Corporate phrase: “Serotonin date”

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

Explanation:

Serotonin date 1 is the near chemical need that certain managerial and project staff have to possessing a date for every deliverable even before such a date can reliably be provided. Very often they are being driven by people further up the authority chain for whom the project plan is the nearest they get to the reality of actual business, such pressure results in the people afflicted with this dependency just wanting a date at any cost: “Can I have a date, even if it’s an estimate?”

An easy way of detecting such a person is if in a lot of their phrases you can swap the word “Date” with the word “Fix”… “I need a Date today”.

This dependency can be battled surprisingly with the help of those who are actually suffering from it, you expand their deliveries to include the dependant tasks that are causing the uncertainty and then their energy can be used to assist you in pushing down the unknowns, and ultimately providing them with their “Fix”.

Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.

  1. or junky date if you are feeling crude[↩]

Management Nugget No 17: Your path to success is not everybody path

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

Just because you have experience in success, does not mean that your success is the success others want.

Explanation:

This one is a bit of a long term learning experience for myself.

Over time I have talked to lots of people who have each educated me on this subject, but 3 stand out

Person 1) Was a new team member for a client, who I assumed would want to go into management, I explained its virtues and pushed for it. What I didn’t do was actually ask them if they actually WANTED to do management… They didn’t, this simple failing of mine was pointed out to me by a colleague.

Person 2) Was a senior staff member who was also very good at another task I wanted. I asked them if they wish to take that task further. It would involve more money, it would involve a promotion etc, etc.. They simply said No, they enjoy their current job. They did it well. They did not want to do another job badly by working in an area they did not enjoy, I would say they were, and still are; a wise person.

Person 3) The third person that taught me this lesson simply had a different path that they were going down. it was not that they did not see my route to success as valid, but if they had followed it it simply would not have resulted in them achieving their goals, since then they have followed their own route and found their own success. 

In all of these situations I had made an assumption based on my experience and my view point on the world, without checking whether one human would want to do the same as another human, ultimately that is the management lesson here, you and the people under your care may have the same project goals but it is very unlikely that they hold the same long term success aims, part of your responsibility is to work this out and help them achieve it.

Such people will help you more than you could ever imagine.

Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.

Corporate phrase: “Thought terminating cliché”

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

Explanation:

This post is mainly to just highlight this phrase. It’s apparently been around for ages (1956) and I’m just late to the game. Please go see the Wikipedia article,

“A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to propagate cognitive dissonance (discomfort experienced when one simultaneously holds two or more conflicting cognitions, e.g. ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions).”

To put in a simpler format, it is a phrase used to shut down a conversation that someone does not want to have, and to stop people questioning the actions that are currently being taken.

When it comes to work/project versions, please see this excellent post.

Business examples are:

  • We are where we are.
  • We’ve already had this conversation.
  • Be a man and…

I have had a fascinating hour down the rabbit hole on such phrases, and have come out the other end with the view that there is nothing that a sufficiently motivated person cannot twist to their use,

lets take “We’ve already had this conversation”, for every person I have heard use it to shut down a challenge or valid conversation on a upcoming project issue, I have heard it used to try and stop another wasted meeting, because someone has a personal axe to grind and is crippling a project to enact it.

Don’t let people manipulate you, hold to your deliverables, and make individual decision based on individual reasons.

“Education is greatest blessing if of best sorts. Otherwise no earthly use.” – Kipling (Kim)          

Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.

“Acid Sam” Run No. 3

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

I continue trying to get a really good “Acid Sam” time 1, An “Acid Sam” 2 is 100 Kettle bell Snatches followed immediately by a standard “Acid Bath” fitness test.

The details and timings are:

100 Kettle Bell snatches

Details: I use a session kettlebell of 24kg which is a basic standard for someone of my size 3

Time: between 5 – 10 mins, with 5 mins as the proper goal. 4

Acid bath

Details: The “Acid bath” is a standard fitness set which consists of the following:

For standards these all have to be done on the concept2 range of equipment.

Time: Men are supposed to do this under 6 minutes and Ladies under 7.

Progress and attempt times

Todays try I did in 12:07 5, an improvement from the last time of 13:46, time wise its good, but the snatches were not very snappy at all,  that needs fixing, also I missed the split to start the acid bath, so the end time of the acid bath was about 6.07,  which is a slip, but thanks to Sam I am getting better at the “death Grip” so and not sheading my hands and only used chalk once.

The split times for the various parts were.

  1. 20 kettlebell snatches (1:10)
  2. 20 kettlebell snatches (1:10)
  3. 20 kettlebell snatches (1:10)
  4. 20 kettlebell snatches (1:10)
  5. 20 kettlebell snatches (1:10)
  6. 500m Ski Erg (1:50)
  7. 500m Row (1:50)
  8. 1km Bike Erg (2:10)

I will leave the times the same for the next try and see if I can get the “Acid bath” part under proper control.

BONUS SET

As someone relatively tall, I find some of the exercise machines easier, but one thing I REALLY struggle with is burpee style movements, so to stress this part of my growth, Sam gave me the following set to do

6 Rounds for time (18 min cap)

  1. 6 double kettle bell devil’s press, 2x16kg
  2. 6 double kettle bell kb push press, 2x16kg
  3. 2x16kg 300m ski erg

I hate it, its worse the the “Acid Sam”

  1. , A Base goal of 11 minutes and a perfect goal of 10:30 seconds.[↩]
  2. Named after my fab PT Sam Bradley. [↩]
  3. The weight you would take into a class.[↩]
  4. Basically, Firas Iskandarani can do this in 5 mins and we are chasing him.[↩]
  5. Including turning recording on and off[↩]

The REAL 5am club

Posted on by Mark Myers Leave a comment

This is a semi joke post as there is a genuine and famous 5am club book with a great deal of thought, backing and a whole ecosystem of engagement behind it.

However, it’s not the 5am club I know.

The 5am Club that I see is driven by other people.

Now most sane humans start at 9am.

So their managers want to get ahead of them, and start at about 8am, for such managers, the first thing they want is a status update.

So their PM’s start at 7am and start chasing the do’ers for the details used for such status updates.

This means the do’ers therefore often started six to try and get information for the PM’s. and if they are stuck or cannot deliver or cannot achieve what they need, that information will rattle all the way up to the senior people at 9am who will then turn to the problem solvers and go. “What’s the problem here? Why haven’t you fixed this?”

So the problem solvers start at 5am…

Welcome to the real 5am club. If you ever see someone online at 5am DO NOT contact them, they are there because they are hellishly busy, do not make their life harder.