Before we go into the details, I  want to cycle back to the circle of blank.  It’s pretty much the third day, and my mood has cycled up and down so many times in the last two days.

The 3rd day was pretty much fun actually.  I had a hand-over meeting about tasks I was working on, and an overall review of the business, the impact of Covid and oil price drop on business outlook.  That ‘handover’ meeting lasted for a couple or so hours.  I then started to put down names of people whom I wanted to include in my farewell email.  “I must apologize for anyone I have missed”, I keep saying.  But then, I think, “It is unlikely they will ever read this if they are still employees”.  They are not going to have the time.  

The list was quite long; that, I had not anticipated.  It did take time.   I decided not to write the mail that day, and limit myself to include emails of everyone I wanted to bid farewell to.  Basically, all I did was put names in the Bcc list of an empty body.  And no, that was not the “fun” I mentioned earlier.  Jeez…Just because I spent 20 years with my last company, does not mean I lost my sense of humor!!

I had to deal with all the emails and pending items that were waiting for me, and then unexpectedly let my colleagues know that they had to continue tasks without me and that, in some comical way, I was letting them down.  This, here, is where I should mention that said emails and items, so to speak, must have been in shock.  They usually have my full undivided attention the minute they drop in the inbox.  Not for three days now, they haven’t.  C’est la vie, I suppose.

But I did go through them with haste, as I only had to decide who to pass them to.  I should probably mention that I was flabbergasted as I did not feel the sense of urgency or the jump in heart rate that usually accompanies to-do items due the previous day.  That was a welcome shock, but I still had to pass the tasks over to someone else.  I estimated about 20 different calls ought to do it.  Miraculously, or for other reasons, these calls took less than 5 minutes altogether.  The “fun” was doing something that goes much smoother than expected and anticipated.  If you’re wondering why it was not what I expected, or why I found it fun, its because the discussions went similar to the following:

Me: “Hi, hope you are well and safe”, in a soft and polite tone.

Them: “Hey…good you called, we have to…Oh, wait…sh*t.  So you can’t do “the work” anymore.”

me: “That’s right.  Take care.  Bye”

God bless emotional intelligence.

The time I saved myself through these few second-long discussions was worth it.  It wasn’t like I had other work to attend to, but it made me realize that my current job did not include any business related challenges but revolved around fire-fighting and the internal delivery of cryptic expectations.  This truly showed me the meaning of efficiency and its potential impact on a person and organization. 

You see, if a job you’ve been doing for a few years of which the part that needed to be summed up and handed over in a few hours then it obviously wasn’t an important job from a managerial perspective.  I obviously skipped all my initiatives, strategies, and plans to keep the fire trucks and equipment at peak performance levels .  This is testimony that the attention to the business I happened to manage was parked, and plans for growing it, even maintaining it, were ignored.   

To face challenges in every aspect of life is normal, and fire-fighting skills are mandatory.  They, however, are not a career.  To fire-fight the same fires over and over again, knowing they could be avoided is not smart.  Just ask Bill Murray.  Groundhog Day should have been his highest paid role.  Is it by the way?  It should be, really…What’s interesting in the movie was his changing approach day after day until he got what he was after, and what he was after got from him.  It was a blessing after all.  What would I give up to have a Groundhog 4 years? 

Well, if I had a series of repeated fire fighting events that did not have to be repeated, why didn’t I, oh why didn’t I, do what Bill Murray did on Groundhog Day.  But, I did.  Imagine the reactions to changing actions the same.  That would defy the laws of physics, wouldn’t it?  Otherwise, that damn flick would have still been playing, or an unfortunate suicide would have entailed.

Freezing water turns to ice.

Boiling water turns to ice.  Ok, let’s do it again.  Freezing water turns to ice.  Done.  Boiling water turns to (I bet you are saying vapor.  Wrong.  It turns to) ice.  Anyway, no matter how many times you repeat it, there are two possible and logical reasons why the experiment is flawed (If you have a third, let me know.  I will add it and credit your name on this paragraph).  The first is that the person conducting the experiment is an idiot and does not know what freezing, boiling, water or ice are.  This is an analogy about me, redoing things, differently, and getting the same unexpected and illogical outcome.  Einstein’s words as well, but could be miscredited: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  Was I wrong?  Do I stop?  Do I succumb?  Was I insane?

