After many back-and-forths with hosting provider Site5, javaleedesigns.com now has its own home.
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I registered this domain ten years ago and haven’t done much with it.
In the meantime, the web hosting product where it would have been served from ceased to exist. The company still exists, but who knows how many times they have been bought and sold.
If you are seeing this page from a javaleedesigns.com URL, I’m making progress.
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Weakness
A friend told a friend, “That’s not ADHD. That’s weakness.” It hurt.
Weakness isn’t like a bowling ball. “There’s my green bowling ball.” Weakness is a comparison.
I could go to the gym, stack some weights, and do an exercise movement. “I did 90 pounds.” That’s a number. That’s not weakness.
I’m a man. If I told another man, both of us would get a little more awake. Feelings. Comparison. With a good friend, some teasing and competition. With a stranger, maybe some shame. From an enemy, taunts, or a back-down, depending on which exercise I did with 90 pounds and my overall appearance.
Like another friend says about her age, “It’s just a number, and mine’s unlisted.” (There used to be a big fine print softbound book with all the city’s telephone numbers, and…never mind). Numbers are easy to compare and that can be useful. That 90 compared to 80 last week means my physical therapy is working. Or maybe 90 tells me that I cannot perform that job task safely by myself. Even comparison with another person or a goal I’ve set can be useful. 90 is less than 100, and that might stir up motivation to go back to the gym and get stronger, and I like the sound of that.
“That’s not ADHD. That’s weakness.” The feelings well up.
Slow down. Chin up. How weak is weakness? There’s no number. And weak compared to what? Who chooses the standard? What’s the crime, the verdict, and the sentence?
The same friend says that human will power is limitless. No it isn’t. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” say George Patton and Vince Lombardi, and they knew something about willpower and motivation.
More to come.
(Republished from August 2009)
I’m involved in one client project right now where no one’s happy.
My relationship with this client is long-term and (fortunately) transcends this particular project. I was pointed at it last Spring to help get it back on the rails. The project manager and I came up with a problem frame—a container of the right size and shape to fit all of the seemingly random questions we were being asked—and identified several parallel work streams to make progress on all fronts.
We’re working cross-functionally within the organization, so there are relationships to be established and the concerns of bosses’ bosses to be discovered, sometimes the hard way. We’re working with new outside vendors, so there are negotiations and promises and documents and lawyers to review it all.
It’s really a research project, disguised as an information systems project. I used to be a research scientist, so I’m familiar with the feeling of pursuing a line of research that I know will pay off. But that’s not the client culture, and I understand that.
But the sponsor is frustrated. The team is frustrated. I’m frustrated.
So it was with relief that I read about Kanter’s Law: Change is Hardest in the Middle. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a named-chair professor at the Harvard Business School, puts it like this; “Everyone loves inspiring beginnings and happy endings; it is just the middles that involve hard work.”
She explains why.
- “Troubles increase with the number of ways the initiative differs from current approaches. The more innovation, the more problems.”
- “Forecasts fall short, especially if the situation is novel.”
- “There are always unexpected obstacles and hidden delays.”
- Difficulties re-energize the skeptics. “Conflicts surface. Investors and friends ask why it isn’t faster. Critics attack…and the middles get even more miserable.”
She then gives a checklist for applying Kenny Rogers’ advice, “Know when to hold ’em, and know when to fold ’em.”
- Do the original assumptions still hold? Is the need still there?
- Is the idea big enough to be worth the effort?
- Are the remaining supporters still enthusiastic, and are there still partners willing to join in?
- Are there early indicators that this could, after all, succeed? Can the next wave of results sustain the supporters and mute, if not silence, the critics?
- Does the effort benefit other projects? Can alliances with other projects strengthen it?
If there are more YESes than NOs, hang in there. “Stop the effort too soon, and by definition it is a failure.”
“Those who master change persist and persevere. They have stamina. They are flexible. They expect obstacles on the road to success and celebrate each milestone. They keep arguing for what matters.”
“And who knows what might happen?”
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Not That Simple?
Too many times, “It’s not that simple,” have been the first words out of my mouth after another person’s question or statement. I’ve joked that it could be my epitaph.
Like a lot of things us well-intentioned people say, it’s often true, and less often useful.
Starting tonight, I’m committing to replacing INTS with something equally true and more useful. It will probably be a curious question. I’ll also be working on the Myers-Briggs Type joke.