The problem with deadlines

Is that, all too often, they are completely one-sided.

When I need something done, answered, actioned, or otherwise handled is almost certainly not perfectly aligned with how you would like to accommodate my request, (or to spend the time to take a decision to actively not accommodate the request).

My, 'I need it by the end of next week' has to be translated into the language of your workflow, capability, availability, and most importantly, that mental list of the things that are ranked in order to their importance to you, (and that I almost definitely am not aware of).

I can ask you if it is reasonable if I can have that thing by 'End of next week', and you will likely tell me 'Sure, not a problem' because when looked at on a Monday or a Tuesday 'The end of next week' seems like forever away from now and the commitment to deliver seems so far afield from the promise that I would think you kind of incompetent if you simply said 'No'.

I think a better question than 'Can I have this by the end of next week?' or its close equivalent, 'About how long will it take before you can turn this around?' would be, "Where is this item on your priority list?' or 'Assuming you had everything you needed to work on this, when would you actually, you know, start working on it?'

I think it is much more important for the requestor to know how the person being asked to do something actually has the item prioritized and importance-ranked in their own mind than the often irrelevant 'How long will it take to complete?' angle.

It almost never matters how long something will take to complete.

What matters is how motivated you are to start.

Have a great week everyone!

WEEKEND READING: On Age and Scientific Genius

Building on one of the themes of the blog, i.e., the changing nature, demographic and otherwise of the modern workforce, I submit for your weekend long-reading consideration a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper titled Age and Scientific Genius, by Benjamin Jones, E. J. Reedy, and Bruce A. Weinberg.

In the paper, the authors examine the relevant literature to determine the relationship, if indeed one exists, between age and great scientific discovery, or 'genius.' Note: Nobel Prizes and great inventions are used as proxies for 'genius' in this analysis.

Turns out there is a relationship, and it might be a little different than your think, and most interestingly, it might be changing.

Take a look at the first of two charts from the paper. First, the 'headline' chart tracking 'genius' against age:

So genius peaks at about 40 or so, then literally and figuratively falls off a cliff as we age.

That can't be good news for one, many of the folks that are reading this post; and two, for workplaces overall that as we have explored before here on the blog, are more and more comprised of 'older' workers.

But maybe the news is not all bad for those 40-plussers. Take a look at how the genius/age relationship is changing over time.

According to the researchers, and like everyone else, geniuses are getting older.

Or said differently, geniuses used to be younger. The peak age for great scientific achievements keeps moving to the right of the curve, particularly since 1965.

So if this trend continues, maybe it is good news for those of us staring at, or even looking back upon, our peak genius years.

On Age and Scientific Genius is an interesting look at the effects of time and generational shifts on the production of great scientific work. Take a look at the paper over the weekend if you have some time, I think even you can spare a few minutes before getting back to the workshop or laboratory.

Have a great weekend!

An aging workforce case study: When clowning isn't cool anymore

I've posted a few times over the last year or so on the blog about the really interesting and important demographic changes happening in the American workforce. Mostly, these changes break down into two, related areas. One, the workforce and the population overall is aging. And two, the overall US labor force participation rate is falling, due in large part to the increasing number and pace of retirements of baby boom generation workers.

But those posts of mine I've linked to above, and honestly most of the 'Econ' type articles on these trends (and their implications for workplaces, companies, and policy), tend to be pretty dry and mostly academic and not really the kinds of pieces that really make anyone think for more than a minute or two about them. Bar charts with fancy shading or graphs with some trend lines can only move you so much. None of seems all that real if you get my meaning.

So for this re-set and take on the aging workforce and what it might mean for you, instead of dropping another chart and trying to convince you that this stuff matters, I want to point you to a short, but fascinating piece from the NY Daily News titled National Clown Shortage May Be Approaching, Trade Organizations Fear that illustrates just how these trends are playing out in the real world, (if 'clowning' could be considered the real world that is).

Turns out there aren't enough people, especially younger people, taking up professional clowning as an occupation. Check some quotes from the NYDN piece:

Membership at the country’s largest trade organizations for the jokesters has plunged over the past decade as declining interest, old age and higher standards among employers align against Krusty, Bozo and their crimson-nosed colleagues.

“What’s happening is attrition,” said Clowns of America International President Glen Kohlberger, who added that membership at the Florida-based organization has plummeted since 2006. “The older clowns are passing away.”

“The challenge is getting younger people involved in clowning,” said Association President Deanna (Dee Dee) Hartmier, who said most of her members are over 40.

“What happens is they go on to high school and college and clowning isn’t cool anymore,” he said. “Clowning is then put on the back burner until their late 40s and early 50s.”

Right there, in the micro-micro world of professional clowning you can see just about all of the major issues with much wider swaths of the workplace and jobs landscape today.

The job has been around a long time, but kids don't see it as cool anymore, and not enough of them are entering the field.

The incumbents are all getting older, retiring, even dying off and shortages are manifesting.

But the job, believe it or not, has higher standards for entry than in the past, so at the same time that interest in the field is falling, the barriers to entry are rising. And customers, the end customers I mean, are demanding more and more for thieir dollar. According to Ringling Bros. Director of Talent David Kiser, “Our audience expects to be wowed. No longer is it good enough to just drop your pants and focus on boxer shorts.”

Ok, at this point, if you have not already bailed out, I want you to think past the scary clown shortage, and consider the roles and people in your organization.

There is almost no doubt you have some of these kinds of 'clown' roles in your shop - ones that are important to the business, but for some reason do not attract enough of a pipeline or candidate flow to sustain once the incumbents trail off. But at the same time as these jobs get more important and pressing to fill, business or technology changes make the qualifications you are looking for even more difficult. Finally, these are still 'clown' jobs after all, they are not the best paying, most socially desirable kinds of gigs.

