Fun With Spreadsheets

Last night on the HR Happy Hour show I said something along the lines of 'Reading books is hard'.

And sometimes that is true.  Some books are ponderous, way too long, or need to be spiced up with much more liberal doses of car chases, zombies, or game-winning baskets.

You know what else is hard? Math. 

And calculations. And statistics (right akaBruno?)

For many 'non-math' or non-financial types, the bane of their existence is Microsoft Excel. That devious tool that forces one to put figures in little boxes, one after the other, row upon row, column upon column.

Ages and ages spent staring at tiny little numbers, hoping to decipher the mysteries behind such bizarre sounding constructs as VLOOKUP and 'Pivot Table Data Items'.

I'll bet, if you are like many HR or Talent pros, the urge to blow up the spreadsheet that you have been working on all week, that is full of source of hire, performance ranking distributions, or next year's salary planning data may have reached a full on boil by the end of the week.

While blowing up your worksheet, while fun, is ultimately ill-advised, as you'd just have to rebuild it all over again, and with an almost certainty that it would be impossible to replicate in the slapdash, barely decipherable manner in which it was originally created. 

No, keep plugging away on the spreadsheet, it's Friday and you are almost done, ready to ship the file off to accounting, or to operations, or to whomever actually looks forward to receiving that kind of data.

Meanwhile - take a 30 second break and dream about a world where you really could destroy that spreadsheet, and what that world might look like:

Spreadsheet Invasion from Amy Thornley on Vimeo.

Have a great, number-light, idea-heavy weekend!

Farewell 2010

Last day of 2010.

Time to look back, to look forward.  Time to sum up the year's events, either personally or professionally, and to assess the prospects for the coming year.  Despite the change in calendar affording none of us sudden and remarkable new perspective or insight.

I suppose for me, like many, 2010 was not the best year, certainly not one that played out as expected or desired. But I am not sure that it is really all that important or necessary to sort it all out, to evaluate or interpret the events that transpired within the boundary of an artificial construct of the calendar.

I think sometimes we do ourselves a disservice with the need to summarize, to compartmentalize, to decode the events, relationships, or desires of our lives using externally devised deadlines.

Sure, it is the last day of 2010. But today, I am not sure I want to attempt to decipher 2010 and plan 2011.

Today I think I want to watch the snow fall. (Email and RSS subscribers may need to click through)

For the folks that have spent some time here in 2010, I offer my sincere thanks. I am very appreciative and grateful that you have decided to spend some of your valuable energy and attention here with me. 

I wish you a 2011 that is everything you dream it will be.

The ancillary benefit of being true

As the US nears what is shaping up to be a contentious political campaign season, and the rhetoric, vitriol, and semantic arguments multiply, (it depends on what you mean by 'is'), it can get pretty next to impossible to know who is telling the truth, and who is just pushing their agenda.

And even the agenda pushers are not always easy to read.  They could be promoting themselves, some faceless political party, some corporate interests, or even a labor union.  In the current American political arena, the 'truth' is an elusive concept.  Last night I heard a pundit observe that his particular viewpoint on a hotly debated topic had 'the ancillary benefit of being true'. Cool, some ancillary truth to go along with the normal pile of drivel he will be shoving in your direction.

The larger point is every communication in politics, at work, and even at home has some kind of an agenda behind it.  We try to inform, persuade, educate, direct, etc. all the time.  Sure, most of us (I hope) are not trying to constantly outmaneuver our rivals at work, or are trying to promote some kind of worldview that may or may not be based in truth or what's 'right'. 

Aside - not everyone who disagrees with you is 'dangerous', 'radical', or some kind of threat to order and security.  Smart people can disagree.  Get over it.

But still, I think it a good reminder, and kind of refreshing of this pundit to so blatantly call out the fact that sorting out how much of what he spouts is actually 'true' is certainly a challenging proposition.  In the political arena, where side-taking dominates and colors perceptions of the truth more than anything else, it perhaps is not so difficult to come to a conclusion. At work, and when managing and trying to lead teams and individuals, it is maybe not so simple.

As an employee it may not be easy to know if what's being fed to you is a lie, the truth, or just something something in between that has 'the ancillary benefit of being true'.

As a manager or leader how much 'ancillary truth' are you sharing today?

