What's In A Name?

There is an article in the current edition of The Economist (Baby Names, Thanks Mum) which explores the different rules around the world for baby names. For example, it is illegal to call your child "*" in New Zealand. Using names that suggest rank is also banned in NZ - so perhaps "My Name is Earl" is not broadcast there.

More interestingly, there is evidence that people called George are more likely to become Geologists, while a Dennis is more likely than most to become a Dentist.

Since many of our names derive from our real or hoped-for activities (surnames often reflect profession or trade) while given names are often encouragements to virtue or success - for example "Patience Potter".

I've long wondered the extent to which names are destiny - in other words whether causation flows from the name to the nature rather than the other way round. Are people called Patience really more patient? Would that which we call a Rose by any other name smell as sweet?

I think HR departments may have some explaining to do here. The British military spokesman in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s was a Colonel Coward. He was replaced by a Colonel Chicken - was this pure coincidence? I once visited a Royal Navy ship whose captain was called Commander Thicknesse. He was replaced by Commander Bone ("bone" is military slang for "stupid").

And do people with problematic surnames suffer in the marketplace - both professionally and personally? Is Miss Hoare more likely to marry hastily and Mr Snodgrass more likely to remain a batchelor? Is Master D'eath drawn irresistably towards medicine?

Do you have any experience of nominal determinism? If so please share!

A Farmer's Prescription for Growth

I celebrated the start of 2012 staying with friends in the countryside. As I made coffee on new year's morning, I saw a tea-towel hanging above the stove. On it was written a testament to farmers, and I think it provides a compelling argument for growth and balanced budgets - the perfect prescription for what will for many be an austere year...

     Let the wealthy and great
     Roll in splendour and state.
     I envy them not, I declare it.
     I eat my own lamb,
     My own chickens and ham.
     I shear my own fleece and I wear it.
     I have lawns, I have bowers,
     I have fruits, I have flowers,
     The lark is my morning alarmer.
     So jolly boys now
     Here's God speed the plough
     Long life and success to the farmer.

I wish you long life and success for 2012!

Space Invaders - a game to see in the new year

If you're staying up to see in the new year, here's a game you might want to try to while away the hours until midnight.

I was introduced to this game on Exercise Tenderfoot, the first week-long exercise in my training in the Royal Marines. One afternoon we were waiting for an instructor to arrive and one of our section leaders introduced us to this game to while away the time.

If you've spent the last few days sharpening your reflexes on a Nintendo Wii, PlayStation PS3 or Microsoft Xbox, you are probably honed and ready for this - it's a real-world recreation of a classic computer game - Space Invaders.

You will need:

1. A supply of soft projectiles - foam balls, tomatoes etc
2. A large room or rectangular space
3. About 30 friends 

Now organise your friends. Their roles are:

• 1 defender
• 1 "special"
• 28 invaders
• 1 drill instructor - you

Next ask your invaders to line up in 7 rows (with 4 in each row) with an arm's length between each row, along one wall of the room and facing the opposite wall. The defender waits against the opposite wall with the supply of projectiles.

As the drill instructor, you need to manage the invaders. Take command! When you shout "One", they must snap to attention, with their feet together and their arms by their sides. When you shout "Two" they should step their left foot to their left, squatting down and raising their arms to the "I surrender" position. When you shout "One" again, they return to the attention position by brining their right foot up to their left.

As you command "One, Two, One, Two, One, Two..." the invaders will move to their left  (and the defender's right) until they reach the wall. At this point you give the command "Three" at which point they all take one pace forwards. Now they start each "Two" move with their right foot, moving to their right.

While your invaders begin their advance towards the defender, he or she attempts to stop them with the projectiles. Each invader hit by a projectile is knocked out of the game and moves off the playing area. The invaders win if any of them reach the defender's wall before being hit by projectiles.

The "special" runs along the wall behind the invaders wailing "Woowoowoowoowoo..." and waving their arms above their heads. If the defender is able to hit them they win the game outright.

Enjoy - and happy new year!

The Ten Principles of War

This is one of a series of articles on lessons from Commando training. Here is the full list.

