There are only your choices.
You get to choose how to respond or initiate most everything.
And that’s the one thing that’s in your control.

Choose wisely!

Inspiration: Picked up a copy of Hacking Work and was reenergized to keep fighting the good fight.

Situation: Cat is a classical cellist from London, and one of the founders of a popular music festival in a small mountainous, rural, agricultural zone of Spain: Music in the Mountains, or, in Spanish, Música en las Montañas.

The Goal: To fund restoration projects of the mountains themselves, fresh water streams, and for a way of life in the region. To date, local musicians and hundreds of others from around the globe, such as the Robinson College Choir from Cambridge, have performed in the yearly festival.

Poor and Corrupt Leaders Deserved to Be Hacked! Says Cat: “The local town promised funding, but most often it never materialized — even after concerts were performed. Recently the town has started winning prizes for this project, but the local mayoress took credit for all the work, while pocketing the profits and funding for other purposes. As with many poor leaders, her people are terrified and dare not speak out against her, it goes badly for their families afterwards.”

“I have dedicated my life, my money, and my musical experience to all this, and many of my pupils, colleagues and friends have have also given very generously of their time, money and expertise. The only way to right the wrongs are to hack around local policies and procedures, and bring this to the attention of higher authorities. A group of writers and musicians in Granada are starting a petition which will go world-wide, and is a cry for justice for the mountain villagers.”

“Twenty years ago I hacked around my corrupt bosses who were controlling a youth orchestra, and the result was they all got sacked and I got promoted. The orchestra was delighted. That was scary, but succeeded.”

“Thanks again for Hacking Work: The principles of hacking and the inspiring examples, have helped me have the courage to keep on hacking when the cause is just.”

To learn the other seven secrets, check out this short, simple 3+ minute video

While his stories were then 60 years old, if you listened carefully, you could hear all of today’s themes: trust, integrity, transparency, social obligations, human resources, too few resources to accomplish way too much, and more.

He talked about information issues, privacy and hacking when discussing how British mathematicians broke the Nazi wartime code using a captured Enigma machine.

He talked about social obligations, trust and transparency by asking the question: “Churchill and Roosevelt then knew what was happening. Why didn’t they do more?” He wasn’t angry. I don’t think this gentle man ever got angry. His question was more of a lifetime search through confusion and conflicting truths.

He would be told that if these leaders had done more, they would have tipped their hand to Hitler that they had broken the code. So they sat on their hands, and watched.

“Why didn’t they just bomb the tracks?” he asked. “We now know that they knew, at the time, exactly where those tracks led and what happened every day because of them.”

The tracks he spoke of led to places like Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buchenwald, and Dachau.

This gentle man with very deep questions and few answers was Elie Wiesel; Auschwitz Holocaust survivor, writer, teacher, Nobel Peace Laureate, and humanitarian.

I mention this not to compare our discussions to his. There is no comparison.

But, to me, his questions cut through the clutter of the moment. What we’re really talking about is leadership. And tough choices. And doing the right thing when faced with multiple paradoxes, enigmas, and conflicting needs.

Regardless of the technology or challenge or economic needs of the moment, we’re really talking about mapping a journey where there are more questions than answers, and all the answers require character and a will to do things just because they’re the right things to do.

Again, on almost all levels, no comparison. Please don’t take the mental leap I’ve made the wrong way.

Yet, when it comes to looking inside ourselves, and standing up for the rights and welfare of others because it’s the right thing to do: that’s a journey we must all face every day of our lives. Whether we’re tackling something the whole world must never forget, or whether we’re just trying to make it through another day.

Making a difference matters.

It would be Chapter 11.

It would have huge signs in the window, GOING OUT OF BUSINESS.

Want to challenge that?
Fine.

illus: cs.cmu.edu

How much would you pay for the flow chart that specified who does what in your current work process as well as the gatekeepers to enforce it? (Keeping in mind that you can crowdsource most any of that…for free, or close to it.)

How much would you pay for all that strategic thinking inside the current 2011 company plan to be “boundaryless and innovative, while at the same time cutting costs by seven thousand percent”? (Considering that most strategic plans are overwhelmingly about cutting costs, protecting the company’s ass, and low on TRUE innovation and empowerment.)

That’s what we thought.

If the design of work were a business, it would have gone out of business decades ago.

This hack requires the following:
Courage: Cold Sweat
Difficulty: Master
Yield: Beyond eternal bliss, Victory

(In case you’re wondering, Alan is following Bill’s format for his Courage Meter, an interviewing and reporting device he employed in his book, Simplicity Survival Handbook)

bp.blogspot

Part 2: Emotional Leverage
In another link to his own blog post, Alan refers to Norma’s arch-nemisis, Sergeant First Class Ojheda, and that he got what he deserved — a transfer away from those he was bullying. Alan’s key lesson: Hack workarounds, but never become one of the bullies…they’ll get theirs, eventually.

