The catalyst
In July 2015 my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Luce, my wife, our daughter Bea and I moved back from Sydney. 6 very tough months later, he died. Two weeks before Dad died, my father in law was diagnosed with leukemia and started a 7 month chemo battle. Thankfully he has come through with a clean bill of health.
I don’t talk about these circumstances to evoke pity. They were catalysts for me to reflect on what I was doing, how I was doing it and why I was doing it.
At times I felt stuck. Really stuck.
This reflection process coincided with 2 great learning opportunities in the last 12 months.
Agile
When Adam and I started the business, one of the drivers was to allow us the freedom to take interesting opportunities as they appeared.
Last year I’d been consulting to a well funded software tech startup. It is founded by a friend of mine and after a few months of increasing involvement, he asked me to go into the business full time as Head of Marketing.
After Ads and I talked it through, I decided to jump on it.
Have you heard of Agile? Or Agile project management? Or Agile Marketing?
The Agile philosophy was born in software development. Its principles are all about getting the most important, useful work prioritised and shipped.
My curiosity was sparked as I learned the principles from our software development team then began to run down the rabbit hole for myself and for the marketing team.
Shortly after I started, the general manager Paul was appointed. He was formerly the lead of the Boston Consulting Group’s Agile Transformation practice for Asia Pacific.
I watched and learned as he applied agile philosophies to the whole business.
I have found some of the principles so useful that I now use them to manage Bluewire, my coaching clients and even my own personal and family activities.
Values driven decision making
The second opportunity was a 4 month contract to work at the Queensland Academy of Sport working with 100s of Queensland’s best athletes and coaches, psychologists, physios, nutritionists and sports administrators.
This reconnected me with the high performance, outcomes focussed environment I’d loved when training for the Olympics. It also introduced me to the performance psychology frameworks of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
ACT is about 2 things:
- making values driven decisions to lead the life you want to live, and
- to make the best decisions at the most important times.
The evolution
So Ads and I have embraced these philosophies and are using them to drive our business and personal outcomes.
We’re using Agile principles (in Trello) to plan and execute our work and values driven decision making to help prioritise that work.
Here’s an example board:
