Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Let’s review some basics on telling another person about something they do and did that affects me and us.

The basis of this post comes from consultant and writer Esther Derby. Over the years, we’ve discussed this topic, and I have learned much. I hope to pass along some of Esther’s thoughts. We can do better; I certainly can do better.

The out of providing feedback to another person is:

• Create an opening
• Describe the behavior or events
• State the impact
• Make a request

I want to talk with you about something.

Last week’s meeting, last month’s PowerPoint, yesterday’s lunch…

Did you notice how John left in the middle of everything? John is important to this project, yet he was so angry that he left. Without John’s support, this won’t work. Let’s try to make it work.

In the future, let’s meet before the meeting and discuss how John might receive what we are trying to convey.

This isn’t difficult. This isn’t easy; at times it is the most difficult task in the world. Still, it seems to work better than the other things I have done on many disastrous occasions. Let’s all do better—especially me.

by Dwayne Phillips

An old political phrase can be applied to just about any endeavor as a test of how awful bad something is.

Once again, we are in the time every four years in America when we have the seemingly endless campaign for President of the United States.

This year, more than in the past few elections, I read famous people saying things like, “I don’t care who OUR CANDIDATE is, we will do everything we can to defeat THEIR CANDIDATE.”

This hearkens to the phrase of “yellow dog democrat.” That phrase came out of the south after the post-civil war era of reconstruction in which a southerner would vote for an old yellow dog instead of voting for a Republican.

Times change. Parties change. Phrases change, and so on. Still, it seems to me that we are in an era where people vehemently detest THEIR CANDIDATE and will vote for anyone or anything that is OUR CANDIDATE.

Enough political analogies. Let’s talk systems, designs, ideas, concepts and the like. “I’d rather write specs on a bathroom wall than use your design.” I haven’t heard this exact phrase, but I have seen and heard people mean this in however they said it. “I hate your idea so much, I would rather tie a note to an old yellow dog’s neck and have it delivered that way.”

Okay. Tough situation. Stop. Breathe. Let’s talk. Let’s talk candidly. Let’s try to avoid venom in our talk, but let’s talk.

“Tell me openly. Do you hate my idea? Okay, keep talking to me. Tell about your dislike. What are you feeling? What brings about the hatred? What are you thinking? What are you fearing?”

The questions are endless, but are necessary. Talk. Bring hidden ideas to the surface. Why is it that my idea is so abominable to you that anything else is preferred? Teach me.

Let’s do better. We don’t need to build old yellow dog systems.

by Dwayne Phillips

When someone is quite specific in what they convey, they often mean the opposite.

“I will inject some humor here,” often means that nothing funny will be said.

“I don’t care about the money,” often means that I really do care about the money coming my way.

“We are transparent here,” often means that of course there are things happening that we don’t tell everyone.

For some reason, we tend to overstate or overcompensate for something that is important to us. That’s just something we do. We are an odd lot.

by Dwayne Phillips

I am happy to learn that embarrassment still exists. We still aspire.

I recently read an article about how people are not asking Siri and the like questions in public by voice. They type the questions instead of saying them aloud. They are a bit embarrassed to let other people hear their questions.

Wonderful. Great news. I am encouraged. Embarrassment still exists!

We still aspire. We still want to do better. We still don’t want to admit our silly little mistakes that plague us. Let’s move upwards (wherever upwards is, but it isn’t here).

I find embarrassment to be a good quality. It is humble. It says, “I can do much better than this.” Let’s do much better than this.

by Dwayne Phillips

Let’s stop hyperventilating about this and that AI thing. The marketplace will decide and with more wisdom than myself.

I just read yet another article about yet another artificial super-duper large language model.

How can a model of something be larger than the something? Isn’t a model a smaller representation of something? I digress again to the English language. I must stop doing that.

Back to the subject, this brand new model was “hallucinating.” It was creating images of people with three arms and four knees and two fingers and all sorts of things that didn’t make sense. Like we used to say, “It was full of errors caused by the people who built it.”

We don’t like to say “errors” much anymore. We don’t like to attribute these errors to the people who built something much anymore. Hmm. I guess that says something about us.

Back to the subject, someone built a bad product that is full of errors. Remember the Yugo car? Remember Ken Burns’ documentary on baseball? Just two examples of products full of errors. The marketplace rejected them (eventually).

The marketplace will reject these AI things that are full of errors. Maybe someone will build an AI thing that doesn’t have (as many) errors. We know that anything built by people will have errors in it because, well, us folks are error prone. Sorry about that. If we could just build a machine that builds machines then those machine-built machines won’t have errors in them because they weren’t built by error-prone people. Sorry. People are in the chain of events somewhere.

