Job Cures

Yikes, it’s been a while.

The Web is filled with so much, yet so little…valuable content, that when I do contribute, I’d rather have it ehance rather than detract.

Oh well, like beauty, value sometimes is in the eye of the beholder.

So, to get some ideas off my scratch pad I want to share my current understanding of why the ‘Peter’ principle.

If you haven’t heard of the Peter Principle, it’s simply this:

Sooner or later in life–everyone–gets promoted to their level of incompetence!

If this is startling to you, it needn’t be, because there sure isn’t anything wrong with being incompetent–unless you choose to stay that way for good reason.

Here’s why.

No one can be a master of everything, and I’m referring to us mere mortals.

Nope!

Just like the aphorism “A jack of all trades, master of none”, even if we were like Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day, or Highlander man, where there “…can only be one…”, none of us humanoids will ever be competent in everything.

Where is the challenge then?

Why is it that sooner or later everyone gets promoted to their level of incompetence?

And, for now, don’t even worry about how true this Peter Principle is, statistically. That’s not important. What is important is that, sooner or later it just may happen to you that you get promoted to a level where you are–incompetent.

What are you going to do about it if that happens to you?

Ah, that’s a good question–if you are the type of person to admit it, that is.

Once again, getting promoted or hired into a level or position where you are incompetent is probably only a problem if you stay there. That is, if you stay incompetent.

Now, granted, not everyone can play professional basketball like Jordan, or golf like Woods, but that’s not even under consideration in this post.

No, what’s being considered here is a person who is doing pretty well in their current position being promoted to the next step up, where it quickly becomes obvious that they are incompetent in their new role. For example, take the assembly line worker who is doing better than expected, and because of this gets promoted to a supervisory position, where it quickly becomes apparent to others, and especially those being supervised, that, in this new supervisory postion, so-and-so just plain sucks as a boss.

When that happens, what happened, really?

For starters, just because so-and-so was more than competent as a Team Assembler doesn’t mean they will be as a supervisor, because a different skill set is required in the new position. And, what if so-and-so never learned, whether on their own, in school, through a company training program, etc., that new supervisory skill set? What are the chances they will succeed in their new position any time soon?

Sure, some folks may be naturals at this or that, but in this example so-and-so isn’t, and is therefore incompetent.

The problem is when this incompetence is recognized and ignored–especially by the one who is incompetent!

True, there may be alterior motives as to why so-and-so was promoted, and I won’t deny the unscrupulous, but in this post my emphasis is for you who get promoted to your level of incometence, recognize it–and don’t do anything about it!

Because if you don’t, that is the problem…which leads to the following phases of the path from incompetence to competence, over and over, on the journey of life–if you want to participate, instead of stagnate.

The path through the quadrants begins and moves forward with:

Incompetence to Competence

1. Unconcious Incompetence, where you don’t know what you don’t know.
2. Conscious Incompetence, where you make headway and start to realize, consciously, what you don’t know.
3. Conscious Competence, where you learn, practice, learn, and practice even more until you become consciously competent in your new adventure.
4. Unconscious Competence, where you’ve done it for so long, it’s become second nature for you to be competent in this activity you’ve chosen.

It’s as simple as that, for ever…while we’er living this side of eternity, that is.

Notice the spiral, growing as you learn more and more, and get competenter and competenter…as long as you continue on the journey.

Yes, it’s a choice.

No, you don’t have to.

And, the spiral really doesn’t include everything you want to engage in. Rather, think of a separate spiral for each chosen area of interest. That way, some areas of interest may never progress–and that’s ok, unless, of course, you are being paid to be competent, aren’t, know it, and choose to do nothing about it.

If that’s you, my friend, that’s just sad.

For the self-directed among you…adventure on, enjoy the discomfort of incometence as you grow on the path of mastery in you chosen endeavor. Life is the journey and the destinations along the way…

Forget what I may have said in past posts about maybe not discussing so much the fab CARPE DIEM revolving, random, flexible, practical acronym pneumonic.

I forgot to pay attention to an important ingredient: Timing.

My bad. (Forgive my use of this modern vernacular, I just think it’s so cute.)

Yes, timing.

When matters!

Just because you want to CARPE about something doesn’t mean they do.

