He was the new kid. They were all new kids. A new family in our little town of Pleasant Grove, UT. They weren’t your typical Utah family. Well, the family was large by most standards, six kids. Slightly above average for Utah.
But what made them unique were the accents. The Cantor family was from England. Not just Britain, but the mother country itself. Well, actually it mostly was the dad. The kids were fairly Americanized. . .except for the ties.
We’re a church going neighborhood. And it’s a traditional church, white shirts and ties, even for the young men. The Cantor men and boys wore bow ties.
Terry was my son’s age, twelve. He was the new kid, his family “wasn’t from around here,” and he wore bow ties.
What do you think happened to Terry?
Not what I expected.
A lot is made of the influence a single negative person can have in an organization. Sports teams talk about “the cancer in the clubhouse.” Managers will interview for “team fit” and pass on an otherwise qualified person if they don’t think the candidate will fit in with their coworkers.
Less is made of the positive influencers. Every team wants a positive influence, of course. But, they often get them more by accident than by design. A team, either sports or business can identify the influence of a negative person and act accordingly, typically by getting rid of the person. They spend less time identifying the positive influences a person can bring and trying to cultivate it.
But the influence can be dramatic. It’s nearly impossible to quantify. Does a team with positive influencers perform better? Absolutely. Can I tell you why? How? Not really. But, I’ve seen the difference. Maybe it’s because people work better when they like each other. Maybe they do a better job of watching each other’s backs.
A funny thing happens when you have a positive influencer. People change. When an influencer starts to pay better attention to detail, your team becomes known as a team that pays attention to detail. And when they become known as a team that pays attention to details, they BECOME a team that pays attention to details. Attention to detail, or engineering discipline, or superior craftsmanship, or whatever the influencer brings spreads.
And they often don’t even know they are doing it, neither the influencer nor the influenced. It just becomes the new normal. Such is the power of a positive influence.
Terry didn’t get teased. He didn’t get ridiculed. In fact a strange thing happened.
Dad, do you have a tie I can borrow?
You’ve got several ties.
Do you have a bow tie?
Bow ties became very popular among the young men in our congregation.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Bonus points if you know where I quoted the title from without Googling it. I’ll answer it below.
I want to talk about the future of technology a little. It’s a dangerous topic for a blogger. Because the internet is forever and whatever I say here will probably live on well past my opportunity to defend myself. I did manage to predict the future correctly once. (That Time I Predicted The Future. . .And I Was Totally Right.) I predicted that computers would be able to detect what drivers they needed to load at boot time.
I won a clock that looked like a floppy disk.
Today, I want to talk about power. We regularly have people come to our building from other locations. And I’ve noticed more and more they bring along their phone chargers. It’s a big deal to get to the conference room first, not so you can grab a great seat, but so you can grab the electrical outlet!.
Last time I rented a car, they offered to sell me a USB power adapter. I thought, “I’m not paying an extra $5 for that!” And I missed a meeting because I was driving and my phone died.
Here is a picture of two flashlights.
The one on the right is a mini Maglite(R) that takes two AAA batteries. The one on the left is completely solar powered. About now, some of you are feeling somewhat disappointed.
That’s it? Your big prediction is solar power? Sorry, Rodney you are about 40 years too late!
True, but no. The change I think we’ll see is a move to break the link to the power outlet. Earlier this year a 16 year old named Ann Makosinski in Vancouver Canada took second place in her high school science fair. However, a few months later she won a $25,000 scholarship from Google for the exact same invention. What was it? A flashlight.
Not just any flashlight, this flashlight took no batteries. It didn’t depend on solar power. It gets it power by people holding it. Think about that a minute. You pick up the flashlight and it turns on and stays on as long as you hold it.
(On a side note, you have to wonder what the guy that took first in her high school science fair invented? Cold fusion?)
Ann and the resulting stories talk about what a benefit this flashlight will be to people around the world without electricity. And it will be.
But, Google doesn’t make flashlights. I think they envision a day that your handheld devices get their energy from your hand.
My prediction is that smartphones will eventually get their energy from human contact augmented by solar power.
I think we will eventually see phones that you never have to plug in.
