As I flipped my calendar to its final page this morning, there loomed the word “December”, all in capital, bold letters. Slowly, the letters started to move. I watched in amazement, puzzled, and obviously suffering from a severe lack of sleep. The letters multiplied, and changed, until where one was the last month of the year now read “What have you accomplished this year?”
Immediately, my mind went to all of the things that I didn’t accomplish. All of the things that a year ago I was determined to do, full of vigor, and now, 335 days later, they sit unfinished. That iPhone app? Yeah, not done. Short story? Not started. Writing more? Taking more pictures? Not so much. The “unaccomplished” list is much, much longer than I am willing to admit, and longer than any list of things that I might have accomplished.
I’m pretty hard on myself, in general, so of course my reasoning for why things didn’t get done automatically involved all the time I wasted watching television, or playing games. And yet, when I force myself, reluctantly, to see past the mile-long list of failures, my sense of despair and self-loathing is lifted. All of that free time that I had hoped to dedicate to taking over the world? Instead, I did something much more important with it. I came home from work, and spent time with my family. Most nights I make dinner (now junior likes to “help”), and we hang out as a family until junior goes to bed. Even thinking it about it now as I write, a smile forms on my lips. My greatest accomplishments this year weren’t even on my list; being a present father and husband.
I might not have gotten as much done this year as I wanted to, but in terms of quality over quantity, I think 2011 turned out to be a pretty good year.
I really like the idea behind this video out of Thailand (from a phone company, no less). It plays nicely with the blog post from Jon Acuff a few weeks back titled “How to be a better parent in 4 seconds”, which you can read here and his more recent post “How to improve your marriage instantly”, which you can read here.
Resist the urge to always be “connected”, put down your phone, and really connect with the people around you. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. The cashier. The dry cleaner. The waiter….
For most athletes, winning the title in their chosen sport is the ultimate goal. The years of sacrifice, the toll placed on their body from constant training, all becomes worth it when you get to wear the belt or raise the cup. In some sports, title shots are solely based on records. The teams with the most wins get in to the playoffs. Players advance in tournaments and in the playoffs by beating other teams. In the world of mixed martial arts, however, title shots are often a product of politics and matchmaking more than the actual record of wins and losses.
Earlier this year, the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s Georges St-Pierre defeated his latest challenger, Jake Shields, to retain the UFC welterweight title. Around the same time, the parent company of the UFC purchased the #2 mixed martial arts organization, StrikeForce. When looking around for GSP’s next opponent, the fans started clamoring for a match between GSP and the then StrikeForce welterweight champion Nick Diaz. The last few GSP fights were “boring” and went all 5 rounds, and the fans were sure Diaz was the man to step up, challenge GSP, and actually have a shot at taking his title.
Suffice it to say that because of other preexisting obligations between StrikeForce and its partners, a lot of dealing had to be done to make the match happen. In addition to being a StrikeForce champion, Diaz was set to undertake a boxing career, as well. But the UFC folks jumped through the hoops they need to in order to give the fans what they wanted, and the deal was done. Diaz vacated his title in StrikeForce for a shot at the UFC title, which to most MMA fans represents the pinnacle organization with the elite athletes in the MMA world. A StrikeForce title is great, but a UFC title is the ultimate prize. After an earlier sordid stint in the UFC years before, Diaz was back, and getting that title shot.
Or so it seemed.
Earlier this week, Dana White, President of the UFC, announced that Nick Diaz was pulled from his title fight against GSP. It turns out that Diaz wasn’t showing up for pre-fight obligations…press conferences and the like. While White said that he felt Diaz couldn’t handle the pressure of such a major event. That might be partially true, but I feel that it is more likely that Diaz feels entitled to this opportunity instead of being grateful for it. In StrikeForce, se’s defended his title a few times, and both maintained a “bad boy” persona, which embarrassingly showcased itself in a post-fight brawl in the ring that included Diaz, his brother, and another teammate, going at it against another MMA fighter he was being interviewed inside the ring. And now, the fans were calling for him to fight GSP. The fans wanted him. The UFC needed him. He was in charge, and he could do whatever he wanted, including not following through with his pre-fight commitments. After all, the UFC didn’t have a choice. If they wanted to give the fans what they wanted, they would have to bend to his demands.
Except the UFC did have a choice. History shows that no matter what, the UFC always hold the upper hand. So Diaz was out and, instead, they set up another fighter to take the title shot. That fighter, Carlos Condit, had to call Dana back when he heard the news. He was so overcome with emotion, he started crying and called back 15 minutes later when he was able to compose himself.
I’m pretty sure that Condit is going to be grateful for this opportunity, because he knows he may never have another shot at the title. I’m pretty sure Condit is going to show up for all the press conferences. I’m pretty sure he will represent himself and the UFC with the utmost respect and class. I’m pretty sure he’s going to present as much of a challenge to GSP and Diaz would have. But in the end, I feel like the better person is getting the shot. It’s nice to see humility and gratitude rewarded and cockiness and egotism punished.
 Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone. ~G.B. Stern
When we are the customer, we expect to get what we want. After all, The Customer is Always Right and The Customer is King. We’re often quick to criticize and escalate when we don’t get what we want, but we rarely exert the extra energy to follow up and thank someone when he or she goes above and beyond simple expectations. Or sometimes more importantly, to let that person’s boss know, which can be helpful information when a company is looking to provide raises, promotions, or deciding who to keep and who to cut.
