Business, A Man and His Bicycle

November 19, 2021November 16, 2021

Passion for Your Job

Man standing beside a projector screen in front of workers — Photo by **mentatdgt** from **Pexels**

Prior to retirement, we spend roughly ⅓ of our waking life at our jobs. Given the amount of time we spend in the workplace with our colleagues, why would anyone choose not to be actively engaged? Even if the work you do at your job isn’t exactly what you want, you’re spending a large portion of your life doing it. You’re also probably interacting with the same people every day as well. If you’re going to invest such a large percentage of your life there with those people, why simply trudge through it or just let it happen to you?

Regardless of what your job is, make it your own and make the workplace better through your efforts. You can do this by building relationships, getting to know your colleagues and teammates, exuding positive energy, initiating and participating in healthy dialogue, generating and implementing new ideas, sharing lessons learned, coaching and mentoring others, and generally leaving your (positive!) mark on the workplace. It’s not about the job per se, it’s about pursuing excellence, exercising your inner genius, and supporting your team. It’s about being the best you can be at whatever it is that you do, as well as making the world a better place through your sincere, personal touch.

Conversely, if it’s not worth the effort to become deeply engaged with your work and with your team, or worse – you hate what you’re doing – then why are you still there?!?

October 15, 2021October 12, 2021

I Started a Book Club at Work

Woman wearing glasses reading a book titled The Making of a Manager — Photo by **John Ray Ebora** from **Pexels**

Earlier this year, I had been spending a lot of time thinking about how to better engage my team as well as how to better support them. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been reading a lot of books lately. As I was reading some good books in the beginning of this year, a few neurons fired, sparking an idea: what if there was a way to get other folks at work to read similar books and to multiply what they learn by meeting to discuss the books? It’s hardly a novel idea, but something about it really resonated with me.

In order to gauge reception to the idea, I asked a number of colleagues and direct reports whether they’d be interested. Only a handful of people expressed a desire to participate, but that’s all that’s necessary to get started. I figured that if nothing else, at least it’s a worthy experiment.

Our Team’s Approach

Over the past 6 months or so, we’ve read and discussed 3 books and have selected the 4th. Our group’s approach is pretty simple. We read a book every 2 months and meet to discuss it. I start the process by requesting 1-3 book ideas from the group based on a previously selected theme, as well as what the group members would like to have as the theme of the following book. Once the deadline for inputs has expired, we all vote on the books and themes. For books, everyone picks their top 3 choices in prioritized order, so the votes are weighted accordingly; for themes, we all get a single vote. Once the voting deadline has passed, I announce the results.

Since we can’t meet during work hours, our group meets in the evening via Zoom. Our meetings have been pretty laid back, but always interesting. We follow a rather loose format – in other words, we haven’t used a structured set of questions.

Book Club Best Practices

When first getting started, I did some simple online research to see what others have done to build successful book reading clubs. I’ve summarized here what I learned from my research.

General

Set expectations up-front, including the purpose of the group, genres / themes that will be covered, etc.
Schedule meetings regularly. Best frequency is about every 2 months; quarterly is probably too long. Alternatively, meet weekly and discuss one or more chapters (two chapter is a good number per week) at each meeting vs. the entire book.
Meeting times
- The time of day should be consistent
- Lunchtime (“brown bag”) is a good time
- 3PM is a good time for afternoon sessions
Consider inviting experts on the topics occasionally
Keep it informal; there are different approaches that can work
- Can ask some questions for conversation starters (email them beforehand), then let it flow
- Can have a ‘standard’ set of questions that the group discusses for every book
- Can select a different person to start the conversation each meeting
- Can ask each person to choose a passage from the week’s chapters and read it aloud; then the group discusses their thoughts on the passage
Keep the tone of the discussions cordial & arbitrate if necessary
Keep two lists: what was read and what possible future options are
Consider asking HR or training group if the cost can be covered by the company
Discussion should cover how the reading applies to your work / business
Invite new members each time
Switch up themes each time
Consider doing something thematic at each (or some of) the meetings related to the book theme
Listen to your members – what do they want?

Book Selection

Get suggestions (e.g., 10 suggested books) from each member
Allow members to vote on the books. Use an online survey for voting or draw from a hat, etc. Alternatively, consider delegating the book selection each time to someone different, either to select the book or collect suggestions and run the vote.
Consider book length – too short could be difficult to have enough to discuss; too long might not allow people to finish reading
Books should be widely / easily available (and low cost – e.g., paperbacks)
Keep it work appropriate and focus on strengthening the group, not dividing it