BTW, the quote I borrowed for the title of this column comes from Otto Octavius in Spiderman 2.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Sometimes you stumble upon a treasure you weren’t even looking for. That was my experience with “The Power of Nice” by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval. I found it discarded on a book shelf at my new job. Apparently left by a previous occupant. Or simply overlooked.
Jay Leno writes the introduction to “The Power of Nice.” It’s a short introduction for a short book. He captures the essence of both the book and the message in the first paragraph. “[Y]ou cannot eat the whole pie or you’ll make yourself sick. Eat some, and then give whatever is left over to other people.”
The Kaplan Thaler Group is one of the nation’s fastest growing advertising agencies. At least that’s what it says in their book. Personally, I don’t know a lot about advertising agencies. I like to think I do know a thing or two about being nice. And I think Thaler and Koval got it right.
At 119 pages, their book is easy to get through. But, it would be a mistake to dismiss their message as overly simplistic. They lay out an approach of how business can be conducted based on the principle of being nice.
They break down the approach into what the book calls “The Six Power of Nice Principles.”
#1. Positive impressions are like seeds
#2. You never know
#3. People change
#4. Nice must be automatic
#5. Negative impressions are like germs
#6. You will know
I was struck by parallelism the authors built into their list. Positive == seeds. Negative == germs. You never know — you will know. And right in the middle is the idea that people change and you can’t fake nice. The authors take the rest of the book to explain how to apply the lessons. They include “Nice Cube exercises” that are designed to help you put into practice the lessons they are teaching.
The authors bring the story back to the pie metaphor. And it’s aroma wafts through pages and chapters: Bake a bigger pie; Sweeten your pie. And throughout all of it the simple message that we all learned as toddlers: play nice.
We’d all be better off if there was more nice in the world. The more people who read “The Power of Nice” and follow its principles the nicer.
What I liked
As you probably gathered, I liked this little book: a lot. In addition to metaphors about pie, the authors sprinkle the chapters with personal stories and anecdotes to illustrate their points. It helps that I believed in the power of nice before I ever read this book. The message traces its origins back to Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends And Influence People.” It’s found in the message of the Arbinger’s group “The Anatomy of Peace.” I stumbled on “The Power of Nice” by accident. I’ll return to it by choice.
What I Didn’t
I understood what the authors were trying to accomplish with the Nice Cube exercises. But, they often missed the mark. They were overly simplistic and didn’t always match up with the message. The book would have been just as good, or better without the Nice Cubes.
What it means to you
You don’t need a book to tell you to be nice. I’m sure your mother taught you that, like my mother taught me the first time I hit my brother over the head with an action figure. What “”The Power of Nice” will help you do is to connect those lessons from when you were kid with business situations. And Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval will keep you entertained as they explain what you really already knew. Being nice really is the best policy.
4 out of 5 Stars
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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How much does a knife cost?
That’s like asking “how deep is the ocean.” The answers are the same: it depends.
I’ve been involved with Boy Scouts and camping all my life. I’ve owned dozens of knives. I currently own at least ten. But it was only recently that I really started to understand the tool I had been carrying around in my pocket for decades.
(We’re going to get to photography, weddings and business, just stay with me a minute.)
Take a look at the two knives in this picture
If I offered to give you one, which would you pick? I’ll tell you the one on the left is several years old and the one on the right is brand new.
If you are like most people, you wouldn’t really have a clue which was the better knife. The one on the left is a Kershaw 1660CKT (Ken Onion Design.) The one on the right is made by Ozark Trail.
Still confused? Let me clear it up and relate it to yesterday’s discussion of a fake photographer (The Bad Penny.) The knife on the left cost $50, the one on the right, $2.
Okay, now you know that the one on the left is more valuable, but you probably don’t know why. And that’s my point with trying to judge areas you are not an expert. Often even when you are informed which is more valuable you don’t really know why.
Yesterday I talked about a guy who tried to pass himself off as a professional wedding photographer by stealing a bunch of pictures from more famous photographers. The point is that while I was researching that story, I had to acknowledge that I don’t really understand what makes a good wedding photographer. To me, the fake and the pro look kind of similar. Just as the two knives probably looked pretty similar to you.
My sister-in-law is a great photographer (Shannon Wilkinson Photography.) I asked her about quality and if that is a distinguishing factor.
