Posts
Welcome:
Scenario: Manager didn’t seem to be listening to subordinate.
CC:
Best way to solve technical issues.
Good paths for adult children
How CC went bad:
Name calling
Better way:
Prepare thoughts and emotions
What to address: Content, Pattern, Relationship
What is the topic that I need to discuss?
How can I bring it up in a way that strengthens that relationship?
Our stories provoke their own confirming data.
Change story to change emotions.
6 things didn’t work well:
Interrupt
Urgent
Invade space
Vague “unexceptable”
Didn’t point out specific expense policies that weren’t followed
Comment how many poppers eaten
Victim: What’s my role? What should I do?
Villain: Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person do this?
Helpless: What should I do right now to move toward what I really want?
Practice: Think about why other person wants to think of alternatives
Start with heart: What is our purpose
Motives often degrade when conversations turn crucial.
When getting upset, stop and think about what your real goals are. For me, the other person, the relationship, the organization
State path: Facts, Story, Ask for their path (what is your perspective?)
Meeting Multitasker: I noticed you on your phone much of the time during the meeting. It appeared that you weren’t following the conversation. I want you to know that you can speak up if there is something urgent you need to deal with and we can determine a better time to have the conversation. Is there any way we can help so you can take care of priorities and then have the attention available to provide your insight?
Sample answer asked “Could you help me understand what was going on?” Could that be viewed as intrusive?
Correct answer for question #3 on https://training.vitalsmarts.com/learn/course/dialogue/state-my-path/the-skill?client=sps-commerce-inc&page=4 appears to accuse them of being more “worried about looking good with leadership then sticking with what we agreed to” and D didn’t have an accusation.
Correct answer for question #4 appears to accuse: “I am wondering if you have concerns about our focus on increasing diversity or if you have concerns about some of the other candidates in the pool.”
Focus: How can I convey my meaning? -> How can all meaning be added to the conversation? (Share meaning and get others to share their meaning)
Learn to look:
Silence
verbal violence: labeling, coercion
Seek Mutual Purpose:
Agree to agree (out loud)
Ask Why to get purpose: (Any why is that important)
Find the “And”: Shared goal/purpose
Examples:
Pro-life vs. pro-choice: Started by taking about life experiences that led to their positions. Mutual purpose: No woman feels like she needs to consider abortion
Racism: Started by learning about them which lead to them learning about him.
When safety is at risk, step out of the conversation and re-establish safety and purpose
Listening: Ability to listen determined by motive, Seeing listening builds relationships, Seek the truth in what others say and listen to understand
Ask, mirror, paraphrase, and prime
Respond with: Agree, Build, Compare (Can I share my different experience?)
Plan how to end the conversation. Who will do what by when? Summarize and then ask for next steps
Start with one skill: State path
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Crucial Conversations Notes
Saturday, July 17, 2021
Boundries can give Freedom
Boundaries that limit what you can do can actually give you more freedom. Going past those boundaries can actually limit your future freedom.
A fence on the edge of a cliff gives you the freedom to safely go up to that fence. Going past that boundary can cause injuries that prevent you from walking around anymore.
A barrier on the side of a race track makes it safer to driver faster on the track. Going past those boundaries can prevent you from ever racing again.
The Devil will tell you that the boundaries limit your freedom but he will mock you once your freedom is really limited by the damage done by going past those boundaries.
Plan for Problems
Before taking off in a glider, we always review our emergency plan --
we plan for problems. In normal life it also makes a lot of sense to
plan for how you will handle problems or they will trip and trap you.
There are different patterns for how to handle problems so make sure you choose the correct pattern.
Go straight ahead:
Sometimes you need to just keep going straight ahead. When Moses struck the rock for water the 2nd time, he still led the people until the end of his shortened time of service. A rope break in a
glider under 200 ft should be handled by landing straight ahead.
Turn around and go back:
Sometimes you need to turn around and go back. I Corinthians 10:14
tells us to "Flee idolatry." A rope break in a glider from 200-500 ft
should usually be handled by turning quickly back and landing the
opposite way on the runway.
Change your path: Sometimes you need to change your path. Peter said he would accompany Jesus even unto death but then denied him. He later found the better way to serve in humility instead of pride. A rope break in a glider from 500-800 ft will sometimes be handled by turning and landing on a cross-wind runway.
Just keep going: Sometimes you need to just continue with your normal path. In Acts 4:19-20 Peter and John said "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." A rope break in a glider from above 800 ft will usually be handled by doing a normal pattern landing.
The right plan may still be hard and bumpy.
Plan for temptation, hurt, bullying, God's prompting, parents' requests, work to do, etc.
