Audio Tidbits

This is the final broadcast from the former home of the Aliens Amongst Us. Intercept reports that the Aliens have departed. Please listen to get the details of their departure. Intercept1 has advised us that he will continue to monitor their transmissions if there are more. Any interceptions of their transmissions will be shared with you on the flagship channel of the Audio Tidbits Podcast Network at GaryCrow.net. It has been a pleasure sharing the activities of the Aliens Amongst Us with you.

 

Be well, do well and keep safe. – Intercept1

This is the final broadcast from the former home of the Aliens Amongst Us. Intercept reports that the Aliens have departed. Please listen to get the details of their departure. Intercept1 has advised us that he will continue to monitor their transmissions if there are more. Any interceptions of their transmissions will be shared with you on the flagship channel of the Audio Tidbits Podcast Network at GaryCrow.net. It has been a pleasure sharing the activities of the Aliens Amongst Us with you.

 

Be well, do well and keep safe. – Intercept1

a proactive leader knows his primary role is to help you succeed. You are not responsible for his success but he assuredly is responsible for facilitating yours. His task is to provide for you the best possible opportunity to get where you are committed to going. He saw your commitment and supported your being on his team because you are headed where he and the other members of the team want to go. From his perspective, you are his customer and he is growing a relationship with you.

Value your customers, those who benefit from your products and services.

As a member of a proactive leader's winning team, your commitment to customer service will reach new heights. You will learn to be more responsive to the needs and interests of your customers than you had thought possible. Meeting or exceeding your customers' expectations is yesterday's standard. On a proactive leader's team, every transaction with your customers is an opportunity to grow your relationship with them.

Whether your customers are interested in the advance of knowledge or a better hamburger, responsive public services or appropriate life insurance, a proactive leader's team is there for them. Association with a proactive leader's team is the road to wonderful outcomes for you and for your customers.

Have you ever been driven up the wall by a mainliner? "What's a mainliner?" you ask. Read on. You likely are already familiar with the type and how they can cause havoc in your company.

 

Mainliners cannot be bothered with elementary groundwork.

 

These players will plunge into any project without so much as a pretense of preparation or planning. They rely on their instincts and agility. They are usually from the group who never bothered to do their homework in high school. Later, they wrote their college papers the night before they were due, without inhibiting themselves with trivia such as a trip to the library. In a pinch, they used someone else's notes. The solution is always at hand if the player is observant enough and clever enough to recognize it.

 

Mainliners assume that actually knowing how to do a job is irrelevant.

 

The essence of this technique is seeing that "knowing how" only limits and inhibits the range and flexibility of expert players.

 

The blind spot here for non-Players is in understanding what "knowing how" refers to. The uninitiated think that "knowing how" means you have specific knowledge and skills related to the task or problem. They also think that related experience is useful.

 

Dyed-in-the-wool mainliners understand that, for them, these kinds of things are not important. The only skill they need is an ability and willingness to dive in and to keep poking. Usually, things have a way of working out. If not, truly creative mainliners either abandon the task or call in a specialist, taking full credit for saving the day. -- Read and learn.

 

Liz is an engineer assigned to troubleshoot a lockup problem with a computer installation at a small retail business. For some reason, the main application and the operating system are not interfacing correctly. The result is that the system is lockingup and the business is having trouble staying open.

 

Liz's first approach is to say that the people operating the system are causing the problem. When this does not hold up, she next attributes the difficulties to a hardware problem or bug in the operating system. Again, the explanation does not stick. Finally, she reverts to type as an experienced mainliner.

 

There are a few minor deviations from specifications in the way the business uses the system. One part of the application is one no other customers use.

 

"You are the only user who has tried to use this function. It's only an add-on to the main application. We did not expect it to be used on a daily basis. That is what your problem is."

 

"Well, it's important for us to use this function. How soon are you going to fix it so it doesn't keep locking up?"

 

Sure, Liz knows just what to say. "This problem is unique to your system. You will need to exercise your support agreements with the hardware and operating system vendors. They will need to straighten out your problems with their installations before we can help."

 

"We bought the system from your company. Aren't you going to stand behind your sales?"

 

Liz is again ready. "We will support you 100 percent. Just as soon as you get the other problems worked out, I will see you have a specialist assigned to the problem." A specialist? Yes indeed. That is someone, anyone other than Liz. That's the way to pass the old buck!

 

Mainliners start before understanding what you expect.

 

This technique is axiomatic for mainliners. To find out what you expect is a waste of their time. Adroit players have no intention of doing anything other ...

