In the last lesson you were asked to demonstrate your skill in PTO. Now check if you were able to PTO as instructed.
The orange you were asked to peel was:
Resolve the PTO paradox in 111 words.
The most important instruction for you to follow in this PTO was the specification of 111 words. You were not to know that, of course. In PTO one never really knows because one doesn’t get the opportunity to discuss things, as one does in normal situations.
One of the benefits of PTO, provided you have a skilled leadership team, is that anyone in the team can give anyone else in the team a PTO and it is done without question or discussion. This has advantages of speed, efficiency and effectiveness when the team is striving for a mutual objective. But it is not easy and does take PRR to produce a high level of PTO skill.
Obviously, so early in a leadership training sequence, one is not expected to get the ‘right’ answer as much as one is expected to just try and practise the skills.
DFQ #15:
What is the biggest insight about PTO that you have had so far as you’ve been doing these past few lessons?
My takeaway has been the understanding that to be effective in giving direction you need to be able to take direction effectively.
It was clear that the target was 111 but as it looked like an arbitrary number, as no explanations we were given, I kept my 122 words answer. Bringing to 111 words would have taken more time than was necessary.
My biggest lessons are: 1) If you give an arbitrary target, explain it or show the drawback of not meeting it. 2) Time is an important element of the PTO and one has to evaluate the benefit of matching the target vs. time involved (diminishing returns comes to mind.)
PTO creates momentum and is an action of going forward, if your questioning too much or trying to find too much you are still ….
sometimes there is no time to be accurate in giving and understanding instruction …i trust Michael would have asked the right question to flex the brain muscles and i acted on it in the best way possible ( under 111 word limit ! )
* Good ideas may not be obtainable by following some fixed direct rules, or by using a step-by-step logic.
* However it happens, I just have to do it (peel it). If I accurately do it then I can see what would happen and new ideas could be generated.
My biggest insight is that I really do not listen carefully to the instruction. I act right away and presume a lot of things that were not demanded of me.
There is always room for miscommunication even in the simplest of human interactions. It is the leader’s responsibility to make it clear for the team members what is expected of them. It is leader’s job to clearly communicate what the leader wants to be done. Then the understanding of the team members has to be verified to make sure that everyone is on the same page. This PTO is not as easy as it appears. A lot of times we think that what we are doing or saying is common sense and everyone should be able to understand it. However, as we just witnessed there is a lot of room for errors and misinterpretation. As a leader, it is our responsibility to make sure that we are communicating clearly so that everyone in our team knows what is expected of them. We have to verify our understanding and make sure that all team members are using their resources toward the common goal. Hence the famous saying that assumption makes an ass of you and me.
That PTO isn’t as easy as just following instruction from your own point of view, or providing one. The art of PTO is understanding your instructor, and therefore, as an instructor, you must have a fairly consistent point of view (or set of values), otherwise it kills the value of the short PTO instruction.