You Gotta Ask

“Better to be thought a fool for a moment than to remain ignorant for your lifetime”

I’m not 100% sure where I first heard that quote, but it has helped me immensely both in my personal and professional lives.  We’ve all had those situations where we’re not 100% sure what someone said, or what they mean… or even if they’re talking to US.  We’ve all also had that lingering thought of “well, I don’t want to sound stupid….”, so instead of asking a question, we keep our mouths shut.  And we’re lesser for it.

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Our ego’s are incredibly annoying things.  While they do have some positive qualities (helping us acknowledge when we succeed, being a CLEAR signal for failures, etc), here I’m more interested in their negative qualities as it relates to the quote above.  Specifically, our fear that our ego will be hurt if we ask a “stupid” question.  There’s many thoughts on “stupid” questions (see if you can figure out which one I ascribe to based on the quotes), ranging from “there’s not stupid questions, only stupid people” to “there’s no such thing”.  Regardless of one’s philosophical approach to them, however, we still fear asking one, because it can change how others perceive us.

Speak up

This perception is heavily influenced by the culture of the group we’re with (e.g. teams with higher psychological safety will likely perceive less threat by asking questions), but that inner fear can still exist.  Knowing how to overcome that fear is an essential skill, that not only helps you get better at asking questions, but can avoid some amazingly terrible situations.  In each of these examples (and by no means is that a complete list!), taking a few moments to speak up can avoid a world of hurt.

For example:Not getting clarification on what someone needs from you… then delivering the wrong thing.

• Not asking for follow up information on a potential risk… and then having to deal with that risk.

• Not asking how to take your medication and taking the wrong dose.

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In addition to help avoid potential downsides, speaking up and asking for clarifications also helps improve how others perceive you.  Asking questions about the topic at hand tells others you’re paying attention to what’s going on.  (While I’d like to think everyone always pays attention in meetings, somehow I don’t think that’s the case).  By extension, this signals you’re interested in the topic, which is always a good thing to show.  

Asking questions also helps others understand your level of comfort and experience with the topic.  I’m not suggesting that asking questions will make others think you’re inexperienced and a fool, but rather the questions you ask will help them know where you best fit into the solution.

Personal Growth

Questions will also help you expand personally.  Not only will you learn something new (or avoid potential problems), you’ll get valuable practice asking questions.  This sounds silly, but the more you ask clarifying questions, the more comfortable you’ll get with asking questions.   This in turn, will give you more access to knowledge, and help you improve overall.  So ask away, you can never chase away too much ignorance.

Keep communicating until they tell you to stop

Communication, like breathing, is one of things that humans must absolutely do in order to survive (citation needed).  Since we’re born until we die we’re constantly communicating something, in some way.  This means we’re effectively practicing this skills all the time… which only makes it more interesting that we’re all (generally) so bad at it.

90%

They (PMI in this case) tells me that 90% of project management is communication.  I would further this, and say that 90% of our jobs, and general existence in reality, is communication.  We tell our loved ones we miss them.  Our children communicate that they’re hungry.  Our co-workers communicate status updates.  Even NOT communicating can be perceived as communicating (after all, ignoring someone tells them something…) (also, if you don’t notice someone is trying to communicate, you’re effectively communicating to them you’re oblivious).

On the plus side, we use this skill ALL the time.  This would suggest that we should be getting better at it as we go.  On the downside, we’re rarely consciously trying to improve this skill, meaning all that practice time is effectively wasted.

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Shooting free-throws in basketball is a great analogy.  Once approach would be to just continually shoot the ball again and again and again.  Another approach would be to shoot the ball, then stop and honestly think about what you could do better (or not do at all).  The first approach might get you more repetitions, however, the second will give you conscious improvement.  Sure, it’s a bit of a pain to stop and critically examine yourself (not to mention ego-brusing at times), but the feedback gives you much better results.

Communication is no different.  Many of us get TONS of reps in during the week… but many of us also fail to stop and think about how we can make those reps better (When was the last time you asked yourself if you’re communicating the right way?).

Repeat

One of the best pieces of advice I got on how to improve communication is to simply keep doing it until someone tells you to stop.  Need help with a project?  Keep bringing it up in different ways at different times until you get help.  Need to let someone know when you’re available and you’d like to talk?  Keep talking/texting/emailing until they get the point.  This doesn’t mean send them an email every 10 seconds, but keep up the communication until you’re heard, and you know they heard you.

The good news is this skill is relatively easy to practice.  The next time you need to communicate something you feel is important, pick at least 5 different times (and ideally different ways) of communicating that.  One example of this:

1. Bring up your idea/need/etc. During a team meeting

2. Send a followup email immediately after the meeting.

3. Drop a slack message to folks the next day

4. Two days later send another followup email

5. The day after that bring it up in your meeting again

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The point here is to ensure others received, and more importantly, understood, your message.  By hitting them at different times in different ways you help ensure you cut through the noise (e.g. the 10000 other emails they have), and solicit any questions.  And if all else fails, at the very least you have a great “paper” trail of your attempts.

Flexibility

In any given day I find myself coaching team members, managing projects, investigating bugs, being blindsided by new asks, and many many other things.  Looking back, any given day represents a crazy mix of things, and juggling them all is certainly challenging.  Despite the insanity of it all, I only really find problems when I try to control the flow things, or when I push back directly and reject doing something.  Fortunately the best approach to this isn’t to just accept ALL work that comes my way, but rather to be flexible in what (and how) I accept.

Many roles these days are anything but specific.  Job descriptions provide a rough outline of what a role is, but they can never fully capture what you’ll be doing if you get the job.  Even if they’re fairly well written, they tend to include something like “duties as assigned”, which leaves a HUGE amount of room for other responsibilities to creep in.  This craziness isn’t even touching the randomness that is smaller companies and/or startups!

Handling multiples

The wide range of randomness heading our way requires that our approach shifts from one of “I only do XYZ” to “I do a range of things”.  The trick to finding a good balance within this range isn’t to remain rigid in how we accept things, but rather to be more flexible in what we accept, and more importantly, flexible in how we reject things.  This may be further compounded by who is asking us to help out… for example if a VP is requesting help it can be a smidge harder to dodge that than someone else.

Being flexible in what work or responsibilities we accept has several benefits.  Exposure to new areas/teams/ideas helps improve our overall skill sets.  This can make our current jobs easier (by providing better context, resources, etc), and also opens doors that we may otherwise not have looked at (e.g. cultivating an interest in a new area of the company).  Flexibility also improves our relationships, either by exposing us to people we wouldn’t otherwise work with, or by giving us time to deepen existing relationships.

Being flexible in how we reject work is equally (if not more!) important.  There are times when you’ll decide you can’t/don’t want to take something on.  When asked (or “asked”), straight up saying “no”, while direct, will likely be seen negatively (e.g. “you’re not a team player”), potentially damaging your reputation but also reducing the likelihood you’ll get help in the future.  Instead you need to find a way to bend out of the way.  Suggesting alternatives (“Did you consider asking so-and-so? They’re really good at this”) and pointing out better ways to do the thing (“Instead of manually doing this, did you consider automating it?”) are great approaches that avoid the need for YOU to do the thing, while still helping ensure it can get done.

Flexibility also means being open to changing how you operate.  Especially now with many folks working from home we’ve had to change up how we work.  Resisting the need for video conferencing is basically impossible, so instead of fighting these, flex, and use them.  Sure, it requires some effort and creativity to find new ways to operate, but by making time to update team norms, meeting schedules, and other aspects of work you’ll avoid the discomfort of trying to fight the tide.

Make Time to Connect

Frequently I find myself either directly involved in, or watching, a chain of emails/texts/messages going in circles.  One person asks a question, which is misunderstood or requires followup, which leads to more questions and goes around and around and around.  It is incredibly easy to keep that chain going… after all, we know the other end is reading them, and we think we can get to agreement if we just. keep. emailing.  

Unfortunately this is rarely the case… At best, this results in wasted time as it takes several cycles to get to mutual understanding.  At worst, it results in damaged relationships.  A much quicker (and simpler) approach is to break the cycle and connect - pick the phone (or jump on zoom) and take the 5 minutes to explain things in person.

