The Measure Of A Manager

How can a manager know that they're any good at what they do? The manager's manager will rarely see what they do on a daily basis, they just get the end results. And the people that are supervised will very likely never give their honest opinion for fear of reprisal. So the manager ends up in this nebulous zone within which they as they please and think as they wish, with no real feedback.

The easiest and most common measuring stick is the end results. The big deadlines, the ongoing projects, the new initiatives, the paperwork, the meetings. As long as those goals are met and they look good, that's all that we ask.

And the means to that end? Bah! It's too hard to measure easily and superficially. Threaten the employees, intimidate them, use sarcasm and derision, "constructive" criticism, expect unpaid overtime, withhold the next pay raise, etc. Whatever gets the job done, right?

There's still the tell-tale sign of employee turnover, but we can attribute that to the employees being selfish and immature. There is the option of the ominous Exit Interview but that requires a certain degree of trust, honesty, openness and genuine curiousity. Plus, it's uncomfortable to do, so it's easier to just let people leave and draw our own conclusions.

By definition, most people hover around the average. Most managers are average, most employees are average, most results are average. It's much harder to develop or find superstars in the professional market. It follows that most managers are merely adequate in their roles, and yet most of them don't realize this.

Many managers are simply promoted from another job, and no realizes that the skills of management are entirely different than their previous skills. And that experience and talent that they may have had as a programmer really doesn't translate into making people feel good about their jobs and not exhausting the talent. It's assumed that natural instinct and clever ideas are enough, so managers don't bother to research or study or assess themselves in any meaningful way.

The biggest problem with a bad manager is that they do not realize that they're bad. The biggest problem with an average manager is that they think they are good. Only the best managers continue to grow and become even better, recognizing their own weaknesses and strengths, whilst the rest become accustomed to the status quo.

Actually, that's incorrect. Poor managers aren't just accustomed to the status quo. They actually like it, and like it a lot. They will defend the status quo with every political and psychological trick in the book, even at the expense of everything else.

If you're a good manager, you will look for real feedback. You will want an honest reflection of your professional skills and the opinions of those with whom you work. You want to see the mirror clearly and won't be satisfied with anything less.

Movie Jerk

You know how you can be in a movie theatre and there's that one obnoxious person right behind you that cheers and claps and laughs like a fool throughout the movie?

Heh. Yeah, that's me.

I don't know when this habit of mine started. I distinctly remember a time when I was extremely well behaved in a movie theatre, quiet as a mouse and only laughing politely. Hmmm...

I seem to remember watching one of the most recent Star Wars at the theatres. Beforehand, I was standing in line for two and a half hours with other geeks and anticipating the greatness of these new movie. And once Yoda started flipping around during his main fight scene, and the crowd cheered loudly in unison...yeah, that was a great moment.

And more recently than that, I remember watching The Protector. The audience, mostly made up of guys, was blown away by the Bruce Lee styled fight at the end as the protaganist brutally beat down wave after wave of henchmen. Much cheering ensued once we caught our breath, so it really got a reaction out of us.

So thanks to a few of these big blockbusters and action movies, I have experienced some amazing movies that really drew a response from everyone in the theatre. And from this, I think that I gradually lost a lot of my inhibitions as a movie viewer.

So now I'm that guy that randomly cheers a cool stunt. The one that claps repeatedly after an awesome fight scene. The one that laughs uproariously at the hilarious jokes, and the one that laughs way too much at things that are only slightly amusing. I'm the one that exclaims something when the rest of the theatre is completely quiet, when I'm surprised by a plot twist or I really enjoy some subtlety of the scene. And I'm the guy that makes a none-too-quiet comment after I see an exciting movie trailer before the feature presentation starts.

I have always enjoyed movies quite thoroughly and I often try to see a movie on the opening weekend. And now that this hobby of mine is interactive, I like watching movies even more. I offer no apologies if I'm that annoying guy right behind you, all I can offer is an invitation to you to enjoy the movie as much as I do. So that's me, the movie jerk extraordinaire. :)

Spiritual Life Support

Currently, I'm a participant in three different churches.

