To fire that igniting spark, creative business cultures often rely heavily on a common language.  They are the verbal secret handshakes of those sharing in the hard work.  We love our TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms), littering the frontal lobes of everyone who has ever been part of a tech company, or the legal or medical communities. They help keep our minds engaged and are used to speed up conversations.  Lessons learned if you have ever known the nightmarish first month at any lingo-centric business, if you are not speaking the same language as everyone else, you are not fully communicating.

I think one could contend this is what Omar Ahmad has tapped into in his very short (6 min) TED Talk. Is there a common language which will work to truly communicate with politicians? It seems almost too unlikely to accept, but it is worth your keeping an open mind, Ahmad is persuasive.  In a linguistic conundrum, Ahmad contends the common languages of email and voice mail are not working.  Rather, he says here the common language of genuine communication with Politicians is by the nearly flickering art of – handwritten letters.

“Politicians are strange creatures, says politician Omar Ahmad. And the best way to engage them on your pet issue is a monthly handwritten letter. Ahmad shows why old-fashioned correspondence is more effective than email, phone or even writing a check — and shares the four simple steps to writing a letter that works.” – TED.com

For those who are visual/pictorial thinkers (as I am) this is a fascinating and very personal presentation.  For those of whom who wonder where frequently odd and occasionally wonderfully innovative ideas come from, this should provide some interesting insights.  Ms. Grandin has a disinct cattle-country style about her, so if needed take a minute to let your mind get past it, as she has some interesting ideas worth sharing (the TED conference goal).

Designer, author and movie subject, Dr. Temple Grandin talks about how her mind works — sharing her ability to “think in pictures,” which helps her solve problems that neurotypical brains might miss. She makes the case that the world needs people across the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.

Most of us have witnessed first-hand how effective a small sign can be to communicate a deliberate message. Despite the veritable parade of people wanting into my hotel room as I desperately try to sneak in another hour of sleep while traveling, each of them elect to be respectful of the small “Do Not Disturb” sign I hang on the door. It’s a simple arrangement we all enter into. I make the small effort to let them know my preference, and they are kind enough to respect my preference. How very decent of all of us. Yet as my memory of hotel stays past fades from memory, my colleague was still choking in diligent work ethic silence.

My colleague and I set out to create some signs for the proverbial hotel room door that was her work schedule. We decided to use Microsoft Outlook to manage our calendars, and Microsoft Exchange to covey to others our “free” and “busy” time signs. When people wish to, they can see our free or busy status before they send us a meeting request. That is a pretty clear sign, if only we would use it to the full effect possible. And while, as with choking, there is no universal response to seeing another’s free/busy information, most people would prefer to honor our signs and choose not to “disturb.” As we began our journey, our first task was to find a way of organizing the full range of messages we wanted to covey to others. Cleary the do not disturb sign can’t always be up. Occasionally someone else needs to get into your hotel room, or schedule some time with you — perhaps to assist with that slightly too big a bite of steak now occluding your wind pipe. We want to be clear in the messages our signs are conveying, and also ensure that sometimes the sign reads “welcome.”

The Beat of My Heart:

I use a “heartbeat” method of scheduling my calendar. Much like a human heart which must have various exertion periods of resting, filling, and pumping, so too do I have times when I am available, more protective, and entirely unavailable. For those who work with me regularly, I try to give them a repeatable and predictable heartbeat of the times that I will be happy to meet with them, and the times when I and my DND sign are out of reach. I also try and show them times that I am being protective of my time, but open to the idea that this time can be utilized if something seems very important to the requestor. Below are some examples of the signs I hang on my work calendar.

In my case, I am extra protective of my Mondays and Fridays. I mark each of those full days in Outlook as “tentative,” which is my version of a sign that would read “I would prefer you not ask for time” in that block. Yes, some people will ignore it, just as there will occasionally people who don’t care you hung a do not disturb sign on your door. They will even knock with extra fervor to ensure your non-distrurbable time is thoroughly interrupted. At least you learn something about that person through this process.

