Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

May 3, 2012 · 9:27 am

Overtime

I’m kind of tired this morning.  I stayed up to watch the first overtime period of a hockey game last night, which turned into a second period and then a third.  In the NHL, playoff overtime periods are the same 20 minute length as a period in a regular game, so it was the equivalent of watching almost a complete second game.  The thing that always strikes me about OT (as overtime is commonly known) is how the players deal with it.  After all, they’re told to put out 100% effort during the game, so what’s left in their tanks if they’re doing that?

into.overtime

(Photo credit: MelvinSchlubman)

It’s a good question for all of us in business.  Then again, we don’t play OT since there’s really no game clock any more.  Overtime is the quaint notion that there is work beyond normal working hours for which we get paid additional money.  Of course, with our “always on” technology, it’s not unusual to receive (and reply to) emails and documents at any hour.  In fact, I’ll bet most of you get antsy if you send a note at any time and don’t receive a reply within an hour.

There are lots of issues here.  The biggest is the same one the players face.  They’ve given everything they have to win during the allotted time and then find out that because they haven’t accomplished the goal they’ve got to continue to give more.  Can they?  These OT games often come down to conditioning and team management – who’s got the fresher legs.  That’s why as managers, we need to make sure our people are pacing themselves since there is no clock in business any more.  Sometimes our best performers will burn themselves out if we don’t make sure they’re turning off the mail and setting the phone to mute, at least on the weekend.

The notion of paying people for overtime work is a fair one yet I don’t know how anyone keeps track.  Business is not just done in the office and burnout can happen anywhere.  There is no clock in business – most of us don’t “punch in” and “punch out.”  As a result, we need to be cognizant that the game might go into OT, the little breaks in between periods of game action won’t be enough to fully recover, and we need to have the stamina to compete.

Make sense?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Thinking Aloud, What's Going On

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 2, 2012 · 10:12 am

Bubbles

Many of you may have seen a bunch of articles asking if we’re in another tech bubble.  There was an excellent one today in The Silicon Alley Insider (they conclude we’re not and their reasoning is pretty sound and fact-based) and it got me thinking about the nature of “bubbles” and how tech is far from the only area to experience them.  In fact, I’m going to posit that your business may fall victim to them at times.  Let me explain.

Here is the definition of a bubble from the article:

…We have to ask what a bubble is. And the important thing to get is that a bubble is a mass delusion. Technology investor and visionary Peter Thiel has a good definition which boils down to this: a bubble is a) a widespread, intense belief that’s b) wrong.  In other words, a bubble is what happens when the vast majority of people believe (and are putting their money into) things based on a fundamentally wrong-headed notion.

I like that, and I think it’s applicable to people just as much as it is to businesses.  We can start with many of the “celebrities” that populate so much of our popular culture today.  Many people seem to believe things about them (they’re role models, they’ve got talent) that are fundamentally wrong.  Add most of the “artists” we hear who are incapable of performing without electronic enhancement if, in fact, they’re the ones performing their music at all.  Most of the time, they’ve taken a riff from someone else’s work and gone from there.

Then there are some “thought leaders” out there who haven’t had an original thought in a decade.  Unfortunately, a good portion of the traditional trade press (which makes a lot of its dough from subscriptions and ads from these some folks) doesn’t point out that these emperors are naked.  There is a leadership bubble in many sectors – an intense belief in people who are just wrong.

Sorry for the snark today but am I off-base?  Are we living in a time of mass delusion?  Or am I the only delusional one?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , ,

May 1, 2012 · 11:02 am

Being Prepared

A very long time ago that seems like yesterday, I was a Boy Scout.  Given that it was the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, being a part of a quasimilitary organization (or even any organization other than a rock band) was a fairly brave thing to do on my part although I certainly didn’t see it as such at the time.  The thing that scouting impresses upon you almost from the outset is the need to BE PREPARED.  Yep, in caps.  Be prepared in mind, be prepared in body.

"A Boy Scout" Boy Scout Cigarette Card

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I got to thinking about that the other day as I left a meeting.  I had spent several hours getting ready – trying to anticipate questions I might be asked, learning about the company and person with whom I was meeting – and the prep work paid off.  We had a very productive session, hopefully the first of many more.  Rather than spend a lot of time going over preliminaries, we were able to move into the real questions each of us had for the other.

When you drive beyond a town you sometimes come across a sign for a new housing development that’s nothing more than some roads.  It’s easy to say “I have no clue what this is, what it will look like, if it’s worth thinking about, etc.”  But someone has to build the road first. Sure, it’s all empty lots, there’s not much around. But being prepared is building the road.  Equipment and workers can’t get in without a road; nothing much can happen in any project or meeting without prep.

I used to say I didn’t want to walk into any meeting where I hadn’t already answered the questions.  What I meant was that I always wanted my team to get ready in advance by thinking through all the possible options, the potential questions, and projected outcomes.  That wasn’t about predetermining the outcome.  It was about being ready to discuss any and all thinking.  More importantly, it was showing respect to the other participants in the room by not needing to get up to speed or to schedule another meeting because you need a lot more time to gather information.

So today’s thought is the scout motto:  be prepared.  As a teacher you learn that every hour teaching is preceded by an hour or more of prep.  It’s been a good lesson to carry forward into business – devote as much time to preparing as to doing.  You’ll be surprised how much more actually gets done.

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , ,