Así no se hacen las cosas por Ernesto Kiszkurno

"My working habits are simple: long periods of thinking, short periods of writing.” - -Hemingway

En un certero artículo llamado How To Get Off The Treadmill and Never Have a Bucket List , Chuck Blakeman discute un dilema que a todos nos preocupa o nos ha preocupado alguna vez: la tiranía de lo urgente versus la prioridad de lo importante. Y en él dice algo que quiero dejarles para pensar: “The Important things require us to be proactive because they almost never seem urgent—things like thinking about what next year should look like, and what I really want out of my work and my life. We don’t make money today doing those kinds of things, so they don’t seem Important, and they’re definitely not as urgent as paying the bills.” Seguimos pensando..

En este artículo de Forbes sobre Job Crafting encontré una cita que me pareció excelente: “To reframe one’s job is to make a mental connection with a grander purpose: It’s social benefit. It’s worth to society. It’s potential to benefit others. Thinking of the good our work can do, beyond our daily to-do list, helps us change how we relate to our work. Such reframing possibilities exist in practically any occupation. All it takes is a little effort to think beyond our to-do list to the difference we want to make for others.” Seguimos pensando..

Y sí, estoy cayendo en el cliché de citar a Steve Jobs yo también, cómo si esto no hubiera ocurrido suficientes veces. Pero bueno, la cita es buena. La encontré en este post del Blog de Asana y también aquí . “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” Seguimos pensando..

En un post llamado Why Jeff Bezos Should Care More for Amazon’s Employees Tony Schwartz escribió "It is an amazing privilege to be a leader of a large company, but it is also a huge human responsibility. It is possible to challenge and care for people at the same time — to fuel your growth by fueling theirs. It’s also the right thing to do." Seguimos pensando..

El otro día escuché por ahí esta frase y me gustó. Tener mucho trabajo no significa estar trabajando en las cosas correctas o avanzar a buen paso hacia tus objetivos. Recordarla cada tanto puede hacer que decidamos descartar todo lo que estamos haciendo y reenfocarnos. Seguimos pensando..

En diciembre de 1967 Peter Drucker escribió un ensayo para McKinsey llamado The manager and de moron . Resulta impresionante la capacidad prospectiva del autor para entender el impacto de las computadoras en el día a día del trabajo. Vale la pena leer el artículo entero pero extraigo un par de párrafos que me parecieron particularmente interesantes. El primer extracto tiene que ver con el conocimiento. Sobre él, Drucker dice que es perecedero pues se vuelve obsoleto. Yo, por ejemplo, sabía programar en Clipper . Ahora ese conocimiento es inútil. Pero adicionalmente, aunque fuera útil, hay otra pregunta a hacer: ¿qué tan bien programaría 20 años después? “One of the few things we do know is that for any knowledge worker, even for the file clerk, there are two laws. The“first one is that knowledge evaporates unless it’s used and augmented . Skill goes to sleep, it becomes rusty, but it can be restored and refurbished very quickly. That’s not true of knowledge. If knowledge isn’t chal...

Estoy leyendo, luego de mucho tiempo de tenerlo en la pila de libros para leer , el cisne negro . Extraigo de allí lo siguiente: "... Las personas tenían una opinión idealizada de su propio pasado, del mismo modo que tenemos una opción idealizada de lo que hoy es pasado." Seguimos pensando..

"Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness" -- Gretchen Rubin

Del artículo What Makes Employee Resilience Possible de Tony Schwartz: “Capacity — cultivated and regularly renewed — is what makes it possible for both individuals and organizations to get more done in less time, at a higher level of quality and more consistently. We’re way past due to enter the Human Age at work.” Seguimos pensando..

Jim Collins en el libro Good to Great comenta cómo toman las decisiones difíciles las compañías que se diferencian: “They are rigorous, not ruthless. To be ruthless means hacking and cutting, especially in difficult times, or wantonly firing people without any thoughtful consideration. To be rigorous means consistently applying exacting standards at all times and at all levels, especially in upper management. To be rigorous, not ruthless, means that the best people need not worry about their positions and can concentrate fully on their work.” Seguimos pensando..

