Point Lookout: a free weekly publication of Chaco Canyon Consulting
Volume 19, Issue 31;   July 31, 2019: More Things I've Learned Along the Way: IV

More Things I've Learned Along the Way: IV

by

When I gain an important insight, or when I learn a lesson, I write it down. Here's Part IV from my personal collection. Example: When it comes to disputes and confusion, one person is enough.

When I learn something, or when I witness someone else learning something, I sometimes wish I had learned it long ago. If it could have saved me trouble, or led me somewhere I find appealing, I write it down. Here's another installment from my growing collection.

  • Professional relationships are like bank savings accounts. You can't make withdrawals until you've made enough deposits.
  • We are all imperfect. All of us. Even the people we admire and respect most. And that imperfection makes them no less worthy of admiration or respect.
  • Give slackers the room they need to fail. Helping them out of a jam just ensures that they'll be around long enough to depend on you to help them out of their next jam.
  • Not everyone who breaks the rules is evil or dangerous. But steer clear of people who break the rules solely for personal gain.
  • When it comes to disputes and confusion, one person is enough.
  • Using past achievements as a predictor of future performance is a great way to build a team of has-beens.
  • A happy dog The birds at the bird feeder take turns, but the bigger birds get more turns than the smaller birds do. Seemed a little unfair, until I realized that bigger birds need more food.
  • Some birds are just too big for some bird feeders. What seems like an advantage in some ways can come at a very high price.
  • Even if you don't plan for Reality, Reality will happen anyway.
  • I like podcasts, but they're pretty much the slowest way to learn anything.
  • Withholding bad news leaves space for people to make up what they don't know much about. What they make up is often worse than any bad news you can withhold.
  • Clutter isn't a reflection of the state of a person's mind. Some very confused people have really neat offices.
  • The quality of decisions that affect lots of people is correlated with the regard the decision makers have for those same people.
  • You You can't get a bully to stop
    bullying by explaining
    why bullying is bad
    can't get a bully to stop bullying by explaining why bullying is bad.
  • When bullies understand that disciplinary action will result if they continue to bully others, they don't stop bullying. They just get cleverer about it.
  • Loss may be painful, but sometimes it makes space in life for something new and wonderful.
  • When someone you know is in the grip of an addictive substance, beware. You might not be able to determine who's speaking — the person or the substance.
  • The worst thing about procrastination isn't that you eventually have to tackle whatever you deferred. It's that you lose the freedom to choose a good time to tackle it.
  • Getting too much email can create an overpowering urge to unsubscribe from good stuff just because it takes too long to read. Resist that urge. Instead, use email filtering more effectively, or unsubscribe from the chaff.
  • When I find myself doing something on a computer repeatedly, and very inconveniently, chances are good that I'm doing something either unnecessary or dumb. If it is necessary, and it's not dumb, there's almost surely a better way.
  • Sometimes a difficult problem has a very elegant solution. When that happens, what made solving the problem difficult wasn't the problem — it was my biases, prejudices, fears, or blindness to assumptions I was making.
  • Naming something is a long way from mastering it. But mastering something does require naming it. (See "The Nominal Fallacy at Work," Point Lookout for January 1, 2014.)
  • Brilliant explanations of subtle concepts are often the result of many refinements of less-than-brilliant explanations. Brilliant explanations are rarely born brilliant.

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.  Some Things I've Learned Along the Way First issue in this series   More Things I've Learned Along the Way: V Next issue in this series  Go to top Top  Next issue: Workplace Politics and Social Exclusion: I  Next Issue

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This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

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More articles on Ethics at Work:

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You're at lunch with one of your buddies, who's obviously upset. You ask why. "You have to promise not to tell a soul," is the response. You promise. And there the trouble begins.
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Avoiding the appearance of impropriety is a frequent basis of business decisions. What does this mean, what are the consequences of such avoiding, and when is it an appropriate choice?
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The Seinfeld character "George Costanza" is famous for having said, "It's not a lie if you believe it." What if you don't believe it and it's true? Some musings.
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The term "full disclosure" is now a fairly common phrase, especially in news interviews and in film and fiction thrillers involving government employees or attorneys. It also has relevance in the knowledge workplace, and nuances associated with it can affect your credibility.
The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)Red Flags: III
Early signs of troubles in collaborations include toxic conflict, elevated turnover, and anti-patterns in communication. But among the very earliest red flags are abuses of power. They're more significant than other red flags because abuses of power can convert any collaboration into a morass of destructive politics.

See also Ethics at Work and Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

A close-up view of a chipseal road surfaceComing July 3: Additive bias…or Not: II
Additive bias is a cognitive bias that many believe contributes to bloat of commercial products. When we change products to make them more capable, additive bias might not play a role, because economic considerations sometimes favor additive approaches. Available here and by RSS on July 3.
The standard conception of delegationAnd on July 10: On Delegating Accountability: I
As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.

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