But don’t you think this mentality also helps those who DO put in the time and effort? If you think McDonalds represents fine dining and then you have a chance to eat at a five star restaurant, you notice that THIS is so much better than THAT.
I think that in the end, no. At least not in this industry. Yes there are those who are looking for the finest but that is because they can see and appreciate the difference between the photographer who gives you 100 images on a disk for $25 and the photographer who charges you $1000 per print. We have become a people who are looking for the best bargain. We are a nation of price matching and Walmart. There are very few people anymore who live by the adage you get what you pay for.
Interestingly, I bought the $2 knife at Walmart.
But, think Shannon has it slightly wrong. Maybe it’s the difference between photography and tech fields.
I’ve been in the IT business for 25 years. It’s one of the few areas that I have some level of expertise. In the tech world you can only get by so long on a song and dance and a smooth pitch. Eventually you have to actually do something. I had a discussion with an engineer at my company today talking about one of our corporate partners.
Their IT folks really aren’t that technical. They talk like they are, but their knowledge is pretty thin. Dale, however is more technical than all of them.
Dale in IT?
No, Dale the contractor.
And that’s the key. If you are going to work as a contractor, especially a gun-for-hire who moves from project to project you’d better be very good at what you do. It’s insanely easy to fire a contractor.
I’ve been privileged to work with some of the people at the very top of their profession in IT. And the difference between the $50 knife and the $2 knife is not only obvious to those who are involved in IT, it’s absolutely worth hiring the more expensive person. Like Shannon said, “You get what you pay for.”
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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I was going to call this post “The Pedophile, The Comedian, The Englishman” . . .And The Photographer. Back in August, when I told the story of Scott Lee Russell AKA Scotty Lee AKA Chaz Blackwood, I thought it was a good example of the wrong way to reinvent yourself. And I thought that would be the last we’d hear about Scotty/Chaz.
But, like a bad penny, he’s back.
This time he’s world famous photographer Chaz Ahlstrom. Like he did last year, Chaz went all out. He created webpages “Catchy Title Photography.” He created facebook pages, Google+ pages, Twitter accounts, flkr accounts.
And just like last time, someone who actually knows something about the field he’s trying to steal from found him out. The photographers are just as upset as the comics were back in August. The folks at Stop Stealing Photos did a story on him.
I was a fair photographer when I was younger with my Pentax K1000. Since the dawn of the digital age, I pretty much take pictures with my iPad and hope that I don’t have to edit them more than the iPad Photos app supports.
But, photographers, like all artists have their own styles and jealously guard their intellectual property. In comedy, the second worst thing you can do is steal jokes, (The first is to not be funny.) In photography, stealing another’s work is simply not tolerated.
Shannon Wilkinson is my sister-in-law. She’s also a brilliant photographer. (Shannon Wilkinson Photography) I asked her how you know if someone is stealing your photos.
There are a lot of ways that people find out. Stealing images is rampant in this industry. Once you are more well known people just recognize your work and tell you. I have had mine stolen a couple of times. I now copyright everything. There are websites set up just for people who steal images such as Photostealers.
There are sites you can check too. Google image search is one. Tineye is another or you can do an srj search of your images. I do it regularly now.
Turns out that Scotty or Chaz only wanted to steal from the best. One of the artists he steals from is a guy named Jerry Ghionis, a pretty well known photographer.
Just as the comics did last summer, the photographers have taken it upon themselves to run Chaz off the web. They have reached out to everyone connected with him professionally or personally and let them know the sordid story, the underage “models,” the fake comedian, the lies and the criminal record.
It makes you think “What would you do?” Or, what would you recommend Scott do if you were to talk to him? He seems to want to reinvent himself, but just keeps doing it the wrong way.
And just as I did in August, I think the real problem here is that Scott wants the shortcut. He wants the easy way. Why not just take someone else’s pictures until you can come up with good ones on your own?
There is no substitute for hard work. You might win the lottery and you get a bunch of money, but that’s not really success. Most lottery winners blow through all their winnings in just a few years. However, if you work and you do the hard things to build wealth, or a reputation, or a skill like photography or comedy, the process of getting to your goal helps ensure you aren’t going to blow it.
I expect we’ll see Scotty pop up again in a year or two with a new character. But, so long as he attempts to take a short cut to the top, he’ll once again be found out and once again be hounded off the net. There isn’t a shortcut to the top. Maybe someday he’ll finally figure that out.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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It’s stupid.
