Its not often that commercials feature as a highlights of the weekend’s sporting viewing. Sam Kekovich’s rants urging us to eat plenty of ‘juicy lamb chops’ during the tennis were an exception. Apart from making me chuckle, I also pondered the cleverness of framing them as commentary, with the TV host ‘crossing to Sam’ rather than breaking the coverage. The forerunner of ads to come I suspect.

(For those who haven’t seen Sam Kekovich’s unique style of social commentary, imagine a no-holds-barred, politically incorrect, rave about stuff we all see but seldom speak. His contract with Meat and Livestock Australia condemns failure to consume large quantities of lamb as ‘unAustralian’. His signature sign-off is ‘you know it makes sense’.)

So I’m wondering about what it means to be Australian, or more broadly the role of identity - the sensation of belonging to a group or community. According to some social research I’ve read, belonging to a community or group of people is the most influential factor in changing an individual’s view of the world. We like to believe that we ‘think’ our way to new perspectives. The reality is apparently more that we get moulded by the conventional wisdom of the group of people we identify most strongly with. The group provides security both in a social sense, but also in what we believe about what is important in life.

There’s nothing wrong with this … on the contrary … its the way we find safety (in the broadest sense) in the world … by belonging. I guess the challenge is being conscious about: (i) the role of the group in shaping us, & (ii) the reality of seeing the world subjectively through the eyes of the group rather than the idea / myth of objectivity.

The danger of course is when a particular perspective is touted as absolutely true. It would be a mistake to imply that Sam’s ranting is meant to be a serious exposition of what the national identity is all about. But I am amused (embarrassed even) then that by savouring some cutlets I get a sense of national pride. I wonder how my vegetarian friends are supposed to get in on the celebration of national identity. It is a reminder though that marketing is a incredibly powerful tool, and that those with the means are able to have a big influence on the way people think.

It is an argument, I think, for intentionally exposing ourselves to the voices from the margin, those that don’t identify with the dominant view. It will continue to protect us from thinking that the loudest, most articulate and cleverest voices are not necessarily beyond question. With the impact of mass meat production on the environment, overlay-ed with the impact of climate change in Australia, there is a compelling counter argument that throwing sheep on the barbie is about the worst thing we could do for our future.

With a new wind blowing in Canberra, an apology to our indigenous population immanent, the debate about what is unAustralian could heat up. ‘Twill be interesting.

Living in Melbourne it can be too easy to take for granted the volume of world class sport that happens in our city. Every January, the city is energised by Grand Prix Tennis; the Australian Open. The whole town gets buzzed by the season … Christmas, Boxing Day Test cricket, New Year, then the tennis. I was fortunate to witness one of the many gripping matches this year as Baghdatis and Safin clashed.

One of the things I enjoy about sport is the ritual that accompanies it. Every sport gathers around it a set of peculiar practices that up and coming players and local clubs adopt without question. I sat in Rod Laver Arena and wondered:

1. What a curious idea that in tennis you help your opponent warm-up. Imagine Carlton and Collingwood playing kick to kick before the first bounce at the MCG. Or imagine Harbhajan bowling to Simons in the nets before the start of play. Hmmmm.

2. What about this idea that the fans watch in absolute silence during play? How about the crowd at a Melbourne Victory soccer match being politely asked to be quiet ahead of a penalty shoot-out?

3. I wonder why Tennis Players bounce the ball before serving?

4. Have you noticed the routine after matches? After post match pleasantries between players and umpired, the winning player walks back onto the court on the other side to where they finished playing and acknowledges the crowd. Hmmm.

Of course there is nothing wrong with convention. Familiar patterns of behaviour develop for good reason and give a sense of security and predictability. The same is true in business. Familiar cultural patterns of behaving help people navigate the unfamiliar territory of a new environment or read proposals from new potential suppliers.

Conventions can be a problem however. When cultural habits lose connection with their intended positive outcomes, yet the expectation to adhere remains, they take the form of repressive law. To question them is to be recalcitrant.