Tangled

Communications technology is a weird thing.  It allows us to instantly send messages, but weirdly this results in us being further apart instead of closer together.  This could be due to the asynchronous nature of text communication (there’s no way to tell when the receiver will read it), in the static nature of the communication medium (sarcasm, for example is REALLY hard to pickup ion text), or in the assumption that other folks will “just get it”.  Regardless, email or comment wars frequently crop up, with individuals endlessly sending messages hoping ONE of them will make sense to the other side.

We’ve all read a response from someone and wondering how the heck they didn’t understand our message.  We took so much time carefully crafting our message, only for them to somehow miss the point.  So we take more time to carefully craft a response… which is received in a similar manner on their end.  This chain eventually becomes self-sustaining and will continue indefinitely unless someone breaks the cycle (the worst I’ve seen was a ticket with 150+ comments on it running in circles).

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The problem with these cycles isn’t that the folks involved aren’t smart, or well intentioned, or anything about the person.  It’s about the medium and some assumptions we make about it.  Tools like email, slack and @ mentions are great for quickly sending a message around the world… unfortunately they also fail to capture a great deal of information.  Tone is hard to encode in text… so is sarcasm, body language, and basically all of our body language.  We tend to not see verbal communication run in as many circles because we get that additional information… we can see if someone is confused, or more easily pickup on frustration.

We also make assumptions about how we communicate and how others will interpret what we say.  On our end we assume that our message is understandable.  For ourselves this is (hopefully!) true, after all, we wrote it.  For someone else, however, this may not be as correct.  We all filter communication through our own experiences, and others rarely, if ever, have the same experiences we do.  This ties directly into how someone else would interpret our message.  Over time we get more familiar working with folks, but even WITH experience we can send a confusing message.

Finding Clarity

The trick, then, to breaking the circle of endless text communication is to step outside of it and use a different method.  Getting back to a place where non-text information is shared (phone, video chat, etc.) will reduce or eliminate many of the problems pure-text conveys.  By making communication more real-time we also provide immediate opportunities for the other parties to ask clarifying questions or point out challenges immediately.  By both reducing the feedback loop, and providing a richer communications environment, we can make our connections much more impactful.

No Extra

Extra, in some cases, is good.  Extra guac? Please.  Extra time to sleep in? Sure.  Unfortunately on a project, extra can be bad.  At best adding extra to things distorts our view of the request and makes it easy to lose sight of what is actually needed.  At worst it totally derails a project and diminishes its value to your customer.

Adding extra into our work does several things… some obvious, others much less so.  I find that instead of making things better or providing a better output, these additions detract from my deliverable.  Here’s several ways how:

Energy drain

Working on extra stuff that is “better” than our objective distracts us from what we should be doing.   We can tell ourselves we’re helping, or that we can make up the time, or that the actual request is easy to do, we’re just making it harder to complete our objective.  At best we end up putting less energy into our objective, which results in risk that we missed something important, or that the product isn’t as strong as it could be.

Diffused Focus

Working on extra necessarily pulls our focus away from what we should be doing.  Instead of critically examining our request for potential flaws, we’re day-dreaming about something unrelated.  This split focus allows us to make mistakes we otherwise would catch.  Even worse, this can result in less time to figure out the “extra” we thought was so valuable… so instead of delivering what was asked we deliver one thing that was asked that may or may not work, and another thing that wasn’t asked for of questionable use.

Missed Target

Working isn’t done in a vacuum, and we as individuals (and sometimes teams) can’t know everything.  When we make a choice to add extra to a request we’re gambling that we know what’s “best” or “right”.  While we might get lucky and deliver something that is, in fact, useful or valuable, what happens if we’re wrong?  Suddenly we have to explain why we wasted time NOT working on what someone wanted to build something that’s useless.

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I find it fascinating how hard it is to only do what is asked, and nothing more.  It should be an incredibly easy thing to do, but the allure of making it “better” is very hard to resist.  As funny as is it to say, it takes discipline to stay inside the lines.  It is true there will be times when we can push on those lines, and sometimes help redraw them, we need to be very careful not to wander outside them.  Doing so distracts us from our objective, and instead of building us up, only tears us down.

Self-Awareness

Being aware of ourselves is one of the most important skills that we can learn.  That said, from my experience it also happens to be one of the harder skills for people to learn.  Figuring out a new technology or sales technique is easy - we attend the training or we tinker with the tool.  Figuring out how YOU work, what makes you frustrated, what your habits are, however, doesn’t have a class or a seminar.  It’s not something you can REALLY tinker with or take apart.  Instead, it requires a level of critical thinking and truthfully examining yourself. This is, to say the least, a bit daunting.

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On the up-side, there are many versions of things like the Meyers-Briggs (you know, that one that tells you what color you are, and how your color interacts with other colors?) test to help teams uncover their inner operations.  (Or maybe that’s the MBTI, I always get them mixed up…).  These types of exercises are useful, however I find they usually can’t get deep enough in some areas to really dig into self-awareness.  These exercises help point out how an individual may interact in a professional setting, but it ‘s up to the individual to figure out how to apply that across the board.

This makes sense, since many of these assessments are intended to help groups of professionals work together.  They both provide a common language with which to discuss how people work (“you’re an WRST? I get it now, I’m a BEST!”) and also some general guidance for the individual on how to operate.  This works great for groups that all take it together, however, I’ve found them a lot less useful for individuals.

Choices

Work presents an interesting version of this since we can’t really choose who our co-workers are… we’re kind of stuck with whomever’s there at the time.  This differs greatly in our personal lives.  We are, to some extent, stuck with family, however, we do have a great deal more control over those relationships, and who we choose to socialize with.  This makes understanding how, and why, we will/do react in specific ways even more important… we’re consciously choosing to be with these folks instead of being ‘forced’ to.

The same techniques teams use at work to improve themselves can be tweaked to help out in our personal lives.  Some ideas include:

• Regular Retrospectives - Make time each week to reflect on the week and any areas you want to improve.  How did certain conversations go?  Do you understand why you get easily annoyed at something?

• Focus Time - Set aside specific time to take a deeper dive on one area of yourself.  I find journaling is a great approach for this; something about writing things down helps get them out.

• Active Feedback - Find someone you trust to talk over what a blindspot might be or how to improve something.  This helps break down any mental preconceptions of yourself you have, but does require a lot of emotional trust in whomever you speak with.

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This isn’t to say it’s easy… even admitting something to yourself (let alone someone else) about how you think/feel/act can be hard.  That said, it’s certainly worth it.  Getting a better handle on how you will behave in any given situation both makes you more effective and also reduces any surprises on your end.  Over time you’ll also learn more about yourself, in turn making future improvements a little bit easier.

Three Doctors

There’s a parable I heard at some point that’s always stuck with me.  The more I’ve mulled it over, the more I see parallels to work (especially in my field, IT):

A parent had 3 children, all of whom became doctors.  

The youngest was a good doctor, and could cure a disease after it ravaged its patient.  Due to their skill their name was known throughout the country.

The middle child was a better doctor, and could cure disease at the sign of its first symptoms.  Due to their skill their name was known all over their county.

The eldest child was even better, and could cure disease before the patient even knew they were sick.  Due to their skill their name was known throughout their hometown.

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I particularly enjoy the inverse relationship of skill to outcome and the correlation of reputation to severity.  Everyone would agree the eldest child is the best doctor - who wants to get sick?  Despite their immense skill, however, only the people in their home know who they are.  Everyone would agree the youngest child is the most well known doctor - we all know the names of folks who’ve put out massive fires.

Skill vs. Outcome

I heard at some point that a bored IT department is a good thing.  It means everything is working as intended, there are no outages and everyone is happy.  (Think about it, how often do you go hang out with the IT folks except when something breaks?...). (Go hand out with the IT folks more).  While it is possible IT is bored because they’re totally oblivious to problems, it’s also possible they’re incredibly good at planning and preventing problems from cropping up.

You can’t complain about a problem that never happens.  The “problem” with that approach, however, is no one knows that you’ve done anything.  There’s no visible action you’ve taken that helps folks… so they don’t know who you are.  IT can, however, take steps to change that.

Many IT departments publicly release metrics on things like system up time, number of tickets resolved, how long it takes to solve tickets etc.  These metrics help tell the story that may be invisible - how many issues are avoided.  Many groups also proactively reach out to partner teams to inform them of what they’re up to.  Systems updates aren’t as impressive as putting out fires, but they do keep the house from burning down.

