Patrik Bergman – Page 5 – A corn of wheat

Gnothi seauton

Getting to know yourself can be joyful and distressing. We are complex creatures and of course have strengths and weaknesses. Facing these can be an eye-opening experience. As a part of this life-long journey, I went to Understand Myself – a personality test developed by Dr. Jordan B Peterson and his team. They have constructed the Big Five Aspects scale based on thousands of people cross-culturally. Their test contains 10 pages with statements you either agree or disagree with on a scale. This is how they describe the dimensions:

“Extraversion (associated with positive emotion), Neuroticism (negative emotion), Agreeableness (the primary dimension of care for others), Conscientiousness (associated with duty, precision and responsibility) and Openness (interest in ideas and aesthetics)”

I took the test as recommended – in a calm state of mind where I am not disturbed. These were my results:

Agreeableness: Compassion and Politeness: (65) Moderately High.
Industriousness and Orderliness: (31) Moderately Low
Extraversion: Enthusiasm and Assertiveness: (89) Very High
Neuroticism: Withdrawal and Volatility (56): Average
Openness to Experience: Openness and Intellect: (96) Exceptionally High

On the positive note, thanks to my Extraversion and Openness to Experience, I should engage in work that aims to revolutionize the way we work and think, preferably close to top management. I should also use my energy to talk and write about this, based in my interest in philosophy and new ways of working and learning. This is also where I am at work today, given the projects I have initiated and the talks I give at conferences. I just can’t wait to see where the next step will take us.

On another note, my conscientiousness is moderately low, and this could be my Achilles heel if I don’t pay attention. Since I so easily can drift away in my thinking or reading or music, I must use lists, routines, and plans to get things done in time without missing any details. This also works for me at work, since I follow meticulous plans where others can see my progress. Such project plans stop me from thinking about the next big thing and instead do the next thing on the plan. But during the projects, there is always something in me that longs for the detailed project phase to be over, so the philosophizing can start again. I do not grow especially well when given detailed routine work for too long.

Remember that a test that shows your strengths and weaknesses can be one of many tools for building a stable personality and knowing what kind of work is best suited for you. Remember also, that if you have a hard time accepting a weakness, read these words of Arthur Schopenhauer:

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident”

So, even if you think “that is not me!”, after some time you might see it as self-evident and see what activities and tools and people can help you balance your weaknesses. We also have different kinds of strengths and weaknesses, where a balanced team can do wonderful things. Just look at the current digital workplace project I am involved in: The external project manager helps me keep track of all the details, after I have sold the idea to top management, recommended the vendor, and have grand plans for where this will land. A weakness can be turned to something good with the help of tools and people around you.

Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash

Approaching mindfulness

The last five years, I have seen several people I know crash due to stress. And according to the research, this is a problem that is growing at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, at work, we are supposed to be highly driven and focused people that are using the smartest ways to stay on top of all tasks thrown at us. But we all have a limit, and before we reach ours, it is better to treat yourself the right way to avoid a crash.

2018 has been a year where so many professional opportunities opened for me, where I am responsible for the roll out of Office 365 plus the investigation on which LMS to use. Once the holidays came, I noticed the sheer speed at which I had worked and that I needed to balance this with calmness and stillness. Yes, expanding projects at work are the best thing for our professional development. We just need a solid base to stand on when the action lists come flying, and here are some tips on getting started with mindfulness:

Read the book The Headspace Guide … Mindfulness & Meditation: 10 minutes can make all the difference. It is a great introduction to how mindfulness can help us. The author Andy Puddicombe is a former Buddhist Monk and the book contains a lot of wisdom from his talks with his masters, such as:

‘In stepping back from the thoughts and feelings, there will be a sense of increased space. It might feel as if you are simply an observer, watching the thoughts, the traffic, go by. Sometimes you might forget,’ he said, smiling knowingly, ‘and before you know it you’ll find yourself running down the road after a fancy-looking car. This is what happens when you experience a pleasant thought. You see it, get caught up in it, and end up chasing after the thought.’

This is a clear analogy for all of us: Be the observer by the side of the road instead of the one always driving the car. The book also tackles the happiness explosion we have seen all around us, where happiness seems to be end in itself instead of something we might occasionally experience as a result of other things:

‘Happiness is just happiness,’ he went on, ‘no big deal. It comes and it goes. Sadness is just sadness, no big deal. It comes and it goes. If you can give up your desire to always experience pleasant things, at the same time as giving up your fear of experiencing unpleasant things, then you’ll have a quiet mind.’

