The Hat Rack

Like many, I enjoyed the dramatic look back to the 1960's, a time when cigarette smoking, drinking and sexism were the norm. Men dominated in the work force and for a woman, being pretty helped get you on the ladder. Some say times were simpler. Maybe.

One of the things I do like about the 1960's, or at least what I know about the era, is the issue of hats. A man wouldn't leave the house without his long-brim fedora. Don Draper would always wear his brown fedora with the black grosgrain ribbon low on his forehead, yet as he stepped into his office he would always doff his hat, careful to hang it up on the hat rack. Doffing one's hat was a required social norm, a sign that you were ready for business.

So what does this have to do with us and the modern workplace? The hats of yesteryear have been replaced, yet today's workers still manage to create physical obstructions, hiding behind the screens of their cell phones, laptops, iPads or other gadgets. These obstructions not only indicate a lack of readiness for business, but also spells out how we're separating our attention between the people in the room and the device in our hands. Somehow, it's become socially acceptable, yet every time I see a coworker playing around with their cell phone during a meeting, their lack of respect and attention drive me nuts. Add in the excuse of "taking notes", we let this behavior continue. 

Contrary to popular belief, numerous studies have shown that we are terrible at multitasking. Our brains can't absorb information when we aren't paying attention. Applied in meetings, our brief digital escapes take our focus away from the content of the meeting, having us rejoin after we may have missed something while we were mentally away. For fear of revealing that we were not paying attention, our participation drops, only to serve in making meetings less productive, less interesting and more boring. Conveniently, our devices safe us from this boredom and the cycle continues. 

Like an addict, the first step is to admit that we have a problem. We need to take steps to keep workers from bringing digital devices into the conference rooms. Back in the 1960's you'd hang your hat on the rack. Now, in 2014, leave your cell phone in your desk drawer. Surely there are specific exceptions, the mother with a sick kid at home or the husband who's wife is in the ninth month, but the only thing we really need in a meeting is paper and a pen. And while I don't support the idea of superfluous meetings, if a topic is important enough that it requires physical participation, let's ensure that we're there in both body and mind. It's time we gain control over our habits before we discover that they have control over us. 

A Proud Sister

I have always been the stereotypical older sister - more responsible, reliable, obedient. After the army, I got a degree and when I finished that, I found a good job. My younger brother has always been the extrovert, risk-taking revolutionary. He's been programming since he learned how to type and never took formal schooling as seriously as my mother would have liked him to. But, he's begun making a name for himself in the Israel hi-tech world and slowly racking up achievements many of us will never reach, and all of this in his early 20's.

I've always been pretty proud of him, his programming skills and his ability to fit in, learn and grow where ever he finds himself. He is highly successful at his work place, earning higher than most people his age and with his background. He maintains an interesting blog. He has time for personal projects such as WastedHumanity.com. I love the blurb he wrote about himself on WastedHumanity: 

Gilly was born over 600 years ago, but was so disappointed the internet wasn't invented yet, he decided to be unborn and come back when the world was ready for him. He's a true geek, secretly living a double life - by day he tries to make people laugh by building silly websites, by night - he doesn't.

His latest achievement is being invited to talk at Reversim Summit 2014 at Google's headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel at the end of the month. He'll be talking about latency and client side performance on February 25th at 17:00 in the Hack Room. I am extremely proud of him and wish I could be there to hear him talk.

It Isn't About You

We've all heard that there is no I in team work and a bunch of other cliches and quotes along the same line. You can find the hidden "i" in team or the one in "win" and twist and turn things around to your heart's content, but adage that together everyone achieves more really does hold water.

I cannot stress the importance of team work. I don't code. I can pseudo code enough to get my point across, but I don't have the know-how to write actual, functional code. I could learn, but I doubt I'd be half as talented as my team's amazing development leader. In her sleep she could probably write better code than I ever could! Nor do I have the patience and thoroughness of our amazing QA team. They comb through our software finding glitches that have probably been over seen hundreds if not thousands of times, but never acknowledged or brought up by any of our clients.

Everyone wants recognition. We see it as early as during infancy - crying for recognition of needs. As we grow, so does the desire for recognition. It isn't just about getting praise for a job well done - it's about being acknowledged.

Shift the focus from yourself to the team.

In order to have people want to follow your lead, understand why they are part of the team, what they contribute and what they want to get out of it all. Find out what value each team member is looking for - be it financial, profession or intrinsic. Find ways to incorporate their own goals into the teamwork. Assign the developer who is always looking to get ahead with a task in the new technology that needs to be explored. The next time you send an email, think about additional value that can be added - information sharing, recognition, coaching. Open up the potential for deeper engagement and better alignment with the team member's own missions to reach higher performance.