This morning I received the most recent “What’s Happening In Seattle This Week?” newsletter from Seattle Spin.  Their editors typically choose a topic for an abridged summary of what’s out there, and this week it was “self help books.”  They boiled all the essentials down to three themes: Get Over It, Knock It Off, and Make A Plan.  Call it sound-bite psychology.

Here’s the blurb for “Knock It Off”:

I have some recent direct experience with this. About six weeks ago I came to the conclusion that there were some habits I wanted to stop, and merely willing myself to stop them was proving fruitless.  So I put together a little template and put green dots when I did the thing I wanted to do, and a red dot (well, orange – Bartell’s didn’t have red) each time I screwed up.

Here’s my progress after almost four weeks:

(These things are things I mostly do at work, hence the blank spots on the weekends.)

You can see that I hit orange every now and then, but it’s amazing that the first day was almost all orange and then IMMEDIATELY started to go green.  By weeks three and four I felt really great about my progress and in fact as of this writing I’ve stopped tracking my daily progress on those sets of habits.

My conclusion: Three things about this type of system work well.  First is the visibility: this was 18 inches from my nose Monday through Friday.  Second was the tactile process: putting the little dots on the paper gave me a sense of accomplishment that I wouldn’t have gotten by clicking a checkbox in a website or on my iPhone.  Third: you can code the things you want to track so that you can have the sheets out in public (in your cubicle, for example) – nobody needs to know exactly what “NVD” means, for example.

I’m not normally a Type A super-organized person – in fact I laugh just writing those words, I’m so far on the opposite end of the spectrum – but this Type A tactic worked really well for me.  Hope it can work for someone out there on the innertubes.

Ever known the super-smart guy (typically, they’re always guys) who was just an absolute a**hole and couldn’t work well with others?  A recent GigaOM post, The Five Myths That Can Kill A Startup, refers to Reed Hastings’ term “brilliant jerks” to describe these people.  According to authors Michael Fisher and Marty Abbott:

Intelligence is important, but only insofar as it helps with performance and execution. As Malcolm Gladwell points out in “Outliers,” while some minimum level of intelligence might be necessary for superior performance, in many jobs it’s not in and of itself enough to ensure it. You need people willing and able to work as part of a team, and sometimes superior individual contributors can negatively affect team performance by creating affective or role-based conflict (for more on those, see Myth #3 below). As Reed Hastings puts it, you should eliminate all brilliant jerks from your team.

Which of course led me to Reed Hastings’ presentation on SlideShare that Om references.  I love it, and consider it a must-read for managers and entrepreneurs.  I like this statement in particular:

The real company values, as opposed to the nice-sounding values, are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go.

You ever work at a place and wonder how clueless management could possibly be?  (Scott Adams made a fortune off of this omnipresent phenomenon).  Look around: what are your company’s values?  They’re demonstrated by who gets rewarded, who doesn’t get rewarded, who gets hired, fired, reprimanded, how certain people are treated relative to others, relative pay, etc. etc.  The company’s support or non-support of certain people send an absolutely clear message about what’s important.  Printed mission statements and values declarations can’t hide it.

Now, having looked closely at that, do you still feel like your personal values are aligned with your company’s actual values?

If not, what do you do?

Found this great article over at samhowat.com: The Five Habits of Moderately Effective People.  It’s a good, common-sense set of principles for those of us who have too much to do, but still want to do much.

An excerpt from habit #5: Stop living in your comfort zones!:

People go through their life, insecure about their looks, personality, and capabilities, missing out on opportunities both professionally and in their personal life. The lucky few figure it out early, but the majority, waste 20-30 years of their life, passing up on things because they don’t respect themselves enough to get over their insecurities and step outside their comfort zones.

The next time you feel uncomfortable at the prospect of trying something new, don’t look at the situation with fear, but with excitement; it’s just your brain’s way of telling you that you get to experience something new and exciting!

This brings to mind one of my favorite quotes, from Marianne Williamson:

Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

Check out the full article here: http://samhowat.com/five-habits-of-moderately-effective-people/, and/or follow Sam on Twitter at @samhowat.

My friend Jim Benson is giving a lecture on Personal Kanban next Tuesday, February 2nd, at Construx Software over in Bellevue.  From the SeaSpin release:

Personal Kanban and Kanban for Distributed Teams
presented by Jim Benson

Kanban is rapidly gaining popularity in software development. How are teams and programmers migrating from straight agile to Kanban, or to hybrids like Scrumban or Scrow? How has this worked in the past? How do distributed teams make this more challenging? How can managers and teams best apply these new methodologies?

