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ThePowerofContext

I am interested in understanding more about the power of context to drive actions in my life. I have recently noticed that so much of my life is context driven.

When I am not working I find

1) I have lost the context to read the SHAPE forum. It is not longer relevant to me in an immediate way so I let my reading lapse. However SHAPE is always a long term investment in my thinking. I am unable to apply much of its teaching immediately. I use it for long term benefits. Why can I not prepare for the long term without a short term context.

2) Many simple household chores become harder (like organizing my closets) without a job. How does that work?!

I think there is something interesting going on with the "background conversation" in my brain. I think it prepares me for other activities with the same context.

Does anyone know anything about how context motivates them. What are the major context you find yourself in?

KenEstes 2002.11.21

I find I am many things, not just one job or one career. Examine that in the context that the average person will shift careers (not jobs, careers) six times. I viewed all the jobs I've held as opportunities to further my goals while delivering value. It's a win-win necessity.

--BobLee 2002.11.22

Hi Ken,

Re: SHAPE, you could always suggest your puzzle of the moment as a thread topic. Some of the best stuff on SHAPE has come about this way. You have the energy to keep up with the fire hose of responses, I think.

Re: Closets

Sounds to me like you are drifting a bit. That happens when you are learning stuff.

I think the context you are talking about isn't out there, as in work or career, but is inside you, as in what's important, what you are good at, and so on. It's easy to get a closet organized when you know that you're a smart guy, going to crank away at some technology jobs, in aid of doing something that matters. When you're not sure that the smarts you have are relevant, not sure what your work might be or the place of work in your life, and unclear about how any of that might matter, well the relevance of a closet in the world isn't so clear.

There's a similar chain of reasoning that keeps closets organized because you want to be a good person. Good people keep neat homes, which means closets that are organized. When you're stuck on what a good person might be, and says who, again the relevance of the closet in context falls down.

Why organize a closet? What for?

It's OK to do things that are valuable in themselves, and in the moment. It's easy to forget that, as we are trained in many ways in thinking and acting instrumentally. I don't think instrumental behavior is necessarily a problem. Unconscious instrumental behavior run amok can be.

Are you appreciating the closet for its own closet-ness? How about doing the organizing for its own sake? Is there some simple, immediate payoff, vs. some grander scheme? For me, the three jackets that I wear regularly are here, here and here, exactly where they should be, easy to find on the way out, hard to lose and out of the way. Putting those three jackets in the right place in the right closet is instrumental enough simply because it makes my life a little easier.

Learning to act without reliance on big, sweeping context is useful, I think. It's a kind of acting in the face of uncertainty. Maybe you want to practice that?

- JimBullock, 2002.11.22

�Does anyone know anything about how context motivates them. What are the major context you find yourself in? �

Your word �motivates� caught my attention. I�m lacking motivation to look for a job. I don�t know the context. I really cann�t see �context� in my life. Maybe that�s why I struggle with software patterns which I can read but don�t understand. However I find chinese calligraphy simply fascinating even though I cann�t read them! I feel somehow thinking in context is too limiting. (Assumption - Context a known and explored ground). What if your context is motivating your "background conversation" into activities that just get you back to �organizing your closets� ? Great if this is what you need to be motivated to act on. But is it?

-- CherDevey 2002.12.05

Motivation.

Someone on wiki or shape wrote a really good article about using all the self-help organizational advice to organize paying the bills, but still didn't feel motivated to pay the bills.

I have the same problem at work. I'm paid well, I just got a raise and a bonus, my abilities are recognized and sometimes my advice is even followed. But my manager's "motivational" talks depress (or anger) me and others who work for him. A recent directive from my manager's boss regarding our new Indian operation was to "make sure they are just as overworked as we are".

Today I thought of a phrase "Today is the first day of the rest of your project", which might help me. Everyone wants to do a good job on their first day.

I'm not an extravert, but working collaboratively, solving problems together (pair programming, group designing), motivates me a lot more than people working solo in their cubicals with earphones on (which unfortunately, is more often the norm at my organization.)

KeithRay

Pep talks and motivations talks are a sign of poor management. Maybe that's why you feel depressed and angry when you hear them... they remind you that you are hampered in your work by the limitations of your management.

ED 031203

And they are telling me that I should choose to advance along the technical track rather than the manager track.

KeithRay

One of the best managers I ever had told me that she would rather be a project manager, but she could not find anyone she was prepared to work for, so she ended up in management. It worked for us too.

SherryHeinze 2003.3.12

[Isn't there some saying about pickles relevant here?]

I'm considering quitting my job and enrolling in a MastersOfManagementProgram. I have more than a year's salary in the bank, and my wife is working...

