Real achievement means inevitably a worthy and virtuous task. To do some idiotic job very well is certainly not real achievement. I like my phrasing, “What is not worth doing is not worth doing well.” — Abraham Maslow Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Work
Interview FAQ: How Do You Motivate People?
In 1960, Douglas MacGregor of the MIT Sloan School of Management developed two theories of workplace motivation, Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X assumptions People have an inherent dislike for work and will avoid it whenever possible. People must be coerced, controlled, directed, or threatened with punishment in order to get them to achieve the organizational objectives. People prefer to be directed, do not want responsibility, and have little or no ambition. People seek security above all else. Theory Y assumptions Work is as natural as rest or play. People will exercise self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organizational objectives. Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement. People usually accept and often seek responsibility. Imagination, ingenuity and creativity are widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population. The intellectual potential of the average person is only partly utilized. I come down strongly in favor… Read more →
I Get All the Holidays — And Then Some!
Here’s how I spent the MLK holiday: My son went over to a friend’s house and I stayed home and read a book. When the boy came home, we threw a football around for a while, and then I took Lightning to the dog park, where he fended off an inappropriate advance from a giant black pit bull. So all in all, a jam-packed day of doing nothing . . . A friend of mine tells me he doesn’t get a day off for the King holiday. In fact, he doesn’t get another paid holiday until Memorial Day! HA HA HA! I work for a company in the banking industry. If you work for a bank, you get all the holidays off! In fact, between now and Memorial Day, we get Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Groundhog Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo and spring break. Plus a… Read more →
Fear in the Workplace
Perhaps most surprising to us has been the degree to which fear appears to be a feature of modern work life. Whenever we talk with others about this work, such as on airplanes with strangers, we get a similar response — “Oh yeah, I can relate to wanting to speak up but biting my tongue.” It’s really a shame how much apparently untapped knowledge there is out there and how much pain and frustration results from this silence. That, too, has been somewhat surprising–that people are genuinely hurt and frustrated about their silence. This suggests that employees aren’t failing to provide ideas or input because they’ve “checked out” and just don’t care, but because of fear. — “Do I Dare Say Something?,” HBS Working Knowledge What is happening here? Let’s examine some possibilities: Some people are afraid to speak up under any circumstances and the workplace has nothing to do… Read more →
College Pick ‘Em
I was mathematically eliminated from college bowl pick ’em at the office with 13 games left. The leader — an Indian gentleman — is 15-2. I’m 11-6, but there are only three games left where he and I picked a different winner. At least I’m ahead of the woman who picked the games based on which of the mascots would win in a fight. If I’d won the thing, I probably wouldn’t mention that I actually let my son pick the games, my only rule being that he had to pick USC in the Rose Bowl . . . Read more →
The Years Have Been Kind to Me
I was at the corporate office of a well-known company here in Irvine yesterday when I saw the name “Tim Jones” on one of the offices. “Hmmm,” I thought, “I used to work with a Tim Jones [not his real name] about 20 years ago. I wonder if it’s the same guy?” The door was closed, but I was able to peep through the glass as I walked by and saw what looked to be Tim Jones’ grandfather. It’s amazing how Tim Jones has fallen apart over the last 20 years while I myself have not aged a single day . . . Read more →
You Can Have My Job
A co-worker — let’s call him Mr. Frick — in response to criticism from Mr. Frack, says, “You want my job, Frack? You can have it!” To which Frack responds, “OK. I’ve been doing it for a while now.” Read more →
PowerPoint Tips from the Pros
As part of a presentation I’m putting together on managing software projects, I want to talk a little bit about what not to do and how things can go spectacularly awry. A great recent case study for this is the FBI Virtual Case File system, cancelled last year after spending over $100 million. The original slide I put together (click to enlarge) showed the basic facts of the case illustrated with a photo of a rocket sled crashing into a wall. The heading I put on there — “Another fine mess” — didn’t seem to add anything to the mix, and I couldn’t think of a better one, so I started to think about other ways to lay out the slide. In the second version, I dropped the header, used the rocket sled photo as the background, and overlaid the text on top of it. I think it came out… Read more →
The Intellect of “Ordinary” Employees
It took Detroit more than 20 years to ferret out the radical management principle at the heart of Toyota’s capacity for relentless improvement . . . Only after American carmakers had exhausted every other explanation for Toyota’s success — an undervalued yen, a docile workforce, Japanese culture, superior automation — were they finally able to admit that Toyota’s real advantage was its ability to harness the intellect of “ordinary” employees. — Gary Hamel Read more →
Goofus on Software
Goofus sends out an email to the team stating that the company is going to decommission the custom CRM we just spent 18 months building and replace it with Seibel. Five minutes later, here comes a reply from a troublemaker: “So why did we build the custom CRM in the first place? Just asking . . .” Goofus replies: “Siebel was not on the company roadmap at that time.” Note that he completely sidesteps the actual question of why we answered a Build-or-Buy question by deciding to build a system, only to immediately thereafter buy a new system to replace it. Goofus didn’t get to be a superstar in this organization by being unable to serve up bland, poker-faced responses to provocative questions. Read more →
Four Questions to Ask a Hiring Manager
I’m rereading parts of The Psychology of Computer Programming and I notice that several of Weinberg’s “food for thought” questions at the end of each chapter would be good questions to pose to a hiring manager: How long have you been in charge of your present group? How many of the original people remain? How many people have left and what were the reasons for their departure? What sort of provisions do you make for this kind of turnover? Describe the sequence of work planned for your current project. Is the actual work proceeding according to the original plan? Do you expect it to continue in this manner? How close is your progress reporting scheme to the reality of the work that goes on? What checks do you have to find out if it corresponds to reality? What is your impression of what motivates your staff? Is it the same… Read more →
How Did Peopleware Become a Best-Seller?
