Liquid Perspective

Unlocking The Key Principles

2010-03-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a ton of writing lately and throughout the drafts I reference many different concepts which I refer to as the Key Principles. I've written about many of these at length, but I've never publicly shared my personal list. Even after this entry, I still haven't. But I'm publishing a small sample that will show up in many upcoming posts so they can be used as a reference. I'm including just a small description of each for context. Perhaps I'll find time to cross-reference them with the larger posts on each topic. (uh huh) This entry will get updated if needed to reflect the links in the upcoming posts.

This also introduces a couple of conventions I've started using in my drafts. An example is the use of [subtext]. This tag will summarize and restate the previous section, usually in axiom form or slang.

Manage Up, Drive Down
The people you are responsible for should be aware that you take responsibility for them. How their actions reflect on you should be a significant part of their decision-making. Keeping them focused on following your agenda as foremost will recursively embed this principle.

The people you are responsible to should be aware of which responsibilities you are taking on and those which you are not. Focus on understanding and following their agenda. Clearly articulate when you see conflict in their agenda and support them in resolving it (read: time, attention, information). If it fails to be resolved, be clear about the implications of not addressing that conflict.

[subtext]The things which interest my boss, fascinate me.

Praise in Public, Criticize Quietly
This only applies to personal accomplishment or growth. Performance that affects a team or behaviors that can be observed by people you wish to influence are excepted. When you are trying to influence others (for example teaching), you need to acknowledge individual performance in view of those who need to learn. See: Communicate Consequences Clearly.

[subtext] Allow people to save face and time to absorb bad news privately.

Often Wrong, Never In Doubt
Leaders who are indecisive aren't leading. If you don't have a vision, you need to get one quickly. Ask for help, solicit options and opinions, then make decisions. Once you've committed, stick to what you've decided. If it becomes evident that a wrong choice was made, own the decision and fix it promptly. But until that point, you need to act like you have the answer.

[subtext] The more confidence you have, the more confidence others will give you.

If It Isn't Written, It Isn't Real
[alternative] If you didn't measure it, you didn't do it.
[alternative] If you didn't write it down, it didn't happen.
Talking and waving hands is fun and easy, but is not a replacement for writing things down and having people review it. When it comes to setting down standards or communicating expectations, having a written record will flush out conflicts and allow individuals to preemptively check their standing so they can save face. Because writing takes work, it encourages you to focus on efficient communication. To avoid challenges to your writing, focus on quantifiable metrics and hard facts.

Trust, But Verify
We need to trust to move quickly. But blind trust is another word for an unverified assumption and it can set us up for failure. Give your resources the benefit of the doubt, but don't hesitate to ask for proof of the facts. If you ask others to trust you, give them ways to check your facts independently and without a having to ask. When it comes to successful collaborate, most of trust is perception. If you display a lack of trust in someone (say, by second-guessing) be prepared to find that the reciprocal trust is eroding as well. See: Rely on Tests, Not Opinions.

[subtext] The more trust you show towards others, the more trust others will show towards you. But don't be stupid.

Everything Temporary Becomes Permanent
Change always has a cost, and we only make temporary things to save costs today. We usually underestimate the future costs because we forget about the costs of dealing with the temporary until the future arrives. When it does arrive, we've usually sunk so much cost into it and built so much around it, that it becomes cheaper to simply leave things alone. Don't fight this, just plan that any road you go down, you will likely stay on for a while. This means don't show things to users or customers unless you are willing to ship or start supporting them as they stand.

Communicate Consequences Clearly
Always be broadcasting your expectations so that those you work with know how support you. For those who work for you, ensure the examples of consequences (positive and negative) are frequent and obvious so they will factor into their decision-making. If you reward generously, this should be well understood. Make sure the results of bad behavior are well understood. This is not always the same as explaining the outcomes from failure, because there are many times that failure is an acceptable result. See: A Process Is Not An Outcome.

[subtext] Always show the horse the carrot and the stick. Which to show first, depends on the horse.

Something Is Only As Simple As Its Explanation
[alternative] You only know that which you can teach.
[alternative] If you have to write it down, it is too complicated.
[alternative] If you can't explain it simply, you can't simply program it.
[alternative] The likelihood of failure is equivalent to the ambiguity of your expectations.
There are several versions and applications of this principle, because the concept is so foundational. When you need something done, you should be able to explain it in clear terms to the uninitiated. If you can't do that, don't expect them to understand your expectations. If you are working with someone who can't explain their expectations succinctly and clearly, you should be careful.

[subtext] Don't expect people to be successful at a task that you can't easily explain.

Rely on Numbers, Not Opinions
When possible, make decisions with objective information not subjective perceptions. Asking someone if they are making progress is different than asking what percentage of the tasks are complete today. Instead of saying the build is complete, publish the number of projects compiling/components deployed/tests passing. We all have good days and bad days, we guess with varying degrees of accuracy, but numbers are precise. The way to get numbers is by using tests and quantifiable metrics, anything else is just opinion.

[subtext] One good test is worth a hundred opinions.

A Process Is Not An Outcome
In the age of commodity, this is borderline heresy. If the desired outcome can be obtained by a rigid process, it should likely be automated. When it comes to anything requiring higher intelligence and creativity, blindly following a process is a quick way to fail. This is not to say that intelligent and creative individuals do not need boundaries, conventions, and standards; they surely do. But following a process is only managing to failure. Only the least creative and the unskilled will tolerate a process that mandates how those skills are applied. Allow individuals to find their own way by giving them clear criteria for success. They will likely surprise you and surpass those expectations.

[subtext] Choose good people, give them clear criteria to succeed, and stay out of their way.

There are quite a few more and much can be written about each of these, but that is for another time.

Comments welcome.

Getting Somewhere

2010-03-04T09:33:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently got promoted to a CTO job for decent-sized technology company. As is sometimes the case with big undertakings, we sat down for a beer to bounce some ideas around. Part of why he's as good as he is at his job is because he asks for advice from those with experience.

Through the course of the evening I found myself coming back to some earlier post-mortem writing I'd done about some large corporation restructurings. We also compared the results of some big reorganizations of which we'd been on the side-lines, to their present day situations and what we could find of the road they traveled. Eerily enough, the steps the successes made weren't that different from my Creation in Chaos checklists. The paraphrased version goes something like this:

Head Down
When it comes to earning trust, the quickest way is with results. Your walk talks and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks. So start walking. Don't publicize your plans, don't invite dialog outside of those conversations in which you absolutely need to engage. Save your energy, kill idle speculation, and don't give room for rumors. You were chosen for the job for a reason, so start proving people right. If you don't have a vision, make crystallizing it your first priority but keep that process to yourself. Be direct and transparent with your organization, be direct and opaque with everyone else.

Assemble the Team
What you need most are the resources marshaled around you to get things done. So find out who you can count on, who has skin in the game, and who needs to go. Pick some champions, equip them well and unleash them. To do this you need to have a clearly defined inner circle. Set clear priorities, make sure they know and respect the ground rules of the new game. Give them regular and consistent chances to provide input and a forum to keep your thumb on their pulse. This will mean reducing the layers within the organization and if necessary trimming the organization. The evidence in history shows that you will have to do these reductions anyway, one way or another. So it's best to be upfront about what it takes to be in the inner circle, and eliminate those who aren't. Give them packages, help them along as best you can, but do it quickly and transparently. Your long-term success relies on this.

Find a Focus
This step needs to be done in parallel with the previous one. Success is always predicated on focus. Pick the 3 or 4 things that are already driving your (and the organizations success) and reinforce their priority. Make sure your team is in the loop to identify this list, and align the troops and the funding around these items. At the same time, pick the 4 or 5 things that are impeding your goals and find out how to bury them. Whether it is sucking time, money, or attention, the worst of this lot need to get bullets in the brain, fast. Again, get the team in on the process to identify these, but don't let them run the show. Don't get side-tracked by history, sacred cows, or personal agendas. Keep laser-focused on hard facts, raw data, and make note of anyone who isn't slicing the fat alongside you. Chances are they should be the next neck under the axe.

Lower the Bar
When it comes to planning and setting goals, keep them simple and attainable. Nothing will impede your forward progress like unrealistic goals, or worse, goals you fail to hit. Until you have your feet under you and track record behind you, under-promise and over-deliver. Give your people soft pitches that they can knock out of the park. Let everyone claim some successes so the mood can recover. Give people time to refine the basics, learn the new game and become efficient at delivery on the focus items.

Rinse and Repeat
When you have some successes, and the situation begins to improve, it is time to publicize the results. Go back to the beginning, examining the team, the focus items, and the success criteria. Raise the bar a little, add some new items to focus on, grow the team, and give your people new challenges. Remember that it is a process and each step needs solid footing so you don't fall.

