Posts Tagged ‘management’

a ‘Goal-Setting Workshop’…

Friday, November 16th, 2007

…it’s that Time of the Year
…when we’re busily juggling Family & Stress & more Family & (guilt) about New Years Resolutions long-forgotten

…& maybe a bit of reflection-time gets squeezed-in; “am I where I thought I’d be, back when?”

Well then– now’s a great time for a Goal-Setting Workshop!!

It basically goes like this:
1) find a quiet room, spare hour, & no cell phone
2. grab a sheet of paper & pen (not pencil)
3. sit down, & think: “what would i do, if i COULD NOT FAIL, & had INFINITE TIME & FUNDS”.
4. now write, for the rest of the hour, -and-
5. don’t think about “coulda/shoulda/woulda” or “i can’t” or “that’ll never happen”

-then-
6. finish the hour, go take a break, come back, &
7. start separating the ideas into: “1 year from now”, “5 years”, “10 years”, “20 years”

-and finally-
8. pick the top ‘interesting’ idea from “1 year”, the one you’re most inspired by, & do something NOW, right that minute, specifically & physically, to start making it happen!!

  • sign-up for a class,
  • fill-out a visa/travel application,
  • google the nearest xxx & spend the rest of the day hanging out there doing yyy
  • etcetc!!

IOW: break that “cool thing I’d like to (have) done someday” down into ‘bite-sized chunks’, & then take a big bite :-D
It’s called “baby steps”… but you have to make that step!!

Really– You can DO IT!!
There’s nothing stopping you!!

Do it TODAY!!
Make it Real– do something tangible that you can hold in your hand, when you hit the pillow tonight… something you hadn’t woke-up this morning thinking you would do, something that you hadn’t really ever thought you could do!

It doesn’t matter if it “makes no sense”; pay no heed to the (voices) that say, “you’ll never be able to do that”… take that first step anyway!!

And then tomorrow, do another! And another!!
Write-down your Goal, & your list of Steps, add target-dates on each Step, & hang it on your bedroom door, or over your mirror. You can’t believe how great it feels, when you check-off another ’step’ towards that Goal, that thing you “didn’t believe possible”.

…& why does all this work??
…b/c all those ‘little steps’, bit by bit, start adding-up… like ‘interest’ in your savings account, you start getting more & more ‘momentum’, more & more ‘leverage’…
…& previously-’unreasonable’ things, ideas, start becoming more possible
…you start saying “i can do that” more & more
…you start realizing “hey, i already did that(?!!)” to things that you’d've previously avoided

…you start being less “at the effect” of the events in your life, & more in the position of choosing What & Where & Why…
…less apt to ‘put up with’ stuff you’re ‘kinda/sorta not-interested’ in, &
…lots more apt to walk-in w/ a clear, specific Goal, & not leave until you Get it…

It’s called Purpose
It’s called Momentum
It’s called Success :-D

…fwiw, i did all this in ‘94, & have gotten everything on my list so far… i’m kinda blown-away, actually.
…we’re talking “never in a million years” stuff :-P

& for reference, the ’steps’ above are straight out of Franklin Quest, Tony Robbins, Dale Carnegie, etcetc

    “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” –Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras

…Now go out, & have a Blast!!!

PS: If your ‘work situation’ isn’t exactly as fulfilling as it might be, you may want to check-out this post. ‘Ta!

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I don’t get it

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

if ppl are gonna do a job, then they should just do the darn thing, right? Or quit, maybe, & try something else? Because “life is too short”, & all that? Oh nevermind.

So anyway, we all know & understand the put-upon petty bureaucrat who hates [his] lot in life, & tends to take it out upon all & sundry. A wonderful (& wonderfully prevalent) example is the just-this-side-of-hostile toll-booth takers in SF, who often seem to compete in how sloooooow they can receive EXACT CHANGE. But hey– they’re paid shit, I can imagine doing the exact same thing, so I can’t knock them… at least, not when I’m not stuck in a long, non-moving toll-booth line… Grrrrr.