He also offers mental models that help you treat your sensations in a different way than you are used to:

‘When you experience discomfort in your meditation, whether it’s the restlessness of a busy mind, physical tension in the body, or a challenging emotion, I want you to imagine it’s the discomfort of the people you care about. It’s as if in an act of extraordinary generosity, you are sitting with their discomfort so they don’t have to.’

The author is also behind the app called Headspace, which is a way to practice what he presents in the book. Other apps that can be useful, and that I have tested, are:

Aura – driven by AI to adjust to your mood
Calm – guidance by Tamara Levitt
Waking Up – guidance by Sam Harris

It matters less which app you use, but more that you start with professional guidance from any teacher. The above apps cost about the same thing, USD 50-60 per year, but that is cheap comparing to the cost of slipping and falling. No, we cannot stop everything from happening to us, since that is the way life works. But we can teach ourselves to avoid to fall or to fall softer.

Photo by Levi XU on Unsplash

Objective judgement, unselfish action, and a willing acceptance

“Our actions may be impeded, but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Marcus Aurelius

Stoicism is about turning problems upside down. Instead of treating problems as things that hinder your progress, you treat them as tools that can potentially elevate you. Remember, we don´t control what happens to us, but we do control how we respond to it. An excellent book that covers this is Ryan Holiday´s The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph. I have mentioned this book in an earlier post on books for personal transformation, but it is worth mentioning again since it can change your life. Objective judgement, unselfish action, and a willing acceptance to all external events are central to the book. It might not sound like great fun at first, but this is not a book about instant happiness. It is a book that teaches to you stand up again when life throws you over, and that is what can make all the difference.

Ryan teaches us that it is easy to find excuses for not acting on the problems we know are there. He attacks this in three central steps:

Perception, how you see the problem. This is the story that runs in our heads, and that frames how we view the problem. Change your perception of it, and you change how you handle it.
Act on your problem. Without acting on your changed perception, problems will not change for real. And without acting, you can never build new habits.
Discipline and will. Acting once or twice is easy but making it a habit is harder and more fruitful. The changed perceptions and actions become your normal way of acting in the world. To stay disciplined it can also help to find bigger causes to embrace. This way, if you ever ask why you need to be disciplined, the bigger cause will tell you why over and over.

When I read this, I came to think about a step that precedes the above three steps: Inversion or premortems. Charlie Munger said it best: “Just tell me where I´m going to die so I can never go there”. Start imagining what can go wrong with your plans in life and then see how you can avoid these. Once such problems enter your life, you know how to tackle them and keep standing. Life is not just about new habits. By avoiding the things we know are bad for us, we have built a great foundation.

There will always be problems. Always. Therefore, we must learn to accept that there are problems, and act to solve them, instead of whining and complaining. Yes, sometimes we simply don´t have the energy to pick ourselves up, but when we do, we should know that there is always a road ahead. Can´t see the way? Just keep walking – it will appear again.

Ryan Holiday is right when pointing out that this is not a philosophy book not just for thinkers. It is a philosophy book for people who want to act. Read it and be ready to act.

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On reading Jordan B. Peterson´s 12 rules for life

There seemed to be nearly no end to the writing about Jordan B. Peterson´s book 12 Rules for Life: An antidote to chaos, that I decided to read it. I mean, if the Spectator writes “One of the most important thinkers to emerge on the world stage for many years”, there had to be something to it. For sure, I was ready to highlight and underline and write stars in the margins.

But the strange thing is that the 12 rules did not have a wow effect on me, and I have wondered why. One reason could be that I have read quite the number of self-helf books during the years, coupled with Dostoyevsky, Goethe, Kierkegaard, and Jung. Another reason could be that Jordan´s heavy emphasis on order made me miss the slightly chaotic side that brings the arts and the humanity forward as well. A third reason could be that his book is like the things a wise grandparent would tell you, but backed up with a massive number of links to psychology, religion, and philosophy. We have heard it before, but perhaps not in that context.

An interesting thing that stood out is “Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong”, which made me think of mental models and the Munger saying “All I Want To Know Is Where I’m Going To Die So I’ll Never Go There”. This means, that if you want to progress in life, a good way to start is by avoiding doing the wrong things (like walk on hot sand if you are a Stormtrooper – it will get awfully hot inside your armor). That will take you far and serve as a ground for advancing even more.

It also made me think of a trait that will be increasingly important when the world grows even more complex – adjusting your actions and thinking to how your surroundings change. So perhaps you should stop the awfully detailed planning of your life and look up to where the winds are blowing:

Jordan B. Peterson´s book was an interesting read, since it is seldom one book encompasses so many references to research on the human psyche. Whether you will apply his rules or not depends on who you are and where you are heading.

