What Vacation Taught Me

I took vacation this year; a formal thing with travel, schedule coordination, planned activities, and days full of interacting with others. Sounds pretty much like work, with the minor exception that this was all family-focused, with the SO being the only arbiter of success. The other differences were the realization that HughesNet has some serious speed constraints, and that I had to stand in just the right spot in the driveway or there was no cell service.

I thought that Virginia on the main corridor between the state capital and the population center on the coast would have had at least nominal cell coverage. But no. Minimal access to internet and cell service. Both restrictions were perfect for me as the whole point to a vacation is to change pace, viewpoint, and take the load off, right?

Too bad for me that my ki does not work that way.

What happened is that my spare brain cell kicked in and started doing the random thought comparison thing. If this has not happened to you before, it is very annoying. In this case, I was watching some sci-fi show about time and travel and another show about fighting the bad guys before they got bad and not getting the task done as promised (hence the protagonist being railed on by his boss). Yes, I was flipping channels.

The random thought comparison thing comes in when all that gets contrasted with my real life. Note that I did not ask for this to occur, it just does. My SO is used to me going blank and starting to drool; coworkers know to stay away. My children just run.

So here are the world-shaking insights that banged into me in those exacerbating moments. Time, fight the fight that needs fighting, under promise and over deliver, “what is the other guys’ perspective”, and my personal need to re-focus.

Time: it is the one thing the we all possess, and once spent, we cannot get back. How are you spending your allotment?

Not every fight needs fighting. Determine which is which. Live with one, pursue the other. I will let you decide which path to take with which fight. Picking which fight to fight is sometimes more about which weapon to choose.

I find an approach to the recalcitrant project counterpart is to leverage some of my limited consulting skills and make my counterpart think that all of what I want is because he/she thought of it. Mostly you can do that with the “help me understand…” sentence preface where you get them talking. A few suggestions along the way and their explanation of their perspective will start aligning with the answer you need them to give. It works, it really does.

How many times have you had someone say “just a sec”? That is an extreme case of over promising, because we all know that waiter is not getting back to our table in “just a sec.” Expectation setting is crucial to positive outcomes. If you layout what you will be able to do, and then exceed that, everyone is happy. If you do the layout and cannot deliver the minimums, everyone is not happy. Very simple. So simple it appears to be in the same vein as “common sense.”

Finally, the re-focus thing cropped up again. How I spend my time, what goals are important enough to survive the latest round of life objective updates, and what am I doing about those goals and objectives needed some introspection.

Goals and objectives simply need to be refreshed on a regular basis. We have our personal goals, our professional goals, and the goals our manager says we have. Review, re-prioritize, shuffle, juggle, change, delete, and add objectives to achieve your goal. If you don’t pay attention to this process, the process will do it for you, and probably not in the way you want. You must do it. Or it will do you.

Just so you know, Stargate (the movie) is a lot deeper than the genre might suggest, and NCIS: Los Angeles has a few spare angles as well.

YMMV

Technical Consulting

Something went through both of my brain cells today. And to keep a long story short, it centers on your approach to the question – whatever the question might be at the moment. But, let’s confine the definition to work, where we spend a goodly portion of our life, and how we would like that portion of life to be as good as possible.

I was listening to a hotshot answer what I narcissistically thought was a great question when the light bulb lit. His answer was not only covering the technical aspects that I needed to hear that he knew, but he was (quite cleverly) also feeding in the business angle aspects to the answer formula. In essence, he was answering my follow-on questions of “what is the business reason for taking this action and does this action resolve the situation with the minimum staff adjustments in terms of time and skill set and did you cover the hidden costs as well as storage, cpu, ram, racks, et cetera.”

In short, he was doing really well answering my question. And I know he was the same in front of the customer. Everyone needs to have this guy on the team.

At any rate, the light bulb lit up on the concept of technical v consulting answers. Mr. Hotshot could have stuck with the pure techno-babble, with lots of numbers, specifications, descriptions of how to do it, and all of that fun stuff. Surely, there is great value in having someone know exactly how to do whatever it might be right off the top of his or her head. I wish I could do that sometimes. I usually revert to being able to point them right at some reference work. Works for me. And reserves my spare brain cell for other things.

Details are critical to our success. Mr. Hotshot was clearly in the right spot – he can bang out the details like no-one’s business. And he knows what he does not know. And he knows how to defer the question to an issue parking lot for follow-up. Perfect.

