A: A company.

Every time an employee of a company contacts a customer, a potential hire, a supplier, a government office, or anyone else, they are assuming the identity of their company, whether they realize it or not. This means that the impression people are left with not only reflects the individual themselves but also the company as a whole. Because of this the core values of the company will be either hidden or disclosed based upon the actions and value set of the individual. If the individual has a set of core values that is closely aligned with the company then the interactions with outsiders will typically yield an accurate depiction of the values of the company, assuming the individual acts in accordance with those values. However, in cases where the person is not closely aligned or does not act in accordance with the company’s core values, the impression left is not one that accurately reflects the true identity of the company.

Disparities in values are not only acceptable but necessary for a thriving company. A friend/colleague of mine always says, “If there are two people in a business that have the exact same values and opinions, the business has one too many people.” Differences of opinions and value sets are necessary in order to push the envelope and allow companies to sustain their forward momentum. However, when these differences cause a negative perception of the company the entire organization is instantly set back.

While the internal organization should cultivate diversity, this should be largely hidden from external entities in order to paint a singular image for the public. Companies must insist that all employees foster an attitude and environment that appropriately portrays the values of the company and minimizes differences. As an example, many companies have poor customer service, which is undoubtedly not something they strive for. Customer service representatives that are rude, recruiters that attempt to devalue potential hires, and store staff lacking knowledge of their products are just a few of the many ways that companies allow the public to get a hazy image of the core corporate values. All of these could be fixed by management.

While most modern companies are highly focused on low cost and fast turnaround, it is essential that management focus on the task of getting all points of contact to emulate the image the company wishes to show to the public. It doesn’t matter if employees agree with the values or not, as long as their complaints and dissensions are never voiced publicly and always reserved for the office. This is the only way to prevent a fractured public opinion.

Take Steve R. Fictional for example. Steve is a middle manager who has a good track record, solid industry experience, and has been in the field for well over a decade. Over the past couple years Steve decided that he wanted to pursue more of a leadership track and moved from an employee to a manager role. He has done well so far in this role and has always achieved the tasks set in front of him. Steve is a good employee and a good manager and gets along with everyone. But Steve finds himself systematically excluded from meetings, team building exercises, and other functions. Attributing the exclusions to oversight Steve contacts people to make sure he is on the right mailing lists, that HR has been advised of his role, and so forth. Yet he is still excluded.

So now that we know Steve’s background, let’s take a look at what is going on with Steve. If he is like most people, which we will assume he is, Steve is beginning to feel devalued and cast aside. He is beginning to feel that he is the repeated target of lip service geared at simply appeasing him. He is thinking about moving on.

The attrition rate for a company will inevitably be higher when there are a lot of Steves. Likewise, it will inevitably be lower when there are few Steves. So the impending question is, how do you avoid Steves? The answer lies in equal treatment. Always. Treat all employees the same, all managers the same, all directors the same, and all executives the same. If people are categorized in the same way, regardless of whether it is by rank, title, status, or something else, they should be treated uniformly. If a directors meeting is held, all directors should be included. If a team building exercise is scheduled, all team members and the leader of the team should be included. No exceptions.

If you want your employees to be happy, productive, and lasting, make sure they feel like part of the group. If you want to watch them drop away one by one, systematically exclude them.

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One of the best core values I have ever been a part of is: “Respect the individual”. This singular value is so encompassing that it allows the value set to be boiled down to a few distinct items. Respecting the individual, is simple and elegant, yet extremely effective. Show everyone the respect you want them to show you, no matter who they are. This doesn’t mean you can’t dislike people, get into arguments, or have long standing and deep rooted disagreements - it simply means that you are able to look past those enough to show a basic level of respect to the person.

This is such a good core value to me because it closely aligns with my personal values and reflects my upbringing. I was always taught that everyone has value and they should be treated as such. What pains me is that people so routinely neglect such a basic tenet of social life. People don’t pay attention while driving, endangering others. People cut in line at the grocery store. People yell into their cell phones in obviously and traditionally quiet places, like the library. People let doors swing shut behind them, with utter ignorance of the person right on their tail.

For the most part, people don’t respect one another. There are exceptions though. My wife is nine months pregnant right now. Three times out of her past four trips to the grocery store a complete stranger, who did not work for the store, stopped and helped her load either our 2 year old or our groceries into the car. This is more of what our society needs.

Do your society a favor: respect someone. Open or hold a door for someone. Get off the phone while you drive. Move out of the left lane if you are going slower than the people around you. Tell the person you’ll call them back when you are in a more appropriate place. There is no excuse for not helping others and showing a basic level of respect. Most respectful activities don’t take up any extra time or effort and the majority of the rest only take up a minimal amount of time - 30 seconds to help load groceries, 2 seconds to hold a door, etc.

Together we can change “I get no respect” to “I get respect”. After that we can hold hands and sing kum-ba-ya.

I decided to build a contraption to help me out and remove much of the physical exertion from the process.  The basic design (not fully depicted below) was using pressure treated 4×4’s so that I could reuse them for the new fence. The uprights are 8 feet tall, each foot is 4 feet long, and the top cross beam is 2 feet wide and the whole structure is held together with 1/2 inch lag bolts. I then placed a 1/2 inch eye bolt through the cross beam so that I could attach a come-along. Add a matching eye bolt in the fence post and I had a great way to wench the posts right out of the ground. I simply rocked the posts a bit to loosen them up then used the contraption to rip them out of the ground.