In the British Armed Forces, all leaders are trained in the 10 Principles of War. These short principles - many of them only a single word - are distilled from centuries of studying conflict and competition. While they are designed for warfare, they are a great set of guidelines for life in general and business in particular.

The first principle is usually singled out as pre-eminent, with the second also considered to be special:

1. Selection and Maintenance of the Aim
2. Maintenance of Morale
3. Offensive Action
4. Security
5. Surprise
6. Concentration of Force
7. Economy of Effort
8. Flexibility
9. Cooperation
10. Sustainability

These principles were codified by JFC Fuller, a Major General and Military Historian, after the First World War, but they incorporate the ideas of the greatest military thinkers in history including Sun Tsu, von Clausewitz and Napoleon. They are at the core of current British military thought - as the former Chief of Defence Staff writes in his foreword to British Defence Doctrine (which also gives a detailed analysis of each of the principles in Chapter 2),

"[doctrine] is meant to educate the mind of the future commander, or, more accurately, to guide him in his self-education, not to accompany him to the battlefield"

So this is not a set of rigid rules - the principles are an educational tool that the leader can reflect upon before battle. As you prepare to face 2012 you may find it useful to reflect on how these principles can help you win in the new year and beyond.

This is one of a series of articles on lessons from Commando training. Here is the full list.

Leaders - How Games And Recognition Can Boost Your Team

Gamification - the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage people - is now a managerial buzz-word. A recent special report in The Economist explores how the psychology of video games is being used by employers and researchers to improve performance in teams from the military to molecular research.

Leaders often have to motivate teams to perform difficult tasks and expend considerable effort - both of which are also often required of game-players. So if you are a leader, you should study the motivations of game-players to see if some of those motivations can be harnessed in support of your team objectives.

Making work seem like play

If people believe that what they are doing is leisure rather than work, they may want to do more of it and they may even pay - rather than seeking to be paid - to do it. While persuading employees to pay to work is likely to be unsustainable, team-members are likely to be more happy, loyal and motivated if they are getting psychological rewards as well as material ones.

Wellington - a keen player

Getting the boot in

The idea that games are important in leadership and learning is not new. The Duke of Wellington said "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton" and the language of game-playing pervades management-speak: "raise your game", "gamble", "player" etc. Chess - the archetypal game of strategy - evolved as an early war-game. It has been used both as a general learning tool and to focus strategic thoughts ever since.

While I was a young military officer I was required to study scenarios in which I talked through TEWTs (Tactical Exercises Without Troops) with senior officers. This was a kind of game, but without friendly forces, let alone an enemy, it lacked the interactivity that is the appeal of the most successful games. A friend of mine discovered Command & Conquer, a computer game which required exactly the same skills - a grasp of the relative performances of friendly and enemy forces and equipment, an understanding of the terrain and weather conditions and a tight grip of the resource and logistic constraints. Perhaps the training budget might have been better invested in sending all young officers to play Command & Conquer.

From urban design to corporate strategy, companies such as Codemasters and G2G3 are creating game-based services that help organisations achieve their goals by conducting low-cost experiments and simulations, training key decision makers and scenario-testing. But if you have a smaller budget there is a simple gamification technique you can apply in a wide range of situations.

Give recognition

A key feature of most games is that they involve winning and losing. In other words, they give results. Recognising relative, competitive performance is essential to game-play, and all sorts of managerial tools reflect this from the use of sales leaderboards used to motivate salesmen to the honours system used to recognise civil servants. And of course those selected by competitive process to join a club often recognise each other with some token of membership such as a club strip or the green beret of the Commandos. I recently posted about the use of symbols in recognition in How to Boost Team Performance Without Increasing Costs.

Leaders can give recognition in a wide range of ways from simple oral encouragement to elaborate displays - however it's done, recognition is a form of keeping score - reminding players of the progress they are making at times when the game is tough. And while that recognition may be costly in cash terms, it need not be. Many of the most highly prized rewards are virtually neligible in cash cost terms. The metal used to make Victoria Crosses (the highest award for courage in the UK) is scrap - recycled from guns captured from the Russians at Sevastopol.