Bad-Ass Hack: HR Adopts, Champions and Tracks New Organizational Measure: “How easy is it for me to do great work?”: HR finally gets that the new collaborative tools are the operating system for talent in the 21st century. It finally gets that HR has been MIA when it comes to being a workforce advocate, and it’s time to grow a pair. HR’s early 21st century role is to make it a lot easier for everyone to do a lot more great work.

TM Staples

Yet, in reality (…of course, with the stellar exceptions that everyone cites…), HR is mainly a cost-cutting, reactive advocate for short-term changes, under-performing on the strategic needs of the C-suite, and a no-show when it comes to being an Employee Advocate. And when it comes to growing a pair: When was the last time you heard of an HR exec going toe-to-toe w/ a superior to push hard and relentlessly for his/her employee’s needs? Exactly.

How It Could Save Business’s Ass: The workforce needs to get shit done. Faster. Better. Smarter. Yeah, we all know that. But the way that most every company approaches this need keeps everyone working harder, not smarter. If HR actually stepped in as the workforce’s advocate and made it easier to do great work, most everyone would be working smarter.

In most every company, there are way too many barriers to doing great work.

According to the Jensen Group’s Search for a Simpler Way, among the biggest barriers:
• Usability and user-centered design of tools, processes: Only 27% Favorable
• Speed in addressing bottom-up needs: Only 21% Favorable
• Appropriate, effective use of each individual’s time: Only 12% Favorable
Only 12% favorable in how we use people’s time!?! Where is HR on this? Who is the employee’s advocate on this?

If the workforce had an advocate on these and similar issues, most of the barriers to MoreBetterFaster would be addressed. This is why the top of the list of Best Companies to Work For, are all adopting some variation of “How easy is it for me to do great work?” as a central corporate measure. Removing barriers to great work is the work of a great company.

Potential Downsides: HR execs, be forewared: If you grow a pair at a company that doesn’t appreciate that, you might actually have to find a better company to work for.

Suggestions for Getting Started:
1. Download Jensen’s Simpler Company Starter Kit
2. Use the Survey Tool to assess your own organization’s barriers to great work
3. Use Your Own Data to start a new conversation w/ C-Suite execs about making it easier to do great work
4. Kick Ass: Become a true Employee Advocate

• • • • • • • • • •
12 Bad-Ass Hacks: We’re publishing one-a-month throughout 2011. Got examples of Bad-Ass Hacks? Please tell us about them. We’d love to post yours!

Bring your girlfriends, boyfriends, pets, children, or “other” to this once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Josh read out loud. In a bookstore.

Afterwards there will be drinks.

- Josh

NOV. 4, MIDNIGHT
Kinect released in the U.S.

NOV. 4, MORNING
DIY-kit seller Adafruit offers $1,000 to the first person to break open Kinect’s software code

NOV. 4, 4:03 P.M.
“Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products,” a company spokesperson tells CNET

NOV. 4, EVENING
Adafruit raises ante, offers $3,000 Prize

NOV. 5
Microsoft releases less-terse statement. Says it will not sue developers

NOV. 7
Code Laboratories in Nevada claims it’s hacked Kinect; says it can be yours for a $10,000 “donation”

NOV. 10
Kinect goes on sale in Europe and is hacked that day by a Spaniard who claims the Adafruit prize

NOV. 11
Kinect mania begins on YouTube. Flood of amazing demonstration videos

NOV. 14
Kinect works on Mac; virtual air-painting app is born

NOV. 15
Software code for Kinect, hosted on GitHub.com is viewed 15,051 times

NOV. 16
Microsoft says it has sold 1 million Kinects

NOV. 22
Willow Garage inserts Kinect code into its robot operating system

DEC. 1
Microsoft says Kinect sales reach 2.4 million (predicts 5.5m for year)

DEC. 9
PrimeSense, creator Kinect’s hardware, acknowledges the creative ferment and opens a version to developers

JAN. 5, 2011
Steve Ballmer announces Kinect sales of 8 million

We saw this when bittorrent was being aggressively attacked as the prime vector for piracy. After enough silly lawsuits – BAM – we got seedless torrents (which are essentially untraceable). There would have been no need for seedless torrents if people had been able to use them as they had; which was the minority of the time. Instead, the RIAA created an entire secondary market for music by forcing people to find ways to pirate more effectively.

It’s exactly what’s caused antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hyper-sterilized hospitals, or the explosion of Humboldt squid in the wake of the gulf oil spill. Destabilize an existing ecosystem and the most effective species explode in population.

The same thing is happening now with big businesses, and WikiLeaks is a great example. Yes, WikiLeaks may succumb to international attention and the concomitant media and litigious frenzy. But what emerges in its wake will be hundreds of times more effective.