I was thinking about writing, but I had no idea where to begin! So I caught up with a very good friend who is published author, and asked her. 

“How am I going to get this going?”

“Just start,” she said. “If you don’t, you definitely won’t get going. If you start, your next question will be how to keep it going.”

It was a simple and valuable lesson.

I am an advocate for detailed planning. Much of my work involves writing strategy, creating roadmaps and doing involved analysis.

Sometimes though, we have to throw out a plan and just begin. 

Through action, we can find our way.

An issue with detailed planning is that it can be too detailed, too complex and take too much time. It is useful to a point, but there are so many pathways to high performance, sometimes we have to look at goal setting from multiple angles.

That’s why I think there’s a role for a rapid plan. Something that can help us get unstuck instantly when we feel we need direction. This is where where the 5 x 5 goal planning matrix fits in.

The 5 x 5 Goal Planning Matrix

This goal planning matrix can be used for anything.

From planning personal goals at the start of the year through to shaping the start of a new initiative. It can be used as a stand alone activity or as the start of a larger process, like planning SMART and HARD goals.

It is highly effective. And it is incredibly quick!

Here’s how it goes:

• Define 5 areas
• Create 5 goals
• Write 5 actions per goal
• Define 5 milestones (dates)
• Set 5 priorities by area / domain

Understand Each Area Of The Goal Planning Matrix

Here’s a more detailed break down to help you understand each activity.

Step 1: Define 5 Areas

An area is a domain or themes that is important to our goals. These could be areas of personal happiness (physical, emotional, mental, financial, social) or areas of a project. These are the zones and groups where you wish to plan your goals.

Step 2: Create 5 x Goals

Against each area, plan five goals. As an example, say one of your domains is ‘physical’. Five goals could be:

• Eat nutritious meals regularly 
• Sleep regularly and deeply
• Take time each day to calm your mind
• Go to the gym / walk / run
• Drink plenty of water throughout the day

It’s that simple. Five goals for each of the domains you write. 

Step 3: Write 5 x Actions 

Any goal must start with action. Just like the conversation with my friend at the start of this article. She said, ‘start somewhere’. So my very first action was to write one blog post.

In this stage of your planning, you will write the starting action for each of the goals you just created. 

So, if the goal is ‘go to the gym’ the starting action could be ‘sign up for a gym membership’ or, if you already have a membership, it might be ‘go to the gym this Monday, Wednesday and Friday.’

The purpose of these actions is to give you the very first starting point to work on your goal.

Step 4: Define 5 x Milestones

Adding milestones to our actions, in the form of a specific due date or month, gives us a target to aim for. All we need do is ask ourselves, “by when do we want this action to be complete#8221;

Step 5: Set Priorities by Area / Domain

As the final step, you’re now going to rank the goals you created in the first step.

When you rank your goals, I’d like you to ask yourself the question, “which of these goals is most important to me in this domain?”

From there, rank your goals from 1 (being the most important) to 5 (being still important, but not as important as the other actions).

Just Look At What You Can Create

When we look at our entire list of 25 actions, it can become daunting.

By prioritizing our goals, we now have a starting point within each domain to begin our actions.

This way we don’t have to be overwhelmed. Just start by picking your top action in each domain.

This framework can be completed with a sense of play. We could think very deeply about our domains and goals and actions, or just write what first comes into our mind. I guarantee you, if it is at the front of your thinking, it will be meaningful to you. 

When we approach the activity in this way, it can be done in just fifteen minutes. And that’s the whole idea! To give us a rapid plan to orient ourselves and get moving. 

How Bout A Template!

Right back at you. Here is a link to a simple sheet that will help do this even more quickly

Go ahead, give it a go, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments section below.

The post Use This 15 Minute 5 x 5 Goal Planning Matrix To Jump Start Your Goals appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

Here are 21 of my favorites for morning, afternoon and anytime.

Morning Habits

1. Drink Two Glasses Of Water Upon Waking
When we wake, our body has not had water for 6 to 8 hours and is already in a state of dehydration. Drinking two glasses of water restores your hydration and gives you energy for the day.

2. Make Your Bed Every Day
When you make your bed in the morning, you start the day with a task completed. And if you have a rubbish day, you’ll return to a bed that is made. Take it from a SEAL commander.

3. Stretch To Keep Your Back Healthy
We spend so much time hunched over laptops and craning our neck to view our mobile phones. The long term consequences of this can affect our overall spine health. Daily stretches increase blood circulation, increase fine motor skills and increase mobility. And a simple morning stretch routine boosts energy for the rest of the day.

4. Either: i) Avoid Social Media Until A Certain Time; or ii) Limit It To Several Times 
A founder of one of the dominant social media platforms said:

“[Social media] literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

Numerous studies have looked at the negative effects of overusing social media.

I love social media but lately I’ve been more focused on using it in moderation and putting other activities first.

5. Avoid Processed Or Packaged Foods
The vast majority of nicely packaged snacks contain lots of processed food or are high in sugar. They give our brains an injection of glucose which, once burned, dumps us into fatigue. Eat whole foods for sustained energy and mental clarity.

6. Sugary Drinks In Moderation
It takes a fraction of a second to decide on a non-sugary drink instead of a sugary one. With anywhere from 30 to 50 grams of sugar for some sugary drinks, too many can be tough on our brains.

7. Strengthen Your Core
Strengthening your abdominal area builds core strength, which keeps your body agile and dynamic. In as little as two minutes a day, there are a range of exercises to build core strength, that don’t have to be sit-ups (eg. a plank exercise). What’s more you can do these in the house  without needing to go to a gym. Beyond this, every day activities like walking, gardening, and carrying moderate loads all help to build core strength.

