Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips One of the ultimate compliments at work is, “We’ll do fine without you.” If you want to be indispensable, do a really bad job. It may seem backwards, but we can do without our best employees. Of course, this all depends on the definition we use for “best” and “good.” Our best […]

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by Dwayne Phillips According to some arbitrary scheme, we are in the year two thousand and twenty. Let’s let it be. My eight year old granddaughter told me that it was the year 20 20, “the year of perfect vision.” I can live with that as she is eight years old and was born with […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In addition to hearing the message, pay attention to the meta-message. A few years ago, I wrote here about stop listening—cautiously—and start teaching. This current post regards stop listening to the individual words; pay attention to the meta-message or the message about the message. Someone comes to me with anger. They don’t […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The person asking the questions drives the conversation. Take care when inviting such. “Any questions?” asked many confident, but somewhat ignorant persons. The person asking the questions drives the conversation. “What about the color of the coffee cups?,” asked someone. “Er, but I want to show you our new fill-in-the-blank,” replied the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Time is time. That is all. Equating time with something else is subjective and often prone to error. Person A: We have been considering this for two years. Person B: Sounds like an extremely complex subject to require that much thought. May I see the flow of logic through the myriad options […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The humble light bulb reminds us that we want good things, but “good” changes depending on the person and the purpose. The light bulb is going to save the planet. Perhaps destroy it. I confuse the two sometimes. The incandescent bulb is inefficient. It is if we are considering the amount of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It is often necessary but seldom practiced that a high-ranking person takes the time to tell everyone else what is happening and why. Let’s call this “micro communicating.” Consider what I shall call “micro communicating.” I found this practice, not the term but the practice, many years ago. An executive-level person was […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It is a New Year (as we count time). New is something that has never been here before. New is everywhere, everyday. A few years ago I was on a guided tour of some place unusual. I asked the tour guide what we would be seeing in the next section of the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Yet another reason that writing in a weblog or a paper log is helpful. I find many benefits to writing in a log whether that be in a paper book or in an Internet thing like this one. One benefit is that whatever thought I write is now out of my head. […]

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