On my last commute into the city, my regular train service was unavailable due to their staff members being on strike. I shared the update with my work group chat, and that I still managed to get into the office.
Their emoji reactions show they’ve become familiar with me perhaps running more than most. Covering 102kms between home and my work office though!? I must say their expectations are severely out of touch.
My boss messaged me to say “Have a good weekend.”
I really shouldn’t have rushed my reply, sending back “You tool!” instead of You too.
Pretty clear indication it’s time to leave.
Reading Time: 2 minutesEveryone brings their experience and life to their work, afterall it is who we are. People may assume it works the other way also. It’s not always the case.
I know chefs who never cook at home. And some strict, powerful people I’ve seen in the workplace are absolutely bubbly, softies away from the office.
It makes me wonder about myself. Do I bring inklings of my work at home?
Does it matter? Probably not, though I’m curious. It can always be helpful to adopt other experiences to improve other things.
In terms of my work, for the past seven years I’ve worked as an enterprise architect. I took a liking to information technology in my first real job. Then worked my way up from being a system administrator, to a technical lead, to a project manager and business analyst. Then I guess the role which took most interest, was putting all of these things together in the enterprise architecture office.
For me, EA is effectively using all of the skills and experience I’ve gained in IT to make sure there is a good forward plan based on an assessment across the relevant pieces of the IT and business landscape. I always want to ensure any plan aligns with a deep knowledge of the environment, then we’re in good shape to make the right investments and changes. It is also involved in shaping solutions based on satisfying the different viewpoints that may exist.
Enterprise architecture is most useful where there are large investments, huge variety, or where a change of strategy is being introduced.
It seems a strange discipline to bring to personal life.
But I suppose, when I define it so generally, we all do this to an extent.
One thing that differs is the kind of tools that EAs often use. I have become quite the excel junky to create and maintain all sort of inventories/catalogues, and to conduct analysis or report something. I draw pictures (create models) to help understand the different components and how they fit together. And I do ask “Why?” so often it’s probably very annoying. And all decisions are checked to ensure they’re based on documented principles to guide the direction.
I’ve never felt the need to use “tools” to my home life. Nor do I worry too much about us documenting the future plan, then sticking to it through governance.
However, like most households we do often have competing perspectives. My kids just want to have fun, parents have a different set of needs. I feel I navigate these well, perhaps through having to deal with similar scenarios at work. We always manage to come to some form of agreement. Not that this is something unique to an enterprise architect.
Harvey Pekar suggests “Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.” However, I think it’s less of an issue to get to the bottom of our decision-making. We happily live the consequences.
The big omission in my life, when compared to my enterprise architecture activities, is having a strategic viewpoint. I’m doubtful though it’s something I really need to introduce to my personal life.
I do have goals, and each day I try to improve upon my habits – thanks to https://lift.do/. As a family we have only rough ideas of what we’ll do in the future, and when.
I think that’s enough.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
At a recent interview I was stumped by the common question about what I feel are my weaknesses. I knew it was a standard question, and did prepare for it at some stage, though when it was time to respond I almost drew a complete blank. The question followed in order from what I thought were my strengths. So perhaps I had not quite finished being in “beat my chest” mode. Or perhaps the answer I thought I’d go with didn’t really resonate well enough.
When I’m nervous or feel awkward with a silence I often lead with a gag. I guess I was nervous or felt awkward, cause my first statement was along the lines of “I should give you my wife’s phone number, she can share a long list of my weaknesses”. It’s not even true, though critical wife gags are quicker to devise than a thoughtful self-analysis.
There was a bit of a pause to give me time to think, and I did fumble through with an answer which seemed OK, though definitely not great.
So I realised, I was very weak at describing my weaknesses!
The benefit of things going less than ideal, it leads me to contemplate on a better answer.
I thought I’d get this down, and perhaps review it over time.
Perhaps posting such a topic to a blog with open comments is a way to crowd source better answers – or just trolling.
Most of the research suggests the question is used to test whether the candidate is self aware, and mature enough to realise short-comings, and whether they have made adjustments to become more effective.
I’ve certainly thought for long enough about my short-comings, and this is a good enough place to consider what adjustments to become better.
For quite some time, mostly with my own work I’ve had a desire for things to be perfect. My preference would be to work on things forever, to prevent passing it on for people to identify faults with it. Being a perfectionist is apparently something I inherited from my father, and he inherited it from his father. Though, I’ve been intent on breaking with the tradition. I’ve seen value in getting stuff out there, and have even made it into a habit to share early drafts, to the point where I get a buzz with quantity of documents & revisions, rather than the quality.
I’ll still pick the eyes out of my work, and other things that have been handed to me. Though I recognise, the value addition of a perfect piece of work is too low to warrant the amount of time it takes to make one.
