(heard at the theater during a rehearsal) “Why’d you put your bottle in the trough?” asks the director. “Keepin’ it cold,” replies the actor, smugly. I’m in character. “You mean ‘wet’ — that water is really warm.” No you aren’t. “Huh?” “It’s a trough, in the sun, in Oklahoma, in summer.” He walks away. “Huh.” It’s hard to be in character when you have no idea where your character is.
Four people now have sent me the link to Seth Godin’s “Bobcasting” post.[0] “I call it that because instead of reaching the masses, it’s just about reaching Bob.” As a guy named Bob I couldn’t agree more. 🙂 In all seriousness, though, his idea is dead on. The key is control. End-user control. Most information doesn’t need to be a popup, an email, or an instant message. It just needs to be out there so that when I’m ready for it I can get it. As a sysadmin I see this a lot with folks building email alerts into everything. Some of my coworkers get hundreds of status email messages a week, saying everything is good and reporting statistics like …
Guy Kawasaki has a great interview with Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of What Were They Thinking? Two quotes stand out for me: “sometimes…the best leadership is less leadership. No seed can grow if it is dug up and examined every week, and for people to innovate and get things done, sometimes they need some time and space and resources.” It does take the right touch, though. Some folks will not get things done when given time and space, and some will flourish. The trick is to know who is who and treat them accordingly. For example, I like to let a big problem “stew” for a few days before I start working on it. This bothers some of my coworkers who …
Why do I like small teams? Metcalfe’s Law, for starters, which is something that Frederick Brooks writes about in The Mythical Man Month. Basically, the amount of communication necessary in a group equals approximately the square of the number of people in the group. As you add people to the group you start needing larger meetings, wikis, politics, etc. All of that takes time and energy, and that time and energy isn’t going directly towards the end result. Second, the more people on the team the harder it is to manage roles. It is likely that two members will have overlapping skill sets. When people have similar skill sets sometimes they end up in competition with each other. The other …
I grew up in Saint Paul, MN. For a special occasion my parents would take my brother and I to Mancini’s Char House, a steak house on West 7th Street. My father was a firefighter at nearby Station 10 and knew Nick Mancini, probably through the course of his duties. Mancini’s Char House is where I first learned that it’s neat to go somewhere for dinner and drinks and have the owner know your name. To this day we still enjoy going there for dinner. My mother called me yesterday with the news that Nick Mancini passed away. He will be missed. Wherever you are, Mr. Mancini, thank you and take care.
Number of staff from my group in your meeting: 2 Number of meetings you have per year: 50 Scheduled length of meeting (what you get billed for): 1 hour Average actionable/discussable agenda items per meeting: 0.25 (once a month) Total cost to you for us to attend: 2 * 50 * $80 = $8000 Total cost to you for monthly meetings: $2000 Savings: $6000. Your team’s budget shortfall (which started this whole discussion): $3000 Amount you still save after the shortfall is removed: $3000.
transparent: a : free from pretense or deceit : FRANK b : easily detected or seen through : OBVIOUS c : readily understood d : characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices. Transparency does not mean that you can tell two different parties two different things. It is not telling your coworkers and/or staff one thing and your customers another. It is not telling one customer one thing and another customer a different thing. It might look like you are being transparent, you might call yourself transparent, but the right adjective is “manipulative.” manipulate: to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one’s purpose. Unfair != free from pretense or deceit. Manipulation is …
I will miss Herb Carneal’s voice as the announcer of the Minnesota Twins. He passed away yesterday at 83. I have fond memories of a sunny fall day in Saint Paul as a kid, listening to the 1987 World Series on the radio, his voice echoing the game as I sat at my mother’s sewing desk assembling a collection of leaves & tree descriptions for a Boy Scout project. I can see the whole thing perfectly, feel the warm sun and light breeze through the windows, smell the leaves and the Elmer’s Glue, hear his voice on the radio. I love autumn more than any other season, and Twins baseball was a big reason why. I hope wherever you are, …
I have a nasty habit of replying to the statement “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job” with: “Then don’t.” It catches people off guard. It’s fine if you don’t like something I’m doing or something I’ve built. Let’s talk about it, because I doubt I’m intentionally trying to annoy you. Introducing the topic as telling me how to do my job, though, is a hostile way to start a conversation. It guarantees that your message to me will be lost in me thinking about how much you suck, too. Is that what you wanted to happen? You wanted us to be adversaries instead of teammates? Moral of the story: learn how to tell someone about …
Seth Godin has a post about answering “why?” sorts of questions, concluding with a great line: “The single most efficient (and lowest cost) technique for improving your operations is answering the why questions! You should embrace these people, not send them away.” Last week I had a customer ask me why my team has a policy to do something a certain way. My response was “you know, I know why we did it in the past, but it doesn’t make any sense now.” The simple question of “why?” prompted a policy change. I always try to answer “why” questions with a truthful answer. If I don’t know why something is the way it is I find out. I hate argument …