8. Say ‘Yes’ Spontaneously
Saying ‘yes’ to something you might not normally do, takes you out of your comfort zone. And this is important for ongoing growth and expansion. I’m not suggesting you ‘yes’ to something dangerous, but a little ‘crazy’ is good for all of us now and then.

Afternoon Habits

9. Avoid Coffee After 4pm
According to ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker, caffeine has a half-life of five to seven hours in the body. That means it takes this amount of time for your body to remove at least half the effects of caffeine. So if you drink coffee at 4pm, by 11pm there’s a good chance 50% of the caffeine will still be in your system, which could disturb sleep. Limiting coffee to the mornings or early afternoon means less chance of it causing trouble with our night-time recovery.

10. Write A Short Journal Entry
In as little as two minutes you can write what you’ve done in the day. This makes us more reflective and gives us a thread to track our memories through life. Lately I’ve been using the Day One app to track my entries.

11. Read Three Pages Of A Book
Struggle to read a book? Many people can read more by changing their benchmark. Instead of focusing on getting through the book, change the goal to reading three pages every day. In those three pages, we often get absorbed in the book and read more, without it seeming like a chore.  Success stories of today – Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and many more – attribute a large part of their success to reading.¹⁾

12. Reflect On Your Goals Or Resolutions
Many people write resolutions every year and don’t look at them until the following year. Set yourself the practice of re-visiting your goals every day and you’ll be amazed how this keeps them in focus.

13. Write Or Say One Goal x10 
I guarantee you if you take one goal and either write it or say it out loud x10, your conscious mind will focus attention on how to make it happen. Connecting a physical action (writing or saying something), helps your brain with these processes of external storage and encoding.

External storage provides a cue that brings your goal into focus. Encoding helps your brain determine what is retained and what is discarded in memory.

By focusing on a goal on a regular basis, you are literally teaching your brain to maintain your goal in conscious attention, so that you filter the external environment for signals that are relevant to that goal.

The research supports this. People who write, say or describe goals vividly are up to 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to realise their goals. ²⁾

14. Focus On One Thing You’ve Done Or Are Grateful For 
You’ve done great things today. Within each and every day, think of one thing where you surprised yourself. This gives us joy. It makes us feel fulfilled. It costs nothing and is quick to do.

15. Do One Thing You’ve Been Avoiding
If you’re like me, you might have a list of things you know you need to do, but have been avoiding. Sometimes I feel like this list owns me, not me owning it. So I started doing one thing on this list every day. Very quickly this list became smaller and I feel all the better for it.

16. Book A Catch Up With Someone You Enjoy Spending Time With
Some of the most meaningful insights you’ll have in life, come from talking with people you enjoy spending time with. Take two minutes to book a coffee with one of these people. You’ll never regret it.

Anytime Habits

17. Tell Your Partner/Family You Appreciate Them
A few years ago The New York Times said married couples only talk to each other, on average, less than 4 minutes a day. In another psychology study, researchers found that unless husbands and wives told each other five positive things for every one negative thing, the marriage would likely fail. If you’re in a relationship, tell the person you appreciate or love them every day. And if not in a relationship, tell someone in your family or a close friend how much they mean to you.

18. Acknowledge One Person Each Day Who Made A Difference To You
Just recently a person in my professional network had lunch with me and shared some incredible stories. I told them how much of a difference it had made to me; that they had taken time and shared their wealth of experience. When you acknowledge the kindness that someone else has done for you, you strengthen your relationship with them. This is important because a 75 year study by Harvard researchers found that the ongoing strength of relationships is vital to ongoing happiness.

19. Stop & Focus On Your Breathing 
Once a day…stop. Spend two minutes focusing on your breathing. Even in the midst of chaos, it will give you calm. It will clear your mind. And it will put your body and thoughts back in sync for what you need to do next.

20. Belief & Discipline
Belief and discipline are incredibly underrated. Above talent and IQ, if you believe in yourself and pursue your priorities with continued practice, you’ll achieve remarkable results.

In 2005 Martin Seligman and Angela Ducksworth from the University of Pennsylvania conducted two seperate studies on eighth grade students. They wanted to put to the test whether those students with higher propensity to focus would outperform those students who had higher IQs.

The research found that “highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable, including report-card grades, standardized achievement-test scores, admission to a competitive high school.” ³⁾

You might say anyone can work hard to get slightly ahead. This may be true, but in this study those with discipline weren’t a bit ahead. For many of the indications, the correlation between self-discipline and achievement was often twice the size of the correlation when compared with the cohort of high IQ students.

So if you have two minutes, push one doubt that you have aside or do one action that helps with you one of your goals.

21. Update Your Habit List
I’ve spent months researching and understanding habits. The simple lesson I learned is to practice simple habits, connected to goals, and do them every day. To do this, a habit list can help you track whether what you wanted to do, is what you actually did. I update my habit list daily. Sometimes I miss things. But looking at this list and updating it is enough to keep me focused on what actions I want to create.

If you enjoyed this article, I’d love to hear which is your favorite among this list or any other micro-habits that are important to your success. Consider leaving a comment below.

The post 21 Micro Habits To Boost Your Day appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

What a great question!

I thought about this question and did some research. From this I found the eight hobbies below that, if followed on a consistent basis, will improve cognitive capacity.

My belief is that any hobby that allows you to experience from the Learning Loop will make you better, stronger and smarter.

So long as you absorb and apply feedback through this loop, you’ll get better at whatever you do.

By applying this learning loop, these hobbies are proven to help people lead a smarter and more balanced life.

