Breaking a Three-Way Tie
A few years into my management career, I found myself part of a triumvirate of managers. Three of us—Tom, Vince and me—of equal “rank,” working in the same department, and vying for control over our shared resources. (That’s what managers call people: “resources.”) It was an untenable situation, the three of us jockeying for position all the time, trying to be The One In Charge, trying to break this stupid three-way tie.
The boss wasn’t especially concerned about our plight, which is why this situation went on for such a long time. But after awhile he began to realize it was troublesome for the people who reported to us. They (the “resources”) recognized the competition between us and were a bit confused by it, since they all performed more or less the same job for one of us. We were three arbitrarily chosen people who seemed to be headed nowhere in particular except into each other’s paths.
When the confusion in our midst finally got the boss’s attention, he asked the three of us to meet and decide among ourselves which of us should lead the entire group. Instead of three managers of equal managerial standing, we were to emerge from this polite slugfest with one of us noticeably in charge and the other two of us somewhat reduced in rank. (If you’re thinking this was a strange approach, you’re correct. It’s not a model to follow.)
So we met. Not surprisingly, nothing was decided. We emerged from the meeting at the same impasse we’d been facing when it began.
Imagine my surprise when, an hour or two after the unsuccessful meeting, my phone rang and it was our boss calling to tell me how delighted he was the three of us had arrived at a decision.
We had?
“Vince told me you three agreed that he would be in charge.”
We had?
“I’m delighted to hear it’s all worked out.”
I thought to myself, “But we decided no such thing,” though I didn’t say so. I’m not sure why I didn’t—I’m rarely tongue-tied—but instead of speaking out, I reflected. It wasn’t like the boss to lie, so I was fairly sure he hadn’t made this up. I thought about Vince, and tried to imagine him telling the boss we’d proclaimed him the victor when we hadn’t.
I had observed a few things about Vince in the time I’d worked with him. He was nervous, but he pretended confidence. It wasn’t hard to see through that. He blinked ferociously, licked his lips frequently and thrummed any available tabletop. He was also articulate, energetic, and sincere. Sometimes he was even gracious. How did that add up to dishonest?
Although it would be nice to say I arrived at the answer to that question, the truth is I didn’t. But I wasn’t thrown by the inconsistency, and perhaps that’s because I’d met so many characters in books who were nothing if not inconsistent. What’s literature without protagonists who say one thing and mean another, who do the unexpected for reasons we sometimes understand, who stagnate, waffle, even lie? Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom comes to mind. So does Sloan Wilson’s Tom Rath, from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Even Gatsby (or perhaps especially Gatsby).
Vince continued on as The One In Charge for many months. But as you might expect, he didn’t take us anywhere. He wasn’t a visionary, and he wasn’t a man of action. As a group, we followed his example—waffling, wavering, accomplishing little. Within a year, someone else was put in charge of the group, and I broke off to work for a different part of the organization.
If there are lessons in all this, one is a business management lesson: Bad decisions don’t usually stick. For awhile, sure, but not for long. But the other, perhaps more important, lesson is that an understanding of, or at least an acceptance of, human behavior is key to success in the workplace. Leaders, followers, decision-makers are inconsistent, frustrating, complicated, and while we might want determinism and predictability from them, we rarely get it.
People who have spent time in the pages of great books, getting to know humankind thanks to the characters they’ve met, are better prepared for the vagaries of business life.
Filed under: management | Leave a Comment
Tags: ambiguity in the workplace, Gatsby, John Updike, management decisions, power struggles, Rabbit Angstrom, Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
I was asked recently to review a new book about project management (as if what the world needs is another book about project management; the PM bookshelves shelves runneth over as it is). However, I agreed and have been happily surprised to find this book is competently written—literate, well-organized, nicely expressed—by someone who knows what he’s talking about.
I’m not planning to tip my hand here and tell you what book it is, who it’s by and what I really think beyond that first impression. I’ll save that for the finished product which you’ll be able to read on Amazon.com before long.
I will tell you, however, that the voice of experience who wrote this book on project management repeatedly makes a point that project managers are all-too-familiar with and English majors ought to be more familiar with, and that is this: What goes wrong on projects often can be blamed on poor communication.
In business, this word “communication” is a catch-all phrase for writing, speaking, listening and reading. While those who decry the problems of project management place a lot of emphasis placed on poor writing and speaking abilities, the other two are just as bad. Business “communicators” are often poor listeners and readers, at least in part, because the writing and speaking aren’t very good. It’s hard to read something that’s not well written.