Er, but how about highly-paid Managers, for example? For publically-traded, SEC-accountable firms?

Those of us who [chose] to avoid the “Management Track” & remain “Technical Drones” or whatever, had very clear reasons for doing this (besides the chance to miss-out on 25-50% more pay, for starters). And a LOT of those reasons had to do w/ getting to stay being ‘techie dorks’, & avoiding all the ‘press-the-flesh’ & ‘kissing-babies’ BS that the average Mgr has to negotiate.

And that’s great! The onus being– if you wanna be a techie dork, & don’t wanna play the “be nice to ppl” game (ie, politics)… you’d better be quite hot at the techie bits, no?

Correspondingly, if you wanna be ‘political player’ (ie. “Manager”), don’t you have to [remember] to keep kissing the right ass?

Bog save me from frickin idiots who call themselves “Technical Managers” who both can’t find their technical asses w/ both hands, and don’t bother being nice to those who can. It’s as if they held the power of “hire/fire” in their grubbly little non-technical hands, & knew they were untouchable… gobbling-up all credit for anything their ‘team’ produces, & smoothly passing-the-buck back down for any issues. Oh wait, I guess that’s all true. Nevermind.

But anyway, I have a very strong (theoretical, to be sure) appreciation for an honest whore. They have their price, & tend to perform adequately when it’s paid. Example: in a very large & shiny building I once worked, there were a stream of very healthy & well-dressed damsels whose entire role, it appeared, was to leap forward & open the door smilingly to arriving Executive-types. I had occasionally noticed this curious process as I walked-by, & wondered what must being going-thru the minds of said damsels… or, at least, what was the going cost of each paid-for smile. So one day, due to some unmentionably bad karma, I arrived late at the building & managed to slip just ahead of a passel of ‘business-casual’ dressed guys spewing from a large stretched limo. As I hurried up to the door, one of the afore-mentioned hotties leaped into action, & swung the door open for me, showering me w/ a very fetching smile. “Gee” i thought, “I don’t remember this happening before”. And almost on cue, her (expensive) smile dropped 3cm, & the temperature of her face dropped 30degreesF… b/c she’d just noticed my “HI I work Here” badge.

So what does she do?
She slams the door in my face!
No, I’m not kidding!
& I nearly died laughing!!
Which made her even more irate!
& I laughed even harder!!

…b/c I knew exactly how she felt, having myself done crap jobs like sliming fish & smiling at reptiles… there is one, & only ONE thought going thru [her] mind:
“I’m being PAID for this”

…& clearly she wasn’t being PAID to be nice to me.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!! :-D

. . .
So back to highly-paid ‘take-no-prisoners’ “Managers” who treat their directs like shit.
You know what, you gotta wonder at ppl like this, who never seem to realize, that these very ppl they’re treading-on, are the very ppl who make that’s Manager’s ‘Successes’. And word gets around– crappy Managers soon don’t have anyone of quality working for them any longer.

Mark Twain once said “the principle difference between a man & a dog, is that if you take-in a starving dog & feed it, it won’t bite you”.

Lemme update that & say: “Man is the [only] animal who will gleefully, cheerfully, chop-off his nose to spite his face”.

In ethics class it’s called “Invincibly Ignorant”, & refers to those dwelling in ivory towers, etc. Why not just say, “never had a real job in their whole life (ie., really ‘work’ for a living)”, & leave it at that.

…till next time, try out this handy-dandy tool to deal with managerial pricks. It’s called the “white mutiny“. Enjoy.

{& just for giggles– why not post your own funny work “painful waste-of-space” story for others to read…}

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teach them everything you know

Saturday, August 20th, 2005

Lou Holtz (spectacularly winning coach of Notre Dame) was well-known for teaching everything he knew to his coaching staff…. w/ the result that many of them left Notre Dame & became famous college & professional coaches elsewhere. So he was once asked, “aren’t you worried that you’re ‘giving it all away’?”