En el libro Great People Decisions Claudio Fernandez Araoz dice “One of the most consistent findings of the Booz Allen studies is that CEO performance in the second half of their tenure is significantly lower than that in their first half (and, in many cases, destroys value)” Todo parece indicar que hay que lograr detectar cuando estamos a mitad del periodo.. Seguimos pensando..

Extraído del libro The Pragmatic Programmer : “There's an old(ish) joke about a U.S. company that places an order for 100,000 integrated circuits with a Japanese manufacturer. Part of the specification was the defect rate: one chip in 10,000. A few weeks later the order arrived: one large box containing thousands of ICs, and a small one containing just ten. Attached to the small box was a label that read: "These are the faulty ones."” Esa es la forma de plantarse frente al trabajo, buscar hacer las cosas bien, con calidad siempre . “it is equally unprofessional to promise impossible time scales and to cut basic engineering corners to meet a deadline.” Seguimos pensando..

Extraído de Busy is an Addiction : “As an industry, we’ve created an impressive amount of institutionalized drama around getting things done. In large companies, we’ve got armies of people whose job it is to make sure that we understand the importance of that critical deadline. We’ve got leadership motivating us by telling us someone is going to eat us , so we better hurry . There are important people who’ve invested their money and are eager to see a return on their investment. We are surround by stimuli built to drive us harder and faster. My advice is not that we should eagerly and fervently build the next thing, my advice is to constantly take the time to stop and understand the true nature of your busy.” Seguimos pensando..

Del post de Seth Godin Thinking lifetime (don't break the chain) : “Support is not a cost center, it's a profit center. Treating customers with urgency and clarity and respect (maintaining the chain) is more urgent than ever. But companies are busy measuring time on the phone or cost per hour of support people instead of even trying to measure customer churn.” Seguimos pensando..

De New Management 3.0 Workout articule Project Credits de Jurgen Appelo “Recruiters know that many people can easily be convinced to take on a job with low pay as long as the job title is impressive. And for those already in a job, additional qualifiers such as “Senior”, “Lead”, and “Master” communicate a level of performance that em-ployees feel they deserve. Research says that happiness is achieved when people make progress [Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis]. Nice titles help people feel progress, and be happy.” Seguimos pensando..

Clayton Christensen, en How Will You Measure Your Life , escribió lo siguiente: “Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.” Seguimos pensando..

Extraído de The Monuments of Tech: “When companies feel that they are changing the world as much as these tech enterprises do, they don’t need just offices. They need monuments.” Yo, en lo personal, no creo en este tipo de cosas. Seguimos pensando..

En un post titulado On Being a Senior Engineer encontré una cita del libro Web Operations que me pareció muy buena: “Generation X (and even more so generation Y) are cultures of immediate gratification . I’ve worked with a staggering number of engineers that expect the “career path” to take them to the highest ranks of the engineering group inside 5 years just because they are smart. This is simply impossible in the staggering numbers I’ve witnessed. Not everyone can be senior . If, after five years, you are senior, are you at the peak of your game? After five more years will you not have accrued more invaluable experience? What then? “Super engineer”? Five more years? “Super-duper engineer.” I blame the youth of our discipline for this affliction. The truth is that there are very few engineers that have been in the field of web operations for fifteen years. Given the dynamics of our industry many elected to move on to managerial positions or risk an entrepreneurial run at things....

En realidad la frase que me quedó pegada del post fue “Applause is great. We all need more of it. But if you want to improve, you should actively seek feedback.” Para mejorar debemos buscar activamente feedback sobre nuestro trabajo. Seguimos pensando.. PD: Dejo otros posts sobre feedback aquí , aquí , aquí . Todo s  los consultips juntos están  aquí .  Si queres leer el anterior, podes ir  aquí .  Si queres ir al próximo podés ir  aquí .