While these may seem to apply only for organizations, they are the same steps we follow when constructing a life plan or any self-improvement process. I welcome your comments and success stories.

Brain Cramps - Information Overload

2010-02-02T16:15:00.000-08:00

Over the next several posts I'm going to be reflecting on several concepts that are shaping our world, specifically how we are dealing with technological advances. The first couple, you'll recognize immediately. Once we dispense with the obvious, I'll delve into the more obtuse. Along the way, I'll provide some pointers to the various techniques I've investigated for handling the brain cramps that can occur.

The first concept is Information Overload. This phrase was made so popular by Toffler that we all think we understand what it means. At the core, this condition arises when we have too much information to easily digest or understand. While problematic, there are many techniques for dealing with an onslaught of data. The real issues arise in the follow-up problems for which this is just a precursor.

If it was just about handling a stream of consistent data, we could apply lots of ways to survive and possibly thrive. It is when the information coming at us is always changing, always new, and therefore increasing in complexity and depth that our normal coping mechanisms start to break down. For now, let's just understand some techniques for managing Information Overload.

If you want to be success and handling large volumes of information, the first step is to Be Deliberate.(If you've read any of my previous writing, you probably knew what I was going to say.)

Like any activity, you won't be nearly as efficiently successful until you have clearly defined intentions. With your goals understood and an end-result in clear sight, our natural ability to focus, prioritize and assign value kicks in and easily let the irrelevant fall away. With practice you will learn to be ruthless in determining if the incoming information flow is supporting your intentions and ejecting that which doesn't.

Once you have some sort of filter in place, you can then identify those sources where the signal-to-noise ratio is unduly high. The STN ratio is a measure of how much usefulness or relevant information is received from a source in comparison to how much useless or irrelevant information is presented by that same source. A new show that only has 1 story out of several hundreds that supports my intentions has a very low STN. Conversely, a blog that posts infrequently but routinely has excellent information relevant to my intentions, has a high STN.

So the next step is to Limit Information Sources. Prune away those sources where the STN is too low. If you can't remove it completely, find a way to consign it to less impactful or interruptive times during your day. Ideally, only review those sources during your down or idle time.

Adjusting the information by limited sources is easier when you Define Touchpoints. Set aside different areas and tools for doing work that are different from the areas and tools where you interact with others. For example, I use a separate computer for IM, personal email, and social networking then my work computer. When I'm on one device, I create different accounts and workspaces to keep things separate. Set a work schedule and stick to it. If people know when you arrive and leave work, the times of day you respond to email or IM messages and so forth, you'll have a better chance of them respecting your work times.

Lastly, Forget Useless Information Quickly. No matter what you do, the flow of information will continue and you will be presented with too much information that is vying for your attention. So learn to ask some questions of each new piece of information and if it doesn't meet your criteria, dump it. This is one of those behaviors you will have to practice to become ruthless and deliberate about, but the rewards are significant.

An interviewer once asked Albert Einstein why he didn't know his own phone number. Einstein replied "Because I don't use it." How much information are you carrying that you don't use? Much of the information we keep only has limited time value anyway. By the time we need it, the information will have changed or been outdated. So ask yourself:

Do I really need the information? If it doesn't support your intentions, get rid of it.
Is this information I can get somewhere else? If there are other ways to acquire it when needed, forget it right away.
Is this information time-sensitive ? If it will be obsolete before you'll be able to use it, dump it.

In the next series of posts, we'll talk about the other derivative issues that arise from the increasing speed of technological advancement. As always your comments are coveted.

Dealing with Doody-heads

2010-01-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

It's been way too long since I've had half a moment to organize my thoughts for a post.

In all fairness, I should probably be doing something besides working on this post right at this minute. But like a riot in the heart, sometimes you just need to get your thoughts out of your head. So let's begin...

We have all had to deal with crazies, sillies, and douche-bags in the workplace. My personal area of frustration right now though, is a the doody-head. That guy who is nice but slow. He's reasonably smart and probably educated, but utterly un-pragmatic and has no critical thinking skills in evidence. He insists on dragging everyone along on whatever wild tangent of drivel that currently occupies his limited field of vision. He's naïve about risks and costs, and blindly bumbles around like a cheerleader at a frat party, which is basically the role out of which he's never grown. When she drops your shiny new cell phone into the punch bowl, she just shrugs and says "Sorry" before stumbling off to puke in the bushes. Ugh, the doody-head.

So how does one handle having a doody-head in the workplace? Can you be productive? Can your team be productive in spite of their propensity to flutter after every shiny idea that floats past? Sort of.

Firstly, you need to recognize that they will not change. Just like a douche-bag is always a douche-bag, and a crazy is always a crazy. Once you are clear that you aren't going to change their spots, you can get down to figuring out how to entice, lure, seduce, and otherwise cajole them into a safe place where they can't accidently set fire to the backseat of your Mercedes.

Pay attention to their common interests and be prepared to use anecdotes and trivia to distract them from their subtle slide into irrelevance. Laugh at their jokes, and give them plenty of opportunity during the small-talk time before meetings to let them ruminate. Help them feel important by letting them spew their verbal diarrhea in out of the way forums and hallways. Give them tasks that involve spreadsheets, diagrams, process flows, and lots of writing. Make a big deal of out these special research projects. If necessary, let them present their findings during lunch meetings so as not to detract from actual work time. This has the added bonus of allowing you to look engaged as you plow through a turkey sandwich. And of course, the team will love you for the free lunch!

Lastly, you need to always have a backup plan. What happens if they notice that you aren't really listening to them anymore? If that small glimmer of awareness manages to clue them in that they aren't actually in the loop, you don't want them self-destructing and turning into a crazy. So keep an area or set of tasks that are actually relevant but are simple and already well understood. You wouldn't want a doody-head getting creative. That's a recipe for disaster.
When figuring out which types of tasks and roles work best, it helps if you can tie the tasks to external team dependencies. This way, they'll have meaningful work that should amount to following a pre-laid path. Put them in the driver seat of the train. As long as you've laid the track first and have other teams with an interest in keeping the train on the track, you should feel free to toss them a conductor hat and let them blow the whistle to their hearts content.

It's important to realize that there two things for which you never want a doody-head to be responsible. The first is planning. It's fine to let a doody-head drive a train or the backseat of a tandem bike, but not your speed-boat or even your tiny remote control helicopter you got at the mall. They will invariably face-plant into or run right over the largest, most expensive, thing it is possible to destroy.

The second to keep doody-heads away from is interfacing with other teams. It's fine to give them work that another team requires, or have them take the work another team produces. You just don't want a doody-head being the line of communication you have with that other team. Getting teams to talk effectively is a little like playing telephone even on a good day. Adding a doody-head is like putting the office gossip who's just a little bit tipsy in the middle of the chain. Everything coming through will just end up sounding dirty and not making any sense.

I hope these tips help you handle your doody-head. Try not to get any on you.

3 Tenets to Being Better

2009-02-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've found myself having to teach a lot of beginner-level engineering techniques. Any time I work with people who are just getting started in their chosen fields, the same type of conversation occurs. They inevitably want to know how to get better. In some cases, they want to know how to be the best.

The funny part happens with those who take a while to get to the point of asking for help. You see, the good ones usually have achieved some small measure of success already. So they're feeling particularly competent and capable. And faced with demanding situations, where they find themselves out of their depth, they don't always immediately recognize it. And even if they do sense the impending doom, they don't necessarily want someone else to help them. They want to try and swim a little on their own first.

So whether they are really good, or they just think they are, they ultimately end up having to ask for the opinions of more senior people in their field. The more they flounder, the less helpful I can be. The less they struggle, the more help I can give them in specific situations.

Now the truly gifted ones don't just ask for help with a specific situations, they want to understand the principles involved. They want to know how to become better, which is more than just sucking less.

Over the years, I've found myself giving a lot of the same specific principles that are built on only a couple of foundational tenets.

Learn the basics completely and comprehensively.
Reading voraciously. Read everything you can get your hands on from people who are actually doing the type of work you want to do. Know the conventions they use, learn the language, the vocabulary and the slang.
Build up your style, your repertoire of techniques, and stick with them.
Pick the tried and true methods that you prefer and practice. Have defensible answers for your choices, so make them deliberately. Keep the number of techniques manageable and deviate as little as possible. Don't switch without overwhelmingly compelling reasons.
Fail fast and when failure is cheap do it often.
If you are doing something new, don't be afraid to take risks. Just make sure they are recoverable and inexpensive. Prototype, mock-up, white-board, sketch, and pseudo-code as much as possible. If something has the potential to go down, get to the stress point as quick as possible so you can address it quickly or get passed it.