Why?
Because no one even notices.
Yeah, but we notice.
Our company had a dress code (Your Company Has A Uniform Even If It Doesn’t Have A Dress Code.) White shirts and ties. Yes, like IBM from the 1950’s.
Lots of people hated it. (Marine Covers and Church Ties) But, for me it wasn’t a big deal. I knew when I applied that there was a dress code and I was fine with it. I was definitely in the minority. I’m not sure if people objected to the actual white shirt, or if it was being told what they had to wear.
In fact, it was so controversial, or simply so hated, that when the head of the company came to speak to the IT department about our move to a new building several miles from headquarters someone asked him about it.
So, when we move to the new building are we going to change the dress code?
Actually, I think we are planning to change the dress code.
(Applause)
We’re planning to make you dress up a little more.
(Wild Applause)
They actually did change the dress code in the new building to business casual.
But, I want to talk about an experiment I tried with my messaging team before we moved. There’s not much originality possible with a white shirt, but a tie is changeable. It gives the wearer an opportunity for self expression.
I have an idea for the team.
Yeah Rodney? What is it.
I think we should all wear red ties on Thursdays.
Why?
As a sort of “This is the Messaging Team” statement.
Are we going to tell anyone?
No.
So, it’s a silent statement?
What I was trying to do was to turn the white shirts and ties from a point of scorn to a point of pride. Funny thing, all my engineers started wearing red ties on Thursdays. One even went out and bought a new tie because he didn’t have a red one. Maybe they were doing it because I asked them to, but our relationship was such that they could tell me no without any fear of reprisals.
By picking our own uniform, we were actually choosing individuality in the midst of conformity. I didn’t want them to tell anyone else in the department partly because I didn’t want the entire floor wearing red on Thursdays, and also because sharing a secret, even if it’s a benign secret helps to pull a team together.
Eventually people figured it out. It’s not like we were hiding it, but we just didn’t volunteer the information.
Within your team, look for the opportunity to give them a common identity. Not everyone responds to being part of a team, but many employees do. Even those who refuse to wear the red tie on Thursday are still going to have the benefit of sharing a secret with the rest of the team.
In the mean time, watch for the red ties on Thursdays. Those guys are part of the club.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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In a different setting they would be a scary looking bunch of kids. Forty-three teenagers with tattoos, piercings, long hair, and on many of the boys, beards. You might be tempted to make a guess at their background based on their looks, and for the most part you’d be right. These were the screw-ups. The ones that euphemistically could be described as “making other choices,” “taking a different path.” Many had police records; misdemeanors, but, more serious charges as well. There were several teen mothers. . .and fathers. They were all shapes and sizes, black, white, Latino, Polynesian, short, fat, tall, thin.
But, here they weren’t dangerous looking. In this place, they were laughing and smiling. The girls hugging one another, the guys giving fist bumps and shoulder hugs.
Today was graduation day. These were the graduating seniors of Alpine Summit Programs. Or, as they all knew it “Summit High School.”
I admit I came with low expectations. Of course we need to give all kids a chance to be educated, but these were the kinds of kids who are typically keeping others from learning. If they were in state custody, chances were good that their study skills were poor. These are the ones who run through the system on autopilot, being passed off from one grade to the next until they are finally exited the educational system with a diploma earned by force of momentum.
The first surprise was the youth speakers. Well, after a totally cool drum line got the entire place jumping with energy. And a combination student/advisor rock band did a great cover of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” The speakers talked about what the school meant to them. And they were really good speakers. They drew on personal experiences and personal challenges to express their appreciation for the staff and each other. These kids were not what I expected.
And then they started talking about the awards. Not special “at risk youth” type awards. The Presidential Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement requires a student maintain a 3.5 GPA, that they be nominated by a teacher, that they show a dedication to learning. Twenty of these prestigious awards were handed out.
The Presidential Award For Outstanding Academic Excellence requires a student be recommended by a teacher, they achieve 90% attendance, that they show leadership, and that they maintain a 3.8 GPA. Seventeen students earned this award.