Monday-Monday: (A gratuitous esoteric reference to an old song by The Momma’s and the Poppa’s)

[Sign: Tentative] I use my Mondays to kick-start my week with some high-volume but easy “sorting” tasks; I look at my full week calendar and adjust for conflicts. I ensure that for each event that week I have completed or scheduled time for any necessary prep-work. Monday morning work is like stretching for me. By mid-day I want to feel in control of what is going on. I have a sense of what might “pop up” that week and what my game plan is to deal with them.

Fridays: (I will have to owe you a gratuitous esoteric Friday song reference)

[Sign: Tentative] I use my Fridays marked as tentative on my calendar to have priority meetings that could not be scheduled Tuesday – Thursday. I try to move multi-hour meetings, and/or brainstorm meetings to Friday, so I can feel the luxury to think only about the dialog in the room. I don’t want to be thinking about what is piling up in my Inbox, or the meeting tomorrow I haven’t prepped for.

I focus on two key goals for my Friday time. First is to look at my calendar for the following week. In particular I make my adjustments for the following Monday, so I’m not sending meeting changes last minute on Monday morning. Second is to leave quiet work time to see if I can make enough progress on my “plate” to enjoy the weekend.

Mornings:

[Sign: Busy] The middle days of the week are fair game, but they also have their signs. In order to ensure that I am not asking anyone to wait for a response from me which might be block their day, I schedule myself several quiet hours every morning. That is my default recurring appointment, and I only adjust it if I must. This is my rapid pace email time, and my time to take in and process long form written information such as reading articles and presentation decks people send me. In my case my busy morning time is generally 6am to 9am (or so), ideally quietly with my morning coffee. To any onlooker it is just another occupied block of time on my calendar. That time is marked busy, so if someone schedules over that time they at least had a clear sign that I did not consider myself available. Again we all know those who are indifferent to your choices and signs, but those anomalies are not the people you are trying to communicate with using your signs.

Evenings:

[Sign: Out of Office] I aspire to end my day at 4pm, which often means 5pm or 6pm before I leave the building. My goal for my evenings is to dedicate that time to my family. So the sign on my calendar to my co-workers is, “I’m not here, please don’t ask to keep me here during this time.” Do I stay later on occasion? Absolutely. But from 4pm through 7pm every night my calendar has an Out of Office recurring meeting entitled “Daddy Time.” My sincere thanks to most of you who help me respect that goal.

Fair Game:

[Sign: Free] You might have concluded that I don’t allow much time for people to schedule with me, but that’s really not true. Tuesday through Thursday, from 10am through 4pm is time when I am more than willing to collaborate. I let that time book as “busy” on a first-come, first-served basis. For most of us, however, we can’t just afford to lose that middle 18 hours of work time. Rather, we need to manage it just as carefully as our other blocks of time. Here are a few suggestions from my use:

Overruns:

Have a chatty manager, peer, or do you know how you can run on a bit too long with some people? Set up a shorter meeting (say 30 minutes), but schedule an overrun time in the following half-hour. That way you don’t blow your next meeting and you can enjoy the conversation you’re in, but can also share the sense of there being a limit to your/their chat time.

Travel Time:

No teleporter available? No, me either. When I do my week look ahead at my calendar, I often find I am scheduled to end one meeting in one location, and then in the next minute start a meeting in a distant location. Schedule that gap, even if it just means starting the next meeting ten minutes after the hour. Note that in my opinion trying to end early to travel has a very low success rate, but your mileage may vary. My preference is to leave a 30 minute scheduled gap, just like an overrun, so I can think through the last meeting, use the restroom, get a drink, and get my head ready for the upcoming meeting.

Lunch:

I’m a lunch eater, which not surprisingly means I would like time to get it and eat. Every few months I re-test the theory of scheduling or not-scheduling time for lunch on my calendar. The results are the same every time (which means I am exhibiting the very definition of insanity – trying the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.) The obvious is the right answer here, meetings fill all gaps. If you don’t schedule yourself a few minutes for lunch, that time will show up as “free” and will be consumed (a small lunch pun for you) by others.

Special Blocks of Time for Projects

For those who wondered how I found time to write this, for the last hour my calendar read “Writing Time” – and I was busy. YOU are in control of (most) of your calendar, and you need to allocate time when you need to focus and make progress. Don’t be shy about it. Others who feel they need that time will ask, and you can then decide the level of flexibility you have. While I left this suggestion as the last of my list, it is quite easily the most important. Don’t wait until you are choking to put out a sign that you need to work quietly for a few hours. Everyone else feels at least essentially the same way. Maybe you will teach them something about time management that will help them as well.

My hope is that you will find some time to read through and even try some of these suggestions. Also see if you can see the signs that others are putting out.

Signs you Should Avoid

I should note that I was raised in Los Angeles, where one routinely sees a driver giving a sign to other drivers. Let me just say that this would be a very different blog if I were recommending you add that to your public communications repertoire. Let me instead offer you a link to an irreverent comedy bit of how a particular type of signs might make our lives with one another a bit less ambiguous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU4VL6jnJMA

As for this author, the calendar hung on my virtual office door now reads “Gone Fishin.” Hopefully the fish aren’t using Exchange.

Much like my inner chocoholic, I find myself somewhat addicted to participating in interesting discussions with smart people, especially with those of whom I occasionally disagree. I love the surprise of finding out that there was more to their feedback than just my initial bitter reaction. And like my consumption of dark chocolate, I have found that there is a fine line between giving and getting just the right amount and the right type of disagreement, before simply feeling ill from overindulgence.

If “Snarky” were a brand of feedback, it would definitely be my choice to both give and receive. It’s an acquired taste to be sure, but like a good beer, cognac, dark roast coffee, or my friend dark chocolate, once you develop an appreciation for it, most find that there is more to appreciate from snarkyfeedback than meets the eye (or insert appropriate sense here). For those who prefer for a definition, I have excerpted the definitions for “snarky” from the Urban Dictionary and included them below.

It is my opinion that snarkiness requires a level of dedication which some are unwilling, or perhaps unable, to allocate. Effectively contributing in a snarky manner means you must have paid attention to the contribution that you are responding do, you thought about it (even briefly), and thereafter put in the effort to say something more than the obvious “no” or “you’re wrong,” etc. Consuming snarkiness equally requires some dedication to look past the initial bitterness to see if there are layers of complexity to appreciate, as you simply can’t reasonably judge a snark without first thinking a bit about it.

So where is the downside to this world made of fine dark chocolate feedback? As you might expect, there are times and places for snarky dialog, and not all snarks sit as well in the stomach. The fine line I will attempt to draw here is the difference between “fits” and “snarks.” While I note that snarks may have a tinge of bitterness in their taste, in my opinion they are not delivered with an intent to be negative or self-serving. Snarks are not merely an outburst of bile, misdirected animosity, nor an excuse to simply be abusive; rather they are a thought provoking manner of communication which demonstrates a dedication to the topic at hand and to the person with whom you are communicating. Fits, on the other hand, or their less professional cousin the temper tantrum, root themselves in venom and a goal of something other than being helpful or productive. I must say here that I find no value in fits, and little value in people who make it their habit to routinely communicate in that way.

Fit happens!(ok, fits happen). With the regularity of the phases of the moon and the orbit of the earth around the sun, we all have our bad moods and those moods give rise to the occasional fit. For those who know me well, let me state the painfully obvious that I occasionally overshoot snarky and fall into the realm of a fit. It is never my intention to indulge in this fit-ish behavior, and so when receiving the occasional venom infused fit from someone else I try to make my first thought: They probably didn’t mean it, or at least not as much as I’m reading into it.

