Wes Kelley

I am not really an obsessive compulsive person, but like many people I do exhibit some tendencies every once in a while.  For instance, for quite a long while I could not rest at night until I went through my ritual of diligently reading my growing list of RSS feeds, scanning Facebook and checking in on Twitter.  I felt like this was important because I was maintaining my connection to the “outside” world and keeping up-to-date with the important goings on.

Things have changed, after I came back from my vacation a few weeks back I decided to stop reading my RSS feeds and treat Facebook and Twitter like bits of entertainment not an obligation.  Since taking this step I feel less stressed at night and I am more present for my family.  The odd thing is while I have not missed my nightly RSS ritual, I do find myself drawn back to it in some weird addictive way.  It is not that I enjoy spending an hour or so scanning headlines and clearing out my cache of unread items, it is as though I need to do it so I know I’ve done my duty.  To whom I’m not sure.

It is beginning to dawn on me that quite a few things I believe must be done are just being done so I feel like I did something importantish.  I became a mouse building my own maze.  I am sure there a lessons to be learned here beyond the recognition of my RSS addiction, but I’m too busy running the maze to consider them right now.

In this video, Ira Glass, of This American Life fame, speaks about the creative process and our aspirations to create content that lives up to our own standards.  This is good stuff from the person who is this creative force behind the best produced show on radio.

[Via 43Folders]

I’ve been fascinated by the men who took us to the moon.  From the creation of NASA up through the end of the Apollo missions, I can’t imagine a more succinct, amazing and inspiring example of what can be done through teamwork, dedication and ingenuity.  

I’m a bit different than most.  The astronauts are not what interests me.  Surprisingly, it’s the engineers and managers I find most inspiring.  I’m fascinated by how they created something so phenomenal out of thin air.  Certainly political will and power provided the locomotion that moved them forward, but it still amazes me that they could systematically design a program that would take us from supersonic flight, through breaking the atmosphere, orbiting the planet, inter-orbit rendezvous, then to trans-lunar flight, finally to landing on the moon and returning home again.  They broke it up into these and countless smaller pieces all of which led to ultimate success.

I’ll pick up most any biography of a NASA engineer.  From Chris Craft and Gene Kranz to Werner VonBraun and many others, these men did the impossible, and they did it with computers as powerful as modern pocket calculators.  Their endeavor was truly the crowning achievement of the mechanical/industrial age.  

Now we live in the information age, but we lack a single catalytic enterprise that captures our spirit and moves us forward as a civilization.  Without an impossible task to inspire us, we’ve kept our focus on streamlining and interconnecting.  There is nothing wrong with building efficiencies and networking systems, but I hope the rise of modern information technology will be seen by future historians as a mere stepping stone that enabled something great.

Now that many of those that did the impossible and built a space program out of memos and specification drawings are passing away, we should thank them for demonstrating what can be accomplish through great focus and determination.

It struck me recently that a plain truth about my job is the fact that nothing is created. Things are improved, straightened out, maybe developed, but nothing is actually made from scratch. Bureaucrats, and other “customer service” management types like me, get to rearrange the deck chairs, but we don’t get to build the ship.

For some, say accountants, this is exactly what they expected. They studied in school how to follow the accepted standard methods of this or that and doing the job well means processing the details. But for others, the burden of “tweaking” caught them by surprise. When starting down a new career path, even the most mundane product or service has a steep learning curve. However, once you round the bases a few times you pretty much learned how to play. A bureaucrat must be satisfied with mastering the fundamentals, not re-defining the game. They are the stewards of another’s creation.

Artist, engineers, builders, even programmers have the ability to make something out of nothing–or what was thought to be nothing. They have the freedom to explore, test and toss their creations into the trash. For others, there may be opportunities for creativity, but that is not the same as welding the raw power of creation. While bureaucrats lack the power to create, good ones have the ability to refine. However, stretching the boundaries by doing it better, cheaper, smarter, is not the same as defining what “it” is.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to write the rules for a new game even though I’m pretty good at tinkering with the tried and true. The challenge is to craft this desire to define instead of refine into something great.

I’ve been blessed with good jobs that have allowed me to move forward and grow as a person. My first job at a small Shaker furniture store in a seaside village is pretty far removed from my current gig, but I can still track a somewhat logical path from point A to… H, I, J wherever I’m situated at the moment.

Up to this point, I’ve either been preparing for a job, growing in my job or thinking about the next job. Basically, my career has been my identity.  My job performance and career development has been my internal barometer of personal success and satisfaction. But now I’m beginning to wonder if I’m ready to grow into a new phase where my job is simply one facet of an otherwise full life.

