Category: Corporate Games

I estimate
that whenever I have to break from writing,
it takes me at least
one half hour to find my groove again.

One half hour
every time someone asks me a question
or the phone rings
or I receive a request
I can do ‘later.’

Most creative people
(artists, marketers, product developers)
have the same recovery time.
It is painful,
especially when we’re trying to be creative
on tight turnaround times.

What I do is shut my door,
unplug my phone,
and disappear from the world.

Do you allow your creative people to do this?
Do your creative people,
regardless of titles,
have, at the minimum,
offices with doors on them?

A manager is transitioning
her group from data processors
to analysts.

She has told her team
that if coding doesn’t appear correct,
they should investigate and correct it.

One of the first decisions
was to override a coding
made by a senior person.
It resulted in a large expense
being paid by an incorrect company.

The manager didn’t yell.
The manager didn’t blame her staff.
The manager congratulated the staff member
on making the decision,
holding it up as an example,
and then coached her
on how to make a better decision next time.

Will she make a better decision
next time?
Likely
but more importantly,
she’ll make a decision.

A controller announced
she was leaving the company today.
She was EXTREMELY happy
that she’ll be leaving
at the end of next week.
She isn’t going to another company.
She simply doesn’t want to
work for this one.

I suspect that most of her staff
will be interviewing
in the very near future.

This is great
if it is what the exec team wants.
It is not so great
if they need a transfer of knowledge
and a stable employee base
during the transition.

If your manager
can’t keep her joy low key
over the two weeks or more,
let her advise the transition team
from her home.

A manager pulled a junior jammer stunt
on me yesterday.
That she thought it would work
told me
that it HAS worked
for her in the past
so I figured I’d comment
on how I deal with it.

She sent a harsh, angry email,
cc’ing the world,
demanding to know why I hadn’t responded
to her previous ‘urgent’ email.
The ‘urgent’ email wasn’t forwarded.
Only the body of that email
was cut and pasted.

Clearly she was getting grief
for not finding the answers
to her problems.
She was trying to
put the blame on me.

My response?
I apologized.
I said I did not receive the email
but had received this and that one
on this and that date.
I asked if she could forward
the complete email including
the header with the time and date stamp
so I could follow up with IT.
I cc’ed the same world she did.

She hasn’t, of course,
forwarded that email to me
because that email doesn’t exist.
She never sent it.

Play enough silly games
and someone is going to point out
your silliness.

One of the things
that define leaders
is how much shit they pass along.

Terrible leaders pass along everything.
When they are dumped on
by their leaders,
they transfer the full load
to their staff.

That’s a bad idea
because one of the reasons
they supposedly are in a leadership position
is because they can take more shit
than the people they’re leading.

Great leaders consciously decide
how much shit to pass along.
They know that too little
and the team doesn’t improve,
too much
and the team is flattened,
all life squeezed out of them.

The shit also flows upward.
Again, great leaders consciously decide
what to pass along
and what to keep to themselves.

Terry Starbucker has a great post
on this subject.

The company was doing
a system roll over on Friday.
I knew that someone
from our group
would have
to come in to verify
it was completed correctly.
I also knew it would
likely be me.

I stated the hours
I was available
and volunteered.
My time frame ended up
being the time frame
for the rest of the team.

A group of authors
are presenting to the library.
Each of us
has responsibility
for a portion of the educational component.
No one wants to do this,
including myself,
but when the breakdown of components
was sent,
I volunteered for the most interesting one.
I was the only ‘volunteer’
and I did get that component.

If you have to eventually do something,
you might as well immediately volunteer.
That will give you more control
over that dreaded task.

A company I was working for
wanted to extend my contract
for four months.

I didn’t have a problem with that.
The project wasn’t yet complete.
I needed to continue.
I gave them my word I’d be there
for the four months.
What I wanted, though,
was two extensions of two months.
That way I could tell future companies
I had two extensions
rather than one.

The company absolutely refused.
They said four months or nothing.
My rate was fixed for a year.
The refusal wasn’t about price or length.
It was my manager not wanting
to sign two contracts rather than one.

If they wanted to play that way,
fine,
I could play that way also.
I completed the project
but gave them not a single freebie.
They weren’t willing to give to me.
I wasn’t willing to give to them.

If you think
by sticking to your guns,
you’re giving up nothing in negotiations,
you’re wrong.
The other party will always
work out a way to even the exchange.

When I was in high school,
a teacher once told me
‘you’re one of tomorrow’s leaders.’

I was a bit irked
(I was a teenager,
everything irked me)
because I wasn’t waiting for tomorrow
to lead.
I already considered myself a leader.

A family member mentioned
that her son really wanted to skate
but she wanted him to wait
until he was older.
I asked her if they made skates in his size.
Her answer was ‘yes.’

One of the romance sites
did a poll of
what era readers
would most want to live in.
The results were split
between the past and the future.
There was only one vote for today
(and that was mine).

The past is fixed.
You can’t do anything about it.

The future is based on the past
and the present.

That means you should concentrate
on today.
Don’t wait to lead.
Don’t wait to learn new skills.
Do it now.

During her Consumer Electronics Show presentation
at the AMEX booth,
Anita Campbell reminded
business owners to invoice.

It seems like a silly reminder
except that,
as Anita relates,
20% of small business owners
have forgotten to invoice customers.

That is revenue
that you and your team
have worked hard
to sell in
and provide.

Collect upon it
(and use the cash to grow).

A buddy asked me recently
why I post here.
What do I get from it?

Other than the good feeling
from sharing insights with others,
clientk pushes me to constantly read,
constantly improve myself.
Every day,
I know I’ll have to come up
with a post.
Blogging is never ending.

But then…
so is achieving success.
There isn’t a static finish line
for being the best.
The finish line is always moving
and
to be the best,
you have to move with it.

First Friday Book Synopsis
has some more thoughts on this.