I am making the case that ambiguity was essential for our survival as a species. I also speak to the role that it has played in my life and specifically my career. I talk about my worries for the human race by removing our exposure to ambiguity and the need to develop logical skills as a result.
Tag: career
July 19, 2021 – It Really Was Something Special
Back on May 17, 2021 I wrote about the best/worst things. I kind of skimmed through that to make sure that I wasn’t repeating myself so recently and I don’t think that I will. My point of that post was that that events that were really great experiences were also incredibly difficult at the same time. While I was in the moment, it was exactly what I wanted but in retrospect the situation was not the best for me to continue. Or maybe looking at a different perspective that all things will come to an end.
Why am I revisiting this then again? I was part of a reunion of sorts this weekend. I got together with my former team last Saturday. What was amazing was that every single person that worked with me on my core team (on this continent) was there. I never got that kind of participation on any non-work function when we were together.
The reunion was the doings of my former right hand man. He contacted me in May and asked me if I wanted to get together with some former support team members. I said sure but I would have to shoehorn it into my packed schedule which ended up being Saturday. What was also amazing was that the majority of the people have moved on to other employment. Half of the people now live in a different states. It wasn’t as if this was my hand selected team, only one of them did I even interview and approve hiring. It was a collection of people that were assigned to my team.
One of the things that I think I did right was letting the team buy into decisions that were made. When I had latitude to do so, I was able to lay out the spectrum of decisions and consequences and let them choose how to proceed. Sometimes, we would evaluate our decisions after the fact and potentially make another choice.
For instance, we spent some time developing the Standard Operating Procedure. We worked on group consequences for not meeting our Service Level Agreement. We developed operating policies and procedures. Not everyone agreed with my methodology, particularly my last boss. But, my theory was that in order to get compliance, I needed to make sure that people understood and more importantly agreed on what they were doing.
I built an incentive program around Service Level Agreement compliance. That definitely influenced behavior as no one wanted to break a thirty day string of team compliance. But, occasionally there was a questionable action by a team member. When that was the case, I would make the team vote on the facts and end the end the results always ended up where I thought it should have been. It was sometimes difficult but the team had buy in for why something happened.
When I first started out with this team, we had almost no oversight. This was when the best progress was made. After about a year, we were really beginning to perform and people began to notice. That was when we began to get pushed to do things that were straying from what I wanted to do. Despite that, we had built enough foundation to continue to be wildly successful. The company leadership continued to tinker with the team and change the direction and in essence, I lost control. That was when I decided to leave.
Talking with the guys I came to learn that they stayed and enjoyed their work because the group was supportive and people cared. When that stopped happening, they decided to make a career change. I suppose I could add that description to myself because as my team incrementally stopped becoming mine I stopped caring.
End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to promise that I am not going to talk about this subject again because I am still trying learn the lessons from it. Call it therapy. I guess what was so amazing was that everyone made an effort to get together because I think they felt that it was something special as well. That really feels good.
May 17, 2021 – The Best/Worst Things
This is something I have been thinking about for a long time, years in fact. I don’t think that I have completely reconciled until now. I think sometimes you don’t do it until you are forced to make a conclusion. And once that happens, you can keep challenging your conclusion against the evidence.
What is this all about? Well, for a long time at least professionally, I have been interested in doing my part to make the environment better. I get frustrated when the organization does things that don’t make sense or are repetitive. I think that has partially been responsible for me quickly advancing and eventually getting to the point where I end up running my own department. Here is where the best/worst comes in.
In my very first job, I was asked to go to South Carolina to help get a new plant get up and running. They needed someone with some personal discipline to establish the new quality system that a customer was asking to implement. They also wanted some help with maintenance of the computer and controls system. I said yes.
I was starting from ground zero, there were absolutely no expectations and no real plan other than the loose objectives that I was given. I started inventing things to do and ways that I could be helpful and contribute to the overall output. When the fruits of my labor starting paying dividends, I started working on things that I wanted to do. I built cabinets for the lab, I participated in the construction of new space, I learned how to run data cable and I ran new drops every time we needed one. I basically did whatever I wanted to do.
But, because I was successful I started having difficulty with being around others that were not doing as well. It frustrated me that I would work 60 hours a week and others not only worked less but also failed at the tasks they were doing. It felt like I had to do everything I wanted to see it done right. I am being a little coy but for instance my department took over formulating because Quality would always end up having to adjust it in the end.
