Hard Wired

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." Carl Jung

This is a republish of an earlier post.

I have for time eternal used the phrase “wired” to describe people’s actions.

What I mean by this is that I believe people have internal elements that make them act consistently in given situations. I’ve known people that would lie even though the situation didn’t demand or warrant it. I’ve known people who will always argue a counter point even though there’s no cause. Or people who consistently blame others for their problems.

With these people I will normally shrug and say “they’re wired that way”.

I’ve also known people that if you handed them $100,000 in hundred dollar bills and asked them to take care of it for “a year or two” that when you returned not only would the money be there but it would be the exact same hundred dollar bills. Or people who will help out regardless of the hour or reason. Or people that when they make a commitment you never think about it again because you know it will be handled as promised.

With these people I will smile and say “they’re wired that way”.

The longer I’m around the more I’m convinced of this is the most reliable method for predicting how people will react in situations. If you can determine how a person is wired you will know with almost certainty how they will react.

The key is you have to pay attention and not let your feelings (good or bad) for that person cloud what you’re seeing.

I’ve made this mistake more times than I’m willing to admit (on my own blog site anyway). I will see a person in enough situations to know how they’re wired but because of emotion, time constraints, apathy, et al I will ignore the obvious and either get burned because I knew they were wired to do the negative or irritate someone by not allowing them the space to do what they were wired to do.

So, start watching how people around you are wired, it’s really pretty easy once you start paying attention.

And by the way, spend a little time on yourself.

The Importance of Finishing

"Never miss a good chance to shut up"  Will Rogers

I was in attendance at a function the other day that included a guest speaker. She was wonderful. She had me and everyone in attendance absolutely attentive and engaged.  She was topical, self-depreciating, funny and warm.  The package.

She told story after story….after story….after story.  She told stories to the point that one by one we all went from deft attention to looking at watches, phones, fingernails, the floor, anything but her.  It was one of those “maybe if we don’t make eye contact she’s get the collective hint that as enjoyable as this has been we all really have other things to do” moments.

It’s a little like fine dining versus chain restaurants.   With most fine dining the portions are just enough that you’re thinking, “wow, just one more bite would be perfect” but realize at the end of the multiple small courses you’re very comfortably full as opposed to most American restaurant chains where you might as well order a doggy bag when you place your order (or should anyway).  You waddle out regretting the deep fried appetizer before the Jethro Bodine sized main dish.

Any time we know we have control of our audience we want to capture the moment and make it last.  But like those incredible small fine dining courses it’s always better to leave ‘em wanting just a little bit more.

The Time Between the Dash

“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.”   Eric Roth

It's called the time between the dash.  It's everything that happens from the day you're born till the day you die.

If you look at my father's headstone it says, "Alvin Bruce Strouse, January 3, 1925 - August 14, 2013.  That's 88 years between the dash.  A long life by any standard.  In his case, not just a long life but a good life.  I wrote about it in a post last year - Dad.

As I wrote in that post the first time I heard the phrase was when my cousin Phil delivered Dad's eulogy.  Being a close nephew to Dad - Phil and I are a year apart in age and grew up together - he was able to fill that that dash with details, sensitivity and humor.

Last October my older brother, and only sibling, Danny passed away just three weeks after being diagnosed with cancer.  Danny's dash reads August 29, 1947 - October 4, 2014.  His dash of 67 years seems way too short but nonetheless is filled with a lifetime of love (married 47 years), family (three great sons and daughter-in-laws plus six grandkids) and service (retired police officer).

The point, other than to offer myself a forum to mourn, is to assess my dash and how I'm going to fill the rest of it.  What will be the final box score and analysis of my dash someday (hopefully a long, long time from now).

But the dash isn't just the dates in your obituary.  It's the dash on your employment as well.  It's the dash from the day you start until the day you depart - regardless of the reason or circumstance.  What will people say about your dash?  Will it be filled with superlatives and accolades?  Will it be filled with venom and daggers?  Or, most normally, a bit of both depending on who's delivering the "eulogy".

I think in work as in life the goal should not be to try to direct the words used after you depart but instead to earnestly and sincerely do your best, try your best and deliver your best, then let others decide.