Reading – Expand Your Mind

Warren Buffet told students at a Columbia Business School: “Read 500 pages…every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.” Enough said :).

Writing – Structure How Your Brain Thinks

Jeff Bezos doesn’t allow his employees to express new ideas as slides….he only accepts written documents and narratives. There’s good reason for this. Writing is one of the best ways to train yourself how to structure an argument, build a story and convey ideas logically.

Education – Build Intellectual Wealth

Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, said “I am concerned that too many people are focused too much on money and not on their greatest wealth, which is their education.” Education is one of the best ways to expand your mind and increase intelligence.

Music – Expanded Cognitive Skills

While studies differ on whether there is such a thing as the Mozart Effect (a hypothesis put forward by Dr Gordon Shaw, that listening to Mozart while studying boosts IQ), listening to music is one of the very best ways to get into ‘flow’. Whether you’re studying or working on a complex problem, music can help your brain do its best work. And playing a musical instrument has been proven to increase cognitive skills and brain function. So if music is food for your ears, eat well and nutritiously :).

Martial Arts/Dance/Yoga/Focused Exercise – Know Your Body, Know Yourself

Intellectual intelligence is different from body intelligence. Truly knowing ourselves requires us to connect our mind and our body. Any hobby that does this – martial arts, dance, yoga, sports – will help you build this connection and learn about yourself.

Open Mindedness – Take An Expansive Frame

A good deal of the world is closed minded…but thankfully, many people are open minded. Practice compassion, tolerance, love. Look for the good in people and yourself. Be curious and treat the world as a place with boundless opportunity for learning. How we frame things is how we see things, so select an expansive frame rather that a limiting one. Your world will expand and so will you.

Travel – Build Empathy For The World

Travel builds empathy for other cultures. And empathy is one of the greatest ways to build emotional intelligence. See as much of the world as you can, but don’t forget the value of ‘home’. Every country is full of wonder, and that is true especially of the places each and every one of us come from.

Lifelong Learning – Start Curious, Stay Curious

Learning doesn’t have to stop. When I meet eighty and ninety year olds, I can tell the ones that have chosen lifelong learning.

They are still curious and alive with possibility.

Few other pursuits other than lifelong learning ignite our curiosity, keep our minds active and our bodies engaged.

Start curious and stay curious. Share what you learn with someone. Aim to never stop learning.

What do you believe are the most important hobbies that have made you smarter? Please consider sharing your thoughts by adding a comment.

The post 8 Hobbies That Make You Smarter appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

A few years ago I would have been one of these people. Then I learnt something that changed my approach to goal-setting.

The lesson was based on a brilliant distinction I now think about each day.

This is how I used to think about the future.

It was as if the future was some point on the horizon.

I thought about it occasionally.

I knew I’d get there…someday.

But in many ways, I let the future define me, rather than me define it.

I related to the future as “something” that would just arrive.

In doing this, you could say the way I thought about the future, was like an extension of the present. And because the present was based on actions I repeated every day, the future would probably look the same. Let’s call this the ‘probable future’.

The probable future is like being on a train going to a defined destination. It’s taking you somewhere, maybe even somewhere you need or want to go. But if you’ve caught that train every day for months, maybe even years, you might not think to go a different way.

When I thought of that probable future, my thinking was not intentional. I wasn’t thinking I had a huge role in creating it. I certainly was not thinking the future was up to me and that I could intentionally design it.

The real insight came when I did a post-graduate degree, in the form of two simple words – ‘desired future’.

The desired future is what you see as your ideal and preferred path. It’s an alternative to what’s probable. It’s a way to ‘course correct’ and change the destination of our lives. It is an incredible distinction for us as individuals, as well as teams and even companies.

Whether we call it a ‘desired future’, ‘preferred future’, or ‘intentional future’, the idea is the same…to set a course purposefully toward an objective that reflects our deeper goals.

This can have a profound impact.

Consider this – according to strategist, Dr Joseph Voros, “the Apollo Moon Landing, for example, was a preferred future of President Kennedy which began as merely possible…because the knowledge did not yet exist at that time to achieve the goal.” ²⁾

I know, it seems so simple and common sense that it’s almost unremarkable. But when we start to intentionally think about and work toward a desired future, it changes everything.

4 Tools To Get To Your Desired Future

You have four tools available to you right now to pursue your desired future.

#1. Imagination
When we have an image of a desired future, that picture may be blurry. It might need better definition. We can bring it into high resolution. For that we need our imagination. We have to build out the future in our mind’s eye. What are we doing, seeing and feeling in that future? Who is with us? How has our situation changed? Building out that future in our thinking is one of the most powerful ways to make it real.

#2. Hope
When we’re imagining a desired future – whether it’s for 6 months or 6 years, we have to engage our sense of hope. Hope is one of the most underrated and not often talked about emotions. Yet for us to have any motivation toward a desired future, it’s because we have hope to improve our situation and that of others. It is a very real and inspiring energy source for personal action.

#3. Back-casting
‘Back-casting’ requires us to place ourselves in the future, look back and imagine what milestones have occurred to get us toward that future.

For example. if your future involves living in a new house, somewhere along the way you will have saved for a deposit.

These milestones are like pin-pointing the stops on a train line. Back-casting identifies the major stops to get to your desired future.

According to strategist Andy Hines, “the advantages of working backwards are that it is a fun way to explore the future….it avoids the constraints of thinking linearly forward from today, by first rushing rapidly toward the future, then working backwards.”³⁾

#4. Action
Finally, we need massive action.

Taking action requires consistent and repeated efforts. As you take action toward your desired future, you may find the steps you take are different from what you foresaw when you back-casted.

