Think logically!

Some while ago, I reflected upon mantras and sayings, which often more or less accurately represent people's schools of thought. Not quite as severe, yet annoying at times, are platitudes. They tend to be not so deeply burned into our minds as mantras, but nevertheless sometimes their shortsightedness is striking.

One of the platitudes which made it to the olymp of particularly stupid platitudes is: Think logically!
What I find surprising about this statement is NOT that typically it is plainly wrong in the strictest meaning of the word logically. What I find surprising instead is that it reveals an extremely widespread misconception about how knowledge is obtained and applied. Let me elaborate.

While this statement has merit in certain situations (e.g., in a course on, guess what, logic), most frequently it is simply misused. A few examples:

• When boiling noodles, do you put the salt into the water before it starts boiling or afterwards? Think logically!
• How do you hang that picture? Think logically!
• How do you calculate the area of a circle? Think logically!

Again, what I find irritating here is NOT the misusage of the word "logical" in the strictest meaning of the word. More than not, what the speaker really means is: "Apply your knowledge about the principles of our world onto that particular matter.". But even then, this statement does not make sense at all!

Most likely, asking that respective question about doing something does not only show a lack of understanding of the matter per se, but also about which questions to ask in order to come up with a solution.

Someone who already knows how to boil noodles might ask back further on: Think logically, how do water and salt react with each other (in chemical terms)? How will you level the picture after you hung it? Just look at that circle, how many square-units does it consist of?

All of these questions make perfect sense - in hindsight. Just as like the correct questions that lead to the ultimate answer to the initial question could be: What is the seeding point of noodles? Which material is picture made of? What is the square root of 2?

Obviously, none of these questions make sense in the context at hand. Yet, there is no way the initially asking person can possible know this; otherwise he would not ask at all!
Learning something is not only about the respective application, but also learning which questions to ask during application. 

Telling somebody to "think logically" gives him the impression of failing to realize something obvious. But the contrary is true - telling somebody to "think logically" reveals failure to realize how you yourself obtained that knowledge! 

Think logically! Remove that platitude out of your dictionary - your kids, classmates and colleagues will thank you for your nonviolent communication.

The Power Of Eating Alone - In Silence

Many people make big mental efforts during the morning shower. Not only do they make their daily schedule, but they also mentally prepare for meetings and make important decisions.
This doesn't come as a surprise, because for many people, the morning shower is one of the rare moments when they are truly with themselves and simply let their thoughts flow.

Afterwards, for the annoying morning commute, you either sleep (which, apart from drawing certain conclusions while dreaming, cannot quite be considered a very active activity) or you are exposed to some form of stimulation. Stupid morning shows on radio; plug in your headphones and your favorite band, on full volume of course; or if you are really motivated, read a book. That way or the other, you are not with yourself and your thoughts - and won't be during the whole day anymore.

Thus, let me ask you something: When was the last time you ate alone, at home and in true silence? That means no radio. No TV show. No computer. And of course, also not texting, reading, whatsoever at your ubiquitious pocket-computer.

Obviously, it is great to go for lunch with your family, have a barbecue with your friends, or a candlelight-dinner with your significant other. There are even books which recommend to never eat alone. Obviously, there is much to gain from such talks and events.

In fact, there was also a time I totally avoided eating alone. When I served national service at the Red Cross, I didn't feel very good mentally. In such moments, eating alone was quite counter-productive, because it triggered even more depressing and negative thoughts - I do totally recommend seeking for company in such occasions, and even the TV might make good company at times.

Most of the time, however, your subconscious is your biggest, unique treasure. You just need to open a door, instead of trying to constantly kill it with audio and video stimulations, in order to "let it out".

A perfect way of doing so is eating alone - in silence! Sounds ridiculous and / or boring? Give it a try, it comes for free and won't hurt!

Electronic Communication Is Dead - Long Live Electronic Communication

In the past-PC-age we entered a couple of years ago, mobile devices and ubiquitous internet access have spread enormously.
Consequently, also electronic communication has increased significantly. For a variety of applications, electronic communication is not only a replacement, but even superior to face-to-face communication.

I will further on refer to that as real communication. That's not to say that writing an e-mail or Facebook status updates are unreal; of course they are not. Yet, from my point of view, it's just not as real as talking to somebody while sitting next to him or her.

Electronic communication is a great tool when time or geographical distances have to be overcome. Sometimes, it's also helpful to address a bigger audience.

However, I strongly feel that way too often electronic communication is also chosen even when real communication would easily be feasible. That's sad. Call me conservative, but I truly believe in the value and beauty of real communication. As much as modern platforms try to position themselves as 'social networks', in their very core they are not social at all. People sitting in front of their computers are NOT social; be it 10, 100, or 100 millions of them.

Among the major reasons why electronic communication is preferred over real communication are the aforementioned. Another one is that it's simply that much easier to find out about shared interests and topics to talk about, compared to real conversations, which might be time-consuming and maybe even boring until a topic of shared interest is discovered.

Enough of ranting, and time to offer an alternative.

Why not combine those too - the possibilities that modern devices and technologies offer, resulting in real talks and discussions? I think there is a chance that electronic communication does not have to replace real communication; it might support and facilitate it instead!

Expect more on that topic soon from my side.

If that caught your attention, please leave a comment below, and I'll make sure I'll keep you up to date.

Electronic communication is dead - long live electronic communication ... as a facilitator for real communication!

