Category: Work

[Note: While this was written from the perspective of being at work, it was actually written during personal time.]

Even as I type these very words, I am beginning to cringe as I watch the numbers slowly increase. Just to find my mouse, it goes from zero to one. Launching the word editor jumps me up to two, as I type I am up to three. Then I realize that I made a mistake. That means I have to go back and make corrections which puts me at a level 4.

Last week, some work productivity monitoring software showed up. It was cute and nice at first. It has a brightly smiling face to indicate that I compliant with my breaks (oops. I just jumped up to a five, I should type slower) and an angry red face when I do not take my breaks on time, or for too short.

My favorite part is the numerical indication of my work intensity. It starts out green and at zero. Whenever I do almost anything it jumps up to a one, as the number go up, the green turns to yellow (at about five) and starts turning an angry red around seven. I cannot imagine what a full ten is (probably an angry red).

In addition to the numerical and color indication of my “work intensity,” it also sees fit to remind me, quite intrusively, that I need to take breaks. For example, if I type too long (a couple of good paragraphs) it will make me do a “micro pause” where I am unable to use the keyboard or the mouse for 30 seconds. I can, of course, dismiss the reminder, but much like an incessant child, it waits for me at the top of the screen in bright, flashing colors; and there is always the threat of the nice smiley face turning angry if I fail to comply with my breaks.

While I can sympathize with the management’s desire to help me avoid stress injuries and to, in general, be happy and productive, but in the end I think it is more detrimental to my ability to effectively work to have a constant reminder of that work. I can never zone out and just cruise with the work. Another problem I keep running into with all these “micro pauses” is a break in my thought trains.

So really, there are three problems I see with constantly measuring work performance: it distracts from actual work, the indication methodology encourages low levels of work (the green zero is more pleasant than the red nine) and reduces the ability to cruise through a project by interrupting work with a flood of reminders that I am working too hard and need to slow down.

I suppose, in the end, I could take management’s hint and not wok at all but then why are they paying me.

Some years ago, I produced a delivery map for work. The map was glorious and communicated what days we delivered where, how often we delivered there and the price that we charged for the delivery. The map was a critical part of selling delivery to our customers and allowing the salespeople to correctly communicate delivery expectations to their customers. 

A few years after releasing the map, we upgraded our systems to an automated routing system that would control the delivery schedule and charges based on the Zip Code on the sale. I stopped updating the map because it was inaccurate compared to the upgraded system in that it allowed for the personal interpretation of the schedule and delivery charge for the borderline cities, interpretations that would not match up with the system’s automated schedule and charges. Additionally, the map was built using old graphic software and we would need to spend several hundred to purchase new software and spend several hours to rebuild the map. Just a few months after I retracted the map I was hit with a request to update it.

The salespeople wanted to be able to quote, with some confidence, when we could deliver out to a customer’s home and how much it would cost before running a complete sale. I cited my reasons and denied the request. Another request came a few months later, again I denied it. Finally, the owner of the company requested a revised map. I explained my reasons and he went back to the Store Managers only to come back to me and say, “Daniel, they want the map. Make it happen.” I fought the request: it would be expensive and would surely lead to several upset customers and salespeople.

Then it struck me: they did not want a map (that was all they knew); they wanted to be able to easily know when we go where and how much it would cost. I proposed an easy to maintain spreadsheet and was greeted with an overwhelming response in the affirmative. In fact, the salespeople preferred the spreadsheet over the map.

This provided a valuable lesson to me: give them what they need, not what they want because often they do not know what they really want, they just know what they had.

Some people might wonder what Accountants do for Arts and Crafts time in school. After all, it only takes a couple of minutes to calculate the number of color combinations that are possible with red, blue and yellow (there are 6). Accountants, contrary to widespread belief, can be exciting people and though they might eagerly dive into figure painting like everyone else, they can still produce art pieces. For example, the following exhibit is a flow chart I made for work to depict our original order processing flow. The chart is now six years old and horribly out of date but still an example of Accounting art:

It made the accountants giddy to see. And yes, every color and shape indicate a particular department or process types (go figure, the accountants even turned art into a science).

I remember back when my work first switch to our current email service, Google Apps, from the old antiquated one, a private offering. The old service provided basic email services, 100mb of space and no calendaring or document sharing support. For its time it was normal, compared to now it was dismal. As I was proposing the switch from the old service (which we paid for) to the new service (which was free at the time) I was explaining the benefits of Google Apps: Gmail was a smarter email system, shared calendaring, Docs and Spreadsheets that have only got better with time, Chat to allow instant communication, and of course, Free. I think it was the word “free” that won out in the end, but I remember that Chat was of particular concern. Mostly, the management was concerned that employees would abuse it.