I suppose there is value in someone writing an article that scoffs at a product that is full of errors. Perhaps that speeds the marketplace’s rejection of the product. Perhaps not as, “there is no bad publicity” or something.

The marketplace will reject the error-filled product. Let’s try to reduce the number of errors. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

We often have the experts looking up at someone atop the pyramid who simply doesn’t know much of what they are saying.

There is supposed to be an expertise pyramid. The lone person atop the pyramid has more expertise than all those below. That is how the person reached the top of the pyramid—their greater expertise.

The editor at (name a famous newspaper) is the smartest person at the newspaper. They have the experience, expertise, and perspective that is above everyone else at the newspaper. Since they work at the newspaper, they have greater expertise than everyone else in the community. That is how it works, right?

Increasingly, I see it upside down. The famous newspaper prints articles that are just plain silly. Someone who failed middle school science can see the logical flaws in the newspaper stories.

Another example was from a few years ago when the chief building designer for a large school district was corrected by the parent of a kindergarten student. The correcting parent was chief building designer for a multi-billion dollar international company. That company wouldn’t hire the school district’s building designer because the school district’s employee wasn’t competent enough.

The parent was rightly correcting the school district’s chief building designer. Hmm. There is that upside down pyramid again.

Perhaps I am told old for all of this. Perhaps I know too much or know more than I know I know (does that make sense?). Perhaps we have different pyramids these days or something like that.

by Dwayne Phillips

Show it, break it, fix it, make it better.

My two older grandchildren were at my house recently. They are both teenagers now. The older was showing the younger a game that the older programmed. The younger tried an example that broke the game.

Angst, frustration, embarrassment, etc. Then the older set about fixing the mistakes (plural). Eventually, it was fixed. It was better than before.

Break it and fix it. Learn to solve problems. Learn to make something a little better than it was. That could lead to a better world one day. Perhaps this is a bit naive, but perhaps not. Learning to do better is a pretty good habit.

by Dwayne Phillips

For those who have the resources to choose the problems for those who can solve them, please, choose wisely.

Smart scientists, engineers, and problem solvers abound. Well, maybe not abound, but given the population of the earth, there are millions of these folks.

What problems are they trying to solve? Rocket engines? Micro-sized medical devices? Augmented reality that greatly improves a surgeon’s opportunity to perform surgery? How about making yet another cute smiley face?

Smiley face? Yes, cute, but how much does that help all of us?

There are folks out there with piles of money. They are the ones who choose the problems that these smart problem solvers solve. If you are one of these problem-choosing folks, please choose better than yet another smile face. Finance things that are more important than a way to choose the cutest fill-in-the-blank.

Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Let not check a communications channel using that same communications channel. It is pretty silly to do so.

Since the great pandemic of the early 2020s, I have been part of countless ZoomerTeams meetings. Almost every one starts with, “Can everyone hear me?”

Let’s pause and think. If a participant cannot hear the person asking the question, how would they be able to respond?

Another example from many years ago. At a school meeting of parents, the speaker said (in English), “If you speak Spanish but not English, sit over here as we have a Spanish-speaking translator available.” Silly. How would a Spanish-speaking person understand… need I continue?

Check a communications channel with another communications channel. In the ZoomerTeams meeting, show a slide that reads something like, “I am now speaking. If you can hear me speaking, say so in the chat channel.”

If you have a message for Spanish speakers, send it in Spanish, not English.

I could go on with the silly examples and all too obvious ways to check communications channels. Lets do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Once again, America is still here. I guess the Peter Principle explains our situation as the founders seemed to understand that.

Once again we come to the anniversary of the founding of this grand experiment we call America. This is an election year, and those of who who can still think have thoughts of dread at who will be our elected representatives come January of 2025.

Still, we seem to get by pretty well. Given all those folks who want to sneak into America from other places, we must be doing better than those other places.

The Peter Principle states something about folks rising to their level of incompetence and then making a mess of things. We get by, say the explainers of the principle, because there are enough people in the system who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. They are wildly competent and do great jobs.

The founders of America must have known something about the principle as they created a system of government that has a lot of people working here and there. With so many people working in so many places, there are plenty of folks who are still wildly competent.

Oh, another note about the founders and our system of government. Our current system is the second try at a central government. The founders first try at a central government failed miserably. Remember the Articles of Confederation? Not many people do. It is also unfortunate that not many people remember the US Constitution. Still, there are enough who do to keep this thing humming along.

So, happy birthday America. Let’s cruise through this year’s elections with the satisfaction of knowing that there are so many elected representatives than many are still wildly competent, and those representatives represent a group of folks where the majority are still wildly competent as well.