Friday, July 24, 2020
Price Controls Mean Shortages, Even during Pandemics
Price Controls Mean Shortages, Even during Pandemics:
"if Retailer A wants to charge eighty dollars for hand sanitizer, this creates an opportunity for competitors to charge less. In this case, the retailer does not suffer from government-imposed fines, but from consumers who abandon it to purchase from lower-priced ones. Manufacturers will redirect production to the most profitable and in-demand products, in this case hand sanitizer."
"if Retailer A wants to charge eighty dollars for hand sanitizer, this creates an opportunity for competitors to charge less. In this case, the retailer does not suffer from government-imposed fines, but from consumers who abandon it to purchase from lower-priced ones. Manufacturers will redirect production to the most profitable and in-demand products, in this case hand sanitizer."
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Outliers
As part of an SPS Commerce book club, I found the following notes and quotes interesting from Outliers:
Chapter 1: Mathew effect
25: selection, streaming, and differentiated experience.
Most selected didn't succeed.
33: why don't adjust for age? Because individual success. Really?!?
Chapter 2: 10,000 hour rule
39: no greats practiced less than other greats. No mediocre practiced more than other mediocre.
Should master level be a goal?
Chapter 3: The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1
86: How far past “good enough” doesn’t affect outcome. Does it affect anything (e.g. study time, number of expertise areas, expectations, stress, etc)?
Having few people like you means less connection with people.
convergence vs. divergence tests
Chapter 4: The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 2
104: poor intimidated by authority
concerned cultivation vs. accomplishment of natural growth (lax intellectually)
Entitlement vs. better behaved, less whiny, more creative with time, independent
105: middle class children adjusted interactions
Is our education of the poor fatally flawed?
Chapter 5: The Three Lessons of Joe Flom
How much of a factor are personal differences?
Chapter 6: Harlen Kentucky
A deeper understanding brings clarity. Is our understanding deep enough?
Chapter 7: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
184: multiple bad initial conditions plus 7 consecutive errors. Usually teamwork/communication
197: helper must speak up and clearly.
220: change cultural norms for pilots in their 50s.
221: don't avoid talking about group weaknesses.
Chapter 8: Rice Paddies and Math Tests
228: memorize 2 seconds so length of words affects number of digits.
Number names affect ease of math learning
237: if yield highly varies with care, you can't use slave labor. Use fixed rents. Hard work vs. fatalism
246: not ability -- attitude (persistence)
Chapter 9: Marita’s Bargain
More time schooling and don’t stop learning in the summer
Epilogue: A Jamaican Story
Chapter 1: Mathew effect
25: selection, streaming, and differentiated experience.
Most selected didn't succeed.
33: why don't adjust for age? Because individual success. Really?!?
Chapter 2: 10,000 hour rule
39: no greats practiced less than other greats. No mediocre practiced more than other mediocre.
Should master level be a goal?
Chapter 3: The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1
86: How far past “good enough” doesn’t affect outcome. Does it affect anything (e.g. study time, number of expertise areas, expectations, stress, etc)?
Having few people like you means less connection with people.
convergence vs. divergence tests
Chapter 4: The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 2
104: poor intimidated by authority
concerned cultivation vs. accomplishment of natural growth (lax intellectually)
Entitlement vs. better behaved, less whiny, more creative with time, independent
105: middle class children adjusted interactions
Is our education of the poor fatally flawed?
Chapter 5: The Three Lessons of Joe Flom
How much of a factor are personal differences?
Chapter 6: Harlen Kentucky
A deeper understanding brings clarity. Is our understanding deep enough?
Chapter 7: The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
184: multiple bad initial conditions plus 7 consecutive errors. Usually teamwork/communication
197: helper must speak up and clearly.
220: change cultural norms for pilots in their 50s.
221: don't avoid talking about group weaknesses.
Chapter 8: Rice Paddies and Math Tests
228: memorize 2 seconds so length of words affects number of digits.
Number names affect ease of math learning
237: if yield highly varies with care, you can't use slave labor. Use fixed rents. Hard work vs. fatalism
246: not ability -- attitude (persistence)
Chapter 9: Marita’s Bargain
More time schooling and don’t stop learning in the summer
Epilogue: A Jamaican Story
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Work Rules
As part of an SPS Commerce book club, I found the following notes and quotes interesting from Work Rules:
Page 375: 2 “Inspired by” photo credits.
