GA 460 | Newsletter Wisdom with Ron Pereira

Hey, everyone, this is Ron. And today I am going to fly solo. I'm gonna do this from time to time. Don't do it a lot, but when I have specific things that I want to talk about, I like to come on and share these. These episodes. And today I want to focus on some content that I. That I read recently from two different email newsletters that I get now. I actually find myself unsubscribing from newsletters more than I subscribe. So, yeah, I try to keep my inbox clean. And if somebody's overly annoying or they try to market too much or something like that, I'm probably going to unsubscribe. But the two that I'm going to focus on today are definitely not in those camps. In fact, the two newsletters that I genuinely look forward to opening up and seeing what they have to say, and the first one that I want to focus on is a newsletter called the Process. Now, forgive me, to the writers of the Process, I actually don't even know who's behind the newsletter. I just know it's called the Process. But they do a great job, whoever it is. And we're obviously going to share links to here in the show notes where you can subscribe to these newsletters. But the one that I want to talk about today came. Let's see. Yeah. January 15, 2023. And. And this was shortly after the United States college football, for those that aren't in America, call it the, the championship, the big national championship. It was between Georgia and tcu, and Georgia ended up just winning by a landslide. And, well, as regular listeners know, I'm a big Ohio State guy. So hat tip to Georgia because I beat, beat my Buckeyes and come to find out that that was actually the national championship game because Ohio State had them. Boy, if we just make that kick, we're in that championship game. But coulda, woulda, shoulda, any Right after the national championship, Kirby Smart, who is the coach for Georgia, he was interviewed. Obviously, all winning coaches get interviewed. And he made some really interesting comments about how he was already starting to think about next season. Now, mind you, they just won the national championship. This is the pinnacle of a college football coach's career, really. And he's wanted a couple now and he'll try for a third next year. But here's what he said. He said, I'm starting to think about the next one. I do think it's going to be much tougher, and I do think we're going to have to reinvent ourselves next year because you can't just stay the same. So the thing about Kirby Smart is that he is truly a psychological master. And in fact, he worked for one of the other psychological masters in the college football world, in my opinion, and that's Nick Saban over at Alabama. Again, I'm no Georgia Alabama fan. I'm an Ohio State fan. But I do respect those two coaches because they're fantastic. And Smart actually worked under Nick Saban for many, many years. 10 or 11 years, I think Kirby Smart worked for Nick Saban and so he learned a lot. And so what you're going to find between those two is that Kirby Smart was, well, he was heavily influenced. And you can see a lot of what Nick Saban preaches built into the way Kirby is running Georgia now. Anyhow, so Kirby Smart goes on to say that the disease that creeps into your program is called entitlement. And man, I think that's so, so powerful because when you become entitled, I think you become complacent. And as they say, complacency is the enemy. And anyhow, so he's, he's really starting to think like that already. And then in his newsletter, the Process, they then share a quote or a statistic that and something that I, that I had heard, but I had forgotten about the actual numbers. But they claim that 88% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 are no longer around. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that they all went out of business. Some of them were, were acquired and. And so forth. But the fact of the matter is there have been many examples in, in the business world where big companies, you know, no longer exist. They go bankrupt or just whatever. For example, Blockbuster, Polaroid, Borders, Kodak. I mean, think about Blockbuster. You know, I grew up in the time when, you know, Friday night we went to the Blockbuster and, you know, if we were lucky, we got to get, you know, two or three different, you know, VHS tapes. And if my mom was feeling extremely, you know, nice, you'd let us get a little candy or something. But that was a big deal, you know, going to the Blockbuster. I can still remember the feeling of walking in and just looking at the wall and seeing what movie you, you're hoping the one that you wanted was there. You know, you'd pull a box and the tape wasn't behind it and, you know, it wasn't there. But, but think about that. It's a mind blowing. Now, if you would have gone back and said Blockbuster was going to exist, you wouldn't have believed folks back then. But the fact of the matter is success is very difficult to sustain over time. So what they do then in this newsletter, and again I really appreciated it, was they go through a series of reasons that companies and sports teams and so forth, and why it's so hard to repeat, if you will, whether it's a repeat a championship or repeat successful full year as a business. And this guy, he had a friend, Alex Auerbach I guess is his name, he's a performance psychologist with the NBA Toronto Raptors. And anyhow, he, he was pinging his friend Alex and asking him for some ideas on, on why it's so hard to repeat. And this gentleman, Alex Auerbach, he shared some, some, some thoughts and the first one that they point to is what, what is called the over justification effect. And I'll just read what they write here. The over justification effect states that being rewarded for an action diminishes intrinsic motivation to perform that action in the future. So for example, if you're rewarded for hitting your revenue target, or you're rewarded for winning a championship or writing a bestseller