Alpine Summit Programs serves kids of all ages in the Alpine school district. Many “summit kids” attend mainstream schools. Orem Middle School, in Orem Utah has over 1000 students. The student body each year votes to recognize one student in each discipline (English, science, history, etc.) as their student of the year. This year, the student voted as Orem Middle School Science student of the year wasn’t even a student of Orem Middle School. He was a Summit kid.
Clearly I had underestimated them. . .a lot. Every student at Summit qualified for at least a partial college scholarship.
The emotional high point of the evening was the presentation of the Summit Awards. The Summit Award is the highest award and honor the school can bestow on one of it’s students. The award isn’t necessarily for academics. And it’s not exactly a citizenship award. It might be called the “Overcoming” award.
The first recipient was one of the young women who had so impressively spoken earlier about her gratitude for the faculty. Turns out she grew up in a single parent home with a drug addicted mother. This young woman was responsible for parenting her younger siblings, for getting them fed and dressed and off to school, sometimes missing school herself because she had to fulfill duties beyond her years.
She tried keeping her family running while also trying, begging, her mother to get the help she needed. She came to summit not as a punishment, not as a screw-up, but as a child who’s first chance had been spent helping others. Summit gave her a second chance and she grabbed it and ran with it.
The second recipient was born into a South American drug culture. From the earliest age she dealt with unimaginable abuse; physical, sexual, emotional and psychological. She had witnessed unimaginable horrors at an age when most little girls were only concerned with barbies and cartoons. Like the other recipient, this young woman found herself enlisted into a surrogate parental role before even becoming a teenager. Her path to Summit, while different than the first was not unlike many of other classmates.
I admit I cried many times throughout the evening. I had come to support graduates for whom I assumed high school graduation might represent the pinnacle of their life’s accomplishments. I left with the realization that the graduates, many of them, already had accomplishments far beyond a mere high school diploma.
These are still at risk youth. Their odds of attending or completing college are still long. But, these are the survivors. These are the fighters, not in a physical sense, although many have a history of that. But these are the ones who didn’t give up. One young woman described Summit as the school for second chances.
These kids are showing that given a second chance in life, they’ll take it.
Best of luck and Godspeed to the 43 graduates who are the Summit High School class of 2014.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Rodney, we need you to create a second mailbox for our senior Vice President.
Why?
Well, customers have figured out his email address and they are flooding his mailbox.
How will a new mailbox help?
We won’t tell anyone the address for the new mailbox.
Yeah, that will work until he sends his first email. Listen, we’ve got some pretty smart email administrators on my team. I think we can figure out how to give him what he wants and still be able to manage his mail.
Really? How?
We’ll just send all his email to the spam folder.
When you want something done, it’s always best to tell your employees WHAT results you want, not HOW to do it. If you just give them the goal, they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
Part of the problem with being The Smartest Guy In The Room is that you rule out other potentially good ideas. It’s a problem I run into a lot as a Project Manager. My role is not to actually solve technical problems. My role is to make sure we have the right people involved to solve the technical issues.
We solved the SVP issues, but not the way his staff assumed we would.
Why can’t you just give him a new mailbox?
Because we’ll be having this same conversation three months from now. When the second mailbox is full and he wants a third.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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I didn’t know the deceased. In fact, I’d never seen him before. But, I was here to help render him an honor as a brother. An honor that I hoped someone would render me when it comes my time to go.
The departed was a Mason.
Yes, that secretive shadowy “take over the world” organization. I’m a member of Story Lodge #4 in Provo, Ut. The members of lodge were here in suits and white gloves to perform the Masonic burial rights. Not everything we do is secret. In fact, most of it is perfectly fine to discuss and the few parts that aren’t? Well, the internet is full of stuff, some correct, most less so.
Anyway, we were here to honor our dear brother. In addition to being a Mason, he was also a veteran. The VFW honor guard also came to pay their respects and render him the final salute. The words spoken as the guard hands the folded flag to the widow always make me choke up a little
On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Marine Corps, and a grateful Nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.
The bugler was masterful as the lonely notes of taps floated over the hushed crowd. The crack of the rifles split the air like a thunderbolt.
As the service concluded the VFW soldiers came over to greet us with a question
So, where are all the old guys?
What do you mean?
Normally when the Masons come to these things it’s a bunch of old guys.
And then it hit me.
