Why the Scoreboard Isn't the Only Way to Measure Success

Aug 18, 2019

What do you really want? is a weekly conversation to help you figure out what you really want and how to get it at work and in life.

In my roles as a parent and product manager, the more I learn the more I realize I still have to learn. Every week, I share 3 quick links/lessons I’ve found helpful. Thanks for coming along as I share what I learn (and what I publish). Enjoy!

What I learned about this week

Involving someone in deciding the work increases their motivation (and the steps I used to do it with my kids)

This applies at work and at home. I was reminded of this when I remembered that we hadn’t done an agile board for awhile with my kids.

Ryan Seamons @ryanseamons

Weekend chores done agile style. It’s amazing how motivation increases when the whole team is involved in deciding the work.

This is how it works:

a. Grab sticky notes, sharpies, and put ‘To Do’, ‘Doing’, and ‘Done’ as category header.

b. Have the whole team decide what needs to be done. Post-its are great for capturing ideas (one idea per post-it).

c. Work with the team to help organize what needs to be done (rewrite some notes, break some tasks down, put tasks into categories, prioritize them)

d. Agree as a team to get started. One they are in a place you feel will help you be successful with the iteration at hand (for us, this was 3 or so hours of Saturday chores), then Go.

e. When someone takes a task, they move it to ‘Doing’. When they finish a task, they move it to ‘Done’.

Some wonderful things happen when you do this. The work is visible. Everyone knows what needs to be done. You feel a sense of ownership by being part of the journey. And you feel a sense of accomplishment when you move tasks around.

It was the best Saturday of chores we’d done in awhile. It took a few more minutes to set up than me or my wife just writing a list and telling them what to do. But the impact after that was obvious.

Innovation = Guts + Generosity

Seth Godin is one of my favorite thinkers. He has published daily for years. This week he shared some timely gems that were what I needed to hear as I continue to build Sprintwell:

Innovation is guts plus generosity
Guts, because it might not work.
And generosity, because guts without seeking to make things better is merely hustle.

If failure is not an option, then, most of the time, neither is success.

Be Generous.

The Score Board isn’t the only measure of Success

One of my favorite books is “How Will You Measure Your Life” by Clayton Christensen. Choosing what we use as our yardstick for success may be the most important decision we make in life.

It’s challenging at times to prioritize the important, non-urgent things. Winning a game is urgent. Being kind and giving someone a change to dream is important, and I imagine more memorable.

This week was a tougher week for me. Maybe partly because I'm dealing with a finger in a splint (and it's amazing how much that impacts). Maybe because building a business is much harder than it looks from the outside. I'm grateful that challenges are what help us learn.

Curious what in your life is important, but not urgent, that you want to better prioritize. Please reply and share.

For me that includes learning, spending time with important people in my life, and investing in longer term content (like this newsletter) that help me do what I love and teach others what I learn. Each of these things isn’t urgent. It’s easy to skip. But they are very important to accomplishing what I believe it more important in my life.