As a formal member of Glad Tidings Assembly, I was involved in cell group with the church for three years. I play percussion and sing backup vocals for the worship team, several times a month. I'm also an annual member of the Christmas Choir and I have been involved in a few other ministries.

I also attend Open Door Christian Fellowship. I am involved with the Young Adults group there since GTA has little for me in that regard. I've been doing that for two and a half years now, and last year I was co-leader of the worship for YA as well.

Finally, I have recently started attending Saturday evening services at North Park Community Church. That's because of my fiance, and I go to Alpha with her here as well.

So I'm a member of three churches at the moment, and I'm fairly busy with each one. Come January, I am seriously considering cutting back and simply joining my fiance Cam at North Park for Saturday evening services and not doing anything else at all, as far as ministry goes. I don't know if I can actually last for very long without being involved with a music team at church but that's what I am considering right now.

You know what I am thinking about, though? I'm wondering what my spiritual life will be like at that point. As it now stands, I don't do enough daily Bible reading or prayer or private worship for my liking. Once I ditch all of these church activities, I wonder if I'll be hit with the sudden shock of how dependant my spiritual health is on my official church programs.

Is the church my spiritual life support? Is my personal faith in God just surviving because I go to all of these events and ministries? Is it like a respirator in a hospital that keeps me breathing, and I don't even use my own lungs anymore? Where is the depth and meaning in my own private time with God, where is the passion and purpose within my soul? Is my personal relationship with Jesus being killed by an unknown and hidden cancer?

I suspect that I am that dying man, lying in the hospital as the respirator pumps up and down while my heartbeat just barely keeps beeping. I suspect that church has made me dependant on this machine and I will struggle to live on my own without it. And I suspect that this is the case for a lot of other people in church these days...

Mumbly Joe

I have the particular habit of mumbling. In my head, my voice is clear enough but too often people miss what I am saying. It seems to be a combination of being too quiet, having a bass voice and not enunciating properly.

Near as I can figure, this is my response to having a very loud family. With three kids running around our house, plus a menagerie of animals, volume was a given. My parents and my siblings each have impressive pipes, too.

If you're arguing, the best tactic is to raise your voice, right? And if other people are speaking, we get louder to compensate. And if the television is on or the music is blaring, we can easily shout those down. Historically, my family would do this even when we were in the car on long trips, or especially in those cases, much to my father's annoyance. And then he would raise his voice even more to tell us to be quiet. It's ironical or something...

So I very intentionally have developed these quiet speaking patterns. Not that I don't have the ability to be the loudest one in the room. I often am, especially if I'm laughing at something. And while singing or acting, I can certainly project my voice with ease. However, I have cultivated a persona of self-control and calm in many situations, and keeping my voice low is an aspect of that.

Just call me Mumbly Joe. (Ten points if you know that reference...)

Pictures Of God

Do you know the story of King David and the prophet Nathan? It's in 2 Samuel 12, and Nathan uses a parable to confront David's sin of adultery with Bathsheba.

I recently noticed that I tend to keep this image of God in my head. Anytime I have a sin for which I have not repented, I briefly worry that God will send somebody to prophecy over me, revealing my sin and demanding my repentance. He'll just uncover my deeply hidden sin and let someone call me on it.

I don't really think that this is God's usual gameplan, nor do I think that he is a particularly judgmental guy that just wants to crush people. I know that God loves me, I know that Jesus died for me, I know that sin hurts him and it hurts me, and I know that God just wants what is best for me.

And yet, the very fact that this minor concern pops into my head may indicate something about my view of God. Why would such a dramatic image have stuck with me for all of these years? Usually it doesn't have any real effect on me, other than to remind me that I do need to repent. I usually dismiss that condemnation and guilt and instead try to come back to God honestly and ask for real forgiveness.

What about you? Do you have any images or worries or ideas that define your view of God? Do you innately assume that God shares a lot of characteristics with your biological father? Do you interpret life through a coloured lens of who God is to you? Sometimes these things are not obvious, like this subtle fear I have that keeps cropping up. Sometimes it's a more obvious thing, where we directly claim that God is a jerk or whatever.

So what is your picture of God?