Jim Benson describes introducing both Agile and Kanban to development teams, focusing on a team he led in 2007 which built a complex transportation management prototype using nascent technologies and a team of cowboys – none of whom had used agile or been particularly collaborative before.

Come learn more:

Construx Software, 10900 NE 8th St Suite 1350, Bellevue, WA

Food & networking from 5:45 to 6:45 (pizza, salad, soda )
Announcements from 6:45 to 6:55
Presentation from 6:55 to 7:55
Doors close at 8:30

For more info, see our website at http://seaspin.org

Management gets a bad rap. There are a lot of reasons, but mostly it has to do with the fact that most people in management roles have no fucking idea what they should be doing to “manage” their teams.

OK, that may be a bit of hyperbole, but it’s a topic that I’m passionate about.

First off, people should not be “managed”. Sheep should be managed. Finances should be managed.  Finite energy resources should be “managed”.

People are people – note: not “resources” or “headcount” or “FTEs” – and they have lots and lots of capabilities, interests, ideas, and enthusiasms to bring to the table if we could just stop “managing” in the traditional understanding of the word.

A recent “Global Workforce Survey” of over 90,000 workers found some troubling data:

Here’s what the researchers discovered: barely one-fifth (21%) of employees are truly engaged in their work, in the sense that they would “go the extra mile” for their employer. Nearly four out of ten (38%) are mostly or entirely disengaged, while the rest are in the tepid middle. There’s no way to sugarcoat it—this data represents a stinging indictment of the legacy management practices found in most companies.

Ouch.

What are some of the typical mistakes managers make? There’s a thousand, but here are some big ones:

• Micromanagement
• Being too passive / avoiding leadership
• Assume expertise that they don’t have
• Incorrectly evaluating staff performance
• Infrequent or unclear communications
• Unclear goals, objectives, or priorities
• Thinking that “management” is more important than “people”.

That last one irks me.  I’m sorry, folks, but no piece of paper in the world, no date on the calendar, is worth even 1% of the output of your employees.  You commit yourself to your team, and the things written on your pieces of paper will start to look great, and the dates on your calendar will start to move backwards.  It’s magic.  People are magic when they are treated well.

I’m blessed with a team that, when I leave on vacation, everything gets done. 98% of that is due to the individuals in the team – I’m not about to kid myself here – but I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good manager and do the minimum, consistent, focused set of things necessary to align everyone’s objectives, clearly and quickly, and then step the hell out of the way and let them shine. I give lots of positive feedback where it’s due, and avoid nitpicky negative feedback about things that don’t matter. I try to develop a team-centric attitude. I like to celebrate shared successes. I like to give direct, clear, and immediate feedback if something is going haywire, and then follow up.

I’m not perfect. Far from it. By my own estimation, I do a lot of “manager”-type tasks poorly, still, even after 12 years of managing teams. For example, I’m notorious for forgetting birthdays and other special occasions.  But I like to think I’ve gotten the big things mostly right, and where I learn I have a gap as a manager, I try hard to fill it – first by asking for help, then demonstrating that I can do it myself, then thinking about doing it better and better until it’s second nature.

I also try to do one other thing as a manager: set a good example.  I work hard, treat people (mostly) well, am not afraid to show ignorance and ask for help, and I don’t bitch and moan in public (too often).  I try to be positive, friendly, and encouraging.  I think my team picks up on the way I conduct myself and I think some of my character rubs off on the team’s character.  Ergo: good team.

What do you do as a manager?  What do you hate about “management”?  Sound off in the comments!

I’ve been fighting with my Google Apps E-mail setup for a bit this morning, trying to get so-called “disposable” or “plus addressing” to work.  Essentially, the idea is that you can send e-mails to a special on-the-fly e-mail address that will make its way into your inbox, where you can use inbox rules or filters to put it in the right place.

So, for example, if you’re filling out a spammy form, you could enter:

anthonys+spam1@crowdify.com

and the e-mail would be delivered to your anthonys@crowdify.com inbox, where you can route it wherever.

I’m using very clear instructions from Matthew McEachen, but still having one final red-zone problem: the e-mails get delivered and placed in my “All Mail” folder, not my inbox.  And the filter I have set up, to label these incoming e-mails with a particular label, appear not to run against these incoming messages.

Kind of stumped right now.  Will continue to investigate for a bit, because I really want to get this to work.

