In the trying times of the past 24 months, I’ve given some attention to overall health, including exercise, sleep, and mental health in general. I’m aware of the benefits of ‘quiet time’ (some call it meditation, but I don’t), and also the benefits of a regular schedule and having boundaries on your time.

A new learning is about the positive effect of getting into daylight within 30 minutes of waking up. Our circadian rhythm benefits from that. As I listened to the podcast this morning, I learned that the lux (light) levels are sufficient even on a cloudy, rainy day.

There’s a collective cringe that occurs when the emailed request comes in: ‘please review and comment’.

Attached will be some long and probably tedious document, awaiting that review, with little further guidance provided. And there’s usually more than one person copied on the email as well. Technology may be improving on this, especially within companies (hello document sharing), but not so when multiple organisations are involved (i.e., committee work).

With multiple reviewers, and no clear guidance on ‘what’ is supposed to be reviewed, it’s a recipe for confusion.

There has to be a better way, and I’m looking for it.

As observed by Cal Newport in his book “Deep Work”, three groups will have a particular advantage in the future:

those with access to capital;

those who can work creatively with intelligent machines; and,

those who are best at what they do.

So: if you are born into or come into money, or, if you are comfortable with the influx of machines and AI, you will be okay.

Otherwise, and perhaps more satisfying, is to be very good at what you do, and, able to communicate it. Being able to learn new and complex things very quickly will help too.

Technical skills rely on knowledge and insight; often using math. They are context and industry specific. Having expert technical skills across a multitude of scenarios is unlikely and unusual, because excellent technical skills are context specific.

Behavioural skills rely on emotional awareness. We can’t ignore it: human behaviour involves emotions. Just like you can’t have an experience without emotion, you can’t behave without emotion.

Behavioural skills are more easily transferred between contexts and roles. Being professional, kind, considerate, and honest is the same in any situation. Doing project specific calculations for a variety of assets needs more conscientious switching effort.

When a worker finds themselves with a perceived lack of knowledge, or having made a mistake, or not knowing what to do 'next', “need more training" seems to be a default conclusion.

While possibly correct, a follow up question should then be, “what does it look like when I’m trained?”

Training in isolation does not guarantee change. Training is a temporary fix; without follow up, it isn’t always permanent. For training to stick, the trainee should also be obligated to either tell someone else what they’ve learned, or, should prove that they’ve used the knowledge soon after the training session.

It almost goes without saying that details are extra important for technical, design, or even construction information. To document technical information well, you do need to sweat the small stuff.

As the world automates, detail gets hidden behind ‘black boxes’ of programming, coding, and screens. But: the details are where the problems are.

The details require a thorough review and validation; however, the summary report or output need not belabour the details.

So, it’s a tricky dance to know, and sweat, the small stuff, but also to know, and not sweat, what needs to be left out of the summary.

We all need some good news stories, no matter how minor they may be.

This morning I left my headphones behind at a café. When I later realised I didn’t have them, of course I thought, ‘they’ll be gone, of course I’ll have to buy new ones’.

But I took the chance and went back to the café, in the hopes recovering them. And there they were, still sitting where I’d left them. Dozens of people would have seen them, walked by them, maybe wondered whose they were. But nobody took them to keep for themselves. It warms my heart.

Those who work in the built environment know that documentation is impossible to get away from. In whatever form, be it online or on paper, the need for documentation never goes away. And it increases with increasing complexity of the project or asset.

When things go wrong, documentation is one of the first things gathered together.

There’s another view that says there are too many documents. Too much paperwork, too many checklists and signoffs and, dare we say, too many approval responsibilities out there.

I wonder if there was ever the right balance between not enough and too much paperwork.

I looked around my home office this evening, and the word I couldn’t get out of my head was clutter.

We moved house months ago, and I still haven’t found a place for the papers and books and reports and my ‘life lived’. The thing with moving is the loss of ‘everything in its place’. Everything doesn’t have a place yet. Sometimes, I know, it takes years to find the right place for everything.

Some might say, get rid of the paper, scan it all. But I can’t. I’ve tried going electronic. Many things have, but not everything. Hence, clutter.

No, this isn’t about the influx of screen-based meetings that have infiltrated our lives now.

The zoom I’m thinking of is the field of vision on a topic: zoomed in or zoomed out.

Having a constantly zoomed-in view leaves you unaware of what’s happening in the zoomed out bigger picture. Conversely, always adopting a helicopter view means a lack of appreciation for the details.

Both views are needed, and maybe not even by the same person. But at least be aware of your zoom level, and what that means for the depth and position of your knowledge of a topic.

Communication is often identified as a key skill to have. There’s no doubt that being good at communicating will help with almost any career path.

