Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Our central government continues to call for technical talent while not changing the culture of the workplace. Some still believe in fairy tales.

The past President spent two terms asking for tech talent from places and industries that had tech talent to come to Washington D.C. and the Federal workplace. The current President continues the same call.

“Come here and serve your country!”

Side Note: there will be no changes in the culture of the Federal workplace. Don’t worry, you’ll adapt to it.

Second Side Note: Fairies will visit nightly and sprinkle fairy dust here and there to sweeten the deal.

One More Side Note: There are no fairies. There is no fairy dust. Fairy tales are fairy tales, not reality.

Typical Federal Government Decision: Should we perform a one-person-hour task? Let’s hold series of meetings that consume 100 person-hours to decide. That way the decision will be spread over a large group of persons and no one will be held responsible.

And some wonder why young, bright, talented persons with technical skills are not coming to the Federal workplace.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the best thing to do is practice once or twice. The object of the exercise is not good performance; it is learning.

The “dry run” is a term that comes from the performing arts. It is basically a rehearsal. Practice the thing a few times. Simple enough.

What we tend to confuse in the dry run is the objective. We often aim to have a high-quality or good performance. Instead, we should aim to learn.

There is a difference in how we conduct the dry run when we change the objective to learning. First, the practice audience is NOT present to learn the faults of the practice-ers. They are present to find a lack in quality in various places so that the practice-ers learn. Some audience members may be present to find learnings in presentation while others may be searching for learnings in technical correctness, etc.

Second, the presenters are present to present, present, and continue to present. No “time outs” for reflection and readjustment. Learnings will come later when the practice audience provides their impressions of the dry run.

Finally, the overall object of the dry run is to aid learning so the entire group can improve the quality of the product. This is not an exercise in grading individual presenters.

The “grade” given the dry run is proportional to the amount learned. If much is learned, the dry run was a big success. If little was learned, the dry run was a mild success. If nothing was learned, the dry run was a waste of resources and should not have occurred.

This last point goes against much of what we normally do at work. “Hey, you guys did GREAT,” means the dry run was a wasteful failure.

“We have much to improve,” means the dry run was a great use of resources and a big success.

Is your organization ready for this? A dry run won’t work if you aren’t ready.

by Dwayne Phillips

For some reasons, large portions of the population believe that the person who speaks last wins the argument.

He had the last word. That settles it.

Does it really? Does the last person who says anything pronounce the conclusion?

“Water freezes at 33 degrees F.” I can shout that over and over and over and always be the last person to speak. Does that make it true? Am I right?

No, and no. But I did have the last word.

When encountering persons who believe such, I let them have the last word. Otherwise I would still be talking with them and not sitting here writing this.

When I decide to let the other have the last word, it must literally be the last word. When they proclaim once again what temperature freezes water, I have to say nothing. Not even, “Yes,” and not even a nod.

Sometimes it is difficult to let the other person have the last word and end the conversation. They demand some sort of, “I agree with you.” Silence brings the reply, “Silence means agreement.” (I think I have written about that fallacy as well.)

Life with the I-must-have-the-last-word person isn’t always easy. Working with such a person can downright agonizing.

Solutions? As always, be honest and open. Tell people, “The last word is not always the conclusion.” And then allow others to continue speaking.

by Dwayne Phillips

Nothing new here. Lack of planning still brings emergency responses and all sort of bad reactions.

I suppose we have to be reminded of this from time to time. There are various ways to say it like:

Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part

or

Your lack of planning is not my emergency

or, being blunt

Get your act together and stop bothering me

Sigh. Such are some of the things we encounter when working with others. Somewhere out there lurk monsters. Many of these monsters are small babies. Those small babies are growing while we aren’t watching. When we—or one of our colleagues—least expect it, out pounces the monster, and we have an emergency.

The key word in “we have an emergency” is “we.” Yes, we are in this together. We agreed to that when we stopped being me and started being we.

Aargh. I’m tired of “we.” I am returning to “me.” Maybe that is possible. Maybe that is understandable. Maybe it isn’t. I suppose I have to decide.

Have I planned for that decision or is it to be an emergency for someone else?

by Dwayne Phillips

Those who are supposed to do what I say are revolting. Rejoice. I have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

When I was 21, I was clueless at work. I had no idea what I was doing or was supposed to do when I walked in the building in the morning. These older folks were there. They knew what they were doing. They understood things that I didn’t know existed. Please, tell me what to do.

When I was 41, I was an expert. And that isn’t being arrogant. I had written several books and spoken at several conferences and I did know what I was doing.

Leaders had led me and taught me and—most importantly—taught me to learn constantly. They had pulled, pushed, twisted, and every-other-thing they could do to move me from the minion phase to the expert phase and … revolt.

Are your minions revolting? Congratulations. You’ve done your job and done it well.

by Dwayne Phillips

Hushed voices in the workplace and what they tell us about our workplace.

