FIVE NOTES TO SELF

Yesterday turned out to be one of those days when I ended up feeling utterly defeated.

You'd be bored with the detail, so I'll just leave it at that. I'll say this though: I made a whole load of decisions which turned out to be the wrong thing, at the wrong time, and involved the wrong people. It led to a chain reaction of tangling explosives.

"Take it as learning," said my manager, smiling at the end of the day. I suddenly recognised the coiled snake as it wriggled uncomfortably within. Pride doesn't want me to learn; it wants me to the best at everything, all the time, respected and praised wherever I go for being unbelievably brilliant.

So, I think that rather than play its laughable tune on the Pride Pungi Pipes, I'm going to do the opposite of what that curling old snake would like, and make some notes on what I've learned from all this.

Here then (in a ludicrously public example of the precise opposite of their name) are my 'Five Notes to Self':

(1) Less Detail, More Destination. This is a really useful way of staying focused - concentrate on where you're going rather than what you're doing right now. It seems like odd advice, until you remember that when learning to drive, there must have been a moment when you stopped looking down at the gear stick or the pedals, and kept your eyes on the road.

I quite quickly get drawn into tangents, getting lost in trying to solve the detail of a problem which doesn't matter all that much. I don't have to fix everything, and not everything is my immediate all-important time-consuming problem. Sometimes the sales people can figure out their own solution.

Eyes on the road.

(2) Eat Lunch. This is crazy, but part of my problem yesterday was that I was really hungry.

Hunger leads to tetchiness, tetchiness leads to poor communication, poor communication leads to a dysfunctional team... says Regional Manager Yoda. Strong he is in the (sales) force. I've made a careful note about this one. Less crocodile, more koala.

(3) Admit What You Don't Know. There are a lot of unknowns but often the best response to a question is, "I don't know but I'll get back to you," rather than trying to configure your rapidly calculated assumptions into a guess. Sometimes a research spike is better than a stab in the dark. Oh and don't try to be Einstein. You're not.

(4) Smile in a Room Full of Egos. Egos are everywhere, stressing out and pushing their own agendas. The biggest ones are bullish, and due to the nature of work, they often belong to the type of people who have been promoted into the Big Ego Bullring. But you don't have to be a matador to disarm someone with a pleasant smile. Just don't overdo the smiling.

(5) Take Notes. This is a useful way of sucking the heat out of a situation. In fact, you don't even need to take notes, just doodle something in your notebook. Not only does it look like you're taking things seriously (while actually you're drawing a cartoon of a product manager getting eaten by lions) but it means you can also avoid being influenced by someone else's attempts to intimidate you with eye-contact or facial expressions. You can use those few seconds to compose yourself. Don't start colouring-in though - that's not a good look.


So that's it: five things I learned yesterday through everything going disastrously wrong.

In the end, I went home and watched Apollo 13, just for some light relief. Tom Hanks is awesome; Jim Lovell (the real astronaut) is awesome! If I could add a number 6, it'd probably be "Never drive a toaster through a carwash... but if you have to, bring it home."