Travels etc.

Meetings are important part of the business activity. Our basic need to communicate is topped by necessity to deliver meaningful results at workplace. As usual though reality is not as rosy as the ideal that many of us trying to achieve with meetings. What is a good work-related pastime for one is at the same moment a time wasting and useless activity to another. This contradiction is coming from a few factors (among other things): 1.     Core difference in perception of meetings between different levels of workplace hierarchy or among committee/board members 2.     Meeting audiences and agendas 3.     Involvement and focus level of participants during the meetings Therefore usually instead of being an effective business or private processing tool, meetings become the opposite. There is an opportunity to adjust existing practices to meet new expectations of the work related activities to be more productive and fun....

There is usually two distinct perspectives on multi-tasking: 1. Multitasking is counterproductive. We get distracted by multiple tasks that all get our way and fight for our scarce attention, time and resources. This leads to a common fallacy that if you do multiple activities “at a time” you are not doing good work in any of those. 2. Multitasking is a way of getting many things done in a short period of time or in a long run. Indeed it can be either a disaster or a great helper depending on how it is used and practiced. Most recent research shows that we don’t do multiple tasks purely in parallel or simultaneously. That means we don’t purely multi-task, but switch between tasks and execute them one at a time, but by spending very small timeframes on each task. A good example from the history is a story about Julius Caesar capabilities in that area. Plutarch writes, “Caesar disciplined himself so far as to be able to dictate letters from on horseback, and to give directi...

Review of employee performance or enquiry about it is necessary. It is important from the business process perspective. However usually some critical items are missing from the picture: a) Clear metrics of performance; b) Communicating to the employees what is their career path or responsibility-compensation evolution; c) Information about necessary skills or competencies the employee is missing to reach potential role within organisation. At my first ever interview with a huge multinational software company in 2001 when I just finished university as a Software Engineer, one of the questions I still remember was "How many lines of code have you ever written?" I didn't know exactly and estimated it as approximately 10,000. The interview was unsuccessful, but I presume not only because of that reason. If I had this question at an interview again I'd reply to an interviewer with a proposal like "Would you also like to know how many lines of code I delet...

It’s hard to underestimate importance of planning. It is (or should be) integral part of any conscious activity that requires more than 1 step and implies a target. Especially when we deal with complex processes of various kinds. Contemporary prejudice about planning is that it’s only relevant to big projects like construction, IT, space exploration, military operations, massive production etc. However any activity that involves setting up a goal and steps to achieve it requires planning. Why is it necessary? Because we need to: 1. Estimate approximate date/time to reach the goal 2. Understand what/who is required to achieve the goal 3. Measure success or failure 4. Review and adjust the plan if needed. So planning may help not only at work, but also in personal life which will in turn positively influence our so-called work-life balance. Planning should only serve one purpose – reaching as close as possible to the target. Very often this idea is being overlooked and burie...

- "Should I buy those gloves?" - "How much are they?" - "$70" - "Hmm, that’s too expensive" A couple was in a tiny store in the centre of Sydney buying discounted uggs and other sheepskin apparel. $70 was a significant amount for them especially comparing to the prices of other goods in the store. In about a week she decided to buy them though. They returned back to that shop, bought the gloves and she was very excited. The excitement continued with a shopping spree at Paddy’s Market in Chinatown market which is very famous for low prices. They bought some clothes, souvenirs and other things. All those other purchases however were not as precious to her as the gloves she was aiming to buy at the beginning and were the main goal of the second trip. Back at home they started unpacking the stuff and realised they lost the gloves somewhere. It doesn’t matter whether the price level or the value of all these movements back and forth just...

Some interesting ideas from the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith regarding big capital: "The trade of a joint-stock company is always managed by a court of directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects, to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part of these proprietors seldom pretend to understand any thing of the business of the company ; and when the spirit of faction happens not to prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it , but receive contentedly such halfyearly or yearly dividend as the directors think proper to make to them." "The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own , it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not ...

Dialog between me and the manager that happened in the past. The department manager who reports to another manager who reports to director - all sit in the same office space and see each other well. Massive well-known company. Manager : You're gonna be careful. John The Manager said you spend too much time on Facebook. Me : I know, but I have been working on the marketing campaign that we are implementing using Facebook and that you approved last week for me to do. Manager : Hmm, good then. I will tell him. Thanks. Curtains.