Roman's miles

We're back from Washington DC

I'm sorry I was silent so long and didn't update my readers on the reasons. I was on a trip to Germany and Israel and then was enforced to take a vacation to prevent complete wasting those vacation days the company owed me:-)

It was a kind of a challenging task to organize a vacation in such emergency conditions. The first step I did on planning the vacation was I swore to my wife and the kids I'd provide full isolation from my work duties, the Internet, and the notebook as a working implement. I set up an out-of-office auto-response and continued planning our vacation.

Originally I thought of taking a ski trip to North Carolina. The last time I stood on ski was my last winter vacation of the pre-married era (sounds like B.C. - it was 14 years ago!) and none of the kids and Lia ever tried it. That meant we needed besides to renting equipment and clothes to take a group lesson or a few. Thinking about going to a NC resort in such a no-advance time is a big mistake - everything is booked and what is left is very expensive. For our band a 4 day vacation would come near to 2K of dollars. Taking into account that Lia is not a big fan of extreme outdoor activities I decided not to take all the vacation to a risk (let the financial aspect alone).

A bright idea appeared from nowhere - have a car trip Washington DC. First, we haven't been there and it's a must item on an educational road-map for kids (especially foreigners in the States). Second, we like this type of traveling and have an idea to drive to Toronto one day - so it's better to put a short distance trip to a test before. Washington DC is a great opportunity - only 600 miles from Atlanta. Third, I had to use my award points in Hilton and this fact helped us to address the financial aspect (we payed in the hotel only for parking). So it was decided - we had a trip to Washington DC last Sunday.

The major part of preparation to the trip was installing a DVD instead of a VCR our Chrysler T&C had. Surprisingly enough no garage was open on Saturday before (December, 24:-) but driving 600 miles one way with three kids in a car without movies would nip in the bud all the trip fun. A workaround came in a form of a car adapter for notebook and a FM-transmitter for sound. We fixed the notebook between the front chairs' hands by a belt and the kids got a 15' screen DVD with stereo sound.

It took us 10 hours to get to Washington DC with a few stops on the way and no traffic at all. Our hotel had a great view on Pentagon, Potomac river, Arlington stele, and Capitol. We spent three full days (besides two days for driving) in Washington DC and had time to walk around the White House down to Arlington, National Museum of American History, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Museum of Natural History, National Air and Space Museum, and the Zoo. You can easily spend three full days in each of the museums but we wanted to catch as much as possible to see.

Now we're back home and though I'm still on vacation until 3d of January I'm back to my blogs. I'll shot soon a couple of other blogs to compensate you for a long silence:-)

Happy Hanukkah and Happy new year!

Technorati tags: Washington DC, car, trip

Lisa Haneberg - my first author on the NOBS series

I've been dreaming about how great it would be to have the NOBS book series. NOBS stands for "No BS" and only the books where every paragraph, every sentence, and ultimately - every word - brings clear added meaning can be published there.

For some reason an opinion exists that the thicker a book the more useful (and usually more expensive) it should be. Probably it's true for certain realms (like the science or the fiction literature) but definitely it's just the opposite for books of advice. When an author aims to pass a set of practical advice the thinner his (or her) opus the better. I, as a reader, am interested in getting the message and what even more important is the message's transmitting speed. Long explanations, wordy descriptions, and light-saturated chapters merely distract me from getting the point. I wish we had an elite book series for articles and books not suffering from that flaw.

Lisa's "Interviewers’ Secrets Revealed: How to Ace Your Next Job Interview!" is a great example of this idea. The eBook is only 39 pages long but every sentence of the book adds value to the point. The introduction is clear and short. I liked the book convention of using "her" and "his" for specific roles saving the author from the need to be sex-neutral. The books then starts with the background description - how to prepare to an interview. Very practical and pragmatic advice. Bulleted exposition, almost a set of instructions. Then a chapter about building self-awareness - how to identify your strong/weak traits. The trump of the book is the chapter "what employers want to hear". Absolutely essential examples of interview questions with recommendations on possible answers for a typical interview. And at the end a set of questions you should ask and things to do after the interview.

