If you could pass a new (workplace) law, what would it be?

Note: This week on the blog I am trying out a little experiment - writing on the first five (or so) subjects that popped out at random from a cool little app called Writing Exercises. The app provides suggestions for topics, characters, first lines - that kind of thing. I tapped the 'Random Subject' button a few times and will (try) to come up with something for each subject I was presented. It may be good, it may stink - who knows? But whatever the topic, I am taking like 20 minutes tops to bang something out. So here goes...

Today's topic: If you could pass a new (workplace) law, what would it be?

Quick disclaimer, the Writing Exercises app actually didn't include the work 'workplace' in the topic suggestion, but since I have been really running off the rails this week with these posts and I have no desire to wade into any kinds of issues that actually are important and that stir people up, I will keep my answers to this question limited to work and workplaces. I can think of three workplace 'laws' that I would enact once I am granted the title of Czar of Work. Here we go...

1. Email use would be subject to some strict conditions - I have an entire laundry list of edicts I would lay down with regards to workplace email use and practices. Just some of my proposals: No email on the weekend, designated 'email free' blocks of time during the week, and the auto-deletion of any incoming messages that you receive when you are out on vacation. And one more thing, any email that is flagged as 'Urgent' is immediately returned to sender with the question 'Really?' in the subject line. Under a Steve Boese administration, email would be dramatically different.

2. Meeting and Conference Call 'start' times would be taken much more seriously - Showing up late for a meeting or a Con Call would be just cause for termination. Maybe not on the first offense, but once a pattern of 'my time is much more important than your time' is established, then that person HAS TO GO. Show up on time, or decline the meeting in advance. Media outlets love to report on how much productivity is lost in workplaces from silly things like March Madness office pools. I bet the sums wasted on the combined amount of time people spend sitting around waiting for meetings and calls to start would dwarf whatever is wasted by workers chatting about their NCAA brackets.

3. Where, when, and how people work would be (mostly) up to them - Saving the obvious occupations (ER nurse, elementary school teacher, NBA point guard), who have to work at a specific place at a specific time, under Czar Steve's benevolent rule, most employees would be granted the flexibility to work where, when, and how they feel the most productive. We would stop 'asking' to work from home on Tuesday since the plumber is coming to the house or if could we pretty please have a couple of hours off on Thursday to see little Joey in the school concert. Workers would be free to make choices, like adults, and be held responsible for their performance and outcomes, (like they are anyway). 

Ok, that's it. Those are Czar of Work Steve's three new workplace laws. What laws for the workplace would you enact if you had the chance? 

Loss

Note: This week on the blog I am trying out a little experiment - writing on the first five (or so) subjects that popped out at random from a cool little app called Writing Exercises. The app provides suggestions for topics, characters, first lines - that kind of thing. I tapped the 'Random Subject' button a few times and will (try) to come up with something for each subject I was presented. It may be good, it may stink - who knows? But whatever the topic, I am taking like 20 minutes tops to bang something out. So here goes...

Today's subject: Loss

Wow, the fun never ends with these random subjects. Check the earlier posts on Regret and Fear. Is seems like the Writing Exercises app wants to make sure I stay in a funk all week. Ok, well I committed to this nonsense and today's post gets me over the hump for the week so carry on we must. But I am not going to get too heavy on Loss, as no one needs to be bummed out any further, especially on a Wednesday.

When was the last time you lost something really important to you? I am not talking about misplacing a set of keys for ten minutes or not being able to find your favorite T-shirt on a Saturday morning, but rather actually losing, (gone, disappeared, never coming back...), something you truly cared about or even loved?

It probably doesn't happen all that much, as we usually do eventually track down most of the things that mysteriously go missing. Maybe your roommate or one of your kids borrowed the thing and didn't tell you or didn't return it to its normal place. Or maybe you're simply getting old and more forgetful yourself and then all of a sudden - Oh, now I remember I left my lucky sweatpants back at the tailgate last weekend (illustrative purposes only, I assure you).

Well, I know I have lost a few things over the years that I still am pretty peeved about.  Here are the three things I wish I still had, please feel free to share yours (lost or just moved on from), in the comments:

1. My Camel Saddle Seat - Yes, I once had a camel saddle seat and yes it was exceptionally cool. I acquired it while working in Saudi Arabia a lifetime ago and after about 20 years and a dozen moves somehow I no longer have the saddle seat. And that stinks.

2. My 1976 Buick Century - This car was slow, unwieldy, ugly, with ponderous driving characteristics and I loved it. I didn't so much lose it as it just went missing. I think. I actually don't really remember what happened to it. But I might have to get another one. 

3. My Superstar Baseball Board Game - Superstar Baseball was a kind of strat-o-matic style board game that essentially kept my core group of 10 - 13 year old kids busy on summer nights in the late 70s. This was basically Fantasy Baseball before anyone had dreamed up the term Fantasy Baseball. Nothing better than watching two 7th graders argue over whether trading Arky Vaughan straight up for Pie Traynor was a fair swap. Where is my game today? Who knows.

So that is my take on Loss. What have you lost that you would love to get back?

Expressive, boisterous, and unpretentious

Expressive, boisterous, and unpretentious - not sure they would be the first words that would come to mind if I were asked to describe myself, but according to IBM Watson's Personality Insights Demonstration, based on a text analysis of my post about text messaging earlier this week, those are the most accurate descriptors.