Realizations on Father's Day

This Father's Day having just spoke to my Dad on the phone, (we live about 300 miles apart and sadly do not get to visit as often as we should), I realize that I am very lucky to still have him around to talk with.

Some readers of this blog may remember that my Dad fell extremely ill in the first part of this year, and it was nothing short of remarkable that he came through (after a long fight), and is now home and seemingly his old self again.  But I know there is likely some lingering damage, a person can't undergo such a physical and mental trial and not have after effects.  Ali and Frazier both were never the same after the Thrilla in Manila, despite continuing their careers for some time after.

But such is life, and for now having Dad with as always on Father's Day is a great feeling.  

I am not going into the usual section about how dedicated and wise Dad is (and he is), how he always put the family's needs ahead of his own (he did), and how he set a daily example of responsibility, integrity, and care (he did all those things).  

My standard line I like to use about my Dad is this: By age 25 my Dad had graduated from college, served his country as an officer in a war, gotten married, had two children, landed a professional job, and bought his first house.  My top accomplishment at age 25 was I think I had seen all of the 'Planet of the Apes' movies.

I think it is easy (at least for me) to fall into the trap of thinking that the world has changed so much, become so fast, complex, nuanced, etc. that 'old school' men (and women) like my Dad, (and possibly yours), are not able to keep up, and not equipped to really help and advise us like they did back in the day. Just like our parents tried to shelter and protect us when we were kids, I think many of us do the same thing today in reverse.

Who wants to admit to your Dad, who was your hero, especially as an adult that somehow you are failing, or indecisive, or somehow falling short of the standards and examples that they held up for a lifetime?

There is a strange cycle with our perceptions of our parents. When we are kids we don't think they know anything about us. We become young adults and start having our own families and for a time realize our parents really were on the ball and were right about many (if not most) things. But then we get a bit older (and they do as well), and we start to see them less as trusted advisors, and more as gentle, fragile people that are no longer equipped to grapple with life's complexity.

But the thing is, this cycle of perception makes no sense, our parents are not the ones that are changing, it is us. 

If you are lucky enough to have your Dad with you today, I hope you feel blessed. I know I do. And I hope you remember that despite age, illness, or quirks of personality, that Dad is still the hard-working, honest, caring, and wise man he always was.  

He has never changed.  

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads.

Weekly Wrap Up - May 24-30, 2010

Another week another collection of posts!  Please contain your enthusiasm :). 

I thought I would start posting each Sunday the summary of the week's posts in Tabbloid format. As you might recall from an earlier post, Tabbloid is a free service that lets you create a custom PDF format 'newspaper' from your selected blogs and other sites RSS feeds, and have that newspaper delivered via email on whatever schedule you choose.

Here is this week's collection of posts, in handy PDF format - Steve's Blog : May 24-30, 2010.

I hope making content accessible in this way is a help to someone out there, I will continue to post these collections on Sundays for the time being.  I hope that if you find them useful, or actually download the PDF and give/send it to someone that otherwise would have never seen these posts, you would take a second and let me know in the comments. 

This is one way to try to break out of the echo chamber, but it is certainly not the only way, and if you have other and better thoughts on how to do this, I would love to hear them.

Some other highlights from all the great posts and articles I read this week that I recommend:

Handmade Hoops put the Clang into New York Courts - From the New York Times - a look at the blacksmiths that still hand craft the famous and unforgiving New York City playground basketball hoops. Nothing like an unforgiving solid steel rim to make you take it to the rack.

Use What You Have to Get What You Need - From Jason Seiden - a great piece about taking smaller and more direct steps to better take control of outcomes .

Handy New Gmail Labs Feature Shifts Attachment Icons to the Left - From Web Worker Daily.  A simple and effective way to put Gmail attachment icons in a more prominent and convenient position on the left hand side of the display.

Culture is Hard to Define - Do it Anyway - From Jason Lauritsen - just because something like culture, leadership, or attitude are 'hard' to define, doesn't mean we can simply shrug our shoulders and give up.

What's the Deal With Not Following People Back On Twitter - from Clue Wagon - Kerry asks and the commenters discuss some of the reasons why like minded people seem to think the 'return follow' is a big deal.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, give thanks to the men and women of the military who made the ultimate sacrifice.