New Year’s concert and the best way to start the year

New Year’s concert from Vienna, through Eurovision on January, 1st, it’s been a long-standing tradition for years.

Best qualities from New Year’s concert:

• Good chance for getting closer to classic music
• Not so much to see on TV on that day
• Must-see scenarios (besides the Golden Hall in the Musikverein, both the documentaries and the ballet is recorded on great settings)
• A top-orchestra conducted by a world-class conductor
• Good way to deal with last night’s hangover

You could say that other concerts can provide this or similar experience any other time of the year.

Orchestra, people in attendance, conductor, pieces, everything varies and everything keeps the same

The right reason why the Newyear’s concert is a must-see is because it provides a shoot on optimism and energy. The rithm and the power in all those marches and polkas, sets the best starting point for a season of working. Twelve months all full with days, and the waltzes and the ballet, shows us the beauty and harmony that can be reached by a good teamwork, training and effort.

Beauty on the dance and the stage

New Year’s Concert sets the bar to our work and at the same time it gives us courage, optimism and eagerness to face the challenges in the next twelve months. For being better than our past-year’s self.

Have a good New Year, full of challenges, changes and effort.

Hint: A powerful combination to impulse best work. We understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could […] As a person with more power than the people who work for you, It is your fault […] assuming goodwill is not only more productive. Trust pays.
Bonus track: On the magical power of establishing goals and deadlines. A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most ass-kicking form. It’s a potent force that, when wielded with respect, will level any obstacle in its path.

Iteratively developing a Merry Christmas example

First a proof of concept

Then, with the infrastructure

Third, set up the components.

Fourth, fill the details

Last, populate the system.

And finally, the whole process…

Merry Christmas!!

Focus on each person’s strengths

When I am leading a team, I usually want the team members to do some specific things.

And sometimes they don’t.

And I, as a leader, start complaining to myself, to my boss or (don’t ever think to do it!!) to the team about it.

I shouldn’t.

A great chess player doesn’t try to turn its pieces into what they are not. Exccept for the humble and hard-working pawn.

Start thinking that every teammember wants to do its best effort, taking into account the circumstances.

Then think that some (most) of them are not going to be able to adapt to all my needs.

A chess player doesn’t solve anything just complaining to the bishops for not being able to move horizontally. A chess player won’t try to force a rook to jump over enemies as a knight.

A chess player will put every piece in the spot in which it contributes better to the final outcome.

Hint: It’s not by chance that the only piece in chess that can struggle its way into a promotion, it’s the hard-working, humble pawn.

Bonus track: Superheroes and diversity in project teams. When building a team, search for diversity. If everybody agrees on everything, every time, then somebody is doing something wrong. And chances are it’s you.

Infinite games, competitive vs colaborative, entertaining vs winning and business vs wrestling

---

People don’t consider wrestling as a sport anymore.

But it is.

Life is a game

It’s not a wrestling competition. Right.
It’s not competition in the sense of a match with a non-pre-determined winner or loser.

But it’s sport.

The REAL result of a wrestling match is difficult to figure out until some time has passed by. Sometimes the scripted winner gets a bust in merchandise sales or gets more on-air time. But often is the loser the one whose career is pushed up, specially if he’s been defeated in an epic or controversial way.

Because of this, both wrestlers cooperate to get the best match ever, the one in which the audience gets more involved, they both try to steal the show.

Because wrestling scoreboard is not about losing or winning matches, but about attracting viewers through telling compelling, interesting stories.

And this hidden scoreboard is the one turning a show based on faked competition into an actual cooperative sport.

What are my team’s inner scoreboards for turning the work into a cooperative value-creation non-zero-sum game, instead of a competitive, status zero-sum game?

If I don’t have any, I should start getting some.

Hint: If you don’t like the competitive game you are playing, change the rules, because if you are not choosing the game you are playing, someone else is chosing for you.

Bonus track: Sports are competitive, war in disguise. Conversations are not. Next time we start a negotiation, it could be useful to treat it as a conversation, not as a competition.

Stop Teaching Agile to developers! (until the CEO, CTO, CFO, the salespeople and the People people have been trained)

Agile (as much as Lean) is not about certificates and methodology, but mindset and disposition.

Trying to improve development process by training the developers (only) is the same as trying to optimize how you drive nails on a wall by buying an electric screwdriver.

If you want to use the screwdriver you need to change the nature of the problem, so that you start screwing screws instead of driving nails.

If you want your developers to be (use?) Agile, you need to feed them with projects (and customers, and suppliers) that share the mindset, so you need to start getting all the C’s onboard first, or it won’t work.

The more we pretend it can be done the other way around, the worse.