I don’t know how Peopleware became a best-seller. . . . I hardly run into any managers who read about their industry, management theory, or psychology, period. I used to believe that they were overloaded with information regarding the specifics of their job, but frankly, managers still aren’t trained, or do not educate themselves, to do their jobs. — Brian Pioreck Read more →
Tom Peters Sucks
Evidently, this is not as well known as I expected, based on a Google search for “Tom Peters sucks,” which returns basically nothing. Shocking. I followed a link to Peters’ site today. He’s got the undirected mania of a 5-year-old being chased by a mad dog, or a crack addict with a new girlfriend. Vague, mindless exhortations — Wow! Gaspworthy! — in service of nothing. Can you really improve people’s lives by shouting random slogans and buzzwords at them? Read more →
Dishonest Estimation
I saw the following attributed to Ralph Johnson. I’m not sure if that’s the Gang of Four Ralph Johnson, but it probably is: The problem is that almost all software schedules and budgets are bogus. They are created for political effect and have little relationship to reality. Thus, whether they are met has nothing to do with the people working on the project. Who makes your schedules? Project managers? They are almost certainly the wrong people. You can’t predict how long something will take unless you are an expert at doing it. The programmers? Are they allowed to say “we don’t have enough information to make a prediction”? Are they ever told “that is too long, you’ll have to do it in six months”? The only way to get honest schedules is from people who have experience in doing the work who know that they need to get the schedule… Read more →
A Ready Answer on Diversity
From a corporate diversity report: The issue of having less diversity in the management ranks than in the aggregate among the workforce is faced by virtually every company in America and is one for which we do not have a ready answer. You don’t have a ready answer? I’ll give you one: From a management perspective, diversity, like outsourcing, is best implemented on some other sucker’s job. Read more →
Drowning in Chocolate
My wife just read me a news item about a worker who was trapped in a vat of chocolate for two hours. “Really?!” I said. “Dark, milk or semisweet? Look, you think that’s bad, this guy should try working with some of the morons that I have to work with in the IT industry on a daily basis. In two weeks, he’ll welcome the opportunity to drown in a vat of chocolate. No sympathy here, candy man. “Now . . . what else is happening in the world? . . .” Read more →
Racial Sensitivity at the Office
A manager says to one of the programmers, “You are the whitest Mexican I’ve ever seen. You need to get out and mow some more lawns.” Read more →
Safe is Risky, Risky is Safe
Via Kathy Sierra, an illustration of Seth Godin‘s “safe is risky, risky is safe” maxim. A guy in Colorado goes rock climbing. Meanwhile, his parked car gets crushed by a gigantic — and I mean gigantic (you’ve got to see the picture) — boulder. Read more →
No Solicitators
My wife sells insurance products to businesses, which sometimes requires in-person “cold calls.” She stopped in to a business today and asked the woman at the desk if she might speak with the manager. “Didn’t you see the sign?” the woman asked. “No. What did it say?” “‘No Solicitators.’” Did I mention that at least one of the people in this conversation is not a native English speaker? “I’m not a solicitator,” my wife said. “I’m here to help your business.” Happy ending: She did get an appointment to speak with the manager, but she was still unhappy about one thing. “Oh my god, I can’t believe she called me a solicitator . . .” Read more →
Whatever Happened to Love?
In the old days, greed and covetousness were seen as sinful; now they are encouraged. Jack Welch’s Winning sets the tone. The author grins manically from the cover – despite the silver hair, manicured nails and perfect teeth, he looks like Beelzebub incarnate. But why is “winning” so great? Because, says Welch, it enables people to make lots of money which . . . erm . . . enables them to “get better healthcare, buy vacation homes, and secure a comfortable retirement”. That’s it. Those are the three goals of our mortal existence, otherwise known as more pills, more mortgages and more burglar alarms. Whatever happened to joy, pleasure, brotherhood? Whatever happened to enjoying life? Whatever happened to creativity? Whatever happened to love? — Tom Hodgkinson Read more →