A few things to consider about these tenets is that they aren't just about learning quickly. They are about unlearning quickly as well. You can't embrace something new until you get past your hang-ups from your history. When you can unlearn quickly you will be more creative and nimble in your solutions going forward.

Being deliberate in your choices means you will be more consistent and reliable in the majority of things you do; specifically the things that matter. You'll know the choices that matter because they are the things you chose early and from which you rarely deviate. When your choices can withstand fads, trends, and the stylistic preferences of others, you'll know they are well chosen and important.

There is more to just making quick choices. Your choices need to either fail quickly or last a long time. This is usually measured as effectiveness. To make more effective choices, you need focus, creativity, and deliberation.

This notion of making deliberate choices and sticking with them is an aspect of mindfulness. In the 2004 edition of Scientific American Mind, the first issue, you'll find some great technical details about the notion of mindfulness from a neuro-scientific standpoint.

I just know that people who are more mindful are more effective, and being the best is usually about being the most effective.

Just Beyond

2009-02-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

Do you have friends that are continually pursuing the same goals? They have something they want/need and they talk about it all the time but never seem to get it? They might want a better job, to be in a relationship, more time, more money, or less stress. And with this friend, it doesn't matter what they do, the goal is always eluding them. Sound familiar?

I certainly run into my share of individuals like this. They always want advice, or help, or a connection. With enough practice, these individuals are easy for me to spot, even when I'm not very familiar with them. The trick for me is to notice the inconsistencies in their presentation. It's a bit general, but usually when the non-verbal signals get really disconnected from what's being said, it's a good sign that it is the words can't be trusted.

When our internal maps gets messed up, it can be hard to realize that about yourself. And if you are trying to help someone like this, you have to be aware that you can't necessarily trust what they say about their maps either. That's why being able to reconcile the physical signs and the spoken words is so important.

In cases like this you can do real damage if you take the words at face value. I have a colleague who has been switching jobs for years. He was never satisfied with the work, or the peers, or the bosses, or this or that. He would talk about his "dream job" all the time. Within weeks of taking any position he would invariably start to find all the flaws and unravel why this job wasn't perfect. Within months he'd be looking for a new job no matter how well he was performing, or how much was going "right" about the current job.

Over the years, I've done my best to help him with connections, references, etc. After all, you want competent, good performers to be successful. And for those years I was always listening to the words. One day I was distracted for some reason I stopped listening to what he was saying. That's when I noticed what he wasn't saying.

This prompted a round of questions to help figure out what was on his internal map. When we spoke about his current job, he reverted to a different verbal map and physical representation. After a few conversations exploring his maps, he was able to bring his maps into alignment and has been very happy in his latest job for quite some time.

What was difficult in this situation is that I'd spent so much time providing my friend what he asked for instead of what he needed. I was missing something so simple, so natural, so obvious. It was too obvious. And that's the quickest way to identify this situation, the sheer simple obviousness of what's being requested.

If the goal is so straightforward but the language and presentation aren't in alignment, there is usually something twisted in the maps underneath. Let me restate this with a few examples:

What's being asked for is the same thing as what they want. They want a better job so they'll . . . be in a better job.
What's being asked for can't be clearly stated. They want the "right guy" but describing what that looks like is vague and uncertain or changing.
The weight of the request is significant enough they have to change state to make the request. They have to change posture, stance, or level of fixation.

Once you've identified a misalignment with the underlying maps, you can take steps depending on the specific maps.

If you are finding yourself cycling on the same issues over and over, or just can't seem to reach that goal that is always just out of reach, try doing some map work. Make sure you aren't missing that crucial symptom that's just too obvious for you to have seen already.

It's The How, Not The What

2009-01-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

I am a big believer in visualization. I have found it to be an instrumental driving force behind change. In many ways my livelihood hinges on my ability to harness or create change within people and organizations, and I have often relied on the power of visualization in my work.

There is however an aspect of visualization that can be both subtle and startling. For me I bump against this tenet whenever I'm discussing future plans or goals. Especially when they are other peoples future plans or goals. I find myself talking more about how they are going achieve their desires, more so then about those specific desires. This actually works to my advantage because quite a few people only want to talk about the car they are going to drive, they aren't interested in what it takes to acquire it, so they learn to stop talking to me about it. ;-)

The Process is more Powerful than the Product

Have you ever heard someone say "It's the journey, not the destination."? This is a common sense way of explaining this same tenet. How you are going to go about doing something is more influential to your success than what you are trying to accomplish. How to use a tool is more important than acquiring one. The way you go about solving your problems will limit you more than the solutions you may or may not find.

This is a fully loaded tenet so I'm going to go into some more detail about how I apply this every day. When I'm talking to people who have goals, I don't start by asking them to visualize their goals. Instead I ask them to visualize the process of achieving those goals. I don't ask them what they are willing to do for their success. Instead I ask them what they are NOT willing to do.

This sounds pretty counter-intuitive until you realize that it is our limiting beliefs which truly rule our mental maps and models. Consider that guy you know who wants a bigger house. He wants the house, but he isn't willing to move to the middle of nowhere to afford it. That new car? But not willing to work an extra job. Fame? But not willing to wait tables and suffer the humiliation of auditions. Lose weight? But really enjoy dessert. They want to stop being hung over? But won't give up the weekend binge drinking.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? It isn't just about focusing on the limits. It's also about realizing that breaking down the limits is a process of change. It's fine to set a weight loss goal for 6 months out. But if you don't change your lifestyle in your little decisions every day, you likely won't meet your goals. If you want to have a comfortable retirement, but you are only contributing the minimums to your 401K, you'll likely not reach your dream. Afraid of speaking in public? Want to improve your self-image? Focus on the internal processes you use to restrict and limit yourself. When you can see the process you use you can change it.

The same is true with those people who want to talk about that better job or more money. When I tell them what they'll have to do to get it, they always do one of two things. They give themselves permission to do the necessary, or they realize they don't really want to do the necessary and they can finally stop obsessing over some future state and enjoy what they really have.

How Bad Do You Want It?

2009-01-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

The grind I currently find myself participating in has its advantages. Namely, the problems are complicated and haven't been solved by numerous other "smart" people who have tried for extended periods of time. I've had a week and been slowly making progress.

As is often the case with tremendously screwed up situations like this one, even some progress is met with skepticism and distrust for a while. I'm carrying the baggage of all the months and host of people who were here before. To cope with this I've been repeating another foundational tenet.

You haven't failed. You've only gotten feedback.

The trick to really complicated problem solving is realizing that you don't have to boil the ocean all in one go. You can take steps and make progress, sometimes just by ruling out things that clearly aren't the answer.

Thomas Edison has a good quote on this, Benjamin Franklin has one, and so does Albert Einstein. There are numerous other versions and misquotations, but they all can be paraphrased in the same supporting tenet:

You can only fail if there is a time limit.

Specifically in my situation, I have people who have already tried quite a few alternative solutions. So when I ask them to proceed down a path they believe they've already wandered, they resist. They fight every step of the way. But as is often the case, I'm able to point out something in the way that they failed which sets them on a new direction. Yesterday we had a breakthrough because I insisted on making someone follow my instructions even though we both knew it was going to fail. We needed to see the way it failed to clearly develop an alternative to the process. Once we saw that, I was able to twist the problem and put him on a path to success. Which in very short order he achieved.

When you feel like you are beating your head against the same wall, perhaps you need to consider. But if you continue to learn and improve even though you fail repeatedly, don't give up. Acknowledge the success of your feedback, twist the problem, and keep going.

We All Have Good Intentions

2009-01-19T18:29:00.000-08:00

Here's another basic premise I had to recall today. Interestingly, it wasn't because of anything at work but in a personal relationship.

Behavior always has a Positive Intention.

This is one of those blindingly obvious things that just eludes as all from time to time. Basically, the point here is that anything someone is doing is because they are trying to achieve some goal for themselves. From their perspective, there is a reason and a motivation for their behaviors. Even in cases where those reasons or motivations seem irrational to us, or are hidden from them.

Our whole intellect is designed to pursue our desires and achieve our goals. Even in cases where we aren't aware of what those desires might be. For example, we see this in our preservation instinct and our self-defense mechanisms. Our brain resolves all the inputs and formulates responses that will further our internal goals. This is why some people are spenders and some are savers, some people are aggressive and some are timid, and so forth. Internally, they have goals in mind which motivate and drive their behaviors.

