Tag Archives: experience

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Maturity

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Individuals and groups who demonstrate they are at an advanced stage relative to their behaviour are typically classified as mature. Their experience influences their decisions in a positive way.

To some extent, maturity is related to age however variances in levels of maturity for individuals of the same age, or the age of a group – recent pr long running, can be wide so this is not an absolute measure.

Building Maturity

Maturity is a skill that can be embraced and developed proactively although it also  occurs by default.  That is, age will create a change in overall level of maturity.

The pace and magnitude of the change of the change can be influenced and the defaultor sub-conscious approach will not necessarily achieve the best results.

All of us can benefit by enhancing both our personal maturity as well as those of groups we participate in (e.g., the family group).  A key attribute of maturity is a well founded set of values

Encouraging Maturity

While self awarness of your own behaviours, against a template of social cultural expectations is how personal maturity can be nurtured, mentoring others and helping them expand their own level of maturity is a critical component of building mature groups.

Act in mature ways and others may imitate you (and they may not) however if you are not an example others opportunities to grow their maturity may be left to chance.

Your own level of maturity can be a barometer for others.  Likewise other peoples level of maturity can reflect in your actions.  Contributing to  overall maturity levels is everyones role.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Skill or Capability

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If you have expertise or experience you should be able to complete a task in an acceptable way.  The better your skill or experience the greater the efficiency or quality.

For example if you have both training and practical experience you can probably perform a plumbing repair more quickly and with less risk than I could, I am not greatly experienced in plumbing.

This is not to say I can’t do plumbing work (in fact I have on a number of occassions) but it has seldom been fast and when problems were encountered I have needed help.

Capability

In the plumbing example, while I do not have extensive skills and experience with plumbing I am capable of doing the job. The extent to which I have the power and willingness to complete a task is my capability.

Selecting Leaders, Group/Team or team members

If you are interesting in a winning combination, when building a team   (sports or otherwise) a business or other organization the mix of skill and ability is critical.

Unfortunately there is no absolutely correct mix of skill and capability.   The best balance varies widely depending on numerous factors.

These include the nature of the role, the overall complexity of the activities, envionmental factors and well, just about everything else.

The key is recognizing that the balance between skill and ability needed in any given situation varies and should be analyzed and determined before selecting someone to tale on the assignment.

This is not an easy task but a very worthwhile one which increases your chance of selecting the best resource for any given role.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Reputation Part 2

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Yesterdays post explored the concept of personal reputation.  In summary, it is of great value to you to understand your own reputation (as varied by audience).

Leveraging your reputation is an invaluable tool in supporting achievement of your goals.  Managing your behaviour (how you act and what you do) will manage your reputation.

Group Think

Groups of people achieve gang mentality  by sharing their perceptions about others with each other.  The communication methods can include social media, public media, in person, water cooler gossip and a variety of other ways.

The group is not logical and underlying bias can influence the perceptions.  That is for example a group may have a conservative or liberal bias.

The reputation you have within the group is mostly not openly shared with you so you need to figure it out through observation.  This can include conversational ploys to determine what others think of you.

Behaviour and Reputation

Reputational behaviour is not only what you say and do but ranges from the clothes you wear to the cut of your the cut of your hair.  How loud you speak or the effectiveness of your deodorant all inluence reputation.

Since a lot of your reputation can be derived from gossip and peoples bias the trick is to figure out what those bias are (through logic and intuition) and use them to craft the reputation you seek.

Your reputational goal could be respect, isolation (just leave me alone) , a trusted advisor or any of a plethoria of things.  Whatever it is, you can craft your behaviour to formulate the matching perceptions.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Define, communicate, practice

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In the 1980’s the Software Engineering  Institute of the Carnegie Melon University formed and partnered with the US Department of Defence (DoD) to develop a model that could be used to assess how likely a software development contractor was to deliver a quality on time product.

Software development at the time was notorious for being late, over budget and not satisfying all the requirements.  The DoD was eager to find a tool that would help them select vendors that could deliver.

Price matters, but a product that works  can trump price when the result of defects and failure can be catastrophic. (e.g., the software in a jet fighter).

Capability Maturity Model Integrated

The current version of the original model is called the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI).  The model comes in three flavours now and can be used to assess organizational maturity on a scale of 1 (chaos) to 5 (highly capable, consistent and sustainable).

