This post is a collection of concise insights about organizational life. They're all original to me; they result from incidents in organizational life that I experienced myself, or which involved my clients. They aren't quotations, though it's certainly possible that others have made similar observations. Here they are, in no particular order.
- Including "Please" or "Thank you" is often helpful in everyday conversation. But in text or email, forgetting them can lead to utter disaster.
- Pronouns make everyday conversation easier. But in text or email they can create confusions that lead to delays, waste, and hurt feelings.
- We're always juggling big, important things along with trivial, nearly insignificant things. If you have to drop something, be certain you know which is which.
- Lack of sunlight can affect your mood and the moods of other living things.
- If you know that lack of sunlight affects your mood, take special care of yourself on cloudy days.
- When others strongly advocate for an action despite its obvious and severely negative consequences, consider the possibility that the obvious and severely negative consequences are the point.
- To the person questioned, a pointed question can feel like the beginning of an attack. Asking gentle, open-ended questions can often uncover the information you want with much less risk.
- Even though If you know that lack of sunlight
affects your mood, take special
care of yourself on cloudy daysorganizations aren't people, organizations can become addicted to harmful behaviors just like people can. - Hoping for a miracle might get you the result you want, but miracles are rare. Instead of hoping for a miracle, search for a realistic plan you can believe in. Then, if the miracle happens, great.
- To successfully resolve the matter at hand, assume that you'll need to know something you don't know yet.
- Procrastination is the best way to eliminate options you could have used if you hadn't procrastinated.
- First reports of bad news are often wrong in their details, but we can handle that. What's more dangerous is what first reports leave out. Ask about what the first reports left out.
- We can compensate for one team member making a mistake. And we can compensate for most team members making that same mistake. But we can't compensate for mistakes nobody recognizes as mistakes. Value dissent and show that you value it.
- Sticking with what you know clutters the mind much like hoarding junk clutters the home. Make room for new ideas by decluttering your mind.
- When you hear an especially juicy bit of workplace gossip, know that: 1) It's probably wrong in important ways, 2) You're among the last to hear it, and 3) You were OK not knowing it. Move on.
- Thinking about the here and now in terms of what the future holds is not thinking about the here and now. It's thinking about the future.
- When a kind of organizational resource becomes scarce enough, it gets even scarcer because people begin to hoard it to use as barter for future deals.
- In a meeting, when everyone "goes quiet," they might not be just afraid to speak the truth. Some might also be afraid to hear the truth.
- Experience teaches us how to anticipate obstacles in the path to our goal. Inexperience lets us set out for that goal before we see the obstacles. Sometimes inexperience is an asset.
- When we divide responsibility for a task across several people, we increase the total effort required, because we've increased the need for those people to communicate with each other. Communication is part of the job.
- We're more likely to do something right if we do it together.
- People in constructive conflict focus on addressing the issues. People in destructive conflict focus on attacking each other.
- Humans live long beyond childbearing years, in part, because we need our elders to live long enough to teach us what we are slow to learn.
- Some difficult decisions are difficult because all our choices require us to let go of something we don't want to let go of.
Last words
You probably have a collection like this, but maybe it isn't written down. Something magical happens for me when I write them down. I tend to remember them when I need them. If you haven't written down your collection, try it. First in this series Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Ethics at Work:
- Looking the Other Way
- Sometimes when we notice wrongdoing, and we aren't directly involved, we don't report it, and we don't
intervene. We look the other way. Typically, we do this to avoid the risks of making a report. But looking
the other way is also risky. What are the risks of looking the other way?
- When You Aren't Supposed to Say: I
- Most of us have information that's "company confidential," or possibly even more sensitive
than that. When we encounter individuals who try to extract that information, we're better able to protect
it if we know their techniques.
- When You Aren't Supposed to Say: II
- Most of us have information that's "company confidential," or possibly even more sensitive
than that. Sometimes people who try to extract that information use techniques based on misdirection.
Here are some of them.
- Personnel-Sensitive Risks: I
- Some risks and the plans for managing them are personnel-sensitive in the sense that disclosure can
harm the enterprise or its people. Since most risk management plans are available to a broad internal
audience, personnel-sensitive risks cannot be managed in the customary way. Why not?
- Online Ethics
- The array of media for exchanging our thoughts in text has created new opportunities for acting unethically.
Cyberbullying is one well-known example. But sending text is just one way to cross the line ethically.
Here are some examples of alternatives.
See also Ethics at Work and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming May 15: Should I Write or Should I Call?
- After we recognize the need to contact a colleague or colleagues to work out a way to move forward, we next must decide how to make contact. Phone? Videoconference? Text message? There are some simple criteria that can help with such decisions. Available here and by RSS on May 15.
- And on May 22: Rescheduling Collaborative Work
- Rescheduling is what we do when the schedule we have now is so desperately unachievable that we must let go of it because when we look at it we can no longer decide whether to laugh or cry. The fear is that the new schedule might come to the same end. Available here and by RSS on May 22.
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