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self-management

Are You an Athlete?

Feb 9th, 2010
by Benjamin Hysell.
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Lord Stanley’s Cup

I grew up playing hockey.  My parents had me on the ice when I was two, and I have been playing ever since.  Growing up, winters were spent traveling every weekend throughout upstate New York, and weeknights were spent at practices in rinks that only had three solid walls, the forth being a tarp.

Grippen ice rink, the rink I grew up playing on that only had three solid walls. Sadly, it is now closed forever after the flood of 2006. Picture credit NOAA.gov

Summers were spent traveling from hockey camp to hockey camp, picking up new techniques, and learning edge control from a figure skating coach who emigrated from the USSR.  Once we were home in the summer my brother and I would break out the street hockey nets and start pickup games in front of our house.

Dr. Smushkin's springboards used to teach coordination and muscle control . Photo credit http://www.hockeyagility.com

It is safe to say hockey dominated my childhood.

The Transition

After high school I stopped playing competitively.  Now, twice a week I break out the equipment.  Pickup hockey is on Sunday night, and Tuesday is league night.  My league team won the championship last fall, yes I am a member of a championship team, a championship beer league team.

Transitioning from competitive hockey to a beer league can be jarring at first.  For one, no more contact.  The game completely changes when you know you are not going to be hit.  Secondly, the amount of ice I see in any given season is drastically less; there are no practices in a beer league.

There are a couple of upsides to playing in a beer league.  Since I know I’m not going to be hit anymore I participate in a lot more risky plays than I did in the past.  Fancy passes, dekes between the legs, having a little “fun” on the ice talking to the players on the other team, most of these things would have been a “no no” in competitive hockey.  Now, however, since nothing is really on the line every game is a fun game where I can go out and really enjoy playing for the sake of playing.

Plus, let’s not forget about the beer in the locker room after the game.  One really couldn’t call it a beer league if there wasn’t beer in the locker room after the game.

I’m not longer striving to be an athlete in hockey, but I am still out there enjoying the game I grew up playing.

The Athlete’s Mentality

Athlete’s practice day in day out, hit the gym, run on their off days, and are constantly preparing for their next game.  Beer league players pick up the equipment once or twice a week, enjoy a relaxing game, and get up the next morning and head into work.  For most of us we can no longer be athletes on the field, but we can each take our athletic mentality and apply it now where it counts the most, in the office.

Do you train and compete like an athlete in the office, or are you merely showing up, collecting a paycheck, and putting in a beer league performance?

To see if you are a beer leaguer or still working on making it to the pros ask yourself a few questions:

Do you read about your industry?

I feel reading is key to staying a head in software development, a topic I have touched on before in My Digital Reading List, http://benjaminhysell.com/archive/2009/01/my-digital-reading-list/.

  • Athletes read about their industry in their spare time.
  • Beer leaguers enjoy not knowing about what is happening outside of their cubical.

Do you try new techniques, software packages, and play with new hardware?

Our industry moves fast, staying on top of what others are doing, researching, and implementing is key to staying ahead of the curve.

  • Athletes are always playing with the latest and greatest, they know when to stay with what works, or jump to newer technologies.
  • Beer leaguers wait to be told what hardware and software they should use.

Do you try to learn about tools and techniques outside of your core field of competence?

There are a lot of other industries out there besides software development,

::I know I was shocked too when I heard this news, but there really is!::

…what can we learn from those industries and bring back to our own?  The restaurant industry has been working with and managing teams of people for decades, do they have tools or techniques we could then apply to software development?

  • Athletes learn about other industries outside of their own to learn from them, and see how they would fit in with their primary fields.
  • Beer leaguers have already found their set of tools and don’t want to know what others are doing.

One might not be able to “go pro” in their job, but who are you likely to want to hire, work with, start a startup with, given the chance?

Doing More With Less

Jan 26th, 2010
by Benjamin Hysell.
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Did you know Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham was written on a bet?  Neither did I, until I came across a collection of bronze statues of his characters at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, California.  I snapped this picture of a plaque next to the statue for Green Eggs and Ham.