 
My contraption. I forgot to take the picture…

Turns out I was working smart, but not as smart as I could have been. I neglected to take the weight of the contraption into account and how I was going to move it from post to post. So I had this great mechanism that would save my back from the exertion of ripping out posts, only to strain my back by having to move it. I estimate it at around 100 pounds, which isn’t too bad in itself, however the unwieldy nature of such a large structure posed balance problems in addition to weight problems. Had I thought the entire process through, instead of focusing on just the main problem, I would have come up with a better design. Perhaps casters, handles, or even a bottom cross support so that I could use a dolly were in order.

The same paradigm rings true for business in general but it resonates especially loud in the software industry. We often design features, applications, and bug fixes with the intention of solving the problem at hand. While our approach may be smart in that it solves a large problem, keeps the problem from coming back, or takes into account the possible future needs, it isn’t always the smartest solution.

A great example comes from a small contracting business I once ran. Many of my clients wanted much of the same functionality as each other. So instead of rewriting or even copy and pasting code from one client to the next I decided to write a modular based system. This system was ant based and simply took a properties file as a build argument. The properties file would list the images to be generated for the site, the style sheets to use, the modules to be built, and even the scripts to run against the database during deployment. This system allowed me to write modules that were self referencing with respect to their dependencies. So I could drop in the users module and the client site would now have full support for user management, complete with authentication code. This users module would understand that it was dependent upon the security module and the security module was dependent upon the core module. All would then be included in the final build simply by including the users module.

The solution was smart. It kept me from duplicating a lot of work, but it wasn’t smarter. I finally realized a problem in that the system allowed no room for conflicting options. If client A and client B wanted different and conflicting things from the same module, which eventually happened, I was back to square one. In order to accommodate such disparities I would either need to copy and paste modules or build in very complex configuration functionality. Had I worked smarter from the beginning I could have foreseen some of these problems and taken steps to circumvent them. I won’t go into details on how, as most of them would require a deep understanding of the module based system’s inner workings. Instead, it is sufficient to note that there were other design options that would have yielded the same scalability without the technical nightmare of conflicting demands.

Always work smart. Strive to work smarter.

Grails gsp pages are an extension of a jsp page, meaning they are servlet backed. The grails API exposes the session, servletContext, request, and response to all gsp pages. This means that redirecting is as simple as using the sendRedirect method on the response.

${response.sendRedirect("myController/myAction")}

Here are a few:

1. Our pipes
Every time you use water from pipes there is a chance to harness the energy. When the water flows out of the pipe, or into the building through the water main, energy could be harnessed through small turbines fitted within the pipes. Make the turbines low resistance and they would likely not even cause a noticeable shift in our experienced water pressure. Add the fact that most of our water usage will also be drained back out of the house through pipes and we can harness this energy a second time through the same mechanism.

2. Our heating and cooling
The energy wasted from heating and cooling is enormous. Take a refrigerator for example. The inside gets cool while the back gets warm. Instead of allowing the warmth to vent into the house a slight modification could be made to enclose the heating elements and capture the rising air as it escapes through a small pipe. The then escaping air would then cause a small turbine to spin within the pipe, harnessing energy. The same concept can be applied to the flu for heating and any other place where there is air movement due to temperature differentials. Even the oven could be modified to vent through a pipe fitted with a turbine while it cools off.

3. Our doors
How many times a day do you open a door? Why not generate energy from it? Modified hinges could be used to transfer the force of the spinning hinges into reusable energy.

4. Our human powered appliances
We expend a lot of energy each day that is totally lost. When you push your lawn mower, vacuum the floor, or even sleep in your bed you are just giving away energy. Items like lawn mowers and vacuums could be modified to trap the energy of their turning wheels in a small internal battery, which can then be transferred back to the house through a plug. Beds could be fitted with a small generator that eeks out a small amount of power each time the bed moves up and down. While sleeping you would be able to harness the energy of turning over or getting comfortable. During other activities, a considerably greater amount could be captured.
The basic idea behind all of these ideas comes from one of two places: human generated and gravity generated. Both are systems that are omnipresent and generally result in wasted energy. I realize that some of these will not be cost effective yet as the cost of the generator will be more than the savings, however as our technology progresses these ideas become more and more feasible. In the end, to get out of our current energy crisis, we all have to think outside of the proverbial box.

P.S. I would be interested in hearing (either through a comment here or an email to me) from physicists or engineers regarding the viability of these ideas.

This was a good book. It starts out by talking about the questions President Clinton had to answer during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and reviewed some rather tough questions he had to field during that time. The book then expanded to cover a formula for answering questions, tough or otherwise. Through reviewing a number of presidential debates and interviews the book gives plenty of examples of how and how not to handle various types of questions.

If you have ever taken a course in effective/strong/great presentations then much of this information will likely be review, as the concepts are not new. However, if you have not taken such a course the information contained within these pages truly is helpful in any situation where you must answer questions from anyone. As such, I would recommend this book to anyone who will ever be in a situation where they must handle Q&A. While this book is geared towards the CEO actively pursuing an IPO, it is written in such a way that it is relevant to anyone who would be in a presentation situation.