With the central importance of maintaining the Management Perspective in mind, let's shift our attention to point "0" within the Helping Triangle. At this position, there are a myriad of web-like connecting lines going out in all directions. We are focusing here only on the six lines within the local Helping Triangle, starting with the connection between points "0" and "A" between point "0" and potential clients.

At a minimum, this connection passes along to potential clients information about the agency and its services. It also passes along information from potential clients about their needs and interests that may be served by the agency. The connection influences potential clients to access agency services and influences the agency to adjust its services to better fit with the needs and interests of potential clients. The 0-A connection does much more but the simple point here is the connection is definitely necessary. The agency cannot succeed without it.

There are two questions to ask and answer for this and each of the other connections with point "0." If the connection is successful, what will the outcome be? We have to know why we need the connection and how we know when it is working. If the connection is not successful, what will the outcome be? We have to know the potential effect and cost of not establishing and maintaining the connection. For the 0-A connection, not having it would likely mean the agency would not have any clients in the future; and without clients…. I'm sure you can fill in the missing details here. Clearly, not having the 0-A connection is unacceptable.

Turning focus to the 0-1 connection point "0" with the Initiators it is important to understand initiation is not a one-time activity. Although the First Mover may or may not continue his or her activities within the Helping Triangle, the Initiators stay at least available even if not continuously active. The 0-1 connection keeps the Initiators current with agency activities, plans, resource requirements, and effectiveness with clients. Moreover, the connection keeps the agency current with the views and interests of the Initiators and their constituents. We can likely think of other tasks only accomplished through this connection; but the key point here is careful and continuing attention to the 0-1 connection is essential for long-term agency success. To neglect it is to risk not having capacity external to the agency to initiate renewed support from the authorizing entity and additional support from other authorizing entities. …

All infants have a strong and very real need for physical contact. Without it, the deprivation is very real and may be permanent. Your baby's need for touching and cuddling is like food for physical and emotional growth. Your infant's need for physical contact strongly suggests this physical/emotional/social being also needs to be "fed." Without such contact, your child "starves" physically, emotionally, and socially.

What to do? That is fairly simple. Pick up your baby, cuddle him, talk to him and make noises at him. Try to spend a lot of time talking with him and physically interacting with him. When giving him a bottle, hold your baby instead of feeding him in the crib or playpen. Several times a day, pick him up and walk around, sit in a chair and rock, and be sure his playpen or walker is not in a room by itself. It's better for him to be around other people than to be by himself. Talk with him and encourage other people to do the same. If someone says, "What a nice baby," ask them if they want to hold your child. Your baby needs maximum physical contact and interaction with a variety of people. …

It is important for you to actively and thoughtfully Participate on the management team. An important element of your participation is to assure that you Question decisions and actions of others you think may cause problems or jeopardize operations.

On the face of it, the point here seems like another one of those no-brainers. "Be as good as your word." "Do what you say you will do." Certainly loyalty is also part of the package as is faithfulness, to the extent that promises have been made. It would seem that this is simply a further example of predictability, "You can count on me."

Here though, dependability and keeping commitments go beyond these types of usual, "the way you deal with everyone" behavior. Within serious relationships, they have a more intimate dimension. They are an important ingredient in the tie that binds, are part of what makes the relationship special.

• You are there for each other when either of you needs support, encouragement, or someone to scratch the itch so to speak.

• You are truly interested in and want to know about each other's activities, thoughts, and personal issues.

• You are happy and excited when things go well for either of you and feel badly when they do not.

• You share in each other's lives and are available, good times, bad times, and all. …

All infants have a strong and very real need for physical contact. Without it, the deprivation is very real and may be permanent. Your baby's need for touching and cuddling is like food for physical and emotional growth. Your infant's need for physical contact strongly suggests this physical/emotional/social being also needs to be "fed." Without such contact, your child "starves" physically, emotionally, and socially.

What to do? That is fairly simple. Pick up your baby, cuddle him, talk to him and make noises at him. Try to spend a lot of time talking with him and physically interacting with him. When giving him a bottle, hold your baby instead of feeding him in the crib or playpen. Several times a day, pick him up and walk around, sit in a chair and rock, and be sure his playpen or walker is not in a room by itself. It's better for him to be around other people than to be by himself. Talk with him and encourage other people to do the same. If someone says, "What a nice baby," ask them if they want to hold your child. Your baby needs maximum physical contact and interaction with a variety of people. …