Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips An old lesson holds true today: getting the tools and people to the job site is half the job. Twenty-five years ago, I was involved in a fence-building project. Members of the community gathered to start from scratch and erect a 50-meter-long fence. I was one of the first people there and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Compliant meets the minimum requirements while compelling puts some excitement into a product. Still, I would be satisfied with compliance when it comes to dishwasher delivery and installation. I ran into the phrase that inspired the title of this post one day last week. We were writing a proposal for a contract. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips People use one set of postures for thinking. There are another set of postures that make it easy for other people to hear what you are saying when you are talking. Please try to switch postures when thinking and then talking. This request is especially strong when in meeting with other people. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A list of activities that are a lot of work. On a recent visit with family in Louisiana, a group of us discussed: decorating cakes for weddings sewing and making clothes cooking for 50 people and a few more things like these The consensus was these are a lot of work. To […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In an earlier post, I discussed difficult people and reframing statements. Once again, I meet a difficult person. Once again, I can choose how frame the situation, and once again I can choose how to live and work. I worked with a different set of people this week. Some of those people […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Be wary when someone asks for “actionable fill-in-the-blank.” I few years ago, I was working in a prestigious organization (just ask anyone who worked there, they would happily tell you that it was a prestigious place). A division there had an expiring charter and needed to update it. Several senior managers asked […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A recent peek into the world of grad students in engineering and related fields reveals a group of people with a strong desire to work for the benefit of others. I have been working with grad students on writing. This took many months to arrange, but for the past couple of weeks […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When can you quit your day job and write full time? This question comes from time to time. Actually, it comes more often than I wish it would. People are looking for one answer: Quit now, write full-time, and you will make loads of money. I disappoint a lot of people because […]

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