Yamazumi Your Life!

Environmental Scanning

I was watching one of those classic natural history documentaries – narrated by the fulsome, authoritative tones of Sir David Attenborough, when the insight struck. “The panda bear”, he intoned “never needs to rush, because it is perfectly in tune with its natural environment”.

This made me think. How much of the stress, haste and relentless urgency of modern life arises because we are out of tune with our natural environments? The ultimate goal would be a symbiosis and essential connection between ourselves and our contexts, so that goals could be achieved fluidly (without friction) and time was not a constraint.

Environmental scanning is the strategic technique deployed by businesses to assess for changes in their natural environment. Whereas for the giant panda this process is subconscious and instinctual, for the organisation it requires careful scheduling and an attentive approach. The scanning process will typically involve a good deal of number crunching of macro-economic trends and industry data, as well as competitor analysis and comparisons of brand and market share positioning against rivals. The full array of social, political, economic, technological, legal and demographic trends will be analysed systematically in order to evaluate the ongoing relevance of the company’s products and services. The scanning process will usually form a key input into overall strategy formulation for the business.

Have you ever considered adopting this thematic, structured approach for your own life? We all operate in social, commercial and physical environments – often referred to as social networks, workplaces and neighbourhoods. Things can change rapidly in the modern world and developments can be fluid, unpredictable and often with only a short lead time to adapt. For example, the Great Recession of 2008-2010 was unforeseen by many of the finest economic commentators but it struck many with the force of a tsunami. Unemployment attacked many like a thief in the night. I am reminded of a line in “Ready or Not” by the Fugees. “You had better be ready, because ready or not they are coming to get you”. 

Environmental scanning is one answer. Start in circles close to you and then move outwards. What are the key risks in your immediate sphere of control, such as your personal finances and your potential time commitments and obligations? Consider the changes that are happening in your family and circle of friends, and think what opportunities or potential threats these represent. Then move on outwards to encompass your profession, your industry and ultimately macro-level economic and political factors. While prudent to consider all risks and take appropriate personal action, it is futile to worry excessively about such as global GDP growth, flooding from global warming or (to cite an extreme example) an asteroid strike, since your power to determine any of these outcomes is nil.

Some major corporations have made the mistake of treating environmental scanning as an optional, expendable extra – and they have paid the price, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy. The demise of General Motors and its subsequent government rescue in 2009 was one prominent example. Do not make the same mistake. Remember that even the panda, an animal seamlessly and harmoniously in tune with its natural environment, is an endangered species in the face of overwhelming change such as habitat destruction by human encroachment.

Observe your environment. Scan the horizon. Be ready. 

Do Less, Desire Less, Achieve More

The sheer addiction to compulsive action is perhaps the biggest risk our society faces today. Our economic system breeds an insatiable hunger for more - more possessions, more activities, more time, more information, more commitments. The result is not just less happiness, but a kind of deep unsettled restlessness. The fruit may be sweet, but the root is bitter.

Leo Babauta has commented that we are drinking from a "fire hose of information" and choking as a result. The phenomenon of relentless multiplicity - endless emails each requiring immediate, Pavlovian action - is well known. Real and virtual commitments blur as online social networks require nurturing but continuous involvement.

Our hearts are racing on the hamster wheel, keeping the debt-laden, morally bankrupt system revolving. Is this the only way?

It is not necessary to drop out of society to start restoring a healthy balance and stability to our lives. Start by using a Yamazumi board to track your daily routine. Where is the waste? But go beyond an efficiency focus to ask: What (task, goal, commitment, relationship)is truly necessary?

Instead of aggregating junk, take a leaf out of Richard Koch's thinking in "Living the 80/20 Way". Using Pareto thinking, discover what really adds the most happiness, joy and value to your life. Find those "happiness islands". Now multiply them.

Deep Thought: The Ralph Charrell Challenge

One of my favourite quotations is from author and success thinker Ralph Charrell.

"Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece".

I like this idea. To often we are shepherded not just into social conformity but into intellectual conformity as well. This week the skies over Europe were largely closed due to volcanic ash sent high into the atmosphere from an Icelandic volcano. Panic ensued. Governments banned flights. For the first time since the nineteenth century the skies over England were eerily silent. Hundreds of thousands of passengers were stranded. What would be next? A regression to horses and carts?

Then the airlines, which were losing millions, lobbied for a relaxation of the ban. New data was presented. New decisions were reached. And the planes immediately took to the skies again.

Nothing had physically changed. Thinking had changed. The quality of analysis, evaluation and reaction had changed.

Tony Robbins often speaks of people being held back by limiting beliefs. He is right. Many of these beliefs served a reasonable purpose at the time they were created and reinforcement has made them a self-fulfilling prophecy. But any real change will need those beliefs to be revisited and re-examined. The un-examined life is not worth living, said Socrates in Apology 38a.

I have been reading an old classic recently - "Choosing the Future" by Stuart Wells. While dated in parts, this book has aged gracefully like a fine wine. It's a book about thinking. The tendency among so many of us, even those trained in lean Six Sigma techniques, is towards action, unthinking limbic system driven responses. Wells offers a cogent and lucid analysis of what it means to think critically and effectively, without being drawn into analysis-paralysis or inertia. 

He offers a striking image. What would people think if at work you abandoned the phone calls, emails, and day-to-day seemingly urgently clutter of the job and actually thought, deeply, about your objectives and how to realise them. What would change as a result? Wells offers the following revelations:

1. We do not teach thinking

2. We want instant solutions and quick closure

3. We do not tolerate thinking

4. We have no patience for thinking

5. We pride ourselves on our practicality

6. We remain enslaved by our thoughts.

These insights are priceless. How many of us devote serious disciplined effort to building income streams, deploying lean Six Sigma techniques and investing in our own intellectual capital? 

I leave you again with those prescient, insistent and faintly unnerving words of Ralph Charrell.

"Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece".

Which are you?

 

 

(c) 2010 WestOcean