The key feature of this methodology is the requirement to define, communicate and practice.  With consideration to continuos improvement, reviewing and updating ongoing is a critical aspect.

Does it Work

I have had the good fortune to be exposed to the model on a number of occassions in different ways.  I have implemented the processes from definition to practice as well as observed the outcomes from organizations operating  at both high and low maturity levels.

In every case,  with successful implementation and certification as a level 3 maturity or better, I have observed significant  material improvements. (For lower maturity organizations it’s never clear what the outcome will be.)

Three key benchmarks in software or product development projects (on time, on budget, on scope) typically change from being achieved less than 40% of the time before CMMI is implemented to over 80% after.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Maggies Farm

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Nobel laureate Bob Dylan (for literature)  wrote a large number of songs during his career to date (which is not over) and continues to do so.

I heard “Maggies Farm” on the radio the other day.  For some reason I listened more closely to the lyrics than I had in the recent past and transported back to the nineteen sixties (in my mind at least).

This is a basic protest song.  The line ” I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more” sets the tone.  We are done working for the man, being driven by the esablishment.

Simply put, I ain’t going to take it no more.  Full stop.  Ah the idealism.   of youth.  I won’t say I have grown jaded but while the lyrics are still a interesting listen  (great song) the sentiment and protest value is somewhat lost on me.

Deserving of the Nobel Prize?

I was struck by the quality of the music, both lyrics and melody.  Bob Dylan has done a fantastic job of story telling throughout his life so far, whether sentimental, political or just a intriguing story I do believe the recently awared prize was fully desderved.

More interesting for me though is how my appreciation of his music seems to have grown. (I have been listening to a number of his albums again over the last several months.)

Am I influenced by the publicity and accolades he has been recieving as of late or are my musical tastes maturing?  Historically I appreciated Dylan’s music but would never have classified myself a big fan.

I think it’s probably a bit of both, regardless, I am enjoying my morphing musical tastes albeit they still seem rooted in the decades of the sixties and seventies.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Am I as good as I think I am?

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Asking if you are as good as you think you are, is not necessarily questioning your level of self-confidence, rather it could be philosophical (what is good, who am I, etc) or it could be part of a continuous self  awareness check.

Switch it Around

Am I only as good as other people think I am?  Of course this begs the question “What do other people think of me?”  That question can be hard to answer truly objectively.

I have been fortunate enough to have past employers pay for a confidential survey of myself, colleagues, subordinates and supervisors, on several occasions.

This feedback is fabulous for capturing what you think of your own interpersonal behaviour skills and what others think.  It is anonymous, so theoretically the input should be objective.

The results could reinforce what you think (e.g., I work well with others and they agree) or could be the opposite (e.g., others don’t think I work well with them).

Of course this kind of deedback can go beyond whether you work well with others but can include how confident you are percieved to be, honesty, ability to motivate and so on.

If you can organize it, I strongly recommend these feedback tools as a great way to find out how what you think about yourself maps to what others think.

Could someone else do better?

When you move on from a situation, role or assignment it is always interesting to consider if your sucessor did better than you?  That is , am I so good there is no one better.

It is probably comforting to believe this may be true, but don’t forget the old saying “Anyone can be replaced”.  It might be truer than you think.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Experience Matters

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I had an interesting discussion today which touched on the topic of experience.  Education, personal skills/ ability and your experience make up your capability quotient.

Experience Required

Doctors, lawyers, plumbers, painters heavy equipment operators, pilots are professions that all require both education and experience  before you are deemed a professional that can stand alone.

Accountants often require three years of apprenticeship experience before being certified so these experience period can cover a significant time frame.

A Japanese sushi chef studies for up to eight years before being certified to prepare poison blowfish (fugu fish).  The certification process is quite stringent, you need to prepare and eat a fugu – if you live you pass.

Why Internships

It’s clear (based on experience) that in order to do many jobs safely you not only need to know how (training) and have the personal ability (skill) but to do it right some experience is critical.

The higher the risk associated with errors in execution (e.g., airline pilot) the greater the experience requirement before turning someone loose on their own.

Leadership and Experience

Good effective leadership requires training, skill and experience.  This goes against the argument that leaders are born.  Some aspects and underpinnings of leadership skills can be inherited but training and experience cannot.