When you understand that people are never just acting in a vacuum, and are always acting in alignment with their goals, it becomes easier to empathize, understand, collaborate with, or even control them. When you are aware of their goals and motivations, you can predict or rationalize their behaviors. When you witness their behaviors, you can derive their goals.

To take this a little further, consider people watching a sporting event or chess match. It's easy to assume each player or coach just wants "to win". But the reality is that they have other goals which dictate the constraints and subordinate goals to winning. For example, they might want to manage exposure to risk, protect certain players or pieces, or have a preference for certain techniques or plays. These constraints and subordinate goals will impact their decisions and behaviors. So when people ask "Why'd he call that play?" or "Why did she try that attack?" they are only verbalizing that they don't understand these other non-obvious motivations.

The twist on positive intention is due to the nature of perspective. Often I would substitute the word Purpose instead of Positive Intention. This is because most people understand positive to "good" or "beneficial". In reality, the only person that is true for is the one demonstrating the behavior. It might very well be painful or hurtful or "bad" to others. But in their mind it's serving a purpose. Perhaps hidden and subconscious, but very real.

To put this in practice, pay attention to how people behave when the goals are very public. You will still see them act in unique ways which gives you clues to their hidden goals and motivations. For example, watching people shop is a great way to get a view into their psyche. Do they check prices first or follow colors? Do they check sizes before saying they like something? These are simple examples but they can be extrapolated to how people order food in a group, the questions they ask about the news, or how they act at a party. Are they thrifty, self-conscious about their weight, a leader or follower? The key to unlocking most peoples inner picture of themselves starts with simple observations like this.

In every situation, we are individually running all the inputs through our internal goal-seeker and deciding on a response that best gets us what we want. Watch what people do when the goals are obvious and you'll find out all those other hidden goals they don't even know about themselves.

You Get What You Put In

2009-01-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

I'm starting a new endeavor and as usual, I need to review some of the things I've learned to make sure I can be successful. I'll be posting some small snapshot entries as I unpack my toolset for the days to come. Here's one I typically start with:

The meaning in a Communication is the Response you obtain.

This is one of those that most people think they understand until it slowly unravels in their mind. Here's another way to perceive this concept: Consider that you are trying to explain a concept to someone and they insist they understand your point but their words don't align to prove they actually do. If you continue making the same points with the same language they may very well shut down with "I don't want to have the same conversation again." then you've learned how to end a conversation with that person. This can be a valuable resource, especially for when you need to slow an interaction down.

Consider a different scenario in which you offer to help someone with something (say some action items they are responsible for accomplishing) and they abruptly retort "I can take care of it." then you have garnered a valuable response. You now know how to get them to snap at you if the need for that arises. You'd be surprised at how often being able to evoke a response is useful.

These are both negative responses, and I use them intentionally, because the positive ones are easy to ignore. To get inside both cases, you have to come to the realization that you are responsible for your own communication. Because of that, the response you get is something you can impact. If you aren't getting the response you desire, it's up to you to change your communication. If at all possible, change your words. If you can't change your words, change how you are saying it.

You might find these intrinsic in your own understanding, but if you are like me, you forget to keep these clear in your mind from time to time. So a refresher on how to have an impact with my communication was just the ticket.

Unsticking

2008-11-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

Both in my line of work and in my personal life, I get quite a few requests for advice. The most common of those requests is from someone looking to make a significant change. The motivators are often negative, like getting laid off, or having a relationship fail. In my experience this is because most people are reactive, instead of proactive about many aspects of their lives. Yes, I am aware that I fall into this category pretty often, just like the next guy.

Recently my regular self-examination led me to realize that I too was getting stuck. Essentially, I was reacting to situations around me, instead of being deliberate about my choices. It seemed like a good idea therefore to give myself a recap on some fundamentals. I've included them in this post for those who might also find it helpful.

Grab A Habit
In this case I'm not talking about a nuns attire, but rather a practice or activity that you exercise every day. You might like something active like pilates, yoga, or swimming. Or perhaps you choose to write or do a puzzle. The actual habit isn't important, only that you establish some consistency. You need consistency so that your input and analytical processes can take a breather for a while. Doing something routine can help smooth the process of adopting changes.

Know Your Motivations
If you want to get somewhere else, it helps to know where you are and where you've been. You need to be very honest and clear about your situation and your future. It is important to understand what has been motivating you and driving your world view, because that is producing the situation and circumstances in which you find yourself.

Embrace Reality
The hardest thing most people will ever do is face the truths about themselves. You see this mirrored in the number of people who fear public speaking, and the lengths people go to hide themselves and their natures. Being able to accept yourself for precisely the person you have been will allow you to exert control over your own behaviors. We often need to be released from our own constraints and misconceptions so we can see the world as it truly is which is a requirement to be able to move fluidly within it. When walking around your house in the dark, don't pretend it isn't a cluttered mess. Rather know intimately where each pile and obstacle lies so that you can navigate smoothly.

Experience The Change
The best part of self-evolution is the process you will go through. Don't focus solely on the end-game. Drink in and savor each new habit, each new challenge, each little success. This doesn't just serve as a check-point to make sure you are on track. It's a vital part of growing and necessary for self-awareness. So relax and open yourself to the adventures. You won't just be more effective, you'll be more likeable and will like more as well.

The Subtle Path to Perfection

2008-10-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

The past couple weeks I've been having many conversations with employees about career planning and their future growth. As I was thinking back and reflecting I noticed a recurring thing that was worth discussing.

Generally speaking, people tended to focus on the specific skills (or in this case technologies) as a means to differentiate and advance themselves. They pick an area of their behavior they want to work on and create a plan for how they might get better at such a thing. For instance, they might desire to work with a particular product, or in a particular industry. The more time they've spent and the more competent in their technical skills, they more they tend to look at the softer side. For instance, they might want to focus on leadership positions, or managing teams of a particular size. Regardless of their intent, they generally try to find a behavior or a skill that they can practice and demonstrate proficiency with. This is all well and good.

The slant I've been thinking about are those who are the more successful. Especially those of indeterminate specialty and generic capability. How do the mediocre continue to be successful and advance? How can they progress without ever refining specific behaviors and skills to a level superior of those around them? Simply put, they don't work on the skills, they work on their environment.

Inherently, the successful team leaders have demonstrated through their successes that it is less about personal ability, and more about the abilities of those they work with. By matching themselves with like-minded people, they increase their productivity, compensate for weaknesses, and enjoy more consistent performance. In the marketplace today, consistency is often worth more than risky potential regardless of promised returns.

To be clear, this isn't about delegation, or choosing team members or the usual obvious tripe. It is much less about how you manage downward and instead about how you manage your peers, customers, and those above you. Recognizing when an environment doesn't match your working style is certainly one part of a successful career path. Being aware when an organizational structural supports your ideals is another. The oldest tigers are the ones that don't just hunt well. They know how to avoid the traps as well as the over-populated areas of the jungle. They know how to back down from a fight, and when a territory no longer supports their needs.

None of us are perfect. But given a supportive organization structure, a means of interaction that supports our style, and responsibility that matches our accountability, even those with mediocre ability can be very successful.

Just look at McDonalds. Lowest skilled worker, a smooth organizational machine, and they deliver a consistent product.

So the next time you're thinking about which behavior of yours that you would like to perfect, spare a moment and look around at your environment. Consider if changing who you work for, or who you work with, might not unlock more of your potential and let the skills you do have, really shine.

We Should All Sleep Alone

2008-09-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

In my web wanderings I came across an interesting article about sleeping. Namely it was an extract about an Austrian report that found that sleeping with someone else makes you more tired the day after. Well, duh!

Read the article here.

As someone who is often coaching younger professionals in the more fringe aspects of professional consulting, the topic of getting enough rest comes up often enough. From advising them to curtail the drinking the night before a big presentation, to reminding them that showing up for a meeting still flushed from a morning run can also be bad for business. The art of presenting a reliable, trustworthy, and professional image is certainly a mixed bag and everyone has their opinion. Every situation and client is different, and the techniques and approaches to deal with them are varied. One thing they all agree on is that being well-rested is certainly a key.

I led with that article sort of tongue-in-cheek, but in reality the points you can extrapolate from it are very real. You may be just fine sleeping with your partner, but are you taking the other time you need to recharge and focus on yourself? For many people, their only down time is while they are sleeping. If that time is interrupted, they'll naturally find themselves completely missing out on personal recoup altogether.

Remus, if you're reading this, I'm sure the gender of the person you sleep with isn't relevant, and besides the sleeping thing was just a teaser for my personal-time talking points anyway.