& Lou said “no! I teach them everything I know, & want them to be the best coaches they can.”
but the questioner persisted– “but aren’t you concerned they just take everything you’ve taught them & leave?”

& Lou said “no. I’ve got a waiting list a mile long of all the best Assistant Coaches in the country, who all want to coach at Notre Dame. And thus we get the [benefits] of their abilities for 2+ years while they’re learning… I think that’s a fair bargain”.

…& this is just as true in the workplace.
The Manager who keeps information, skills, & decisions close-to-the-vest is not investing in either the wellbeing of his personnel, nor the viability or effectiveness of his Team as a whole. I’ve met quite a few seasoned managers who proudly declaim “you’ve gotta keep technical ppl on a short leash; they always seem to want to ‘dress-up’ the requirements with the latest/sexiest bells’n'whistles. You’ve gotta ‘rein-them-in’”.

And that can usually work reasonably well in the short-term; you will deliver exactly what the Business asked-for, & probably in a timely manner. The problem is, over time, you’ll notice that those [solutions] being delivered by your Team aren’t very creative anymore (example: just fixing the ’symptom’, rather than solving the source-problem). Since part of a good software analyst’s job is “systems analysis”, ie. optimizing business-processes, the best technical person is one who not only knows the technical details, but is creative/flexible at applying them.

But if you-as-Manager have built a habit of discouraging ‘creative thought’ from your technical team, it will be you who is in trouble, next time you bid or are tasked a big (and/or ‘interesting’) project. What you’ll find is that your best creative minds aren’t producing terrific solutions [or worse, have long-since-left for more interesting work elsewhere], & you’ll deliver less functionality, & slower, than a flexible, enthusiastic team whose members’ creativity has been rewarded.

When you hold your Team back, it’s not only their career-growth that suffers, but it’s yours as well (b/c you won’t be performing at optimum). So it’s really in your best interest to ensure that your ppl have time to explore their own solutions… even if you think they’re ‘barking up a tree’. Your job as Manager is to let them know the Strategy, check-in once in a while to see if they need any escalations, & then get the hell outta the way.

If you cannot set direction, delegate, support your ppl no matter what, & always take full responsibility… it won’t just be that you’ll be a [bad] manager of a low-morale group…

…you’ll also be severely outperformed (both in the marketplace & in your own workplace) by Managers/Leaders who can.

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the Joy of Working

Saturday, August 13th, 2005

“Eh?” you ask. “Joy… and Work?!”
“I can understand ‘Joy of Sex‘ — b/c hey, if if it’s ‘The Pain-in-the-Ass’ of sex, then I must be doing it wrong”. :-P

No, there really is a way to enjoy your work… regardless if you like it or not.

Let’s consider that the concept of ‘Work’ has 3 main components, so then we can address each separately:

physical– food, shelter, physical exertion
mental– decision, follow-thru
spiritual– creative, esp. creating something new

For a person to be happy, they need to be doing/making each of these, each day:
- you gotta be ‘making a living’, ie putting food in your belly & roof over your head (&/or of your dependents). Also, your body needs to move, to exercise… b/c if it doesn’t, your energy-levels fall, as does your emotional state
- you gotta make one or two decisions each day, & follow-up on them. Simple rote-work, esp. following someone else’s script, isn’t sufficient
- you gotta [feel] like you’re doing something creative, each day. You need to be able to point at something at the end of the day, & say “this is mine”

But the Secret is: NONE of these are mandatory components of your ‘day job’…. B/c as long as you get all three somewhere in your life, then you won’t expect as much from your day-job.

And that makes it easier to focus on what you are getting out of your job, b/c then you won’t be expecting it to provide what it simply can’t. Mark Twain had a quote for this: “The well-organized man is comfortable, even in hell”.