So, what fills the time between your dash?

UCOA

"People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."  Isaac Asimov

Maybe I'm just in a perpetually bad mood but there seems to be an epidemic of people totally unknown to me offering up Unsolicited Comments ,Opinions or Advice (UCOA's).

I've said before that I do not have many pet peeves, but the ones I do have I possess severe feeling about.  UCOA's are on that short list.

I'm sure I'm guilty of having been on the giving side of an UCOA.  But usually it's with someone I know.  Just as annoying, no doubt, but it's hard to not offer up UCOA's to a family member or close friend.  I really don't recall doing it to a total stranger without at least offering up a preamble of "excuse me, but do you mind if I offer up a suggestion", or something like that.  Caveat: This obviously doesn't count if you see someone in a dangerous situation.

An example of what I'm talking about.  Yesterday I'm at the deli counter at the grocery ordering a pound of cheese and a pound of turkey.  While the cheese is being sliced the guy to the right of me says, "you need to have him put paper between the slices or they'll stick together."  I ignore him.  As the turkey is being sliced the woman to the left of me says, "you should have him slice it thicker, those are too thin".  I ignore her.  I get my stuff and leave without acknowledging either of them but my tongue is bleeding a bit.

The best example of UCOA's is when I'm playing Blackjack.  I don't play a lot but know the basic strategies and I tend to be pretty conservative.  So I love the people - almost always guys, by the way - who love to offer up UCOA as to when to split or double or increase my bet, etc.  The most annoying part of this is they tend to do it the most after they've lost their entire stack and are just hanging around the table killing time.  So I'm going to take counsel from a guy who's lost all his money?? Now that I think about it, it's not all that different from most financial advisers.

So, what the proper etiquette in the workplace.  When is UCOA necessary vs. purposeful vs. annoying.

Well, like normal life spotting a dangerous business situation demands UCOA regardless of rank or feelings.  It doesn't have to be in the form of screaming or throwing yourself across the board table but it's a Must Do.  Watching all the goings-on at General Motors makes me wonder where the UCOA's were when the ignition switch problem was first spotted.  Did people call the problem out but were ignored?  Did it reach a certain level then just turn to steam?  That's a whole other topic about what to do when you've spotted and reported a danger but its ignored.

Otherwise you should ask yourself the question as to whether you're inserting your UCOA because you're really protecting the project/deal/plan/customer or if you just can't stand something without your smudge mark on it.  I wrote about this once upon a time. Wait, we can make this harder  There's an old sales adage that says "Don't answer questions that haven't been asked".  Same applies here.

So whether out in the real world or inside the quasi-mythical world of business before offering up comments, opinions or advice ask yourself the question.  Does anyone care but me?

Here's to Hinnyhockers

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”  Earnest Hemingway 

I've recently been introduced to the term "Hinnyhocker".  A Hinnyhocker is a term created by Dr. Mike.  Dr. Mike is a retired dentist and All-Star host in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan.  Or as commonly referred to, he's a Yooper.

By the way, the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan are separated by the Mackinac Bridge, a five-mile expanse and longest suspension bridge in the Western hemisphere.  Yooper's call people in the lower peninsula "Trolls" (those people who live under the bridge).

A Hinnyhocker is a term used when making an adult beverage for someone.  If you ask someone what they would like and they say, "oh, whatever you're having" or "I dunno, anything is ok" or "surprise me" or any other ambiguous request it becomes a Hinnyhocker.  Really saves on words. 

"What would you like?", "A Hinnyhocker:

See, simple and it allows the host to be creative.

So, how to incorporate Hinnyhocker into the work place?

If you're working with smart, creative, dutiful people it should be easy. 

"How should be promote the new product line?".  "Give me a Hinnyhocker."

"What about the sales presentation for the new release?".  "A Hinnyhocker."

It could be fun to give people the creative freedom of a Hinnyhocker.

Of course, it could be disastrous also.  A Hinnyhocker in the wrong hands would be terrible.  A gin and tonic that's 95% tonic (or vice versa).  A rum and coke with flat coke. 