Oh, one last thing - in the 'If my suitcase doesn't show up in baggage claim within 5 minutes of touching down I am going to tweet about how terrible this airline is' age of the social media enabled customer, the demands for service and performance of this clown role (that you can't fill) are just getting worse.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon I think, you will have to face the same kinds of challenges that are facing the circuses. 

What are you going to do to prepare for when (Insert whatever it is your company does) isn't cool anymore?

On positive reflection and workplace stress reduction

Quick shot for a 'I have about 7,817 emails to read/reply to Thursday' but want to put off that torture for at least 15 more minutes, (the time allotted to research, write, edit, and hit 'Publish' on this sucker).

Did you catch the HBR.org 'Daily Stat' item from this past Tuesday? If not, here it is in its entirety (please don't come after me Harvard):

Stress levels and physical complaints declined by roughly 15% after employees were directed to spend 10 minutes writing about three things that had gone well each day, says a team of researchers led by Joyce E. Bono of the University of Florida. At the end of the work day, the employees logged on to a website where they were asked to write about events large or small, personal or work-related, and explain why they had gone well. The findings suggest that this intervention could have important effects on employee stress and health, the researchers say.

SOURCE:  Building Positive Resources: Effects of Positive Events and Positive Reflection on Work Stress and Health.

Pretty simple right?

Take about 5-10 minutes at the end of the day and deliberately think about, and document, three positives from the day - work successes, some good news in your personal life, maybe even something simple like your favorite NBA team won the game last night. Do this every day and over time, at least according to this research, your overall stress level is likely to decline, and you will start to feel better overall.

Sounds like it makes sense, lots of us forget to think about thepositives in our work or personal lives and focus on the negative. If you are encouraged/forced to write down or log in an online tool somewhere only the positive things at the end of the workday I suppose that will help you 'shut down' from work in a generally better mood and mental place than you might otherwise. Especially if the final 'work' of the day was something unpleasant or difficult or simply just a pain in the neck, (like the task of reading all your email that I am currently avoiding).

What do you think, would this kind of intentional positive reflection make a difference in reducing your stress levels?

For me, I am not so sure. Maybe it is the cynic/pessimist in me, but the second I sat down to document the three positive items for the day, I would naturally look to pair or balance them with three negatives.

And then I'd probably be back to focusing on the negatives again and stressing and you know the rest.

But what the heck, I might as well give it a shot:

Three positives from yesterday:

1. Scored two First Class upgrades on my flights home from IBM Connect

2. My old reliable truck actually started after 4 days parked outside at the airport in mostly sub-zero temperatures

3. I made it home in time to watch KD and LeBron go at it in one of the NBA's best match ups

I guess all in all that makes for a good day.

I will let you know tomorrow if I feel less stressed. I still have all that email to read though...

Happy Thursday!

REPRISE: On the display of the spoils of victory

Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!

Spending a couple of hours combing through the 2013 archives to find the ones to re-run these last two weeks made something incredibly clear to me - I was obsessed with robots. So for the last REPRISE post I had to find something that was not about automation or scary robots or our increasingly frightening future. The below post was one that I liked a lot, and it was NOT ABOUT ROBOTS. This was a look at where and how we choose to display things like trophies or awards says about us, our workplaces, and what we value. The piece originally ran in September 2013.

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On the display of the spolis of victory

Last night I attended the back to school open house and curriculum review event held at the middle school that my son attends. It was altogether an interesting and well-run event, the school is one of the finest in all of New York State, the teachers were energetic and engaged, and the administrators are committed to high academic standards and to creating an environment of respect, inclusion, and student success.

Actually in the several years my son has attended schools in this district I have been continually impressed with the quality of instruction and the emphasis on achievement.  And by that I mean academic achievement. Sure, the school has all the requisite sports teams that most other schools do, but I never get the feeling that the sports teams are all that important, and certainly not nearly as important to the overall school and local community as they can be in other parts of the country.

The tour around the school progressed and at a point late in the program we reached a large, windowless  classroom located sort of in the way, way back of the school that is the home to for lack of a better term, the 'gifted' or 'extra special' classes. You know the kinds of classes where students that are doing well in their regular courses get to extend and stretch into new and different kinds of assignments and activities. Some of the projects the kids take on involve exploring in greater detail aspects of their more formal course work, while others are completely new endeavors like movie making or creating school and community service projects.

One of the activities associated with this 'extra' instruction class is the classic Academic Challenge Competition, that I remember from back in the day as the 'College Bowl'.  You know, this was the contest that pits teams of students against other schools in a Jeopardy! like setting to see which schools team has the most, (and fastest), knowledge of math, science, history, geography, and so on. As the teacher was describing the Academic Challenge team and telling us parents about how the team competes in various competitions, she remarked how our school's team had been pretty successful over the years, winning or placing in many top-level competitions. 

As evidence of this success, she pointed to a large shelf on one side of the long room that was the home of two or three rows of similarly sized and shaped trophies, and said something like 'And you can see a few of the trophies our teams have won over the years over there."

I thought, as I looked at the dozen or so trophies that were won for academic successes and were being kept in a room way in the far back corner of the school, that it was kind of funny that even in a school not known for and all that focused on sports that the similar prizes won for winning the odd volleyball or lacrosse or soccer title over the years were prominently displayed in a custom and large glass covered trophy case in the school's lobby, within the sight lines of everyone entering the school.

I suppose it matters, at least some, how we present, display, and commemorate our successes. 

Note: That is it for REPRISE WEEK(s), thanks for checking out some of these older posts and I will be back with fresh, juicy content next week. I hope you have a fantastic 2014!