Things may not go as planned. You may need to take a side step now and then.

If you keep your desired future in focus, and pursue it persistently, you will achieve it.

Set Goals For Your Next 6 Months

You can apply these steps to set goals for the next six months.

Where do you want to be, what do you want to achieve, how will you know you’ve succeeded?

This method complements goal setting techniques, such as SMART and HARD goals, as well as other detailed goal setting frameworks.

In the book Principles, Ray Dalio ⁴⁾ says:

Define your desired future. Imagine it in every detail. Backcast and define the steps that will get you there.

Today, start one action that will take you forward. And then every day for the next six months, do another action to take you further.

You might even approach these actions as small experiments to rapidly expand your talents.

I guarantee you, if you do these things, you’ll be amazed by the difference you create. And these very steps will also help you to think like a strategist.

While many of the concepts in this article are based on my lessons when studying a post-graduate degree, I was reminded of this thinking in a book by John Braddock, A Spy’s Guide To Strategy. If you would like a guide to extending concepts of a ‘desired future’ with elements of strategy, it is a great read.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, please consider leaving a comment below.

The post Use Your ‘Desired Future’ To Set Goals For The Next 6 Months appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

We look for a pattern in our improvement.

There are three patterns for high performance we might expect, but there is also a fourth pattern that, from my experience, we rarely think about. And it’s this last pattern that makes us feel frustrated, sometimes enough to give up our goal.

When we track our progress with a new development activity, ideally we look for small gains in our performance, every time we practice the activity.

The runner wants to see their time steadily decrease for a selected distance. The weightlifter aims to increase weight for each new session. The leader might want to see their team’s output increase over time.

It’s human nature to expect the measure to get better, whatever it may be –speed, time, weight, distance,  volume, quality. We feel a sense of achievement when we see these measures improving over time.

The four patterns I’m about to share with you are linear improvement, diminishing returns, accelerating gains and the zig-zag pattern.

These patterns won’t apply for a one-off task. But for habits or routines that we’re looking to embed into our regular practice to boost performance, knowing these patterns can mean the difference between success and failure.

Linear pattern for high performance

In linear progress, performance increases at a constant rate.

Let’s say you took on the task of writing, with the aim of writing 1,000 words a day, and increasing that amount by 10 words per day. On day one you would write 1,000 words. By the end of the first year of writing, you would write 4,640 words per day.

This is completely possible within a first year of writing. The performance trend would look something like this, progressing in a linear, even line.

Advice: in linear patterns, steady increases yield strong gains overtime. The key is to be patient, and allow the passage of time and small increases to reveal significant change.

Diminishing Returns pattern for high performance

In the second pattern, after an initial burst of gains, it becomes more difficult to realise increases in performance when compared with prior periods.

This is a pattern of diminishing returns – while we’re using the same amount of energy, we’re seeing smaller increases in the performance measure we’re tracking.

This occurs when we start to move closer toward a natural limit or threshold.

As an example, professional weight lifters who commence training see high gains in the initial phase of their training. As their strength increases, they lift higher and higher weights.

As they approach the limits of what their body can lift, they still realise gains through hard training, but these gains are likely to be smaller and smaller, requiring more and more effort to realise. The same is true in many sports.

Usain Bolt set the Olympic World Record for the 100m of 9.63 seconds in Jamaica in 2012. Before that, in 2008, he set a new record of 9.69 seconds, which beat Donovan Bailey’s previous time of 9.84 seconds in 1996.¹⁾

To realise these small gains required enormous effort, and that is the nature of competition in such sports, where fractions of a second mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Often when elite athletes reach these limits, they seek new knowledge, in order to break-through their limits. This is why many athletes seek new coaches at important times in their careers.

Advice: when we’re doing activities that result in diminishing returns, we need to do two things. The first is to realise smaller gains are not necessarily an outcome of our efforts. We need not be disappointed, because we’re reaching a threshold that is often not of our own making. The second is to seek new knowledge (whether that be in the form of a coach, our network, or self-learning) to move through this threshold.

Accelerating Gains pattern for high performance

Accelerating gains occur when the measure we’re tracking increases with every new day of practice. This is a pattern of rapid expansion and growth.

We often think of this type of gain in terms of the share market. A new stock may go through a burst in valuation, creating a steep rise in growth.

We don’t always think about it in terms of our personal development. But in life we can go through these periods.

When Steve Jobs rejoined as Apple CEO in 1997, the company had $1 billion of loses from the previous year. The next phase of growth he started for the company was one of accelerated growth.  This must have been an exhilarating time, but also one where everything moved with incredible speed, and where Jobs himself likely faced accelerated growth. ²⁾

We can see the same accelerating gains pattern in our own lives. If we read for thirty minutes every day for six months, likely we would go through a pattern of accelerated gains. Because it’s not just the new knowledge we’d acquire from each book, but the connections between this material, that would make the sum greater than the parts.

Warren Buffet told students at a Columbia Business School:

“Read 500 pages…every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.” ³⁾

Advice: the struggle during accelerated growth may be to keep up with the pace of change, and also keep oneself steady and balanced. Questions like, “am I keeping up with this speed, how am I keeping myself steady with all that’s happening around me, am I focused on a ‘true north / mission / vision’ to guide myself through this pace” can be very helpful.

Zig Zag  pattern for high performance

While the three earlier patterns are well known to you and I, from my experience we think less about this final pattern.

The Zig Zag pattern for personal development involves a pathway of twists and turns and ups and downs that are far less predictable and stable to the earlier patterns.

This pattern can be observed in business as well as sports.

