I Went to Germany and Came Back with a Car: Day 2, Part 1

Day 2 and Day 3 have been combined since the point of this journey into the past is focused on the car pickup. Apologies for some of the photos, they were primarily taken with an iPhone 3G.

After arrival, the next day was spent seeing the sights in Munich. I won't relate all the typical sights, but it was a pretty dense day of walking, taking photos and figuring out where everything was. The day passed quickly and I turned in early - both for the next day's event and because of some residual jet lag.

Friday morning was spent seeing the last few sights that I had missed the previous day and shopping for a few souvenirs. Though the delivery appointment wasn't until 3:40PM, my excitement got the better of me and I left for the Welt around 1PM. I'm glad I did too - the station at Marienplatz confused the heck out of me. The ticket kiosks which were translated into English at the airport were not so much in the city itself. And even the location of the U3 platform was not completely obvious to me. I felt like a complete dope - but like most men refused to ask for help and eventually figured it out on my own.

Worst Way to Get a Job: Apply

It's been about a decade since I last had to look for a job.  And, my oh my has it changed.

At the time Dice and Monster were the (relatively) new hotness and when you applied there, you generally got a response pretty quickly. Nowadays, Monster is a brutal train wreck of excess. I haven't looked at Dice lately and LinkedIn and Indeed.com have sprung up out of nowhere.

There are a massive number of jobs out there. For example, on Indeed if you search for "Los Angeles", you get over 60,000 listings. That's a lot of jobs. Unfortunately, I've found that applying for them is the equivalent of printing out your resume and putting it in the shredder. Actually, that would be more fun.

Job Hunting and the Efficacy of the Modern Resume

Since I'm back on the job hunt again after a 10 year stint at my last company, it's been interesting to be on the applicant side of the equation. Over the past decade, I was involved in hiring dozens of people which equates to well over a thousand resumes that crossed my desk. I was the hiring manager for some of the positions, part of a hiring team for others or perhaps the one-over manager.
In other cases, I wasn't involved at all but was pulled into a quick interview to help get a good feel for the candidates if there was question as to fit or multiple similar candidates.

Thinking back to the process, I remember a massive time commitment required to get together a good job description, work with human resources or recruiting to begin the process, review the resumes, perform a phone screen and then schedule and conduct one or more in person interviews.

Psychopathy in Leadership

I've been finding LinkedIn to be more and more helpful to my business career over the past few months. The email updates and articles they put in front of me via email as well on the web site have been consistently topical, insightful and in some cases quite actionable.

I have also joined a series of groups, many of which have their own forums. While my backlog of business books grows, I do manage to find time to intake these snippets of information. Just yesterday, I stumbled across the Harvard Business Review forum which had an interesting discussion on how to handle a "bad boss." While the discussion was started months ago, these types of discussions aren't particularly time sensitive - they are still worth a read. Clearly, there are many detail-oriented folks in the forums as the discussion was quite rich with many "It depends" type answers (which tend to be the most insightful and helpful.)

The most interesting contributions probably came from Dr. Brian Monger.

I'm Right; You're Wrong. But Why?

I have never been adept at the concepts of Psychology. And yet, as my career progresses more and more of my day tends to be consumed with personnel issues. This includes personality and performance issues and sometimes it means telling someone that they are wrong. Which means this is the point at which one would want to have a comprehensive understanding of the theory and practice of how the human mind works. Then again, there is nothing like trial by fire.

I continue to marvel at the way in which human minds work in the face of a challenge to their own reality. I often have incidents at work in which I have to coach an individual, correct a situation or often just say no. All of these situations implicitly require that I'm right and they are, in some way, wrong.

However, knowledge of a situation and individual actions or motivations is almost by definition inherently unclear, incomplete or even just plain wrong. There is no such thing as perfect knowledge or the 100% right answer. So how can I sit in seeming judgment over another individual and impart my will upon people and situations?

For one, I have been chosen to be a manager at my company. This creates an obligation for me to put the organization's best interest ahead of everything else, including me. Beyond that I have been asked to be a leader. This assumes that my judgment is superior to that of other individuals at my company. It further assumes that I have created, built or understand the goals that the company is striving more and how to get here.