But “communicate better” doesn’t mean simply sending more information.

Originally, I learned that successful communication needs three parts: a sender of the information, a medium in which the message is conveyed, and a receiver of the information.

There’s another view: communication is participatory. We are all more than senders and receivers: we are participants. Day in and day out, we are constantly participating in communication. Being an information sender is only part of the exchange.

The ease of gathering information has never been so obvious. Information availability is ubiquitous.

But keep in mind the importance of a variety of sources for your information. The source has an influence on the information.

I acknowledge this because in the last month, while we come out of our pandemic hibernation, I’ve been exposed to a wider variety of information sources. Through talking to people at industry events, I’ve realised my sources for the past two years were whittled down, and that’s not good.

Talk to someone you haven’t talked to, about a topic you thought you knew about.

Good project management, and, good services marketing as well, are better when they have considered the benefits of the outcome. It’s the benefits that the customer or client wants. Project benefits, especially infrastructure ones, are obvious: a bridge is built, or a solar farm installed.

In knowledge work, it really helps to often think of the benefits of what you’re doing. It’s not the inputs, deliverables, or even the outputs. It’s the benefits: who benefits, and why. Benefits aren’t hours or reports or meetings or reviews. Benefits, for infrastructure businesses, are outcomes like increased revenue, maximised productivity, or improved safety.

Searching for information is so different now, compared to even 20 years ago.

I’m not sure we have adapted very well yet, to this new approach.

For better or worse, information is basically free, and easy to find. With it being so free, found via simple searches, there is a risk of having information, but not knowledge.

So, if you need to search for information about, say, risk engineering, or project engineering, or the Australian pipeline standard, I’m pretty sure these days, it starts with Google.

And that’s okay, as long as we appreciate that’s just information, not necessarily knowledge.

There is a plethora of skills and knowledge we obtain through a role, job, year, or project. All those tasks we do; surely, this knowledge is useful elsewhere, right? All that work we did on that project, in that company, or for that demanding boss, surely it’s worth something, when we change jobs!

Yes, it is. However, it’s important to realise that the transfer of knowledge from one context to another is not automatic. It must be a conscious process. In a new context, take the time to understand the context, then ask questions, and then be ready to listen.

If you’ve worked on an engineering project, you know about the project org chart. It names the roles (titles) in hierarchical boxes on a lovely diagram. For infrastructure projects, the titles usually default to Project Manager, Engineering Manager, Construction Manager, Project Engineers etc.

Here's a thought: what about an org chart based on tasks or deliverables? A big list of tasks to be done, organised logically. And then the project team looks through the list and picks out the tasks they want to do, and/or are good at.

Hmmm, I’ll need more than a hundred words to develop this idea!

I read a lot: books, articles, Facebook(!), LinkedIn, novels, and magazines. I also listen to podcasts and audiobooks. That’s adds up to a lot of time spent taking information in.

Most of it is because I’m interested in it, but it’s not strategic reading.

If I were strategic about it, it’d be “just in time” reading rather than “just in case”. If I got organised in my reading, I’d have a more strategic approach, being purposeful about a topic or arena I want to know more about. Nah, I think I’d rather not. I’ll stick with reading ‘just in case’.

Skills develop through repetition and practise. This especially applies to technical skills like calculations and problem solving. Solving something once, even done well that one time, doesn’t mean you’re skilled at it. We’re not “skilled” at something until it is second nature, or a habit. It’s a skill when, for example, a problem to solve comes up and you don’t have to think about how to solve it, you just do.

The problem with advancing quickly through a career, is that there’s little opportunity to practise, or repeat, a skill, after demonstrating it once. Developing skills takes time. And repetition.

Determining competence with some certainty, for a task to be done or a role to be filled, is a challenge for all involved. However, there are ways to streamline it, beyond typical competency lists and frameworks. Though these artefacts certainly do help.

Credible competence is having relevant knowledge, skills and experience. More tangibly, to me, this means having demonstrable outputs (words and pictures), interactions (having spoken to or otherwise interacted with others), and stories (what other people say about you and the topic).

Competence and credibility are intertwined concepts. I don’t think you can legitimately have one without the other.

Knowing our work preferences (i.e., working with people or working with data/documents) helps with our leadership aspirations. Do we want to excel at people leadership, or technical leadership? Both are an important part of most jobs, of course.

Knowing yourself (self-awareness) is knowledge worth exploring. It means asking questions of yourself often, and being honest about what you like to do, and knowing what work brings satisfaction and contentment.

Similarly, knowing what you are known for, is also important. Are you known for being principled, tardy, or explosive? Negative, positive, or get-it-done? Pay attention to what you’re known for, too.