A collaboration of four researchers from Australia and Canada found the zig zag pattern when studying 256 athletes across 27 different sports, as they pursued pathways through amateur and professional sports.

The research uncovered that “more than half of the athletes (57.4%) descended from a higher junior competition to a lower senior competition level in order to eventually progress to Senior Elite competition.” ⁴⁾

34% all athletes in the study had at least one dip in their trajectory, with majority of this number experiencing two or more downturns in their trajectory.

This staggered pathway applied to both Olympians and non-Olympians. There were no significant differences between these groups, suggesting that the zig zag pattern of improvement is indiscriminate.

The study found that “trajectories of development are mostly characterised by non-linear patterns, with highly variable oscillations between and within the junior and senior competition levels.”

If we extend this thinking to our own personal development, we could expect to see a dip in performance, right before we see an uplift in improved performance.

The zig zag pattern is a classic rollercoaster of ups and downs, of breakdowns and breakthroughs.

As you’re reading this, you may remember a time when you have gone through a pattern that looked a lot like this. Perhaps you remember a particular moment, where you evaluated whether continue with the activity or do something else entirely.

In my own training, in a sport I’ve done for over ten years, I recall times where I saw little progress.

It would feel as though I was in a slump, like I’d hit a wall for my development in that area. It would be tough work emotionally and physically.

And then one week, everything would fall into place, and I would go through an accelerated path of growth.

At these times it was not unusual for other people I trained with to say, ‘something has changed in your training’, ‘things are just clicking for you at the moment’.

When we’re in the downward path of the zig-zag pattern, it can feel like our efforts are getting us nowhere and things are hard work.

This is where we need to rely on habits most of all. Because it’s by practicing regular activities that eventually the downward pattern will subside, and we’ll find ourselves again on an upward trend.

In fact, if there is one comfort in the zig-zag pattern, it’s that it feels very different to the other patterns.

Rather than a slowdown in the gains you are making, the zig zag patterns feels likes our performance is actually dropping off.

Those are the signals we’re in the zig-zag pattern. It’s also the signal that our mind is re-ordering what it knows, and is getting ready for the next big push.

Unfortunately often people become disillusioned during this stage. From entrepreneurs to athletes, when the zig-zag pattern feels tough, it’s tempting to stop the activity that causes us to feel like this.  But this is where persistence is actually most needed.

History is full of examples where people have experienced a zig-zag pattern and have continued anyway. They have been able to push through a temporary dip in performance, to then reach the next upward trend in gains.

In 1974, Spencer Silver invented a strange adhesive. He spent five years trying to interest colleagues in it. He could have easily given up. But he persisted. In 1977 he met Arthur Fry who gave him the idea to market the product as an adhesive for paper, and so Post It notes became a marketable product.

In 1936 a little-known writer created a book while working as a cartoonist for Judge Magazine. He shopped his book around and wracked up 27 rejection letters, before he bumped into a friend who encouraged him to submit one last time to Vanguard Press, who then went on to published his first book. That writer was Dr Seuss, who eventually published A Cat in The Hat in 1957 with great success.

Brian Acton was the software engineer that Facebook and Twitter rejected in 2009. Just five years later, Facebook bought the company he co-founded, What’s App, for $16 billion.⁵⁾

Imagine if these and many others had given up? What would the world be like without all of the outcomes which we have come to know and love, many of which resulted when people pushed through the zig zag pattern.

Advice: One thing that is incredibly important when we’re faced with a zig-zag pattern is to keep our enduring purpose front of mind. For us as individuals, this might be in the form of a goal or objective. For companies, mission and vision statements act as a reminder for what teams strive for in the face of adversity. It might be worth considering what makes a great mission statement and vision statement.

If you enjoyed this article, I would love to hear. Please consider leaving a comment below.

The post 4 Patterns For High Performance (And One Many People Miss Completely) appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

I’ve worked in teams of five- to launch new digital products; as well as teams of hundreds- to create user experiences with advanced software and platforms. Regardless of the scale of work, many of the concepts of digital strategy described in this article, still applied.

My advice in this article is based on three things: 1) what I learnt during a post-graduate degree in strategy and innovation, 2) what myself and teams applied- based on challenges and opportunities across industries, 3) what worked best from foundations 1 and 2.

Here is how I would distill these learnings:

1. Gather Inputs for your Digital Strategy

Information is everywhere, so gather it. No matter how big or small, however shallow or deep, find information and capture it somewhere. Ideally on a wall, so it can be quickly visualised, as you will then be able to see =just how much information is available. At this stage, don’t be concerned about what the information is telling you…. this stage is just about identifying the ‘data points’.

2. Understand The Current Company Context

When we’re creating a digital strategy, there’s little point developing it within a vacuum. Understanding the target company we’re creating it for is essential.

I’ve seen many excellent digital strategies stall because they were focused on the wrong stage for the company. For example, a company may need get the basics right before moving onto innovation. I’ve also seen strategies with very sound plans fail because they were not innovative enough to challenge and outpace the competition.

Thus it is important to understanding the company’s context. Just like a coach is able to boost performance by pitching their coaching at the level of shape their athlete is in.

3. Map Macro & Micro Trends

Micro trends are those that have a duration of 3 to 5 years, whereas macro trends are longer lasting.

These trends are like water currents flowing through industries. We all know when we’re swimming in currents, it’s far easier to go with them, than against them.

Google succeeded because it spotted issues with its advertising algorithm early on; it responded to a micro-trend in the form of better understanding of internet advertising, within a macro-trend of the rise of the internet and search engines.

Any digital strategy needs to be informed by both the micro and macro trends, that will pull and push an industry, creating prevailing conditions for years ahead.

