immersion program, thanks to his great C5 preschool teachers Ryan, Vashti, Erin, Alice, Linda, Esther and Holly. They all prepared him very well to confidently meet the challenges of his new program, and did so with smiles on their faces (I frankly don’t know how they do it – the kids would drive me crazy). We appreciate each of them very much. This post is a shout out to all the teachers who dedicate their time to working hard, most at way too low a wage, to help our kids become great learners, great doers and great people.

I can tell that Ms. Blackett is a great teacher, and that the kids and we will love her, and that we’ll all learn a bunch from her. I hope that you feel the same about your teachers. Thanks to Ms. Blackett and all the other great teachers out there. Please consider thanking your kid’s teacher during drop off or pick up today. If you appreciate your teacher, let them know. I’m sure that they would love to hear that you appreciate them.

Cheers.