Have you ever been in a mood where you didn’t want to discuss something…anything with a particular person at that time? Sure. Everyone honest has.

True, sometimes we just don’t have a choice.

Take the flashing lights in the review and siren screaming ‘pull over’, for example. You may not really want to talk to the nice officer in that moment…but ya just ain’t go not choice.

Most other time you do, though.

Then why don’t we pay attention to the receptivity level of who we are CARPEing with to see if ‘now’ is a good time to discuss what’s on our mind?

One reason may be the instant gratification mindset of our fast food…faster internet society. We want everything now, dog gone it!!

Not wise in the grand scheme, however. Rude even.

So, without belaboring this with a barrage of verbiage, here are some CARPE DIEM reminders:

• Pay Attention
• Practice Awareness
• Evaluate People (person)
• Evaluate Availability
• Determine Availability
• Ask/Inquire about Moment
• Make it Easy on them
• Eliminate Demand for Instant gratification
• Practice Delaying
• Ask to Reschedule

Anyway, you get the point, by now…I hope. Play with the CARPE acronym in ways that suit your style, simply as a reminder in the moment not to take interpersonal communication for granted. It’s just not that easy…or simple to truly connect with others successfully in every interaction.

But, it’s worth it!

What else matters more in life than…people?

And, what is the only way to connect with people, other than by communicating?

Remember, you can’t not communicate.

Why not master this art and science of communicating, always growing and improving, getting better and better at creating and investing value in those you meet and share life with while on your journey?

If you’re reading this, and have been here before, maybe you’ve noticed no consistency in posting?

The world is filled with so much ‘word’ stuff, I often wonder why add to the collection?

Thus, I only do when I think I’ve got a nugget worth sharing.

Here’s another.

Recently, I’m reacquainting with Jim Collins. I was going to say his “Good to Great”. But, though that was the reentry point, in addition to that work I discovered some of his articles online at www.jimcollins.com. Imagine that?

Good to great stuff, indeed!

One of those articles addresses life-long learning.

I’m not sure when I became a life-long learner, but I certainly find myself in that category.

And yet, I’m curious; is it enough?

I love reading and listening to authors of all kinds. Add to that, good conversation, where learning can be given and received.

I relearned this from Jim’s article:

• Turn performance goals into learning goals
• In addition to a ‘to-do’ list, have a ‘to-learn’ list
• Respond to every situation with learning in mind
• And, set explicit ‘learning’ objectives to do so

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

I can learn more from someone I disagree with-in good conversation.

Katsumoto: You fought against your Red Indians?

Algren: Yes.

Katsumoto: Tell me of your part in this war.

Algren: Why?

Katsumoto: I wish to learn.

Algren: Read a book.

Katsumoto: I would rather have a good conversation.

From: Last Samurai

The one point of disagreement with this article is in the ultimate why of learning for a learning person: “Learning is the why of learning.”

I’m not convinced.

“We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.”

John of Salisbury

Just like the broad “life is a journey, not a destination” falls short because it is both and more, none of us are self-made.

The ultimate why of learning includes learning, of course, as well as sharing and growing, in a good-to-great, value sort of way.

More on the way of value, coming soon…

Continuing from yesterday, it isn’t really possible to completely separate your personal life from your work life on the job, but…don’t we really owe it to our customers to park as much of the personal as possible at the door?

(Note: ‘customers’ includes the company you work for and boss being your-customer, as well as coworkers.)

I believe I learned this one from Jim Rohn:

“Wherever you are, be there.”

Not just physically, duh. The whole package: mind, body, spirit, soul, right brain, left brain, etc.-you name it.

Whereever you are, choose to be there, the whole kit a caboodle!

Years ago I positioned it this way to help employees remember that there is a distinction between their personal life and job life:

Kind of like a: Rental Agreement

People are different, but does it matter on the job?

Must coworkers become amateur shrinks in order to get along with each other in the work place?

When Therapists work with people, they do so taking into consideration their totality-previous life and work experience, family background, whether they were loved more by Mom or Dad, what their brothers and sisters were like, whether they had a lot of toys to play with, disappointments, achievements, success with their significant other, children, joys, sorrows, etc. The professional’s task of understanding individual complexities never ends.

