How to decide what is most important and then "get the HOWs right",

By Robert Morris

Most people agree that good health, financial security, and self-esteem are important in one's personal life. In business, most executives agree that it is important to have customers who are (as Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba describe them) "evangelists," more money coming in than going out, people who get more and better work done in less time, etc. My point is, that there is a substantial consensus on "what" and the first challenge is to understand the "how." The next challenge is to avoid what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton have identified as the "knowing-doing gap."

As Dov Seidman explains in the Preface, "The tapestry of human behavior is so diverse, so rich, and so global that it presents a rare opportunity, the opportunity to outbehave the competition." He goes on to explain that, "Instead of rules, steps, or an instruction manual, this book offers an approach - a framework and a way of seeing - to help you navigate the new global, hyperconnected world in which we suddenly find ourselves working. It offers something that will carry you beyond short-term rewards toward lasting success." Those who get their "HOWs right" will achieve enduring personal and organizational business achievement.

Seidman carefully organizes his material within four Parts as he explores (through "a new lens") three HOWs:

HOW we think,
HOW we behave, and
HOW we govern.

I was especially interested in what Seidman has to say about "transparency" in Chapter 7. He cites an example of "issue contagion." Specifically, a posting on an online bulletin board by a 25-year-old cycling enthusiast, Chris Brennen, claiming that Kryptonite locks (reputedly impenetrable) could easily be opened by almost anyone. Kryptonite chose not to respond to the increasing, accelerating buzz and almost immediately found itself in one of the first Internet-facilitated PR disasters. According to Seidman, "Knowledge is power. That old adage is as true today as when philosopher first said it in the seventeenth century...As the world transitions to a bottom-up and side-to-side model in which each individual can contribute to the free flow of ideas, it opens up and becomes more transparent...Transparency - the new conditions of the world that allow us to see past the medium to get to the heart of the message - fundamentally changes almost every way we conduct our lives in public (and in private), demanding a new set of HOWs if we really want to thrive."

Seidman goes on to say that to understand those fundamental changes, we must consider two types of transparency: technological transparency (i.e. the ever-evolving state of the networked world) and interpersonal transparency (i.e. the realm of how we do what we do, of being transparent amidst various interconnected social communities). "What does it mean to be truthful? To be open? To act from principle rather than for a desired effect? For one thing, it's simpler...More importantly, in a world accustomed to falsehood and deception, in which daily we receive hundreds of commercial messages inveighing us to act one way or another, transparency and forthrightness can be tremendously refreshing. No one can copy your HOWs, and within the wide spectrum of human behavior, the HOW of active interpersonal transparency can become a powerful differentiator." And that is as true of an entire organization as it is of each individual within it.

This is one of the most entertaining as well as one of the most informative and thought-provoking books I have read in recent years. Its value will depend almost entirely on HOW accessible and receptive each reader is to what Dov Seidman shares, and then HOW willing and able each reader is to apply whatever is most relevant in her or his personal life as well as career. "Pursuing significance, in the end, is the ultimate HOW."