book, something like that. So what happens is if you're constantly rewarded for these things, this over justification effect thinks that it may actually hurt you. Okay, I actually dug a little bit deeper and we'll link to all these articles if you want to learn a little bit more. But this article that I found on this very well Mind website says that the over justification effect can have a serious impact on your motivations and behaviors. Over justification effect occurs when an external incentive decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a behavior or participate in an activity. Okay. And they've done a lot of different research for this. In fact, one of the, one of the studies they did was with children and they, they, they took some children and they, they prompted some children to draw pictures with magic markers. And some chose various rewards they would receive for coloring, such as receiving a good player award. The award in this experiment acted as the, the extrinsic motivator. Okay. And those who agreed to receive the reward for their drawings displayed significantly less interest and put less effort into their drawings compared to the other group of children who were just asked to, to draw for the fun of it. So in other words, giving that reward or putting that reward as a carrot to some. So some group of children, some of them, I presume, like to draw anyhow, but giving that reward actually hurt the motivation. So isn't that interesting? So that, that's what this over justification effect is all about. Now the next one that they point to is self determination theory. So according to the self determination theory, human beings are motivated in four primary ways. Okay. So in his newsletter there's this little graphic, but I'll kind of verbalize it. So there's extrinsic motivation. So this is rewards or punishment. Like, hey, it's a carrot, right? Hey, hit this, hit this quota and you're going to get a bonus. Or hey, if you don't clean your room, you're not going to, you know, get movie night tonight. You know, if you're dealing with kids or something like that. Right? So that's an extrinsic motivator. Okay. An external motivator is when you just kind of feel place guilt on, on someone. Okay. Like, oh, you know, this is really, really can be really powerful actually with kids. Like, you know, you come in and if you. I remember one time I was a teenager and I did something really bad and my mom was so, so mad at me, but she was beyond mad and she just said, ronnie, you should call me Ronnie. All my family calls me Ronnie. She said, ronnie, I'm just so disappointed in you. Oh, And I remember the feeling. Oh, I was just like, don't say that. Ground me, yell at me, do something. You know, that would have been easier than this external guilt that I felt. Okay? So that's another way of motivating people and then internal motivation. So this is if we're something maybe aligns with our values or, you know, it's just kind of how we think the world should operate though this is an internal motivator and that could be pretty powerful. And then finally you have intrinsic motivation. This means that like you love doing it. Okay? And so in the newsletter there's this graphic and on, on the left side it's called non self determined. So obviously that's. It doesn't sound really good. Right? And then in a far right is called self determined. And so what you see is that like extrinsic motivation is, is really on the far left. And it's not to say that extrinsic motivation is terrible. We're going to get into a little bit more on extrinsic motivation here later. But, but when you compare it with say internal or intrinsic motivation, those are on the other end. Those are on the self determined. In other words, you want, want to get up and go to work because you are intrinsically motivated. Okay. If you're only getting up for work for the paycheck, which is technically a form of external or extrinsic motivation. Well, it can be tough. I mean, obviously you go because you need to provide for your family and pay the bills and that sort of thing. But if you are intrinsically motivated to go to work, it's going to be a joy and you're going to. It's going to be a privilege. You're going to be excited. Okay, so the next part then in this newsletter, they then sort of really dig in a little bit deeper on the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. And we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast over the years and in some Gemba Academy training videos because this is really important behavioral science that I feel like is really aligned with lean and continuous improvement in the things that we're trying to do. But again, an extrinsic motivator is dangling the carrot. Now here's the thing. Extrinsic motivation sometimes gets a bad rap, but really there are some, some situations to where extrinsic motivation can be very beneficial. Okay. Like for example, they find like in a factory, if there's like a hourly goal or something like that that you're trying to achieve, if you have some extra extrinsic motivation, motivation techniques assigned to, you know, hitting all eight hours of your hour by hour chart or something like that, that actually can work. Okay? But if you then go into, say, the, the boardroom or the. Maybe the plant manager or somebody like that, they might have an extrinsic motivation as well. Namely, you know, probably the most common is, you know, hit this number and you're going to get a bonus or something like that. And we've all been there and it's great, you know, I mean, you're excited when you hit that and everybody likes a nice bonus, no doubt about it. But the end of the day, that's not really making you love coming into work, that bonus. Okay. What makes us love coming into the work is being intrinsically motivated. Okay? So this is where there's a purpose driving the organization that's bigger than the outcome itself. Okay? And so back to Kirby Smart. He actually has said that he doesn't want his, his Georgia