Why:
Page 13: “a manager focuses not on punishments and reward but on clearing roadblocks and inspiring”
Page 14:
“Performance improved only when companies implemented programs to
empower employees, provided learning opportunities that were outside
what people needed to do their jobs, increased their reliance
on teamwork”
Chapter 1: Becoming a Founder
Page 22: “We believe
it is easy to be to pennywise and pound foolish with respect to
benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their
health and productivity”
Page 34: “moral rather than business goal”
Chapter 2: “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”
Page 39: 5 minutes with customer increased productivity 400%
Page 46: “Openness demonstrates to your employees that you believe they are trustworthy”
Chapter 3: “Lake Wobegon, Where all the New Hires Are Above Average”
Page 59: “Some
experts go so far as to say that 90 percent of training doesn’t cause a
sustained improvement in performance or change in behavior because it’s
neither well designed nor well delivered.”
“There are examples
of people who were mediocre performers and went on to greatness, though
most of those successes are a result of changing the context and type of
work, rather than the benefit of training.”
Page 60: “Companies continue to invest substantially more in training than in hiring”
“The presence of a
huge training budget is not evidence that you’re investing in your
people It’s evidence that you failed to hire the right people to begin
with.”
Page 65: Only hirer people who are better than you in some meaningful way
“But even the best-intentioned managers compromise their standards as searches drags on.”
Page 66: “The pedigree of your college education matters far less than what you have accomplished.”
Page 67: “looking for a wide variety of attributes, among the most important of which are humility and conscientiousness.”
Chapter 4: Searching for the Best
Page 72: Hiring committee composed of people familiar with the job but didn’t have a direct stake.
Page 74: Puzzle billboard made 0 hires.
Page 75: analysis
“revealed that academic performance didn’t predict job performance
beyond the first two to three years after college.”
Page 77: “sixteen years later, about one-third of the original hundred hires are still at Google”
Page 80: "Googler is
provided with weekly updates on the status of their candidates." Asked
for best person for X that they know.
Page 81 "The very best people aren't out there looking for work."
Chapter 5: Don’t Trust Your Gut
Page 88:"For 9 of
the 11 variables, thin-slice judgments correlated significantly with the
final evaluation of the actual interviews."
Page 90:
Explain employee performance:
14% unstructured interview
10% conscientious
7% reference checks
3% years of work experience
29% (best) work sample test
26% general cognitive ability (but tests skew for gender, race, etc)
26% consistent set
of questions with clear criteria - behavior and situation - perceived to
be most fair. Veterans Affairs has samples
Page 96: "score the interview with a consistent rubric"
Page 98: survey every interviewee to refine process
Page 99: emergent leadership ignores formal designation and recedes back into team when not needed.
Page 100: intellectual humility, comfort with ambiguity, evidence of taking courageous and interesting paths
Role related knowledge is least important because it reduces fresh perspective
Page 101: Need mix of generalists and specialists.
Two interviewers
must address each attribute. Written feedback must include attribute,
question, answer, assessment. Allows evaluating interviewers
Page 103: 4 interviews give 86% confidence. Each additional only adds 1%.
Re-evaluate rejected applicants against employees.
Page 105: How much does each level of review help?
Page 106: assessment led by recruiters and they are familiar with many jobs to correctly place candidates.
Dis-interested interviewer and review
Page 113: Average Googler spends 1.5 hours/week on hiring
Chapter 6: Let the Inmates Run the Asylum
Page 118: "could you promote yourself"
Page 121: If senior person sits in the middle, that seat will be left open
Page 122: break the rules when it makes sense. "Always, always make room for a truly exceptional person"
Page 124: Take away management power to free team to innovate.
Page 125: Choose your own title
Page 126: President cleaned up after his own dog
Page 128: "Don't politick. Use data."
Page 132: "A
promotion packet that has no constructive feedback is actually a warning
sign" Publish promotion stats to show that there aren't biases.
Page 137: Engineers
given anonymous performance and pay data and to shape how bonuses would
be allocated. Bonus basis changed to median salary
Page 141: annual survey focused on innovation, execution, and retention
Chapter 7: Why Everyone Hates Performance Management, and What We Decided to Do About It
Page 154: performance systems tend to give generic positive feedback that isn't actionable
Page 164: calibrate ratings across managers
Page 165: start meetings with handout on biases
Page 165: use benchmark people known by multiple managers
Page 170: split annual review from salary discussion so review gets enough focus
make development a constant back-and-forth ... Rather than a year-end surprise
Chapter 8: The Two Tails
Page 184: help worst performers (across company) perform better (separate from performance evaluation) instead of firing them
Page 193: "manager quality was the single best predictor of whether employees would stay or leave"
Page 198: feedback must focus on development rather than rewards and punishments, so the system isn't gamed.