ARRSE avatar medals

A still lower cost way to use medals to reward behaviour is demonstrated by the Army Rumour Service - ARRSE. The ARRSE website now attracts over 450,000 monthly unique visitors with its mix of news and views on defence and security topics and general interest. This social networking site was set up by some friends of mine who cleverly recruited a small army of moderators who manage the active discussion forums. These moderators and others who help with the running of the site are rewarded with medals that appear by their avatars on forum posts.

It's not surprising that medals appeal to a community with such a strong military connection, and medals - virtual or real - will not deliver a sense of recognition for every team. But perhaps you can identify a comparable form of recognition that will resonate in your team culture. The UK Department of Work and Pensions has used gamification to improve its staff suggestion box, awarding contributors "DWPeas" - points that they can then allocate to other suggestions, both showing that their contribution is valued and recognising their role in crowdsourcing other good ideas.

His Captain's hand on his shoulder smote

Money, awards and fame all have a part to play in motivation, but great leaders motivate their teams with recognition. Sir Henry Newbolt summed it up in the first verse of his poem Vitae Lampada, an 1892 poem about gamification that motivated a generation through the horrible ordeal of the First World War:

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night

Ten to make and the match to win

A bumping pitch and a blinding light,

An hour to play, and the last man in.

And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat.

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,

But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote:

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red -

Red with the wreck of a square that broke;

The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed its banks,

And England's far, and Honour a name,

But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks -

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the school is set,

Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget.

This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch in flame,

And falling fling to the host behind -

"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"

So if you are leading a team, remember to smite your people on their shoulders from time to time - they'll raise their game if you do!

iPhone 4S vs Galaxy S2 vs Galaxy Nexus - a Comparison

Galaxy S2

After nearly 2 happy years with an iPhone 4 I'm approaching contract renewal, so I've been checking out the options for my next phone. After a quick look at the offerings from HTC, Blackberry and Nokia, I've narrowed my search down to the Apple iPhone 4S, the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

I've conducted a "survey of surveys" of these three phones and found that most comparisons focus on performance data charts - screen resolution, battery specs, camera resolution, processor speed etc. My aim is to clarify the decision based on some simple questions about how the phone fits in with the rest of life. If your phone decision depends on some of these considerations, you might reach the same conclusion as me.

Beautiful design and reliable performance

Over the last 4 years I've migrated from PC to Mac and now own a Mac Mini desktop, a Macbook Air laptop and an iPhone 4. My music is in iTunes and my photos are in iPhoto. I've become an Apple prisoner, captured by the seamless integration of their products and services. I've enjoyed their great design and reliable performance, and I'm a big fan of Apple as a company.

However, I've had two concerns about my reliance on Apple - the price premium and the limited (and pricey) integration of their services in the Cloud. Even with the introduction of iCloud, this aspect of Apple's offering seems to be behind the services provided by others - notably Google.

Security and redundancy

Even as I've moved from PC to Mac, I've also moved from Microsoft Office to a host of cloud-based software platforms for both work and leisure. Google is the lynchpin of my online life, providing Gmail, Google Apps, Blogger, Youtube and Picasa. All of these are free and more importantly from my perspective, they are hosted in the cloud, so if any of my devices are lost, stolen or broken, my data and content are secure, backed up in redundant systems which I can reach through a range of devices.

What is a smartphone for? Data or Voice? Entertainment or Business?

While the ability to make voice calls is still a qualifying requirement for a telephone, none of these three smartphones is marketed on the basis of call quality (which is anyway largely dependent on the quality of the service provided by the network operator rather than the handset manufacturer). For me the reality is that I make fewer voice calls than I used to, and use my phone much more as a data device - for capturing and viewing images, for finding information about places, contacts and opportunities. I'm not a gamer, and I don't rely on my phone to bring my personal music library around in my pocket.