We live in an age where radical innovation is not a nice-to-have, it is a survival imperative. One many levels … the market is changing so rapidly that products and services are in constant flux. Today’s loyal customers can so easily more to competitors. Today’s strangers can be tomorrows customers. The current labour market means that being an employer of choice will become, if not already, an imperative. We need new ideas about how to engage each other commercially. More globally, tinkering at the margins of our energy consumption will not be enough to make the reductions in green house gas emissions that our planet needs for a healthy future.

So, while past and current business habits can serve us well, we need always to be asking why? Why do we do things that way? Why do we use this? What value to does that add? Innovation, the capacity to invent new and better ways of solving (familiar) problems happens when we move from asking why? to why not?

As we move further into 2008, lets open our eyes to the conventions we participate in and ask why? Why? Why? Then lets expand our world by thinking of new ways of being. Why not? Perhaps one day I will be shouting encouragement on Rod Laver Arena during a rally.

You don’t hear as much these days about New Years resolutions. Understandably. Most of the time they express wishful thinking about broad areas of life such as getting fitter or spending less time at work. I wonder though if the problem is not with the idea of New Years resolutions themselves, but in our apparent poor ability to turn the sentiment into reality. It is an impoverished world when we lose our desire to live better.

I recently heard Quentin Jones from Human Synergistics talk about their research into the foundations for high achievement management. Part of his analysis was that effective managers “believe in cause and effect.” To illustrate the point he described the opposite as believing in fate, chance or magic where there is little sense of control or influence over outcomes; we just keep living life as best we can and believe what will happen will happen. Contrary to this, effective managers know if that want ‘B’ then they have to do ‘A’ … and they do it.

Much of the future is determined by events out of our control, the suggestion is not that we can ‘achieve anything we want if we set our minds to it’ … my view is that this axiom denies the role that circumstances do play. What we are talking about here is the alignment of expressed desire and actual behaviour. There are two elements:

1. We appreciate the patterns of behaviour and activity that result in the desired outcome. For example, the salesperson knows that to close one deal, they need to make thirty prospect phonecalls, the IT manager knows that to reduce PC maintenance times they need to upgrade hardware every three years, or the father knows that if he wants to have a good relationship with his teenage kids he needs to eat dinner with his toddlers.

2. We then have to cultivate the disciplines that install the activities and behaviours. This is typically where it all comes unstuck. It is misguided to suggest our failure to achieve our goals springs entirely from the lack of desire. It regularly can be traced to our inability to develop break existing patterns of behaviour. There is extra ordinary comfort in staying with familiar activity and essentially ‘crossing our fingers’ hoping that we get a different outcome.

For example, we take it as a given that we have to have our email inboxes open all day, even when we acknowledge we need to be more focussed.  When we are familiar with avoiding difficult performance conversations, it is frightenly easy to continue to do so, effectively cultivating ongoing frustration, and there is significantly less resitance in getting up at 7am rather than 6am, even though we know the exercise we get in that hour generates more energy than the extra sleep.

So … lets not give up on New Years resolutions. More so, lets figure out what the activities are that will give us the most leverage toward our desired outcomes, and get whatever help we need to install them as daily habits.

If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got.

Laying down in the afternoon for a snooze can be dangerous, at least for me. It works out great if I wake after 20-40 minutes. But anything longer than an hour is a shocker … I wake up feeling extremely ordinary. The world is heavy place until a visit to the bathroom to splash cold water over my face. Even then, it takes a while to feel less nap-lagged.

Early in the new year, I reckon one and half weeks off is a bit like sleeping for an hour in the afternoon. Its long enough to start to be deep into cruise mode, and then comes the world of early rises and mental effort’s unwanted  invasion. Like a power nap, a good weekend regenerates me well. A proper break is like a good night’s sleep … long enough to unwind and regenerate for the next season. We all need them.

 Anyway, here I am, trying to negotiate the world after a week and half’s break … so I ask myself, what is the equivalent of a dowsing of cold water on the face? For me it is ’splashing the neurons’ with some refreshing and stimulating material … the stuff that reconnects me the things that matter most and motibate me to keep doing what I do. So I’ve been reading through TendWatchers predictions for 2008 and an article sent through by a friend from Harvard Business School on developing ‘moral leaders’. Already the phone calls, proposals and conversations on my plate are feeling more attractive …