But let's focus on the challenge of questioning a peer or fellow staffer or perhaps even your boss's judgment. I become aware of a situation or decision and say "That's not right." How do I know my judgment is better than theirs? How do I know that I am not the one who is wrong?

I don't think there is any one answer, but I suspect it comes down to this. The very act of examining/re-examining your own motivations, thoughts and decisions will, on balance, mean you will be right more of the time than someone who goes by their gut or sticks blindly to decisions or a vision regardless of the results. This introversion, this self examination of my own deeds, actions and performance is an inherently superior approach in the long run. The mere act of decisive action keyed off blind faith nee zealotry is an insufficient standard of righteousness, even thought in limited circumstances that can be the right choice.

Hard-Working People

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally gotten my schedule to the point where I've been able to get in some early morning runs. The weekend runs are good, but they can only help you maintain some conditioning not build any.

In any case, I've been doing a lot of running starting at 5AM and I have been amazed at the number of homes that I see with lights on at that time. Even more startling is the number of folks leaving for work between 5 and 6AM. Of course, this is the greater Los Angeles area so it can take a long time to get to some places. But still, that's getting a pretty good jump on the day.

As I run along, seeing traffic pass by, I'm wondering how many of these people are leaving their homes at 5 or 6 in the morning, arriving at work at 6 or 7AM and aren't leaving until 5? There's really no way to know. But, if there was a way to find out, well, I wish they'd send me their resume. It is getting harder and harder to find folks who will consistently put in more than the minimum effort.

Show me more than the minimums, come in and do what it takes to get the job done and you'll do well in my book. I'm just looking for some hard-working people.

Mirror, Mirror

A classic failure of the human mind is the inability for us to accurately and objectively judge ourselves. Case in point, the classic survey (which I couldn't find online) that says that a majority (something like 80%) of people believe themselves to be above average drivers. That, good friends, is statistically impossible. The average of all drivers would of course be the average, so a significant percentage of people failed to accurately assess themselves. Of course, it's hard to know what the survey asked and how one might measure "averageness" but in any case, that's just an example.

We recently finished the annual review process at my company. Each staffer was asked to complete a self evaluation form. The form included a ranking of their own performance using three scores: Needs Improvement, Valued Performer and Exceptional. Unsurprisingly, about 80% of all folks ranked themselves as Exceptional. While this is statistically possible, I suppose, we have an internal metric that about 20% of staff may be considered exceptional, 70% are valued and 10% will need improvement.

Whether these numbers are right or wrong for any particular company, I cannot say, but overall, I would say that they hold true for most places. So why the gap? We just aren't good at seeing ourselves through others' eyes. My old boss used to hand me a mirror and tell me to ask myself if I was part of the problem or the solution. He felt that there a plenty of times where introspection is necessary.

So, grab yourself a mirror next time something goes awry and ask those tough questions about what you could have done differently. This is one case where you are allowed to judge someone. Yourself.

The Tragedy of the Uninformed

I found myself in a meeting today answering questions to the group, not once, but twice - incorrectly. Now, you might say to yourself, "This guy is an egomaniac! Big deal, two wrong questions!" And you would have a point. However, I pride myself on knowing my areas of responsibility better than everyone else. Period. 

I don't do it just for the pride of knowing more than others. I do it because I believe that knowing more about the people, systems and processes around me results in me being able to make better decisions. Better knowledge, more facts and experience can only mean better results.

So I was embarrassed, though it was unlikely even a few others noticed. What to do? Allow myself to be corrected gracefully (I hope) and move on. Learn some humility at the same time and be sure to up my game next time around.

What's the point of all this? It's OK to be wrong. It's even more important that we conduct ourselves in a manner that allows people to be free to correct us. We're still all human and we're going to make some mistakes. Learn from it. Allow yourself to fail and LEARN from it. Even when it is a small thing. It will make you stronger. Just because you don't have the facts once or twice does not mean you need to become a part of the tragedy of the uninformed.

