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A Near Complete Lack of Curiosity

Random thoughts, Work Life April 21, 2014 Comments: 4

I never fail to be stumped when I encounter a person with a near complete lack of curiosity. I can’t even bring myself to say that the person may have a complete lack of curiosity. I have to qualify it, and hope that the person has some curiosity about something that I just don’t see. It just doesn’t seem possible to me that a person could have zero curiosity.

Sure there are things that I am not interested in at all, or so I believe right now. I would have said that was true about beer until last June when I sat through a talk that my son wanted to attend and the panel brought up the history of beer and tied it to some things that I am interested in. Heck, I find myself feeling curious about math at times now that my niece is so taken with the topic.

But there are people who just want to be told to put that there and twist this a half a turn and move on. They don’t want to know why. They don’t want to know how the thing came to be in front of them or what will happen to it after it moves on. Huh. I am curious why that is, what is it about their make-up that left aside the wonder? I can’t fathom it.

Sure, curiosity killed the cat but lack of curiosity narrows. Or at least it seems to me. I would like to have a conversation with someone who has no interest in learning new things, who is content within their comfort zone. Has that person ever had to deal with big changes? In my experience life brings alterations, from tiny to seismic, fairly regularly and my curiosity has helped me to get resettled.

What importance do you place on curiosity?

Complaint or Solution?

Personal Growth, Work Life April 18, 2014 Leave a comment

It’s been a long week of varying sized hassles after last week’s hassles and the week before that. Hassles, snarls, frustrations – don’t have to move very far in any particular direction to slam into one. It is what it is. Job security. Life.

public domain image

“If they would just…” begins the statement – ‘they’ being some power-that-be at work – and so formulates the complaint. ‘They’ should fix something to make my work go more smoothly. I can’t meet my deadlines because ‘they’ make the process more difficult. And on and on in hundreds of permutations goes the complaint.

More personally, ‘she’ – when a person accepts a position as a boss that person must expect to become part of ‘they’, a representative of management induced worker frustrations – ‘she’ expects too much. (If you aren’t ready or willing to be ‘she’ or ‘he’ – personally representing ‘they’ – then think twice about being a boss. It comes with the territory, even in the best of circumstances.)

The complaints slip out as an easy release when coworkers talk in pairs or groups. Sensible, short term stress relief. But also potentially toxic.

Complaints aren’t a be all and end all, but a starting point for a solution. If you want something to get better a complaint by itself isn’t going to accomplish anything. A complaint by itself is an abdication of any responsibility for improvement. A complaint by itself is acceptance of the hassle as part of your lot.

com·plaint Dictionary.com

[kuhm-pleynt]

noun

an expression of discontent, regret, pain, censure, resentment,or grief; lament; faultfinding:
his complaint about poor schools.

In order for a complaint to become an effective long term method for hassle reduction, it has to move into being a solution.

I’ve seen the echo of ‘she’ coworker complaints on plenty of faces over the years. More than I can count. But I can count the number of times that someone on my team has come forward to ask for clarification, to talk further, to want to discuss a potential solution. And I don’t mean guns blazing accusations, but measured discussion. Seeking understanding. I wish I could say this approach was utilized more.

Nobody really intends to create hassles – well, ok some small subset of the population gets a kick out of it. Plans filter down from senior management to middle management to the people that get it done day after day. Honest discussions about improving the plan can happen at any level.

A Chance to Lead

Random thoughts, Work Life April 11, 2014 Leave a comment

You decide if this post is about group dynamics or individual leadership. Several things have gotten me to think about leadership from different angles recently. Talk about leadership is everywhere, a distinct meaning of what it really is, is not so prevalent.

Have you ever been in a group where everyone is trying to lead – whether there is an established leader or not? Everyone is working to get the upper hand for their own agenda and chaos ensues.

George Washington in 1775 (public domain image)

Have you ever been in a group where no one wants to take the lead – even if there is a designated leader? Aimless chaos usually ensues, along with plenty of finger pointing when nothing is accomplished.

Have you had opportunities to lead? How did they come about? I had an employee once who would regularly tell everyone and anyone that she never got any opportunity to lead. Because she expected the opportunity to come gift wrapped with a tag that read ‘This is Your Chance to Lead’. When she would ask me about leadership opportunities, I would start to enumerate specific recent instances that were opportunities to show leadership – to direct a circumstance to her expected outcome.

