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Entries Tagged as 'Humility'

Fly Under the Radar for a While

April 18th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Keep your earth-shattering new thing quiet for a while. Once it works, shout. This is basic risk management. Something has never been done before. That means it is difficult. I have a solution. I can do it or I think I can do it. The best practice, in my experience of doing […]

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Tags: Humility · Management · Process · Risk · Work

Inability

January 1st, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we meet someone who lacks the ability to do something. How do we react? As I write this post, I am having one of those weeks when I have the inability to do something simple. For some reason, I woke one day this week with a sore left knee. The next […]

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Tags: Competence · Help · Humility · Injury · Judgment · Patience · Thank you

Accelerate the Learning

October 19th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Learning is good as it leads to better performance and other beneficial things. There are tools available that accelerate learning. Let’s use those. I try to learn. Sometimes I forget to learn. Yes, fatigue clobbers my mind and I simply forget to notice things, store them, and use them. There are tools […]

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Tags: Competence · Energy · Fatigue · Growth · Humility · Improvement · Learning · Thinking · Tools

Engineers and Philosophers

October 5th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is often best to leave the conversations of another profession to those other professionals. I am an engineer. There, got that out of the way. And I have a Doctor of Philosophy or PhD in engineering. I have not idea why they call the degree by that name. Oh well, got […]

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Tags: Communication · Engineering · Expertise · Humility · Language

Take Pride in the Ability to Learn

September 25th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Learning is a good thing. There are things I can do to prevent learning. Those are not so good. I don’t know it all. I do know how to learn. I do know how to recognize that I am clueless and I need to learn. Pride in knowing it all keeps me […]

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Tags: Adapting · Change · Humility · Learning

The Screen Still Isn’t Big Enough

August 14th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We seem to think that everything will be on the screen and we don’t need to use pieces of paper. Years ago, we didn’t have the computers we have today. How many years ago? Twenty? Ten? Two? Years ago, some of us would take great pains to put lots of information on […]

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Tags: Clarity · Humility · Information · Knowledge · Notebook · Technology

Work a Little, Learn a Little

August 3rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If we work a little, learn a little, and repeat, we can do some pretty impressive things. We don’t, however, like to do this “little” thing. Let’s work a little, talk about what we did, learn a little, and try again. That reduces the misunderstandings. That keeps us from wasting resources by […]

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Tags: Agility · Humility · Learning · People · Work

Whose Words?

May 1st, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is important to remember whose words we are discussing. If you mentioned something, we are discussing your words. If I mentioned something, we are discussing my words. There are ways to back away from our words. I read the words from the PowerPoint. They were wrong. Simply wrong. 1 + 2 […]

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Tags: Accountability · Communication · Humility · Learning · Meetings · Mistakes

Words and Distant Lands

February 27th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips People in distant lands use the same words differently. Time and generations create distant lands. I was fascinated by this story about younger folks putting things on TikTok et al. Then older folks who admit people to college and hire them for jobs noticed those things. The younger folks spoke in the […]

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Tags: Communication · Conversation · Culture · Humility · Language · Time

Sometimes I Don’t Take the Podium

February 6th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I like to speak in front of audiences. I like to take the podium and talk. Sometimes, however, I don’t take the podium. Sometimes, I need another person to stand in the way and say, “No, not today.” I recently attended a memorial service for someone who died. Close family members stood […]

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Tags: Breathe · Clarity · Decide · Fatigue · Health · Honesty · Humility · Permission