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In literature, the unreliable narrator can be a delightful way to introduce suspense or tension. An unreliable narrator tells lies or misunderstands the world, and therefore can’t be trusted. They seem believable at first, but the reader soon realizes they’re not credible. You need to doubt what they say, and figure out what is really true. The unreliable narrator is much less delightful as a manager. Or as your manager’s manager. Or the general manager of your division. Or as the CEO. The unreliable narrator as manager makes getting work done much less effective, and much less enjoyable besides. Up… …read more…
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Recently, for the first time in my life, I had to report to the county courthouse for jury duty1. I wasn’t selected for the final jury, but I still spent two days participating in the selection process. It may surprise you to know that movies and TV don’t dwell on the boring parts of jury duty. There were some truly boring stretches. But even the boring parts are interesting in their own way2. The Summons I received the usual summons postcard. I’d been summoned for jury duty, reporting to the Linn County courthouse on Monday and Tuesday, March 4 and… …read more…
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Stone Soup is an old folktale. I remember hearing the story well before I was in school. And I remember my brother and I begging our mom to let us try making stone soup!1 For those not familiar with the story, here’s my short retelling. Then I’ll get to my point. Stone Soup, A Retelling Once upon a time, there were two travelers making their way through a poor part of the country. As the sun started to go down, the travelers came upon a village where they decided to stop for the night. They knocked on the door of… …read more…
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Once upon a time, my family decided our powder room1 needed some improvements. When we bought the house, we’d noticed the hardwood floor was discolored around the base of the toilet, like there had been condensation or maybe a few overflows. The toilet itself was prone to clogging. So, we hired a contractor friend2 to replace the toilet and install laminate flooring. To save a bit of contractor time and cost, and to make sure we got what we wanted, we researched toilets. Tall vs short. Round bowl vs elongated. Various flushing mechanisms. The ability to flush buckets of golf… …read more…
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I don’t have answers in this post. Or probably many words. I do have an observation. It’s difficult to be a facilitator while also being a participant. It’s even more difficult if you have strong opinions or key information about the topic. A few weeks ago, I stumbled across the term “neutral convener”1. That’s a great description of the role of facilitator. A facilitator’s goal is getting a group to the best decision, having heard all the needed information, without a lot of unnecessary detours2. The easy thing to say here is that a participant, especially one with key information… …read more…
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Ashley’s legs churned. Her feet flew across the asphalt. Ahead of her, Becky started into a slow jog, gradually picking up her pace, arm extended backwards. “Becky was so tan last fall,” Ashley mused, noticing how pale Becky’s arm was against the track, while another part of her brain noted what a strange thought that was and chalked it up to oxygen deprivation. Ashley willed herself to move just a bit faster, reaching out, putting the baton squarely in Becky’s hand. Becky’s hand closed around the baton and she lunged forward. Ashley coasted to a stop, gasping for breath, careful… …read more…
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If you’ve been in the business world for any length of time, you’ve probably heard someone talking about “putting on my __ hat”. It’s helpful phrasing to signal that you’re taking a certain perspective on a discussion. Someone might say, “putting on my manager hat, we need to get this done in two weeks, but putting on my engineer hat that’ll create all kinds of risks.” That’s not exactly what I’m writing about here. But it’s not completely different either. There’s a phrase that I use, inside my head, literally “putting on the hat” or “time to ‘put on the… …read more…
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After onboarding new employees across companies and disciplines, having been onboarded, and working to improve onboarding practices at nearly every company I’ve worked at, I’ve stumbled to the belief that there is a nearly-algorithmic process can lead to an ideal—or at least much more acceptable—onboarding experience. Following this algorithm will take work, but it leads step-by-step to a complete, detailed onboarding program. Contrast it with other articles that suggest you “ensure a positive first day reception” or “create a journey that’s intuitive and easy“. Plenty of those articles give some broad guidelines. Broad guidelines can be useful; specific actionable steps… …read more…
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The team has just finished presenting their recommendations to their leadership. Leadership is happy about their plan for building the next part of the product. After a small adjustment, leadership is on-board with the sequencing, too. Before the meeting wraps up, the team points out the work would go more quickly, with less risk, more sustainably—somehow better—if there were some changes to processes, workflows, structure, or team organization. Leadership responds with a smile. “We’re ready for change!” The team smiles back, gathers up their things, and heads out to make things happen. But somehow, the process, or workflow, or structure,… …read more…
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I wrote before about two of my onboarding experiences and how they shaped my view of the company I was starting at. Those were remote, senior-level software development roles. In this post, I’m going to write about improving onboarding for roles that were not remote, senior, or for software development. Once upon a time, I worked for a company that surveyed railroads to provide “maps”1 of the track. Doing the survey required our GIS technicians to physically traverse the track with our survey equipment. Afterwards, the technicians would return to the office with the data they had gathered, process it,… …read more…