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Let the cloud workshops begin

Next week will for sure be adventurous! We are conducting no less than two full-day workshops with our chosen vendor Precio Fishbone to sort out the document handling and quality management system. We also have the formal kickoff with 12 colleagues from different parts of the company and the world, where they tell us how we could work smarter, from their perspective. I have been talking about the digital workplace for years, and now it is happening.

Precio Fishbone and their praised product suite Omnia were the ones who best matched our needs. Since a year back, our Quality department had collected all the limitations of the current ways of using documents and then added their own needs as well. Meanwhile, we also took the latest version of our company´s processes and saw a chance to turn them into a truly global system, connected to the document handling.

After comparing different vendors for the document handling and the quality management system, it was clear that Omnia had what we needed. Their third product, the Intranet, also looked and worked well with central notifications, beautiful news publishing, and constant renewal. Precio Fishbone also invites their customers to webinars about their roadmap and their next releases, plus a Yammer group for customers. This appealed to me who want to make sure the vendor both listens to what the customers need, plus are inventive and tell us what is happening.

Next week will probably add a few gray hairs from all the thinking, but oh it is so worth it. At last, we can build an environment that truly helps our colleagues, based on current thoughts on Knowledge Management, the Digital Workplace, and Modern Workplace Learning. I will for sure keep you posted on our journey to the clouds.

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L&D and the Digital Workplace are merging

Last week, I spent two days in Belgium including the beautiful town of Ghent, pictured above. The reason for my visit was to collaborate with my colleagues at Haldex when starting our e-learning efforts globally. Since they are subject matter experts and I have a background in professional education, including instructional design, we could find a mutual road forward. Frankly, I was so glad to return to the e-learning discussions again after spending years with intranets and the digital workplace. Then it dawned upon me that those two big areas in my professional life are merging, which I also wrote about in a LinkedIn post that sparked quite some interest.

The reason for this interest is probably since a lot of people also feel Learning & Development (L&D) is about to take a big leap forward in the coming years. People such as Jane Hart and Harold Jarche (see the LinkedIn post for their profiles) have long been advocating Modern Workplace Learning and Personal Knowledge Mastery as an integral part of working. Meanwhile, my focus the last years, the digital workplace, is taking big steps in this direction too. By using Delve for AI-driven profiles, Yammer for supporting communities of practice, and SharePoint to structure files so staff can re-use them, L&D and the Digital Workplace are merging. Add a modern Learning Management System (LMS) that includes modules for performance support and can be integrated into SharePoint, and you have a solid ground to stand on.

I used to work as an instructional designer, and now work as a communications manager with a focus on building a learning organization based on knowledge management and the digital workplace. I guess those professions will merge more and more and that the formal titles will mean less. No matter if you are an instructional designer, L&D manager, or communications manager, your role is to help others understand the world, work smarter and learn better. I so look forward to the coming years when much will change for the better.

My top 10 tools for learning 2018

As during previous years, Jane Hart asks what our top professional learning tools are. Here are my top choices personally and professionally without any internal order:

Twitter: This has been my go-to source for knowledge for many years. I hear about skilled and interesting people, add them to one of my lists, and can enjoy their posts and conversations easily.
YouTube: Oh, YouTube, this vast sea of strange videos but with islands of clarity as well. Mainly used for recorded talks, product tests, and sheer inspiration.
LinkedIn: Argh, LinkedIn is so hard to use as a learning tool, which I have stated before. Meanwhile, almost daily I see something interesting plus I reach my largest audience through my own posts here, opening up for interesting conversations.
Yammer: Externally I use this to keep in contact with the members of Intranätverk. Internally, we are starting to use it more and more as well. Excellent tool for asking questions and quickly learning from others.
Kindle: What would I do without the Kindle app? I have so many great books here which I read, re-read, write notes in, and learn from.
Evernote: This has been my clipper and organizer for years. Whenever I don´t have time to read something, I clip it to Evernote and return quickly to it later.
Feedly: The best web source reader there is. Hundreds of sites and blogs neatly stored in categories for me to consume every morning.
Paper.li: I let paper.li create automatic magazines based on my Twitter lists. This helps me surface articles I might have missed during a Twitter day. I never auto-post these paper.li magazines, but instead share individual picks from what I find here.
SharePoint: The main platform at work for working with document and news.
Google Suite: Currently the way I handle my mail and calendar and more. Plus all Google Alerts and Search, of course.

Project Starman has started

Now when Haldex is moving our intranet into Office 365, we formed a formal project with global members and of course chose a great name. First off is our FastTrack collaboration with Microsoft. When you engage in this, be prepared to answer some really technical questions on Azure, authentication, proxy servers, federated identity providers, and more. “How do your users log on to their computers and applications in your current environment?” might sound rather straight forward, but then you get to choose between ‘userPrincipalName’ and ‘sAMAccountName’ So, bring a devoted server hero to your first meeting with Microsoft.

