Articles for category: Initiative

Accountability Breeds Value

When you are accountable for your work – whether early, later, or on time – it breeds value. When you own the late deliverable, try to make up for it, people notice. When you finish early, take on more, people notice. When you finish on time, people notice. Being accountable for your work, not blaming it on the weather, other people, etc, will always breed value in not just your work, but yourself.

1 month ago

Greg Thomas

Tell me What You’re Trying To Do

Tell me what you’re trying to do. That’s the question you have to be able to answer. What are you trying to do? If you can’t answer it, you’re not sure what you’re trying to do; that’s okay, break it down into smaller parts until you do know what you’re trying to do. No need trying to do something you don’t know or understand – keep breaking it down until you do know, and then explain that simply and clearly.

Too Many Hiding Spots

I have an issue with repositories, source control, and JIRA projects that are scattered to the heavens. It’s easy for people to hide. They can say they are working on something, but not be and it’s because they are hidden in a project, somewhere, that no one knows about. Reduce the hiding spots, increase the visibility.

Things will ALWAYS go Sideways

Yes, they will always, always go sideways. I worked at a camp many years ago where we gave out a “Loser of the Week” award – it generally went to the same people each week. Why? Because they worked with all the machinery and all the jobs that had a propensity to go sideways. They weren’t Losers (it was funny), they worked hard and delivered, but when things went sideways, they went sideways. Ignore the perfection, embrace the sideways.

Small Team, Big Leaps

Small teams make bigger strides. It’s the problem of team development that we’ve been trying to solve for decades. I think it’s because of focus, they look at a problem, discuss options, and iterate towards a solution. They don’t care about what they don’t or what might not work; they just care about seeing if they can do it. When you get bigger, you think more about what you might impact before diving into fixing the problem. This is why AI scares many. You chat with Claude or ChatGPT, one view into solving a problem, and they just go, they