Happy Holidays
The holiday season is upon us, so I’d like to start by extending my best wishes for you to have a safe and happy holiday. I’ve personally been pretty busy the past few weeks wrapping year-end stuff up at work, so I’m looking forward to a few days of being able to catch my breath a bit. If you have some time off from work, I’m hoping you’ll get a chance to do the same over the holidays. I can’t sit idle for too long though. I don’t like not feeling productive, so once I’ve caught up a bit on some well deserved rest, I’ll be right back at it!
The holidays and end of the year are a great time to reflect on everything that’s happened in the last 12 months. Did you have goals that set you set and accomplished? What about things that you didn’t get to achieve or complete? Were you able to assist others in their goals? Maybe a year is too long for you to wait between points of reflection, but the holiday season provides the perfect opportunity for you to reflect–it’s at the end of the year, and generally you get some time off from your day-to-day!
At Magnet Forensics, we had a year-end review celebration and planning for next year. This was an incredible eye-opener for a lot of the amazing things we did this year. In fact, this last year was filled with so many exciting moments for our company that I thought around half of them were things that occurred in 2012. I was mistaken though. We’ve just been doing that much. I’m incredibly proud of the entire team and what we’ve been able to accomplish.
For my personal growth, this year certainly covered a lot of ground. I was able to work on some new exciting technologies like I had set goals for, and I had actually managed to take on more responsibilities in the workplace while reducing my perceived workload. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, but I’ve also been able to identify a few areas that I’d like to improve in the new year. I don’t want to call it my “New Year Resolution” for fear of it never coming to fruition, but I think by acknowledging some areas I l’d like to improve I’m setting myself up to be constantly aware of them.
Try to get some personal reflection in this holiday season. Celebrate what you’ve accomplished and raise the bar even higher for next year!
Articles
I missed an update last week, so I’ll combine both of my smaller article summaries into one!
- How One Company Replaced Meetings And Bureaucracy With Pairs, Ceremonies, And Storytelling: When I shared this article by Drake Baer on social media, I mentioned that there was one of the three suggestions that I felt might not be met as well. Any guesses yet?
The first suggestion in the list is working in pairs. The notion of working in pairs has some popularity in programming (i.e. Pair Programming) because you get two sets of eyes and two brains behind tackling the same problem. Partners get rotated every-so-often and you can share knowledge really well this way.
The second suggestion was about story telling. Story telling really let’s a company philosophy or mission get spread through the organization in a natural way. This also works for receiving customer perspective and diffusing it as requirements from the user.
The final idea presented in the article was regarding ritualization. Taking potentially boring or inefficient meetings and transforming them into rituals can provide more meaning and structure to them.
If you haven’t guessed yet, I figured item #1 may be met with some resistance. I personally don’t enjoy pairing past the point of brain storming ideas together. After that, it feels inefficient to me. I also believe that certain individuals have a “comfort zone” for where they feel efficient in their work. So even if pairing works well for 95% of people (let’s pretend) then for that other 5% it might really be disruptive for them. I’m starting to learn that applying practices uniformly across a team often doesn’t make sense.
- Some Workaholics Have More Fun: A quick one from Hiroshi Mikitani, but still very worth mentioning in my opinion. When people think of a workaholic, it’s often associated with a negative perspective. But maybe it’s not so black and white. Would you say there’s a difference between someone driven by external factors (e.g. meet deadlines for the boss, make more money, etc…) or someone driven by internal factors (e.g. create something innovative, help or make a difference in the world, etc…)? I’m not claiming that these can never overlap or anything, but perhaps it’s just a bit of a perspective tweak. Take it or leave it 🙂
- The Art of Listening: In this article by Gurbaksh Chahal, he touches on some really important aspects of listening. And yes, while listening is definitely important in the workplace, you can likely apply his principles to other areas in life. First, you want to engage people and let them know you’re actually listening. This can be conveyed will by eye contact and body language. For me, I like to lock my computer and turn to people when they come up to talk. It’s the perfect way to let them know they have my undivided attention. The next step is actively listening. Stop thinking of your response while someone is talking. Try actually listening to the speaker the entire time and interpret their words. There are no rules that say you’re not allowed to pause for thought to formulate your response when the other person is done talking! Gurbaksh has a few more pointers, and I strongly suggest you check out his article.
- 8 Ways Using Humor Will Make You a Better Leader: I’m a big fan of using humour in the workplace, but sometimes I’m not sure if I use it effectively or take things to far. That’s why I always jump to these humour-in-the-workplace articles when they pop up. In this article by Kevin Daum, there are two key points I wanted to address. The first is that humour really does help disarm tense situations. Sometimes there are difficult situations at work, and using humour (properly) can really help break the ice. Of course, you still need to take caution that the humour you’re using isn’t going to make the situation worse. The second point is that humour helps build a bonded community. I think humour can have a similar impact to story telling in an organization when it’s used effectively. You can always related back to “inside jokes” when you were dealing with some high pressure times, some bad code, or just because something funny came up at work. You can always bring the newbies into the inside jokes too and make them feel completely welcome.
- The 8-Hour Workday Doesn’t Really Work: If you feel like the typical eight hour work day really isn’t your thing… You might not be alone. Jeff Haden put together this pretty informative article about workdays and productivity you might find interesting. There’s tons of ground covered, including a few tips at the end for how you can optimize our work day. For example, try focusing on four or five things in a day that take up 90 minute slots. Certainly worth the read if you’re looking to hack your work-day.
- The Hidden Danger of Success: Another little article from Hiroshi Mikitani. So often we’re told to learn from our failures. But how are we supposed to learn from our successes? Hiroshi suggests we treat them equally. Sure, celebrate your success, but make sure you have take-away learnings from each of your successes. Don’t let them get to your head and always stay humble!
- Keys to Resolving Conflict: Jim Sniechowski dives into some great points in resolving conflict. I think it’s a decent read for anyone who has ever been in some sort of debate or conflict. I imagine that’s most people! Anyway, two great points to start you off: Each side of the conflict needs to understand that there’s a mutual agreement that needs to be met and willingness to accept some of the other side is necessary for coming to a positive conclusion.
- Four Principles to Inspire Innovation: Lockheed Martin’s CEO Marillyn Hewson provides four of her principles for innovation. Firstly, ensure there’s an environment that can cultivate innovation. Next, don’t treat innovation differently depending on the source. The final two principles I like to think of as one really. You want to innovate with a mission or goal that inspires and is driven by the values your organization embraces.
Please have a safe holiday season, but remember to relax and have a bit of fun too! Follow Dev Leader on social media outlets to get these updates through the week. Thanks!
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