The act of measuring something brings attention to its contexts, facts, data, or details.  Measuring facilitates a mode of comparison. To compare things (or people), we need to have some sort of measurement. 

The old axiom applies: you can’t improve that which you don’t measure.  Or: what gets measured gets managed.

In knowledge work, there’s a real need to measure knowledge, skills, and abilities.  More so now, while we’re not working side by side anymore. Productivity, or the value, of knowledge, is not measured the same way as producing widgets.  Deep and complex knowledge is valuable, but hard to measure.

A service provider recently advised its customers (like me) about how important its customers were, and that they were introducing a customer charter to look after us better.  They were helpful enough to define ‘who’ were their customers (any person who has direct contact or a commercial relationship). 

Then the provider assured readers that contact may be through multiple communication channels including telephone, website, face to face or in writing.  All good so far.

The problem became apparent when the customer service employees, even with the touted charter, then did not have the knowledge needed to answer this customer’s question.

No one expects 100 words of philosophy on a Wednesday afternoon, but here we are.

Techne and episteme are types of knowledge.  So are ‘a posteriori’ and ‘a priori’.

Techne is craft or applied practise: knowledge gained by making or doing – and by extension, through experience and skills. 

Episteme is (factual) knowledge by understanding, or by reasoning.  Experience is not a prerequisite.

In a similar approach, “a priori” knowledge is independent of experience , whereas “a posteriori” is knowledge through experience or observation.  These match with episteme (knowledge: “green is a colour”) and techne (experiential knowledge: “grass is green”).

There is annual angst around here this time of year.  The southern states go on daylight savings time, jumping ahead one hour.  Queensland does not. 

Yet while I’m in Brisbane, if I called someone in Melbourne as the sun rose, they’d say yep, it’s rising here right now too.  And yet our clocks say 5am here, 6am there.

But it’s all a construct.  Clock-time is made up so that humans meet deadlines.

In summer, I put my clock ahead too.  Everyone else in Brisbane thinks I get up at 5am, but my clock says it’s six.  The sun doesn’t care.

The unconscious part of our mind influences our decisions and actions, usually without us even knowing it.  We use cognitive shortcuts to make decisions easier.  The majority of discussions around blind spots are around people issues like trust, ability, diversity.

There are blind spots in using our knowledge, as well.  We skip over information we think we know.  We assume the report we’re supposed to review is full and complete.  We start a new role or assignment with pre-formed ideas about what we need to know. Blind spots cause a narrow vision on topics that may deserve a wider view.

There’s a big difference between “value” in the singular, as in the value of gold, and “values” in the plural: family values, or integrity.  This idea about “value” vs “values” is credited to David Graeber. 

“Value” is economic, and relates to what we pay, and what we get paid for.  “Values” appear when that’s not the case.  Housework and childcare are obvious unpaid work – which relate to family or home values.  Volunteering is unpaid but demonstrates community values. 

Commodities have economic value because they can be compared with others, whereas values are valuable because they cannot be compared and priced. 

In the STEM or knowledge work areas, it might be true to say every job is related to one or more of ‘making’, ‘moving’ or ‘maintaining’ something. And that something is usually something tangible. I suppose in some maths or science careers, this simple model may be a stretch.

I like that I work on making, moving, or maintaining tangible things like linear and energy infrastructure. I like that tangible STEM knowledge work requires exactly that: knowledge. Working with knowledge is satisfying. The act of using that knowledge to make, move or maintain our society is satisfying and also uplifting.

I was reading a CV recently, and something I read caused me to dig out one of mine from about 15 years ago. 

Yep, there it was in mine too.  One of my claimed tasks (accomplishments?) was:  “Prepare project documents”. 

Reading it now in my CV, and in this other one, made me wonder what that actually means.  It’s odd that we don’t claim to “write” documents.  No, we “prepare” them.

It almost makes it arm’s length from the writing.  It’s a step removed: I’ve prepared it, but it’s not clear if I’ve actually put the words together (written it). 

The concept of responsibility is – or should be - taught to us at a young age.  Decision-making brings responsibility, even if it’s as simple as when I was a schoolkid getting to choose what shoes to wear to school that day (in Canada where there aren’t uniforms).  With that responsibility is the consequence of that decision.  Like choosing summer shoes when winter is coming.  There are consequences!

Any decision on an action should invoke a sense of responsibility, and with it, consequences.  Sometimes the consequences are minor, sometimes maybe more widespread.  Where there is responsibility, there is commitment. And consequences. 

“Because I said I would” is an established social movement where people can declare publicly things they promise to do, or behaviour they promise to change. Mostly it addresses personal change or personal goals. It’s an uplifting undertaking that has plenty of merit. Much good has come from it, and many lives have improved immensely.