KeithRay 2003.03.13

Keith, from what I have seen, you are very bright, articulate, and can be quite data driven. This threatens many people, especially those who feel in over their heads. You also are organized, goal directed, and pretty flexible in learning how to get to those goals (You managed to gracefully accommodate my jaundiced impression of XP, without giving up your beliefs, did you not?) Again this threatens many people.

I also suspect that you might respond better to people who wear their organizational authority openly and directly. At least this is my strategy for dealing with reports who are bright & etc. and who know more about their half acre than I do. Of course, allowing designated "problem children" of the bright, opinionated, and goal oriented variety to become productive can make one threatening as a manager in turn. So what do you do?

I think the "power of context" can effect how your attributes, or mine, are assessed and / or appreciated. But the "power of context" doesn't have to effect what you think of that opinion in turn. Let them believe what they will. Your interest need only be in how those opinions effect you - how much overtime, how much job security, how much cash, how much abusive behavior. Nonsense from the partially nuts is just noise unless some real consequences come along for the ride. How you feel about all that is up to you.

As for B-School, it is better to move toward a desired context than to move away from an undesired context. Are you considering B-School to get something, or to get away from something? If the latter, your results will be random.

- JimBullock, 2003.03.13

I've had bosses like this, and they annoyed me a lot until I figured out that they weren't talking to me, but to imagined subordinate versions of themselves. Now they only annoy me a little bit.

DaveSmith, 13 Mar 2003

One tactical suggestion from this model. If you're in chaos, wait if you can. Big, irreversable decisions taken in chaos are pretty much random in their outcome.

BTW, I'm thinking that the EscapeToBSchool idea is worth it's own thread. I've seen enough frustrated technical types float this idea, including myself, that I'm curious what the attraction might be.

- JimBullock, 2003.03.14

I'm currently doing the same thing as that master's program -- working in teams with your fellow students, you learn by doing, putting new skills and knowledge into practice immediately. Expert mentors are always available to provide advice, guidance, feedback, and one-on-one coaching. -- except that (1) I'm getting paid to do this, instead of paying CMU, and (2) you all and Shapers are my expert mentors, for which I'm very thankful.

Maybe I should print my own diploma from the school of hard knocks.

KeithRay 2003.03.15

EstherDerby 031603

So if mentoring and group learning isn't unique to a "program" what's the benefit? That musing is off in the b-school thread.

JimBullock, 2003.03.17

Keith,

I have been unable to find work for the past year. I know several other people in the same boat. I wonder if you would not be better served by waiting for a better economy before you quit a job that you hold. I have been told by more then one experianced IT person that this is the worst economy they have ever seen.

KenEstes 2003.03.17 (Jim, how did you write your above note 7 months in the future?

Tell me from the future, do I get a job soon?)

I wonder if you would not be better served by waiting for a better economy before you quit a job that you hold.

When I read the above, I became unaccountably angry. As I write this, the anger is still seething somewhere underneath, accompanied with a strong urge to stop writing this response.

I'm not sure where that comes from, or what rules are at work in making it hard to comment on the feeling.

I resigned from my most recent employment last September. Many people warned me that it would be tough.

My plan was to go into business for myself, coaching teams and businesses in XP practices. So far I have yet to close one such deal, and have had zero revenue since.

Jim puts his finger on it when he remarks on "moving away from an undesired context" vs "moving towards a desired context". That's what I did, I confirm it doesn't feel very smart afterwards. Then again, the new context you get when you "move away from", and which perhaps you find isn't very comfortable, can be a good opportunity to get smart about what kind of context it is you actually desire to "move towards".

I'm still not sure which written part of Ken's suggestion, or which unwritten part, it is that makes me angry.

It could be "wait for a better economy". If we are all waiting for a better economy instead of making a better one, how is it supposed to get better ? Meanwhile we let raving maniacs get away with... Uh, better set aside this line of thought for the moment.

It could be "a job that you hold", if that is obscuring the aspect "a job that holds you". The busy-ness of the moment, the context of a job, can give shape and structure to our lives. But is there something significant in the structure, or is it something like a dead hollowed-out tree, standing up but nothing inside ? That was all I had to look forward to in the "job" context six months ago.

It could be that I'm just angry at myself for not having had more patience to assess what about the "job" context was making me feel less than significant, choosing a context I wanted and a path there, and moving more deliberately.

LaurentBossavit 2003.03.18

Getting feedback from others that my company's management is often ... mismanagement ... helps me "keep an even keel."

However, I did seriously cold-call several companies in the home remodeling business to see if they had job openings. (They did, at $8 / hour.) That's one industry that is booming in the USA, as well as the home refinancing industry.

I even interviewed with a home design/build/remodeler, who spent the hour successfully talking me out of switching careers. (Sounds like he's very pressed by intense price-competition, and would like to leave that industry himself.)

So every day I ask myself, do I quit or stay? And so far, it's "stay".