Pile It On

In the average company, work piles up like the laundry and dishes pile up in our homes. The clients keep calling and calling and the deadlines continue to march down upon us. It doesn't matter how many people you spoke to or how many problems you have resolved, there's always another person and a new problem. Um, not to compare clients to dirty dishes and smelly clothes but you get the point. It's a never-ending flow of work.

So what does the average company and the average manager do? Piles it on. These are all things that have to get done, and someone has to do them, so it might as well be...you!

Sure, we know that you're crazy busy and it's a miracle that you're keeping up with everything so far. That's a testament to your talent and how good you are. And logically, since you're keeping up with everything now, and you're so good at what you do, you should be able to handle just a bit more. Right?

So we add to the workload of our best employees, while we let the lesser employees stay as they are because we can't quite trust them with these new tasks. And we assign the jobs that nobody wants to the employees that won't complain, and those just happen to be our best employees, too. And we see how good our best employees are, so we want to reward them and use them to oversee the lesser employees, so we give them the grunt work of daily supervision and reporting as well.

And eventually, our best employees leave. One after another after another. And we stand amazed that people of such talent and dedication and desire couldn't cut it. Apparently they weren't quite as good as we thought, otherwise they would never have complained and they would never leave.

As an employee, we need to understand the limits of what we can do. We need to have a clear idea about how much is too much. We need to stand up and defend our time, to challenge the idea that we can cram three days into one. We need to assert ourselves, lay out everything that we have on our schedule, and get those priorities straight or get some work reassigned to someone else. Staying late regularly to finish that last project and meet that last deadline is a fool's errand and it will never end.

As a manager, we need to be the strongest defender of our employee resources. We need to be the ones that analyze the workload. We need to see that it's too much for any one person to handle, and we need to see overwhelming work coming ahead of time. We need to add extra staff, reassign extra work or defer some of the tasks. We need to take on the grunt work of reports and time consuming meetings so that our employees spend their time efficiently on the important things. And we need to decide what the important things are, since so much of what a business does every day amounts to so very little. Clear away the needless stuff, remove all of the obstacles and let our employees do what they do best.

The work isn't going to go away. We can keep on working hard and long, like a dog digging a hole, or we can find a better way to bury that bone.

The Boss

How did the "boss" get his name?

From the fact that at one time he had complete authority over his workers and could thrash them at will. "Boss" comes from the Old High German word bozan which means " to beat."

Source: "Why Do We Say It? The stories behind the words, expressions and cliches that we use." By Castle Books, no author.

Always With The Laughs

"I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral.
Can't understand what I mean?
Well, you soon will."
One Week by Barenaked Ladies
I laugh at everything. Jokes, funny comments and puns? Always. Cartoons and comedies? I'll laugh louder than anyone else. The joys of life? Happy and hearty guffaws. The absurdities of life? Why not laugh? Insults, accusations, threats and anger? Mocking mirthfulness ensues. Disappointment, loss and heartache? Better to laugh than cry, I always say.

Even when I shouldn't laugh, I still do. Check that: Especially during the times when I shouldn't laugh, I still do. Everyone has their own defense mechanism, and mine seems to be laughter.

Uncomfortable situations make be giggle repeatedly. Someone yelling at me will draw a wry smile to my face, though I work to control that reaction since it only creates more of a problem. The best kind of bad situation will make me laugh, like this time when my van was broken into. The most annoying frustrations strike me as hilarious, like this time when I waited for the slowest train ever. And yes, I have indeed laughed at a funeral. Many times, in fact.

Laughter is my go-to move. It's my default reaction almost regardless of the situation. Sometimes it's just a subtle giggle, sometimes it's crazy laugh-to-the-sky hysterics. Sometimes it's for a good reason, sometimes it's not. I don't know how or why I developed this trait but it strikes me as funny. Of course.

I find it even more amusing to note the main defense mechanisms of my friends and family, especially in contrast to my own. Anger is a common response, along with all the mess that entails. Withdrawing and shutting down is another option I've seen. Dominating others or enforcing our independance can work fine sometimes. Some people have a million fears in any situation, some have a million tears. And while I rely on laughter so often, I've certainly used a couple of those other ones as well.

I love to laugh, and yet I find my own writing to be so bereft of humour. That's so odd...and it strikes me as funny. Heh.