Chapter 9: Building a Learning Institution
Page 206: shard activities into tiny actions and repeat endlessly -- each time experiment, observe, adjust
Page 210:
"exceptional success rarely follows and individual from company to
company" -- use internal best to train more specifically
Page 216: create training offering page -- list your name and what you are willing to teach.
Tech advisors
Page 221: check behavior change of training - wait, ask trainee and their team.
Page 222: check results
Chapter 10: Pay Unfairly
Page 249: gifts are better for celebrating special than cash.
Page 250: Public kudos
Page 252: $175 peer bonus
Page 255: reward smart failures so people take risks
Page 256: People who haven't experienced failures don't learn how to grow and pass them.
Share bad news as openly as good news to avoid blindness and learn from mistakes.
Page 262: many on-site services don't cost anything and just require permission.
Page 263: Take your parent to work day
Page 271: "innovation tends to occur in the structural holes between social groups."
Chapter 11: The Best Things in Life are Free (Or Almost Free)
Chapter 12: Nudge … a Lot
Page 292: Nudges must be thoughtful but not forceful.
Page 294: Data + human nature -> fix dysfunctional team
Half of senior hires fail in 18 months. Have of hourly leave in 120 days.
Page 296: Checklist must be timely
Page 312: Simply providing information didn’t change behavior.
Page 315: Making
unhealthy food less visible than healthy food dropped unhealthy food
consumption – but must have unhealthy choice
Page 316: Offering attic insulation with attic cleaning tripled rate of attic insulation.
Chapter 13: It’s Not All Rainbows and Unicorns
Page 321: 1 major leak/year. Even accidental leaks get people fired.
Page 323: Expose entitlement (without exposing source)
Page 324: Change benefits when reason doesn’t apply anymore.
Page 326: Deal with objections to plans right away and be open to changing the plans.
Page 329: Review
services and cull those that don’t make sense anymore – even if they
have vocal supporters. Need to focus on services with the most need. Be
transparent with rationale.
Page 333: “Nothing was resolved.”
Chapter 14: What You Can Do Starting Tomorrow
Page: 337: “If people are good, they should be free”
Page 343: Performance conversation should be entirely about outcomes – not about process
Study best all-around and specialists
Page 344: “Save your biggest checks for the times when your people are most in need”
Afterword for HR Geeks Only: Building the World’s First People Operations Team
Page 353: Senior management cheat sheets that aren’t shared with senior management.
Page 354: “you must constantly ask yourself whether the principle underpinning each rule is relevant to the case at hand, and fearlessly abandon practice and policy when the situation merits it.”
Page 355: Anticipate needs
Page 356: “You rarely get praised for avoiding a problem.”
Page 358: “Someone [in sales?] who is not promoted after 16 quarters is all but guaranteed to quit.”
Reach out to people who were almost promoted and tell them how to continue growing
Page 359: Experiment. Test on small group or for short time (and tell that it is a test)
Page 361: Hire 1/3 of HR from HR background, 1/3 from consulting strategy, and 1/3 analytic and then mix.
Page 363: Everyone has the opportunity to work in every job, regardless of background.
Page 364: Hired some people without a college degree
Thursday, July 12, 2018
The Hard Thing about Hard Things
As part of an SPS Commerce book club, I found the following notes and quotes interesting from The Hard Thing about Hard Things:
Chapter 1:
Page 3: “being scared didn’t mean I was gutless. What I did mattered …”
Page 5: “diverse perspective utterly changed the meaning of every significant event in the world”
Chapter 2:
Page 29: Don’t sugar coat bad news
Page 37: People before announcement celebrations
Chapter 3:
Page 52: “What am I not doing?”
Chapter 4:
Page 65: “If we lost
a big prospect, the whole organization needed to understand why, so
that we could fix the things that were broken in our products,
marketing, and sales process”
Page 66: Communication Trust!
Page 67: “A healthy
company culture encourages people to share bad news.” “Don’t bring me a
problem without bringing me a solution.” -> hiding problems
Page 87: “Only took action on the positive leading indicator”
Page 89: Address problems head on
Page 92: “Spend zero time on what you could have done, and devote all of your time on what you might do.”
Chapter 5:
Hire for strength rather than a lack of weaknesses
Page 105: “Would you want to use software written by an engineer who was never told how the rest of the code worked”?
Page 106: “How many fully productive employees have they added?”
Page 107: When you
fired a person, how did you know with certainty that the employee both
understood the expectations of the job and was still missing
them?”