I suppose I thought, “the process is its own reward.” But now I wonder, is it really? Is the process of my job and career the instrument through which I receive my personal reward? Or is my career simply a means to an end. If so, I’ve never really thought about the end. I just assumed that there’s a reward worth having if I pay my dues and held a steady course. Now that I have a wife and child—now that I have a family—I see that they are an “end” and my mental and emotional satisfaction is another “end.”

I’m not saying that I don’t receive mental or emotional satisfaction from a job well done, and obviously my family will not know stability or comfort if I’m without a good paying job, but I think I’m asking for too much from my job if I expect it to be the mechanism through which I bring home the bacon and justify my existence.

I’ve always been a bit jealous of guys with traditional hobbies. The guys that golf, fish, piddle in their workshops, etc. They seem to have an outlet that has eluded me. It seems it’s time to start thinking about the role of work and career. Should I be more than what I do?

Most management books are written with an intensity usually reserved for religious zealots or megalomaniacs. The reason we read them is to gain insights from someone a step or two ahead of us on the ladder of success. We think that by reading their words we can bypass an obstacle or appear the genius to our captive audience of coworkers.

I suppose there is little risk in being exposed to all that business bravado. While the goal is to make us more confident, I think that rarely happens. We read hoping that the seven principles of this or the three laws of that will make all the difference, but deep down we are not fooled. We are too self-aware to believe that some management mantra will propel us forward. We were there in elementary school, and we clearly remember the laws of the playground. We know that our collection of awkward, painful and successful junior high encounters will have far more meaning and resonance in our life than any adult self-help system.

When I feel the need to move my professional life forward, I often think about the line of Top Gun that goes something like, “Son, your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash.” (Or something similarly gritty and witty.) Personal progress is hard earned, and in business you can’t be a leader amongst your peers by sheer will alone. I think lasting progress comes through observation, reflection and courage. Essentially, it comes down to good character being properly focused on a worthwhile goal.

Business books can help fill in observational gaps, and they can even focus our reflective thoughts, but they can’t give us courage. That comes when you truly know what you’re capable of, and you realize that what your organization needs to succeed is you.

There are times when I’m not excited about the work before me, but I don’t dread it either. The work is not exciting, or new, nor is it particularly hard. It is just heavy and ever-present. When in such a predicament, I just slog through one item at a time.

Though disengaged from the task before me, slogging is quite different from coasting. Coasting brings to mind something easy and light; maybe I’m detached and liking it. Slogging feels like work. Picture a farmer working one of those old fashioned horse-drawn plows. The farmer has done this many times before. The outcome is pretty certain. Yet every rock and muddy patch is a new annoying obstacle that has to be dealt with.

I’m thinking that I create the “slogginess” condition. The same job could be fun, easy, a challenge or not depending on my attitude at the time. While there are certainly many jobs that are boring and tedious, at times such work can be comforting because it is predictable and less mentally taxing than work that requires originality. Also, a job that requires creativity can also be “sloggy,” and then I break it apart and pick one element at a time and hammer through them.

I think all you can do is wait for the winds to change. Once that enigmatic change occurs, the air feels lighter, the room brighter, the heart beats surer, but the work remains the same. In the mean time, my organizational system keeps me on task for my next slogging responsibility.

I work for a company that just launched a fiber-to-the-home project in a small Tennessee town. We are located between Nashville (aka Music City) and Huntsville, AL (aka Rocket City… study your space history to learn why). We provide a dedicated fiber to every home and business in our fair community. Over this fiber we offer the “triple play” of video, voice and data services. So far our customer sales have been great.

It’s been a thrill to be intimately involved in a cutting-edge project like this. The down side of such trail blazing is the fact that most days we face the unknown. While it is easy to know in the abstract that problems will emerge, you don’t what problems, from where, or when, until they hit you square in the nose.

I am learning that the trick is centeredness. I know that there will be ups and downs, I just hope we shelter our customers from as many of the downs as possible. Whatever happens, the most useful life lesson I’ve learned so far is to not take things personally (that is harder than it sounds when you pour yourself completely into a project). Another person’s stress reaction is just that. It is not a personal assault — even if it feels like one at the time. At the risk of sounding like I get my advice from some struggling coach delivering his cheesy locker room speech, you just have to go out there every day and give it all you got, play with heart, never let them see you sweat, [insert cliché here]. Okay, there is no way to make that not sound lame. I guess my point is if you earnestly want to do the right thing, and you are not all together incompetent or socially/politically tone deaf, things often turn out okay.