Every meeting has a goal

If you don't know what you are going to get out of a meeting, if you can't measure the benefit of the meeting, in a positive way, then you shouldn't have the meeting. This does not mean you won't or don't need a weekly staff meeting, it means that there is intent to your meeting, and a desired outcome. Meetings to hand out awards are good, meetings to hand out punishment, might happen once in a while - There is a reason for public hangings!

I have worked for individuals who measure the effectiveness of a meeting by how many people attended, how long the meeting lasted, or how many actions were assigned. What individual thinks that assigning work (actions) is a positive result?

A meeting shouldn't be such a waste so many peoples' time. In one of my jobs the average cost to the customer for the talented support was about $2 per MINUTE. If you have a two hour gathering (I'll avoid using the word meeting, because of how I define a meeting) of 40 people, well lets do the math $2 x 120 min = $240 x 40 people = $9,600. Using a most simplistic approach, the results of that meeting should be worth $9,600. If all you do at this meeting, is assign actions items to the attendees, then you have a multitude of problems. 1) For $2 a minute those folks should know what they are doing and you shouldn't need to tell them; 2) You have wasted two hours of their time, two hours that they could have been doing their jobs; 3) You have wasted two hours of your time, time you could have spent hiring competent people.

If you want to be effective, you need to decide for each an every meeting (inlcuding a single meeting between two people) what is your desired outcome. You should have a measurable outcome. Early on in your development as a leader you should write down your goals before the meeting and review them after the meeting, until it becomes second nature. Do you have a weekly staff meeting? Is it effective? Does something get accomplished as a result of each meeting? Is your meeting short enough? Short Enough? Don't I mean long enough? No, I mean short. I learned that no single topic during the staff meeting should last longer that 3 minutes. If it takes longer than 3 minutes, then there needs to be a separate meeting to address the issue. At the 3 or maybe 5 minute point, everyone in your staff meeting has been exposed to the issue, and all the discussion is now moving in multiple directions and those members of the staff who just have to say something will add, but won't add value. Those that don't care are tuning out. You are losing control of your meeting and your agenda/goals. Table the issue and have someone organize the right people, place and time. As a matter of practice I try to keep all my meetings to 40 min or less. I schedule an hour, I start on time and I work to finish early. So what do I want from my staff meeting? I don't want a single topic to dominate the meeting. I want everyone to have a chance to say what has been important to them in the previous week, what's important to them this week, what is important next week, what is there Number 1 priority, where do they need help, and I probably have some specific topic that might need addressing. With this simple approach you will get a very clear picture on whether or not your staff is headed in the correct direction, if your team goals are being realized, and when. If the most important item on you goals, isn't mentioned, then you have not effectively communicated with your team.

What do you really want?

General Dynamics is actually several companies traveling in a general direction with little or nothing in common. I'm actually employed by General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems. For the past several years I have been a GDAIS employee working as a subcontractor to GDIT (General Dynamics Information Technology) who was working as a subcontractor to Northrup Grumman who was working for a US government organization. Well, GDIT and GDAIS were arguing amongst themselves, end result is that GDAIS is no longer a subcontractor to GDIT. Simultaneously, I'm no longer helping a US government organization. I'm "sitting on the bench". I'm on overhead. This is not necessarily a good place to be in these economic times. I spend my days looking for internal job opportunities and working on proposals for new work. I'm not worried, yet. Next year I'll start to worry.

In the mean time I'm doing one of my volunteer things. Several employees of GDAIS support social organizations. We do this by reviewing resumes for people who are looking for jobs. I usually enjoy resume reviews. More often than not, I believe I can add some value to the applicants efforts.

My biggest complaint, when looking at a resume is the objective statement. I would like to see an objective statement, but the statement I see needs to have substance. "I would like a job in a technology company that applies by skills and talents." Bullshit. If this is the verbose piffle you are going to write, don't send me an objective statement. If you send your resume to GDAIS and your talent and skills are driveway repairs, who are we kidding. Your objective statement doesn't need to say you want a job. I figured that part out on my own. What do you really want? Do you want to be as a system administrator in a position that provides potential for future management or leadership? Do you want to be an illustrator? Do you want to pave driveways? If you are an expert at driveway repairs, and you have great references, there is a chance I can find a job for you at GDAIS, but it won't be repairing driveways. So, you better have an idea about what you want to do, and put it in the objective statement. You can start by reviewing the job sites of companies and learn their lingo. GDAIS has facilities people. They get folks to repair driveways, drywall, move desks, etc. If your resume indicates you can work on your own at any task with minimal supervision, then I might get you into this job.