Within the area of trends, when it comes to digital strategy in particular, I also recommend attention to these three forces:

1. Identify existing customer needs, shifting needs and emerging behaviours
2. Understand emerging and prevalent technologies that will shape the industry’s future over the next five years
3. Analyse the competition, not just for direct competitors but also new entrants that could foreseeably compete in your company’s market

Digital technology is moving so quickly with such disruptive power, such that the above three forces have special importance relative to other trends.

As examples, MySpace came unstuck because it missed the shifting customer behaviours toward private social networks. Facebook acted well to purchase Whats App when it realised instant messaging was emerging as a new technological trend. Uber and Lyft have been embattled as they seek to understand one another’s every move in a competition that is vying for the global marketplace.

4. Deeply Interpret & Analyse The Data

Having built up your data points and understood the prevailing trends, now is the time to interpret and analyse this data. This requires deep thought.

During this stage, ask questions like:

• Questions About the ‘Now’
  • What does this data tell us?
  • What are the opportunities and challenges that are present today?
  • What are the deeper truths of this information?
  • Where are our major revenue / profit centres for digital?  How are these revenue sources changing?
• Questions About What ‘Could Be’
  • Where will action create further growth / revenue / profit?
  • Is there anything we can do to magnify returns?
  • Are there any areas where we are particularly weak / compromised / threatened? Without action, do these areas pose further risk?
  • Most importantly, ask lots of ‘If This, Then That’ questions. For example:
    – If trend A, B and C happened at once, more quickly than we thought, what might we do?
    – If Competitor B entered this market faster than we anticipated, what would we do?
    – If we leveraged this major technology trend, seriously investing in it and it succeeded, what might that mean for our business?

What we’re really doing at this step is building out our assumption base about the future. What we don’t often realise is that we can develop this assumption base through either real experiences or hypothesized scenarios.

This is why surgeons do mock surgeries to advance their skills and why pilots spend many hours in simulators in addition to actual flying time. Study after study tells us, that the process of scenario-based thinking and imagining alternate circumstances, can actually improve the way we’ll respond in real-life situations.

You’ll be surprised how useful this becomes, not just for the act of writing the strategy, but building out what pilots call ‘situational awareness’ for all future possibilities.

5. Clarify Your Major Themes For The Next 2 to 3 Years

With all this information, now is the time to clarify your major strategic themes for the next 18 months to 3 years. Anything longer is too far out. While longer timeframes will be useful for context, most digital plans have a shelf-life of 6 to 18 months in terms of practical planning.

Ideally, you would have five major themes for your strategic priorities, and at most seven.

When Steve Jobs was re-appointed interim CEO of Apple in 1997, one of the first things he did was simplify its strategy. Over the course of the next period, he would reduce the company’s products from 350 to ten core products, announce a direct-to-consumer sales model and also invest in Apple’s re-invigorated computing offering, the iMac. These clear priorities allowed Apple to do something few other Silicon Valley companies have been able to do – disrupt itself – and set the pathway for iPod, iPhone and iPad. An incredible amount of focus, through well articulated priorities, spearheaded this strategy.

Simple examples of digital strategies and priorities might be:

• Double online conversion within 12 months
• Increase self-service by 3x
• Grow registrations by 20%
• Create a pipeline of work based on 100% customer-validated ideas
• Consolidate all digital assets into one major platform
• Create a tiered pricing model for our subscription service

Whatever your priorities, take time to consider which are the most important and articulate them clearly.

6. Define Your Objectives, Priorities and Actions

From your strategies, you can now plan your actions and tactics. These will be the ideas that will bring your major themes and priorities to fruition.

When defining actions it’s important to know:

• what the action will provide to the company and its customers
• how the action will fulfil the strategy
• what uplift (conversion, signups, revenue, etc) the action will realise
• what the action will cost (a rough cost at this stage is okay)
• when (ideally) the tactic will be released to market
• In what sequence will the tactics best be fulfilled (some tactics may be better placed than others, to set the foundation for future tactics)

Once you have this, you can sequence these priorities into a roadmap.

‘Levelling’ of tactics will be important. The digital strategy would ideally clarify major themes and potential priorities, but also needs to leave space for teams to autonomously decide how they will fulfil these tactics.  If the level of the tactic is too low, it may encroach on the planning domains of small teams.  So the priority needs to be high enough to inform the work of teams, and not so low that it duplicates it.

If there’s one thing that frustrates digital people, it’s being told the solution, rather than the objective or problem to be solved. Digital teams are so often incredibly creative, hardworking and highly specialised; by sharing the digital strategy with these teams and asking for their help to bring it to a reality, it’s incredible what can be accomplished.

7. Review The Strategy Regularly

Remember, the strategy is a living and breathing tool. It requires attention if it is to grow.

While many companies return to their strategy every year, I’ve found the best success is to make it part of regular meetings, so teams are reflecting on it at least every month (but ideally even more often than that). The digital strategy can also complement any planning methods already part of your organisation, such as Objectives & Key Results, which may be part of a quarterly planning framework.

By applying these steps you will think like a strategist. I hope these seven activities are of help- and I wish you the very best with your digital strategy.

The post 7 Steps To Build A Digital Strategy appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

When many companies go to write these statements, people can become distracted by the definition of a mission vs a vision statement, which takes time away from writing the actual statements.

Definitions are important so it’s natural we argue about them – after all, in just a few short words a mission or vision will direct the future direction of a company.

A great place to start is to look at examples how many companies have actually written their mission statements.  Beyond these examples, it’s also important to think more deeply about the definitions and differences of mission statements vs vision statements.