I'd say it's the only book you should have about interview preparation. I loved it so much that I after I read it I immediately ordered another Lisa's book - H.I.M.M. This is a 240 page book so it's a bit more difficult to take the exam of the NOBS series:-) I'll update you when I finish it.

The greates (MBA) book list

Joel published a book list he proposes for For Creek Software Management Training Program. It's very impressive and (most of the books) can be found useful not for technical people only but for anybody working in the IT industry.

I'd add just only  four-and-five-star technical books from my list on the left side of the page that are not there yet. Comfortably to notice I've read already many from Joel's list:-)

Technorati tags: MBA, reading, books

How to manage Squidward in your team?

Do you know Squidward? A nice "mean, whiny, stick-in-the-mud squid who thinks he's better than everyone else"? It's one of the great characters of my family's lovely cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants" that always makes my kids laughing and serves us as a not-wanna-be-looking-like character when our youngest child starts playing up. But what to do if you're blessed by having such an "optimist" in your team? Unfortunately I had such an experience. I hope my advice of managing Squidward won't have a chance to come handy to you but who knows? Here it goes:

• Manage your expectations. Don't think Squidward one day will magically become enthusiastic idea-generator and soul of the team. He won't - no way. Any new idea, suggestion, experiment, attempt will be given a hostile reception. By not expecting anything else you solve half of the problem. If accidentally episodically Squidward will express interest, passion, suggest something positive or give pink feedback you'll be simply pleasantly surprised. Let it happen but treat it as a lucky gift.
• Encourage him. It won't change him but it will probably filter the negative radiation from this bozo. Don't make it exaggerating but try to use every chance to compliment him when it may make sense. Again, we don't expect high productivity from Squid - our primary target to eliminate his damage.
• Don't let few squidwards form a shoal! This may be a real disaster. If one finds another then all your means to neutralize one will become obsolete against a shoal. Although one Squidward is a very unwanted "resource" in the team he's still manageable. Don't let him breed:-)
  
• Find him an appropriate job. Even for such a great "optimist" as Squidward you can find an appropriate job. Less people interaction is the major criterion. The more detailed the job description and the target are defined the better chances are that he will do it well. At the end even Squidward has to work in your "Krusty Krab" - he's not just an observer.
• Tune the team not to take him too seriously. It's a ensuing consequence of the first advice but in a wider form - for the entire team. It may be boring and disturbing for the team but you should be able to set up the group's expectations as well. Of course on a personal semi-intimate basis.
• Replace him by Patrick. As I've told already - Squidward is a very unwanted team member. Once you have an opportunity to get rid of him don't hesitate. Patric maybe a bit dumb but he's a hart of gold. It's much more productive, pleasant, simpler, and safer to deal with him than with Squid.

This is all about my analogy. I hope you found it not only funny but somewhere practical. I don't wish anyone to work with Squidward, hmm..., maybe it's better only than having Mr. Krabs as your boss.

Technorati tags: team, freak, work, management

When meetings get sucks and how to prevent it

We all attend meetings and some of us organize them. Sometimes we leave them with excitement, a desire to roll the sleeves up, and raring to go. But sometimes a rotten feeling of killed time and deep disappointment are the only outputs of them. How to make the meetings an efficient tool of collaboration?

There are many great articles in the net disputing the matter and most of them arguing whether the form of the meeting should be rigidly formalized and follow an agenda or a free-form discussion should prevail over it.

I'm sure the golden mean is somewhere in between as usual. As Lisa Haneberg writes: "The only reason to get together and have a meeting is to have great conversation. If you are not going to have great conversation, don't waste each other's time in a meeting." No doubt this is the reason of any meetings - to get together and talk. But pursuing this idea to the extreme would be just to get together and talk. Especially when the people are nice and pleasant the time runs fast (or is killed fast) without any advancing on the point of the discussion.

Lisa cites Jonnie Moor's blog where he complains about  false impressions by following a template-generated agenda: "I think it's easy to generate pseudo-results from meetings by going through the SMART goal mantra. You get these pseudo-results by achieving psuedo-agreement, where the silence or half-hearted assent of participants is taken as an endorsement". This is simply another extreme of the bad meetings. Instead of too much unorganized talks we get too tight and too formal gathering.