Interviewing Tips

2008-08-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

Recently I was asked to give interview tips to someone I've been
working with. As I dug down to recall it previous writing and training
about the subject, I was able to provide him a fresh summarization of
this somewhat difficult topic.

Interviewing is very similar to one-on-one selling. There are two
things you can generally rely on to help with both.

Yo start with you have to appreciate what is actually taking place
when interviewing or selling. Being interviewed is rarely about
actually demonstrating a particular skill, talent, or ability. It is
usually about determining trust. If they trust you, then they'll want
you to work for them. If they don't decide they can trust you then any
demonstrations or resume entries will be overlooked and discounted.
When viewed from this perspective it becomes clear the role that
confidence plays in the process. It is widely accepted that confidence
breeds trust. Obviously this is a simplification, but it brings us
quickly to the first point, which is to be Quick.

Being Quick is about the responsiveness and timing of your answers. If
you don't know the answer or don't have the information desired, just
say so quickly and simply. Don't preamble your answers, when you do
know. Just spit it out right away. If you need to think, let them know
right off that you are considering the request and formulating a
response. Using words that don't provide information so you'll have
time to think is often seen through and will make you appear shady.
Packaging your words with flowery or ambiguous language can leave
people with the feeling that you aren't or won't speak straight.
Remember you are trying mostly to win trust.

The second point is to be Succinct. This us very different than being
brief but has a few things in common. Put simply, use as few words as
possible to precisely provide your response. Overly flowerly or
lengthy answers have the pitfalls we discussed previously. But there
are two additional goals to consider.

The less you say, the more precisely you interpret and respond, the
less chance you will offend. There will simply be a smaller chance
you'll say something that can be disagreed with or break you out of
rapport.

The other upside is that the less you talk, the more they'll talk.
This one is really key. When they are talking you can be learning and
tailoring your responses and approach to build more trust and cement
your rapport. When they are talking they are doing something we all
generally like: talking. So they will actually feel good because they
are doing an activity they enjoy.

You put this together and in your interview you'll learn a lot by
getting the interviewer to talk, you'll have said only things that
reflect positively, you've clearly admitted your shortcomings, they've
enjoyed talking and will end with a good feeling.

There is obviously much more that could be said on the subject, but
maybe remembering just those two points will help.

The Middle-Wait Class

2008-05-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Harry always calls me an ambulance driver. I didn't realize how much the term had grown on me until I used it about myself when he wasn't around. He's sneaky like that.

I'll explain the term, by way of explaining how it came to be used. For a long time I have little phrases, some might say mottos, that I use when giving advice or talking on particular subjects. A simple interesting phrase allows me to anchor the idea or concept; then depending on the forum, the time available and the particular audience I can tailor the message appropriately in real-time. As someone who spends a lot of time in reflection, I found it helpful to have a handful of these anchoring statements to organize and summarize my worldviews.

The particular behavior that Harry observed, we spoke about frequently, and ultimate won me the label of ambulance driver was this:

It's either the gas or the brake, but it's all the way down.

I'm not sure if I heard it somewhere else, or like many of my phrases, it just spewed forth in some conversation one day and I liked how it sounded so it got added to the repertoire. In any case, it is definitely a frequently exercised one.

To be practical, a phrase like this shouldn't need much explanation, and I have found this one resonates with most people pretty quickly. Not that they agree, but that they understand and can see how I strive to apply this to my life. On the contrary, most people disagree with varying degrees of vehemence.

Generally speaking people strive to be risk averse. They want to compromise and counter their need for change with a passion for passivity and a sense of stability. We do this in our personal lives, we do this in our careers, and companies (which are clusters of individuals) do this with their strategies.

Sometimes understanding a new view on the world or being honest about the underlying views that are actually driving us, requires we step back and introduce some objectivity. To that end, let's examine the corollary to the previous motto that applies to design choices or corporate strategy:

The Middle Always Costs More

This one may have been so obvious as to be blinding so let's examine how this applies to companies.

Generally speaking innovation inside a market happens similarly every time. The first mover is often an outsider because they have the least to lose. They have no market-share to risk and much to gain with even small successes. The next group are the current leaders. Sitting on top of their market, they can generally afford to make the investments and manage the risks. They have the unique insight that is only accessible to the guy sitting on top of the pile. Lastly, those in the middle might work up the gumption to delve into the fray. Usually the just wait and watch to see how things shake out before moving.

This last group of middle performers, of compromisers, are the ones who need assurances and guarantees. Being afraid to fail, they won't move until it becomes clear (to them) where success lies, which 'bets' will pay off, or that their current plan really is pulling a Dodo bird.

When you only take 'bets' that are sure things, you aren't really betting. When you aren't betting, you can pretty much predict the mediocrity of the outcome. When you only move because you are forced to because the market is self destructing, you'll continue to sit in the middle of any market you make it into. And your company will be all the other mediocre middle-waits.

It is the ambulance drivers who get to the scene first. They are willing to take calculated risks. They drive fast but very controlled. They break rules, but within constraints and boundaries. They put a single focus first and set aside all other conventions and norms in the headlong pursuit to achieve it. And they do it without a racecar. They do it with all the tools and gear they'll need so when they arrive on the scene, they can really add value. They don't just get themselves there, they bring help with them.

Usually when I get on the scene, it is a big bloody mess. Sometimes the patient dies in the back before we get them to the hospital and that is sad but unavoidable. It's the valiant effort, the commitment to try, the desire to really help and to do it regardless of what everyone else sitting in traffic has on their agenda that makes an ambulance driver effective.

You might not always enjoy riding along with an ambulance driver, but everyone hates being stuck in traffic with all the other middle-waits.

Keeping My Square Edges

2008-04-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

When you hit crunch time on a project, the stress increase has the wonderful effect of showcasing the individual contributions which aren't always apparent. Strengths and weaknesses are illuminated most when risk (and therefore stress) is highest.

You may have heard others talk about stress as a way to weed out those who can't cut it. To identify those people with weaknesses and therefore cull them. Increasing stress works both ways, you can spot both weaknesses and strengths this way. The difference between smart people and lazy people is what they do with this information.

Surely, you can remove people based on their weaknesses, but is that really the best way to get top performers? Not in my experience, and I'm not the only one. A whole slew of authors are writing about this balance between strength and weakness. For example, Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, or Teach With Your Strengths by Rosanne Liesveld , Jo Ann Miller , and Jennifer Robison.

Historically, the path to improvement has always been through building up your weak areas, not downplaying them (or better yet, avoiding them entirely!). We give people feedback on the areas they aren't performing, ostensibly so they'll get better.

When was the last time you got a review or feedback that focused on what you did well and only glossed over how you could improve? We have been obsessed with it, and therefore churn out contributors who try and be well-rounded or generic, living in constant fear their weaknesses will be exposed. Because of this close-mindedness, they are never able to pour themselves headlong into their strengths. Like a fly buzzing around, they are constantly distracted by their weaknesses, so they never put full force into their punches.

This is most definitely not how I give feedback. If I'm going to spend energy and time to think about and communicate my analysis of someone else, it is going to be practical. We will celebrate your accomplishments and spend time talking about how you can use the things you do well to really knock peoples socks off and be smashingly successful. Then maybe if you have really pissed someone off or are offensively negligent in some area, we'll mention how you can either avoid those situations, or how to minimize the damage when they happen. There is no sense trying to make a surgical scalpel into a hammer.

For my own performance, the same rules apply. Certainly I am critical of my failures and short-comings, but only as they distract from my ability to perform with my strengths to their maximum potential. Rather then dwell on not being a white guy with shiny, gleaming, perfect teeth, bushy hair, a perfect handshake and who looks at home in a suit, I play my geeky, straight-shooter, mushroom-like role to the hilt. And then I bring a white guy with full hair, a nice tie, and a firm handshake to the meeting. He talks his white-guy talk and does the secret handshakes so I can focus on the important details necessary for us to actually deliver.

When we try and force people into being generic and "well-rounded" we are really asking them to knock off their typically square edges so you can shove them into your round holes. I like my edges and try to respect the edges of others.

No one can do it all. Recognize what you can do really well and then avoid or compensate for the rest.

The Expert Road

2008-03-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

There are a few things I'm really good at. One or two I am extremely great at. And a host of things at which I suck horribly. I know you are thinking this is totally obvious, but stick with me. I'm going somewhere with this one.

Generally speaking, you can drop people into of three categories concerning any skill. They're either Novice, Experienced, or Expert. When you are first learning something you are a Novice. You don't really know anything and you have no muscle or long-term memory for the skill at this stage. Once you have developed some proficiency you can move past the Novice stage and enter the Experienced stage. At this point in development, you either commit or you give up. Those who commit can eventually become Experts. Those who give up stay in the realm of the Experienced.