For the last few months, we’ve been stalled on the installation of some new hardware at work. The resource that was assigned to the project was less than effective. When the task was reassigned to a new resource, he was sensitive to the delay to which we were already subjected. Instead of just waiting for dependencies to be resolved, he would proactively work with upstream individuals to get obstacles resolved and kept the project moving forward until it was eventually completed. He is now showing similar effort on a new project of ours to which he is assigned, and we’re going to be ahead of schedule on this new project.
The young man at the dry cleaner knows my name, and I know his. When I walk in the door, he has already pulled my order up on the computer. If my hands are full, or if I have junior in tow, he always offers to help me load up the car. I always say thank you to him, but I have yet to make the effort to let his boss know how considerate her employee is, and how much I appreciate his assistance. Will it get him a huge bonus? Probably not. But maybe it will get him a little extra in his next raise, or even some weight should they be looking to cut hours or employees.
I was inspired to write this post because two individuals that I have helped recently have sent me thank you e-mails and copied my boss, unsolicited by me. Following up on my previous post about the importance of visibility in the workplace, this feedback will provide additional talking points during my end of year review, and when our organization looks for individuals up for promotion. Combined, these e-mails likely took less than a few minutes to write and send, but their impact will last much longer.
I’m going to look around for other examples of people in my life that deserve a similar effort from me and take action to express my gratitude.
In the corporate world, visibility is a tricky subject. Too little of it, especially in a company of 100,000 people, and your career can stall. Too much of it, and you open yourself up to increased scrutiny and risk. Finding the right balance often involves making educated, strategic guesses or, sometimes, just luck.
This week, I was presented with an opportunity to take on a new role on a project for which I helped engineer a solution. It’s one of those deals where it’s more work and more responsibility without an upgrade in title or pay. However, my name came up by way of my boss’ boss, and it came up at a time when I’ve talked to my boss about what the next steps are in my career. One of the criteria for advancement? Visibility.
No matter how long you’ve been at a company, or how great the work you do is, the person who ultimately approves promotions needs to know who you are or you’re facing an uphill struggle. Of course, they would ideally associate your name in a positive context, such as solving a complicated problem or completing a big project successfully. Here I have an opportunity to do both.
But taking on this new role has some potential pitfalls, as well, in addition to the increased work load. Being casually visible now, I’m able to focus on specific aspects of my job that I think will help the company in the long term. I’m flying under the radar just enough to be able to be agile and adjust my deliverables as necessary. Taking on this new project means I will lose some of that freedom (and time to work on some of those self-directed initiatives). More meetings, more paperwork, more budgets, more management. Plus, what if the project fails? Fear of failure in an excellent de-motivator in many aspects of our lives, especially when you’re comfortable where you are. Why risk throwing it all away?
Like visibility, being comfortable in a position has its good side and its bad side. On the plus, you know what to expect every day. You know the patterns of the ups and downs and handle them as part of your routine. However, only in exceptional cases is the comfortable person also a visible person. A comfortable person doesn’t take risks, and therefore doesn’t put him or herself in a position to be visible.
Being comfortable and being visible are generally inversely proportional. The more uncomfortable you are, the more risk you take, and the more you challenge yourself, the more visible you will be. The trick is taking the right risks and ultimately being visible in the right way. A colleague presented some questions as food for thought that helped me make my decision, so I wanted to pass them along.
Is the project a benefit to the company? Ideally, you want to be associated with projects that are beneficial to the company. Maybe they are going to save millions of dollars in unnecessary processing, reduce the number of customer calls, or improve the quality of the product. The greater the benefit of the project to the company, the more you want to be associated with the project.
Is the project destined for failure? Sometimes, you just know a project is going to fail. Too many dependencies, too much money, not enough resources. Sometimes these obstacles are fixable, sometimes they are not. If the project is failing and you can solve the problem, great. If the project is failing and you can’t, the choices are avoiding the project entirely, or being seen as someone who went down swinging trying to turn the project around. The additional risk here is that sometimes when the project goes, so do the people that were working on it…
What does the future of the project look like? This was an interesting question in my case. First, the role I would take on for this project involves the entire life of the project through all future phases and iterations, not just this next implementation. This first phase of the project involves environments in which I am well versed. However, the next phase of the project will likely involve some new technologies that I’ve been eager to get involved with. Getting “stuck” with the project in this case could potentially have some long term benefits.
Do you want to do it? If you don’t want to do it, or if you just want to stay in your comfortable place, then you aren’t going to give it the attention that it requires, which is going to hinder the project and taint your reputation. In many cases, it’s better to not be involved at all than to be involved but not being committed to the project’s success. Keep in mind that every project involves some unpleasant tasks like meetings and budgets, but often times, the desire to be a part of a project can minimize the negative effects of those mundane aspects.
I don’t typically talk about my day job on this blog…something about the separation of work and play…but working through the situation with words seemed like a good idea. Fingers crossed that it helped…
In the corporate world, visibility is a tricky subject. Too little of it, especially in a company of 100,000 people, and your career can stall. Too much of it, and you open yourself up to increased scrutiny and risk. Finding the right balance often involves making educated, strategic guesses or, sometimes, just luck.
