I’m Gen-X. (We’re awesome, I know, right?). We’re the generation straddling life’s existence between analogue and digital. We’ve benefitted enormously from, and know to appreciate, the inventions and improvements brought on by the large Boomer generation before us. We also benefit from the youthful enthusiasm of Gen Y and Z, many of whom we report to now.

For knowledge transfer, learning and otherwise helping those coming up behind, something my colleagues and I are trying to understand is: written word or other delivery methods? Maybe textbooks and articles are superior, but maybe we need to embrace audio and video, too.

It’s difficult to be in conversations filled with “gotchas”, where it feels like the other person is just waiting to top your contribution.

Some people seem to need to do the ‘one-upmanship’ in the conversation, such as correcting minor flaws, or expanding on a statement with a know-it-all approach that feels a little icky. But perhaps they are just trying to be helpful.

Wait, in full disclosure of self-awareness, perhaps I do this myself, appearing a little showy while trying to be helpful. They say that what we don’t like in others is something we might be ourselves. Um, gotcha?

The hardest thing engineers (and many other professions) face is trade-offs. The hard reality of many roles, positions, job descriptions and higher pay-grades is that we face impossible decisions where someone or some aspect ‘loses’.

Cost or quality; heavier weight or less strong; noisy operation or faster response; rapid results or accurate results; reliability through redundancy or lower cost production. These are dilemmas faced all the time on engineering projects and in asset management.

Of course, we want to maximise both options, but science and physics, or let’s just call it ‘the real world’, prevents that. We must accept trade-offs.

It’s normal to think of training and learning as linear. That’s to say that “Topic 3” must be preceded by first understanding Topics 1 and 2. In many cases, there are pre-requisites identified that say you can’t know ‘y’ until you know ‘x’.

This is probably mostly true, particularly for factual or mathematical learning. But, as I’ve learned recently, when we bring in ideas, innovation or complex problems, our learning is more of a spiral.

We need to circulate around a whole range of topics, ideas and facts, in and out, up and down, in order to solve complex problems.

A new purchase is exciting: new phone, car, piece of furniture.

I have a new laptop. It replaces one that’s getting slow, but not yet unusable.

Setting up the new laptop has been surprisingly intricate.

Adding back in my short-cuts, preferences, downloads, links and Bluetooth devices is time-consuming. I often go back to the old laptop, just because it’s easier.

Change, even to something better, brings with it disruption. A new setup will take a while to be as comfortable as the old one.

Keep at it though; it’s also a chance to clear out the old processes and widgets.

It might be logical to assume that we have a capacity to change if we have a chance to review the data, analyse the situation, and think about it.

But actually, change is not about analyse/think/change. Dr. John Kotter made the intriguing observation that the process is actually see/feel/change. See a situation, feel something, then change.

The important step is ‘feel’. We have to feel something to enact change. Feelings such as motivated (to lose weight), surprised (that I spend so much time sifting emails) or appalled (that humans could be so mistreated). Feelings cause change, not analysing and thinking.

I’m reading the book “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown. It’s 270pages to say: do less to do better. Not to make light of it though, there are some good ideas and strategies in the book to help with just that.

Minimise the minutiae. Choose what’s important now. Stop saying yes to everything. Clarify your purpose. Only do what’s essential.

All very good advice, and good strategies. I try to implement them in my days too.

I like the point of thinking about what’s important now. What’s essential right now.

It does give a different spin on the next thing you do.

The human brain is governed by a rewards-centre. There’s plenty of research showing the relationship between rewards and behaviour. Be it sugar, praise, booze, success, money. When we feel rewarded in any way, we want more of that.

This applies to forming habits. The trajectory is: cue-behaviour-reward-repeat. We get a cue to brush our teeth, we brush our teeth, they feel fresh, and we do it again the next day.

The key, I think, is the quantum, and timeframe of the (feeling of) reward.

There is a gap here with knowledge work. Rarely do we receive a tangible, instant reward.

Rules give structure and set expectations. A rule, even those we don’t understand or like, at least helps to set the boundaries.

However, upon entering a new space, or joining a new group, or starting a new project, I think being faced with a whole list of rules, of ‘don’ts’, of restrictions and cautions, isn’t very welcoming.

I noticed this going into a restaurant recently. A whole string of signs cautioned us on the way in of what not to do. It was an odd welcome.

Here’s a rule: if you’re on the welcoming committee, don’t start with the don’ts.

There are 7days per week x 24hrs per day = 168 hours in the week.

If we allow 7x8hrs=56hours for sleep and 7x2hrs=14hrs for ablutions and general time, and say 40hours+10hours/week=50hours for work plus commuting, that adds up to 110hours allocated for full-time non-work-from-homers.

168-110 leaves 58hours unallocated per week. Say exercise is 7x2hours/week=14hrs (allowing for changing etc), and 8hours/week for shopping and errands, that leaves 36hours unallocated.

Meals? Maybe a generous 1hr each, that’s 3h per day: 21h per week on mealtime.

That’s only 5 unallocated spare hours left.