Fortunately, for the rest of us simply working for a company, it is not our job to solve the same problems as those experts, where we must understand coworkers in their totality.

On the job, at work, the only aspects of human behavior really of interest to employees, both managers and coworkers alike, are those that apply to the work environment of the business.

When a person seeking employment says “I would like to work for your company,” what they are really saying is:

Employee: “I will do what you tell me to do as long as you pay me accordingly, a day’s pay for a day’s work.”

Company: “I will hire you as an employee in this certain, agreed upon capacity, give you the training and tools as appropriate, and will compensate you accordingly-for the specific, agreed upon behaviors required by you to get the job done and perform as expected.”

Each specific job in a company is a collection of particular behaviors that, when done by the assigned employee as expected-correctly-constitutes performing as expected in that exact job. If an employee does not perform and behave as expected, or engages in behavior that is disruptive or not appropriate, they are, in fact, not doing the job they were hired to do.

And, because all jobs in any company are interrelated, any one job not performed correctly can negatively impact other jobs/employees.

The difference between life and business

It is true, there sure are all kinds of behaviors available to people throughout life. And, it is evident, there are all kinds of weird things that people can and do engage in outside of the job environment that may lose them family and friends, get funny looks from neighbors, etc.-or, even show up on Facebook.

On the job, however, the alternatives for appropriate behavior are limited. In fact, a company will be there only as long as it continues to do those things necessary for survival. The reality is, if employees in a company don’t do the right things, in the right ways, at the right times, by the right people, that company will not survive for very long.

When individuals agree to work in a specific job for a company they are, in fact, offering to restrict and limit their choices of behaviors to those that the company is willing to pay them for while working.

No, you don’t have to like your job…or the people…

Sure, many people may rather be doing something other than working in a specific job for a company, but, isn’t this why companies have to pay employees to work?

Yes, it is true that you don’t have to like your work, or even the people you work with, which is sad if you find yourself in this predicament. However, that in no way excuses you from performing your job as expected-and, as you agreed to when hired.

Doing the work as expected includes getting along with other employees!

Yes, working and playing well with others is a job requirement, usually not explicitly spelled out because it seems to be common sense. Quality of work, after all, is enhanced when all employees cooperate and treat one another with respect and courtesy. Poor behavior, whether verbal or non-verbal, which is disrespectful to coworkers, is therefore inappropriate, and not part of the company-employee job relationship agreement.

This is just a simple reminder that, kind of like a rental agreement, an employer pays an employee for only those behaviors necessary to satisfy the performance requirements for a specific job. Any behaviors not included in that agreement-especially those that lead to poor communications, conflicts, personality clashes, etc. lower morale, negatively impact productivity and must be eliminated from the workplace.

It needs work, but will do for now.

One simple question: Who’s responsibility is your behavior, whether at work, or at play?

Another is: If you really don’t like your job and/or coworkers, what is your plan to move beyond that challenge?

Chuckling after a coworker said it for the third time yesterday, I reflected a bit on the imperfections of life, this side of eternity.

“Life would be great, if it weren’t for employees and customers!”

Was he serious?

Not really. He was just venting in a humorous way about the unnecessary ‘personality’ challenges we run into on the job.

Can’t we all just get along?

Doesn’t seem like it. At least, not all the time, anyway.

Workplace negativity. Energy vampires.

Who needs it, or them?

Then, today, a great customer visiting for training shared a few gem-‘woes’ from his adventures over the years as a boss dealing with employees. Wow, I couldn’t believe some of the tales, especially considering how often he would go out of his way to help them through personal struggles.

I shared with him a nugget from a previous mentor, who, in his charitable moments also thought it helpful to reach out to troubled employees, family and friends:

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

Yes, “Houston, we have a problem…”, with human nature.

People ain’t perfect. You. Me. All of us, have our challenges.

Fortunately, we are all unique and possess patterns of strengths and weaknesses, so that’s good.

But, how to know who has what, where?

That is, as the one doing the hiring, how do you know for certain the candidates being evaluated are who they advertise themselves to be, and that bringing them on board won’t bite you in the butt down the road?

Or, how do you know whether or not your temporary loan to family or friend will actually help and not hurt, where they end up worse off anyway, further in debt, not having learned anything-and, they never pay you back? Worse, you end up on their black list?