Dr. Suess Plaque at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, California

A full tour of all of the statues can be found at http://www.drseussart.com/hotelgallery.html, sadly most of the plaques are not included in the picture tour.

If you can’t read the plaque in the picture, Wikipedia has you covered…

Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’s publisher, wagered $50 that Seuss could not write a book using only fifty different words.[2][3] The bet came after Seuss completed The Cat in the Hat, which used 225 words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_eggs_and_ham

Dr. Seuss created an American children’s classic on a bet where he was resource limited.  Dr. Seuss, in this instance, embodied the mantra of “doing more with less.”

This concept of “doing more with less” isn’t new in the field of computers, and is one of the mantras of 37signals.  A quick Google of 37signals more with less kicks up two great articles:

I’ll save you the trouble of a click through: “Less is More” implies that more is better. It’s not.  Less is less.  Less is just right.  Less is better.

I’ve tried this technique of “doing more with less” in how I manage my time and the tasks I would like to accomplish at home.  For example, before I would come home from work and have all the time in the world and a long list of things I would like to accomplish.  I would keep thinking to myself, “I’ll get to writing that blog post, or playing that new Xbox game, I have hours before I need to be in bed.”

The rub was since I thought I had hours upon hours of time on my hands I would wind up not focusing on any one particular task, get sucked into something on TV, and never accomplish anything.

Every morning I would wake up and ask myself, “Where did all of the time go?”

Thus, in an attempt to live the “less is more” mantra I have restricted the amount of time I allow myself to spend on any one given task at night.  I have restricted the amount of time I have to write, program, and play Xbox.  By restrict the amount of time I give myself to complete a task I actually spend my time more wisely, accomplishing more than if I just gave myself all of the time in the world.

::Well, I’ve been productive writing and programming, I’m not sure you can call my Xbox time “productive”.  However, now I actually finding myself playing my Xbox instead of it collecting dust under my TV.  Productive?  Microsoft might think so, my wife and dog are not so sure.::

The only thing keeping me from creating the next Green Eggs and Ham is to make a crazy bet with my publisher, which will happen, once I get a publisher.

Very Strong Opinions, Very Weakly Held

Mar 12th, 2009
by Benjamin Hysell.
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You know, I wasn’t always in a management position at Viewpoint.

It’s true.

Shocking, but true.

I am, as I type, actually in charge of people, they report to me!  I am all-powerful over my minions!

::insert evil laugh here, maybe a thunderclap in the background…a few streaks of lightning…::

BOW BEFORE ME, MINIONS, AND DO MY BIDDING!

This style of management, the ‘cartoonish evil dictator’ works for very few companies and people.  I am not at one of those companies nor am I one of those people.

I fancy myself a leader…I’ve been captain of my fair share of hockey teams, editor of my high school newspaper…

::Although to be fair, to those who knew me back then, the newspaper was turned into my own personal opinion page where me and my ‘editorial board’ would rant and rave about the school.  It was my hypothesis no one was reading the paper when I took the reins.  I then theorized we could print almost anything and not get a rise out of the student body, and in the process have some fun by printing outrageous opinion pieces where we could practice our comedic chops.  In the end, we created a very interesting dialog between the different grade levels that was not only fun to write, but actually had people reading the paper again.  I digress…::

…and I’ve lead a few group projects in my time.  I’ve also coached college hockey for a few years, http://rso.cornell.edu/clubhockey/history.htm, so I’ve been in positions of power before, but before becoming a manager at Viewpoint I never held a position of power in a professional environment.

Through all of these positions I felt, subconsciously, I had worked out a ‘management style’, but consciously I don’t think I could explain it to myself.  As I moved into my new position I felt it was high time to figure out exactly how I had led and managed in the past, and figure out how to explain it to others.