Bulldog football program self worth to be defined by championships. Instead, he says that he'd rather be defined by being our best every day. Okay. And you know, again, that sounds pretty cliche, but it really is. That's. Nick Saban calls it the process, right? Being the best at whatever it is that you're doing that moment of every day. So if you're in, you know, school and you're in math class, do the best you can that moment in math class. And then later, if you're a football player, you're in practice and you're doing some mundane tackling drill, and you're like, oh, is this thing ever going to end? You know, but doing your best in that tackling drill. So that's what I think. Kirby Smart and Nick Saban, some of these other top coaches, they're after that being your best every moment of every day. And when you do that and you think about continuous improvement and the things that we're trying to do with Lean, it's really the same thing, right? We're trying to make things a little bit better every single day. And when you do that, you don't really ever have to worry about the sustained process or the control phase of your domain Six Sigma project. You don't have to control anything because we're making it a little bit better every day, okay? And that's a huge part of being intrinsically motivated, is when we see these things happening, okay? And, you know, there's some other things for intrinsic motivation, such as, you know, having autonomy, people aren't hovering about and telling you what to do every minute of every day, that sort of thing, okay? So that, that's, that's, that's the importance of intrinsic motivation. Now, another thing that companies that really succeed year after year, and even sports teams that seem to succeed year after year, is they have a culture that resists complacency, okay? And again, this is all about continuous improvement because that's, that's really what we do. We're battling complacency, right? We want to find a better way. Okay. Tough. Because sometimes the thing that bugs me about continuous improvement is that sometimes I'm like, where's contentment fit into this whole thing? When are we ever, like, just kind of sort of satisfied that, hey, we're pretty good, We're. We're good, we're okay, you know, and why. Why do you got to keep being better? Right? Isn't that greedy? And. Well, I don't think it is. You know, I think it. I think there's a, you know, you need. You do need to have a balance. You do need to celebrate and, and, you know, reward folks and thank folks and show appreciation for the efforts that are. But in the end, we can't be complacent, because if we're complacent, then eventually we're going to get past. It's just, it's science, really. Right? Like, if you're not evolving as a. As a species, as an organization, as a company, as a person, you're probably dying. Okay, so the third point that they made in this newsletter here, in this particular section that I'm in, is they continuously improve. Well, you know, I don't think we need to. To say a whole lot about that here on this podcast, because obviously that's what we're all about. But there was one idea that was interesting that, that they pointed out here in this section. And, and it was the important part of being comfortable with, you know, letting things go. So what they say here is a premise is simple. You must continue to evolve, to reach new heights. You can't stay exactly the same and expect success, to continue. Sort of definition of an insanity, right? If you do the same thing again and again and expect different results. They even said that author Stephen King had a saying, kill your darlings. So in other words, if something he wrote didn't serve the overall story, he cut it out. Okay. Even if it was a particular section that he may have loved and was some of his best writing, but if it didn't fit with the overall plot, he would remove it. So same thing with our organization. If you're doing something and it's not working, let it go. Experiment and find a better way. Okay? And anyhow, that was kind of the end of this particular newsletter, but I just, I really appreciated it because it's. Again, it's saying the same thing that we're all preaching here and continuous improvement. But sometimes it's good to. To subscribe to some newsletters that are. They don't really subscribe to Lean or Six Sigma or anything like that per se, but we're all really saying the same thing, but just saying it slightly different ways. Okay, so that's the first one that I want to touch on today. The next one is actually. Well, this is. I should. I don't know if I should say that I'm going to say it. This is my. My favorite newsletter right now going on that I genuinely cannot wait for this guy to send out his. His newsletter. He sends a couple each week. His name is Sahil Bloom, S A H I L. And his last name again, Sahil, last name Bloom, B L O O M. In this newsletter that, that I'm looking at right now is called the Curiosity Chronicle. Again, a free newsletter. We'll link to it here. So I, I really do encourage you to go sign up for this one and check it out. But Sahel is an interesting guy. I mean, I Suppose it's, you know, maybe it's kind of self helpy, I don't know. But he's got like a finance background, a marketing background. But he's, he's really good at mot you to think differently. So that's what I appreciate about this one. But what he did, he actually sent this one out, let's see, on January 11, 2023 he sent this one out and he said that every year on his birthday he likes to conduct this, an exercise to, to help him grow in a new way. And so this, this year what Sahil did was he asked a number of 90 year olds, 9090 year olds, a simple question. If you could speak to your 32 year old self, what advice would you give? He said that the responses were incredible and they range from fun, playful, witty and deeply moving. And so what he does is he basically then the balance of the, of the newsletter is sharing the, the feedback that he got from, from these folks, from these, what is it, non generarians or something like that, 90 year olds, right? So these folks have seen a lot, right? I mean they've been around for 90 years or, or longer. And so I think that he said there's over a thousand years of experience, of lived experience from the folks that he talked to. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to sort of read, I'll read what the, what the 90 year old said and then sometimes he adds a little commentary but I might, I might add my own commentary. So I won't read Sahil's commentary. I'll just read what the nine year old said and then maybe I'll add a few words myself. All right, so number one now and then break out the fancy china and drink the good wine for no reason at all. So this is an interesting one. You know, I just, you know think about even at home if you have fancy china is like why don't we ever use that? You know you use it one time a year on Christmas or something like that. So yeah, break it out every once in a while for no reason at all. Number two, dance at weddings until your feet are sore. I love this one. Now my wife, God bless her, she loves to dance and I'm a horrible dancer. So this is something that I, I don't think he means figurative believed like you got to just go to weddings so you can dance. But just when you have that moment to, to have fun, you know, to be in the moment, be in the moment, have fun. Don't worry about how bad you dance, that's probably my problem. I. I look like a. I feel like I look like a fool, but fact of the matter is pretty much everybody out there does. So anyhow. Dance at weddings as your feet are sore. Number three, tell your partner you love them every night before falling asleep. Yeah, that's a good one. I would add even your children, if you can, if you have them, don't. Number four, don't fear sadness as it tends to sit right next to love. Oh, this is a powerful one. Don't fear sadness as it tends to sit right next to love. Yeah, so, I mean, there's tension, right, in life and you're going to have moments of sadness and, and, you know, as you know, I really appreciate the stoics and talking a lot about how you, how you deal with a situation and. But sometimes I feel like you can go a little too far with the whole stoic thing. And it's like, well, I'm never going to be sad. Well, no, I mean, sometimes you're going to be sad when your dog dies. You're going to be sad unless you just are a heartless person. Okay. But, you know, if you, if you, if your dog dies, you're going to be sad, and that's okay because you love that dog and that's. That's why you're sad. Okay? So they go together. Number five, Treat your body like a house you have to live in for another 70 years. So this is obviously very important. You know, if we're not taking care of, of ourselves, you know, physically, you know, it's going to be really difficult to take care of others or, you know, even provide for ourselves if, if we're not able to. Right? Number six. Never raise your voice except for at a ball game. Oh, man. Yeah. Sahil says very few problems have ever been fixed by a raised voice. And so true. I mean, man, as a parent, I fail at this a lot. A lot. And this is something that we do need to, to all sort of work on. Never raise your voice, except for at a ball game. Do one. Number seven. Do one good deed every single day, but never tell anyone about it. Yeah, that's an interesting one. And I don't think it has to. Sahil says, yeah, buy someone's coffee or take the trash out. Something like that. So it could be anything, just some small act of, of charity if you do that every single day. But the key is don't tell anybody about it. Otherwise it's probably you're doing it more for, for pride. Or motivation or. Or for looking for motivation from others when you. You're trying to do it for yourself. Number eight. Time doesn't heal anything when it comes to relationships. Don't delay difficult conversations. Have them now before too much water floods under the bridge. Ah, this is an interesting one. Time doesn't heal anything when it comes to relationships. So, you know, I think what happens is. And relationships is a. Is a strong word because I think you can have work relationships, right? So if you have colleagues, you know, that's a form of a relationship. And if you're having, you know, work or in a kaizen event, anything like that, if you're having issues, you know, you need to address it right then and then because the longer you go, the worse it's going to get. Okay? So, yeah, communication is so key in life, okay. Whether it's at work, at home, or in everywhere in between. Number nine. Find the things that make your eyes light up. Do more of those. Yeah, that's a good one. So, you know, find what. What brings you happiness and joy and. And find opportunities to do that. That's why having good hobbies and things like that is so valuable. Number 10. Always remind yourself that your track record for making it through your bad days is perfect. Always remind yourself that your track record for making it through your bad days is perfect. So Sahil said it's easy to lose sight of this when you're down. Zoom out and reclaim your perspective. Okay? So, yeah, don't beat yourself up. And, yeah, you can get through. You know, you can get through. You just got to persevere. Number 11, if something has a minor issue, repair it right away. Hey, this is very lean, right? You know, if we see an issue on a. And a line, stop the line, fix it. Don't pass it down a line. Okay? Same thing here happens in relationships and everything. If you see a small issue, you know, address it right away. Don't let it go. Don't let it linger, okay? Because it's only going to continue to grow and get bigger and bigger. Number 12. The most damning lie you can tell is the lie you tell to yourself. Yes. Ahil says, if you can't be honest with yourself, how can you be honest with anyone else? Yeah, this is good. Very powerful. Very tough, though. The most damning lie that you can tell is a lie that you tell yourself. Number 13. No one has ever argued their way to happiness. No one has ever argued their way to happiness. This is a good one. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, I wonder if I completely Agree with them. I think the point here is that, you know, if you're just trying to. To bicker or be disagreeable for the, you know, the art of being disagreeable, that's not going to ever really make you happy. But I would contend that on this one, no one has ever argued their way to happiness is that if something's not going well or someone's doing something to you that is blocking, you know, or the maybe doing something immoral and you know, that there's not going to be any joy or happiness in this environment until that immorality is rooted out. Well, then I would say it's okay to argue. But I think his point here is, like, don't just think that you're going to fight your way into being a happy person, because you're probably not going to be. Number 14. This one seems to be to contradict some of the earlier ones, but it's an interesting perspective. If you're going to lose a fight, make sure that the other person thinks twice before fighting you again. I didn't imagine some, you know, grandpa say, if you're gonna lose a fight, make sure the other person thinks twice before fighting you again. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, I suppose maybe another way of looking at this one is if you really believe in something and you're willing to kind of stand up for it. Well, you know, and you're going at someone and. And maybe they're, I don't know, whatever you believed in kind of lost out. Well, make sure that they know that. Boy, they really believe in that thing. And they'll probably think twice about coming at you for that same thing again. Okay. Number 15. Getting old is no picnic, but it's much better than the alternative. Yeah. Number 16. You may occasionally disappoint others, but make sure to never disappoint yourself. Yeah. Okay. Number 17. Never let a good relationship atrophy. This is a good one. And something that I think those of us and, you know, if we have families or we're busy at work, it can be real easy to, you know, forget about those that, you know, we don't see on a daily basis, but maybe they're good friends. So, you know, send that text message or pick up the phone on, you know, maybe on the drive home and instead of this, mindlessly listen to the radio, call someone up that you haven't talked to you for a while and see how they're doing. Especially if your folks are still alive and still in your life, you know, call them, you know, and. And let Them know how things are, how things are going in your life, and find out how things are going in their Life. Okay, number 18, when you meet someone, look them in the eye, give them a firm handshake, and call them by their name. This is so good. And I really appreciate this one. You know, something that I really try to teach my kids, I'm pretty proud of. Like all my kids, you know, I would say the teenagers and above, when they, when they meet someone, they'll shake them and they'll shake a good handshake and look them square in the eye and, and call them by their name and look the person in the eye. You know, that's, that's so hard for, for young people to do these days. And then, and on all these screens that we're always looking at screens, it's sometimes I think, you know, young people don't even know how to look at each other in the eye. And so I felt like this is a good habit that we need to be instilling and then in practicing ourselves, because we're also looking at screens a lot. Number 19. Give everybody a second chance, but never a third. Yeah, this is an interesting one. Give everybody a second chance, but never a third. And number 20, the good old days are always happening right now. Okay, so again, contentment, striving, continuous improvement, if it's important to, I think, remember that today is a good day and we should really appreciate what we have today and then look for tomorrow and how we might make it even better. Maybe that's a good way of summing up what we're trying to do with continuous improvement. Acknowledging the good in today, but then thinking about how tomorrow can be better. Okay, now there's a bunch more here. In fact, well, there's 20 more. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to, we're going to link to this article Hope. I think there's a way for us to actually link to this newsletter on Sahil's website. And then we'll put the link for how you can subscribe to the Curiosity Chronicle yourself. So show notes for this episode, if you're just listening, can be found over@gamba podcast.com just look for episode 460 again. 460- Gambap podcast.com Now also, if whatever app that you're listening to this podcast on, if you scroll down, you'll see that, you'll see all these links. So hit them. There's there. And also keep scrolling down. And if the Gimba Academy podcast is, is adding some value to your life. And you don't mind. And we would sure appreciate you giving us a review. Five stars would be lovely, but hey, you know, if we don't earn five stars, don't, don't give it to us. We're not asking for charity, but apparently when you, when you rank a podcast and you give them five stars, it does help the podcast kind of reach more people. And what, that's what we're trying to do with this podcast. We're just trying to reach as many people as possible with this whole thing about continuous improvement and making the world better through Lean, Six Sigma, that sort of thing. Okay, so next week we'll get back to, to our normal episode with, with a guest and, and all the rest of it. But yeah, I appreciate you all for listening and keep on improving and yeah, be thankful for what you have today, but then look for how you can make tomorrow better. Okay, take care. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started, Gemba Academy is here to support you. 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