Whether it is about building products and services to be consumed, or in your own development, identifying when the commitment point occurs is key to understanding your adoption rate and capability for advancement.

Being a novice sucks. When you are just learning any new skill you always stink. At some point, with practice or just time, you stop being awful. That's the point when you move into Experienced. Unfortunately, sometimes we are willing to settle at the proficiency level we have reached simply because the effort to advance is too great. I don't want to try and get better, because trying something new means I'm going to suck again. After all the effort I put in so I don't stink as a Novice, if I move to the Experienced bracket I'm just falling right back into being horrible again.

If you aren't passionate or motivated, if the costs to get better are just too high, you get stuck. But the reality is, the better you get at something, the more fulfilling it will be. The more successful you are with a skill, the more joy and excitement you will feel from exercising it.

So how do you make sure your product or service won't lull people into this middle ground? How can you un-stick yourself when you realize you are settling for mediocrity?

For products and services you need to understand your Attrition Rate. What percentage gives up? What features were used or not before attrition? When considering the effort involved in adoption, what can be provided to help speed the transition into experienced?

For yourself it can help to keep your eye on the end goal. Remember that passion can ebb and flow, especially as you reach each new level and realize how much further your progression can go. It's natural to be daunted because you suck with something new. Focus on the result, establish the habits daily so you aren't fighting yourself everyday. When you do reach a new level, revel in it for a while.

Size Matters

2008-03-02T11:01:00.000-08:00

When you are buying property, how much property you are talking abut really does matter. If you want to buy a house to live in, they care about your income, your personal ability to pay the mortgage. If you are buying a 20 unit apartment building they care about the occupancy rates and your ability to keep it occupied. It really as simple as that. The deal factors change with the size of the deal. But within certain ranges, the factors don't change at all. Buy a 10 million dollar house to live in, they still care about your income. Buy a 1000 unit apartment block and they still only care about occupancy rates and your management experience.

Now, I've estimated, planned, negotiated and sold dozens of technology deals that exceeded 3 million. I've done the same for a double handful of 10+ million dollar deals. And I've worked on one or two that reached the 50 million mark. The thing they have in common is that when it comes to the estimates, the plans, and the negotiations, the factors don't change. The delivery changes drastically, the oversight and number of hands in the pie sure change, but the actual work involved doesn't. The steps you go through, questions you ask, information you need to digest is basically the same regardless of the size of the deal. Which you only realize if you've successfully done it a few times.

Just like my friends who are think buying a 5-unit townhouse is the same as financing their second mortgage. You can always tell who has come out the other side having learned something by the way they approach their next deal. The ones who only survived their deal, who came out the other side but weren't changed, haven't evolved, who didn't learn anything, they're the ones who approach every deal the same way. They have a hammer that works, and they just keep whacking away assuming they'll hit some nails eventually.

If you want to make sure you aren't one of the un-evolved ones, make sure you are seeking first to understand. That's a little phrase I picked up from someone much smarter than myself, but I find myself using it way to often. In my mind, it sums up the attitude of the nimble among us. It separates those who are continually learning, from those who think they've got it figured out and are waiting for the world to agree with them. When you play in the realm of architects and executives, you see both attitudes often enough. Most of being a great architect or executive is being willing to make decisions, to hold a vision in your head and be articulate about that vision. This means there is a very fine line to walk when you are surrounded by ambiguity and collaborating with numerous conflicting opinions and personalities. You have to be very nimble or you'll quickly end up on the wrong side of the line.

If you are seeking first to understand, you will spend more of your time upfront listening and questioning. But you can't spend all your time there. At some point you have to discern the relevant information, express some decisions, be willing to wrong and allow others to correct you, and then drive for consensus. You must engage first to understand, but if all you do is understand and can't utilize that information, the value vanishes. You can be told the difference between financing your home and a multi-unit dwelling, but if you don't chance your approach and act on the information, you've lost the value. You are just as effective as if you kept hammering away with your single tool.

When it comes down to it, it is the size of your ears that matter most. But a nimble attitude and brains are also needed if you don't want to look goofy.

The Line Between Good And Great

2008-02-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

Staffing a project can be a unique sort of puzzle. It can be very similar to the exercise many start-up companies go through trying to find talent. The problem is that it can be really hard to recognize talent on paper. And when it comes to building solutions or delivering real business value you often need engineers who can do more than just cut code. Consider what Paul Graham wrote:

But when I think about what killed most of the startups in the e-commerce business back in the 90s, it was bad programmers. A lot of those companies were started by business guys who thought the way startups worked was that you had some clever idea and then hired programmers to implement it. That's actually much harder than it sounds—almost impossibly hard in fact—because business guys can't tell which are the good programmers. They don't even get a shot at the best ones, because no one really good wants a job implementing the vision of a business guy.
-- excerpt from The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups by Paul Graham

This is a spot on concern as it relates to start-ups, and is a pretty good summation that the world at large has with separating real technical talent from mediocre technical resources. To help with this, I've written down what I consider to be the key points that separate the great engineers from the herd.

First and foremost it has to be the Love of the Game. Some people call this Passionate or Enthusiastic. Regardless of how you refer to it, you know it when you see it. When an engineer truly likes being an engineer, they exercise that passion whether they are getting paid for it or not. These are the people who light up when they have a chance to explain some nuance of a solution or problem they are working on. Even when polite company would have recognized that a topic was becoming to specific or technical and gracefully glossed over the details, an engineer of passion may just not care about the social graces and bore full steam ahead unconcerned.

The inverse of this is the engineer who has a job. The get enough tech talk at work and go to "training" when they are told they need to learn something new. Engineering pays their bills, if they could make as much money doing something else, they would. When you see someone who has had the same job for years and years, has worked with the same technology, on the same application or platform and doesn't see the need to change, recognize that they may be competent but they lack the potential for greatness.

An enthusiastic engineer naturally leads to a Self-Reliant engineer. When you love something you want to know all about it. You genuinely like that there is always something new to learn. With engineering, there is the added benefit that technology is always evolving. When their heart is in it, nobody has to tell an engineer how to keep up. They do it naturally, on their own. They know that the best way to learn is just to leap in and embrace it. They don't wait for someone to send them to training, they experiment and create of their own accord. When they come upon a new technology they don't wait for the explanation, they don't need to be taught, they just jump right in and learn.

The inverse of this is the engineer who constantly needs help. They need the complete manuals, they need training materials, and samples. If they are always talking about how difficult something is to understand because of the lack materials at their disposal, if they want to get trained before they embark with a new technology, they may be competent, but they lack the potential for greatness.

Engineers who are or can be great, seek to be Wise. Anyone who has learned to be self-reliant understands (even if only subconsciously) the difference between Wisdom and Knowledge. Knowledge is the set of facts, data, or concepts that can be learned, taught, understood. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. For most people, with experience comes wisdom. The more they attempt to apply their knowledge to the world, the more they the learn about which knowledge is meaningful and practical. Knowing what you need to know and how to identify what you don't know in a particular circumstance is the most useful thing to understand when faced with the new and interesting. It is this constant self-refinement and search for the application of knowledge which can easily lead engineers to be considered socially inept. Socializing is often about compensating for differences, and celebrating commonalities and trivialities. This is completely juxtaposed with the engineers pursuit of practicality and usefulness. Engineers who are great will be able to switch their communication style between the practical and the social when appropriate.

The inverse of this is the engineer who knows only for the sake of knowing. When the emphasis is on the tests they've passed or certifications they hold, you might take a closer look. If they can't focus quickly on the criteria for success (or risks of failure), or if they aren't objective about the usefulness of their new widget then they may be competent, but they lack the potential for greatness.

To really leverage these talents an engineer should be Diverse, they should have a wide Breadth. Even early in their career an engineer with great potential will find opportunities to jump from problem space to problem space. They will find that they need more than one toolset on one platform. They'll have experience in applying their knowledge to more than one type of opportunity or industry. Any engineer who is truly experienced, will resemble an onion with layer after layer of different experiences, most of which won't be covered by a resume. They will invariably be able to find parallels with their past experiences, and will constantly be remembering skills and aspects of their work that are applicable now but which weren't significant enough to write into their cover sheet. To a great engineer, the fact that they had to write a multithreaded performance test harness, or an attribute injection lex, or an exception word map isn't really important. It was the sum of the parts they delivered which was interesting. To them it is just an assumption that to get the end result they'll have to do all the other things in between. Many of these in-between problems are significant and meaningful in other contexts all by themselves.