Projects generate “deliverables”—which are documents and graphic depictions of things the project has figured out to do. When a project’s documents are poorly written, when status reports are boring, when emails are cryptic, ambiguous and confusing, then progress suffers. Projects are all about progress. Impeding progress is, to a project, a fate worse than car trouble, food poisoning and bankruptcy combined. When project progress is impaired by anything, project managers scramble to recover and project stakeholders (i.e., the people paying for the project and the people who have to live with its outcome) go nuts.
So our author and experienced project manager rightly identifies poor “communication” as a frequent cause of project trouble. One of the points he makes is how often project deliverables go unread. I know this to be true myself. Someone on a project team writes something (a status report, minutes of a meeting, a product evaluation) and sends it out to the project team and nothing happens. No one asks questions, argues with what’s written, suggests revisions—nothing. Not a peep. Why? Because business people are used to drab, dull, lifeless written works and, on a typically busy, over-booked day, the last thing they feel like doing is reading something that fits that description.
One of these days, a corporate champion of expense reduction is going to take a look at the amount of quantifiable waste a project experiences because written documents are boring, poorly organized, hard to follow and clumsily written. And where will they find people who can fix this problem? Look no farther than the nearest mirror, English majors.
Filed under: business communication | 1 Comment
Three Cheers for “Plain English”
I was driving along listening to National Public Radio this morning and tuned in halfway through a story about “police speak.” You know, the numbers thing. “I’ve got a 5150 here,” means I’m dealing with a mental case. Or “What’s your 20?” means “What’s your location?”
This is a form of communicating that came about in the 1920s for two reasons: (1) to expedite messages (why use several words when a number conveys so much more?) and (2) for security reasons, a not-very-sophisticated form of encryption meant to obscure the message from the rest of us non-police types.
We all know the latter reason is pretty much forgotten. “What’s your 20?” is, according to the NPR reporter, a common lyric in rap music. A Google search will deliver the entire list in a matter of seconds. So much for keeping secrets from us plebs.
The other reason, to expedite messages, might have merit were it not for the fact that “police speak” has morphed, and different groups have assigned new meanings to old numbers. What “5130” means to the LAPD may be entirely different from what it means to the State Police. Misunderstandings abound. When one law enforcement group thinks “510” means “traffic violation” and another thinks “510” means “officer down with multiple gunshot wounds,” you see the problem.
So the police, bless them, have decided a return to English is in order. Not only will they be replacing the numeric vocabulary with actual words—“Responding to a report of a prowler in the neighborhood” instead of the once-popular “responding to a report of an 11-7”—but they’re also encouraging their officers to use plain English. Instead of “made entrance to the building,” something more like “went in through the front door” is now recommended.
Maybe there’s an opportunity here for a resourceful English major to write the definitive decoder guide: “A Police Officer’s Guide to Plain English” to support this reformation movement. The book could include examples of how to formulate complete simple sentences, for those who have forgotten, along with ways to catch yourself when a number tries to creep back into casual parlance.
This is a project you should consider if you happen to be 1098—I mean, “available for assignment.”
Filed under: Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment
Revenge of the English Major
“What are the two things that keep people in your organization from advancing?”
That’s the question Brian McCarthy posed to a manager he met this summer from one of the “Big Four” accounting firms. Brian, who’s on the faculty in the School of Business at Portland State University, was one of several dads attending camp with their sons. So was the Big Four manager, and Brian took the opportunity to ask him this one question: What is it that that keeps people from being promoted where you work?
The dad from the Big Four didn’t hesitate: “Presentation skills and writing ability.”
Brian was somewhat surprised, in part because he expected something more like “global team management” or “advanced negotiation skills” to top the list, and in part because the answer came back lightning fast. Not a moment’s hesitation. In a word, communication—or lack of it—holds people back.
But it makes perfect sense: Business leaders who can’t express brilliant, business-saving, even life-saving ideas might as well not have them, since they can’t execute on those ideas in a vacuum.
“It’s the revenge of the English major, isn’t it?” Brian announced. “We advertise for all these technical skills, but what we really want is people who can communicate!”
I knew that.
Filed under: business communication | 2 Comments
The Documentation Gene
I worked with a guy once, a talented programmer, who claimed he was “missing the documentation gene.” That was his excuse for never writing anything down.