This is how I define these terms…

Chances are you will not find these definitions in any text book. In my research I found it difficult to find a clear sentence outlining each one.  So these definitions are based on my own research, previous studies in strategy and experiences working with different organisations.

The trouble with many other definitions, is that they’re not specific enough to show the exclusivity of these two terms.  And it’s important to have a degree of exclusivity, so we can understand which of these statements are best suited to which purpose.

We can highlight the difference between mission and vision with a simple metaphor.

A helpful metaphor

Let’s say I wanted to climb mount Everest.

My vision is to ‘stand at the top of Everest looking out over the Himalayas on a clear day, knowing that I had just climbed to the summit’.  This provides a very strong mental picture of the vision for the journey I want to take.

Now let’s say I wasn’t going to Everest for another year.

My mission might be to “prepare myself in all senses to ensure that my path to the top of the mountain was as safe and enjoyable as possible”.  Here, ‘in all senses’ could relate to how I get ready physically and mentally, including sourcing the right equipment and team.

Here, both the vision and the mission are involved in the path to achieving my goal.  At the same time, both give me quite different points of focus.

Taking a deeper look

A useful way to think about the differences between mission and vision statements is to compare them along a variety of dimensions.  This simple table summarises some major points of comparison.

Examples How Leading Companies Use Mission Statements and Vision Statements

These four companies use these statements in different ways.  I’ve included some commentary for each example, which references some of the definitions we used earlier in this article.

Disney

Mission Statement: “To be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world.”

Vision Statement: “To be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information.”

Commentary: In Disney’s case, the mission statement provides a clear statement of purpose, including how the company will differentiate itself from the competition.  While this mission statement is longer than many others, it serves its purpose.

In my opinion, the vision statement is the weaker of the two statements, and could be made more specific to the company and its enduring purpose. 

For example, this vision doesn’t provide a clear or inspirational picture of the purpose that it is trying to create, other than to be ‘leading’, or how Disney’s vision is unique to the company or differentiated from competitors.

Reebok

Vision Statement: “We envision a future where humans return to their roots. A future where we recognize that each of us is a living, breathing, walking, talking, running, climbing, jumping, laughing, caring miracle—a miracle that happens only once.

Through tough fitness, we will push each other to honor the body we’ve been given, because we have only one body to honor. We will endure sweat, tears and even a bit of blood. We will flip tires, sprint hills, and do push-ups until we can’t do them any longer.  Why do we do this? We certainly aren’t flipping tires to be better tire flippers. We’re doing it to be better, period. Better leaders; better parents; better stronger, more determined humans—capable of anything. We do it to honor our bodies and sharpen our minds—to be more human.”

Commentary: Reebok’s vision statement provides a clear picture of a preferred future.  In a world overwhelmed by continuous change, Reebok reminds us of our enduring purpose – “to be more human”.  Both a call to arms and a return to the simple pleasure of hard training, this reminds us the journey is not just about being athletic, it’s about being better people in every walk of our lives.  

Nasa

Vision Statement: “We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind.”

Mission Statement: “Drive advances in science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality and stewardship of Earth.”

Commentary: Nasa’s vision identifies two eternal tasks which are likely to endure beyond any human life – ‘revealing the unknown’ and ‘benefit of human kind’.  The mission articles the domains of present exploration (science, technology, etc) and the benefactors of this research (education, innovation, etc).

Nike

Mission Statement: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.”
*If you have a body, you are an athlete.

Commentary: In contrast to Reebok, it’s difficult to find a vision statement for Nike.  Instead Nike’s mission statement is well documented and referenced. In this simple statement Nike defines its purpose (inspiration and innovation) as well as target market (every athlete). 

It is deceptively simple and yet at the same time is true to Nike’s purpose and provides enormous latitude for current and future activities.

Should you use Mission or Vision Statement?

The definitions and comparisons above will help you target the type of statement you would like to create for your organisation.

I’ve noticed many organisations will only write one statement, and sometimes this statement will be a hybrid of both mission and vision.  So which one should you choose?

Generally, I would say a single statement is better than no statement at all, because it will give a company a common goal.  This is important in aligning all aspects of an organisation – its people, its resources, its priorities.

I do feel two separate statements around mission and vision, that follow the guidelines above, will be even more powerful.  But if you have to select one, I would say that a mission statement tends to be the most pervasive choice among organisations.

Using Google Insights for Search, I took a sample of search patterns over the last 5 years for mission and vision statements.  I was surprised to find that companies look far more often for ‘mission statement’ compared to ‘vision statement’.

One theory why this occurs is that organisations are more comfortable planning for the ‘here and now’, instead of the future, and this is reflected in search patterns.  The term ‘mission statement’ may also be more popular in business language than ‘vision statement’. As a result, we could assume that if an organisation writes a single statement, it will likely reference it as a ‘mission statement’.

I hope you’ve found this information useful for yourself and your organisation.  You may also wish to take a look at my post 7 Rules of a Vision Statement That Lasts.  If you did find this useful, please consider sharing your own experiences by adding a comment.

The post What’s the Difference Between a Mission Statement and Vision Statement appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

Having worked in strategy for many years and studied and lectured in strategy, I truly believe the act of ‘strategy making’ can influence positive directions for companies and people, by asking them to articulate where they want to go.

There are few better examples of this than mission statements.

I recently collated 51 mission statement examples from the world’s best companies. I created this list so I could reflect on what I thought made a great mission statement. And also in part because it’s hard to find examples in one place, and I thought this material would help others stimulate a healthy debate.