Weeding the Flower Bed

Over the weekend, awakened early by act of dogs, I found myself working through several household chores. After the recent heavy rains, I had to clear the gutters, scrub the entry way and then I found myself in the backyard. The recent precipitation had left the ground soft. Already filthy from the other activities, I decided to do some weeding. 

In our backyard, there are a couple of very large planters.The rain, cooler temperatures and decent sunshine had conspired to create a significant growth of weeds throughout the various planters. I figured I would have to pull almost everything out of them, leaving them essentially bare.

As I started clawing through the shaggy growth, I found that there was plenty of weeds to be pulled. However, I couldn't be indiscriminate with my destruction - there were plenty of flowers, growth and plants that were worthy of being saved. And, as the piles of weeds grew beside the planters, the beauty started to emerge. Delightful colors of white, yellow, pink and purple started to be able to stand proudly on their own - free of the overwhelming, overshadowing growth of the weeds.

It's funny how the mind works. As I worked through the physical, mindless labor, my mind was free to wander. And, it connected the flower and weeds to  the parallels that I see in the professional business environment. As management, we often complain about the slow progress of a project or wonder why morale isn't better. We wonder why we don't have more game changers, more super stars. Well, perhaps the flowers are just overwhelmed by weeds. 

Weeds flourish in harsh environments, flowers don't. So when you are frustrated by the progress of your team, you have to ask yourself, "are we providing the right environment?" That means, paying attention to behavior which dampens communication, enthusiasm and productivity. No one person, no matter how talented can be allowed to exhibit behavior that hurts the company. These types of things can appear subtlety or overtly, in little and in big ways. And it's hard sometimes to have an objective measure in which to gauge just how well we are doing on something that's entirely subjective. 

But at the end of the day, do you have a flower bed you can be proud of, or are you just looking past the weeds to see a glimmer of color, of hope? Absent the harsh, the ugly and the bitter, the bright colors and shapes have a chance to shine. Sometimes all you have to do is pull out the weeds and the flowers are there.

Words Mean Nothing without Action

You'll often hear people talk about a person who has the "best of intentions" or a "heart of gold" or "says all the right things." What does all that really mean? At best, we are trying to give people the benefit of the doubt for  situations in which they haven't fared so well. At worst, we are avoiding conflict and hoping for the best.

One manager I worked for had a favorite phrase, "What we ignore, we encourage." Now, that's not to say that we should come down on people immediately, bereft of mercy or reason. But, let's be honest that sometimes we do just hope that it works out. And you can probably count on just how many times that's happened with no fingers! 

Instead, what we need to concentrate is not on perceived intent, but actual actions. Do people do what they say they will? Are the results acceptable or is it just the fruit of minimal effort? At the current state of human evolution, we cannot read minds. The only truth in life is that of action. What we say to one another means little if not backed up by consistent, real and powerful actions.

Capacity for Change

During one of my stints at a dot-com company back in 2000, one of the more experienced fellows in the office used to say, "The time to make up your mind about someone is never." What he clearly meant by that was that people have the capacity to change and you'll never know when people are able to make that change. 

I agree with him to a point, but I have found that most folks will only change to a limited extent. For better or worse, at a certain point our character and experience has formed us. I'm sure that happens to everyone at a different time in our lives. However, once that's been set we find ourselves victims to the forces of momentum rather than choice. We become comfortable and perhaps even complacent as we move through our personal and professional lives.

Change is typically at least a little uncomfortable. It's more uncomfortable for some of us, versus others. But, you have to ask yourself, do I want to grow? You cannot grow without a little discomfort, without challenge and being forced to adapt. This is true of almost everything in life.

I once heard a advanced driving instructor say that most cars are capable of at least 0.7 g's in a turn. That means you'd experience 70% of earth's gravity in a sideways force in a turn. But he also said that he would estimate that 90+% of all drivers would rather hit a tree that put their car into a maneuver that would result in .7 g's.

If that doesn't scare you, it should. We'd rather hit a virtually immovable object than subject ourselves to short term discomfort. If this anecdote doesn't make the rest of my point for you, I suggest you consult some sort of life coach. Immediately.

Good luck.