13 Top Habits of How NOT to Manage

There is always plenty of advise about how to do things. How to bind a tie, how to lose weight, well even how to get pregnant. Also I described a few ideas recently, for example, how to improve your communication, how to motivate children, and how to fail.

Well, sometimes it's more helpful to see how NOT to do things (as described by Scott Berkun in has essay Creative Thinking Hacks, section "Inversion"), in order to come up with a clearer picture how to address things properly.

For instance, you might think about how not to do business. Part of doing business is also managing a business. Perfect examples of how NOT to manage can be seen in the great TV series The Office (UK), and it's US and German adoptions.

"I'm similar to God. He's not that visible all the time either, yet has a good image". Source: http://www.az-online.de/nachrichten/stars/buero-ekel-stromberg-seine-fiesesten-sprueche-fotostrecke-458009.html (translation mine)

Thus, I kept an open eye about what annoys me about bosses, what I hear others complain about, what I hear leaders and managers consider wrong (or they consider good, and I added it to this list nevertheless) ... I think in pretty much everybody's daily routine there are plenty of opportunities to witness something similar.

So, my Top 13 Habits of How NOT to Manage list is as follows (not in order):

1. Leave your subordinates in permanent uncertainty, about future projects, their position, their task
2. Threat them as resources, and ignore their personality and feelings
3. Just talk about yourself in a showing-off way all the time
   
4. Only contact them when something is wrong, but never praise them
5. Disturb them all the time when you have nothing else to do (preferably in order to talk about yourself in a showing-off way)
6. Strictly follow a Theory X approach of motivation 
7. Don't respond to their requests on time
8. If you do, by all means avoid a clear message, but rather use some cloudy (also relates to the "uncertainty" mentioned above)
9. Express yourself in a super arrogant, self-praising means in general
10. In case of immediate threat of one of your dear fellows leaving your company, simply suggest a raise in payment instead of asking for the underlying reasons for her dissatisfaction
11. Break your promises
12. Closely observe whatever they are doing, on a very frequent basis (that is, micro manage them)
13. Give unclear instructions

If you are in a managing or coordinating position yourself, do your colleagues the favor and think for a minute or two whether you might be guilty for some of the aforementioned. It does not mind that doing the opposite makes you a good manager right away, but it will definitely contribute to some improvement.

I'm sure I forget something, and there are several others absolute don'ts for managers ... so please let me know, which ones are you aware of? What annoys you most about your bosses or colleagues?

You Misunderstood Me!

“An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.”

  - Napoleon Bonaparte

Do yourself a favour and completely remove "You misunderstood me" from your dictionary. Whenever you are still tempted to use it, say "I'm sorry, maybe I expressed myself a little bit confusing, and what I actually meant was ...". (At least remove it from your active vocabulary; for 'backward compatibility', as we nerds like to say, it's o.k. to keep it in your passive vocabulary.)

If you bought the above core message already, no need to continue reading, we're done for today. There is not much more to come, since I'm really fundamentally and unconditionally convinced about the above said and the essentials are in that small change in mindset. However, if you are interested ...

As indicated above and some of you might know already, I'm currently working in IT, an industry not particularly well known for the outstanding social skills of it's representatives. Even though you should take series like The IT Crowd and Big Bang Theory with a grain of salt, a huge portion of funny insights into reality can't be denied. Talking about nerds, even though misunderstandings are something completely normal and can happen whenever humans communicate with each other, I sense that the combination of rather low social skills and a big of self-esteem due to great wisdom in their domain are an extremely fruity ground for misunderstandings.

However, I'm really convinced that raising at least a little awareness about the principles of communication would simplify and improve so many things, both at work and in private life.

The sender-message-channel-receiver model from David Berlo dates back to the 1960's, and many of the recent findings in the field of communication can be attributed to Schulz von Thun (mainly known for his Four sides model, which goes beyond the scope of this post).

According to Wikipedia, communication 

...is usually described along a few major dimensions: Message (what type of things are communicated), source / emisor / sender / encoder (by whom), form (in which form), channel (through which medium), destination / receiver / target / decoder (to whom), and Receiver.

Since the target 'decodes' the message, this is actually the only part of the entire transmission of information that really matters. It simply does not matter what the sender had originally said, if it was not clear and precise enough. I think that's also what the little Frenchman from the quote at the beginning wanted to tell us. It does not matter what one says, as long as there is any possibility for it to be misunderstood! (Apart from that, am I the only one wondering about the similarity to Murphy's law?)

Consequently, it is your obligation as sender (i.e., the one saying something) to make sure your message can be understood as well. Trust me and develop trust into the people around you, they generally are willing and doing their best to understand you. If they did not, it's your fault (and if you misunderstand this, it's mine). If you are not certain what your communication partner understood, just ask her to repeat in her own words.

"So I did not misunderstand you either, just YOU said something confusing!"

Now as you are enlightened and you are correctly accepting your responsibility as sender, you might be tempted to completely refuse all responsibility as a receiver. After all, that's the bottom line of what I described above, right?

As so often, the story goes on ... and another issue enters the stage: respect. As you are enlightened now and your colleagues probably are not, I suggest being generous and taking all the blame on your side ("Sorry, I think I misunderstood you, could you please explain it again?"). That's not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength and willingness to successful communication.

I know it takes a while to adopt that approach, but once you are into it, it will just feel natural. Once you are aware of hit, you might feel like hit by a lightning whenever you hear somebody saying the evil "you misunder...".

Just that we understand each other, how about some Dilbert?