How many resumes do you have? I have one resume that I hand out at the local job fairs. It is a grocery list of positions I've held, success stories by $$ value, as well as training and specialized skills. It gets responses. When I see a specific job I want, I rewrite the resume and "tune" it to the job. If is is a job in Defense, then I emphasize my military background. If it is a job in Intelligence, I emphasis my intelligence experience. I also emphasis different parts if the job is technical versus managerial. Right now, I have 8 different resumes that I have submitted. I only expect the resume to get my foot in the door. I have to sell me.

Selling me involves researching jobs before I go interview. I do an search on similar job openings and look for key trends. I search openings in other companies to find key information. I call friends and ask them if they know what the job is, what happened to the last person, and how is the company doing with regards to their customer? Even in D.C. the community of my skill holders is relatively small. There is information to be had, if you look for it.

OK. That's my 2 cents for today. I need to go search the GD website for openings. I don't have the desire to rant about HR today, maybe some other time.

At Last

At last (insert Etta James singing "At Last" or Cyndi Lauper) the deck/screened in porch is done.  The company did a very good job.  The only exposed wood is the framing.  The decking, screening and railing are all composites.  The doors are aluminum.  The builder even  put screen underneath the deck so the bugs couldn't sneak in.  There is a screened in area, an open area for the barbeque (on the right) and there are lights on all the steps as well as lights over the doors.  The down side is we signed a contract in April and it was 15 weeks before they even started.  I thought we were in a slow down.  You'd think that they could provide a dozen people to do the work.  We had one or two.  I'll admit they had a task because they had to build it over a sunroom.  I don't think it should have taken 3+ months to get started and 3+ months to build it.  What I should have done is included a performance clause.  My hindsight is perfect.   A performance clause wouldn't have gotten the deck done earlier, but I could have financially punished them.   Each of the doors have dog doors.  There is a fan in the screened in area. There are motion activated lights everywhere.  The step lights are on a timer.  This deck should last at least another 20 years.  The last deck lasted just over 22 years.  The deck wasn't done for summer, so we'll have to enjoy the fall and barbeque until the first snow.  

The End

I created a Facebook page. What a fascinating concept. A giant billboard on the highway of life that many people drive by and say "I know that guy!" Such an occurrence happened when LuAnn saw my Facebook page and sent me a note.

Some background is necessary here. LuAnn's family and my family spent lots of time together, in Europe, camping. We were supporters of the Boy Scouts of America, we had kids in scouts and we were leaders. LuAnn's husband, Andy, was a riot, a hard worker, and a good, very good, friend. On one occasion our families were touring the castle Neuschwanstein in Germany, supposedly the model for the Disneyland Castle. http://www.castles.org/castles/Europe/Central_Europe/Germany/germany7.htm
The castle is huge. We were strolling through the kitchen, the area where the maids/butlers, whatever stayed, and I noted that the maids had a long way to go when the king wanted some coffee. Andy stated - "It would be a long way to go for a quickie!" Andy's son, Andrew queried, "What did you say dad?" Andy then had the stark realization that he had been overheard and was on the verge of having to provide a class in sex education, in the midst of a tour with a bunch of American and European tourist. Andy tried his best to stave off the inevitable by saying "Nothing", "never mind", and "it doesn't matter". Andrew persisted and when Andy quit acknowledging the question Andrew stated, "I know what you said Dad, you said Cookie!" What a great laugh we had over that for a long time. I loved asking Andy if he had gotten any cookies lately.

Fast forward to 10+ years later, Andy was a regular addressee on my emails that go out disseminating jokes. Andy didn't answer those emails, few people do. Every now and then I'd send a "comms check" and Andy would roger up - nuff said. My last comms check was in the spring of 2007, and Andy roger'd up.

Last week LuAnn saw my Facebook page and sent me a note asking about my family. I gave her the update and asked how things were in Texas (which is where they lived). LuAnn broke the news to me that she and Andy had moved to Utah in the summer of 07 to take care of family. Shortly after that Andy got sick and passed away in the winter of 2007. The sorrow that flooded over me is unmeasurable. Andy was like a brother in so many ways, and in some ways better than the brothers I have. The Internet and Facebook is a curse. I could have been ignorant of Andy's passing, and ignorance would have been bliss compared to the sorrow. We have lost one of those people who made a difference in the lives of the young.