Bibliography

The Ultimate Guide To Starting A Book Club At Work, By Nicole Gulotta, January 16, 2017, http://nicolemgulotta.com/blog/starting-a-book-club, accessed 2/23/2021
Implement a Book Club at Work, by Susan M. Heathfield, Updated September 17, 2020, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/implement-a-book-club-at-work-1917942, accessed 2/23/2021
6 Tips for Running a Book Club at your Workplace, By Dawid Bednarski, updated in March 2019, https://www.freshbooks.com/blog/6-tips-for-running-a-book-club-at-your-workplace, accessed 2/23/2021
Tips on Creating a Book Club, Penguin Random House, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/book-clubs/tips/, accessed 2/23/2021
The Art Of Picking Books For A Book Club, By Elizabeth Allen, Aug 22, 2017, https://bookriot.com/how-to-pick-books-book-club/, accessed 2/23/2021
How Does Your Book Club Choose Books to Read?, https://booksmakeadifference.com/bookclubpicks/, accessed 2/23/2021
How to Pick the Perfect Book Club Book in 7 Steps, By Julianna Haubner, July 30 2018, https://offtheshelf.com/2018/07/pick-perfect-book-club-book-7-steps-2/, accessed 2/23/2021

February 19, 2021February 9, 2021

Defining Victory

Team celebrating victory in an office — Photo by **Andrea Piacquadio** from **Pexels**

What Does Victory Look Like?

Our management recently asked us what we think victory looks like for our teams as well as for our department as a whole. The request was to support a wider briefing to upper management on last year’s performance as well as planning for the coming year, including addressing upcoming challenges. Instead of focusing on specific deliverables and project milestones, I decided to respond in broader generic terms of how I define ‘victory’, since I believe the details like meeting or exceeding milestones are a natural result of accomplishing the vision of what victory looks like.

Each of the supervisors in our department shared their ‘defining victory’ responses with the others and the department manager, since that fosters collaboration and helps spark additional insights that we otherwise might not have considered. Based on the positive feedback I received from my colleagues, I figured it might be useful to share some of my thoughts with a broader audience, since I think these can apply to just about any team in a business environment.

Defining Victory: My Team

We consistently meet or exceed our schedule (and budget), demonstrating technical excellence and delivering high quality products while living the company’s core values; we adapt quickly and effectively to address challenges and changing conditions
Team members feel pride in accomplishment and fulfillment in their work / career; we work hard, but have fun doing it
Our customers have deep trust in our ability
Our work pipeline remains full
Team members have mutual respect and trust, while also holding each other accountable
All team members consistently demonstrate proactive initiative and extreme ownership (employee pull, vs. supervisor push)
Our products meet or exceed expectations throughout manufacturing, test, and deployment

Defining Victory: Overall Department

Cross-functional collaboration
Working towards a common purpose as a single team

Obviously there is more to defining victory than this handful of thoughts, but I believe these points are critical to long-term success.

How do you define victory? What does success look like for your team? Visualizing it, putting it into words, writing it down, and sharing it help develop alignment throughout the organization, as well as improve the odds for achieving victory.

Disclaimer: These opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer.

December 10, 2020October 25, 2020

Do It Right The First Time

Whenever you need to accomplish a task, always do it right the first time. Take the time necessary to ensure proper quality commensurate with the importance and complexity of the task. Otherwise, several things can occur, in order of ascending severity:

You end up having to do it again anyway (which makes the job take even longer since now you have to do it twice). Besides being a hassle, this wastes time and/or money.
If poor quality or cutting corners, becomes a habit you’ll end up with a bad reputation – from your teachers, peers, friends, bosses, or customers.
In the extreme cases, there could be legal consequences – or worse, people could be hurt or killed, depending on the task or project (e.g., aircraft maintenance work, auto repair, bridge design, etc.).

[Note: I originally wrote this as a life lesson for my son on November 24, 2015.]

October 22, 2020October 20, 2020

Managers Don’t Have All the Answers All the Time

Why do all the other managers seem to know what to do and how to do it all the time, when I don’t? That was the question I asked myself repeatedly when I accepted my first management position in late 2015.

Honestly, I struggled with the decision to even apply for the position (not only was it my first management job, the project we were tackling was in rough shape). After I got the job, I wondered why everyone but me always had all the answers. I felt overwhelmed and inadequate, lacking in confidence.

After probably several months, I came to a critical realization. All those other managers, at all levels of the organization – they don’t always have all the answers! Often they just had more experience in handling the ambiguous situations, decision making, and leadership than I did. And sometimes I think they were just winging it.

This realization has made the job much easier for me, on two levels. First, I stopped being so hard on myself, like there was something wrong with me – it reduced my personal stress level. Second, it gave me a better perspective on the behaviors and decisions that other managers were making. Some are certainly better at management and leadership than others, for sure, but now I could see other managers as ordinary people, just like me. I became less intimidated by management.

If, like I did, you struggle with confidence as a new manager, consider that you’re not alone. You’re not the only one who feels that way. And managers are not all-knowing. There is a good chance that they may be struggling also – their job might be much harder for them than it appears. Learn from them and how they solve problems, make decisions, and lead, but remember they are just like you.