“I’m a techie, not a writer,” he often said.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, it meant when he figured out the solution to a problem, he didn’t preserve it for posterity, so the next person who hit the same problem would have to re-discover the solution. It also meant his understanding of how a business process worked (which he’d then translate into some aspect of software) would reside exclusively with him. That might be okay, I guess, if he were the only person who needed to understand it. But of course he wasn’t.
Engineers and tech professionals are rarely interested in writing and they’re usually not very good at it, even when they are so inclined. Yet the need to write down what they’re doing, what information they’re working from, is crucial.
“I’m a writer, not a techie.” Perhaps that’s your refrain.
In the next few posts, I’ll tell you how you can use your abilities as a writer to bring value to technology organizations by performing roles in business analysis, process modeling, project administration and business process improvement.
Filed under: Writing Jobs in Business | 1 Comment
Tags: business writing, careers for English majors, communication, English majors, humanities, Humanities majors, qualifications
As a student of literature, you spend a lot of time examining character and motivation. Why is Gatsby such a chipper guy? Why doesn’t Santiago just cut the fish loose and head home? What are Estragon and Vladimir really waiting for?
When I was in college, I thought examining literature was fun. Occasionally, I even appreciated how beautiful, simple, complicated, powerful was a single phrase, chapter or volume. I had no idea I’d ever have any everyday use for this kind of understanding. At the time I remember thinking literature was interesting, but I worried it was erudite and isolated and in no way a practical pursuit.
But two years after I graduated from college, I landed a job as a supervisor of a small documentation department in a university computing center. (That’s what Information Technology was called back then, either that or “data processing,” if you can imagine.) For me, it was the uncharted beginning of a 25-year career in management, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the time I spend (notice “spend” not “spent”) with great books, meeting and thinking about ordinary and exceptional people in ordinary and exceptional circumstances.
The workplace is full of ordinary and extraordinary people, and often some who seem like average run-of-the-mill folks one day are surprising, amazing, bizarre the next. The workplace itself runs the same gamut, from drab and predictable to intense and creative, from grim and stingy to gracious and good-humored.
Some in business leadership approach people and organizations as if this range of emotions and experiences doesn’t really exist or, if it does, it’s sort of irrelevant. “It’s what you do that matters, not why you do it,” they think. “It’s productivity we’re after!”
After awhile, though, even the more hard-core among the productivity mongers begin to realize there’s a connection between productivity and motivation. That is, when people are motivated to do a good job, they work willingly and productively. When they’re not, they don’t. Suddenly, these same leaders are quite interested in “how to motivate people.” They spend money on seminars, leadership books, in-house training programs hosted by self-described “experts” promising that an army of newly “motivated” employees will take the company to new heights.
Fortunately for all of us who claim to be human beings, motivation is more complicated than that and can’t be cranked into high gear for groups of people using formulas provided by “experts.” The secrets to fathoming motivation live many places. One of them is within the pages of great books. So if you’re reading some, consider that you may, indeed, be preparing yourself to be in business leadership.
I can’t remember a time in history, not in my lifetime anyway, when we’ve had a greater need for leaders with clarity, breadth and depth of vision and understanding. Will literature prepare you for this in every way? Perhaps not. But in important ways, it most certainly does.
Filed under: business leadership | Leave a Comment
Last week, I met with someone who works in the School of Business at Portland State University. Our meeting was to talk about a program at the university to help working professionals develop as leaders and about how we might team up, the School of Business and the School of Extended Studies, to offer a stronger program than either of us might attempt alone.
During our conversation, he shared a secret with me: He thinks undergraduates who have their hearts set on careers in business should major in the Liberal Arts. Why? Because it isn’t useful to teach “business” to an undergraduate population that lacks knowledge of the context business should operate in. We’re teaching these undergrads the form (profit-making, marketing) and leaving out the content (why a business is in business, the science, invention, contribution). Without an underpinning of general knowledge (culture, literature, history), how can business leaders align organizations with purpose, inspire a workforce, or contribute to a greater good?
“Besides,” he went on to say, “you can’t teach an 18-year-old Organizational Behavior. When a teenager thinks about ‘behavior,’ it’s probably all the ways they’ve been in trouble in their young lives. They have no context whatsoever for organizational behavior.”
I’ve been happily surprised in recent weeks to discover how many people agree that an education in history, culture, science, language—anything other than the specific ways and wiles of commerce—is necessary for business people and, so far, mostly overlooked. I admit I wasn’t expecting to hear it from within the walls of the School of Business, and maybe I’m telling a tale out of school. But what a nice thought it is for a moment—an army of literate, well-rounded, maybe even ethical business leaders whose launch point was a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, linguistics, geography, or English, who then went on to graduate school to study finance, marketing, project management and, of course, organizational behavior.
