Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Further evidence that people tend to do only what they want to do while at work. Years ago, one of the guys in our office went missing. He was safe and sound, but we didn’t know it at the time. He was told to attend a meeting at a motel in another […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I have been using a new writing technique lately in which I set a timer for uninterrupted writing, followed by a five-minute break, followed by another timed writing period. There are countless writing techniques. My advice for these techniques: Try the technique. If if works for you, use it. Otherwise, forget it. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Another age-old motivation technique that should probably go away. It was 30 years ago (yes, I am that old). The big boss of the organization was excited. A competing organization was trying to build a new product just like we were trying to build. By the way, we were both government organizations […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Children are easy to read as they haven’t yet perfected how to “act.” Adults are different, and I work with adults, so I have to ask them questions. Children don’t walk normally unless they are thinking about something else. They tend to scamper or duck their head and half run. They think […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Before putting your work on a computer, do it by pencil and paper for a year. I developed this guideline about 20 years ago. I kept seeing people spending lots of money (million$) creating databases and such to help them do their work.  Most of the work was simple, like: We have […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Once again I attempt to make a million dollars be creating a three-letter acronym – DIN. Some 30 years ago (yes, I am that old), I was pouring myself a cup of coffee at work. On the bulletin board in front of me was an article cut from the newspaper (see ANOTHER […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If you use tools at work, and who doesn’t, have tool experts around. I am a big believer in having specialists working on a project – people who know one thing well. Yes, there is a place for other people, but most projects I have experienced have all generalists and no specialists. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips To work with other persons, establish trust. One technique is to go to their place and show a genuine interest in them as a person. Someone asked me recently about how I would influence other people in an inter-department project. My reply was: establish trust Of course, the next question was, “How?” […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes a fiasco provides an excellent learning opportunity as we can study the group dynamics that led smart people to a stupid place. Then again, the fiasco may just be yet another example of stupidity. “That’s fascinating!” That may be a nice way of saying, “How could a group of such smart […]

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by Dwayne Phillips My technique for accomplishing a lot of tasks in a day or any arbitrary period of time. It was more than 30 years ago, (yes, I am that old), I was someplace a long ways from here. I was standing at the entrance to a storeroom. Metal shelves lined the walls of […]

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