Seeking Coastal Utopia

Whose eyes are you seeing the problem through? Whose perspective are you taking when you propose a solution? Are you sure that you are doing the right thing for the end-user, the customer, the person you are trying to understand? “Will this help magnify their worldview?” Photo by Ronan on  Unsplash Understanding and accomplishing an empathetic viewpoint is imperative for success. Being able to see the problem from their eyes, within their world, is necessary for building strong relationships , adoption, and overall change management. How many times has something changed within your business? The way you used to access something, or the software or hardware that you came to depend upon worked well. The system you were comfortable with? And. It. Has. Changed. Here comes the Information Technology team within your organization, almost out of the blue. They are here to solve a problem that you did not realize even existed. To provide you with a solution without unde...

“six person walking on train rail surrounded by tall trees at daytime” by Anthony Intraversato on  Unsplash Relationships matter. They help you can get more things done. Having learned this many years ago while in the military, I was quick to realize that knowing the right people was very beneficial. Using just the chain of command was not always the most effective way of getting things done when needed. These were not nefarious relationships like Hollywood tries to show — the ones where the hero or heroine happens to know somebody who knows somebody that provides the much-needed thing or has the inside scoop that they need to be successful. Yet, it is still relationships that allow them to be successful. These are the relationships that are built on trust, on respect. Even the relationships that are built on blood, sweat, and tears. From those deep experiences that you know that you can trust the other person implicitly. Relationships and politics are aligned. Even w...

“painting of man” by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on  Unsplash Face it, we humans are a messy lot. We are a train wreck of sound and fury. Yet we are innately capable of amazing things — and we have opposable thumbs. Because humans are messy, we need to learn to be effective, especially when we need to accomplish tasks. We need to consider and take the effort to walk around in the shoes of others — to be inside of their skin and take on their worldview . Having an empathetic perspective helps us grow and connect. Leaders and managers need to understand the delicate balances of how their direct reports react to information, whilst also understanding the nuances of diplomacy and political marshes surrounding them created by their own peers and superiors. In order to succeed, we need to listen and pay attention . Why? Filters and biases warp our worlds. “person lying down on white surface” by mwangi gatheca on  Unsplash We all have emotions. We also have filters an...

“red number neon signage” by Karolina Szczur on  Unsplash A lot of you are probably thinking, what is Rule Number 6? Others are probably thinking what happened through 1 through 5? There are no other rules. Benjamin Zander described Rule Number 6 in his book The Art of Possibilities . Here is a vignette from one of his talks and he describes rule number 6 how it came into play. I have been keeping Rule Number 6 as guidance with the blogs I have been creating. It has been helping me remain grounded (what?!? I don’t have more followers? WTF!) reminding me to keep from being too serious. It allows me to enjoy this more, being slightly less competitive and hopefully making it enjoyable for those that discover these readings. Stop being so serious For that matter, what does it mean to be so serious? How can anyone be so serious? I remember as a younger dude and saying “ serious as a heart attack ” — I suppose that is pretty damn serious. A simple project management trick...

Check your ego at the door, please. It is time to wake up and realize you are NOT the smartest in the room, and you really should not be if you wish to be successful. If you are the smartest in the room, maybe it is time to change rooms. Remember in grade school when picking teams? You knew who the good kickers were. You knew those that could roll a perfect pitch. Everyone had the ringers recognized. Why should that be any different at work? Before everyone starts squawking about wanting to have inclusion, I am talking about surrounding yourself with experts. The smartest people available that will force you and the rest of your team to up their game. We talked about the Hawthorne effect in a previous post ; how does that affect you when you’re working at your job? The observer effect makes you change your behavior. You find yourself working harder and being busier (yet maybe more inefficient) because somebody is watching you. When you notice your change in behavior because of t...