Reputation and Severity

Everyone knows someone who is a “fire fighter”, that person who can come into a terrible situation and somehow fix it.  These folks are certainly necessary as bad things happen… but it’d be much better if those problems never happened or were avoided entirely.  Dr. Fauchi is a good example of this.  He is handling an immense task with incredible skill… but in another reality COVID would have been contained and we’d never have heard of him or learned of his skill.

Personally this correlation drives me nuts since it suggests all the preventative work we do is essentially unknown.  Even worse, folks may get rewarded for reacting to problems instead of preventing them from happening (that said, to the best of my knowledge it’s impossible to measure things that don’t happen).

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While I have never found a single “best” solution to this challenge, I’ve found a few things that do work:

• Be proactive with messaging - Ensure your partner teams know what you’re up to (at least at a high level), and that they understand the value to them. Patching a server sounds REALLY boring, until you realize it prevent a massive data breach that just hit someone else.

• Help your team understand the importance of diligence - It feels good to be the firefighter… everyone knows who you are and how good you are (at least at putting out blazes). It can be hard to get folks to shift to prevention, but make the effort to help your team see the value. (Lower blood pressure, for one).

• Culture of sharing - Fires sometimes spring up when someone doesn’t feel comfortable raising a concern or admitting a mistake. I’ve found that calling out my own mistakes in our team communications has helped de-stigmatize this a lot (it also helps others avoid the same problem). Encourage others to do it as well, and soon folks won’t feel as bad if they do make a mistake.

Standards

Standards exist in every discipline.  Effective Dates in Workday, Boolean logic in systems, federal regulation in hiring and the color wheel in art are all examples of Standards.  It is certainly possible to get by NOT knowing them, having these tools available on demand makes getting things done significantly easier.  Not only that, it makes working with others in your field easier as well.  A shared vocabulary and understanding enhances collaboration by allowing teams to quickly share information.

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Martial arts are a great example of a group that uses standards.  Generally these are sets of movements or ideas that you need to learn in order to progress.  As a newer student these standards serve as the next hurdle towards rank advancement and as a literal standard everyone your relative experience and rank needs to know.  As a more advanced rank you realize that these don’t just serve to roughly bucket folks by what they know, they serve as the building blocks towards more interesting things.

Professional connection

Professionally standards are generally learned earlier in our careers.  We go after a bachelors degree to get a solid understanding of fundamentals.  Our first jobs teach us basic skills like problem solving and communication.  Our first year(s) coding are spent learning terminology and concepts.  In many cases standards can be codified and taught in a structured way, for example a course at university.  They can also be taught in an unstructured way, copying an existing piece of art/code/whatever, for example.  The former relies on an instructor to help guide you, which is great since you benefit from their skill and experience.  The latter relies on your own self-exploration, which is great since you learn how to learn.

For me it gets interesting once you know the standards in your field.  In them martial arts, for example, the standard forms are interesting and have a very important place in training… but they’re ‘boring’.  They’re the same… we know them (although I can easily argue you can always learn more from them).  Understanding the underlying lessons in them, and then applying them to something new, now that’s interesting.  The same is true in other areas.  We’ve all written a “for” loop that counts to 10, but getting to apply that idea to a webpage that solves a real problem is MUCH more interesting and satisfying.

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Unfortunately reality is a bit grittier; the group you work with my not have the same set of standards.  While this provides an advantage in terms of differences of opinion and skillsets, time and energy can be lost if part of the group relies on standards that, well, aren’t standard.

I find that a lot of groups need up-front time spent agreeing on what the standards are (or even understanding they exist).  This shifts the focus from “lets go build something cool with our collective background knowledge” to “lets agree on what the tools are”.  This can easily feel like a delay in getting to the work at hand, but it is time very well spent.  The start of a project should include time to level set on standards including what specific terms mean, what methodologies or tools will be used and how to communicate.  This will reduce the change of a misunderstanding as to standards and free up time to innovate.

At the end of it all standards are just that.  Standard.  Knowing that something will be the same, regardless of where you happen to be or who you work with, is incredibly powerful.  This common language allows you to look into new topics, and explore old ones in new ways.  They also serve as a fallback, something you can use and rely on when things get pear-shaped.  The trick is to share your standards with others, and to be on the lookout for opportunities to apply them in new and creative ways.

Forward Movement

“When in doubt, go forward.”

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Much of martial arts is about retraining your body.  We’re born with a huge number of instincts, reflexes and hard-coded behaviors to help us stay safe, which are great from an evolutionary perspective… but they’re not always the best approach.  For example, when we fall, we naturally extend our arms towards the ground, absorbing the impact on our palms and joints.  This is great for keeping our heads safe, but at the cost of our arms.  Retraining our body to fall differently, absorbing the impact along the side of our body, results in more safely hitting the ground.

Another example is sparring - our natural inclination is to move directly way from someone attacking us (The “Prometheus School of Running Away from Things”).  This knee-jerk response attempts to put distance between us and danger, but  we’re likely to trip, and will eventually just get run over as they continue forward.  To be successful in a fight, this instinct has to be reprogrammed to instead move in, towards the perceived danger.

Moving in

Ideally we’re able to avoid danger by avoiding it, but when needed this forward movement has a number of advantages.  Once you’re in a dangerous situation it’s usually better to be closer to the source.  This helps keep you out of a danger zone (e.g. it’s really hard to punch someone who’s only an inch away), and also allows you to take steps to neutralize the threat.  In the martial arts context this means closing the distance with your partner so you can protect yourself and attack them.

This physical concept can also be applied in non-phyiscal situations.  While the threats we experience at work at (hopefully) more metaphorical in nature, we can still benefit from moving towards then, rather than away.  Recognizing a teammate doesn’t fully understand what you’re asking them to do, for example, is a threat to your project.  They may not take the correct action, and result in a poorer outcome.  Once you’ve recognized this threat, instead of ignoring it and hoping it’ll take care of itself address it head on and have a discussion with that teammate.

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This could also take the form of actively planning future projects now instead of waiting.  The threat in this case is missing deadlines or even entire portions of the project due to no planning.  Actively engaging and moving towards this threat will at the very least help you understand the potential outcomes.

Moving TOWARDS the danger is also not something that is expected… after all, we’re hardwired to run.  In a fight this gives you the advantage of surprising the attacker (e.g. they won’t expect you to get closer to them), which gives you an opening to strike back and escape.  At work directing the challenge directly and straight on results in quicker resolutions, and helps positively improve how others perceive you.

Of course we cannot enjoy this strategy without first undoing what evolution has provided.  This is a long and uncomfortable process, but one that is wholly worth it.  Physically, we train this by standing in a corner and moving up towards someone as they punch/kick at us as we move towards and past them.  This is essentially exposure therapy, and helps your brain understand it’s not as dangerous as it seems.  Over time, you’ll get more comfortable moving in towards a threat, and eventually it will become a habit.

Comfortable being uncomfortable

Work offers similar situations.  Any time a perceived threat crops up, go to it directly.  Have someone you have challenges communicating with?  Don’t wait for them to approach you, grab some time and talk it out respectfully.  Notice an error in a system or insufficient documentation?  Don’t hope someone else will address it, proactively solve it.  The exact form this takes will vary based on the threat you find, but by practicing moving to the threat you’ll find you can resolve it significantly easier, and more quickly, than by running.

This approach definitely falls into the “get comfortable being uncomfortable” bucket.  Discomfort, I have found, is generally an indicator you have room to grow in some way, and this is no different.  The good news is that discomfort eventually disappears, and you’re just left with a good habit of forward movement, on that lets you deal with threats and exploit opportunities.

Conceptually speaking...

Learning a new thing is always a process.  We begin by learning rote skills, the mechanical movements necessary to reproduce a specific result.  Then we progress to application of those mechanical skills, and eventually end up learning underlying concepts in whatever it is we are doing.  Take writing for example, we first learn how to physically hold a pen or to use a keyboard, then we learn how to make letters appear (so much tracing!), then onto making words appear, then sentences and finally paragraphs.  Once we have mastered those basic mechanical skills, we move on towards applying them to novel situations - writing new things.

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This general progression appears everywhere.  In the martial arts we begin learning how to stand, or how to breathe, or how to focus where we’re looking.  These are then built into more complex moves, how to punch or kick, and then strung together into sequences of movements called forms.  Once we understand those basic building blocks we can compose any series of movements we like.

