NonsenseAtWork

Spring is in the air and I can almost hear consultants and HR people planning this year's team building events.

This is Part 3 of 3 of "Put a spring in your nagging: Because repetition turns growth into development."

Moving to another continent in another hemisphere plays havoc with your habits and expectations. Who knew?

During the first fifty years of my life I knew my left from my right, my spring from my autumn, and the time of day. After almost 20 years in the other hemisphere on a different continent in an unfamiliar country, I still get confused on the right side of the road, surprised that Christmas is cold, expect spring to be autumn, and find myself out of sync with a time that changes every six months.

But I have learned that it is not my habits that hold me back. It is my history.

History is heavy. And it is very sticky.

This is Part 2 of 3 of "Put a spring in your nagging: Because repetition turns growth into development."

Moving to another continent in another hemisphere plays havoc with your habits and expectations. Who knew?

During the first fifty years of my life I knew my left from my right, my spring from my autumn, and the time of day. After almost 20 years in the other hemisphere on a different continent in an unfamiliar country, I still get confused on the right side of the road, surprised that Christmas is cold, expect spring to be autumn, and find myself out of sync with a time that changes every six months.

But I have learned that it is not my habits that hold me back. It is my history.

History is heavy. And it is very sticky.

One of the first new skills I learned after arriving in the USA was time management. No, not productivity management, but how to time my falling back and springing forward.

This is Part 3 of 3 of "Don't talk to your phone (or the trees). Doing so makes you dumber than your phone (and the trees)."

I remember the days of lifting the black handset off the black rotary dialer to hear the operator say, “Nommer asseblief!”

You might wonder what she said, so I’ll tell you. She asked me which party I wanted her to connect me to. (In those days, talking to a person you could not see was as good as a party. Hence the terminology.)

Some of you probably wonder what a rotary dialer is, so I’ll tell you. It’s the black box that we used to contact a human operator who would then connect us to the person, I mean party, with whom we wished to communicate.

There are two other interesting facts about that communication process. Our only privacy concern was whether the operator was bored enough to bother listening in on our conversation. The other fact has become more important today. Back then we were smarter than the black box.

This is Part 2 of 3 of "Don't talk to your phone (or the trees). Doing so makes you dumber than your phone (and the trees)."

I remember the days of lifting the black handset off the black rotary dialer to hear the operator say, “Nommer asseblief!”

You might wonder what she said, so I’ll tell you. She asked me which party I wanted her to connect me to. (In those days, talking to a person you could not see was as good as a party. Hence the terminology.)

Some of you probably wonder what a rotary dialer is, so I’ll tell you. It’s the black box that we used to contact a human operator who would then connect us to the person, I mean party, with whom we wished to communicate.

There are two other interesting facts about that communication process. Our only privacy concern was whether the operator was bored enough to bother listening in on our conversation. The other fact has become more important today. Back then we were smarter than the black box.

Do people seem a little off lately? Do you feel a little off? Here’s why, I think.

This is Part 3 of 3 of "Protect your unreasonable nut-cases at work: They stop you adapting to a new low"

This is indeed our time of shared weird behavior, at home, at work and everywhere in between. You might by now be tempted to abuse the power vested in you by your hierarchy to change weird behavior to your liking. Please don’t.

Encourage a bit of weirdness at work. Until you know for sure whether it promotes or stifles progress. Then protect it or kill it.

What happens when you don’t protect a bit of weirdness? Well, you’ll trigger a vicious cycle that will leave you and your organization adapting to a new low instead of marching to higher ground.

This is Part 2 of 3 of "Protect your unreasonable nut-cases at work: They stop you adapting to a new low"

This is indeed our time of shared weird behavior, at home, at work and everywhere in between. You might by now be tempted to abuse the power vested in you by your hierarchy to change weird behavior to your liking. Please don’t.

Encourage a bit of weirdness at work. Until you know for sure whether it promotes or stifles progress. Then protect it or kill it.

What happens when you don’t protect a bit of weirdness? Well, you’ll trigger a vicious cycle that will leave you and your organization adapting to a new low instead of marching to higher ground.

Encourage a bit of weirdness at work. Until you know for sure whether it promotes or stifles progress. Then protect it or kill it.