I got to the point where I needed to make a change even though it would seem like I could do whatever I wanted. I later came to believe that a change was necessary because I just wouldn’t stop. I might have worked myself to death if I was allowed to. I needed to learn how to say no and let people fail, even if it meant that I was going to fail as well.
After a rebound job, I started at a new place. We had chemistry and shared the same spirit at least for the first four years. I built a lot of social capitol within my own office. Then, we were acquired by another company and I was skeptical. Then, I started working with the new people and I was miserable. After three years I got a chance to run my own group out of my office. The first couple of years were great, I again did what I wanted and built and ran my team the way that I wanted to until it became a growing concern within the office.
Management started wanting to help me out and add more things to my group. That included hiring someone to oversee and mentor me. It turned out that person wanted to fundamentally transform my group and I was no longer running it. I suppose what I considered the worst was there were so many problem areas within the company that this was the one that they chose to address, the one that was running the best. I couldn’t take it.
I suppose a bigger man would have tried to get the best out of the situation and I choose to just give up. In my heart of hearts, I knew that no matter what, I wasn’t going to be happy even if things returned to normal. So, here I am with two situations where I was at time completely happy with the circumstances but yet utterly miserable. What is there to learn from that?
How can it be that you get exactly what you want and it makes you hate it at the same time? Is it the pursuit that makes us happy or is the idea or something else? This is the hard part because now I have to figure out what it actually means. My hypothesis is that these circumstances are more of a destiny fulfilled and time to move on. Maybe said another way, when you get what you think you want, you find out that really isn’t what you thought you wanted.
To be clear, I never thought my future was to be a middle manager. I do know that a lot of my assumptions and ideas were validated through the process. Despite the fact that I am confident in the results, it is a hollow victory to be right and validated. It is probable that when someone was driven by spite, there is no satisfaction in completion.
I told my boss numerous times before I quit and even after that he didn’t need me to run the group but he kept insisting that he did. Unfortunately within four months after I left, the entire group was disbanded because over half the group quit, following me leaving. It wasn’t me that was necessary to keep the group together, it was the fact that they fundamentally didn’t understand how to work with and within the group. And to get down to brass tacks, that was the very reason why I wasn’t happy either.
In retrospect, I feel like I should have quit several years before I did. But, then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn what I did from those extra years. To top it off, I am still not sure what I am supposed to be when I grow up. For sure, I am going to keep looking for the answers and hope to not repeat the same mistakes.
End Your Programming Routine: What are we supposed to learn from all this rambling? I suppose that what I would like to get across is to consider your experiences and look for meaning and try to make it better for the next time. Right now, I see myself tracking into the same lanes that I was in before, and I don’t really want to do it again. So, hopefully, it is not too late to avoid a similar kind of fate as some of my previous jobs.
April 6, 2016 – Finding Contentment
For those that know me (really well) they would know that I have been struggling for several years with my job. When I was younger, I believed that I was capable and qualified to do anything. Put a twenty years of maturity on and of course I now know that while that may be technically true, many things I am no longer willing to do.
Part of me wishes that I could start over, part of me knows how successful I really am at least income wise. But, as the saying goes “Money doesn’t buy happiness”. My creative output is very limited and I find most mornings dreading the upcoming work day. Several successive executives have had stress related heart attacks. It is hard to imagine another week let alone 25 more years.
A friend, mentor, boss and vice president announced two weeks ago that he was leaving my company for what amounted to irreconcilable differences. I find that very ironic considering he was the one that challenged me to wait for pending organizational changes and trust that his brand of revolution would lead the company into something I could believe in. Needless to say, I felt a little betrayed, while at the same time vindicated for some of my personal differences. That night I felt pretty low.
I am not super religious, but a Christian nonetheless. One of my New Years resolutions was to read an study a daily devotional. Honestly, I have failed at the daily part but continue to work through several entries a week. This is the interesting part: that night the scripture was 1 Timothy 6:1-10. I’ll help you if you haven’t read it, it’s about danger of greed and putting your struggles to God. Now, I have been praying off and on about trying to find the lesson in my struggles for years. Maybe this is it?
I am not quite sure, but one paradigm that has shifted in recent weeks was to expect that an outside influence would some how magically change things for the better is just not a reality. Any change in my perception is going to require me participating in the outcome. I still hold many of the same desires and struggles that I had prior to two weeks ago, the difference is that I might have found the message in my struggles.
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