Professional skills are the same - we learn what the various buttons do on a machine we operate, then we learn how the machine works, and eventually we’re making widgets.  We learn how to perform basic tasks, we teach others those tasks, then we get to define what those tasks are.

Where I find it becoming interesting is after we’ve learned those mechanical skills and what we get to do next.  Must we ALWAYS have at least 3 sentences in a paragraph?

What happens if we don’t?

Must we ALWAYS turn to the left after a specific kick in a form?  What happens if we turn right… or don’t turn at all?

I find myself wondering what is beyond the rote mechanical skill.  It’s important to know the basic standard skills (they’re called standards for a reason - having a shared lexicon is incredibly important), but after you know them how important is it to follow them explicitly, and what happens if you don’t?

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So far I’ve found it easiest to identify in martial arts movements.  It doesn’t REALLY matter if you right, then left, or left, then right.  The underlying concept behind the movement is to teach you how to move.  I’m seeing similar patterns in my work - learning how an Excel function works is great, but the concept of an “if” statement can be applied across every system we work in.  Zooming out a bit further, the concepts behind many soft skills generally don’t have a specific application, but rather require you to understand them conceptually.

This is certainly a reflection of where I happen to be at in my own growth.  Beginners, for example, should be given clear, repeatable directions to follow; before we can play with concepts, we have to understand the mechanics.  This also leads to some amusing situations when I’ve taught, and forgotten the “correct” way a movement goes.  Inevitably I’ll get the question “But Rob, don’t we turn right after that move?”.  After a few seconds of remembering the “correct” way I’ll respond with “Yes, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter.  The intent is to teach you how to move, not how to turn right”. 

This approach to looking at the importance of underlying concepts, and not just the mechanical skill is one that shouldn’t be applied at all levels of learning.  Beginners especially need the mechanical approach as it reinforces learning and ensures they share a common baseline.  For example it’d be incredibly hard to talk about writing if everyone didn’t know what a period was, or if some of us used vowels differently.  Similarly it’d be challenging to train up new team members at work if everyone on the team taught them different ways to do the same task.

Once someone is comfortable with those basic thoughts, begin to shift the focus to what’s behind them.  Why we choose to take a certain action is more important than the action itself ... knowing the difference is even more important.

Like flipping a switch

We’ve felt the butterflies in our stomach, or the bottom drop out of our stomach as we’re given bad news, or felt a spike of terror when something unexpected / threatening happens to us.  Our bodies ability to change our energy level rapidly to match a situation is a great built-in mechanism… but this natural mechanism has at least one glaring weakness - by default we can’t consciously control it.

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This is a problem, because there are times when our energy level needs to be higher, or lower, or a different cycle than it is naturally.  Having a difficult discussion with someone you love requires keeping your energy controlled and level so you can focus on the topic at hand.  Going to the gym for a sparring session requires selectively raising and lowering your energy.  Working on a project at work requires keeping your energy stable so you can keep your focus.

Disciplines like the martial arts, yoga, meditation, etc. help train us to first be aware of our energy, and eventually control it.  This control gives us the ability to more finely control when and how our energy is used.  Going into what should be an incredibly boring meeting about financial statements?  Knowing how to raise your energy will help keep you awake.  Only have 1 hour a week to train in the gym?  Consciously raising your energy, and keeping it there despite anything else that is going on, will help you get the most out of it.  Escaping a burning building?  Putting a leash on your energy will help you from making a mistake.

All about control

Learning that your energy can be controlled, and how you can control is it an important thing we all learn.  But HOW we do it is also important.  We can’t always, for example, take half an hour to “amp up” or get control.  Sometimes you need to be ready to go NOW.  This may be due to an extreme circumstance (the burning building from before), or just because something unexpected popped up (an employee comes in with a problem).

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I’ve found this to be less of a “powering up” process, and more like switching a light switch.  The exact situation that is unfolding around me certainly impacts this (escaping from a burning building would have a much different impact than sparring, for example), but the mechanism is the same.  It’s the mental difference of “ok… so, I need to get ready for X.. deep breath.. Give me sometime” and “ok, go time”.

Flipping this switch is something we can learn through practice.  The trick is just to put yourself in situations where you need that switch “on” and get a feeling for flipping it.

Flexing your focus muscles

Focus is an interesting thing.  At times we can hold our focus on something for what seems like forever, getting lost in a flow state.  At other times, we can’t bring even the smallest amount of focus to the situation and are easily distracted.  While it seems like focus is something we cannot control, it’s exactly the opposite… focus is 100% at our command.

Choice

It’s easy to say tell yourself “oh, I just can’t focus right now” (even more true with today’s notifications, popups, etc.etc.etc.).  For me, however, this is an excuse, a choice.  We’d rather be somewhere else, with different people (or no people), doing something else than where we’re at.  Personally I find this especially true sometimes at work, there is a limit to how many times I can sit through a meeting on the same topic.

When this happens, we choose to unfocus and essentially drift.  This is something I see when teaching martial art classes with younger students.  They’d rather be at home playing video games, or hanging out with their friends, or doing anything other than working out.  This desire then leads to them making a choice to allow their focus to drift.  (As an aside I’m constantly amused at how surprised they are that their instructors notice this… it’s INCREDIBLY obvious when someone isn’t paying attention).  

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I see this in myself sometimes as well… I’d much rather not be at work grinding away at a report, so instead I allow my focus to drift to other things.  I find little “important” projects to work on, or suddenly learn that a training video really should be completed immediately.  

The trick I’ve learned is that focus isn’t something that comes and goes randomly (despite how much it feels like it sometimes).  Instead it is something we can consciously control and master.  Focus is a mental discipline that, like a muscle, can be strengthened and flexed at will.  Just like building any muscle, however, the hard part is putting in the effort and time to master its use and improve it.  The step of realizing this is possible, however, is just the beginning… actually doing it is something else entirely.

Start Small

Just like building any skill, start small.  For me, writing these articles has been great training in focus.  I put aside ten, fifteen minutes every few days and just write.  The intention of this drill isn’t to create something worth sharing, or get better at writing (although those can certainly be outcomes), it’s to practice focusing on punching the keys.  Part of this may also be put aside time to just focus on reviewing and editing my ideas.  The point isn’t that I’ve chosen writing, it’s that I’m consciously deciding to practice focusing on one thing.

This approach can be applied to anything.  In martial arts training (or any physical discipline) we may choose to focus on a single movement or step.  Working that step, and thinking through each individual part of it, no matter how small, helps build our focus.  At work we may choose to focus on one part of our job for a period of time.  I personally find that I need to do this when building project management plans, so I consciously decide on time to focus on that… and only that.

These seemingly small conscious exercises have multiple benefits.  They help us with the skill we happen to be working on (better project plans, more graceful form), but they also help train our ability to focus. 

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By stealing some concepts from weightlifting we can also work on increasing our gains while we practice.  You don’t get really strong / big arms by lifting light weights a few times, you get bigger/faster/stronger by lifting more weight, or lifting it more times, or lifting it in less time.  The same holds true for focus.  As we get better, we need to consciously work on focusing more intensely (blocking out even more distractions), in odder circumstances (try working with a toddler nearby and you’ll know what I mean) or for longer durations (set aside an hour instead of 30 minutes).  By flexing our focus muscle in more demanding situations it will get stronger.

None of this can happen, however, without our conscious effort.  We rarely get better at things we don’t bend our will to, and even those we do won’t see nearly the same level of improvement.   

Steps to improve focus

1. Remind yourself you’re in control

2. Set aside time to practice focusing on something

3. Record how it went

4. Make it more challenging (more time, different circumstance, etc)

5. Repeat 2-4

The importance of having a good stance

Every movement in the martial arts is supported by some kind of stance.  Some of these have really cool names, like Dragon Takes Flight, while others… less so (like Squat). Regardless of the creativity and color behind the name, these all essentially boil down to how you’re standing.  Some are on one leg, while others look like you’re just… well, standing.  Regardless of the precise physical form it takes, however, every martial arts movement has one.  The stance provides a foundation for movement, and they mainly providing support for the rest of the body to do something (punch, kick, dodge an attack). In addition to setting you up for success, stances also help train the body to become stronger and more flexible, making the rest of training easier.

