April fools

• The Republicans in the House
• South Dakota (with its too-intrusive anti-abortion policy and its not-intrusive-enough firearms laws)
• Mississippi (the state where it's safer to stay in the womb, with highest child mortality rate in the country)
• The Koch brothers
• General Electric
• The culture wars: sheer idiocy vs. total chaos
• Michele Bachmann
• Newt Gingrich
• U.S. energy policy
• Everyone, everywhere, who denies our role in global warming
• Donald Trump
• Orrin Hatch (The only thing I ever liked about the guy was that he used to play bridge with Teddy Kennedy.)
• AMC and the producers of "Madmen"
• The NFL
• Today's weather

Lessons Learned

I’ve been managing people at O’Reilly and elsewhere for over 25 years now. I’ve made boatloads of mistakes during that time, but I've learned a lot, too:

1. Manage up and out, not down. Represent the best interests of your group by managing your manager. When the people who report to you need support and guidance, step in.
2. Understand that it’s not about you. If you don’t get that, you’ll never be a good manager. Or a good employee.
3. Treat your employees like adults. You’re not their parent or their third grade teacher. You’re a mentor and advisor. You define the goals and objectives for the group and for each employee. And then you help them do what it takes to get there.
4. Be as committed to your employees’ success as you are to the success of the company. And vice versa. One feeds the other.
5. Let go of controlling how people do their jobs. As long as people are doing their jobs effectively, let go of the how and keep your eye on the desired results. Insisting that things be done only your way prevents your employees from developing their own ideas, and limits the organization as a whole. Your employees are not extensions of you. Give them room to do it their way, as long as they’re not disrupting anyone else’s work and you’re getting the outcomes you’re looking for (or, odds are, better outcomes than you envisioned).
6. Don't forget that you don’t have to have all of the answers. Your job is to figure out what questions to ask, and to work with your employees to find the answers. Collaborate with them to solve problems, and ask for their help when you need it: it’s a two-way street. If employees are always coming to you for answers, they don’t develop the kind of independent thinking that results in big benefits in the long run. Challenge them to figure things out for themselves; be there to advise and consult.
7. Let people make their own mistakes, and don’t come down hard on them when things go awry or fall through the cracks. If you have good relationships with your employees, they don’t want to disappoint you. They feel bad enough about making errors. If people don’t feel that they’re empowered to make decisions—and allowed to make some mistakes—they’ll turn to you to make all of the decisions. That’s not helping anyone, especially you.
8. Don’t ask questions without context. “Did you know about this?” in email can make an employee wonder whether you’re pleased with whatever you’re referring to or if you’re asking what their culpability in the situation is. Not knowing what’s behind the question makes it feel like a trap.
9. Try not to put people on the defensive. It makes them far more likely to develop the habit of covering their asses (CYA) rather than doing things that might lead to new and useful developments.
10. Avoid contempt. Try to keep it out of your attitude and out of your voice, no matter how you may feel about some of your colleagues and their work. Perhaps you need to spend a little time examining what’s behind any contempt you may feel, as it probably says a lot more about you than it does about anyone else.
11. Don’t be harsh with your employees. You can register disappointment without raising your voice and/or being a jerk. Being harsh with your employees puts them in self-protective mode. They’re less likely to seek your guidance and advice. Less likely to tell you what’s really going on. And more likely to be afraid to take on additional responsibility.
    
    Harshness makes people contract and harden, not expand and flow. It makes them feel incompetent, erodes their self-confidence, and causes them to second-guess themselves far too often. It makes them afraid of you, which is counter-productive (and not much fun for either of you). Working with you should be a positive experience, not a minefield your employees have to tread carefully.

