Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Whatever the era, we have our phrases that indicate convenience. And we crave convenience.

When I was a kid, way back in the 60s of the 20th century, my family took long trips in the car. The “worst thing in the world” was to be driving a curvy, two-lane road. You would always find yourself behind a truck that had to drive slowly to navigate the twists and turns. Gosh.

The four-lane Interstate highways were wonderful. You could pass the truck and be on your way merrily driving at the speed limit instead of 10 mph less. The one phrase that we smiled with joy was, “It’s Interstate all the way.” That meant speed. That meant less time in the car.

That meant convenience.

Today, it’s (almost) always Interstate all the way. So what?

Yet, today, we still crave convenience. We have new phrases that replace the one about Interstate highways. Examples:

• We are on Facebook.
• We are on Twitter.
• We have an app for that.
• You can do that online.

Ah, convenience, the solution to everything, or is it?

by Dwayne Phillips

“They are against us” can be prevented.

They want to take away our right to…

They are coming to get us.

They are going to tax us.

They are going to do all sorts of harm to us.

Whatever the issue, whatever the time, whatever the place, we tend to find ourselves worrying about what “they” are doing. There is a practice that prevents they from doing their dastardly deeds:

Be part of “they”

What? Yes, join their organization. Go to their meetings. Live with them.

When one of them suggest something that will meet with the disapproval of us, you will be present to object. You will be present to explain how us might view what they are considering. You will be the person representing both us and them.

Try it.

by Dwayne Phillips

To work with other persons, establish trust. One technique is to go to their place and show a genuine interest in them as a person.

Someone asked me recently about how I would influence other people in an inter-department project. My reply was:

establish trust

Of course, the next question was, “How?” The answer to that was a bit longer, but the essence is:

go to their place

Here is the “secret.” I meet personally with a person who I want to influence. I meet them in their place – their office, their lab, their workbench, their warehouse. They are comfortable in their place. I sit and relax (in order to relax in foreign surroundings, you have to be comfortable with yourself, but that is the topic of another blog post one day). I look around their place and ask them about what their things.

Questions like:

• Who is in that photo?
• What is that cabin in that photo?
• Where did you get that pen and notebook?

Not very exciting, is it?

I try to establish that I am just another person like they are just another person. We are put into a working situation and are paid to do something good for the greater organization.

So, what do we do? We can,

1. Act like spoiled brats and fight
2. Act like normal persons and work together

I like number 2. Most persons do. Most persons will when they decide that I am just another person, just like them.

by Dwayne Phillips

A review of remedial communication: if you don’t have the explanation and data about something, don’t mention it.

I am embarrassed to write about this, but I feel compelled as I see mature people tripping over this often.

Way back in high school (it was the 1970s), us young, impressionable, and not-so-bright science students were making presentations in class. After we read our paper, we were to answer questions from the class. Several times, the presenter had no  answer for the question.

This brought the science teacher to teach us about presentations:

If you can’t answer a question about something, don’t have that something in your presentation.

One of the points is that people will ask you about (what you consider to be) the least important aspect of your presentation. You will be standing there mumbling and looking stupid and unprepared.

Fast forward to today. I have encountered several groups of smart, mature adults making presentations. I am in the room to advise them on their presentations. I ask questions like, “Can I see that data?” The presenters make excuses about the data behind their presentation. In other words, they don’t really know what they are presenting. It is a big phoney show and tell.

Gosh, how embarrassing. What’s more, the presenter loses all credibility with the audience. They had something important, but tripping over the least important thing ruined their chances at communicating the important items.

If you don’t have it, don’t mention it.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes a fiasco provides an excellent learning opportunity as we can study the group dynamics that led smart people to a stupid place. Then again, the fiasco may just be yet another example of stupidity.

“That’s fascinating!” That may be a nice way of saying, “How could a group of such smart people do such a stupid thing?”

Groups of smart people do stupid things. Some people call that “groupthink.” I call it “negative synergy.” Other people call it “all of us are dumber than some of us.”

People have studied these situations. Sometimes the results are fascinating in how a little pressure here and there (sometimes real, often imagined) led people to err in this way and that. The lessons are available for all groups in the future.

Then again, most of the situations lead me to ask, “How could a group of smart, mature people do such a stupid thing?”

“Well,” the answer usually begins, “you have to understand …”

No, I don’t have to understand. You knew about group dynamics; you knew about groupthink, and you knew about all those other things as well. You did something stupid. Stop it.

by Dwayne Phillips

My technique for accomplishing a lot of tasks in a day or any arbitrary period of time.

It was more than 30 years ago, (yes, I am that old), I was someplace a long ways from here. I was standing at the entrance to a storeroom. Metal shelves lined the walls of the storeroom. The shelves were empty; the floor was full of stuff. (I didn’t ask why the room was arranged opposite of what it should be.)