One might ask, “Why bother explaining yourself?  Just get out there and manage like you have in the past…the people you manage will either get it or they won’t.”

I argue they might get it.  People, given enough time, might figure you out, and how you work.

But why make people go through all of that work?  Why would you want to make people ‘figure the riddle of you’ out?  Why not just tell people what you expect of them and how you are going to manage them?  Why not make it a day one ritual when someone joins your team to let him or her in on your expectations and your management style?

“Hey Johnson welcome to the team!  I’m going to expect X, Y, and Z from you and you can expect me to manage you using the ::blank:: technique.”

It took me a while to search back through my previous leadership and management positions to find a common thread of techniques that worked.  In my search I found all of the usual techniques, you know the techniques that one would find in any given management book…be a clear communicator, set expectations, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Basically, one will find quite a few common threads between a given set of management books since each one of these threads all work to differing degrees.

Check out the bookstore in the airport next time you fly, if you doubt me.  Airport bookstores have to have the single highest concentration of management books in the known universe, and they are all almost interchangeable.

It actually wasn’t until I read a post by Jeff Atwood (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001124.html) that pointed to a post by Bob Sutton (http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/strong_opinions.html) where I was able to pull everything together for me:

I have very strong opinions that are very weakly held.

I am now able to tell people on day one when they join my team, “Johnson just so you know when we start working together I have very strong opinions that are very weakly held.”  During our day one introductions I can clear up many potential misunderstandings between Johnson and myself with this one statement.  I normally go onto explain as Bob Sutton does:

  1. I have found when you have a strong opinion people are willing to challenge you, do their research, and invest themselves into their counter position.  A weak opinion does not inspire anyone to bother…why bother putting in all that effort to fully form a counter argument if you can change someone’s mind with minimal work?  What if that minimal work doesn’t undercover the flaw in your own argument?  The opportunity for discourse back and forth is lost when you hold a weak opinion.
  2. I say my opinions are weakly held so that I may change my position when I am presented with a different point of view.  It also means I’m willing to listen to the other side, and I’m open to discourse about the opinion.  A strong opinion strongly held is just as bad as a week opinion, no one will bother challenging someone if they know at the end of the day no matter what they say nothing is going to change.

Take for example Rush Limbaugh…if you’ve flipped around the AM dial at all in the past few years I’m sure you’ve heard him one or two times.  I am not fan, I made up my mind about his radio show a while ago from the little bit of his show that I heard.  I decided it just wasn’t for me.  However, what I did hear was someone who had very strong opinions that were very strongly held.  If all of my opinions were counter to Rush’s, and I had all the time in the world to attempt to change his opinions I don’t think I could do it.  All the political discourse in the world with Rush would not change his mind on any one political topic.  In my opinion, I believe he is set in his ways, and any attempt to change his views would be a very difficult task.  Would you be up for it?

I know I’m not because my political views are very weakly held.  Yes, I have some political views, but I don’t hold them strongly enough to take on Rush and try to change his mind.

In this scenario, my weak opinions weakly held going up against someone who has very strong opinions very strongly held doesn’t provide much opportunity for discussion and explorations of any topics.  The discussion would likely go nowhere and accomplish nothing.

Now flip the tables, I have very strong opinions on why someone might buy a Mac laptop over a PC.  However, I also know that Macs do not fit everyone’s needs and I’m open to discussion on what may work for someone or even myself the next time I’m in the market for a new laptop.  I have a strong opinion, but I hold the opinion weakly enough that I could talk to someone about different possibilities, and I may even change my mind.

It is this ability to discuss an opinion and possibly change someone’s mind that fosters an environment of innovation, and a comfort level among colleagues where productive work can be accomplished.  This is the environment I set out to have within my team.

The results for my team and me have been good.  I feel we have very open working relationships where ideas are challenged and discussed knowing that all of the strong opinions are held weakly enough that someone’s mind could be changed.  Knowing that others are listening to you is a huge motivator to continue discussions and to come to consensus on any given topic, be it politics or designing software.