by Dwayne Phillips A simple equation provides some insight into how culture must change with the number of people in the group. Years ago, the late author and consultant Jerry Weinberg told me of a little equation he used to note the shifts in culture in groups of people. The equation is 3N. If that […]
Entries from March 2023
Culture and Size
March 30th, 2023 · No Comments
Tags: Adults · Culture · Meetings · Work
Portable and Permanent Possessions
March 27th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips In which I consider one of the more quotable aspects of knowledge. My dad used to tell me that knowledge was the one thing no one could take away from you. A search of the world’s knowledge, a.k.a., Google it for yourself, shows that many famous people are the origin of this […]
Tags: Education · Family · General Systems Thinking · Knowledge · Learning
Emergency Flashers
March 23rd, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Despite what I have noticed the past couple of years, declaring an emergency does not allow us to do whatever we want. I’ve noticed something about folks and those emergency flashers on automobiles. If you turn on your emergency flashers, you can do anything you want. Great things these emergency flashers, huh? […]
Tags: Accountability · Appearances · Emergency · Planning
Problems With (or Without) Solutions
March 20th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We were once told, “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution.” I hope most of us have ignored that. There was a time when I was repeatedly told at work, “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution.” The idea was that bosses had enough to do already and didn’t need […]
Tags: Management · Problems · Solutions
Understanding by Walking Around
March 16th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips It is rare that we can understand something from one and only one perspective. We need to walk around the other sides to gain other perspectives. There is a method of describing something called the DoD Architecture Framework or DoDAF. Sometimes DoDAF is quite useful, but sometimes persons misuse it and … […]
Tags: Communication · Design · Scale · Systems · Thinking · Visibility
Too Simple
March 13th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We tend to want complex things. Too simple shows that we didn’t work hard, right? No, that is usually wrong. It happened again at work this week… Someone wanted a couple of sentences that summarized a project. The project had been running for ten years and is a success. Lots of people […]
Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Simple · Writing
Meta Mistakes
March 9th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Some of the worst mistakes I make are my mistakes about my mistakes and the corrections of my mistakes. Confused? Most of us are. We all make mistakes. Sorry to write that, but it is true. Then we make meta mistakes. These are mistakes about our mistakes and the corrections of our […]
Tags: Accountability · Choose · Excuses · Leadership · Learning · Mistakes · Reaction
Do and Claim, in That Order
March 6th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips There are many endeavors in which it is important to do something before talking about doing it. Have an idea for a book? Great. Don’t pitch the idea to publishers. They will expect you to come back with 90% of the book in hand. Then they will talk to you about you […]
Tags: Concepts · Ideas · Intellectual Property · Resources · Stories · Tools · Work
The Computer is Down
March 2nd, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We seem to be far more tolerant of technical failures. When I was a kid (we played baseball in the streets and things like that), I often heard the excuse, “The computer is down.” That excuse brought all sorts of grievous vexation that excuses usually bring. It was recognized as an excuse […]
Tags: Accountability · Artificial Intelligence · Competence · Computing · Excuses · Technology