The inverse of this the engineer who spends all their time in the parts or focused on one technology, platform, or industry. They know all about how to make NUnit do interesting things, but have never shipped anything. They know how to build data entry applications but have never concerned themselves with how the reporting system does what it does. That database guy who doesn't really know how the front-end works should give you pause. The UI guy who draws brilliant graphic but stays away from "the backend" may be competent, but they lack the potential for greatness.

A caveat with this last one is that we all have specialties. From time to time we all need a real pro at just one thing, and it can take time to truly master some aspects of engineering. The distinction isn't that they don't have a specialty, it is that they have branched out into all the supporting and complementary areas. If you want to truly master something technical you need to understand how it overlaps with, supports, or is supported by other technologies. An amazing looking UI that takes to long to boot up, or doesn't integrate seamlessly with its data providers will ultimately be useless. Likewise the most efficient library design is worthless if consuming engineers find it hard to use.

Being having these other attributes becomes less useful if the engineer isn't Social. To be valuable long-term they need be someone that people can work with and form relationships with. In any environment, Trust is essential to mitigating risks and allowing velocity to increase. Further, independent contributors without a sense of community or social responsibility will leave their biggest value on the table. It is one thing to be able to do a thing well, it is much more valuable to be able to teach others to do it equally well. Sometimes this is referred to as leadership or mentoring but ultimately it is about being able to inspire trust and earn rapport. Often this is a latent talent that can be spotted very early by contributions that person makes to the community at large. A willingness to be trusted, a desire to connect with others about their contributions are often signs of a valuable resource.

The inverse of this is the engineer who only works independently, has trouble establishing rapport or eliciting trust, and isn't interested in the contributors around them. If they don't see the value in community boards, hoard their specialized knowledge and aren't interested in teaching or mentoring, then you have some warning signs. The loner who solves hard problems but doesn't care to explain how and is less effective as part of a team may be competent, but they lack the potential for greatness.

An engineer with a majority of the previous traits will likely be Opinionated. Simply put, the pursuit of greatness requires an ability to recognize when things are not great. An engineer who doesn't have strong preferences and habits is neither going to be decisive nor efficient. Efficiencies are only capable when you can rely on habits, known patterns, and economies of scale. These things require some level of standardization and best practices in place. A key trait of someone with the potential for greatness is that while they may often be wrong, they are rarely in doubt. It is this confidence in their ability, proven by their experiences, backed with their reason and intellect that allows them to make progress where others have stalled, to act quickly while others are paralyzed. It isn't that they are rigid in their preferences and opinions, quite the opposite, they may change their course much more often than seems normal. Being able to have an opinion is important, so is being able to change or let that opinion go when appropriate. The best engineers can assimilate the opinions and preferences of others which allows them be more accurate in their reasoning, even on an unknown landscape.

The inverse of this is the engineer whose opinions are too rigid, who holds to standards and habits long after the need or advantage for change is apparent. If the mind is too closed, reason will inevitably fail. Consider the age of toolset the engineer chooses and the terminology they use. If you arbitrarily alter the assumptions in a problem space and witness a lot of discomfort or inability to change tactics and approach quickly then you should be cautious. An engineer who presents the same tools and approach to every problem may be very competent in that space, but they lack the potential for greatness.

This list is more a guide to potential. The wrong situation, personality fit, or environment can make a great engineer useless. A healthy environment can take someone with mediocre skills but strong potential and give them an avenue to be great. Of course, that's just been my experience, YMMV.

Hopefully this list can help you spot competent engineers if that is what you are looking for; they certainly have their uses. After all, everyone can't meet the standard of great. You don't have to staff your team or project or company with only great people. If you have competent people, and a few people with the capability to become great, then the right environment will allow their potential to be realized. If you can't afford the risk, get at least one great engineer, and let them find the other competent engineers to round out their team.

Just Walk 10 Feet

2008-02-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

An experience at a hotel in the last couple of days prompted me to resurrect a topic that I find myself addressing over and over at client sites. When your business is service-based (sounds redundant, I know) you need to have someone who does nothing but put themselves in the perspective of the customer.

Let me explain.

Firstly, not all businesses are truly service businesses. Most are just transactional. You go into a convenience store you aren't exactly looking for service, you want some products at your convenience (hence the name). When you walk into Wal-Mart you know there is no such thing as service, they live almost exclusively in the space of Price. They just dump the DVDs in the bin because you'll dig through them for a low enough price. You rent a car based on price and maybe for a select few some intangibles like the reward program or convenience, etc. Airline tickets are price-sensitive and location specific. From time-to-time, the real travelers will discuss aspects of service (I like the Southwest attitude better!) but in reality we are driven by non-service factors. And the list goes on.

In a service-business, however, it matters How You Are Treated, and what the Experience offers. A good example would be a restaurant or hotel. Not fast-food, I'm talking sit-down, atmosphere, ambiance, etc. If it's too loud, you won't want to socialize there. If the waiter is abrupt or inattentive, you may not return.

The example that prompted today's rant was a hotel. When I checked in, I asked to be given access to the special floor which meant I would get to have free breakfast in the morning and appetizers at night. They also let me print for free, and a few other amenities like free bottled water. The nice lady checking me in, said they didn't have room on the floor, but she didn't bother to ask me if I just wanted into the lounge. Why the hell else would I want to be on a specific floor? Naturally, I want you to hook me up with the special key card! In reality, about half the time they charge me extra for it and I don't care, I want the service. But she didn't even offer. Just nope, you can't stay on that floor. So they miss out on a chance to make me happy (a very regular customer with options) or alternatively a chance to up-sell me to a higher rate. She just wasn't listening.

Once I'm in my room I take the stroll around and can't find the switch for the blackout shades. This is because some genius mounted it directly behind the lamp so that you can't see it until you are standing up against the wall actively looking. This would be the same wiring savant who put the only outlet for the desk directly behind the desk so you can't see it, and getting to it requires gymnastics. Who would think that someone using the desk might actually need to plug something in? What else do you use a desk for in this day and age? Crafting letters on the non-existent stationary?

This solitary desk outlet hidden in the nether regions behind the desk also has the lamp plugged into it. What traveler doesn't need a place to plug in their phone? Everyone has a phone, everyone needs to charge them over night. Except to have both the computer and the phone plugged in requires unplugging the lamp. This room layout is brilliant! Not one to be defeated so easily, I look around for a plug near the bed, but rather than place it near the night-stand, it's practically in the hallway so I have to lay the phone on the floor. Which means in the middle of the night I'm either going to A) trip over the cable and bang my head on the wall, or B) step on it and crack the screen, or C) all of the above. As somewhat of an overachiever, I chose C.

In the bathroom, which is stunning by the way, and huge, they have beautiful bordering on gorgeous marble floors. What they don't tell you is that marble is really flippin' slippery when it gets wet. In here though, someone at least tried to think ahead, they give you a two foot floor mat that you can lay down. You can either A) put it in front of the shower and then hope you are dry enough when you get the sink so you can brush your teeth without breaking your neck, or B) put it in front of the sink and then twist an ankle trying to leap out of the shower across the room onto a two foot square floor mat, or C) start in front of the shower and then shimmy it across the floor to the sink. Having gone to a good university, I naturally chose C again.

Back in the living room, the beautiful flat screen TV caught my eye. I don't really watch TV but it would be an expected ability to hook my computer up to it and watch a DVD later. No chance. Evidently the TV Gestapo is allowing no uncontrolled use of the display device and they've locked it down tighter than an Alabama tick. Why on earth would you disable a perfectly good display? What could possibly be gained by denying me access to something that costs you nothing and would increase my satisfaction? They are just missing the opportunities all over the place. They are making the Experience feel transactional, instead of like a service.

There are hotels that understand this distinction and I patronize and recommend them as much as possible. The inverse is also true.

The point of all this isn't (just) to rail on the short-comings of this particular hotel. What they missed is having someone who would walk into the room as if they were a customer and see what we see. Oh sure, we talk about being customer focused and so forth, and in truth this hotel normally does a great job with personal connection. But they weren't listening. They aren't listening. They haven't walked where I've walked. I don't think my expectations are very far out of line. I simply expect to be catered to and thought about, and I'm willing to pay for the privilege. Even if trade-offs have to made so I don't get what I want, at least make me feel you are listening. Give me insight into the why and options to change my experience. From time-to-time, we all have bad experiences, a big part of your reaction is How You Were Treated, not just what the Experience entailed.

Are you in service business? If so, how do ensure that what you think of as good service is the same thing your customers will think of as good service? Who in your organization is specifically chartered to represent the customer viewpoint? Are you relying on one of your core-values being Customer-Focused to handle this for you? You don't have to walk in my shoes, and you don't have to walk far. Just walk a little from my point of view. Ten feet or so ought to do it.