Page 110: "no investment that you can make that will do more to improve productivity [than training]"
Page 117: Respect friends and business partners
Page 120: Big business executives are interrupt driven but startup executives drive initiatives
Page 122: "What do you do in your first month on the job?" "How does your new job differ from your current job?"
Page 123: "Force them to create" "require a report from them on what they learned from each person"
Page 127: "Write down the strengths you want and the weaknesses you are willing to tolerate"
Chapter 6:
Page: 171: "A weak definition of what you are looking for will lead to a bad outcome."
Page 182: Culture can be widely defined by one narrow, unusual rule.
Page 187: When getting a new employee up to speed takes more work than doing the work yourself, you need to specialize.
Page 188: "The first rule of organizational design is that all organizational designs are bad."
Page 193:
"Evaluating people against the future needs of the company based on a
theoretical view of how they will perform is counterproductive"
Chapter 7:
Page 200: Investing
in courage and determination. "Focus on what I needed to get right and
stop worrying about all the things that I did wrong or
might do wrong"
Page 202: mean CEO grade is 22%. The larger the organization, the bigger mistakes and worse behavior.
Page 204: Separate importance of issues from how you feel about them.
Page 207: "Focus on where you are going rather than on what you hope to avoid."
Page 211: "the team supported the decision they thought the CEO wanted"
Page 214: "Knowledge
of technology, prior decisions, culture, personnel, and more tends to
be far more difficult to acquire than the skills required
to manage a larger organization."
Page 232: "Watered-down feedback can be worse than no feedback"
Page 233: "Encourage
people to challenge your judgement and argue the point to conclusion."
"As a CEO, you should have an opinion on absolutely everything."
Chapter 8:
Page 247: Don't argue about the unchangeable situation – deal with it.
Page 255: "As CEO, you can do very little employee development"
Page 256: Loyalty to
employees to give them great executives is more important than loyalty
to executives that did well in the past.
Page 259: Can sell unless market will grow by order of magnitude and your company will be number 1.
Page 260: "(big
enterprise can't generally succeed with small acquisitions, because too
much of the important intellectual property is sales methodology,
and big companies can't build that)"
Page 262: "once the
company starts to become a company rather than an idea it makes sense to
pay the CEO at market" ... "so that the decision to keep
or sell the company isn't a direct response to the CEO's personal
financial situation"
Chapter 9:
Just because all the
other companies are run a certain way, doesn't mean there isn't a
better way to run that will take over the market.
Thursday, December 07, 2017
Zombie Chess
Setup: Normal except also have an extra, empty board (called the zombie board).
Gameplay: When a
piece is taken off of the normal board, it is placed on the zombie board
on the corresponding spot where it started. If there is a piece on its
spot then that piece leaves the board.
Once the normal
board has a checkmate, move the kings to the zombie board and leave all
remaining pieces untouched on the normal board.
To win: The normal board must be in a state of checkmate and then the player who achieves checkmate on the 2nd board wins. The player who was in checkmate on the first board doesn’t affect who wins.
Alternatives:
The winner on the normal board gets to move 1 extra piece to the zombie board.
The winner on the normal board gets to choose where the king is placed on the zombie board.
Pieces moved to the zombie board can be place wherever desiredIs this fun or interesting?
Friday, February 17, 2017
Rand Paul: “Use It Or Lose It” on Gov’t Spending Needs To Stop
“We actually have a solution to it, or we think part of the solution,
which would be giving bonuses to federal employees if they turn money
back in, so if you’re in charge of a $12 billion budget and you turn a
billion back in, we give you personally a bonus,” he told TheDCNF.
“Right now it’s the opposite, you think, ‘My job won’t be here next
year if I [don’t] spend all this money,’ so this is a perverse incentive
to spend it.”
http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/rand-paul-use-lose/
http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/rand-paul-use-lose/
Friday, October 07, 2016
Journalists hit with $200 Wi-Fi bill for presidential debates - CNET
Journalists hit with $200 Wi-Fi bill for presidential debates - CNET: "Members of the press can expect to pay $200 to access a wireless network during Monday evening's presidential debate at Long Island's Hofstra University. And if they want more, they will be paying more. According to the university's media rate sheet (PDF), a phone line with secured Ethernet runs $600 and unlimited wireless access for 20 or more devices will run $3,500."
"It's not immediately clear what Hofstra's legal basis for this action is since the Federal Communications Commission issued an enforcement advisory last year that said blocking an individual's personal Wi-Fi hotspot is illegal."
"It's not immediately clear what Hofstra's legal basis for this action is since the Federal Communications Commission issued an enforcement advisory last year that said blocking an individual's personal Wi-Fi hotspot is illegal."
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