In the past, such as my university days, I was tremendously poor at being organised. It was a bit of a curse how I could crunch many weeks effort into a single evening or two and still get through with flying colours. Because I was such a gifted scrambler, it almost encouraged the behaviour of not staying on top of deadlines or where things were up to. As I got older though, and the stakes become higher – such as having a family, I realised how stressful these situations are and that things would get missed. It made me recognise the need to change significantly.
Many people talk about dull books that change their lives. My eyes usually glaze over when I hear this. For me, that one book did change my life in terms of my organisation was Getting Things Done by David Allen. I’ve read many management and productivity books, think they’re useful, then very soon after I’d regularly, and quite happily ignore the advice. The “GTD” system though, is something I can continue to use every day, since reading the book quite a few years ago. Thanks to recognising that I was making things unnecessarily tough, and missing out on opportunities, I knew I could become far more organised with life and work. And having a good system has really put far more focus on the proactive tasks, and reviews that I now enjoy.
So, while I managed to get by quite well without being organised. I feel I am living life far better now because I’m staying on top of things thanks to a change in my behaviour and trusty processes I live each day.
Perhaps related to Weakness #1 about being a perfectionist, I have noticed I tend to prefer to base some of my decisions and actions on theories of what is right or wrong – in place of feelings, experience, or hearsay. In some respects, this is what university equipped me with as a strength. However, in different roles and situations I’ve learned that this is not terribly useful at times.
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast" -Peter Drucker #business #management
— Cameron L Morrissey (@ManagersDiary) October 27, 2013
Having a theoretical base is useful, as the thinking work and path to success is often done for you. Though, some audience or personality types are repelled by such assertions. I could argue why that’s the case, though it’s not useful here.
Regardless, I do see a purely theoretical approach as a weakness. My career has always included some level of practice or experience, and over time I see I’m moving away from my ideals about what the best theory may be, and I’m often leading now with what I see are the practical and pragmatic approaches. They will support a theory, but they’re not a theory alone. That would be terribly weak.
This was the end of my initial list of thoughts, if I was able to answer the interview question over again.
It probably goes without saying I am still trying to perfect the response in my head. Though please note, I have blogged my Weaknesses before it’s all perfect. So I am certainly making progress.
Reading Time: 3 minutesIt’s almost been an eternity since we had regular internet access at home, so there’s been no blogs for some time.
I’ve occasionally added to a journal, so I’ll post some of these out of date and out of context items below – and reset the date of the publishing, as they were mostly from the start of the year.
The cause of the internet issues was us moving from our spacious Tecom apartment, to an even more spacious villa. So although it was quite painful going without internet, the move was worthwhile.
At the end of 2010 we moved to our Safa villa, which is a family-friendly compound for Emirates employees. We knew it would be good for children, as we had friends living here before us (incidentally who have left the organisation and country). Within an hour of us moving, Myles had a friend over, that afternoon they doubled, and now he pretty much lives outside – or brings them here. The new place almost feels like a holiday house for him with all the new kids to meet and play with. It didn’t take long though for him to make a regular group of friends. Now it’s not too uncommon to have half a dozen kids around our dinner table doing a painting or some activity we were used to doing with Myles & Lewis alone. Or through Tecom families we’d need to organise in advance or call around. Now it’s just the kids’ way of life.
With the move to a new area, Myles and I had another failed trip to the library. I assumed they’d be open after 10am on a Saturday. No, it’s not open on the weekend at all. Just like the last time we tried and #failed, it ended with us visiting a nearby Islamic book store and buying a book. This time we bought animals mentioned in the Holy Qur’an – each chapter told a story of a different animal and history, including one story towards the end comparing Jews to monkeys.
On the work front, our annual IT department meeting reaffirmed our vision that have come from our exec team. And they also discussed our high level goals. To help everyone become a part of this, everyone was given a small piece of paper and told to draw their vision for the organisation’s IT. People were eager to participate, given the incentive of a surprise gift going to the winning entry. As I told Myles about this, he got a puzzled looking face and wondered why I’m doing kid activities like drawing pictures, and trying to learn Arabic. He suggested I must work in a nursery. A few grown-ups could think the same.
We also had another go at dune bashing. One of the guys seems to have more experience (and stories primarily) than the rest of us, but he doesn’t seem to have the same amount of luck with staying out of trouble. He’s the only guy in the group who doesn’t work at Emirates. Myles learnt this, and thought since he drives so crazy, instead of working with us at Emirates he must be a taxi driver. Not only did he have car operating troubles, when we all paused to cool down my poor engine, a group of local guys took some interest in his car and stole it. Well not literally stealing, but taking it for one hell of a spin. They clearly have no fear, and know how to have a good time.