It doesn’t take years of martial arts training to see when someone is not using a stance.  Something just looks…. Off.  Or maybe someone stumbles and falls. Or maybe there’s a hesitation before the next movement. This is especially true when you put two practitioners next to each other with one in a proper stance and the other not.  Watching someone without a good stance attempt to perform various moves also highlights the importance of having a good stance.  This individual will be less stable, stumble more, and appear to be less powerful (because they are). You can see these things even without direct experience of what it should look like (being an instructor makes me incredibly thankful for the patience of MY instructors).

Devil in the details

Understanding the importance of proper stances is something that takes time, sweat and experience to fully understand. You can easily tell someone that having a good stance is important, but it’s something entirely different to realize that concept.  Despite multiple instructors drilling it into me, it still took me ages to fully realize WHY they kept yelling “hit your stance” and other adjustments as I trained. Here the devil is truly in the details as a small adjustment to knee placement, or minor hip movement can drastically change how the foundation supports the rest of your body.

Real world stability

The concept of having a solid stance is something that can be applied across many areas of our lives.  At work, failing to have an underlying process that tells us what to do will result in shaky execution.  If the foundation of what is being done (the stance) isn’t understood team members won’t know what we’re doing, and will make mistakes (such as not communicating effectively, failing to take specific actions, etc).  Personal finances are in a similar boat - if you have a solid foundation of disciplined saving/etc.  At best you’ll deliver sub-standard results… at worst you’ll collapse completely.

The good news is you don’t have to be a super expert to improve your foundations. In the same way you can see someone’s physical stance be stronger or weaker, you can also see when your foundation in other areas is off. Be on the lookout for poor communication, missing information or confusion. Many times these can be (realtively) easily improved, but at the very least you will get a better idea of where improvements need to be made.

Play a little, train a little, work a little every day

One of the better approaches to planning/spending my day came from my martial arts training.  “Train a little, work a little, play a little every day”.  This approach has helped me stay (a bit) more balanced, and has helped keep me from going overboard in any one area.

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Work a little

In the same lens of improving ourselves physically (or my addition of upskilling), taking a little bit of time to “work” is also important.  Originally I took this to mean job-related work, taking time to write a few emails, tweaking a set of slides, or thinking through a strategy.  This helps keep moving things forward, but I’ve also found it helps relieve some mental pressure (especially over weekends!) as I get time to plan things out.  

In the same way we can combine “Train a little” with both physical and upskilling, we can do this with “Work a little”.  I frequently think through a work challenge while I”m on a run.  This double dipping gives me a bit more time to figure out what I should do, while also helping me improve in multiple areas.

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Play a Little

This is an important one… take time every day to play.  I interpret this to mean do something you enjoy solely because you enjoy doing it.  This could mean playing a video game, reading a book, gardening, or anything else you enjoy.  The point of this isn’t to improve a skill, or get something done, it’s to allow yourself to relax.  Relaxing helps us let go of stress, and more importantly helps us unpack our emotions and thoughts.  

I find this unpacking makes it much easier to re-engage with work (or something stressful) than if I haven’t had that time to unpack.  It's similar to organizing your closet - at the end of it you realize there’s a lot more space than you thought, and you can actually find things.

Train a little

In the martial arts aspect this would mean making time to go run forms, or practice fighting, or teaching.  This could be a formal class, going to the park and training by yourself, or just taking 5 minutes to meditate during the day.  As I thought about this more I also realized it covered anything related to improving myself as a martial artist.. Going for a run, putting together a training schedule, updating my notebook, etc. all contribute towards training.

As I’ve spent more time in the workforce I’ve also come to understand this from an upskilling perspective.  In addition to the physical training aspect, I also include things like learning a new skill through a platform like Udemy (shameless plug!), reading a book that relates to business or talking to others about their approach to their career.  The point isn’t to pick a specific way to improve your skillset (whether it be physical, professional or otherwise), but that you take time every day to do SOMETHING to move the needle in those areas.

There are some ways to combine these, such as listening to podcasts while running, or having in-depth philosophical discussions while sparring (let me know how that one goes if you try it!).

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All of this isn’t to say that you cannot have days that focus on just one or two of these areas.  Many of us frequently dive into work and take a lot of our time to wrangle with those challenges.  This can be a great use of time, especially when we’re in a flow state or achieve something satisfying.  The danger is we end up “stuck” in any one of these modes to our overall detriment.  By taking time to do each of these, train, work and play, we allow ourselves to trend more towards a balanced state. WE can even combine these, such as the listening to podcast while running example (improving work-related areas while also exercising).  The more balanced and stable we are, the better we will be able to react and address other things in our life.

Best intentions pave the road to massive headaches for other people

There’s almost nothing more dangerous than a well-intentioned individual who knows a little bit about how things work.  This can be the combination of many factors, such as seeing a particular solution somewhere else in the past, thinking they know what they’re doing / thinking it “can’t be that hard”, rushing, and just good old fashion dumb luck.  Unless other evidence exists I always treat these as honest mistakes.. That said, I’ve seen these crusaders end up:

• Emailing a group of 1200+ people accidentally - Instead of just collecting emails it also forwarded them to EVERYONE on the alias… 

• Telling a VP a 60+ hour job should only take 2 hours - Nothing like being told to deploy something in 2 hours that you know from experience is over a week of work.

• Crash a corporate network offline - Backing up a 60+gb harddisk over a cable modem is bad enough, but when it crashes an entire corporate network you know you’ve done REAL well.

(Fun fact - I was responsible for one of those….)

Personally I always encourage folks to learn more about tech and systems.  This, in general, makes for more informed users and can make things easier overall.  I’m constantly looking for ways to help people better engage with their tech, and to help foster that curiosity.  I’ve also seen this approach ignite interest in folks who want to learn more about tech and systems, to the point of them changing their career and interests. 

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That said, a little bit of knowledge goes a long way towards wreaking havoc.  Once folks get just a little wind behind their sails they tend to forget they don’t know everything about a setup.  Many training videos, sessions and tutorials are tailored for a specific audience and use case… one your coworker(s) may be exceeding.  The sense of confidence felt when making or requesting a change masks a lack of knowledge over what is really going on… which can result in massive headaches for tech teams when they have to clean things up.

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I’m “Helping”

To help curb this… “helping”... I’ve adjusted my approach to working with non-tech folks (While tech teams certainly commit these errors I’ve recently found it to be much more common in tech-adjacent groups).  In addition to giving them basic knowledge to do their job, I now also take the following steps:

• Point out hidden dangers - Thinking through what MIGHT go wrong is a great way to uncover potential risks.  I go through this before I setup training, and then use the output to better inform users.  For example, if there’s a field I think they might want to use, but isn’t included in the training, I’ll specifically call it out and what it’s for.  This helps avoid situations where they see it later and think “hey, that looks useful, let’s use that!”.

• High Level Documentation - While I cannot expect my users to understand ALL the ins-and-outs of a system, I can expect them to know high-level basics.  Knowing that Workday sends a termination file to XYZ teams is important info… and they should know that.  Knowing reports are accurate as of last night at midnight is important info… and they should know that.  I both call this out in training, and ensure there is documentation to back that up.  Training also covers where the documentation is, and how to find it… while this doesn’t guarantee we’ll avoid those challenges at least I know I’ve given it to them.

• Encourage them to come up with ideas… then talk to you - I have always encouraged my users to think up better ways to do stuff… now I’ve added a second step - talk to me (or someone!) about that idea BEFORE doing it.  I frame it along the lines of “You’re a super smart person, so help me find better ways to do things.  We need to keep in mind that there’s a LOT of other moving parts, so when you’ve come up with a new idea, let’s brainstorm on how to make it happen”.  This both stops them from acting blindly, and also helps build better partnerships and trust.

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Whoopsie

Throughout all of this it is important to remember everyone makes mistakes.  I’ve watched experienced and trained engineers forget to deploy a change to production due to a poor file name.  I’ve personally deleted over 5,000 trouble tickets by changing a configuration file (thankfully we could roll it back!).  The important thing is learn and not do it again.  This requires a great amount of support from your team, as well a company culture of safety and acceptance.  This story of a man who lost $2 million is the perfect example - his company treats these as development experiences, opportunities to get better.

