Never start with “I think” or “I believe” in the workplace has to be the most potent piece of advice that I took from the book How to Say it for Women by Phyllis Mindell.  She says that by doing so I make myself the subject of the sentence, instead of the advice, opinion, or information that I am trying to convey.  It then diminished the value and reduces the potential power of what I am saying, unless, of course, I actually am talking about myself.

Apparently this is a common speech pattern, particularly for women, and one among many reasons that women often say that the man two seats down repeated the idea that had just been ignored when they said it and he got credit for it.  I can see how the wording could make a difference even though I’ve never experienced this phenomena and have never paid enough attention to see if the men in my office, or, more importantly, the managers in my office,  speak differently than I do.  But this book has me thinking about it now.

Mindell helpfully provides some alternative ways to put uncertainty into a statement, other than using the implication of “but it’s only my opinion” as a hedge.  These include embedding words such as seems and should in the body of the statement.  I was very grateful for those tips, because I definitely and deliberately use that implication on a regular basis.  Each chapter of the book provides similar rewordings or contrasts of what women often do and how they might say it or do it to more effect. 

This advice was part of the lead-off chapter but the book also covers effective use of active and passive speech, appearance and body language, presenting, writing and reading to good effect, and potential problems with words.  There are action plan suggestions for each point brought forth and an end-of chapter summary.  Many of these topics are covered effectively in more general books elsewhere and were not particularly illuminating for me because I had previously studied and practiced them. 

However, Mindell pulls each topic together with a particular slant towards her audience, emphasizing certain points that the previous books I’ve read only touch briefly.  I’m now interested in reading the presumably gender-neutral How to Say It at Work by Jack Griffin, written under the same trademarked phrase, to see how the advice differs, if at all.  In the meantime, I’d recommend How to Say It for Women as worth reviewing. 

“Seeing is believing” in manufacturing applies to designers and formulators as well as the executives mentioned in Norman Bodek’s first article on his Japanese Study Mission.  His comments about 3 Gen  - actual site, actual item, actual situation - rang true for me because of my own experience as a formulating chemist at a company creating reactive adhesives.  I have repeatedly encountered how important it can be to be on the manufacturing floor experiencing the process for myself, but would not have thought to apply the concept to executive management.

Sometimes everything will make sense in the lab but that certainty doesn’t translate to the plant.  I make my one gallon samples, test them, analyze the data, and draw conclusions.  But when a new product goes to production, new raw materials are introduced, or certain quality control issues are being analyzed, then I go stand out on the floor and watch the manufacture of larger batches of hundreds of gallons.  Without doing this I don’t know the right questions to ask about what is really going on.

It is not a matter of not trusting the operators or the plant management to follow what is written, but of knowing for myself what is not written and not said.  For example, during one trip I realized that a certain step took significantly longer on the plant scale than on the lab scale, which could be causing a chemical reaction to continue beyond the desired point and altering the final properties. 

In another case, I was struggling to understand why a product we were transferring from another facility did not have the expected strength.  While watching the batches being made we noticed that not all of a key material was reaching the batch - some was being removed via a standard safety procedure installed to account for other materials.  Simply turning off that system for the addition of this one less hazardous material fixed the issue.  This was something it might never have occurred to an operator or plant manager to mention because it was part of the background.

Sometimes it takes personal experience to thwart the “curse of knowledge” of the front line personnel.  They know “it” and don’t realize that you wouldn’t think of that, whatever “it” may be.  And sometimes you need to be on the front line to say the right thing at the right time that you didn’t realize that they wouldn’t think about. 

I realize that at many companies the formulators are not as involved with manufacturing as we are encouraged to be where I currently work.  When there are levels of process engineers and other specialists, there is less reason for a chemist to be personally involved.  Even then, a day or two on the floor every so often would be worthwhile as part of a regular training program.

I know that relationship skills can be developed because I have done it and I am still doing it in my own life.  According to David Maister about two-thirds of his audience at a recent management conference agreed with me.  The remaining third apparently believed they were inborn.  This post is in response to questions he posed on his blog.

Social skills never came easily to me.  I was one of those loner children who spoke too loud and perpetually said the wrong thing.  Eventually I realized that all the good intentions in the world didn’t matter - if I wanted friends, or even productive partnerships on school projects, I had to change my behavior.

In high-school and college I read and I practiced.  I read books about personality types and personal interactions, internalizing the information although rarely trying to directly apply it to real life.  I also deliberately put myself in situations where I needed to interact with others so that I could practice and improve and sometimes learn from my failures.  I learned to pause and spend more time thinking before I spoke, not always, but more often. 

I never received any formal training, either then or after I entered the corporate world, but my education continues.  I work in an environment where questions are encouraged and my managers and relationship-savvy coworkers will add explanations to interactions I observed, as long as I am willing to ask.  I read blog posts across the web for stories, opinions, and tips.

David says that it was pointed out that relationship skills ultimately depend on value and attitudes, a concept I’d not considered before.  The most important one I could think of is the belief that another person’s point of view is important and valid.  No matter how many tricks a person uses, this idea would be behind most successful relationships.  I do not believe that this is a teachable point, but something each individual grows to believe on their own.

An organization can expose its employees to many different viewpoints, such as the line workers, the customers, the marketers, and so forth, in order to foster this belief, but cannot convince anyone to believe that they matter except as it pertains to their own self-interest. 

They can’t train attitudes, but they can train actions.  Many simple routine things can help with relationship building, from listening to consistent follow up, and these skills can be developed by organizations in willing individuals.

I may never be mistaken for a “relationship person,” but I do have productive professional relationships with people inside and outside of my company.  Many of the skills I’ve learned I don’t need to think about any more, I just use them as part of my daily life, whether at work or with friends and family.

I had reasons.  I posted reasons.  But that was when this was going be an unthemed blog, at the beginning of November 2007. 

I only made it six posts and a few weeks in before I stumbled and became frustrated with what I was writing and why.  And then I began to realize what I was really looking for by starting a new blog.  I had even listed an aspect of it among my original reasons for an unthemed blog - developing my own opinion by commenting on interesting blog posts by others.

I wanted to learn to improve and practice my thinking and my expression of those thoughts.  I wanted to push myself to do more than just accept and occasionally question.  I wanted to move into analysis and coming up with my own, perhaps new, perspective.

I mulled my desires over and came up with a new focus, a new name, and a new sense of motivation.  This blog has been revised, keeping a few posts I considered worthwhile.   I rewrote this first post on December 21, 2007 to reflect the change.