Is a Yes Attitude same as Can-Do?

Lately, I have been reading about the new management buzzwords around Yes Attitude and for the longest time I really couldn't see any difference between the "Yes Attitude" and what we used to call a "can-do" attitude in the old days. Whether you have a good day or bad all depends on your attitude we would say. But then I read Guy Kawasaki's blog on the topic and decided I needed to give it one more try.

I did a test - but instead of using a work situation I tried it with my 4 year old grandson. Our disagreements usually center around meals - his standard response when offered food is "I'm not hungry" and a scoot to the opposite side of the room and I generally scoot after him with little success at least as measured by amount of food consumed. So this time I said Yes - ok. lets do something else. The difference was not just saying it while having a hidden agenda of getting him to eat later (this kid has a sixth sense you wouldn't believe). I did need to bring up the topic later again but I would say the yes attitude, i.e. delay the negotiation till the recipient is in a different frame of mind versus the can-do attitude which is lets get it done now since its a "win-win" delivered a better result.

So yeah, I decided a "Yes attitude" is different - its about aligning people; the can-do is about aligning the job at hand. What do you think?

Listen to the Pauses: Power Communication

Pause and Presence: For powerful communication, active understanding  or getting your message across: listen to the pauses. If you are the speaker, pay attention to when you pause, how long and what you do when you pause. Learn from speakers you find yourself drawn to by observing their pauses, what they do to retain your eyeballs. I have come up with a way to practise that is working for me: I listen and look for the pauses in my dance class. Perhaps, as every dancer knows, if you just go from one movement to another, without a proper transition - all you do is look floppy - there is no grace no beauty - no grabbing attention of viewer. Initially I used to just notice that my Zumba instructor looks great - so I went to the class. Now, with audio plus visual cues- I am able to observe when she transitions from one step into another- the split second pause that gives her balance and purpose - effortless, graceful; elbows - if meant to be 90 degrees are 90 not flopping halfway; movement alternates between fast(er) and slow(er) and so do the pauses.
I still can't do what she does, but now I can see what she does. Of course even if I knew it all in my head I couldn't do what she does - I am just not physically fit enough.
Fortunately for communication - while fitness helps greatly, it is less of a requirement. But in the absence of music and dance - Pauses and Presence are the rhythm of powerful communication.
Find any activity you enjoy (even cooking, dining) and listen to the pauses. Besides -it is so much fun -give it a try.

Poverty Action Lab at MIT and India Police Makeover

From my last post maybe you can tell that I have been looking for crazy stories - and there is none crazier than this one - and I first found out about it in the San Jose Mercury news - good going SJM! This one is a classic case of how someone coming from the outside can spot an issue someone from the inside cannot. I spent my formative years in India before coming for graduate school in US. I don't quite know why (Bollywood movies, hearsay, just plain ignorance) since I never met a policeman in India, I was one of those that subscribed to the theory the Indian policemen are corrupt, lazy, overweight, insensitive etc etc. In short stay away from them. And in spite of all my years of management coaching, this one image I had not shed - till yesterday - when I read about a MIT Poverty Action Lab project in India. "The dominant image of an Indian police officer, etched in people's minds and embedded in movies, is that of a slothful, rude and bribe-taking constable" says Rama Lakshmi in a Washington Post article. This perception of poor performance caught the attention of the MIT Poverty Action Lab, and they found that the negative image was a barrier to effective police-work. Their study proved something the policemen knew all along - that policemen in India are sleep deprived, overworked (7 days a week), underpaid with a threat of constant transfers from political bosses which means effectively no family life. No wonder the constable is irritable and rude! MIT-Station (or MIT Thanas) trials where constables were given etiquette training and relaxation time, showed thirty percent improvement in crime-victims satisfaction with victims' satisfaction of case handling.
Seems so obvious now as I think about it - but it is not something I ever thought of before- "we are not experts in policing" says Daniel Keniston who co-ordinated the field research. Well done I say - this is not about policing - it is about good management - and it took innovative action to prove it. An interesting statistic - India has one of the lowest ratio of policemen to number of citizens (source- India Today) while Egypt - where I have been travelling recently - one of the highest at 1 policeman per 7 citizens (source - our tour guide on the trip to Abu Simbel)