To be sure, this blog is meant to be aspirational. It was inspired by a fit which arrived in my inbox sill dripping in venom. As they sender described later, they were clearly having a bad week. This person is not one of the jerks we all know; they were truly simply having a very bad week. What I should have done was follow my own advice and simply say, “They probably didn’t mean it, or at least not as much as I’m reading into it.” I was close, I got there after a brief fit of my own which I delivered to their manager, who was a better person than I was that day and recognized that I “probably didn’t mean it…” The take away, however, was that I came back to that email the next day with a more understanding perspective and consumed it again with a desire to taste the subtle flavors that were buried under the burnt crust. There were great points in there, some of which I used to modify our standard practice for the benefit of the team. If I had just thrown away the remarks as a fit, or the contributor as a jerk, I would have lost out on something really valuable.

So let me offer this encouragement to you. Know your real jerks, and frankly do what you can to limit their time in your life. Know that good people have fits, some of which cause you to lose some respect for them. Try not to make that a permanent loss, as we all have those bad days. Have some thickness to your skin and shake off the smattering of venom sprinkles before you dive in and consume. If that doesn’t work, try and save your response for another day. When you can, invest the time and thought into a witty snark. It’s far more satisfying than just telling someone they’re wrong, and since telling them they are wrong rarely gets your point across in any event, you might just get them to understand the valuable nuance of your point.

Look for dark chocolate. I have the pleasure of being surrounded by peers who work for me, and for whom I work, who are as snarky and complex as any I have ever met. Most have their fit laden and occasionally jerky days, but with rare exception has any permanent loss of respect occurred (at least that is my perspective). If you live a life of milk chocolate and watery light beer, let me beseech you to contribute some dark chocolate of your own. People will respond in kind (after a suitable period of shock because you were snarky for the first time), and it will have been worth your while. I look forward to reading about your experience in the rich and complex world of snarkiness.

Definitions of Snarky from the Urban Dictionary

Snarky

A witty mannerism, personality, or behavior that is a combination of sarcasm and cynicism. Usually accepted as a complimentary term. Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or arrogant attitude. – Her snarky remarks had half the room on the floor laughing and the other half ready to walk out.

Adjective – Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse.

Origin: Snark=”snide remark”.

As I have written about before, I have a daughter. She is seven as I write this, a fact that she would adamantly correct to be seven and three quarters. You can see that from the start my perspective about her as a user and her perspective as an individual were slightly off base, but all will end well I assure you. As I love to do, I occasionally buy things for my “eight” year old, both for her enjoyment and also for my enjoyment of seeing how she will use them. This last Friday one of my friends and mentors, as well as being a fellow dad, took me over to the Microsoft employee store to talk video games. I am still debating and X-Box, but opted this week for a relatively inexpensive sim (simulation) game called Zoo Tycoon 2. As he and I discussed, I was concerned that it might be too complex for my daughter (another underestimation), but since she loves animals it would be good fun (oh, what was I thinking).

Home I rushed, traversing Friday night traffic and calling home to forecast the “present” I had bought for her. A brief few bites of dinner stuffed down, we rushed from the table, loaded up the game, and we started to play. To speed things along I skipped the instructions, set up her zoo in the Savannah and populated it with lions. It was very exciting for the first fifteen minutes until I put too many lions in pen (hint: don’t double click) and one of them killed and ate the other.

Now I’m not sure if any of the Zoo Tycoon engineers (versions 1 or 2) considered that my daughter wouldn’t expect one of her new “pet” lions to be killed and eaten by its brethren, but let’s just say both my daughter and I were equally startled. Her emotion was punctuated by her running from the room screaming and leaving a trail of heartfelt tears. All was better a half hour and several Lion King “circle of life” references later, but it was clear to me that it was time for me to stop superimposing my user perspective upon her and time to see how she would use the game.

Several hours later…

I should here stop and note for you non-Tycoons that you can also drop amusement park characters into your zoo. Specifically the adults walking around in really bad animal costumes type, who occasionally launch into the spontaneous break-dance. Regrettably, from my perspective, the lions will not eat them. When left to her own devices, at evening’s end my daughter had mastered building pens, placing animals and other objects, and…here it comes…, decided that she would build a pen of amusement park characters, each of whom she named “Bob.” Fifty of them in a small pen of dirt, fighting for room to break-dance. Oh I’m so proud.