This is my take on what makes the best mission statements…

Mission Statements are Simple

The best mission statements are simple. They use common language to state powerful purposes, clearly. There’s not too much puffy language, or overused words. They pass the ‘sniff test of authenticity’, in other words, they do not read as though a Dilbert Generator worked them up. For example, Trip Advisor’s mission is to “help people around the world plan and have the perfect trip”. Simple and very effective. What’s not to love?

Mission Statements are Compelling

Great mission statements are compelling. They present a common purpose that people can aspire toward. Nike is famous for its mission statement “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world (*If you have a body, you are an athlete)”. That’s because not only is it an inspiring statement, but we can also relate to it, because Nike has also included each and every one of us as the target of its mission statement.

Mission Statements are Measurable

Now this is a tricky one…I also feel the best mission statements provide some sense of a target to be reached, or at least a benchmark that can be measured against. Many companies will say they want “to be Number 1” or “become the undisputed leader”. But personally I find these statements a bit ‘ho-hum’. I like the subtle measurement of missions like Amazon’s which is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices”. This statement is very measurable. First, can customers find anything they wish to buy through Amazon? Second, can they find it at the lowest price?

Mission Statements are Measurable Continuously Relevant

Great mission statements also stay continuously relevant. For example, Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. This statement helps the company evaluate what businesses it is in, as well as what new markets it could explore. For example, services like Google Maps, Google Scholar, Google Books and even You Tube are all consistent with this mission statement. What will be interesting to watch as Google enters new eras (eg. driver-less cars) is whether this mission statement may adapt to support its strategy.

As for my favorite mission statement (among for profit and not-for-profit organizations), mine is the the mission statement for the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA):

“To collect, preserve, study, exhibit, and stimulate appreciation for and advance knowledge of works of art that collectively represent the broadest spectrum of human achievement at the highest level of quality, all in the service of the public and in accordance with the highest professional standards.”

If of interest, in another article I’ve summarized the differences between mission and vision statements into a simple table.

Photo Credits: Greg Rakozy

The post What Makes a Great Mission Statement appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

The question that sparked my interest was what learning strategies do “quick learners” follow.  Here is my response, which was republished on Inc.com.

***

Your question is a great one. And it forced me to reflect about the things I have learned across my interests in business, personal development, and martial arts.

Let me tell you, I’ve seen many slow learners understand subjects in far greater detail than people who can learn at a fast pace. If fact, slow learners can bring a deliberateness that sometimes is lacking in fast learners. So this can certainly be an advantage for you also.

Having said that, these are principles I’ve applied in my own learning that I feel are universal.

#1. Repetition.

I firmly believe repetition leads to mastery. When learning a new skill, practice that skill often. When learning a new theory, apply it wherever you can.

As Bruce Lee said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

Any skill refined through continuous practice over time will become formidable.

#2. Focus.

With so many distractions today–social media, multitasking, open-plan offices–we’re receiving constant stimuli.

We’ve lost the ability to focus. Yet focus is what is required to truly understand and absorb any subject.

To learn a new skill, I find time to focus on it in an environment free from distraction. When I’m reading about it, I’ll listen to music without lyrics, so the music does not distract me from the content of what I’m reading.

Steve Jobs said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

#3. Context and detail.

To understand a specific subject, I find it useful to look at the big picture first. I like to understand the context of things.

So in a book I’ll read the table of contents before I look at the pages. This way I get a sense for where the overall context is headed. And when I read the details, I’ll understand how one theme relates to another. Detail is important, but at the right time.

Start too early on the details and you’ll miss the context of the whole. Miss details altogether, and understanding only stays superficial.

So I switch between context and detail so I learn the surface and the depth.

#4. Relationship.

Learning by understanding context and detail (the prior point) gives me a sense of the relationships among information. And this is very important for retained learning.

This is one of the reasons why, to recall the order of a full deck of cards, many people tell themselves a story involving all the characters in the cards. The story details the relationships of the cards to one another.

Building a meaningful relationship across the themes you’re studying is one of the best ways to accelerate and retain learning.

#5. Pace.

Pace is an excellent variable to play with.

For example, if you’re listening to a lecture, you could speed up the pace of the lecture x2.

Pace also serves another important function. It puts us under different types of pressure, and because of this, we adjust our learning method.

Putting ourselves through this variability builds our capacity, much in the same way that a long-distance runner may do hill sprints to work on his or her overall fitness.

In my own case, if I’m working on a presentation, I’ll try to say it at twice the speed on the final practices, to ensure that I can recall all the information I need under pressure.

If I can recall it at double the speed, I know it will be available to me at normal speed without stress.

This isn’t just about recall; it is about changing the dynamics of how we learn, to build flexibility into our learning methods.

I hope these are helpful to you. Best of luck with your own personal development.

The post 5 Ways to Learn and Remember Absolutely Anything appeared first on Alessio Bresciani.

But looking at a collection of mission statements across a variety of industries can teach us a lot about creating purposeful companies.

Whether you’re the CEO of your own company or a business leader, the art of writing a purposeful mission statement is a valuable skill.

I was so curious about mission statements I collated 51 mission statement examples from the world’s most successful companies.  I hope this is useful for others exploring this subject.

If you find this post useful please consider adding to the leaving a comment -below already on this page or sharing this post with others.

My short book “A Simple Guide To Sketchnoting: How To Use Visual Thinking to Improve Communication & Problem Solving” is available now on Amazon.

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More On Strategy

As well as the mission statement examples above, you may like this articles:

What’s The Difference Between A Mission Statement & Vision Statement
What Makes A Great Mission Statement
Digital Disruption: How Continuous Evolution Is Reshaping Industries And Brands
7 Steps To Build A Digital Strategy
How To Think Like A Strategist

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