Laughing at mistakes

"Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it." - Cullen Hightower

Laughing at our own mistake serves at least two important purposes. First, I believe it can act as self-forgiveness Many times we are way too hard on ourselves for mistakes we have committed. I think laughing is a good way to write them off after we have made an effort to learn from them.

Second, I think laughing at our own mistakes in front of others makes others feel that we too are like them. I have seen good leaders do that with their teams. This helps forge better relationship with everyone you work with. Many times people tend to stay away from leaders thinking that leaders are far superior and may look down upon common people. By laughing at your own mistakes in front of others, people develop a different kind of respect for you.

There is another important use as well. By being the first one to laugh at your own mistakes,you have taken away the ability of others to be the first one to do that. It is much easier to take when we ourselves laugh at our mistakes than when others do that. This is a great neutralizing technique for leader. As a leader, there are always people who want to find faults in everything you do. Since you are a doer, you do end up making mistakes every now and then. At those times, if you are  wound up too tight and fail to admit your mistakes, people are going to criticize you heavily and it may tarnish your image. So, always be the first one to laugh at your own mistakes.

Self-deprecating humor is not bad at all. We just have to be careful that we do not act like and become a joker. That's all. We should only use this when we realize we have made a mistake. We should not use this to deprecate ourselves to win over other people. People are pretty good at spotting phonies. So, do not go on deprecating yourself all the time.

Laughing at someone else's mistakes is totally different. Never do that. Use the time and effort to learn from other people's mistakes. It is the most cost effective way to learn.If you always learn only from your own mistakes, you will learn very little and life is not long enough to do that. Always encourage others to laugh at their own mistakes by setting an example of laughing at your own mistake too. Once laughed at by the person who has committed the mistakes, mistakes are seen in a different light altogether. The focus shifts from mistakes. The spotlight moves to what we can learn from those mistakes. Everyone benefits.

Cheers!

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Poetry

"Most people ignore most poetry  because  most poetry ignores most people." - Adrian Mitchell

Very funny indeed.

This quotation provided some explanation to my personal lack of interest in any poetry. Right from early days I have seen that any sort of serious poetry has never appealed to me. It does not to many people. This quotation made me think why it may be so.

First, poetry, by it's very nature, seems to make an inordinate amount of effort to say something in a very convoluted fashion. You really need a different mindset to understand what the author may be trying to say. On the other hand, prose is simple, fast read and direct.

Only poetry that ever appealed to me is some witty poetry with perfect rhyming words. They can pack a lot of punch.

This is not to demean poetry at all. There are special people, I myself know some,  who can take hours to read and reflect on few short stanzas of a poem. After that they can write pages of prose interpreting the same. That's a different interest and talent. But, for most people above quotation sums it up very well.

Cheers!

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Be visible to get it

"Only some people get what they want. Those are the people who show up to get it." Dianne Houston, Take The Lead, 2006

Woody Allen said something similar - 'success is 90% showing up.' You can modify it as - 'success is 90% showcasing your show-off.'

It is very natural feel cynical when we see people who have not worked hard garner all the limelight and get some occasional success. There are several ways to logically interpret this phenomenon. First, when we brand someone as a person who did not deserve success for something he did not do, we many times do not know the full story. We hear someone make such an allegation and take their word. Somebody says 'Hey my boss took all the credit for my work. He is a fool and did not do anything. It's all me who did the work.' It's easy to fall into this trap. Boss and people in higher positions are easy targets. They are not required to do the actual work you do but still they get the credit. What we fail to see is that they are held accountable and responsible for actions, including yours. They also have to take the blame should you and fellow workers fail. It all comes with risk.

Secondly, what we get in this life does not depend only what we have done or not done only in this life alone. Life is a continuity. It does not start with birth and end with death. If anything, birth and death are just two imaginary marks we put on a continuity called life. It is like putting some indicators on another continuity called time. Is there any special meaning that marking time? It's for our point of reference. So, if someone gets something that seems undeserving to us, it may be for something they did it right in the past. We do not even bother to understand what they did a few months back. Never mind what they may have done few lives back. They say what we are today is a result of what we did yesterday. We will be what we are going to today. It is like an arrow which has already left the bow. It's a matter of time before it strikes. If it is a good arrow or a one with poisoned tip is what we knew when we shot it. Now we have to face the consequences.

On the point of 'success in 90% showing up' another excellent quote comes to mind. It goes like this.

"Less risk. Less reward. That's business"

"More risk. More reward. That's gambling."

"Less risk. More Reward. That's opportunity"

Cheers!

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Paradise

"The only paradise is paradise lost." - Marcel Proust

'Pradise Lost' is an epic by great poet Milton.

I am not sure what to make of this quotation. Is  Marcel Proust saying that there is no paradise at all and anything closest is that epic 'paradise lost'?

Paradise and hell are right here on earth. We make them. It is for us to create paradise and hell for ourselves. We seem to be very adept at creating hell more often than paradise. Most of us pass through  life without getting the glimpse of paradise even once. At the same time while we are creating hell for ourselves and others, we are busy imagining 'paradise' as somewhere we can probably reach after death. If there is no body after death and if our imagination of paradise is of a place where we can have a great time, how's that possible?

Be well. Do good work. Be good to others. Paradise is right here. Violate the rules, hell is right around corner.

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Plan

"A predictable organization does not guess about the future and call it a plan; it develops the capacity to rapidly respond to the future as it unfolds." —Mary Poppendieck

This is from the book 'The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility". Good book. Compares PMI's PMBOK practices to agile practices. Does a good job of dispelling myths about how PMI processes and agile process are not compatible. I think it is a good read for any manager. Especially good for PMPs who are not yet sold on agile project management.

Mary Poppendieck is a thought leader when it comes to agile development and management. She is probably one of the earliest people to bring good principles of lean manufacturing to software development. She has written a couple of books. Both are great reads.

It appears lean is the most 'in' thing in agile world these days. People are experimenting with Kanban style development. Reducing the inventory, waste etc. Principles are heavily borrowed from Toyota's legendary auto manufacturing practices.

More on these at some other time.

Happy reading!!

Cheers!

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