It can be incredibly challenging to not react poorly when uncovering these errors.  (Why the *()@#$*&^ did you do that??!??!), and it is certainly a learned skill in responding appropriately.  I’ve started taking specific steps to help both keep myself in check, but also limit damage and maximize learning:

1. Breathe - The damage has likely already been done, so taking a moment to breathe and assess won’t hurt much.

2. Quick Assessment - Determine a preliminary root cause and prevent further damage.  This might mean rolling back some code, (un)plugging some hardware or making a quick phone call.

3. Alert Partners - Generally happens the same time as #2, but let any downstream partner teams know of the error.  THis will allow them to help out with damage control and minimize surprises.

4. Deep Assessment - Dig into what happened and why.  Understand as deeply as possible how the change negatively impacted things and what should have been done differently to prevent that from happening.

5. Deploy Adjusted Fix - Based on the assessment deploy the updated changes.

6. Share - Clearly document and share out a detailed assessment of what happened and how it will be prevented next time.

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The individual who caused the ruckus should be involved in every step of undoing it.  This will help build their confidence by improving their skill sets and give others more confidence in their ability going forward.  The final step, “Share” is also critically important (and frequently missed) to ensure this doesn’t happen again.  Saving this knowledge also helps ensure that other team members do not commit the same error (something that is sadly too common).

Laid Off? Invest in Your Self

I can now claim the dubious honor of being caught up in two different layoffs at two different startups (one more for the hat trick!). Both times I have been part of a much larger group that was laid off due to dramatic reorganizations that impacted the entire company, and while they were certainly traumatic to some extent, I have viewed both as an uncommon opportunity, as space in which to improve my Self.

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Growth Takes Space

I’ve found that when I’m working at any particular job it can be hard to think of next steps.  The mental weight of having that job makes it harder to envision a better / brighter / whatever path.  This “old growth” makes it harder to see what a next step could be, or to see what I would like to improve.  After all, I already have a job, so why would I look for something else that might be a better fit for me?

Having now been laid off twice in my career I’ve found it has a similar effect on my mental state; a (relatively) brief period of trauma followed by more room to expand with new ideas and directions.  I also feel this on a much smaller scale when I get to work on a new project or have a new position… space is created by giving up something old, which allows something new to grow in its place.  The challenge I have is to guide that growth so it serves me, instead of just growing organically.

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Uncertain Direction

One of the challenges with getting laid off is it strips away some of our direction.  We no longer have a job to report to, no longer have teammates to whiteboard solutions with, no longer have systems to monitor or memes to send out.  This opens up a wide range of possibilities, but also introduces some uncertainty into what we should do.

This raises questions which lead to more questions which lead to more stress:

• “Why me?….”

• “What did I do wrong to end up here?”

• “How will I make rent in X months?”

• “Who’s hiring?”

• “What will happen to the plant I left at the office?”

While concern is warranted, worry is not a good strategy (it’s right up there with hope).  Instead of focusing on that concern, I’ve begun to view this uncertainty as a freedom (although usually not without a period of freaking out a bit…).  This is really a nice clearing to sit in comfortably for a little while, a space to help me ask slightly different questions:

• “What should I keep doing wherever I end up?”

• “What should I stop doing when I get there?”

• “What do I WANT to do?”

• “How can I do that?”

This shift in mental direction makes it easier for me to be on the lookout for opportunities that I will find of value and provide some personal growth (this blog for example).  By shifting the internal discussion from “this is only terrible” to “hmm, this is a great opportunity” I find it much easier to find new paths forward, paths that maybe I wouldn’t have seen earlier.

I’m not saying this is necessarily easy, especially as other circumstances can add further pressure (having a partner who is also out of work, children to care for, etc).  We certainly need to keep the totality of our lives in mind, but taking the time given to me by getting laid off and investing it in myself has given great results.

Time to Breathe

The space provided by being laid off generally results in some period of not-working-time.  Not-working-time is uncommon in our adult lives… we may take a week or two vacation, but rarely will get more than two weeks in a row where we’re not required to show up from 9-5 (or 8-6… or 7-7…etc).  After the initial shock wears off, this time can be spent to just…breathe.  Take stock of what you’ve got going on, cultivate your self and enjoy the time you’re not slaved to a clock to finish a project or answer tickets or follow up on some report.

Some folks take this time to travel in ways they couldn’t before (Tahiti for a month?), others use it to get into a hobby they’ve always wanted to (cross-stitch anyone?).  I’ve personally used it to meditate and better understand my self (honestly one of the most challenging, demanding, and rewarding exercises I’ve ever done).  The point isn’t to do a specific thing, but instead to not just focus 1,000% on finding the next job.  Instead use this time to step back, take a breath, and think about how we can create the life we want vs. accepting the one given to us.

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Seeing the Clearing in the Trees

Getting laid off is an incredibly stressful event, and it can be incredibly challenging to find the bright spot in losing your job.  While it’s true this is work, and may take a lot of mental energy, it is an incredibly rewarding way to spend this time between jobs.  Some ways I’ve found to help see the space and appreciate it:

• Question yourself - Ask questions to yourself about what you want to learn or do differently with your career and life instead of just how to keep it moving along the same path.

• Chat it up - Talk to friends and family about what they know about you… what they think you’d enjoy doing, or what you’ve enjoyed in the past.  Their perspective is incredibly valuable and can give you great insight into your blind spots.  Talk to (now former) coworkers about what you did well and pursue that.

• Just chill - Take time to indulge a bit more in things you enjoy.  Take a painting class, go somewhere you’ve always wanted to but “couldn’t”, workout.  This rare bit of time if yours to shape into whatever you want.

Data Analysts - Know Thy System

“Know Thyself” is certainly an important concept to being a human.  “Know Thy System” is an equally important concept to being a data analyst.

In addition to knowing data analytics concepts (not making misleading graphics, for example), a good data analyst also understands how data moves through the system(s) they analyze.  This knowledge goes beyond basics and extends into how specific metrics are collected, how users behave and how data is stored.  This background knowledge not only makes it easier for them to find the numbers they need, it allows them to draw better conclusions on that data.

Some examples I’ve run into include:

• Knowing when tickets are assigned - Many reports on ticketing systems relate to who’s been working on tickets.  Knowing when/how users are assigned tickets will impact the report.  For example, if someone triages a ticket THEN assigns it, we can expect tickets to remain unassigned throughout the triage process.

• When data is added to something  - Some data fields are populated when a record is created (Employee ID, for example).  Other data, however, may remain defaulted or even null.  These defaulted values will appear in reporting, and may throw off results.

• Where data comes from - End-user reports sometimes contain data from multiple sources/systems/etc.  While this makes for easier story telling it can make troubleshooting or updating things more complicated.  Being aware of how your reporting system pulls information reduces time to update things and makes it easier to explain how things were determined.

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The problem with NOT knowing thy system

Understanding the UI and the users perspective isn’t enough to really know how the system operates. Many systems, for example, combine multiple metrics when displaying values such as Service Level Agreements (SLA), total compensation and others. Looking at the back end database tables can be incredibly confusing if you don’t realize that “SLA” really feeds 5 different dimensions.

As data analysts it is our job to know about these concepts. Failing to understand them will, at best, result in a LOT of wasted time as we dig through tables or configuration settings, and at worst, result in bad decisions being made about the data. Something as simple as not realizing your underlying data doesn’t include any data from January can be catastrophic; your customers will make business decisions on the lack of results from January… which aren’t real.

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Helping others to Know Thy System

I’ve run into MANY situations where someone doesn’t have any background on the underlying systems and tries to make determinations on something.  At best, this results in confusion as folks come to you, the Data Analyst with more questions.  At worst, this results in conclusions being drawn from information that folks don’t truly understand.

In many cases we cannot expect our customers (folks reading our reports) to fully understand all the underlying concepts.  This isn’t to say there shouldn’t be SOME expectation that they understand things, just that we cannot expect them to know anything close to what we do.  To help bridge that gap, I’ve been following a few guidelines:

• Always put comments in reports - Many reporting systems have a comment or text field.  I’ve started always putting notes in there that relate to that specific report.  These include a brief description of what the report is intended to show, and any call outs to specifics that may not be 100% obvious (e.g. a specific field showing a null/none until a specific time period, etc).

• Proper Naming - Definitely another easy win - just name things more accurately.  I try to keep a specific convention that briefly describes the report.  This both makes it easier for me to organize, but also helps my customers find the right report more quickly.