So what did I learn and what would I hope to teach from this experience? Certainly never say seven without including and three quarters; And of course never underestimate the software ability of an eight year old raised in a family of techie geeks; What I really want to covey, however, is that the software let her have her fun in her own (albeit somewhat disturbing) way. Did she build the zoo of my estimation? Certainly not. Did she have fun and get value from the purchase? Yes, without a doubt. Therefore was the software then well written? Yes, I think so.

As we design I believe we must expect that users will do the unexpected. We must accept that for sure, but also try to encourage it and embrace it. If a given feature will only let them do it our way and they don’t want to, we have missed the point. If they want to spend hours herding and penning a gaggle of Bobs (hmm, Flock of Bobs?) then so be it. Our goal is not a specific behavior, but customer satisfaction. We don’t have to know better than our users, just enable and empower them to use the products as they deem appropriate. Good for them and good for us.

Note: no amusement park characters were harmed in the making of this blog.

After flailing about, however, I did remind myself of several lessons which I have learned in my past, and about which I needed to again remind myself.

The first lesson is that even though I am often in the role of teaching the principles of management, I need to remember that the act of doing from the “Learn / Do / Teach” model is often how I learn. It is a virtuous cycle, and needs to be continuous. In addition, part of my learning often comes from my making mistakes, sometimes big ones. It is a loose paraphrase from Thomas Edison, but I do believe that I make mistakes so I can tell by contrast when I make the right decision.

The second lesson I had forgotten was to listen for the theme. I have various trusted advisors who I try to truly listento, even when I don’t share their perspective. Some of those advisors are my management, some of them are from my team, some are my peers including my wife, and all of them are my teachers. Each began saying things to me in their own words this week which I failed to stitch together as a theme. If I had just heard and listened to that theme, it would have told me I was on the wrong road. One said to me, “Did you mean to kill that fly with a brick?” Another wondered aloud with me if my team saw my actions as fighting for them, or just fighting to be a fighter. One of them suggested that I may have hurt the feelings of someone on the team by inadvertently suggesting they may have done something wrong, a message I never meant to convey. And one finally had to bluntly say to me, “That was a mistake!” as well as some less flattering, but no less incorrect descriptions.

How Did I Get Here?

There are a lot of reasons I ended up in the weeds this week, but two that were both entirely within my control to have changed.In part I simply let myself get exhausted. I had a few fifteen hour days this week, perhaps only one of which was trulynecessary. I ignored the symptoms of exhaustion, then spent even more long days working on items that seemed more critical than they actually were. I started getting sick, and then once again ignored the advice of my advisors to “Go home and rest.” One of them actually said to me, “We tell people to go home and take care of themselves when they are sick. Is thisyour idea of leading by example?” Hmm, do you hear the theme?

I also ignored one of the principles that I teach which is, “Know when to take your foot off the gas.” This week I found myself focused on small tactical issues rather than overall strategy. Some days and even weeks can be like that, and we need to be able to adjust the energy and focus we apply to any given task. When I am working on strategy and trying to motivate people I can be pretty high energy. When I am dealing with someone on a simple tactical task, hitting them with all of the energy that I use for strategy is like, “killing a fly with a brick” – or more than a little overkill. Task work at full force is also frustrating to me because I don’t see results as fast as that much energy should be producing, and it is totally exhausting for everyone involved. The advice I offer is that sometimes what is truly important is just coastinginto a turn, so you can hit the gas later on the straightaway. Ok, that racing analogy is worth briefly elaborating on, as it is part of the theme I missed. One of my trusted advisors let me play their Xbox racing game this week. It was my first time playing, and I found myself actually refusing to take my foot off the gas pedal (literally the gas pedal this time). As a result I repeatedly smashed myself into the wall. WOW, can I miss a theme or what?!

