Not much here. Just some words.

And yet you keep reading.

Words don't come after the design is done. Words are the beginning, the core, the focus.

Start with words.

Word.

Subvert the Script

how are you fine thanks and you

"Hi, how are you?"

"Oh Fine thanks. And you?"

"Good!"

You hear it every day, yes? What the heck is this repetitive script really about? Ah, glad you asked.

It's a tribal affiliation assertion: I'm extending you temporary membership in my tribe. Probably only for this encounter, but who knows.

I'm saying "I see you". Most of us live in a world of way too many people, and that means we have to treat them like trees or rocks because they can't all be human beings. So -- I see you. You're not just a rock.

And it's an initiation protocol. It acknowledges that we're not just walking by but beginning some kind of exchange or transaction between us. We're engaging.

When taken literally the question has complicated ramifications. But it's not a literal question and few people want detailed (or long) answers.

"I didn't sleep at all well and I'm feeling some vague sense of underlying dread or maybe it's existential ennui or maybe indigestion and really is this all there is and I wonder whether I'm getting enough fiber. Thanks for asking."

No, I don't recommend you answer in detail because it breaks the (lightweight) social protocol and, frankly, I've done it, and I can assure you that it doesn't make you popular. Also, it defeats the multiple, socially essential purposes of this ritual.

But yes, also, I am indeed suggestion subversion. Subvert the script in your own head. Listen to yourself say the words. Notice what's really going on.

While you Were Out

As an early adopter of email (seriously early -- early like "what is email?" early), an avid IMer, and an enthusiastic SMSer, I luxuriate in the certain knowledge that anyone who needs to contact me can do it.  When I walk away from my (primary) computer, my phone provides this certainty, allowing me to leave home without that nagging feeling -- remember those days? -- that someone might call, write or text and I might miss it.

You youngers don't realize what it was like with phones attached to walls. Before answering machines and voice mail when you missed a call it was missed forever.  No caller ID, no call-back, no clue. Tough.

I remember hearing the phone ring through the door, struggling with the key to get the door open, and diving for the damned thing only to have it stop.

"Hello? Hello?"

Then hours of wondering who it might have been. How your life might have been different if only you'd come home a few seconds earlier.

You start calling people. "Hey, did you just call?  No? Oh, okay. Fine. You?"

Along came answering machines. Along came the Internet. Along came cell phones. Now my cell phone *is* the internet. And everything else, too.

I can glance at my phone and know, without question, that no one called, wrote, texted, tweeted, or facebooked me.

Finally, I have certainty. It's like being free, only a lot noisier.

And then I went camping in the Mojave desert. No cell towers. No internet. Completely cut off from email, voice, SMS.

Wow.  Serious wow.

If someone needed me, they would have to wait.  Think about it: if it's not important, it can wait. If it is important, it still has to wait.

For a handful of days I traded that certainty for a smoky, crackling fire, the coyote pack over the rise, nights of relentless cricket serenades, and a sliver of moon in a white river of star-drenched sky.

Something interesting happened: I had silence. Beautiful, exquisite, deep silence. No phone, no voices, no words.  No noise.

I've heard about people choosing to take a night a week internet-free to reconnect to what it is to not be connected. But there is a huge difference between trying to stay away from the net and phones -- the lines of chatter -- and being forced to.

While I was out I also gained a fine appreciation for the luxury of running water. Add to the list: shelter, soap, privacy. We don't need these things, and they are indeed luxuries.

I've been to the desert.  It was, truly, a whole other sort of luxury to be there.

Ah, the quiet. It didn't feel like I was out at all.

"How are you?"

"gumballs!" is how I am.

How to answer? It depends. Who is asking? What is the context of that particular relationship? Did we just meet or have we been friends for years? Do we have an audience?  It depends on what aspects of my life -- the "you" in the question -- this person is actually asking about.

Aside from the part to do with me, I am faced with the need to quickly build a complex mental model of the asker, who I may have only just met. There's rarely time to do the person or the question justice before they follow up with the inevitable: "something wrong?"

Uhm.