Hinnyhocker's (drink or workplace) only work when the creator is good at their craft, concerned about their guest/audience/customer and up for a challenge.

So, here's to Hinnyhocker's - with moderation.

Here's a tip for you

"I went into a French restaurant and asked the waiter, 'Have you got frog's legs?' He said, 'Yes,' so I said, 'Well hop into the kitchen and get me a cheese sandwich.'"  Tommy Cooper

It's long been acknowledged that a good way to determine character in someone is to golf with them.  Over the course of 4+ hours out on the course and probably drinks afterwards you get to spend half the day with someone under conditions that show what's under their skin.  Will Rogers once said, "only the income tax has made more liars out of people than golf."  A round of golf with someone allows you to see their temperament, honesty, competitiveness and communication skills.  It also allows you to find out if they have a mean streak, like to gain unfair advantage and how they react to adversity.  Believe me, two lost balls and a three putt on one hole will bring that out.

The problem is, not everyone plays golf.  Plus as previously mentioned it takes up the better part of a day.  So it's not the most practical way of scoping out a person's true personality.

There's other ways though.

Tipping, along with how someone treats service people, is another great indicator.  Tipping by itself can be deceiving.  Some people have a set rule that they never vary from and as long as it's not unreasonable you can't take them as a bad person because of it.  There are also extreme circumstances where reducing or withholding a tip becomes necessary.

I tend to pay more attention to how others treat service people.  People that treat wait staff, valets, receptionists, clerks, etc. with an air of indifference or even worse distain on a consistent basis always bother me.  I've found some of the best people to work with and for are those who are overly friendly and accommodating to service people.  They acknowledge them, chat with them, thank them and more often than not over tip them.  I have found these types to be the best of do business with because they tend - typically, not always - to be more trustworthy.

The one trait that I've observed firsthand a couple of times are successful people who upon realizing they've accidentally been undercharged or given too much change back happily put it in their pocket and once out of range crow about it to those they're with.

On both occasions I put that person on my "watch carefully" list and with both I ultimately found I could not trust them in a business situation.

Regardless of the method it's worthwhile to watch people in normal, almost innocent, situations to see how they are.  If something strikes you as "off", pay attention.

Joyland

"Always know where your wallet is, and show up."  Carny Rule

I recently read a Stephen King book "Joyland" about a college kid who works a summer job at a theme park set in the early '70's.  During his induction one of the old hands gives him this advice and my thought was, "Crap, now I'm going to have to update my Ten Simple Rules.

Pretty good advice no matter your profession and frankly when I think about the bulk of things that have caused me problems eliminating these two would take care of a bunch of them.

When taken in the literal sense I think people in general do a pretty good job on knowing where their wallet is .  But if you extrapolate it to mean knowing where your "wallet"  (Wealth, Assets, Loot, Love, Emotions, Talent)  is at all times I think most of us fail to some greater or lesser degree.  We have become a society who depend on others to watch out for us.  We trust investors, bankers, talk shows, reality shows, infomercials and un-invested outsiders more than we trust ourselves.  So we end up not knowing where our "wallet" is and trusting it to other people.

I've certainly made this mistake on both the financial and professional side and have my share of flaws on the personal side as well.

However, I'm convinced that the showing up part, in the literal sense, gets lost along the way too often.

Old Geezer Alert!!

I'm also convinced that young people today are especially bad when it comes to showing up.  I don't know if it's because of our mobile society where you don't have to actually ever see and talk to people face-to-face, or if it's inherent in all young people and I just don't remember me being that way or, maybe it's not as bad as I think and I just need to go out on the porch and yell at the neighbor kids to get off my lawn.

But I don't think so.

My observations tell me that a whole lot of people wait for things to come to them rather than going and looking for them.

Additionally I keep reading a growing number of blogs and articles on places like LinkedIn that encourage us to not try to make the Millennia's fit into our outdated and archaic methods of recruiting and management.  We need to let them express their artistic freedom and not restrict them.  We need to "Understand" them.

BAH!!

How about THEY understand that being able to verbally communicate, properly write and spell, take doing their assigned job seriously and show up on time is not outdated, but essential.

Now, back to watching the front lawn.