Mr. Hotshot could also have just gone the technical route and ignored the consulting aspects until asked. All the logistics questions and staff and culture type stuff could have waited. There is some tremendous value in knowing all of that stuff even if at first glance it does appear to out of scope for our project. After all, “how is lunch served around here?” is an important project scheduling point.

But more to the point, what about using those consulting skills to identify architectural detail about the environment, impact to the project (and affecting the defining business goals/requirements) and perhaps dredge up more business? Gees. That sounds awful salesy huh? How about the idea that the design might need to change in mid-project? There is a benefit to having your very own in-house consultant, eh?

We have two approaches to doing what we do. You can be deep technical. You can dive in deep. I know a guy that you can call at almost any hour and pose some bizarre Active Directory or Registry question. Just be prepared to scribble fast because there is no way you will remember the details the forthcoming answer will encompass – but it is going to answer your issue. He knows some serious technical depth stuff.

But you can go too deep and lose your audience. What we do must be tailored to the audience. If a business decision maker is in the room, then you better be including that person in your audience profile. The technical team can wait a bit while you fill in their boss with the business details stuff and make his staff look like they were all over it from the beginning.

In our work, I see a real-life need for a consultant who can get into the technical errata, be able to walk and talk at the same time, and discuss business to the extent of your understanding; all of that without getting into even minor prevarication or truth stretching.

And here is our intrepid Mr. Hotshot fieldling my question tree with answers that meld the technical with the consulting. “Choices made for these reasons which tie to this technical answer and so on to this business requirement.” Or “we discussed the need for expanded storage” and “I expressed my concern that the network might not support the technical solution.” I know he gave those same answers to the customer and guess who was in the room? The customer’s CIO. And Mr. Hotshot is giving me answers like that. The conclusion should be obvious.

We have more work coming from that customer. That makes your work life better.

YMMV

Elevator Pitches

 

There I was eating dinner. A popular activity in my house. This evening was more involved as my wife had a friend in from out of town; this results in the whole event being more structured than the normal goat rope that passes for a meal. Ribs. Check. Mac n Cheese (homemade you clowns, not that box stuff). Check. Corn on the cob. Check.

Sit down, make some small talk while dishing stuff up. Our guest had a strap-hanger so I am trying to be nice (Yes, me, being nice. And no Matilda, hell did not freeze over). Eventually you get past weather, drive times, fashion, weather (again), and food; the conversation needs to address larger items in life like “…and what do you do?”

When that question comes up, and it ALWAYS does, are you prepared? Actually, there are several levels to this question. The first is the concept of “initial impressions” which unfortunately for some of us makes and breaks things. Sometimes there is simply no getting over that first impression. My econ prof used to say “corporate America does not hire Beavis and Butthead” – and while I think that needs to be modified for portions of the west coast, that statement is mostly true. I encourage reflection on how you present yourself and how that presentation might be affecting your life. OK, back to dinner.

Remember that we are chowing down on some good eats, generally having a great time. Do you really know who is who in your initial circle, and possibly the next few layers out? Do you understand the concept of six degrees of separation (and here also)? I will wait right here for you to read up on that.

OK. We are at the moment of truth; out comes The Question. Communications Engineer says I. I get the expected response which is “what is that” and I get to give my little spiel about helping companies envision, design, architect, and implement collaboration solutions [Note: not a word about Microsoft or Cisco, or whoever at this point]. This gets me several questions about the difference between design and architecture; how long have you been doing this, et cetera. Around this point in time I start wondering whether or not this person is simply bright, engaging, and well-rounded, or is simply great at small talk.

Or it could be the OTHER ANSWER. In MY house and at MY dinner table. I will wait while you go back and re-read the six degrees thing up there.

Now it is MY turn to ask The Question. Oh my. It was the OTHER ANSWER.

Sitting at my table was the executive admin to a notable international private investment firm. Oh man. I sure hope I did not do anything. This person has the private ear of the entire executive staff – you know, those folks who make business decisions. For like 16 years. Clearly this person swings a big bat. What I did and said might well result in either a welcome reception or locked doors for our sales team.

Let’s review the bidding. Initial impressions count more than you think. Maybe not fair, but it is what it is. You need to have an “elevator pitch” prepared (and practiced!). You need to be thinking through follow-on questions. You may need several versions to cover various life situations. I have the social version and the 9-5 version. You can guess as to which one I used at dinner.

Everything we do counts. We are all in sales at one point in time or another. Everyone we meet and communicate with (any medium) forms an opinion about you, your work, family, and overall value. Bottom line? Be prepared. I learned long ago (1975) that you are always on, and that you can never tell when you might need to turn it up a notch.

YMMV