One other heartening discovery this week: The Carnegie Foundation is operating a three year project to “ensure that undergraduate students who major in business and other professional fields also gain the benefits of a strong liberal arts education” (http://carnegiefoundation.org/programs/index.asp?key=1862, accessed 30 August 2009). The driver of this project, as it’s described on their site, is the increasing number of business undergrads, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college. I guess the assumption is, if your parents had a broad education, perhaps you’ve had some, too. If you parents haven’t, then you’ve probably missed out on that and, tracking directly into a business program, you’ll continue to miss out on it. Without it, our future business leaders “will not gain the intellectual, moral, and civic learning they need to be responsible individuals and members of their communities.”
So that’s more good news, not just for business but for students of the humanities. If you’re working your way through studies of language and literature, you already know how much richer you are for having done so. What you may not have been aware of is that some people in key places have noticed the same thing, and can take it a step further than you can. They see your education as valuable to business, and this can be just the groundwork you need to put your degree to work.
Filed under: bachelor's degrees | 2 Comments
Tags: accounting, business majors, carnegie foundation, culture, education, finance, language, liberal arts, literature, marketing, Portland State University, School of Business
I had an email today from a young woman advertising her services as a writer for independent professionals (consultants, speakers, trainers and the like). She promises she can ghostwrite articles, books and blog posts, she can re-craft website wording to improve the chance of being found by search engines, she can write brochures, email blasts, and whatever else the self-promoting independent consultant (speaker, trainer) needs, she can do it. She can, too. I followed her link and read her samples. She’s literate and articulate.
I appreciate that she’s trying to align her abilities as a writer with income-producing possibilities. I’m only sorry she’s fallen for the idea that writing is a disposable commodity. The kind of writing services she’s offering will produce writing that’s as meaningful and intentional as speed dialing. The publication of that kind of writing works similarly. Write something, anything, and use key words and phrases “guaranteed” to get Google’s attention. Whether that’s what you mean to say or not isn’t the point. It’s whether Google gets it.
Beyond the targeted words and phrases you must use to get noticed, the finished product (article, blog post) doesn’t matter much either. The purpose of a lot of blog writing and internet article publication isn’t to say something. It’s to move the self-promoting independent professional (whom you’re working for as a ghostwriter) up on the search engine hit parade. It’s to promote the brand. It’s to slather that person’s or company’s name across the internet. You take what you’ve written and load it into online article blasters that will scatter your words like confetti to many internet destinations where it’s entirely likely no one will read it.
That’s how much of article and blog writing is intended to work. It’s not about the content. It’s about getting noticed.
At a meeting of professional speakers a couple of years ago, one of them mentioned she had recently bought her way into a prestigious collection of essays. It’s a questionable practice, at best, where some publisher puts out a collection of articles by famous business writers (like Ken Blanchard, who wrote The One Minute Manager) and you, a lowly otherwise unnoticed peon, write an article, then pay a sizeable fee so that it is then included in this collection. There you are, Sam Nobody, right there in the same volume as Ken Blanchard. The speaker who was telling us she’d done this finished up by saying, “You must have a book, you know. A book is a calling card.”
There are jobs like that for crafty self-starting English majors looking to parlay their writing abilities into a paycheck. Just know what you’re getting into. It isn’t writing anyone will read, and it isn’t writing you’ll be proud of.
Filed under: job-hunting | 2 Comments
Tags: article blasters, articles, ghostwriting, Google, internet, SEO, writing ability
Reading and the Real World
I’m reading a book about the economy right now. I don’t suppose that’s too surprising, given that we’re in the most complicated, difficult economic situation in history. (I don’t think I’m overstating that. Even The Great Depression can’t say it was subject to the velocity of change—the downward plunge—we’re seeing, thanks to the immediacy of the global economy.)
So anyway, I’m reading one man’s informed opinion about where we are, what it means, and what might happen. I never read books like this in college. In fact, I could not have imagined signing up for a course with “Econ” in the title. But here I am, many years later, wondering about economics, how those principles govern commerce and what it all means to the arts, to our food supply, to standards of living here, there and everywhere.
I may be wondering about those things, but at least I have the means to learn some answers thanks to something else I learned as a student of English: I learned how to read.