In the business sense, this state of mind should prevail too. Taking responsibility for a task or a program or a deliverable must have the associated intention to fulfil that commitment. The task or deliverable is achieved simply – and importantly – ‘because I said I would’.

A familiar refrain in business is ‘we need better communication’.  When things go wrong, fingers often point to poor communication.  Survey results always offer up ‘communication’ as a solution to business woes.  Strong leadership characteristics lists always include communication.

There is also plenty of advice and help available for communication strategies.  The how and the why of communication sustains a whole strategic department in many businesses.

When communicating in a technical field, though, we should definitely pay more attention to the what.  The ‘what’ of technical communication – the knowledge –  is at least as important as the how and the why.

We instinctively know that there is a difference between knowledge and ideas. So, while philosophers may debate the nuances, at their core: knowledge is true or false, and ideas are neither true nor false. Ideas are in the mind, knowledge out in the world.

Problems arise when ideas are treated as knowledge. Or when knowledge is put aside in favour of ideas. Putting knowledge into action gets results more often than putting ideas into action.

Of course, some ideas will develop into knowledge.

There is power in knowledge. Similarly, ideas are powerful too. But they are not the same thing.

There will always be people who ‘fall into’ having lots of money, or who have great genetics and so are naturally good at something, or who mysteriously rise to positions of power without displaying depth or gratitude that should accompany it.

The real win is recognising if you find yourself in one of those positions.

Unearned money leads toward being foolish with money. Unearned flattery can lead to false pride. Unearned power leads toward being disconnected and distant.

When you earn money or flattery or power (leadership) by adding value and doing good work, you’ll have more appreciation for it.

If you look at the word with too much scrutiny, it starts to look really weird (and maybe somewhat inappropriate). But otherwise, “assess” is an incredibly important verb in knowledge work.

To assess something is to evaluate or estimate the nature or quality of it. Those of us working with words, charged with the responsibility of taking that bunch of words, adding value to them, and turning them around into a different bunch of important words, are assessing all the time.

Another word for assess is ‘judge’. A significant portion of work these days relies on assessments, or on judgement.

The evolution of an idea is a beautiful thing. Inventions evolve from an idea to a product through many steps. It’s a slower process than we may realise; consumers usually only see the final product.

Sometimes – many times - during an innovation process, progress falters and the team has to regroup and start again. The story of how the iPhone, or whiteboards, or tissue packets came to be, would all be fascinating journeys of evolution.

Evolution is also stated as being the survival of the fittest. Innovation is similar. The strong, useful ideas survive, and the weak, inefficient ones shouldn’t.

I spent many years in the middle of my career in project controls roles. This meant the collecting, entering, checking, and reporting on project progress data. I used a wide variety of software programs, from very basic spreadsheets to complicated internally developed systems through to commercial off-the-shelf behemoths.

Consistently, each program required significant effort to report on what happened in the past. The ability to reflect on the past – hindsight – was intricately reported to deep detail.

Consistently, each program did not seem to dedicate equivalent effort to future forecasts – foresight.

And yet, foresight is so much more valuable than hindsight.

Everyone has that cupboard, closet, or junk drawer that needs a good cleanout. For some, it’s the overflowing email inbox in desperate need of culling.

It’s spring in the southern hemisphere, and spring is a good time for a good declutter.

One of the reasons decluttering is so difficult is all the deciding.

For each item, figuring out whether to sell, keep, recycle, donate or toss, is simply exhausting.

When you strip away the emotional sentiment, or put aside the enormous amount of time involved, what makes it so tiring is the number of decisions that need to be made.

The importance of knowing our identity is underestimated. Self-awareness in someone shows in their behaviour. Those who have it, tend to be successful, and those who don’t, often spend time wondering why things didn’t work out as expected. Actually, those who are self-aware wonder that too, but in a different context.

Who we are, how we think, what we believe, and how we behave, all combine to establish our identity. Identity is tied to self-confidence. And like self-confidence, if identity is undermined or questioned, it can be shattering. Rightly or wrongly, our identity is sometimes oversimplified to our job title.

People are not things. Things are not people. This is obvious but bear with me here.

People have to work with people, and people also work with things. And of course, things don’t have to deal with people. Some people love dealing with people.

Some people love dealing with things. Some like both equally, but there aren’t many like that.

In the working world, it’s worth figuring out your preferences: dealing with things or dealing with people.

And it shouldn’t limit progress.

Though we all know, unfortunately, that those who prefer things don’t make it far up the leadership ladder.

Building anything is a process. Whether it’s a thing like a bridge or a webpage, or whether you’re building a habit, or if you’re trying to build confidence, have a plan and processes to get there.

To build something usually includes some repetitive work. So be prepared to do parts more than once. Also when building, plan to allow for some ad hoc problem-solving, because there’s always something you didn’t think of. And, building something usually means there is a defined end point, although sometimes that can be a little blurry. If it’s blurry, at least know that it is.