It is a fun tool and exercise to try, (you can play along with any of your, or someone else's writing samples here). Simply paste in a block of text, click on 'Analyze', and Watson will let you know how the text sample equates to personality elements like openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and more.

The tool even generates a neat narrative explaining the person behind the text sample, who knew that 'My choices are driven by a desire for modernity'. That is pretty accurate, I think. Well maybe. 

What's the point of the tool, if not just for a bit of fun?

According to IBM -

The IBM Watson Personality Insights service uses linguistic analytics to infer cognitive and social characteristics, including Big Five, Values, and Needs, from communications that the user makes available, such as email, text messages, tweets, forum posts, and more. By deriving cognitive and social preferences, the service helps users to understand, connect to, and communicate with other people on a more personalized level.

Better understanding, ability to connect with others, and to enable improved interpersonal communications all sound like pretty worthy goals, so at least I am interested in any technological means to assist us humans with these challenges.

Oh, one more thing, the Watson Personality Insights tool also generates a neat looking graphical analysis of the writer's personality - here is mine from the aforementioned post about text messaging.

Like I said, really neat. Although from the looks of the chart I probably need to work on my 'self-transcendence' a little bit. Whatever that means.

You can take the IBM Watson Personality Insights tool out for a spin here, and if you do, let me know what you think.

ADVICE: Read more, write less

Super interesting piece on the Savage Minds anthropology blog the other day titled Read More, Write Less, an essay by Ruth Behar about her conversations with the Cuban author and poet Dulce Maria Loynaz.

I must confess to having no familiarity with Ms. Loynaz, but in the piece she offers some really excellent advice for writers, bloggers, really communicators of any kind.

From the Savage Minds piece:

Inspired by her meditative Poemas sin nombre (Poems With No Name), I had written a few poems of my own, and Dulce María had the largeness of heart to ask me to read them aloud to her in the grand salon of her dilapidated mansion. She nodded kindly after each poem and when I finished I thought to ask her, “What advice would you give a writer?”

I will always remember her answer. It came without a moment’s hesitation and could not have been more succinct: Lee más, escribe menos, “Read more, write less.”

That might seem like old-fashioned advice in our world today, where so many of us aspire to write more. But having pondered Dulce María’s words, I think I now understand the significance of what she was saying.

It comes down to this: you can only write as well as what you read.

Awesome advice, and so good that I don't really need to add anything more to it. I try and read as much as I can in order to have new ideas, fresh perspectives, and just interesting things to share. But there is so much more out there.  I know I probably should read more, and different things instead of trying to push out posts all the time.

Read more, write less. Great advice. 

Have a great Thursday.

5 Reasons Why I hate this #HR blog post

Presented in no particular order... (and yes, I admit my guilt in having committed some or all of these transgressions)

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1. The title of the post starts with a number. 

Each time another post like '7 Ways To Rock Your Cubicle' or '13 Tips to Become a More Social Leader' gets published a little puppy dies. It's true.  Please, no more '3 Ways You are an Idiot at Work' posts

2. It contains no less than four links back to other posts on your own site

You know what is really cool? Coming up with some kind of half-baked thesis about the future of work, or automation, or robots, or hipsters and using as your reference material just a bunch of stuff you have previously written. Readers just love learning more about what you think. Truly.

3. Infographic!

Below is just one of the top infographics I found by doing a Google image search for 'Inane infographics'. But look how pretty!

4. It includes any one of the following:

A. Advice on cover letters and/or resumes

B. Tips to make your LinkedIn profile 'stand out'. Note: These kind of posts are almost always combined with 'List' posts, as in '37 Ways to Jazz up your LinkedIn Profile!'

C. It mentions Marissa Mayer and Yahoo!. 

D. It pretends to know more about running Yahoo! than Marissa Mayer does.

E. It pretends to know more about anything than Marissa Mayer does.

F. Starts with 'A reader sent in this question....' Can't you come up with your own ideas? Do you have to steal them from the readers?

G. Contains a picture of an adorable puppy

H. Uses a Twitter hashtag in the post title. (I have done this one a bunch of times, and I feel like I need a shower after hitting 'Publish'.) 

I. Has a really bad premise, but about 400 words in it is too late to bail out (and lose the 28 minutes already invested) and simply plows through to the end

So let me tell you about cover letters. No one reads them! Or check that, some times people read them. So you should write one. Oh, and be sure to customize your resume for each job you apply for. Because in the six seconds that a recruiter spends on your resume it is really important that they don't sense 'Generic resume' by about the fourth second. And that recruiter somehow, might have read one of the other 2,159 resumes you have sent out in the last 18 months. Or not. Wait, what we we talking about again?

5. It follows the below sure-fire workplace/HR blogging formula:

One part recent current event

One part celebrity name drop

Dash of sports metaphor

Links to mainstream press articles on above mentioned items

Dash of homespun HR wisdom 'What can we learn about management from....'

Mix thoroughly, (and use some bold type at about the half way point to wake up the reader)

Finish with common sense observation on human nature, (e.g. all humans are terrible).

So did you catch all the drama with the Obamacare website rollout? I mean, there is no way that a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would have botched a product launch like that, you know what I mean? If there is one thing that the legendary basketball coach John Wooden taught us, it's that we need to prepare to prepare in order to prepare to succeed. HR leaders can take away some important lessons from all this mess for sure. Don't be incompetent I suppose is one.

Those are my five reasons why I hate this blog post. Feel free to add yours in the comments below!