If you’re majoring in English, you’re learning a lot about how to read. Not just words on the page (you knocked that down in elementary school, no?). You’re learning how to read for sense and meaning. You’re learning how not to be thrown by long sentences or unfamiliar vocabulary. You’re learning to follow an idea from the top of the chapter to its end. You’re reading for style and to know what it adds to sense. You’re reading between the lines because you know there’s something to be found there.
We’re living in complicated times, and I can’t help but think they’re going to get more complicated and more difficult before some light shines in the distance. Getting some idea what it all means depends, in part, on learning from people who have some idea (not “pundits,” by the way). The ability to read, really read, undaunted by complexity, turn of phrase or length of thought, puts you in a position of making some sense of convoluted, technical and controversial ideas and events.
Add to your list of advantages: Clarity and reasoning (about complicated subjects), logic, expression and patience (with long passages). You don’t suppose we’d have any reason in work and in life to call on those abilities right about now, do you?
Filed under: college | 2 Comments
Tags: economy, literacy, reading
Parking Garage Attendant
I was about to be late for a meeting one morning as I spun into the underground garage hoping to park and dash. There wasn’t an open spot anywhere, but there was a sign that said “Valet” and so, desperate, I pulled up, handed my keys to a pale but otherwise hardy-looking young man and made it to my meeting with seconds to spare.
After the meeting, I found this same young man in a small glass room, the only lighted spot in the center of the dark garage, where he sat between a rack of keys and a point-of-sale register. His head was bent low over his lap and, as I approached, I realized he was reading.
“Hi,” I said, to get his attention.
He looked up, neither slowly nor with a start.
“Gray Honda Accord coupe,” I said.
He closed the book he was reading—Gravity’s Rainbow—and directed his attention to the key rack.
“Do you like it?” I asked, pointing to the book.
He seemed surprised by the question.
“Do you like Pynchon?” I asked again.
“Not this one as much as the others,” he said finally.
“Me neither,” I agreed. “I preferred The Crying of Lot 49.”
He found my key.
“Your car is over there,” he pointed. “Do you want me to pull it up for you?”
“No, thanks.” It was only 20 feet away. “It’s not every day I meet someone in a garage reading Pynchon.”
“No, I guess not,” he acknowledged with an apologetic smile. “I majored in English. That’s what’s prepared me for this worthy and enviable career in parking lot stewardship,” he sneered, gesturing grandly to the cars parked all around.
“I majored in English, too,” I shared with him. “That’s what prepared me for a career in business leadership.”
He squinted at me, and I detected a bit of both surprise and suspicion.
“English majors don’t belong in parking garages, no matter what anyone tells you. They belong in leadership, bringing literacy and clarity to business, where it’s very much needed.”
He was still holding my car key in his hand.
“I’m serious. English majors have a lot to offer, and you shouldn’t sell yourself short.”
He’d been curious, now he seemed taken aback. Who was this Honda owner lecturing him about career prospects?
“Well, I did teach for the Peace Corps for a year,” he offered in self defense. “But after that, I didn’t know what to do, so I took this job. It’s good because I get a lot of time to read.”
“I see that,” I said, glancing at the 800-page novel he’d just put aside.
“I don’t really want to park cars,” he said, probably wondering even as he said it why he was explaining himself to a stranger.
“Good.”
“But, like I said, I don’t know what to do.”
“Start by getting a job that requires ‘excellent communication skills.’ I bet that’s not in your job description here.” Not that his job probably came with a description. “Go after jobs in universities—they like English majors—or administrative jobs in big companies. And take a look at what leaders in those places are doing. You’ll be surprised to see how well your education has prepared you for that.”
“Yes, I guess I’d be surprised,” he admitted.
I took my car key, paid him, and walked to my car.
The next week, I was headed to the same neighborhood, to a building down the street. I was early for my meeting, so I stopped by to see the young Pynchon reader. I handed him a copy of Great Jobs for English Majors, by Julie DeGalan and Stephen Lambert
“It’s a gift. I hope your parking lot days are numbered.”
Looking bewildered, he said “Thanks” and I bid him good morning.
I’ve been in that parking garage since and haven’t seen him there. I’m hoping he got a job worthy of his education. But perhaps he just moved on to a different parking garage where he hopes not to run into me.
Filed under: business leadership, higher education | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gravity's Rainbow, Great Jobs for English Majors, Julie DeGalan, parking garage, parking lot, Stephen Lambert, Thomsa Pynchon
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