It's hard to explain all this on the fly. I do try sometimes, especially with the cashiers at Trader Joe's, who seem very nice but I don't think quite follow my reasoning.

XKCD to the rescue! Now all I have to do is whip out my phone and point to this page, which explains everything.   Surely with this tool at my disposal there will be no more less confusion.

Making Relationships Last

Do everything else first. Just kidding.

I have an answer to the age-old question of making relationships last. It's really quite simple. Two guidelines:

1. Hear what you want to hear.

2. Anything else is small stuff. Ignore it.

You have to get past the idea of right and wrong. Communication in relationships is not about right and wrong and it sure isn't about peace, love and understanding. As Mr. Shaw says, "The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred."

We don't communicate. We think we have, and that's all very well and good, but mostly we haven't. Since we're hallucinating about communicating anyway, let's hallucinate in a way that makes things work better. Makes sense, right?

A bit more detail:

Hear what you want to hear. This is easier than it sounds, since most people use lots of words when they talk and. You're smart -- just pick out the words that work best for you. Once you practice this a bit, it becomes surprisingly easy.

Ignore the small stuff. People get into fights because they think something matters a lot, but the fight is almost never about the subject in front of you. No, it's about some deeper principle or universal injustice. Sure, fight for fun if you want to, but don't fight the wrong battle. And when it comes to relationships, it's almost always the wrong battle. The actual thing in front of you? Small. Inconsequential. Ignore it.

There you have it. Go on, try these two guidelines. If in 20 years you're not still together with whoever, well. I'll give you your money back. Heck, I might even admit I was wrong.

Thursday Morning, Well Fed

I'm still digesting, because it was a big, big meal. Metaphorically, of course. Got back last night from this thing called "BootCamp", which is, at essence, a training to make teams more productive. Not just more productive, but a lot more productive. You know, great. Make great products. Do great things.

Are you making a face, thinking that I can't tell? Ha. Or is your faith in me so great that you're giving me the benefit of the doubt? Ha. I was making that same face in my head for about the first half of BootCamp. Then I started getting a sense for what they meant by "great". When I saw it happen in front of me, with me, I lost nearly all of my cynicism. (You have to keep some. Spices up the food.)

BootCamp brings to mind, for me, really hard work. You know, metaphorical push-ups. Some really intense group-work, at least. But no, the first thing we were encouraged to do was get clear on what we wanted. What we wanted? What does that have to do with team building? With productivity? Isn't this about what the organization needs out of the team?

Not, apparently, if you want great work. First the members have to get clarity on what they want and see how they can get it. Then they have to know that their teammates know what they want and will help them get it. That, it turns out, is hard (and slightly terrifying) work, not well-supported by our corporate culture.

It's also annoying. Once you commit to being present, to engaging fully, you care. And down the road of caring is conflict with other annoying humans who don't see things the way you do. Conflict, it turns out, is a good thing, if you handle it right.

What does management typically say? Get back to your (mind-numbing and uninspiring) work. Do what you want on your own time. And if you want fabulous work out of your team? Pay them more. Incentivize. But that just doesn't work.

And what if you want the team to be not just better, but really fabulous? In his post about his own experiences at BootCamp, Adam Feuer (my reason for being there), says: "And while we're at it, let's not just get a merely 'better' team. Let's go for great – a team that is 10x better than the average team. What does a team like that look like?"

I got to see something like that, in my three-day training. How did we get there? The recipe (which changes with each BootCamp) is something like this: Get each person to agree to be present. Ask them what they want and get them on the road to getting it. Have them use some interpersonal protocols to make communication cleaner and action more effective. Then ask the team to do something better and faster than they've ever done before.

I would not have guessed that this would work. But I saw it work. A bit past my ego and fears, I saw something odd and delicious: a team that came up with something brilliant, fast, on-time, that matched the needs of management.

And I got to feel it.

I'm still digesting. But one of the tastiest bits was to discover how limited is my understanding of how long it takes to get quality work out of a suitably motivated team. And if that's wrong in a team, maybe it's wrong for me personally, too.

Hmm.

Must digest more.

Burp.