There is some hope of better management sometimes -- some managers are now convinced that a waterfall process isn't working, and are looking for something more iterative / incremental. But they refuse to pay for a real consultant to teach them alternatives to waterfall, when they can get a salesman / "consultant" for free.

The software industry looks like it has hit bottom and is now on its way up. Slightly more job openings being posted, no more big layoffs. If I hear of anything in your areas, Ken and Laurent, I'll send you an email.

KeithRay 2003.03.18

I've been thinking about your manager's assessment that you should stick to the technical path.

I think that Sherry is about right, that your good leadership is threatening to bad managers.

And I think it would be very difficult for you to transition into management in your current company. And it's not about you.

From what you describe, it's unlikely that there would be any one to coach or mentor you in a way that made sense given your values and the way you think about software. And since you'd be coming at management from a different philosophy from the one that dominates in your organization, your performance would be judged against standards that wouldn't make much sense.

I suspect you can continue to practice leadership and take small actions to practice management from where you currently stand.

ED 031903

Thanks for the advice. There are several managers in different parts of my company whose ideas about developing software and managing people are more to my tastes. One of them managed to get Scott Meyers in to teach a 3-day class, after battling upper management for nine months. ("We don't need no stinking classes." -- I had been trying to get technical training even longer, but kept being told that it wasn't useful to my company or we didn't have the budget for it.) I tried to transfer, but the politics involved (and lack of an "open job reqs") make transfering almost impossible.

KeithRay 2003.03.19

I've had several quite excellent managers, who seemed to work a successful balance between "doing the right thing" and "dealing with organizational realities." "Dealing with organizational realities" is often code language for "nonsense and foolishness from those silly, bad and evil people." I think some of the success in successful managers (and executives, and business leaders) comes from being able to see "organizational realities" differently, as something like "the realities that come along with people dealing with too much and partial information, with many legitimate agenda, and many points of view."

I don't have the formula completely articulated for this "being a successful manager" thing (If I did, I'd be off on the pundit circuit.) I have a couple vague notions that seem to hold true:

• Middle management deals with multiple groups of stakeholders who's interests and expereinces are disjoint.
• Integrity matters in part because part of the job is being trusted to reconcile these multiple points of view, at least in your little half acre.
• Management, middle management especially, is a multi-faceted function.
• Management isn't for everyone. It's too hard for some, too ambiguous for others, and too demanding for still others.

So, I'm not sure in Keith's example whether the absence of "headcount" makes sense. I am suspicious from the story that the organization doesn't have an effective way to allow people to move around, which makes optimizing use of the most expensive, and highest impact resource - people - hard. And they may have a hard time learning how to do things differently. If they can't reinforce success, for example, they're not going to get a lot better at building software.

Even so, I'm not so sure from the stories thus far that Keith's management is being unreasonable. I don't know any organization that allocates development resources on a two week cycle, so there's got to be some kind of project sizing and allocating people well outside the scope of an XP iteration. Perhaps Keith (or any XP person) might get more traction by trying to understand how what they've said has been understood. Perhaps "two week iterations" sounds like: "Random amounts of work to staff / unstaff on a two week timeframe." Perhaps "iterative development" sounds like "no commitment to solve the big problem in the project charter - getting these sales droids some automation to work with."

From the story at had, it sounds like Keith's management isn't doing real well at reconciling different stakeholder groups. "Reconciling" doesn't mean necessarily "negotiating a tradeoff". It can mean "allowing people to understand when they are already in violent agreement." That hardly makes them unusual.

-- JimBullock, 2003.03.20

I have two observations from the real world to add to this "power of context" page.

I have noticed that for some types of enjoyment depend totally on understanding the context. I enjoy certain radio shows but I can not easily share these with friends since the humor comes from understanding each characters personality and their context in the show. People who listen in for only one show will be missing much context and be unable to see what I find to enjoyable.

I saw an interesting movie a few weeks ago called "Whale Rider". There was an amazing scene which demonstrates the power of reframing to create a fictious context. The father is trying to fix up his son with a woman. The son is uninterested in any local women. One night, the son is showing slides to the family of his current art projects. The father arrives late to the show and has brought this woman. The father announces "Ms. Jones is very interested in art work and would like to see the slides". It is very clear from the scene that everyone knows what is going on, Ms. Jones is there to get a chance to date the son. However by the fathers careful framing of the situation he creates a mood where everyone is forced to behave as if the announcement was in fact the real context. At this point the son fast forwards the slides to the very end and exposes a slide of himself with another woman. "This is my fiance" the son announces. Once again the context of the slide show has changed. The fathers reframe can not be maintained any longer and the father turns to a different son and says "Please drive Ms. Jones home."

KenEstes 2003.09.29

re - internal transfers - see Dilbert

KeithRay

HeirarchicalGame