There is No Maximum to Human Potential

What We Are Reading

Getting Things Done, by David Allen

Who should read:

• Anyone that wants to get more done

Our favorite ideas from the book:

• There is no reason ever to have the same thought twice unless you like having that thought
• Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time.  They get stuck because te doing of them has not been defined.
• Anything that does not belong where it is, the way it is, is an "open loop" pulling on your attention 
• If it is on your mind, your mind isn't clear.  Anything that you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside of your mind, or what I call a collection bucket, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through.
• I define a project as any desired result that requires more than one action step.
• You have more to do than you can possibly do.  You just need to feel good about your choices. 
• I loved his workflow diagram--you can download this free on his site by clicking here

The Pink Straw

I was on an American Airlines flight to Dallas today sitting next to an off-duty flight attendant .  When Karen, our working flight attendant, came by with the drink cart I ordered my diet Sierra Mist and a cup of ice.  When I asked for a straw Karen pulled out her personal bag from her apron, opened a zipper, pulled out a ziploc bag of straws, selected a pink one and handed it to me with a smile.  (She reminded me of the prepared mom that carries absolutely everything in her purse in case someone needs a band-aid or safety pin.)   

I guess AA had cut back on straws so Carol brings her own to keep her customers happy.  She does not want to say no to her passengers.  Since she has to carry them in her apron, and they need to work with the short plastic cups, she personally trims the straws so they are not too long.  I sat there for a few seconds speechless sipping my diet Sierra Mist with Karen's hot pink straw eyes locked with the off-duty flight attendant next to me who was a witness to this amazing act of service. When I could talk, we both agreed that Karen is the epitome of service and should be the flight attendant of the century for American.

Assessment Tools Must Be Valid

An assessment tool is valid if it measures specific characteristics required to do a job and if the measurements are accurate.  Validity is the fifth of 13 Department of Labor guidelines used for assessment instruments, and the one we will be examining this month. 

We determine an assessment tool’s validity by looking at its purpose.  Once we determine the tool is valid for a specific purpose, that validity cannot be transferred for any other purpose.  For example, we can agree a valid instrument can predict a person’s ability to accurately measure, add and subtract.  We cannot, however, use the same instrument to predict the person’s leadership or sales skills. 

The validity coefficient is a strong indicator of how valid the assessment is for a specific purpose under 

specific circumstances.  It measures the degree of relationship between test performance and job performance. 

Validity is an important characteristic in assessment tools because it gives meaning to a person’s scores on an assessment.  If the evidence shows the assessment tool is a valid predictor of performance on a specific job, we know that people who earn high scores on the assessment are more likely to do the job well than people with low scores. 

We can also establish an assessment’s validity as applied to specific groups.  A tool that is valid in predicting how well an executive solves problems does not allow for useful comparisons about ability in clerical assistants.  Additionally, the reading level of the test may not be valid for both groups. 

Developers of assessments must describe the groups they used to develop the test, detail which groups can be validly tested by the assessment, and provide an interpretation of scores for individuals belonging to specific groups. 

All Profiles assessments meet or exceed Department of Labor guidelines, and at HumanPoint we work diligently to help our clients understand our tools and how to use them correctly. We partner with your  HR leaders to implement assessments and provide comprehensive training and support. 

DOL Guidelines Checklist:

 

Assessment tools must be used in a purposeful manner. 

Use the “whole-person” approach to assessment. 

Use only assessment instruments that are unbiased and fair to all groups. 

Assessment tools must be reliable. 

Assessment tools must be valid. 

Click to download a free copy of the Department of Labor’s Employee’s Guide to Good Practices for Testing and Assessment.

3 Cool Tools for Top Performers...oh yeah, they are free

HARO (short for Help a Reporter Out):  Peter Shankman, a PR Guru from New York, created an email blast of leads for journalists that help them find sources for articles they are creating or for TV spots that need experts. You can subscribe to this feed and Peter will send you an email  twice per day with these leads.  You can then submit your expert articles and advice to these media experts and you may end up on CNN, FOX, or the New York times.  A great way to get free PR for your company. 

GOOGLE News Alerts:  Did you know that you can subscribe to Google news alerts?  Type in any word and Google will email you if that word appears in news.  I use it to alert me for my clients and executives that I coach so I can congratulate them when their name appears in the news.  It also helps me stay on top of what is happening with my clients.  

TED:  A site with 20 minute videos from the world’s top thinkers on themes ranging from technology and innovation to the arts.  A couple of my favorites are “Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better” 

and “What we can learn from spaghetti sauce.”

We See With our Brains - Not with Our Eyes

Late one night I was frantically searching for a this book I needed to skim for a meeting the next morning.  I remembered bringing it home from my office to read and I also remembered the book being a paperback with a white cover.  After searching through my book shelves, the stack of books on my desk, my car, the stack of books of my nightstand I was exhausting options.  

I decided to recruit my husband to help in the search and so I told him I was looking for a white paperback book with this certain title that I needed to read for a meeting tomorrow morning.  He came back 10 minutes later to tell me he checked everywhere and could not find it.  I decided to give up the search and started to question my memory of bringing it home. I concluded that I had left it at my office.  

The next morning I went to the meeting and the person I was meeting with brought me a  second copy of the book.  I was grateful for the copy since my copy was MIA.  I took a look at the book and the cover was white as I had imagined, but when I glanced at the spine I noticed it was red.  I threw the book in my bag and went on my merry way.

Later that evening when I returned home I was looking on my desk at the stack of books and my eyes immediately noticed the copy of the missing book second from the top of the stack.  I was instantly drawn to the red spine and the title.  I yelled for my husband to come down and look at my discovery.  He was amazed and immediately started to question if I had moved it there.  He kept saying it could not have been there the night before because he had looked at the stack for it.  

I explained to him that this case of the missing book is not a mystery at all.  I had communicated to him that the book was white.  As humans, we see with our brains, not with our eyes.  As a result, his brain and my brain were both looking for a white book.  When the spine was red we did not even see the book at all because our brains filtered it out because it did not match the description we believed to be true.  

So back to the moral of the story...we see with our brains, not with our eyes.  Our eyes are merely the lenses.  We see what we believe to be true.  The book was physically there the entire time and I did not see it because I had a false belief that the spine was white like the cover.  

How does this idea translate to our success and happiness in business and in life?  If we believe that there is a lack of business in our marketplace, our brain will not allow us to see the opportunities right in front of our eyes.  If we are single and believe there is not a good mate out there for us, we could know the person right now and not see the potential.  If we believe that on the happiness scale of 1-10 we typically hover around a 5, we will not see the opportunities around us that would provide a higher level of happiness.  

This entire experience really caused me to ask myself how many limiting beliefs I have that are causing me to be blind successful opportunities in my path. 

Do not take the limiting beliefs of 2008 and prior into this new year.  Instead evaluate what you want, make sure your beliefs align, and seek knowledge and resources to help you achieve what you really desire in life this year.  

For more info on the brain and how this happens, research the Reticular Activating System or RAS.  This speaker, James Ray does a good job of explaining this in 6 minutes.