OBSERVATIONS ON HUMAN EXISTENCE – WHY THEY MATTER AT WORK

 Observations on Human Existence:

–          When reality meets or is better than expectations people are happy

–          When reality fails to meet expectations people are disappointed

–          You can control expectations of others about you and your work products

o   Thus: control expectations and you can control other people’s level of happiness about you and your work product.

o   Contrapositive: if others are disappointed in you or your work products, then expectations were not controlled.

Tips to Consider:

–          Emails in the morning! First thing every morning check your email. All of it.  Flag the items you will need to work on. Don’t work any of the emails until you read them all. Don’t get bogged down on one, and leave a unread email from your supervisor/manager mistakenly. After flagging your emails, decide which of those emails needs to be acted upon in what order. You have to know what all the emails say before you can prioritize them.

–          Use conversations view in outlook. If you don’t use it try it, it’s amazing. Best inbox management trick there is. Getting a lot of meaning emails? Unsubscribe or use a Rule/Filter to sort them into different inbox. Respect the subject line, if the subject has clearly changed, change the subject please. I sat in a Major Client Problem Issue Review, because someone didn’t change a subject line, which caused confusion then then a major project delivery miss. No kidding.

–          ‘I get a lot of emails’ is not an excuse for anything. This is said when you missed prioritize an email.

–          When you get a new Task from anyone (specifically from Supervisors/Managers/ Execs) that will take more than ~1-~2 hours to complete, respond to their email with an acknowledgment that you accept the task and you will work it into your list of work items. If you can give a estimation time to complete provide that information to the requester.  Remember it’s about controlling people’s expectations. The general mantra is under promise and over deliver.

–          Track you’re list of work items. I don’t care how, sticky note, outlook tasks, white board, body art, but tracking them is key. It’s very helpful when you have a 30 second conversation in the hallway, ‘How are things going’? You stop, you asked yourself, I’ve been working, but what have I been doing? We’ve all been there; got in at 6AM worked through lunch left that day and I couldn’t recall one thing I did. Creating a list isn’t justabout to making sure you don’t forget to do something, it allows mental organization, prioritization, and reflecting that produces memories, do you won’t stand in the hallway saying “Ummm….”, you say yes, I’m worked on “A”, and its produced “B”, and I am going to do “C”.

–          The status of ‘X’? Predict your boss’s questions. If your supervisor showed up at your door right now and asked what the status of ‘X’ is; what would ‘X’ be?  This is a simple prioritization mental exercise. If “X” is on the bottom of your work list, and you think it’s the most likely issue you will get questioned about then you might need a really good reason for why it’s not higher on your work list.

–          Is “X”, a meaningless, unimportant, and almost random work item, and you know there are other major issues you should work on before? It really could be, but this is your problem. You may not be responsible, but the problem is at your door, literally. Control your Supervisor by communicating to your Supervisor your perspective on what you think the most important issues are. Do not explain why you think some task is meaningless, unimportant, and random, because there could be a reason your TL/Supervisor thinks it important, and thus gave it to you. And then when you forced your Supervisor to explain it over your objection, you look foolish and out of the loop. Don’t look foolish and out of the loop try to understand the larger importance of the any given task (ask!) and use that knowledge to better predict and prioritize.

–          Send updates, updates, updates. This my come to a surprise to some but your supervisor cannot log into router/switch and see if your change was a success. Your supervisor cannot log into the device and see if the BGP flapping has subsided. If you don’t tell them they won’t know. Use every update / FYI email as a method to inform on status, but also ‘influence’. Are you sick of getting the status of “X” questions on stuff you think is un-important; when is the last time you sent a FYI status update email?

–          No one wants to get an email and think ‘I don’t know the first thing about that issue / concern’, you don’t want it happen to you, don’t let it happen to your supervisor. Knowledge is power, and more powerful you make your supervisor by communicating relevant information on items that they could find in their inbox, more power they will have at making your job easier.

–          No one expects you to answer every email on your iphone / mobile 24×7. They don’t expect it, and I would advise against it.  It breaks up outlook’s conversations view which is just offensive. Find the right balance between a must need to respond / this is urgent yes/no and waiting until you are behind a really email client, that works for you.

–          Think about how you communicate and who you are communicating with. Is the customer on the CC:, other management lines, business contacts, clients? If you can’t find a reason for that person to be on the email chain, you don’t have to keep them there when you respond to an email thread. Do what makes sense to you it’s your email.

–          Write for the receiver not for the sender. Don’t write long emails, or long blog posts. Sometime I write long email just for myself but I understand that they rarely get fully read.