Don’t get me wrong — you can get all 3 in your ‘day job’… but it can be tough sledding to get there, sometimes. So just don’t get too upset at yourself if you don’t.

Instead, find yourself a good hobby, creative or spiritual practice, & do that daily. You’ll be amazed at how stress-free your ‘daily job’ becomes, when you know exactly why you’re doing it, & how much it can provide (& what it won’t).

…And that will put you in a much better space for when you eventually do decide to change jobs, etc. You’ll have a much clearer idea of what you want, what you’re willing to do to get it, & what you’re willing to put-up with along the way.

Because at core, you will already be fulfilled, & so whatever fulfillment the job can provide, will just be icing on the cake.

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A Manager can be either Lead, or Secretary.

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005

so, i thought i’d share something i’d whipped-up last year, amidst the utter (mostly political) system-upgrade chaos that happened at my Fortune50 job. i was confronted w/ the realization that many managers/leaders, rather than being appointed on merit, seemed to have been extracted whole from someone’s ass, & displaying talents to match. or as j. paul getty would say, “Manager?! That person’s no Manager–I wouldn’t let them Manage a gas-station”.

Managerial Analysis:
A Lead’s focus is on resolving the Issues, while the Secretary’s focus is on removing tickets from the Support Queue. Thus, a Lead drives the Issues List, while the Secretary is driven by it.

A Lead always works towards the underlying issues, striving to understand the process before assigning priority. A Secretary doesn’t mind not understanding the issues, & will assign priority with aplomb.

In this way, a Lead calculates lead-times & resources-needed by carefully considering their Team’s capacity & individual strengths. A Secretary instead assigns tasks to whomever is available, with aggressive lead-times by default.

Managerial Teamwork:
A Lead makes sure to spend time with the teammembers whose tasks are critical, & time-constrained. In this way they help pick up the slack, & know how to [defend] their Team’s performance from upper management scrutiny. When a Secretary does in fact [deign] to spend time with their Team, that time is spent asking for status, & wondering aloud (in team mtgs) why the dates are being missed.

A Lead will always support their team, knowing that w/o buy-in of their Project Team, nothing important can be done. The Secretary instead continually overrides their teams’ concerns, re-phrasing their issues into superficial ‘percentage-done’s, while always being first to take credit for any successes achieved.

A Lead is thus quick to compliment teammembers publicly… or if necessary, [correct] them privately. A Secretary does the opposite.

A Lead strives to be attentive to the job satisfaction of their Team, if not their [career] goals. Rotating teammembers’ tasks to keep them fresh, can be difficult for a Manager– tasks may take a little longer, & it’s harder to predict issue resolution. A Secretary cannot tolerate such risk, & will (gladly? obliviously?) let a teammember work the exact same task for years on end… until such teammember quits in disgust.

In this way, a Secretary hangs their Team out to dry, both disenfranchising them from the Project’s success, & in the end, spoiling their morale.

Managerial Strategy:
When you [question] a Lead, they will have reasons & a plan for overcoming the issues, always driving from the critical-path. The same [question] to a Secretary will result in a deluge of excuses.

A Lead will think hard before setting a date, & think even harder before missing it. A Secretary chooses dates casually, & misses them even more casually.

A Lead’s audience is the system; they want things to work. Thus they go to Upper Management rarely, & only then with specific issues & seeking buy-in & support. A Secretary’s primary audience is [upper Management] themselves, trying to ‘hob-nob’ with them as much as possible, [yet] striving to avoid accountability. They like to blame a lot.

A Manager is measured by the quality of the Team they create & retain. Kicking your ppl’s asses doesn’t work for very long, neither does excessively coddling them. The best Analysts *like* to be challenged, working on difficult tasks they have a reasonable chance to achieve.

…w/ apologies to the many truly excellent performers whose job-title is “Secretary”, who accomplish all the best of a Managerial Lead, but [must] stand by & watch their Boss gain all the accolades.

2:29 PM 6/13/2004

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