168-56(sleep)-14(ablutions)-50(work incl commute)-14(exercise)-8(shopping/errands)-21(meals)=5 spare hours!

No wonder we’re so “busy”.

Sometimes people conclude a critical comment with stating “because they don’t know what they’re talking about”. It’s a huge statement to apply a broad conclusion like that, on anyone.

It’s not kind to conclude so definitively and be so dismissive of someone you’re talking to.

They probably think they know exactly what they’re talking about. So already you’re in a friction of disagreement.

Before leaping to a generalisation like “they don’t know what they’re talking about”, get a little more specific. Pinpoint where in the conversation you came to that conclusion. And then maybe consider helping to resolve the friction.

I can feel the reawakening, in me, in the workplace, in my friends and family. We are emerging from the past 2.5 years. During those years, we were fairly restricted with our activities (stating the obvious).

I like that now people are ‘up to something’. We’re back to sports, back to travelling, back to going places and doing things. It’s a dull existence when we’re not up to something. Whether it be visiting friends, planning for the next endurance event, getting out to the countryside, or just reading in the park.

Whatever ‘up to something’ means to you, do it.

We are all very busy, or so it seems. Somehow the day gets away on us, and we wonder what actually got done each day. We seem to be continually ‘doing’ something. But, an analysis of the day sometimes makes me marvel at whether the ‘doing’ has produced any real outputs.

Job satisfaction is tied to concepts such as connection, mastery, impact and autonomy. I also think that job (and life) satisfaction is defined by the value of our outputs. Many of us in office jobs are defined by the value we add in between the inputs and the outputs.

I wonder if we can think of CPD (Continuing Professional Development) as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

The purpose of SEO is to improve website ranking in search results. By using the right keywords and phrases, your SEO-enhanced site is more appealing to your target audience. SEO “improves quantity and quality of inbound traffic”.

Perhaps that what CPD does for individuals. A consistent and deliberate approach to professional development (keywords and phrases) makes us ‘more appealing’ to our stakeholders. CPD will ‘improve quantity and quality’, particularly for our outputs. Our deliverables, discussions and deliberations improve in quality because of professional development.

Most professional vocations require professionals to undertake “CPD”: Continuing Professional Development. This applies to at least the professions of lawyers, accountants, and engineers.

It seems there is even a sector of the economy that looks after professionals’ CPD, providing training courses and educational seminars to help with that professional development.

Unfortunately, I’ve also seen advertisements for companies that will “do” your CPD application for you. That service should never be needed.

“Doing CPD” should be a natural part of a professionals’ workload. A true professional has a natural curiosity to learn more and stay current. CPD shouldn’t be a burden.

In March 2020, I was caught up in the angst of being away from Australia. I was in Whistler enjoying a holiday at the time, and, well we all know what happened in the following weeks and months.

Nevermind, two and a half years later I’m fortunate now to be going back to Canada to visit the folks.

During the time when travel was difficult, I thought often of the early pioneers, who made distant treks, knowing they probably wouldn’t go back home again. It makes me appreciate, even more, that humans are meant to roam, and we always will.

There’s a preponderance of “just enough info”. We skim emails, race through reports, jump to the point in a conversation. Just enough so we know the topic. But is just enough good enough?

It’s like how we jump to a recipe in a cookbook, without reading all the preamble introductory information written by the author, putting the cookbook contents in context. No, we jump to the relevant recipe. Same with the preface in Standards publications: there can be plenty of insights in the preface or introduction, but no, we “CTRL-F” the word we want and go with just enough info.

Running a business includes the requirement to look at the numbers. Numbers such as revenue, expenses, profit margins; or the number of chairs, laptops, meeting rooms and coffee makers. These numbers factor into the healthy running of a business: you need the income (revenue) to pay for the outgoes (expenses). Simples.

But paying attention to numbers only risks leaving out attention to the other essential ingredient in business: the people. Most businesses don’t exist without people, and businesses don’t thrive without good people. That’s an even more simple equation, yet it might be getting lost in these times of upheaval.

The book “The Pursuit of Excellence” by Ryan Hawk seems to capture my thoughts. I’ve only read the summary, not the whole book, but the premise is promising: it’s better to pursue “excellence” rather than “success”.

The summary (via Blinkist) differentiates those concepts with “success is mostly based on comparison with others, whereas excellence is measured personally.”

Succeeding at something means you’ve achieved a goal. Sure, being goal-oriented is an important part of striving through a career. But this is finite: achieve the goal.

Striving for excellence is infinite and ongoing. It’s about striving to get better at your craft.

Brain productivity is not the same as product productivity. Time spent making a ‘thing’ (or many things) isn’t the same as time spent thinking.

Referencing ‘productivity’ feels wrong when it comes to clever work like engineering, sciences, technical problem-solving, and production of workable designs, reports, and deep thinking.

I don’t know what the answer is to prove ‘better productivity’ for thinking jobs, but measuring the outputs of your knowledge workers is not the same as measuring the number of widgets produced in a day.

We’re past the assembly-line thinking of the 20th century. Measuring ‘productivity’ for thinking-work needs a re-think.