Have you been on a team with a leadership vacuum? How did you respond? If you created your own method to get your work done and perhaps to help your coworkers do the same did you see that as leadership?

Have you ever known a leader who complained that they had to do everything because otherwise it wasn’t done right… because the only right way was their way?

A boss should be a leader, but a true leader doesn’t have to be a boss. I know I have quotations about leadership, being a boss and the distinguishing characteristics of each in a quote book that I keep, but those will have to go in a future post on leadership.

What do you have to say about group dynamics, leadership, and bosses?

Sprinters Running Marathons

Random thoughts, Work Life April 9, 2014 Comments: 4

I don’t run. For that matter I don’t jog, trot or canter either. I have been known to lope and I’ve been told I walk at a pretty fast pace. I well remember the joy that came along when, as a child, I would burst into a sprint. (And then because I was mostly bookish, I would gasp and pant for several minutes.)

But I digress, I think in part due to the burgeoning spring which encourages thoughts of being outdoors and being active. This post isn’t about literal running of any kind. It is about understanding the right pace and energy level for a project or activity. Most of us start out full of energy and enthusiasm for a new venture but if we didn’t clearly understand how the venture would go, we can let our pace lag well before the finish.

I’ve been known to sit comfortably on my couch and turn on the last portion of a long race like the Marathon during the Olympics or the Tour de France. It amazes me that the athletes who are still in the race at this point can find it in themselves to increase their pace at the very end. These people have mastered the art of being in it for the long haul. They can portion their energy and hold something back to make a strong finish.

How many times have you found yourself agreeing to something, thinking in the short term, only to feel disgust build as the thing goes on and grates at you? I’ve told the story how I accepted the request to be called by my first and middle names at the start of a job only to have to get everyone to change a now established habit when I started to think long term. How many marriages end simply because the two people weren’t really thinking long term at the start, were just entranced by their love goggles? How many times were you ill-suited for a job that you took? How many projects are in a partially completed stage around your house?

Relationships of all kinds can be entered into casually, even if intensely, and rarely do we think about how they may develop and last. Sprint or marathon tells over time.

Tasks and projects should be easier to identify as sprint or marathon, but this will require a bit of planning before the plunge.

Have you mastered the art of identifying and planning properly for a sprint or a marathon?

Change: Affinity vs. Ability

Personal Growth, Work Life April 7, 2014 Leave a comment

Life is so much nicer all around when we like what is happening; what we are doing, where we are living and so on. Sometimes we forget that there is a difference between liking, affinity, and skill at a task, or ability. We all have skills that we could use to our advantage but often don’t because we just don’t have the affinity.

I’ve met plenty of people who, without saying it straight up, think that they will know they are on the right track because everything will snap into place – life will be easier and smoother if they are in the right place. If things are difficult, it must be the wrong direction or place or whatever. How many times have you been in a discussion with someone who shuts you down on a topic with something like, ‘oh, I’m not any good at (fill in the blank)’?

The world is ever changing. (public domain image)

Math doesn’t have any sort of magic for me like words do, I just don’t have much of an affinity. But I have come to understand the importance of having a math competency – in financial dealings at the very least. I will never gravitate to math, but I can be proud that I can master the more important math concepts and make use of them in my life. And I have discovered that there are fascinating parts of math – statistics and economics do stir my curiosity.

We don’t get to arrange all of the pieces of our lives so that we can focus only on those things that we like. (We’re lucky to arrange most of them, the big ones hopefully.) And it isn’t always clear to see when you are on the right track, because that track might be just as bumpy and difficult as the wrong one.

Writing is a skill that makes plenty of people grimace, I both understand and feel consternated about this fact. But like math for me, it is an ability that can be developed to serve your overall purpose. You can like what a competency in a certain skill brings you without having an affinity for the concepts of the skill.

Glitchy

Random thoughts, Work Life April 2, 2014 Leave a comment

Sometimes a computer just gets balky and glitchy and needs a do-over – hitting restart can shake whatever temporary demon is creating difficulty out of the programming. Well, a day or a meeting or your brain can be glitchy too – you know what I’m talking about.

Glitch (Dictionary.com)

noun

a defect or malfunction in a machine or plan.

