Cyndy over at MouseMusings sent me a paper in response to my Personal Unproductivity
post that contrasted the workflow management styles of left-brain
versus right-brain dominated thinkers. Here's a part of it (my
paraphrasing):
Work Management Attribute
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Left-Brainers
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Right-Brainers
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Favoured Communication Medium
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Presentation
|
Hand-Outs
|
Measure of Personal Success
|
Authority
|
Freedom
|
Preferred Worktool Type
|
Machine-Assisted (Toys, Gadgets)
|
Manual (Sensory)
|
Learning Style
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Study, Analyze
|
Observe
|
Work Tasks Communication Style
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Tell, Impose, Assign
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Ask, Request, Collaborate
|
Work Assistance Style
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Direct, Instruct, Top-Down
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Offer, Suggest, Peer Assist
|
Leadership Style
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Command & Control
|
Enable, Empower, Trust
|
Method of Evaluating Skills
|
Tested
|
Demonstrated
|
When Tasks are Done
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As Scheduled
|
As Needed
|
How Plans are Documented
|
Formal Plan
|
Messages (Improvisation)
|
We talked about whether it was fair to generalize about these styles on
a gender (male left-brain, female right-brain) or political
(conservative left-brain, progressive right-brain) basis, and
concluded, I think, that such generalizations were too simplistic. And
none of us is entirely left-brained or right-brained: We sometimes use
styles and approaches from each column, depending on the circumstances.
We also agreed, I think, that these styles aren't limited to the
workplace -- they manifest themselves in relationships with family and
styles in which activities at home are carried out as well.
Cyndy digested this down to a catchphrase for right-brainers (which we both are) to use in managing: Observe, Ask, Offer. Here's how she put it:
Observe:
Allow peers to observe peers. Everyone likes to help and be helped. It
takes far less time than creating manuals and documents no one will
read or use.
Ask: What truly
annoys you on a daily basis? What would help or hinder your production?
What makes you happy? If x tool were available would you be inclined to
use it? Why or why not? How could this work better? Sometimes you need
to go through an iterative, intuitive process to get intelligent
answers when you ask: People often don't know what the answer is, they
only know the problem.
Offer: Offer
solutions that work for you but don't assume they will work for
everyone and thereby mandate their use. Make tools, programs and
activities that suit different work and learning styles and make them
optional.
Since then we've been playing around with this (we even got into Eliot's What The Thunder Said in our musings on how it relates to the Upanishads),
and I've tried to expand it from a catchphrase for managing into a
mantra for living -- something right-brainers could use to guide all of
their day-to-day activities. Something that would work along with a
daily workflow management process like Getting Things Done, and focus your mind on actually doing the various tasks you do, once Getting Things Done
had helped you decide which to do. Or maybe I'm being a bit
schizophrenic here -- does it make sense to be using a rigorous
process for organizing your "stuff" and your activities, when your
approach to those activities is decidedly relaxed, flexible,
interactive and improvisational?
Here's the mantra that has evolved out of this for me. I've been using
it for the last few days and it's got me through some challenging
business meetings, a personal family crisis, and a couple of stressful
situations, with flying colours:
Sense, Self-control, Understand, Question, Imagine, Offer, Collaborate
(or, in French, where the words are more nuanced yet less ambiguous: Sentir, Se Commander, Comprendre, Poser, Imaginer, Offrir, Collaborer).
Sense:
|
Observe, listen,
pay attention, focus, open up your senses, perceive everything that has
a bearing on the issue at hand. Connect.
|
| Self-control: |
Don't prejudge or jump to conclusions. Don't lose your cool. Focus. |
| Understand: |
Make sure you have
the facts and appreciate the context. Things are the way they are for a
reason. Know what that reason is. Sympathize. |
| Question: |
Ask, don't tell. Challenge. Think critically. |
| Imagine: |
Picture, hear, feel what could be. Be visionary. Every problem is an opportunity. Anything is possible. |
| Offer: |
Consider. Give something away. Create options, new avenues to explore. Suggest possibilities. Lend a hand. Help. |
| Collaborate: |
Create something
together. Solve a problem with a collective answer better than any set
of individual answers. Learn to yield, to build on, to bridge, to adapt
your thinking. |
I know, it sounds like a Buddhist homily. Tedious. Pretentious. But it's also natural,
the way things are done by creatures not burdened or enlightened by
man's double-edged capacity to rationalize and moralize. When I think
about applying these seven steps to every situation I face, it's not
like I'm imposing something, it's more like I'm liberating myself from
a lot of bad, very human habits that I need to unlearn.
All I know is that, for me, it works. Thanks, Cyndy.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