Also at work we had our 7s Cricket tournament. It used to be a regular fixture for the people at Emirates. Being an Aussie, I thought I’d have to give it a try. Not that it matters, my estimates of the racial breakdown of the 60-70 players were: 90% Indian, 5% Pakistani, 4% Sri Lankan, and me. And in terms of performance I felt VERY alone. Every body else out there in the hot sun were living and breathing cricket. I on the other hand, were out with the first ball I faced. Not a good representing of Cricket Australia at all. I pegged things back in the second innings, but it was clear I was, and my team was, there to make up numbers for others who were clearly having the time of their life.
On the running front I’ve done very little, although moving to a stone’s throw from a popular running track around Safa Park. I decided to enter the Dubai Creek Striders Half marathon. My intention was to treat it as a training run, and to indicate whether I was on track for the full marathon or not. It was a successful test, I was DEFINITELY NOT in shape to think about a full marathon. At one stage in the race I was struggling behind a couple of women running. Then an old Afghani looking gentleman saw me, and heckled what was I doing, this is Dubai – women are meant to be following the men. I struggled to muster any expression in response – which was probably best.
Reading Time: 2 minutesAs part of our staff meeting we had a member of our Learning & Development department come along and take us through a behavioural assessment. The behaviour test was based on Belbin Team inventory, and it shows insights into what your preferred roles and least preferred roles are.
I have always been a cynic of these tests. They ask a few general questions which you could easily answer any different way. And then they provide a result which somehow magically describes all parts of your being. I’m smarter than that. I cannot be pidgeon-holed into a category, these tests miss so many considerations.
But the problem is, each time I do these tests they come back with the same result. The same pretty accurate result. I always come out of them thinking they have captured me pretty well.
The Belbin test identifies 10 Team Roles, which you are classified to – according to the statements that you relate most to.
The test found that I had two Team Roles I favour. One was the Plant role. Its typical profile is creative, unorthodox, serious minded, individualistic. It has some positive contributions of Genius, imaginative, intellectual, knowledgeable. They’re good at solving problems and generating ideas. However, they’re inclined to ignore practical details or protocol. A preference to break the rules came through in another test I did at the time of my Emirates interview – which initially concerned the organisational psychologist, but then he believed it could actually be a positive contribution at times. Another “allowable weakness” is they may be too pre-occupied to communicate effectively.
My other preferred team role was the Specialist. They’re typically Single-minded, self-starting, dedicated to their own field. An alleged positive is they provide knowledge and skills in rare supply. But their issue is they may only contribute on a narrow front, and can dwell on technicalities.
The test also provides insight into what your least favoured role is. My least favoured – unfortunately – the Implementer. These are conservative, disciplined, reliable, efficient and predictable. It’s a concern if I look at the antonyms of these words, as describing myself. Positives of this role are organising ability, practical common sense, hard working, self-disciplined. They turn ideas into practical actions. I guess it shows a disconnect with having a profile allegedly capable of Planting ideas.
In other behavioural tests I’ve done, this result was there also. I do see it as a weakness at times, but feel I use some good tools to help manage this. So while I may answer in ways that show I think I have better ideas than being practical, I feel I am usually on top of the tasks I must implement. But perhaps I think other people are better positioned to do it. Or more of a concern, maybe I think it’s somebody else’s job. I have ideas, but can’t bring myself to do the actual work to get them in.
When I first saw this trait coming in these tests, I promised to fix it. But it’s still coming up again four years later. Maybe it’s the same as being an alcoholic. Before you can resolve the problem, you first must admit you have a problem.
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWow wifey, you’re old. I think sleeping in til 11am on mywife’s birthday would usually be a no-no. But with a seven hour time difference, and the safety of 12,028 kms, I can say it was entirely appropriate! Apparently being awayin an entirely different country is not a sufficient present. Luckily Dubai has everything for the woman who wants something.
The day was important for another reason, as it was my first dayworking for Emirates Group. The morning was filled with meeting people,and learning what a lot of work I have to do.
I’ve made a real effort in remembering people’s names, and it has been working amazingly well. A while ago I think I did an advanced memory course, which taught some techniques which have really paid off. It involves changing the person’s name into words – particularly vivid picture words- then somehow associate it with the person’s appearance, so you can make the connection in future. I really can’t get into what I’ve been coming up with for some of the sub-continental and Arabic names, but it certainly makes me remember. Actually the names I’ve invented are probably a little too vivid and memorable, as I honestly have to try not to laugh with some of the recall that comes when someone comes to see me.
The day also involved a bit of a medical at headquarters,which involved yet another blood test. With all the x-rays, blood tests, along with the eye scan at theairport,and yetanother blood test, I wouldn’t be surprised to come into work one day and see a clone of myself sitting next to me. Well, actually Iwould be surprised. Surely they could find something more valuable to clone, like a 20 year old baby sheep or something.