As a result, certain features stand out. The Galaxy Nexus has a lower resolution camera (5 Megapixels, compared to the 8 Megapixels of the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S2), but it does have an immediate shutter response, eliminating the delay associated with most phone cameras. The larger and higher resolution screen of the Nexus may appeal to gamers and video downloaders, who will also like the faster processors of the two Samsung phones (1.2GHz rather than 1.0GHz for the iPhone). For those of us with lower performance requirements, the lighter weight and longer battery life of the Samsung phones may be more appealing.

The importance of freedom

But for me the decisive factor is that after years in thrall to Apple, the Samsung phones offer the opportunity to break free into the more open world of Android. While Apple's strict control is central to their quality, Android offers a degree of freedom I'm finding irresistible. With better integration with Google's cloud services and the freedom to use my phone as a base station for my laptop, Android now fits much better with my needs.

As a keen photographer I'm drawn to the 8 Megapixel camera of the Galaxy S2, so when my contract renewal comes around, that is what I will be collecting.

And finally, just mentioning that I'm planning to switch from iOS5 to Android seems to be earning me credibility with my technically minded friends!

How competitor analysis defines success - a lesson from a gamekeeper

If you want to succeed, you need to know what success looks like. Often we define success in relative rather than absolute terms. For example: "success is earning $100 a month more than your wife's sister's husband", "success is being the best...", "success is winning". But this puts our ambitions into the hands of others, since their actions determine whether we believe we have succeeded.

So if your definition of success involves a competitive comparison rather than an absolute result, it's very important to think about how you choose to define your competition. For example, for most of us it is unrealistic to aspire to be the best high jumper in the world, though we might reasonably aim to be the fastest swimmer in our local pool. More significantly, if you are setting goals for your company or team, it's useful to choose a challenging achievable target rather than a fantasy one ("we want our sales to rise faster than any other seller of x in our domestic market" rather than "we want to top the FTSE100 by the end of the year").

Not long ago, I was walking on a public footpath near Plymouth when a 4x4 drove up. The driver was clearly checking on me, and explained that he was the local gamekeeper. I took the opportunity to ask him about the local wildlife, including whether there were any deer on the land he looked after. He explained that there were plenty of fallow deer on the estate, especially now he had stopped the poachers. Since the estate was clearly very large, I asked him how he had stopped the poachers. His explanation was very simple.

He told me that in the past the deer on the estate had frequently been chased and killed by dogs brought by poachers based in Plymouth. One afternoon, he was out checking some pheasant pens when he saw a group of people with hunting dogs walking across one of his fields, away from the public footpath. The dogs were on long leads but he felt confident that they would soon be released to hunt. Considering his options, he decided that calling the police would be fruitless, since he expected that even if they arrived in time to challenge the poachers, there was unlikely to be any useable evidence and they would escape with a warning, and return at their convenience.

So he decided on a different course. He was 300m from the poachers and they had not seen him. He took his hunting rifle from his car and carefully lined it up with one of the hunting dogs. He shot and killed the dog, with the bullet passing close to the group of poachers, though he was later able to justify it as a safe controlled shot. In the ensuing fracas, the police were called, but by the poachers rather than the gamekeeper.

As he sat in his car, calmly explaining this story to me, I asked him why he chose to do such a reckless thing. He pointed out that he realised he was not trying to compete with the poachers - he was trying to compete with other nearby gamekeepers. He needed word to get around the poaching fraternity that he was crazy, so that they would concentrate their activities safely out of his range. He regretted shooting the dog, but pointed out that hunting dogs were killing dozens of deer, and that after this incident, poaching immediately stopped on his land.

Choosing how you define your competitive set is not just a matter of identifying a recognisable set of peers - it may involve a different perspective altogether. It may be that the really important competition is not the obvious one. For example, perhaps rather than looking at the growth of profits you should consider the threat posed by specific skills shortages leading to competition for key staff with companies active in very different markets.

Of course while competitive pressure can help to motivate and drive innovation, it's perfectly legitimate to define success in terms of absolute outcomes too. While some teams define success as being the best, others may have a specific object such as curing a disease, or completing a project on time and within budget. Either way, wisely defining what success is - the goal of the team's efforts - is essential.