Now what do I do? Do I delete Andy off my joke list? Should I keep him on it hoping he still gets to enjoy the joke about the monkey and the cue ball? I wonder if there are cookies in heaven. I use to be a Bob White, a good old Bob White too,.....

God Bless Andy Andreassen

Translating by Google

A friend sent me a link to watch a video - the short film winner at Cannes 2008 http://en.zappinternet.com/video/nilSqaMboM/HISTORIA-DE-UN-LETRERO-THE-STORY-OF-A-SIGN . I started watching the video and there is a sign in the video that says "estoy siego". Being the ugly American that I am, I only speak,read, and write one language. So I hopped over to Google and fired up the translator. Input = estoy siego request translation from Spanish into English. Response= I'm Mowing. That made no sense to me. I watched the rest of the video and they put in some sub titles. Back to Google to resolve the mystery. Input = estoy ciego (which is different than what is written on the sign) - request translation from Spanish into English. Response = I'm Blind. So siego=mowing and ciego=blind. Who knew? Nice video. I don't think it was a winner, but it is nice. Why doesn't the guy in the nice suit leave money?

Discrimination

I have no eye hand coordination. At the tender age of 10 my parents signed me up for Pee Wee baseball. The first time I got hit in the face with a thrown ball my teeth cut through my lower lip and it took 3 stitches inside and 3 out to patch me up. After that, in addition to not being able to catch a ball, I was afraid of the ball. I was such a crummy player that when the other team didn't have enough players for the game I was assigned to the other team. I always ended up in left field. When balls were hit towards me I would run to the outfield, to get away from the ball. I'd wait for the ball to hit the ground then I would run up, grab it, and throw it to third base. The team I was playing for was pissed because they thought I was trying to make their team lose. My team was laughing in the dugout because they knew I couldn't catch the ball. That pretty much ruined me for team sports. With that background, I never developed eye hand coordination or decent reflexes. Now I sit in my cave with an XBOX 360 trying to survive in on-line play such as Call of Duty 4. The verbal abuse I get is pretty stiff ( I now know what PWND means - pronounced POWNED!!!). I've gotten to the point that I unplug the headset and turn the TV volume off and shout "F" "U" at the other players - they can't hear me. Today my son introduced me to a neat song, it is a song from an XBOX game "PORTAL". If it weren't for my son I'd never hear this song http://vimeo.com/1612411. Why? Well you have to finish the game to hear the song during the credits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RthZgszykLs . With my eye hand coordinatin I'm lucky to finish my beer, I'll never finish the game. Sometimes life sucks. Baseball sucks. I am glad I have a son and nieces and nephews to enlighten me. I don't think I needed to learn PWND.

Is this good or bad?

During the month of April I signed a contract to have a new deck built on the back of my house. This deck will have a barbeque area, and a screened-in porch along with doors and dog doors so the dog can go to the back yard and do his thing (barking at squirrels and birds). (I only have one dog now, but that story saddens me too much to write). Simultaneoulsy I contracted with the same company to put in a new sliding door. These aren't simple tasks, but the work doesn't require a college degree, or so I thought. It is September, the second installation of the sliding door has just been finished - but there is still some touch up. The deck has been under construction for 3.5 weeks and they are still at least a week from finishing. The workers are nice, they have green cards, their manager is out-to-lunch. It is very apparent that the company has taken on too many tasks and they are struggling to get all the jobs done. There are days that no one shows up to work on the deck. No phone call and the excuses are unbelieveable (The lead carpenter had to take his kids to school so none of the workers wanted to show up). In reality the builders are running to other jobs to help people who scream louder than my wife. Yesterday, the main water line running into the house sprung a leak. Luckily I have insurance for that so the $15,000+ replacement effort will cost me $3.50 a month for another year. The cable for TV and computer has a degraded signal, the company will have to replace all the cable from the street to the house. And the deck builders cut a wire to the back porch light and didn't bother to tell me. That $800 repair (it cost a lot to have someone show up at the house at 10PM) will be charged to the deck company. The builders knew they cut the wire and I found out about it when I called the company to complain about their lack of progress. "Didn't they tell you they cut the wire? They told me?" It has been an extremely frustrating week and I haven't even mentioned the older brother and his inheritance check.