Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Hyperventilation and hysteria are shows of emotion, not commitment. A recent post from Seth Godin reminded me of the above. I have been the victim of the “why aren’t you going berserk?” syndrome over the years. I was once reprimanded for concentrating on performing the work instead of yelling and screaming at […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Senior managers issue policy. That is one of the more important tasks they do. A misunderstanding of policy statements and their purpose has given them a bad name. A better understanding of policy statements aids everyone in an organization. Issuing policy is one of the more important tasks that managers can do. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There is a big difference between reasons for a decision and justifications created after a decision. Justifications, just a farce, succeed unless someone cares and is attentive. Someone announces a decision; then they announce the reasons behind the decision. Question: did they use those reasons in deciding or did they create those […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I read a classic management text. It is as true today as it was in 1969. When in college in the mid-1970s (yes, I am that old), an English professor spoke about the Peter Principle. This was a relatively new concept about how people rise to their level of incompetence. Work was […]

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by Dwayne Phillips “Be the Best” is a misguided goal because it is based on other people. A few years ago, I worked for a government agency who proclaimed loudly and often that it was the Best fill-in-the-blank agency in the Federal government. I tried in vain to convince people that was a misguided goal. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips To understand a non-sensical decision, consider the age of the person deciding. It was the early 1990s (yes, I am that old), we were using Cray and other supercomputers (government program, so we had several), and we were interviewing your programmers. They all gasped to learn that we were programming in FORTRAN […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Everyday I select a few teachers. Note, no one else selects them for me. It is all my selection. As with most aspects of life, there are good and bad points here. We all have teachers – people from whom we learn things. Tiny, rural Loranger High School graduated me a few […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Children use excuses. Adults speak candidly. Children love to use convenient excuses. Adults state what is actually happening. Some people call that being “blunt” or “candid.” I tend to like “candid.” Convenient excuses allow us to “be nice” and talk around situations instead of facing them. Candor, however, exposes the real issue […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Some simple life advice: eat, rest, work – in that order. Fatigue is a killer to accomplishing anything; hunger is a killer to accomplishing anything. Trying to accomplish anything while tired and hungry? Not much chance of accomplishing anything positive while a very high chance of accomplishing a mess. When I am tired, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There are a lot of changes I would like to see in other people. Despite that, the one person I can change is me. I read many blog posts describing how to change people who need to be changed. Of course they need to be changed (not); they are keeping me from […]

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