This is a two way street. During our chat, my wife mentioned that she really preferred me shaved. She had mentioned it before but only in passing. We discussed it a little more and I realized that it really had an effect on her. Stubble was uncomfortable and just a turn off. So – I now make sure I take the time to shave. I have always liked the feel of a beard, I somehow connect it to a sense of masculinity. And it sucks to shave (I’m sure both sexes can relate). But Julie is worth it so I get uncomfy.

I think it’s gross that men have to be cajoled into basic hygiene and then wonder why their ladies aren’t interested.

You want your woman looking hot?? Quid pro quo, biotches.

I don’t ask anyone to do anything that I am not willing to do myself. I would never demand my partner be ‘hotter’ while I lounger around in two-day old swiss cheese underwear. Or rewear a shirt ten times because ‘I haven’t actually sweated in it yet’.

Just a thought.

We are in triage time. I’ve got too much on my plate and it is the year end. Everyone is about to bail and trying to wrap things up. Certain projects suffer a little. What are some of the tricks of triage as a manager? I’ve learned how to handle this when I am the primary worker, but as a manager it seems somewhat different. The problem is that I have become a bottle neck.

Learned lessons this week:

Preperation is much more important than I realized. Taking the time to review the PM system and everyones comments helps avoid issues. I tried to cut that out to save time – xxxx will just fill me in. Seems like things are getting missed.

Schedule, schedule, schedule. Make sure everything important has a slot in the calendar and guard them.

The real interesting struggle is when enough people all clammer for your limited time, what criteria do you other managers use to portion out your availability?

Good stuff! (Yes I do read, and enjoy your words, outlook, and perspective.)

Managing for me is about removing roadblocks and taking care of the little things. And like you, get out of the way. I don’t want my people to take care of me, I want to take care of them so they can do great work. Trust is key. I think that’s what Ryan is talking about. Honesty and predictability are about consistency. If there’s consistency with the work of your staff, then you don’t fall into the micro-management trap. I’ve seen Ryan in action. He knows what he’s talking about…

With regard to the sex talk? I made my wife toss out an oversize, red Mark McGwire t-shirt that she’d wear to bed. I didn’t need that. ’nuff said.

@ Jonathan (and Shane) – I understand what you’re saying about predictability being a potential flaw, but perhaps I can shed a little light on Shane’s style. Shane is what I’d call, “predictably vigilant”. This means that, as a designer, I can consistently rely upon his understanding of what I have going on in my life and my need to wander occasionally in the creative process. But I can rely upon the fact that he keeps his projects under well defined deadlines (no fog of war here) with clearly set expectations.

When I say expectations, I don’t mean “red here, white there, Arial 22pt font, etc.” – rather – we as a team define the business objectives of each project very clearly at the start, and Shane knows that there may be 10 different ways to achieve that goal. For me, that’s a good sort of consistency because I can always expect the same sort of creative dialogues (where I pitch ideas and he swat’s 9/10 of them down). This keeps me clearly in the artsy, designer role during the conversation and him clearly in the grounded, management role.

A bad type of consistency would be “consistently irritable”, “consistently a pushover”, or “consistently unclear”. Because we work on such a huge variety of projects with different goals, deadlines, and different senses of urgency, having consistency in the management position has allowed me the space I need to thrive around a project, not worry about how Shane’s going to react. This sets me up (the lowly contractor in this situation) for a clearly defined blueprint for “how to win”.

A good example of the opposite is what my girlfriend deals with at her restaurant job. Her primary boss tends to lead from the emotional side of things, which means she never knows what to expect, and therefore she never knows exactly how to perform to get into his good graces. Rather than knowing what the employees do wrong when he blows up at them, they all just sorta cower in fear on his shifts because they pretty much know that they can fail at any point during the shift for no reason other than his inconsistent attitude. Sure, it keeps them on the balls of their feet, but the overall morale of the team goes down because nobody has a map of “how to win”.

So, mark me down for a consistent manager any day of the week. Inconsistency is great for short term projects where urgency is high, but ultimately it undermines trust over the long haul.

The most important thing to add is Happy belated to the Mrs.

@Johnathan – That’s a great article () and I clearly need to improve as a writer, unless you are agreeing with me and all I want is conflict before I finish waking up! So we are in total agreement – You are not your Vendor or your employee! That is all I have to say. Except you said it first and better. So – Thats all you have to say. Except I am sure you have more to say .. so … I’ll just sit here.

On the motivation thing, that’s what I get for writing with one eye open at 6am! What I meant was you need to go beyond what “you” would be motivated by and do a lot of searching to find what “they’d” be motivated by. I wrote a an article about this on my blog last week, the old you are not your customer concept.

i have to agree with jonathon here. i do see the value of being predictable, but as a graphic designer (who hires freelance designers) i am always looking for someone who brings something new, but maybe the fact that they are cosistently bringing something new is predictable. i am getting a little confused here, i think i need to start sleeping more.

All nighters on wife’s b-day, really bad idea!

Women and men totally different creatures (when it comes to sex). I have become comfortable with my wife and we have this amazing bond. i know she loves me and she knows i love her, but do we show it? not always. I prefer to fuck, she likes to make love, so we compromise.

Be predictable in your reaction to other people.

Hollywood has made trillions of dollars over the drama between men and woman. For a good reason, it’s palpable at times – I bet on tv right now you could flip to the picture of baffled and somewhat scared male trying to deal with a mercurial female. We have been watching Scrubs on DVD and Julie pointed out that they pretty much all the female characters got themselves a dish full of crazy. And we laugh together because Julie can be that way some times.

So where am I going with this? People are scared of what they cannot predict and will not allow themselves to be vulnerable. If I am erratic, praising and punishing at random, them my team cannot trust me. Visa versa, I have some incredibly creative talent on our team right now. They behave in a consistent professional manner. When they don’t we talk it out as I wrote in the article. The emotionally erratic people never stay on our team long because I won’t put up with it. Nor should anyone else frankly. In fact, I find our team is only freed to be creative when they are safe within the boundaries of my consistent behavior. They don’t have to waste cycles worrying about my reaction, or the often manic depressive reactions of a client (I shelter them from that by providing consistency). Freed from the burden of always trying to guess my reaction, they can focus on their task at hand.

(so there)

As for motivation – you have me confused. Wouldn’t you define motivation as “what is meaningful to them”?

I’ll rain check the sex talk – though I’m always curious on your views.