Pick Any Two

2008-01-28T18:56:00.000-08:00

Need something built? Problem solved?

You can have it done:
1. Quick
2. Cheap
3. Correct

Pick any two.

The above adage is something that gets brought up pretty regularly in the consulting world. Along the way, I've added a few more elements to flesh out some more guiding principles about what it takes to maximize deliver along all three fronts. These are in no particular order.

If it works, it works. Conceptual isn't relevant. Theory is only interesting if during the discussion, the participants are allowed to drink beer.
Simplify. There is no code that runs faster than No Code. Use fewer words and as little fine print as possible. If you can't hold the whole thing in your head, it's too complicated. If you need more than one diagram that can be read from a single sheet of paper, you've over done it. If there are more than three If's involved, you need to remove, restate, or reorganize.
If it isn't written down, it isn't real. If it can't be measured, it can't be written down.
Measure consistently. When your measures stop moving, then you've stalled and you should kill the [project/idea/initiative/report/product/etc.]. Or you've simply been measuring the wrong things. The later is more likely.
One voice, one vision. No great idea or product in history was ever conceived by more than three people. If your working group (or decision-making authority) is larger than that, you might as well quit now.
Intuition rules. You know what you know, don't second-guess. If you don't have an intuitive response, learn more about the subject until you do. Habits and standards always beat new, slick, and fancy when it matters.
Change consistently. It isn't that you should seek change or avoid change, but accept it when the opportunity presents itself. Whether you go gracefully or kicking and screaming, make sure your reasons are rock-solid, repeatable, and right.
If you can't change or compete, then compensate. We like to think everyone should be good at everything. Which is complete crap. If you need something done that you aren't good at, get someone better to do it. Don't like doing something? Pay, entice, or swap with someone else. You don't have to be good at everything if your address book is big enough. Stick to what you are good at and surround yourself with people who will compensate for your short-comings (as limited as they may be).
Going pro? Go big. When you decide to pay someone for their experience or specialized skills or knowledge, choose wisely and don't hesitate to pay well. Then shut up, listen, and learn. There is a sign in the garage that says: Oil Change $10, Oil Change While You Watch $50, Oil Change While You Help $200.
Kompromise Kills. Don't even start.

Startup Stereotypes

2008-01-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days I've been giving a friend some advice as he tries to flesh out a startup. Having spent a decade or so playing in that arena with some good successes (and even more valuable failures) to my credit, I'm doing what I can to make his transition into the ranks of the entrepreneur less volatile than mine. From time to time, I use this place to spew thoughts that seemed to be helpful to him and might be useful for others.

In the technology workspace there are a couple stereotypes that have evolved. The first is the Developer. The technical guy who solves engineering problems, makes the impossible a reality, and knows way more details about how things work than most of us will ever care to acknowledge. The best ones are often very temperamental, strong-willed, and emotionally volatile. Their opinions and decisiveness, an un-erring determination of their own correctness or failings, and unflagging curiosity are their hallmarks. These traits are what spur them to the feats of creative genius and startling leaps of intuition which are why they are tolerated. As a sweeping generalization, the more valuable and miraculous they become the harder they are to manage.

The other major stereotype is the Manager. The general purpose resource who can direct activities, plans details and contributions, and makes the decisions. The best ones align themselves with contributors and seamless funnel opportunities and remove roadblocks in their relentless pursuit of specific outcomes. They are cheerleaders and priests, mothers and big brothers. They protect their people when necessary but make the hard choices on who to throw under the bus when necessary. Being social and flexible, easy to speak and quick to learn are key traits. As a sweeping generalization, great Managers sell themselves and their people, and act as information insulators.

In the startup world today you need both types of people. If you are somehow able to find both in the same person, hire them immediately. If for some reason you can't hire them, send them my way and I will.

The Fleecing

2008-01-07T11:51:00.000-08:00

As someone who travels full-time as part of my career, I am no stranger airports, hotels, taxis, and rental cars. Few things stick in my craw as much as the way the rental cars fleece their patrons. Except perhaps the insurance industry.

My recent bout with Hertz just really got to me. The rental car had serious problems so it had to be returned. The lady on the phone was extremely short with me as if my trouble with the car somehow inconvenienced her. When trying to figure out the best way to handle it she just said take it back to the airport. Which by this point is 30 miles away in the opposite direction I need to head. No alternatives, no sympathy even, just take it back. She didn't even offer to call the facility and ensure they'd be ready to exchange my vehicle.

So I make my way back to the airport and lacking any other information proceed to the rental car return location. Which as it turns out is only for returning cars, not for exchanging them. Don't ask me what the difference might be, they couldn't explain. Further, they never offered to explain where the heck I should have gone to do an exchange either.

While filling up the gas tank, I took the time to read the contract terms and noticed that had I not returned the car full of gas they would have charged me $7.49 a gallon. I had to read it twice to be sure I understood. Yep, more than DOUBLE what it would cost me to fill the tank up! Or I could purchase an entire tank of gas at 10 cents a gallon cheaper than gas on the street. Evidently they have decided it is okay to bend over their patrons simply because they can.

Either you save a meager few cents but make up for it by buying an entire tank of gas, or you do it yourself, or they'll rape you when you return. Why? They obviously have a sunk cost already in they guy who will fill it up if I return it less than full. With the volume of cars, surely the get a discount on the fuel as well. They can certainly continue to make a profit by simply performing this service for a small fee instead of the bitch-slap of more than twice the cost of gas! Why not simply charge me a few cents more per gallon? If they can offer me an entire tank for twenty cents per gallon less, why not charge me twenty cents per gallon more for a partial tank?

Simply put, it is because they can. Because rather than be a good company that provides great service for solid value they choose to be an evil company that provides minimal service for exorbitant fees. They might not have to kill the golden goose, but that doesn't mean they can't choke it a little and give it a flogging from time to time.

Argh.

Whine Power

2007-12-14T15:29:00.000-08:00

When it comes to persuasion and the arts of influence, your primary gift is your voice. Surely there are other techniques that sophisticated and experienced people use, but by far, it's the voice.

Not only do we communicate multiple layers of information with our words, but there is a tremendous amount of additional impact in our tones, our pitch, and our pacing. You can certainly read more about how to use tone and pacing in my other writings; in this post I want to talk about whining. Specifically how you can use the power of the whine to overcome obstacles.

The obstacles that whining is great for removing are objections. Objections are the reasons we give to justify our movement or lack of movement. They answer the question "Why could/should/would we do. . ." or "Why we can't/won't do. . ."

Objections are a natural and necessary part of any negotiation. During the persuasion process you either overcome them and achieve influence, or you don't. Whether you succeed or not, objections can provide a ton of information about the person objecting. You can find out about their needs and motivations, their discovery and planning processes, and so much more. I'll save decoding objections for another post.

Handling obstacles before you encounter them is a great way to smooth the way for your negotiation. Whining is a great way to deal with them before they ever become a problem.

If you want to be able to address objections before they are presented, you first have to forecast what the likely objections might be. There are many ways to figure these out but generally playing devil's advocate for your discussion or running a practice negotiation with a friend beforehand are great ways to discover possible objections.

Once you've predicted the obstacle, you can disarm it by using the power of the whine. As part of laying out your discussion, present the obstacle with a whiny, annoying voice. You can play it for comedic effect, use hand-gestures, and really get into it. The more whiny and annoying it is, the better. No one wants to be associated with such pitiful tonality and obnoxious behavior. So instinctively they will distance themselves from the objection.

For example, work into the discussion about price "Some people say It's Too Expensive!" and whine obnoxiously on the italics. The same can be done for other common objections like I'm Too Busy, or I've Never Done That Before.

For maximum effect, put the whiny bits into a larger sentence with a positive outtake. Such as "Sometimes people say: Doesn't That Require Specialized Knowledge, but the training in our class is open to everyone including beginners!". Having a positive outcome doesn't just push them away from the objection, it gives them something to hold onto so they work with you to convince themselves.

Next time you need to be persuasive, put the power of whining to work for you.

Where's Your Elephant?

2007-12-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

The following is a great story sent to me by a friend on the importance of not making assumptions. I have no idea of the original source...

In 1986, Mike Membre was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Membre approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Membre worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Membre stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Membre never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Membre was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Membre and his son Cantri were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Membre, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Membre couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Membre summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Membre' s legs and raised him high into the air then slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Funny but poignant. I sit at my desk listening to conversations every day watching people walk up to their own elephants with nothing more than a vague hope or some wishful thinking. Sometimes I catch them in time. Most of the time I don't. It's a great show though.