The second is that the instructions followed are wrong, and will lead to failure, whether by mistake or purpose.  Would any of you dare stand up to their teacher and tell her: “Miss, you taught us wrong”.  Hell no.  You have not met my science teacher.  But those of you who will; there’s always someone; I’m not asking you.  In general, we trust our teachers.  For most schools that is.  If in doubt, google it.  No, not the teacher thing, the water thing.  

We do trust google, don’t we?  Google is like a genie and a psychologist in one. It’s always listening, and will get you whatever you ask for.  In HTML form at least. 

What was this whole water experiment about?

Well, let’s get to the point.  What was this whole water experiment about?  Oh.  Who was wrong or mistaken?  Well, I could spend the rest of the week laying out different arguments, but I gotta stick to the schedule.  “Bedtime is knocking, and my pajamas rocking.  The bed is set as my destination.  No one’s wrong, it’s communication”.  What do you know, a rhyme.  Basically, there is no right or wrong.  There never is.  It’s a contextual interpretation.  There’s a whole science about this, and by science I mean philosophy.  Lookup the trolley dilemma.  It’s about different strategies, decisions and about core versus non-core priorities.  Priorities are not static.  Remember that circle of blank?

There is a disruption in the world from many factors.

To me, I look out for technological advances, oil production considerations, renewable energy, and of course, Trump.  Let me take that last one back.  I’m not even a US citizen, and anyway, China made me say it.  With disruption comes the need to change.  In my case, what had to change, and how, were the issues I had with my management, and it seems, they with me.  To say one is wrong is to say one is right, and it is neither.  It is, was, the inability to bring two ideas to the same table.  How to transform; not as individuals, but as an entity. 

My philosophy was and still is to NOT change the people, but support them to change how they do things.  Give them the tools to enable change.   Have you seen that video of a person trying to fill up a Tesla with fuel?  The person has changed – now wears a constant smirk – but the way they did things didn’t.  Look at what we got.  Might as well, with current oil prices, just shower with the stuff. 

“Employees” re-defined:

People who exhibit qualities sought after by other employees with hiring authority.  When the sought after qualities change, so will the workforce or parts thereof.  That also means the organization is changing.  Enforcing change on people will not work  Supporting them to do things differently will.  Whether the change is for the better or worse, nor I nor anyone on the inside can judge..  Only time will tell.

I can, however, give my opinion..  Let us start with organizations, and how they adapt to change.  Restructuring the workforce, re-defining strategies and key areas of focus are on top of the list…where the disruption is most likely to create opportunities.  My business unit was, to my management,  like periods, no, not like ‘that time of the month’.   But like the one time of the month that you focus on it, and the rest of the days it is otherwise forgotten.  I’m talking about revenue recognition.   Ofcourse, there were good and bad months. A “dismissed” salute took place for every good month, and “a concern on the future, and what management will do” speech for every bad month.  It was never about what leads up to a good month, and what to a bad month.

I always check our financial performance you know!

I remember checking the finance reporting system, and determining that my business unit totaled 20% of a $100+ million just last year.  Not bad, but it felt non-core and low-priority.  Strange.  In a company devoting so much to learn from the data it archived, investing in AI, and building on previous experiences, there was an ocean between the management’s strategy and the focus on the ground.  Budgets for implementing advances to existing workflows based on recommendations were zero.  Why was it ignored?  What is the purpose?  It’s like driving with your hair covering 20% of your face.  Deal with it, or don’t wonder why you crashed.  Bizarre indeed. 

What I know is that I do not have to drive myself crazy to convince them to get a haircut anymore.  I am not a passenger in that car, yet while not life threatening to me anymore, I do not want to see it crash.

I know it is still the 3rd day since my release, but three days for a mind on turbo is forever.  It is thinking and rethinking the questions that need to be answered over and over again.  I can only hope the 4th day and beyond reveal to me what I seek most.  I now seek a good night’s rest.  Good night.