Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We work in the real world; not in one where what we wish is true. Sometimes we simply need to teach a little.

A: I told these people what to do…and AARGH (pained expression interrupts speech).

B: How did you teach them how to do that?

A: What? What do you mean?

B: That task. Before you told them to do that task, how did you teach them how to do it?

A: Teach? What?

B: You know. They didn’t know how to do what you wanted, so you taught them how before you told them to do it, right?

A: Teach? What?

B: Let me try again. These people didn’t know how to do what you wanted. You taught them how to do it. How did you teach them how to do it?

A: Teach? What? I’m not a teacher.

B: (a least we are making some progress) So you assumed that they knew how to do that task?

A: Assumed? What? Teach? What?

B: You told me last week that your organization did unique things, things no one else could do, that is why you are a leader in the market or something.

A: Right. We are.

B: Well, if what you do is unique, your colleagues couldn’t learn it anywhere else or from anyone except you. Right?

A: silence.

B: They couldn’t learn it in college or elsewhere. So, you have to teach them before they can do it. Right?

A: Teach? What? Of course they know how to do this. They must have learned this somewhere.

B: What did you see or hear to convince you that they already knew how to do this task?

A: See? Hear? Teach? Look, people need to know some stuff to get by here.

B: Yes. I agree. So, what teaching methods did you employ to teach them so they would know some stuff?

A: Teach? What?

B: Who taught you how to teach? Who taught you how to supervise?

A: No one. I just knew.

B: Perhaps that explains the current situation. Perhaps we can start this conversation again.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we recognize our failures. Then—for some strange reason—we attempt something that will fail an order of magnitude more.

• We have failed to manage our $1 maintenance budget. Let’s correct this by starting a $10 development budget.
• We have failed to communicate in daily operations. Let’s correct this by starting a large project that requires excellent communication.
• I have failed at managing my home. I’ll correct this by becoming a manager at work so I will make more money and can hire a home manager.

Hmmm, realization of failure, followed by uh, well, er something that requires a correction that is much bigger than our past failure. That makes sense. Right?

Wrong.

Learn to walk before trying to run. But that is slow, and I am ready or maybe I am just impatient. The future won’t wait for me to learn to walk, will it? Tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.

Perhaps the path to learning is to learn our own shortcomings and the necessity of time.

by Dwayne Phillips

A reminder of a basic from systems engineering. There are several baselines we use most of the time regardless of intent or realization.

I once worked in an organization that (1) flew machines and (2) practiced systems engineering. One of the favorite phrases of persons there is the title of this post: eye’n fly’n and buy’n.

That quaint phrase was a folksy statement of basic baselines.

fly’n: this is the operational baseline. It describes what we are doing now. If someone steals our laptop or our dropped smartphone breaks into a thousand pieces, we can push a button and be back at work.

buy’n: this is the development baselines. It describes what we are building now. In a few days or years, we will deploy this and it will become the operational baseline.

eye’n: this is the requirements or design baseline (depends on how far into the future we peer). One day, what we do now and what we build now will be outdated. What will we do on that day?

There is more to this baseline concept than three abbreviated and rhyming words, but for the basics, this is sufficient.

by Dwayne Phillips

Another person who had a major influence in my life has passed away.

Author and consultant Jerry Weinberg passed away recently. I had the privilege of reading a dozen or so books written by Jerry. I had the privilege of attending several seminars Jerry led. I learned much from Jerry.

Jerry learned me how to be smarter and happier.

Those words are correct. Jerry didn’t teach; Jerry created situations where others learned. The learning stuck much better than any teaching.

I learned how to be smarter and happier. I suppose the better way to write that is I learned how to learn from just about any situation. I didn’t choose all the situations in life, but I could choose to learn from them.

I wrote a book or two and a bunch of other things after meeting Jerry Weinberg. Perhaps others will learn something by being around me and will be smarter and happier.

by Dwayne Phillips

It is such a good favor when someone shows me one of my mistakes.

I recently taught a class where the group walked through a series of instructions I had written. A stroke of brilliance—I rarely claim that, but in this case I do—came to me. I had a half dozen one-dollar bills with me. I started a quick bug-hunting program.

“If you find an error in what I wrote, I will give you a dollar.” The group found five or six over a two-day period.

It would have taken me many days to find those errors. I claim that as several persons and myself had reviewed the material and found all the errors prior to the class (boy, were we wrong).

I am not always happy when someone shows me one of my mistakes. There, I confessed.

I should be happy when someone shows me one of my mistakes. I should strive to run these bug-hunting exercises more often. A few dollar bills is an amazingly cheap way to improve my products.

by Dwayne Phillips

Brevity and clarity are apt companions.

The trouble is, they aren’t frequent companions.

by Dwayne Phillips

Change can be a nuisance—even change that leads to “better” things.

Stuck in traffic. Hate it. And I have to stay further behind some annoying vehicles for fear of having a rock crack my windshield.

Dump trucks. Everywhere I drove this week there were dump trucks. Up and down the roads. They are heavy; they stop slowly, start slowly, and drive slowly. Why can’t they just go away?

Prosperity Vehicles: Dump trucks are prosperity vehicles. They enter and exit construction sites. Construction sites indicate new houses, new businesses, new jobs, new income, new opportunity. Prosperity. Dump trucks are leading indicators of prosperity.

Why is it that I hate to see prosperity coming? Well, I want prosperity, but I don’t like those things that have to be done before prosperity; those messy things that annoy me and slow my life and cause me to grumble and all those things.

Change can be a nuisance. The agents of change can be annoying. This is true even for, and especially for, change that leads to better things, like prosperity.

Note to self: next time I have a great idea that will improve the lives of all those around me, consider how I may appear to be a big, slow, messy, damaging dump truck.

by Dwayne Phillips

Want to improve the world? Want to make life a little better for a few persons near you?

Let’s keep this simple. Simply try to add a few…

• caring people
• drops of water
• breezes of cool air
• breezes of warm air
• kind words
• soft notes
• smiles

Just a few positive notes usually does the trick.

by Dwayne Phillips

Trying to edit the writing of yourself or someone else? Especially trying to shorten the writing?

Simply delete

• the last phrase of a sentence
• the last sentence of a paragraph
• the last paragraph of a page
• the last page of a chapter
• the last chapter of a book
• the last section of an article

The first line of advice will serve us well if we can’t remember any of the others.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes if we change one little word to another littler word, the message is received.

I write this post from a local coffee shop. I have been coming to this local coffee shop to viewing the Internet and write various things for about ten years. Every now and then, one of the familiar persons here will ask, “What do you really think about this place?”

I recently caught my self and the word I was about to use. Instead of saying:

One of my major complaints is…

I said

One of my major wishes is…

I changed one little word to another littler word. The entire world changed as well.

Hmmm, that’s all there is to it, I guess. Just change one word now and then and everything succeeding it changes. I wish I was this smart all the time. Wait, let’s change that to, I wish I was this smart some of the time. There is another little change I could use (or is it will use?—there is no end to this, is there?).