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no ego by cy wakeman
Oct. 8th, 2023 09:12 am"accountability" is the buzzword of the year floating around my workspace, so I went looking for podcasts on it, and that's how I found the book "no ego" by cy wakeman. As with many authors these days the book and podcast overlap a lot so we can get the ideas in whatever format works best... as a book, outlined and purposeful, or in the podcast with little drips and illustrations.
the gist... great things happen when we eliminate wasteful drama and ego-driven stories, so we can confront our reality and get to real solutions to our problems. we can't look around at what's happening in our industries and use trials as excuses for why we can't thrive, we have to thrive in whatever circumstances we're in.
she started with a time study in her industry of doctors needing to use new software. they said the new software was slow and wasted hours of their time. so there was a project where doctors were followed around. the ones still using paper spent 45 minutes on reports. the ones using software spent 45 minutes on reports, and two hours complaining to their colleagues about how much they hated using the software for reports.
what do people complain about at work? everything. a VP said there would be free ice cream for everyone at 2pm. one of his middle managers stormed into her office to complain that "the VP is surely doing this to sabotage me personally, because I am lactose intolerant and have a priority meeting at 2pm, why wasn't I consulted!" some colleagues would choose to commiserate with them. I've met people who I think want me to do this. just say "yeah that VP sucks! let's rant about what he did last week too!" but I tend to be the one to say "well it's four hours away, you've got time to reschedule your meeting and email him to offer a lactose-free option that you could run out for if you've got an idea."
and then they say "I'm tired of having to do everything here!" and I say "well, there's a lot that has to get done" and I shrug. if the world was simple, we could all be replaced by robots. I don't know how those people get by in the world, never having solutions and just complaining that everything sucks all the time.
every day, the sun rises and sets and the planets pass us in orbit and we are not consulted, that's just the fact of it. we can complain about it, size up the situation and figure out where to help. highly accountable can contribute to a project at whatever step they're thrown in at, because they don't dwell in the "well why didn't anyone..." questions.
the best questions are... "what do we KNOW? Do you KNOW that our VP has it out for lactose intolerant people, or do you just know that we're getting free ice cream? how can we help? what would GREAT look like?" get people out of the stories they tell themselves in their head, and into a productive space.
the gist... great things happen when we eliminate wasteful drama and ego-driven stories, so we can confront our reality and get to real solutions to our problems. we can't look around at what's happening in our industries and use trials as excuses for why we can't thrive, we have to thrive in whatever circumstances we're in.
she started with a time study in her industry of doctors needing to use new software. they said the new software was slow and wasted hours of their time. so there was a project where doctors were followed around. the ones still using paper spent 45 minutes on reports. the ones using software spent 45 minutes on reports, and two hours complaining to their colleagues about how much they hated using the software for reports.
what do people complain about at work? everything. a VP said there would be free ice cream for everyone at 2pm. one of his middle managers stormed into her office to complain that "the VP is surely doing this to sabotage me personally, because I am lactose intolerant and have a priority meeting at 2pm, why wasn't I consulted!" some colleagues would choose to commiserate with them. I've met people who I think want me to do this. just say "yeah that VP sucks! let's rant about what he did last week too!" but I tend to be the one to say "well it's four hours away, you've got time to reschedule your meeting and email him to offer a lactose-free option that you could run out for if you've got an idea."
and then they say "I'm tired of having to do everything here!" and I say "well, there's a lot that has to get done" and I shrug. if the world was simple, we could all be replaced by robots. I don't know how those people get by in the world, never having solutions and just complaining that everything sucks all the time.
every day, the sun rises and sets and the planets pass us in orbit and we are not consulted, that's just the fact of it. we can complain about it, size up the situation and figure out where to help. highly accountable can contribute to a project at whatever step they're thrown in at, because they don't dwell in the "well why didn't anyone..." questions.
the best questions are... "what do we KNOW? Do you KNOW that our VP has it out for lactose intolerant people, or do you just know that we're getting free ice cream? how can we help? what would GREAT look like?" get people out of the stories they tell themselves in their head, and into a productive space.