And no matter what I have heard people telling me about the migration included in FastTrack, we are left with three choices: File shares, Box, and Google Drive. This probably means Microsoft will not assist us with the migration from SharePoint on-prem, which I guess is a very typical user scenario. It also means we either handle the migration ourselves, or let a vendor include it as part of their deal.

In FastTrack you are also pointed to their Driving Adoption portal, but I often find these kinds of portals a bit too general and marketing oriented. Instead, I recommend anyone wanting to move to Office 365 the white papers from 2tolead. Yes, they somewhat pitch their company but above all Kanwal Khipple and Richard Harbridge clearly show why people appreciate their SharePoint knowledge. I browse through their guides almost daily for inspiration and to not miss vital details.

Soon the holidays are here but first I will invite about 10 colleagues to the project start-up. Our project office told me you can’t underestimate the value of meeting all face-to-face, and I believe them.

On reading Charlie Munger’s poor almanack

Ever since I started reading about mental models, there was one book that was almost universally recommended: Poor Charlie’s Almanack, by Charlie Munger. The book is a long read on how Charlie Munger, a long-time business partner to Warren Buffett, describes our world. After having read it, I have a mixed impression of this praised book. On one hand, it is a long and sometimes rather self-centered way of describing the American way as the perfect way. Here are Americans describing the American way of living and investing in American companies to Americans at Harvard and more.

On another hand, it contains wisdom on how to use mental models to interpret the world. There are some deep insights and great quotes hidden among all pages. It was for sure a long read, and I learned some valuable things from it, but I don’t think it will be my go-to reference book for mental models. Meanwhile, there are some lessons that will stay with me forever, such as:

“Mimicking the herd invited regression to the mean.” If you do the same things as all the others, you cannot expect different results. Common plagues privately and professionally are status anxiety, social proof tendency, and the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses syndrome – doing what we can to be like the rest. It is not until you stop doing this, and instead find a unique way for yourself, that you will see other results. Stop caring so much about what others think. Really.
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than when you woke up.” This goes back to the compound effect – if you advance as little as 1% in an area each day, you have improved dramatically in just a few years. This applies to everything.
“But if you try to succeed in what you’re worst at, you’re going to have a very lousy career.” This is a typical disease that hits us when we are children and go to school. All children have different strengths that could be developed a lot if nurtured correctly. But all too often we are expected to shine in everything from math to sports and lyrics. Yes, a solid foundation in all subjects is good, but this idea of trying to even everything out can hurt your development as an adult. Therefore, find out what your true strengths are and then nourish them. Spend your time and energy going as far as you can thanks to your strengths, instead of evening out your weaker areas.
“It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard. It’s getting rid of the old ones.” This is a quote from Keynes and it still rings true. Just look at most of the change management writing – it nearly always focuses on how to bring new things to the table and have people accept them. But where are all the ideas and methods to help people get rid of old ways of working and understanding the world?
The Tolstoy effect: People will forever blame their upbringing, parents, schooling, spouses, you name it, for their bad luck and misfortune. It has been proven over and over and is especially true today where there are ample chances to lead a good life, that your goals and determination can become much stronger than your previous life. Self-pity is a very sad mental state, and we should change it to something a lot better.

If you are a big fan of Charlie Munger, you should definitely read the whole book with all the long speeches, and the praising of Charlie. But if you are not a big fan, you can come a long way with reading reviews of the book and then focus your time on other more specific books regarding mental models, investing, entrepreneurship, checklists and goals, and more.

The image: A dog free from status anxiety.

The first concrete steps towards Office 365

A week ago, the management team of Haldex said yes to the idea of moving our intranet into the cloud. So now all my ideas over the years on how to build an including digital workplace for all employees can become a reality. But what are the first steps to take? It is easy to get stuck in all the models of the digital workplace or listen to vendors who say it takes a day to install their product. For me, I instead start in an internal pay-it-forward exercise to collect great ideas and in a more formal step of signing up for Microsoft’s FastTrack. I tell you more about these steps in the short movie below.

By the way, pay close attention also to Microsoft’s Planning Services. If you already are a customer of Microsoft, there is a good chance you can use free days to plan your setup and migration together with a Microsoft Partner. Just follow the steps in the Planning Services link and ask your Office 365 admin to log in and check how many days you have. And if you are a Microsoft partner, signing up for Planning Services is a must.

Photo by Wim Arys on Unsplash.