It happens around me—too often. Several persons near me in the great cubicle farm are talking in a “normal tone of voice.” Then the tone changes. They voices become hushed—almost whispers.

My “colleagues” have something to say and they don’t want me to hear it.

Sometimes there are personal, private conversations. Find the appropriate time and place for them.

The rest of the time? Sigh. What can we say about my workplace? Some persons don’t trust some other persons. Persons want to say something about other persons and don’t want the others to hear them. Persons are afraid what others will think of them when they hear what…

Speculation runs rampant. Trust? Transparency? Those are things for consultants to tout and use as sales points for their services. This is REALITY folks! People are afraid!

Let the boss know about this? No. Speak softly. The boss shouldn’t hear this. We don’t really want the boss to know what we think. Write a note on a scrap of paper and pass it under the table like we did in high school.

Like we did in high school? Like we did when we were in third grade?

Sigh.

Am I the boss? Am I the manager? Does this happen in my workplace? What am I doing to encourage this?

by Dwayne Phillips

Don’t like micro managers? Who does? Beware, however, the built-in excuses of the hands-off manager.

“I give you a task. I expect it to be done.”—the charge of the hands-off manager.

Who wouldn’t want to work for the person above? Freedom to use my own judgement and do what I think is right. Wow!

Beware, however, the built-in excuses contained in the above. Remember the conversation between Alice and the Chesire Cat (Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland):

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Something from Somewhere may arise. Now the hands-off manager can exclaim, “What is this? What did you do? This is wrong? You have gone down the wrong path to the wrong Somewhere.”

When the hands-off manager gives a task without any details and “expects” it to be done, that manager is saying “I don’t much care where I want to get to. But I reserve the right to proclaim any destination as incorrect.”

Once the wrong destination arrives, the hands-off manager proclaims, “I expected you to do this right. I don’t have the time to manage this. You’re supposed to do this.”

The hands-off manager is assuming the role of Alice. The way to go is unknown, but the manager can judge the destination in any way on any day.

Don’t want to fall into this trap? Ask questions. Pull answers—in writing if possible. Don’t like to do this? Try to find another manager.

by Dwayne Phillips

Past sins? Past poor performance? That is good news. It means we correct mistakes and do better. We have hope for our future.

Good News:

• When we fixed things, we broke things
• When we changed things, we had unintended, bad consequences.
• We wasted money.
• We wasted time.
• We treated on another badly.
• We incarcerated the wrong persons.
• We seated some persons in the back of the bus.
• We only allowed some persons to vote.

This list could continue. This list started with a few local things that some of us did on projects at work. This listed ventured into a few things that we did as a nation and a culture.

Notice the past tense of the verbs. These things happened in the past. WE DID THESE THINGS in the PAST. Somewhere in time, we corrected these things. WE CORRECTED OURSELVES.

We showed the capacity to recognize and correct our mistakes. We still have that capacity. Hence, we have hope for our future.

by Dwayne Phillips

A reminder of some basics about life in America.

We have freedom of speech in America. Anyone can publish a newspaper or a blog or a … well, how long is the list?

This is a free country.

Want peace and quiet and tranquility? Want unanimous public opinion without fake news and hate speech? Go to … it is difficult to make the list without forgetting someone, but let’s start: China, Cuba, North Korea.

“Of course I’m not advocating removal of free speech and such…” Good. Don’t say another word. Well, of course you can say more, but think. If we regulate speech, we have to decide who “we” and “they” are and we may not like who “we” choose to label as “they.”

by Dwayne Phillips

If you want people to focus on the focal point, discuss nonsense first.

Rubbing spaghetti Play-Doh on a surfboard means nothing to no one. (At least I think it means nothing to no one. If someone out there has a strong feeling about it, please let me know.) It is the perfect topic for discussion in a class setting when something else is the thing we want to convey.

Two examples:

(1) I was attending a class on project management. We did a four-hour class exercise. The goal of the exercise was to demonstrate synergy, i.e., how groups of persons had better answers than any one person. At the end of the exercise the numbers clearly showed the point. No one, however, got the point. We—a group of project managers—were all discussing the project management questions and when the answers were right and wrong.

The topic used to show the point was close to us. We argued endlessly about it.

(2) I was attending a class on innovation. We did a two-hour exercise. The goal of the exercise was…well, I never did understand the goal of the exercise. The topic of the exercise was intelligence analysis. The class was full of professional intelligence analyst. Four hours after the two-hour exercise ended, the intelligence analysts were still arguing about the rights and wrongs of intelligence analysis. None of them got the point, and their arguing prevented the rest of us from getting the point as well.

The topic used to show the point was close to most of us. Most of us argued endlessly about it.

Teaching a class? Facilitating some sort of learning session? Have a point to make? Have a discussion to illustrate the point? Discuss nonsense. It will be easier for everyone to grasp the point.