by Dwayne Phillips The title is the hallmark of a person in a bureaucracy. Do less; just get by. I have worked in and around government agencies for four decades or more. Gosh, that’s a lot. The title of this little post summarizes the mean of the bell curve in these places. Let’s expand a […]
I Will Do Less Than I Can
October 24th, 2024 · No Comments
Tags: Commitment · Conversation · Excuses · Government · Leadership · Learning · Systems
When the Audience Knows More
October 10th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes, the audience knows more than the designation teacher or expert. Great. There is much good that can come from this. Let’s discuss teaching adults or at least a situation where someone says you are the teacher and everyone else in the room is an adult. It is common for one of […]
Tags: Adults · Authentic · Conversation · Honesty · Learning · Teaching
I’m Writing, I Don’t Know if I’m Any Good at It
October 3rd, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Maybe one day I will know what “any good at it” means when applied to writing. I heard the title used as a line in a movie recently. Yet another young, earnest person was confessing to an acquaintance about how they spent their idle time. They wrote. They were trying to write […]
Tags: Appearances · Concepts · Growth · Learning · Money · Success · Writing
Learn Now or Later
September 26th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We often have the choice of learning now or later. Often we don’t have the time to learn now, so we put it off until it really hurts. Gosh, we are in a hurry so much of the time. We just can’t pause to think, reflect, and learn at this moment. Some […]
Tags: Agility · Analysis · Decide · Learning
How Simple Can You Be?
September 19th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips This is a question we should constantly ask. Try the simplest thing to be, to do, to have. Several years ago, I posed a question to participants at a conference session I was facilitating. The design problem was about storing information from a business. I wanted a design of a system that […]
Tags: Choose · Design · Learning · Problems · Simple · Solutions
Kids’ Sports and the Company Picinc
September 9th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Some advice on kids’ sports. This is really good advice. As usual, someone else gave it to me. Major league baseball is concluding yet another season. The Little League baseball national and international tournaments just concluded (putting all those kids’ games on national TV live was a horrible mistake). What’s one to […]
Tags: Adults · Competence · Fun · Learning · Teaching
Always Be Ready to Teach
August 19th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Hiring new people? Want to them to know everything that people who already work here know? There is no easy answer, but there are some answers. When look at the Help Wanted ads, I frequently encounter employers who want to hire people who already work for them. The ads are easy to […]
Tags: Adults · Learning · Reality · Teaching · Time · Work
The First Five Minutes
June 13th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips An old adage, one that I have experienced to be true, is that a person will tell another person the solution to all their problems in the first five minutes of the first conversation. Many years ago, an experienced consultant told me, “The client will tell the consultant the solution to all […]
Tags: Consulting · Learning · Listening · Problems · Solutions
Where I Come From, We…
May 13th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips It is easy to use my past as a reason for my behavior. It’s just an excuse. Put it and all other excuses behind and be here and now and better. “You have to understand” (when we hear those words, run and hide quickly) I could keep this list going for a […]
Tags: Accountability · Choose · Excuses · Expectations · Growth · History · Improvement · Influence · Learning
An Important Question
May 6th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips There are many important questions that relate to one situation or another. I find that there is one question that is more important than most in any situation What did I learn? That is the more-important question. I try to accomplish things that I want to accomplish. I have a goal. I […]
Tags: Education · Learning · Problems · Questions · Teaching · Work