• Basic Documentation - In addition to cranking out reports and dashboards, I’ve found providing basic documentation on where data comes from is incredibly helpful.  This doesn’t have to be (nor should it be!) a full data dictionary.  This wouldn’t only drown your customer in too much info.  Rather it’s a quick guide on what common metrics mean and how they’re pulled.  Think of this as proactive defense against common questions.

Attendance Automation

The Setup

I worked at a company that had a great L&D team setup.  They developed a lot of internal training on their Learning Management System (LMS), which was augmented by a large number of instructor led training (ILT). There was a wide range of training, from regulation mandated compliance, to new hire onboarding, to skills development.  Luckily we were well supported by an engaged group of trainers with backgrounds ranging from training consultants to formally trained teachers.

Tracking was mainly done through the LMS, and was easy enough since that system was setup to track things like log ins, who watched what, and what quiz scores we got.  A number of built in reports provided basic output we could share with the business.  The ILT, whoever, proved to be more of a challenge.  While we could get an idea of knowledge retention by sending out quizzes or follow ups, keeping track of who actually showed up was more of a challenge.  

Generally paper attendance was taken, which works…. To an extent.  This was compounded as we had multiple locations that had to report back, forcing us to rely on folks outside the team to scan and email us attendance sheets.  Cheating was also a concern, as you could write down anyone else’s name and then claim they were there.  Given the highly regulated area we were in, this could result in significant consequences if we were caught.

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The Eureka Moment

While thinking over this problem I had a “no-duh” moment that led to an eventual solution - every employee has a security badge, why can’t we just use those to log into class?  I knew our security system could record badges when someone opened a door, including who it was, when it happened and which door.  I didn’t see any reason we couldn’t do this for in-person trainings, now I just had to figure out how it could be done.

I knew other companies had dedicated training rooms (lucky), which would have made this easy.  All we would have do was get folks to badge into that training room and they knew who was there.  While we did have a number of rooms large enough to hold dozens of people (frequently needed for mandatory training), we were not lucky enough to have dedicated training spaces.  This was further compounded by having multiple locations.

My general idea was to have some kind of website setup that folks could swipe their badge into and record their attendance.  This would remove the need for paper (messy and easy to make a mistake), as well as the risk someone would write in someone else’s name (one individual did try to badge in their entire team at once, which we quickly shut down).  The only challenge was I didn’t have was the hardware to scan the badge or the software to process the information.

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The Challenges

There were three challenges to overcome, two technical and one cultural.  On the technical front I had to figure out how to allow someone to badge into a class, and then how handle and process their scan-in.  The first required a hardware approach (some kind of badge reader), and the second a software approach (some system to take that persons scan-in and put it somewhere).  On the cultural front we had to get buy-in from leaders to socialize this amazing new product, and from individuals to properly use it (e.g. not send one person to scan in their entire team).

The Hardware

The Security team owned our badging system, so I started my quest there.  Their first recommendation was to have the Learning team pay to put a badge reader on EVERY conference room.  Now this would solve our challenge, since it would collect badging information when someone badged in… and it would also cost a LOT of money that we didn’t have (our budget was basically $0).  This approach would also only tell us that someone badged in at a certain time, not information about WHY.  For example, without additional work we wouldn’t know what class they were attending, or who was teaching it, both data points we were interested in.

Their next suggestion was to use a USB badge reader.  This sounded like a great idea, but unfortunately they didn’t know exactly which one we should get.  After a few failed Amazon purchases we reached out to the contractor who setup our system originally.  Without nerding out TOO much, the badges were made by a company called HID and go by the “Prox Card” brand name.  These cards can be programmed with any one of 137 billion unique codes, which is great if you have 137 billion employees, and slightly more of a challenge if you’re looking to read them.  We eventually figured out there are multiple ways to encode the card, for example, you can include a building number, as well as a unique ID for an employee, in the code.  The card readers have to be setup to read the number properly, if not, they’ll grab the information incorrectly (something I ran into during my initial testing).

In this sample card number the first three digits (110) could mean building #110, while the last 5 (72956) could be the unique ID for that individual.  

11072956

Unfortunately the USB card readers don’t know this out of the box… resulting in them reading the entire number as the employee’s ID.  The cards do have the number printed on the outside, so I was able to verify the number the reader was picking up was the correct one.  This, however, did not help me figure out what the numbers actually meant.

Fortunately our contractor was able to help us untangle this and gave us a configuration file that we could write to the card readers.  This ensured they properly read our badges, and meant we could quickly update new card readers ourselves.  We ordered a few readers for each location, and made sure the local L&D folks knew where they were (they aren’t cheap!). This took care of how to get an employees badge ID off their badge.

The Softer Side

Oddly writing the software for this turned out be easier than wrangling the badge readers.  I discovered that Google Suite (gMail, Slides, Sheets, etc.) has a scripting language called Google Apps Script (GAS), which is based off of JavaScript.  Not only was there more documentation available online, but there are massive communities online to reach out to for help (unlike our badge readers, which required a consultant to come in and help out).

GAS allows you to perform virtually anything a human can do via a script.  Need a Form to update a spreadsheet, perform some calculations, then email someone and wait for a response?  GAS can do that.  Need a button you can push to reformat an entire Slides presentation?  GAS has you covered.  Need a Sheet to open a webpage and collect badging information?  GAS serves up HTML and CSS.

Unfortunately while I had some basic coding classes back in the day, I knew nothing of coding (well, I knew it was a thing, in the same way I know quantum mechanics is a thing).  Fortunately I had two advantages - a manager who wholly supported this project and the firm belief that I wasn’t trying to do anything groundbreaking.  Having my manager’s support was essential as it legitimized any time or energy I put towards this project.  Since this was a prioritized project, this also allowed me to push back against other demands on my time and gave my some great backup in the form of my manager getting folks off my back.

Understanding that this project didn’t present truly novel problems to humanity helped me keep my focus and feel from being overwhelmed.  At the end of the day all I was doing was taking a number, looking up a name and displaying something on a website.  Sure, the number came from an ID card, but everything about this was what I called a “solved problem”; everything I was trying to do had already been solved by someone, somewhere.  This understanding gave me a great “out” any time I got stuck - just look it up online.

The challenge with looking things up is knowing what to actually type into Google/your library/whatever to find what you want.  Since my background isn’t computer programming my biggest challenge was not having the correct words to describe problems.  This resulted in a lot of wasted time at the beginning, but helped expose me to a wide range of ideas as I tripped over things and generally beat me head against the keyboard until something worked.

Culture Wars

Getting buy in to use the tool was the easiest part. No one likes doing paper attendance (citation needed), and this is doubly true at tech companies. After all, if we’re surrounded by really smart people who can code new apps and discover new solutions, why are we stuck using technology invented in the first century?

The cultural challenge we ran into was enforcing some simple rules, like “You can only badge in yourself”. This came around after several teams sent one person “ahead of everyone else” to badge in the entire team. We avoided most of these challenges by getting managers and directors buy-in to help enforce behavior. We also told our front-line trainers to push back on anyone trying to break the rules, and, more importantly, they we had their backs if anyone complained.

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Deployment

Eventually I got to a place where I had a working prototype which I felt comfortable showing my team.  Getting feedback was an important part of this tools life, mainly because I wouldn’t be the one using it on a daily basis, but also because my background wasn’t in running corporate training.  I got several great suggestions, such as having the tool accept an email address in case folks didn’t have a badge, or also recording the instructor and name of the course that someone badged into.  These reviews did take time, but at the end of the day they made a much stronger tool.

We had a large (400+ employee) compliance training coming up and saw it as a great opportunity to field test the tool.  We decided not to say anything to the trainees or their managers, and instead just setup a table with a computer, badge reader and someone to check folks in.  Everyone up until now had been conditioned to sign in on paper, something they really didn’t like since it was one, slow, and two, annoying.  We weren’t sure what the response to the tool would be, but figured it couldn’t be worse than signing in on paper.

We were amazed at the response.

Several folks who badged in wanted to get their hands on the tool for other events their team ran.  Several Directors immediately wanted to know how they could blend this information with other learning systems to see how their teams are performing (e.g. if Sally shows up to training, do her sales numbers improve?).  Many of them asked where we had bought the tool from, and were quite surprised when they learned it was home grown.