2. Computers. any error, malfunction, or problem. Compare bug¹( def 5 ) .

a brief or sudden interruption or surge in voltage in an electriccircuit.

verb (used with object)

to cause a glitch in: an accident that glitched our plans.

I like what Dictionary.com has to say about the word origin:

Glitch

1962, Amer.Eng., possibly from Yiddish glitsh “a slip,” from glitshn “to slip,” from Ger. glitschen, and

related gleiten “to glide.” Perhaps directly from Ger.; it began as technical jargon in the argot of electronic hardware engineers, popularized and given a broader meaning by U.S. space program.

Glitch sounds like what it is – something that tripped up what was supposed to happen.

If a computer can purge a glitch by restarting (sometimes several times), how do we humans get a do-over when we have glitchy moments? Ah, not so simple.

photo credit: Wikipedia

A big game, a player gets the ball and becomes confused and heads the wrong way – a glitch for sure – he or she can’t take it back. Teammates, the coach and fans are furious. A very public oops moment. The player can only go forward and learn to take the ribbing every time that moment comes up again.

Computers don’t have to worry about the embarrassment factor. If the computer that holds your most important presentation decides not to get going just when your presentation is due to start the computer won’t feel stupid or inadequate.

Humor helps in these moments, for humans not computers. (Though I hear that Siri has a sense of humor.) Shared laughter can get us past the glitch, ease any tension. Sometimes it’s the closest thing we have to a restart.

Here’s hoping for a glitch free day. Human and machine.

What Has Your Comfort Zone Done for You Lately?

Random thoughts, Work Life March 24, 2014 Leave a comment

It’s comfortable, I know. But there needs to be more, yes really. Now, I’m not suggesting something outlandish like going camping with nothing more than a tarp and a book of matches. (In fact, I’m not suggesting camping at all, there are limits to going outside of your comfort zone.) We don’t have to endanger our lives to shake up the limits of our comfort zones.

c1907 camping, photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

How many people do you know just keep doing something that doesn’t particularly fill them with joy just because it is familiar? The evil that we know, as the saying goes… If that something is a job, or a relationship maybe it will just take a bit of thought about how to freshen it up a bit.

Or maybe it would be to take a step or two in a forgotten or new direction. When was the last time that you drew, or danced, or sang, or grew something, or biked, or, or, or? Things drop out of our lives, or interests get forgotten as we settle into our adult pattern. My dad kept his hunting gear in the bottom of his closet through move after move even though he didn’t hunt throughout my childhood. He returned to it in retirement and his eyes would light up as he told us about it. I have a picture of two camouflaged hulks standing in my kitchen from his turkey hunting adventure with my then-husband.

This picture both makes me smile and sad. Why did he feel that he had to turn aside from this activity for so many years? Finances certainly played a role, but perhaps didn’t need to be the absolute hindrance that they appeared.

I remind myself of this when I miss out on yet another Broadway in Chicago event because I couldn’t justify the cost of the experience. There is huge benefit in trying new things and revisiting old interests. I say this as much to myself as to any reader.

What is it This Time?

Random thoughts, Work Life March 21, 2014 Comments: 2

The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland scurries into the story early on, frantic and muttering to himself that he’s ‘late for an important date’. If there is a human anywhere who cannot relate, I would love to find out the secret for not ever being late. (Perhaps it is to never have appointments or dates?)

public domain image of The White Rabbit

Well, he scurries about in my thoughts sometimes as I juggle the various parts of my life. It often seems to be the transitions from one aspect to another that are most difficult to time just right – leaving home for work, leaving work for an afternoon appointment of one kind or another. Getting to work on time seems to be quite difficult for everyone at one time or another (the disruptive weather this winter over much of the US as case in point), but for some it seems to be darn near impossible every day.

There was a teaser announcement on the news the other day that they would be doing a story on employee excuses for being late to work on a later broadcast (must have been a slow news day) and that got me thinking. As a boss I have had employees who have struggled with timeliness and as a person I have had moments of untimeliness.

I don’t think that I’ve been given any really interesting stories for tardiness from employees, nothing is coming to mind since I heard about this on the news. Perhaps it is because I’ve never demanded explanation. ‘Sorry that I’m late’ mostly suffices for me. If it becomes a pattern, we’ll talk – but it will be focused on solutions like changing your routine, possibly changing your start time, not on why. Reasoning is important, excuses are a waste.