Lanette Creamer has written an awesome blog post about “The Perfect Job” which lists ten points that she’s going to consider as she looks for a new job early next year.  In addition to being a great list to consider as you look for a new job, it’s useful to consider whether this list (or your own personal list, which may look very similar) applies to your CURRENT job.  What about your current job satisfies?  Doesn’t satisfy?  Bores you?  Excites you?  Inspires you?  Do you, dear reader, get out of bed in the morning inspired to go do great work?  If not, why not – what would have to change?

With regard to the specific items in her list, Lanette touches a couple different times on one of my personal bugaboos, performance reviews.  Awesome to find some probable like-mindedness on this topic.

In addition to co-opting most of Lanette’s list (excepting the Python), what would I put on my personal list?  Geographic flexibility is one; the ability to work from anywhere in the world would be great.  I would also put in something about the IT department following the business agenda, and not vice-versa; I’m thinking in particular about issues surrounding security, access, upgrades, hardware, etc.  I would want the lines of communication to be open and always on; especially in terms of hearing clear goals and directives from upper management.  I’d want a place that avoids product-development whiplash, as in on Monday deciding that Product A is the way to go, only to contradict themselves on Tuesday and really really thinking Product B is a better use of resources.  I’d want a place that put a very low value on doing things a certain way “because we’ve always done it that way.”

Finally, I’d add a note about the workplace being fun – not as in “nerf-gun fun”, but fun as in open, happy, laughing, vibrant, sharing, caring, and mutuality.

What would go on your list?

I feel … complicated today.  Complicated.  My, isn’t that a little self-indulgent?  Not to mention that I start off a blog post with the two words “I feel”.  I can’t imagine my father every saying the words “I feel” to anyone, nor would he describe any of his (two) moods as complicated.  And yet, we’re not our fathers, are we?  We live in times that are more open, more transparent, some would say more emotionally honest, and yes, I feel complicated.

It starts with me looking at a stop sign across the street and having these fleeting urges to yank it out of the ground and lay waste to Mercedes and passersby.  I think that’s the powerlifting talking.  I find that when I start a serious weights program, my aggressiveness gets yanked up a notch or two.  I get physically twitchy. Every object becomes a possible candidate to deadlift for reps.

On the other hand, I’ve been programming a lot, which is a more naturally relaxing activity, and making fairly good progress on some self-appointed tasks.  So that’s calming, and motivational. 

Yesterday I whipped through the master bedroom and cleaned out too many weeks’ worth of kid, dog, cat, and wife clutter, packed up some old books that I’m taking to storage, etc.  That felt good.

So where’s the complication?  There are other underlying forces, let’s call them the Illuminati of the cortex, that continue to cause turbulence.  Personal, professional…you name it.  Joy tends to get sucked away like a dairy cow in a tornado.  Whoooosh!  It happens so quickly and so consistently that you’re not even sure you remember what the milk tasted like.

Yesterday I read this article about happiness on Time.com and what struck me most was the very first recommendation: “Don’t start with the profundities".  I’m reminded of the 1991 camp-classic movie What about Bob? in which Richard Dreyfuss encourages Bill Murray to take “baby steps”.  Baby steps.  I suppose Rome wasn’t built in a day.

However, one of my problems – well, let’s be charitable and call it a characteristic – is that I tend to get stymied unless I see a can envision a more-or-less complete end-state.  So a prescription of “baby steps” causes a certain bit of anxiousness, because I’m not totally sure that this step or that step are leading me in a direction that I want/need to go.  This characteristic is also the reason that I tend to construct fantastical sandcastles of the mind “in which the Prince lived happily ever after.”  My wife calls them rose-colored glasses.

This need for a vision of an end-state is totally ironic, because I’m also a fan of GTD, a system for which the end goal is irrelevant at the point of action.  Everything gets broken down into baby steps.

Enough for now – I’m writing a blog post, not À la recherche du temps perdu.  Talk to you soon.

I think this productivity concept from Ross Hill is wonderful:

Andre has a compelling post up about Someday/Maybe lists and in my opinion gets at the heart of a lot of the unconscious resistance to creating, reviewing, or updating the S/M during your weekly review.

My own bugaboo?  My list fills up with unresearched projects (#7).  Yes, I tend to use S/M as a place to put items I don’t want to make a decision about.  More accurately, I use it as a place to put things I don’t even want to think about in the first place.

What’s your experience with Someday/Maybe?  Could you implement any of Andre’s fixes?