I’ll be sharing an interesting approach to the how in future posts.

For now, remember “Send a message to Garcia“…

Here is a contribution to explaining the complexity and difficulty of programming to help those not actually in the software development trenches to appreciate certain realities and challenges of ‘programming’.

Creating software products can be one of the most difficult and demanding of human activities, depending on the size and sophistication of the task. Explaining and describing this complexity to nontechnical minds is itself an onerous task. It seems the best way for nonprogrammers to grasp programming is to learn by ‘programming’, but what are the chances?

Ever put together a picture puzzle? They vary in difficulty depending on image details and the number of pieces. But, at least they have the exact ‘big’ picture , successful result right there on the box. Programming is like putting together a picture puzzle, yet different in many ways. For example, two significant dissimilarities are: neither is the big, finished picture right there on the box; nor, the exact number of pieces it will take to require completion. Developers need to discover these requirement details as they move forward through the fuzzy front end of project conceptualization right on into full blown development.

Consider the challenge: “Build me this puzzle, please”, where both you and the requester don’t exactly know and have agreement about what the puzzle should look like, or how many, and from where all of the necessary pieces will come. Imagine all of those itsy bitsy little pieces that don’t already exist in the essential ’shapes’ and sizes to fit snuggly together, contributing to the whole. That is, as part of the challenge all of those distinctive components will need to be fabricated out of thin air, one by one, once you discover which and how many you’ll need to complete the programming puzzle.

Transcending the puzzle analogy, think of naturally occurring, beautiful and very dangerous icebergs.

Most of an iceberg can’t be seen; even as much as 90% is below the surface.

But, they occur in nature without human effort. Looked at from a satellite view, you would never realize the immensity below. Man made skyscrapers from a satellite orientation can be similarly deceptive, but at least there is the added touch of intentional design, obvious from the rigid structures on the top of these buildings. We may not know for certain what functionality the geometric objects atop each edifice provides, all encapsulated by the unique implementation of skyscraper to which they belong, but that’s not important here. The focus here is that a satellite view of skyscrapers can look like a picture puzzle, where most of what it took to make that possible is underneath, layer by layer, out of sight, but absolutely required for the skyscraper project to be successful.

Thus, think of programming projects as various degrees of building different sizes, shapes and purposed skyscrapers, where the satellite view of the roof is the user interface screen, and most of the rest of the structure, however deep, extends down, down, down, layer by layer, behind the scenes, all of which must be meticulously designed, implemented, integrated and verified before the grand opening.

Yep, far from perfect analogies, and I’m open to your much better version…

Let’s see: ‘S’…’L'…’F’

Oops, already flubbed what I predicted last post, that many future posts would start with the letters in Carpe Diem.

Well, forgetaboutit.

To constricting.

Worse, it takes more time than necessary to get things forced into that mold. So, I’ll plan on keeping Carpe Diem about inter/intra personal communicating and communications.

Why?

Simply, that whole realm of successfully connecting, getting through, understanding and agreeing with others is a tough nut, indeed. But, can’t give up. Won’t give up. In fact, I’ve been studying a newer science which is helping my understanding about just how huge of a challenge communicating with others is. More to follow on that soon.

For this post, I want to get into leadership. But, not in the usual focus on that word ‘leader’, because, it seems, there are too many folks who think ‘leading’ is someone else’s job.

What is leadership…to you?

What are the characteristics of leadership…that matter and are important to you?

Where and how are you a leader, on or off the job?

Considering the career management post preceding this, how have you enhanced your value as a leadership example in the last:

week,

month,

year?

If not, why not?

If not then, when?

Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure.
~Admiral Arleigh A. Burke

Just to kick start more posting, here’s a short one. Notice the ‘C’ and ‘M’ from Carpe Diem. It’s been a while, so I’m not certain if I already mentioned it. As much as possible (and how my memory helps or hinders) most future posts will begin with letters from the floating/revolving acronym-pneumonic Carpe Diem, just because that’s an indication that what follows has, at least, gone through my internal processing and synthesizing.

That is, one of the best ways of learning is to teach. I don’t want to spout verbatim what others have shared from their perspective. I want to own it, make it mine, and share from there. Carpe Diem helps me to do that.

Yes, much may be obvious to critics. So? Isn’t repetition the mother of learning…for those who want to learn because they don’t think they already know it all?

Onward.

Whose responsibility is career management?

Let’s see:

‘I’ ‘a’m ‘r’esponsible.

‘M’y ‘r’esponsibility.

‘P’roactively ‘m’anage ‘m’y ‘c’areer.

Etc. etc.

Yep, it’s an individual thing.

Don’t wait to get started.

Employers hire employees (or contractors, consultants…whoever-you) to be value creating assets.

And, assets, if left to themselves, unattended-depreciate in value. They certainly don’t go up in value if neglected and uncared for. Think of those eye sores in neighborhoods where there is no pride of ownership and how their houses deteriorate and fall apart because those owners just don’t care enough to maintain…enhance the value of their asset.

Sure, maybe there are some cases where an apathetic owner made a profit selling a dump because of a ridiculous market. But, don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen to you if you choose not to actively invest in your career management.

Yes…choose. It is a choice to take control of your career-by conscious effort-in at least two areas: knowledge and skills.

Health and appearance? Good ideas, too.

But, the focus here at jobcures.com (so far) is knowledge…leading to skills.

Attending to ‘you’ as a personal asset requires that you make a conscious choice to enhance your knowledge and skills and experience, early and often, in an on going way.

Just the fact that you’re searching and browsing and reading this post is a good sign.

What new knowledge, skills and experience are you pursuing today to help your career as a value creator, whether on the job now or later?

I think the concept of management by walking around is valid. Better yet, an upgrade to include the Carpe tool, how about:

Carpe by Walking Around Checklist/Reminders

Date: ____________

Carpe by walking around builds relationships and trust, and helps to motivate and encourage employees. It shows that you take an ‘a’ctive interest in others (notice the ‘a’ in Carpe?).

Here is a checklist to help you inculcate the new habit of…Carpe by Walking around. Experts believe it takes at least 21 days to develop a new habit. Use this checklist at least four times each day to begin the adventure until it becomes second nature.

Remember that Carpe is not a one-time thing..!

‘C’ = continuous

‘R’ = repetition

‘P’ = proactive

Walk around often-consistently:

[ ] 8:30am  [ ] 10:30am  [ ] 1:00pm  [ ] 3:00pm

[ ] Project the image of a coach and mentor, not that an inspector.

[ ] Use the opportunity to Carpe company values.

[ ] Watch and listen without judgment.

[ ] Look for employees doing stuff right and give them recognition in front of others.

[ ] Share and invite good news, ideas and opinions for on-going process improvement.

[ ] Be responsive to problems and concerns, and give people on-the-spot help.

I’m confident ‘c’hecklists can be powerful allies–if used. You?

As mentioned previously, and worthy of constant reminding, Carpe Diem is not a one-time event..!

Recall that ‘c’ and ‘a’ shouts: Can’t Assume.

But, we do.

I do.

You do.

Especially when it comes to what we think we agreed on, and are therefore expecting.

Face it folks, we’re different. Sure, I’ve even gone as far as admitting we’re all
‘unique’, but never forget to include the…’just like everyone else’.

That is, people are so very similar in so many ways, but common differences are always there, especially when it comes to expectations.

The reason for this will be discussed in depth in the days ahead. For now, consider these two words: value; and, valuation.

More to follow, coming soon.

This short post is just to remphasize–we are not the same. Never were. Never will be. This is why any type of Carpe Diem tool is a good thing to include in your relationships toolbox. That is, Carpe Diem is the revolving acronymn…mnemonic…catch phrase…reminder tool offered here to help me, you and others improve interpersonal communications–always.

And, it is not a one-time thing..!

I sure hope to get better at it. How about you?

Here is a video clip of Chris and Jackie giving Carpe a go:

[iframe http://www.youtube.com/embed/oA95AkZRVKE 480 390]

That was one of my favorite parts in that movie.

Below are three pairs of different people doing the Carpe thing via Venn diagrams. (Note:I’m not convinced pictures paint thousands of words, so some words have been added to help ‘c’larify their ‘d’ifferences.)

Persons A & B:

Persons C & D:

Persons E & F:

Are they enough, or is some explanation required (notice the question…clarifying agreement here?)?

Forward we go…