Apologize

This week in the weeds and smashing into the walls also reminded me of something equally important when you do make those inevitable mistakes, at that is to be the first to apologize. I take this lesson from Dr. Gordon Graham, a captain from the California Highway Patrol, who later in his career became an expert on managing risk, and ultimately a renowned risk management consultant who among other successes has changed dozens of CHP’s guiding policies. Gordon is a tall burly man, just the kind you want to be there to protect those in need and to ensure justice is done, even if by force. His top point of advice for individuals and companies trying to reduce and manage risk, “Teach people a willingness to apologize.” Yes really, that is his advice. Gordon noted that some may think you are weak for apologizing, but to ignore them. Risk will eventually weed those people out. The mistakes you make, but which can be corrected or at least mitigated by immediately recognizing and apologizing for your mistakes are WELL worth the scorn from the few folks who will never get it. I’ve written two apologies resulting from this week, with another one left to go. Some will I’m sure be less appreciated than others, but each will be my way of saying that I am committed to continuously learning while I do, and this was clearly a learning week.

Reminders to Myself

Rest before you exhaust yourself. Some things really can wait until tomorrow or next week. Ask for help if you can’t find the time to rest. Being tired makes it harder to find those opportunities.

Listen for the themes. Every time you hear someone say something and you think, “that was an odd thing to say to me,” stop for a minute or two and ponder why. Were there several comments like that? Can you find the theme? Is it time to ask a trusted advisor what they think of what was just said to you?

Some tasks are just simple tasks, and they don’t need your 100% passionate effort. I gave myself one hour to write and post this blog. If it is not done by then, I will be done with it for now. That’s OK.

Apologize. Do it immediately, don’t worry about being viewed as week, and don’t look back. The odds are with you that you did the right thing.

I love elevators, for so many reasons. They come when you call. They take you where you want to go. They provide time for interesting conversations that have even been named for their style, “elevator pitches.” Heck, I have had dogs for years that were less responsive to my call than elevators which I had only met that very first time by pushing their button to tell them that I was waiting and expected them to do something about it. Ah, the obedience and utility of the common elevator, how I love thee.

I also love having mentors, and in fact have a huge group of people that I consider my mentors. My mentors cause me to think or consider acting in a way that may be against the lazier inclinations of my nature. This blog is actually about two of them. They, who like so many others in my life, may not even know I consider them mentors. One of the two is my manager, and the other is a manager who works for me. Both are about my age, both have children about the age of my daughter, and both find time every day to work out. One is even a yoga instructor. Truly, I can’t fathom it. Do they have a magic timepiece that extends their days like the magic stairs that extend my climb? (Just a theory, I have no proof yet.) In part they are my mentors because they show me things I want to change about myself which may be possible, and because neither of them seems to want to force me to make those changes. In fact, they do little more than (intentionally or unintentionally) lead by their example. I find myself wanting to spend time with them for just that reason.

My manager and I arrived at my building yesterday, each heading for the fourth floor. I called for my trusty friend the elevator (who of course came as always), and we started to step in. My manager then said, really more to him than me, “I hate elevators.” I was aghast, how can one disparage the value of such a loyalty. But hate them he does, in favor of stairs, which he pointed out were just a few feet away from the elevator (hey, I wondered what that door was). I asked him if he wanted to take the stairs (please say “no” – please say “no”) “No,” he said (yeah!!), but he looked somewhat disappointed at himself. It was a look that I found oddly disturbing, and one that made me think why I wasn’t disappointed in myself.

Later that afternoon I was waiting for the elevator with the manager on my team (aka the yoga instructor). The doors opened but before I got in I said, “We could take the stairs.” With her arms full of laptop, unwieldy papers, and the other things that fill our arms and make us unstable as we roam about, she paused, looked into my face and said, “Sure, let’s do that.” And so through the odd little door near the elevators I went for the first time. You know, it’s kind of nice in there. They have windows and everything.

So here I sit in my office. My breath long since caught, penning this ode to my long lost friend the elevator, whom I will still probably see on occasion. In taking the time to catch my breath I also found a few minutes to think fondly of two of my mentors who inspired me to do this little bit of exercise and maybe live just a little bit longer to be part of the lives of my family and friends. I wonder if they know how much I appreciate it? Maybe I’ll tell them during our next “stairway pitch.”