Fast forward four years to yesterday: My work just announced the opening a new location. While the new store will not be open for several weeks (the actual opening date has not been announce) the announcement alone has caused a fervor of activity. There are computers to get ready, inventory to order, people to hire and plans to put down. I, being a remote worker, do not have the normal luxury of roaming in and out of offices to get the answers to questions I have about the opening. How many computer terminals do we need? Who is the store manager? What dates have been announced? How will the new store effect back end staffing? Each of these is a pressing question that needs to be answered sooner rather than later: they each effect a series of other choices that need to be made.

Features such as a live shared calendar are good to be able to track dates on a unified calendar; we are using a Google Spreadsheet to track assignments, record progress notes and completion of tasks. But it is Chat, the Google instant messaging service built into Gmail, that is proving to be most helpful with getting quick responses to simple, but important questions. The one service that we feared would be damaging is invaluable. Unlike email, Chat has a more immediate and pressing presence and allows for quicker back and forth communication and the resolution of additional questions that arise.

This instant communication is good for handling questions, but there is more to it than just question answering. Chat allows remote workers, whether it is me several hundred miles away from the company or the Customer Service Office just a few miles away from the Corporate Office, that help us feel closer together. Close enough to vent our frustrations, tell jokes and even share pictures all the while remaining productive and active in our respective offices. In some ways, I think Chat allows us the benefit of both worlds: distance brings us more productivity because it puts us closer to what each of us manages (the Customer Service people are closer to the warehouse people they work closely with, the Admin people are closer to their records, the merchandiser are closer to their catalogs and I am closer to my phone) while also allowing us to feel a sense of connectedness and camaraderie that improves moral and binds us together.

I have been writing a lot of scripts for Google Docs at work lately, mostly because I have finally learned how to do more advanced scripting than I had done previously. The Admin office had requested a script that ran once a month, towards the end of the month, to notify them of the upcoming birthdays and insurance eligibility. The script itself was very similar to one I wrote for the Customer Service office so this one was not too hard. The bigger challenge, oddly enough, was not the script but the timer. They only wanted it ran once a month but Google only has built in timers for Minute, Hour, Day and Week. I wrote the script and puzzled over how I was going to get it  to run monthly. Then it struck me: No one cared how often the script ran as long as it only sent out emails once a month. With this in mind the solution was simple: IF(CHECK_DATE == RUN_DATE)–in other words: if today’s date happens to be the 26th then run the script. I set the script to run daily and now it runs for a second to compare dates and 29 days a month (actually, 30 some months and 27 or 28 for one month depending on the year) the script does nothing. But on that one special day it works its magic.

Where was I going with this? Oh, I remember. Sometimes I get so focused on the vision of how I think things should work that I forget that the how (in most cases) is far less important than the accomplished end goal. In Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink he talks about how the military used to write incredibly articulated orders that were intended to cover every action to be taken by the soldiers. They found that these orders were nearly useless once the fighting started. The military phased out these verbose orders and replaced them with what they call the “Command Intent” (CI). The CI tells every level of the command structure, in short concise language, the single most important goal. Note that the CI is ONE goal, not several goals. This is because as soon as you start interlacing various objectives you water down the entire purpose of the CI: your soldiers no longer have a singular focus. Coupled with the CI there may be additional orders that clarify and flesh out the CI with additional goals and preferred outcomes but the CI removes all ambiguity as to what success looks like. Something like:

Command Intent: Build a bridge to move tanks across the river.

Additional Information: We would prefer that the bridge be a far north as possible and in a location that will allow for quick access to roads on both the east and the west sides while providing a strong defense position.

Note how the preferences do not cloud the CI (by the way, I made up those commands just as an example, Gladwell includes better examples in his book). The CI tells us that the commanders will be happy if there is a bridge that support tanks. They would be elated if the other conditions were also met, but they will be happy with the bridge. The magic of this type of ordering is that the soldiers who are actually running the bridging equipment and playing in the forests with the enemy can work out where the most effective position will be instead of a commander in a distant office. In the end, the commander really does not care where the bridge is as long as he can get his tanks across. Another advantage is that everyone knows what the overall objective is and if the see one group struggling, they can quickly step in and assist. Before it was “our orders are to stay here and guard nothingness” and now it is “we need to get the bridge built, what can we do to help”. This creates a more efficient use of resources, one that can quickly adapt to environmental changes (like ants in an ant nest as in
Quorum Sensing (or Natural Leadership Vetting).

In the context of this script, I was too focused on the mechanics of running a script monthly instead of the Command Intent of monthly emails. After realizing that the intent was to get monthly emails and that it did not matter how often the script ran, the needed course of action seemed obvious.

Sometimes express direction is needed, and indeed critical, but I am finding it more often that such directions only cloud the judgement and creativity of the individuals by forcing them to do it my way instead of allowing them to learn and grow by doing it there way.