My task: clean and organize the storeroom.

1. I lifted one thing from the floor and put it on a shelf.
2. I lifted another thing from the floor and put it on a shelf.

I repeated the above steps until the floor was clear. I looked at my watch – one hour had expired. One hour?!? That was supposed to be a three-day job.

In the years since that day, I have cleaned and organized several storerooms.

In the years since that day, I have written half a dozen books, over a hundred articles, and about 70 short stories. Funny, I use the same procedure for all of the above.

Here is my secret for accomplishing tasks:

1. Make a list of tasks to do.
2. Do the first task.
3. Do the next task.
4. Repeat until all tasks on the list are accomplished.

That is it. It seems like there should be more to it than that. I mean, there should be something in there about priorities and life goals and such, stuff that sounds important and significant. Sorry. That is all I have.

One thing I have observed in many people who have tasks to accomplish, but never accomplish them.

People often spend more time talking about their tasks than it takes to accomplish them.

by Dwayne Phillips

I spend a productive day at a co-work location.

A few weeks ago I spent a day at a c0-work location – WeSpace in Reston, Virginia.

I had read about co-work locations for a few years and knew that one existed in my town.  Since I am currently unemployed, why not try one? For $30 I had access to a chair and table in WeSpace as well as their WiFi Internet access and their water fountain.

Two notes:

• I enjoyed the day
• I accomplished a lot

I wrote a couple thousand words on a new series of short stories as well as edited half a dozen job descriptions for a local community group. That was a lot for one day.

What I did there that was better than being at home:

I didn’t goof off as much.

There was no couch for a nap, so I didn’t take a nap in the afternoon.

Was it worth the $30? Yes, the education value alone was worth the cost. I learned how much I could accomplish in a day if I didn’t take a nap or scroll through the cable TV channels to see what was coming on that night.

Will I do it again? Probably.

One more thing, the people at WeSpace were polite and welcoming. Far more polite than any people in any “regular” office I have ever worked. What’s the deal with that? Why aren’t people in regular offices so polite?

by Dwayne Phillips

I often have to wrap my head with duct tape to block it from exploding if I don’t write fast enough. Is that writer’s block?

I often read about writer’s block and how to prevent writer’s block and work around writer’s block and such. I am not sure what those writers mean about writer’s block. This is what I experience:

Something is in my brain. If I don’t write about it immediately my head will explode. Hence, I wrap my head in duct tape to block it from exploding.

Is that writer’s block? Using duct tape to block my head from exploding when I can’t write fast enough?

P.S. – I write this in jest, but I had to write it right now because I didn’t have any duct tape on hand to keep my head from exploding.

by Dwayne Phillips

When writing management tips, I always try to apply the “Oh Yeah?” test.

I sometimes write about management and how to manage better. One things I try to apply at the end of such writing is the “Oh Yeah?” test. In applying this test, I ask myself something like,

Oh yeah? Really, smart guy? If this works so well why isn’t everyone in the world using it and why isn’t the world spinning on its axis so much better than it is now?

I then try to explain why such wonderful techniques don’t always, or is it usually or it is never, work. Of course, I can apply the “Oh Yeah?” test to this little bit of advice.

Oh yeah? Really, smart guy? If the “Oh Yeah?” test works so well, why don’t millions of people read your management tips and follow them?

Rats. I don’t always have good answers to the “Oh Yeah?” test. Still, it is a pretty good test.

Answer the critics before they ask.

by Dwayne Phillips

I have met managers who acted as though electrons, concrete, steel, wood, and other things could hear them screaming, “Work Right!” I never quite understood that, but the idea seems popular.

I have overseen and managed many projects in the last few decades. Back in the mid-1980s (yes, I am that old), I was overseeing a set of tests for a computer-controlled system. We had a detailed test procedure that we executed one keystroke at a time. As is common with software tests, some of the tests failed in that the system did not do what it was supposed to do, i.e., the software failed.

When we hit a failure, I would turn to see the programmers standing several feet away and backing further away. Where were they going?

Finally, one of them told me, “You don’t act like the guy who has this job before you?”

I inquired to the meaning of that.

“The other guy would yell and scream when a test failed,” he explained.

It was as if the electrons on the disk would go in the desired direction in response to the yelling. Hmmm, electrons can’t hear, or at least that is what I always thought.

I have seen people also yell at concrete, steel, wood, fabric, and other materials as if those materials could hear them. Hmmm, I’ve never seen those materials react.

Let me emphasize something: this is not a theory.

This is my experience. If had seen electrons respond in a desired manner if I screamed, I would scream a lot. Since they never seem to react, I don’t scream.

Am I missing something here?