12. Take responsibility for your actions. If anything you’ve done has added to a problem, own up to it.
13. Give your employees context. Explain what’s going on in the company, or with a new initiative. Tell them what they need to know to understand how what they’re doing fits into the big picture.
14. If you can, give each employee meaningful responsibility for something: make each one the go-to person on a project, an ongoing task, a topic area. Give them ownership. Be clear about your expectations and then get out of the way. Pay attention but don’t micromanage. When other people come to you with questions, first direct them to the person responsible for that area. Be there to advise and support, and guide them back on track if you see things going off the rails. And then get out of the way again.
15. If someone’s behavior is inappropriate, discuss it in private. Getting your knuckles rapped in front of your peers is humiliating. Don’t put your employees in a situation where your actions cause them to lose face in front of others. Note I said “discuss” the behavior. No yelling. Be clear and straightforward with your feedback. And give them a chance to explain.
16. Don’t speak negatively about an employee with his/her peers.
17. Give your employees overt, public credit for their successes. And when they do something well, let them know that you noticed—and that you appreciate it.
18. Meet with your employees privately at least once a quarter to check in. This is in addition to the day-to-day interactions you may have. There should be no surprises on their annual performance reviews. They need to know how they’re doing – and you need to know what they’re struggling with – on an ongoing basis.
19. Give people your complete attention when you’re interacting with them one-on-one or as a group. 1) It’s way more efficient than trying to multitask, and 2) it lets people know that you take their concerns seriously.
20. Listen at least as much as you talk.
21. Ask for feedback on your performance as their manager. Find out what your employees think you might do better in general, what you could do to help them more effectively, what you perhaps should stop doing. LISTEN. Acknowledge what they’ve told you. It’s fine to explain the things you feel you need to, but wait until the person giving feedback has said their piece. Avoid sounding defensive.
22. Know when to cut your losses. If you have given an employee as much support and guidance as you can and they’re not able to perform up to the requirements of the job, help them move on. If it’s not a fit, it’s not a fit, and there’s nothing that either of you need to apologize for. That may mean letting them go or suggesting other, more appropriate opportunities for them in the company. Don’t let situations that aren’t working fester. Do what you need to do for the employee, your group, and the best interests of the company.
    
    

Why every family should include at least one marine biologist

My nephew Adam is getting his PhD in Marine Biology. A few years ago he took me way out into the Everglades to catch and tag a few alligators. It was a blast.


Adam is a very handy resource when it comes to important marine biology topics. Note this recent email exchange:

Hey, Marine Biologist -

CSI Miami's latest episode opens with a guy on his cellphone stepping into his swimming pool, not noticing that there's an alligator in the pool. Which, of course, proceeds to attack him, making for a nice bloody dramatic beginning. Questions for you:

1. Would the alligator survive the chlorine?

2. Would an alligator in a pool automatically go after a human? If not, what would make an alligator attack someone in a swimming pool? (Not a super-big alligator, either.)

Just wondering. I know everything on TV is true (especially on CSI: Miami)...

- Your favorite auntie

* * * * *

Hey Auntie E,

Yes, an alligator could survive in a chlorine treated pool, but not for a really long time (like months). Gators can survive being exposed to almost anything for short periods of time (days - weeks) as long as they keep their mouth closed because their oral cavity is pretty much the only part of their body that contains highly permeable surfaces and therefore is the site for most ion exchange with their environment (i.e. chlorine, salt, etc.). If they don't open their mouths, they don't get exposed and it's all good in gator land.

An alligator would not automatically attack a human in a pool. Depends on the size of the gator and the size of the human. Alligators generally don't go after prey that are bigger than they are, though there are exceptions to the rule (e.g., deer). What would happen in the pool, I think, is that the gator would sense a human entering the pool through the vibrations on the water surface caused by their entry (they sense these vibrations with their "dome pressure receptors" located on their mouth), and also by the noise of course. The alligator would come over the the human to check it out and inspect the situation, and then it would decide to attack or not attack based on the human's size relative to it and its own hunger level. Gators also like the element of surprise, so if the human saw the gator and started trying to hit it or punch it in the mouth or something like that then the gator might decide that attacking wouldn't be worth it. If the gator on the show was small (less than 6 ft. or so) and the human was a big adult then I think most likely the gator would not attack, at least not immediately.

glad my PhD learnin' is proving to be useful in many contexts

love

adam

Stepping Out on the Ledge

A close friend here in Gloucester lost her younger brother yesterday morning. He was shot outside his Detroit townhouse by one of his neighbors, who then went home and shot and killed his father before killing himself.

