by Dwayne Phillips Most “Emergency Operations Centers” function to show that the emergency operations center has electricity. Does that describe yours? A recent serious weather event caused me to interact with an Emergency Operations Center or EOC. The website for that place proclaimed quite proudly how it was built to withstand such serious weather events. […]
Entries Tagged as 'Accountability'
Emergency Operations Centers
October 25th, 2021 · No Comments
Tags: Accountability · Communication · Emergency · Purpose · Systems
The Government
August 23rd, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I guess we will never stop putting individuals into a group and attributing the actions of some individuals to an entire group. Hence, we discuss “the government.” I have been a citizen of the United States since birth. I was an employee of the United States Federal government for 28 years. The […]
Tags: Accountability · Communication · Government · Journal
Of Course They were doing That
July 15th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We sometimes are surprised at what some persons will do. We shouldn’t be. A recent story reminds us of an oft-repeated story: people will do that. Yes, even that. The recent story is about how some persons working at Facebook used their inside administrative privileges to “spy” on other persons. There were […]
Tags: Accountability · Excuses · Leadership · Management · Privacy · Respect
Where is the Floor?
July 1st, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Half the persons in any profession are below average. At what point is a person not allowed in the profession? Where is the floor? Half of all teachers are below average. Half of all interior painters are below average. Fill in the blank for whatever job there is. Okay, we know that. […]
Tags: Accountability · Competence · Systems · Work
Many Volunteers = High Expense
February 11th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips When many volunteers arrive, the expense shoots up. Are we prepared for this? Volunteers are great! All those fine people arriving and willing to work for no pay. Well, not exactly. A person’s time is worth money. A person’s time is worth other things. When a person volunteers, they are spending their […]
Tags: Accountability · Expertise · Management · Money · Volunteer
Our Mistakes
January 18th, 2021 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Our mistakes put us in this situation, a tree didn’t fall on us. “How did we get here? What happened?” Simple, we decided to do this and that and some other thing, and we were mistaken. No one made us do what we did. We chose on our own. So, here we […]
Tags: Accountability · Choose · Mistakes · Risk
Expanding Work
September 24th, 2020 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips In which professionals show Parkinson how to make some real dough. Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. It is sometimes applied to the growth of bureaucracy in an organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law When work is slow, it expands. That is, the workers […]
Tags: Accountability · Management · Work
Find the Opportunity
June 18th, 2020 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Just as every event provides a learning, every event provides an opportunity. The choice to see and seize it is ours. The times are a troubling. What’s new? Everything is new; nothing is new. The times present us with the choice to shrug or to learn. We are paying the tuition by […]
Tags: Accountability · Choose · Humility · Leadership · Learning · Notice · Observation
Work and Convenience
April 16th, 2020 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we don’t do some things at work merely because they are inconvenient. “I don’t want to do such-and-such,” said busy, hardworking person at work. “It is inconvenient to me,” thought the same person but didn’t say it aloud. Work can be fun and rewarding or as some have said, “Pleasant, productive, […]
Tags: Accountability · Work
Sipping from a Fire Hose (or We are too Lazy to do Our Jobs)
April 6th, 2020 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips The new boss arrives. Everyone tells her what they are doing all at once in great detail. The new boss is “sipping from the fire hose.” I heard this “sipping from the fire hose” phrase a thousand times in my career. The new boss arrives. She is inundated with details during the […]
Tags: Accountability · Clarity · Work