Overall, the tool was a hit.  We got some great feedback on how to improve it, and after a few modifications and testing, we deployed it to all our locations to track attendance.  Not only did we entirely remove the annoyance and inaccuracy of paper based records, we drastically improved our reporting capabilities and built great relationships with internal teams.

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Lessons Learned

• Find pain points - Everyone has something that bugs them about how they do their job.  A screen loads slowly.  They have to get 15 approvals to go to lunch.  Bob in accounting refuses to sign off on something with a $.01 difference.  When folks are first exposed to these pain points, they tend to either complain a little bit and then stop, or just assume that’s part of reality and accept it.  Over time, we learn to deal with them and they don’t seem so bad… but they are.  Take the time to talk to your coworkers about what could go better, and then go do it.

• Get buy in - Once you’ve IDed some pain points, talk with your team/manager and get their feedback and buy in to tackle one or two.  Notice it’s one or two, not ALL of them… you really want to sell the lowest hanging fruit, something you can knock out of the park with a bit of work.  Getting buy in makes it much easier to get help from others, and makes your goal much more legitimate to others.

• Jump in - Once you’ve got buy in, jump in!  The solution may not be a straight line… but those are boring anyways.  Going into it I wouldn’t have been able to tell you I’d end up learning how to write JavaScript, but also learned how our ID badges work.  Take the time to understand the challenge, and give yourself space to explore the options.

Short Bite - Get it done

Backing up entire systems is a very data-intensive process.  Not only does it involve moving a ton of data, it requires specific timing in terms of jobs, processes and systems to ensure it is done correctly.  Even with dedicated data lines, this process can take hours, or sometimes days, which in general is OK. I, however, found myself in a situation where we had to get a copy of our database from Seattle to Portland by 8am the next day.. And it was already 4pm.

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The Problem

We had two data centers that mirrored each other, one in Portland, and another in Seattle. This is a common setup for data centers since it allows for fault tolerance in case one goes offline, and can help provide faster speeds depending on which one you’re closer to.  We had just completed a big update in Seattle data center, and needed that update to also be made in Portland. These updates were critical to the success of the project, and due to some (I’m sure very important) technical reasons both data centers had to be up to date.  One option was to do this “over the wire”, that is copy/paste the information over the internet. This was the simplest method, however, also the most time-intensive.  This was an incredibly large update, and despite having a dedicated line between our data centers estimates ranged from 12-48 hours to complete the update. Unfortunately this delay would break out deployment schedule.

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The Solution

Someone pointed out that driving from Portland to Seattle only took about (a very boring) 3 hours, which was a LOT faster than going over the wire.  We hatched a plan to copy the updates to a laptop, drive them down to Portland and perform the update overnight. (Despite advances in wifi and internet speeds using the “sneaker net”, or physically walking data from point A to point B is still the fastest way to move data).

Wanting to ensure others on the team could focus on their work (and also to maybe get some quality alone time), I volunteered to be the courier.  After quickly downloading some new music I was handed a laptop and a list of commands to run when I got to the Portland datacenter.  After a (very boring) 3 hour drive (Protip : bring more than 2 CDs), I plugged into the Portland datacenter and took a nap while the updates ran.

A few hours, and one massive update later, I drove back to Seattle.. Where I promptly crashed in my hotel room for a few hours.

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The Takeaway

Ideally projects do not present situations where extreme solutions like driving all throughout the night are needed.  Ideally.

When those situations are encountered, however, it’s always a good idea to get the team together to brainstorm.  See what possible solutions you can come up with (no matter how insane they sound), and then pare them down to what’s possible given your requirements.  In this case, we HAD to have the update live the next day, so that ruled out some options. It was also possible to safely use the sneaker net to make the update happen (e.g. I didn’t have to break all the speed limits).

Plus, sometimes you’ll get a great story out of it.

Tech Takes Empathy - Sheer Terror

There has only been one time in my life (and hopefully the last!) where I have looked into a man’s eyes and seen pure, abject terror.  This didn’t happen in (to me, anyway) a life or death situation, or a horror film, or even after eating bad shellfish. It happened when he was told he could no longer use paper forms and had to use a computer.

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The Setup

Working in the IT department of a shipyard was a lot of fun.  Not only did I get to work on and with computers (including some great experience bringing a corporate network down with a single file transfer…), I also got to see the physical thing our company made - ships.  To build them, however, you need a lot of very technically skilled individuals. This includes welders, carpenters, foremen and women, and supply managers. Building ships is really complicated (citation needed), but this was all managed with pen and paper… up until the time IT decided we needed a better system.

My role on the team was to support employees when they ran into problems with our system.  This could be anything from login problems to system errors to training. Many of our users were not computer savvy, so I spent a good deal of time going over basics (for reference many could only peck-type) and developing easy to follow documentation so they could continue to do their job.  Most folks didn’t need to use a computer, or only used it sparingly, so things were mostly OK. Our supply managers, however, were another story.

Historically, when a part or item was needed, you had to fill out a paper form (called a Purchase Requisition, or PR) and give it to their supply manager, who would then update a logbook, and if it fit specific criteria (e.g. under a certain dollar amount, or out of a specific list of things), give you the item.  If it didn’t meet criteria, the supply manager would go talk to whoever controlled the item to see if you could get it.

In the New Work of Tomorrow, however, this all had to be done on a computer.  Instead of filling out a paper form, the Supply Manager suddenly was expected to type the order into a computer, and the PR system would then follow whatever rules were in place for that item.  On a higher level this was great, since management could see in near-real time what was being asked for and by whom. On a highly localized scale, this was the End of Days.

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Sheer Terror

Frank was a supply manager who had been working at the shipyard for 20+ years, and he knew his job inside, outside and backwards.  Even better, everyone knew he knew his job, and he was good at it. Then everything changed when the computers came. Frank knew how to type, which was great since it removed one hurdle entirely… the problem was Frank didn’t understand how this computer would impact his job.  If people could put a PR into the computer, was his job still needed? Even if it was still needed, what would he do all day, just watch the screen?

This was the moment I saw true terror in another man’s eyes.  In the moment Frank wasn’t able to process how great it would be overall, he was afraid his job would disappear.

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Queue Empathy

This is one of the great tensions technological advances have to offer.  On the one hand, technology allows us to gather lots of data and be more effective at finding patterns and handling information.  On another hand, technology can be incredibly threatening to individuals who feel they may be replaced. We’ve all heard the news stories about this, but until Frank I had never experienced it first hand and it was a powerful experience.

Many of us in tech are in it for the cool stuff it can do.  Analyze millions or rows of data to find specific patterns? Magic.  Build a robot that can navigate novel environments? Witchcraft. What we need to remember, however, is there is also a very human component to it.  Tech does not exist by itself, it impacts people in many ways. As techies we need to keep this forefront in our minds as we roll out new magic and interact with folks who maybe don’t quite understand it all yet.

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Back to Frank

In Frank’s case I made a deal with him.  I had to take all his paper requisition forms away, but in return, I’d sit with him until he felt more comfortable with the system.  In addition, I gave him my (work) cell number and told him to call me any time he had a question, or, more importantly, was getting stressed by the computer.

This did result in more hours spent than I had thought, however, I got a lot out of it.  While Frank didn’t entirely lose his anxiety, he did get a LOT more comfortable using a computer which made it easier to help him learn new skills.  I also learned a ton about the supply process from him, which made it significantly easier for me to design better processes in the system (e.g. changing screen setups, routings, etc.).  Even better, while Frank wasn’t exactly an evangelist for the system, he told his coworkers it wasn’t as bad as they had thought and there was help (e.g. me) if they needed it.

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Lessons Learned

• Remember there’s people involved - While tech provides us some really cool tools, all of these tools eventually will impact a real live person.  This impact may be felt as part of their job changing (as in Franks case), or in different ways, but regardless something is changing.

• Take time to know users - It’s VERY easy in tech to become distanced from our users.  After all, they’re just the people that break our meticulously built system, right?  Taking some time to meet them offers a number of advantages though. Not only will you help put a face to these folks, you’ll pick up more about what they need from the system which will make your job easier.

• Be open - Those same users you’ve met will give you ideas on how to improve things, which is great!  Don’t shut down their ideas or problems just because they’re “not in tech”. Like any field, getting more perspective and a wide range of people involved only helps build a better end-product.