* * * * *

On my way to her house yesterday afternoon, I listened to “Judgment of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune),” a song about Beethoven, by Joni Mitchell:

You've got to shake
your fists at
lightning now
You've got to roar
like a forest fire
You've got to spread your
light like blazes
All across the sky
They're going to aim
the hoses on you
Show them you won't expire
Not till you burn up every passion
Not even when you die

* * * * *

Late last night I watched a documentary about Bruce Springsteen and the making of the album Darkness on the Edge of Town. After a long legal battle with his manager following the success of Born to Run, Bruce and the band finally got back into the studio and spent a year working to make Bruce’s vision for the new album a reality.

They worked at it month after month, recording multiple versions of over 70 songs, trying different approaches, mixing the tracks in various ways, pushing the limits of the technologies, the musicians, and, no doubt, everyone’s patience. They spent three months just trying to get what Bruce felt were authentic drum sounds – instead of the polished and pristine sound of drumming in the studio, Bruce was looking for the raw essence of drumming, a sound he just had to find.

Some people would see this as obsession; others would call it genius. What I see is his clarity of vision and an unwavering belief in himself and what he was trying to do. The film shows his burning intensity, compelling and hard to watch in equal measure. As the exhausting and seemingly endless process of iteration continued, it’s remarkable that he didn’t get so tangled up in the doing that he lost sight of the getting there. But he recognized the endpoint when he reached it, and the album was done.

Talking about that period in his life, Bruce said, ““More than rich, more than famous, more than happy – I wanted to be great.” Watching his dogged insistence on realizing his creative vision--believing in it, absolutely convinced that it was great--I thought about how infrequently I have pursued my own dreams and vision with anything even vaguely resembling that level of clarity, commitment, and conviction. I haven’t walked that far out on the ledge. These past few days have made me think about what it would take for me to take the first step, and the second.

* * * * *

Our time here may be long or short or somewhere in between. What shall we make of the time we have left?

Big Money, Bad Money

Seems to me that a whole lot more good could have been done with the billions of dollars that have been spent on negative political ads and campaigns for the upcoming midterm elections.

There are 310,554,258 people in the United States; the combined total of all of the money spent for these elections is far more than that. The money could have gone to more productive things, like helping people pay their mortgages, donating it to cancer research, or repairing roads and bridges. Or they could have given everyone in the U.S. $5 apiece and saved us all from the constant barrage of campaign crap.

Grey

I spent this past weekend preparing myself for letting Grey go. He spent the weekend sleeping, eating a little here and there, and occasionally sitting in my lap, purring. It’s clear that he is uncomfortable and feels unwell; his beautiful sea-green eyes are distant and he sits facing the wall, as if he is waiting for something. Today I will take him to the vet for the last time.

It’s sad to lose him, but sadder still to watch him suffer. So, I will be there with him at the end, with many tears but also with love and gratitude for all that he brought to my life.

Grey is, above all, a persistent cuss. He has always been a good communicator, and generally got his way, demanding food and attention, insisting on sitting in my lap while I was working, and deciding when it was time for me to stop working and come to bed. When he thought it was time for breakfast, he’d walk back and forth on me as I slept, and then would stick his face right into mine, tickling me with his whiskers until I got up.

Since he’s been ill, there have been a few flashes of his old spirit, but mostly he’s been quiet and sleeping a lot. He has tolerated a certain amount of medical treatment, but I can tell that he’s done with that, it’s not making him feel any better, and he’d just as soon let this body go. And so I will help him with that.

I am quite sad, but also immensely grateful for the time we had together. May we meet again someday.

Marketing Tips for the Administration

Time to do some marketing, Mr. President. (And you Congressional Democrats.)

Run a series of ads spotlighting the individual Americans who are benefiting from the stimulus package. Let the people speak for themselves about their jobs and how their lives have changed as a result.

Run a series of ads spotlighting the various projects across the country that have been funded by the stimulus package. Let the project/site manager and/or the people working on the project speak.

Include a counter in the corner that ticks away, rolling up the numbers of how many jobs have been created -- just keep it ticking away, still going as each ad ends (to show it's an ongoing process).

Stop ceding this ground to the Republicans and TeaBaggers. You can win the battle for people's hearts and minds.

Stop telling everyone what you're doing and the impact it's had on people's lives -- show us. Over and over and over again. On TV. On the radio. Online.