Does this mean I cannot be a great leader without experience; my opinion is definately yes.  Can I be a leader without experience, of course but great leaders are experienced.

That is you are not born into it, you must develop the capabilities over time.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Good Experience/Bad Experience

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I recieved some interesting feedback yesterday on my post about the value of experience.  I had seemed to imply all experience was good.

Most of us have had bad experiences (think about Ryan Lochte’s recent Brazilian experience for example) and do agree experience can be percieved as being positive, negative, good or bad.

Life Lessons

I would argue though that in the context of life lessons, any experience, regardless of how it is percieved by the recipient, is valuable and sets the frame for growth, increased competency and ultimately success.

In the context of life lessons or even just professional activities experiences lay the ground work for us to choose to repeat or avoid actions based on past results (i.e., the experience)

Avoid Bad Experiences

The feedback I recieved suggested experience in and of itself does not have value and some experiences were to be avoided (e.g., a car accident).

In the context of capability to perform certain tasks (e.g. a medical operation) I would argue having the benefit of performing surgery in addtion to training and skills derived from practice positions me to be a better practitioner than someone without that experience.

Does this mean I would strive to avoid the experience of an unsuccessful surgey with a resulting fatality, of course.  However, if I did encounter that situation I would use the experience to advantage,

The knowledge of what went wrong and possibly how to a avoid a reoccurrence is golden. A bad experience can ultimately be leveraged for good.

My thought is that while the experience itself could be classified as negative, unpleasent, not to be repeated; in terms of the triumverate of attributes that forge sucessful results (education, ability and experience) all types of experiences are needed

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Highs, Lows and everything in-between

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Ten years ago my wife and I became empty nesters.   This was not an abrupt change, we obviously saw it coming.  We prepared for it somewhat and adapted after it happened.

Last May, as a result of the Fort MacMurray Alberta wild fire our daughter, son and law and grand duaghter came and stayed with us for a while.

Our son in law returned to their home a while ago but our daughter has remained a little longer until things are a bit more back to normal in the hometown, probably soon.

Ups and Downs

In a quiet moment recently I was thinking about the events of the last 6 weeks, and then broader to over the last ten years and it occured to me how my life has had a lot of impactful moments in that   time (since I was born for that matter).

It occurred to me how these events – high moments (thrilling, exciting, envigorating), in-between times (relaxing, comtemplative, dull) and lows (depressing, frightening, shocking) – have made my life great.

Everything matters and the mix of different types of events (some good, some bad) is a key contributor to the overall pleasure I have derived to date.

Seeking Experience

Within the context of my personal values and goals all experiences are welcomed. Truly they are what makes life great.

The caveat about personal values is important to delineate the experiences I am not interested in participating in (e.g., murder, theft) although I may be touched by them.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Forbidden Fruits Drive Desire

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Reverse psychology is the practice of demanding someone not do what you want them to do.   Observation of basic human behavior has led people to believe this will cause the object of your demand to do just the opposite, which is what you want them to do.  And my own experience is it often works.

Humans love to want what they cannot have.  My parents recognized this and were open and helpful about letting their children access things that were not really bad but forbidden, things like alcohol, sex, drugs and roll n roll.  Most teenagers top four desires.  The idea being, you would learn proper respect for these things early on and then use them wisely.

Liberal Philosophy has it’s place

This early liberal education facilitated by my parents really worked.

For example, when I was thirteen or fourteen I had a party with eight or so friends.  My mom supplied the beer.  Enough for us to get heavily inebriated to the point of being sick and of course well hung over the next day.   My friends had slept over and as we sat down in the kitchen, Mom set a full plate of eggs, sausages, ham and bacon for us to partake.  Of course this just aggravated our already sorry state.

I did not really get it at the time, but this was a teaching moment, in a safe and nurturing environment. I survived but my lifelong respect for alcohol and appreciation for the value of using it wisely began at that early age.

Not Anarchy

No one who knows me well would classify my beliefs as liberal but I do recognize the value of balance between liberal and conservative practices and while there are definitely things that should have restricted access because of the danger they represent (e.g., heroin) there are lots of those other things that restricting their use until adulthood creates desires and opportunities for misuse more than anything else.

(N.B. – I have some good stories about sex, drugs and rock n roll too but I am trying to keep these posts G-rated.)