As an employee I have had two instances that were a bit out of the ordinary and they occurred about a year apart.

The first was after my mom had died and since I wasn’t sleeping very well at that time, I wasn’t actually late just nearly so. I woke up that morning thinking of a particular photo of my mom from the previous Christmas so strongly that I had to find the picture. I could not start my day until I had that one and only that one photo with me. My responsible side argued that I didn’t need the photo to go about my work day and I could find the picture after work. But the pull was too powerful, grief demanded that I get my hands on that picture. I did find it, I put it in an envelope in my purse (I carry it still) and got on with my day.

On the morning of the second example, I was mentally ready for work – I was currently without a direct boss and reporting to the senior manager and I wanted to be sharp. I pushed the button for my garage door, it went up an inch or two and stopped. I pushed again and it went down. I pushed again and it whirred, but did nothing. Uh oh. I pulled the door up manually and it slammed back down (I found out later that the springs were shot.) Hmm. My boys were already at school. How could I get the car out of the garage? I called friends, family to find someone to hold the door open while I drove the car out. Time became short and I had to call the senior manager to explain that I couldn’t get my car out of the garage. I even thought about flagging down a stranger and asking them to hold the door open – I was getting desperate – when a friend called back and was able to come over to help.

What is your weirdest or best excuse for being late?

Loose Ends & Cross Purposes

Random thoughts March 14, 2014 Leave a comment

Perhaps it is because the world is in transition from one season to another. At least, oh please, I hope that it is finally starting into the transition from winter to spring. The birds seem to think that it is because more and more of them are returning each day. I feel like the dot, dot, dot that trails along the end of a sentence when the speaker isn’t sure where the ending happens to be.

I feel at loose ends.

According to dictionary.com we humans have been at loose ends since the mid-1500s or so. Oh dear. At least we are in good company when we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves next. If we are tying up our loose ends, it appears to have something to do with getting our ropes in order on a sailing ship. This makes plenty of sense, one doesn’t want ropes just lying about on a ship. One trip and you could go overboard.

photo is from publicdomainpictures.net

I am also at cross purposes.

We humans haven’t been at cross purposes nearly as long as at loose ends according to merriam-webster.com – since 1668 to put a fairly fine point on it. (Looking up cross purposes is also in the bottom 30% on this site so maybe we can stir up some interest?) It seems to me that we have probably been at cross purposes as long as people have interacted. We just didn’t use this particular term for it.

But I am not at cross purposes with another person. I am, as the seasons are, in a bit of a brain muddling transition. Dangling this loosely and crossing that. Maybe I should start, but first I should finish… I want to do this, but it isn’t ready yet. I can’t do winter anymore, and yet I must.

Transitions are confusing. This seasonal transition from winter to spring makes me cross.

Chasing a Thought

Random thoughts, Work Life March 10, 2014 Leave a comment

I was driving a distance recently, which gives me plenty of thinking time. I brought my little recorder with me to capture any ideas for blog posts. And then, in the moment, I told myself that this one is so good I am bound to remember it. Ha.

I knew better. I really, really did. I would be well off if I had a dollar for every time in the past I wound up wanting to kick myself for not making some note about an idea worth pursuing later. Now I’m just sitting here trying to draw the right memory back out and not get tangled in the regret of what I should have done.

There is no excuse, the recorder was inches from me, easily accessible.

Sometimes I wonder if we do this to ourselves on purpose, set ourselves up in small ways to get tangled in foolish regrets? To prove the old saying that ‘to err is human’, to keep ourselves vigilant when the bigger opportunities come along – what do you think, I’m just spinning here?

Now I am left chasing the idea of a thought. Trying to play word association – sounded like, what CD was I playing… Not even a hint at the moment. Maybe I can get it back by pushing the quest to the back of my mind. I often get solutions that way, if I can distract myself with something else. I know that pushing too hard to remember something just pushes that something farther out of reach.

It feels like this happens to me all too often. I can be in one room and think of a couple of things that we need at the store and by the time I get to the kitchen where I keep the list, the things that came to mind have kept on going. So I find myself chanting them with every step.

How about you, what thought did you recently misplace?