I’ve been involved with computers for 30 years. I wrote my first program in high school in 1982. I wrote it on a TI99 and recorded it on cassette tape. When I went to work for WordPerfect in 1988 the basic job skill was “Can you touch type?” If you answered that correctly, you could go to work as a support engineer. (Back To Where It All Began.)
When I went to Microsoft in 1992, it was just at the start of the “gravy” years. I made a lot of money as the stock market and especially Microsoft stock took off for the stratosphere. It paid for a lot of adoptions.
Last year I was looking for a full time job. And I realized that computers were still a young man’s game, but I was no longer one of the young ones. I’ll be 50 this year. I can still pull an all nighter, but not two in a row. I realized that somewhere between the kids and the job and the relentless trips around the sun, I got old.
And it was much harder to get a job at 50 than it had been at 30 or even 40. I came to the realization that I’m closer to the end than the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up anytime soon. But, it was strange to realize that I’m now the old guy.
In fact that’s what I realized that day in the cemetery. The VFW guys asked us about “the old guys.” I looked around and realized that I was the oldest member of the lodge. I WAS the old guy.
It kind of surprised me a little . . .Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go yell at some kids to GET OFF MY LAWN!
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Hey Dave, why has Edward started wearing a suit?
You really don’t know?
No. It’s kind of weird, don’t you think?
You really are clueless sometimes.
I was president of RESMARK and it was the summer of 2008. I was traveling a lot meeting with clients and potential clients. Dave (HeartMindCode.com) was running the development efforts. I was somewhat disengaged from the day to day operations of the company.
When I was in town I tried to stay out of the way of the programmers and keep the investors from adding new features. One time I came back from a trip and noticed our youngest programmer was suddenly dressing better. . .sort of.
Have you ever seen someone in a suit who isn’t used to wearing one? They always look slightly uncomfortable. I typically dress in slacks and a pressed shirt. It fits whether you are president of a startup or project manager for a large telecommunication company.
Dave, came to me one time and asked me about changing his style of dress. I gave him some pointers about slacks and polo shirts, or pressed shirts.
But, Dave the most important part is you have to feel comfortable in the clothes.
Okay.
They have to be like a second skin. Not in terms of tight fitting, although they should fit well, but you should be completely relaxed in them. The only way I know to that if you aren’t used to it is to wear them all day. Wear them from the time you get up until you get ready for bed. Eventually, you’ll get to the point they feel natural and you will stop looking awkward in them.
A few weeks ago I talked about Your Company Has A Uniform Even If It Doesn’t Have A Dress Code. And by that I mean that you dress the part. Programmers typically dress in jeans or shorts, and a t-shirt that they got for free at a computer convention. Baseball caps are optional depending on how much hair they have left.
Edward was not comfortable in his suit. And honestly, I don’t think I would have been either. It was a gold four button suit. And it was slightly too big for him.
At first I really couldn’t understand what he was doing. I even asked if He Had A Dentist Appointment.
Dave finally clued me in.
He’s you.
Huh?
He sees the way you dress and he’s trying to copy it.
But, I don’t dress like that.
Thank goodness!
I might have been flattered, I suppose. But, really I was a little creeped out. He was a programmer. He should dress like a programmer. But, in retrospect, he was doing his best to try to put into practice some of the management lessons I shared with the team.
We all have Edwards in our organizations. In my current company we recently launched a call center for a really big client. The president of the company sent a congratulatory email, and she sent it to a wide range of people. It meant a lot to me. I printed it and it’s hanging on my cubicle wall.
One of the people on the email responded and said, “Thank you for the email. If I can help with other aspects of this project, please just let me know.”
Yeah, he was sort of brown nosing. But, I completely understood what his motivation was. At a previous company we hired an intern named Mike. He got the job because the senior VP of our company was speaking to Mike’s computer science class at BYU. After the speech Mike went up to him and said, “I’d like to go to work for you. Do you guys need an intern?”
The senior VP didn’t need an intern. But, I did, and eventually the offer came to me. Not only did I get his resume, but I got an email from the senior VP saying, “Do we have a spot for this guy?” With that kind of a recommendation? You can bet we looked at him. He was one of the best interns we ever had.
Once I figured out what Edward was doing, it eventually became a little less creepy. After all, he was only trying to do what I’d taught him.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children and one grandchild.
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