My recipe is simple - we need both. Every meeting has to have an agenda. I have a rule if a meeting has no agenda I don't go there. Unless the title of the meeting is self-evident I don't want to meet with people that didn't have time (or ideas) to plan what we would talk about.

Another advice to meeting organizers is in the beginning of the meeting it may be useful to adjust the agenda to the participants' perception. It makes especially sense when people meet each other first time or the number of the invited is big.

Having a meeting moderator is a must to prevent flowing the meeting to anarchy. At the same time the meeting should not be an event for the sake of the process (its agenda) and people should have an option to tell their opinions, have time for discussions, and expressing concerns. It's the primary skill of the moderator to feel when to let the meeting go jazzy and swerve from the plan and when to take control and steer the meeting towards its targets.

Another interesting practice is to ask the participants their feedback on the meeting. How productive was it? How did it correspond to the expectations and declared targets? What improvements they suggest? Meeting having quite the same set of participants may be polished with joint efforts and brought to perfection in terms of efficiency and outcomes.

What tips and tricks do you propose to improve so everyday activity as meetings?

Technorati tags: meeting, team, collaboration

Marathon preparation. Two weeks passed.

2 weeks are gone. 15 yet to go until my first marathon. The long runs were 6 and 7 miles and though both of them I ran first time in my life it wasn't so difficult. I ran with pace of 9'20'' and the last mile speeded up to 7'30''. I had a bit of pain in muscles after the 7 mile run and I think I should have spent more time on heating and stretching before the run. Last week I went with my kids to an ice skating rink as a cross-training and today to water pool. The good thing is tomorrow is a day-off when usually I go to a sauna.

Next week I'm on the fourth week and the program has 9 miles as a long run. I'm sure it won't be a problem as I felt some resources left after the 7 mile run. The really big frightening number are still waiting for me:-)

Will update you every 2-3 weeks on my progress.

Work with pros

After I wrote a set of big rules for opting a job I thought of creating small rules, more tactical, to decide if you take an offer or not (it's really hard to put everything into three items). This time I wanted to share my thoughts about importance to check what people you'll work with. The research should go more up and outwards. I mean you should concentrate on people you'll report to (the up direction) and people from other groups you won't be at the same HR hierarchy branch (the outward direction). The internal direction (the team reporting to you) although is important as well to my opinion is secondary in the importance hierarchy simply because you have much more control over the situation inside your team.

 

The accent on the research should be done on both professional and human factors of your potential future colleagues.

 

Check you'll have enough what to learn from them. It's sometimes appealing to choose a second league team and be the hero and the pro there but I'm sure it's a big strategic mistake. You have to surround youeself by people that you can learn from. It's maybe a bit comfortless [for want of habit] in the beginning to be in such a situation but it's very very practical and pragmatic. I think it's even more useful to change a better paid job with less learning perspective to a less paid one but with richer opportunities to learn from the group and the leader. Zig Ziglar tells a story when one guy with a crazily high IQ worked as a doorman for years. The question "why he didn't find something more intellectual and interesting with such a high IQ?" he answered that he was afraid that on a new position not all of his colleagues including managers would have a lower IQ (as the situation was in the hotel). Such self-love (looking more as moronity) must be nipped in the bud by all really ambitious pros.

 

I incline to agree with Jim Collins that the question "who to work with" precedes to the question "what to do". He brings an analogy of entering a bus and asking firstly "who drives?" and only later "where does it go?". He convinces that if there are right people on-board they could drive any direction but if the team is joined by the direction only then once there are some real-time deviation from the route they easily lose the team spirit and go off the bus. He speaks about building the team and I'm about joining a team but the common idea is the same. Check you'll work with pros that have experience, fighter's spirit, strong managerial skills, and finally - just nice people to work with.

 

I was blessed with working with such people that if they call me one day I'll join their charter regardless the target.

Technorati tags: career, job, pro