Comments on: Teach Skills and Tools, not Programs and Rules

By: Mike.Mathews

Mike.Mathews — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:32:38 +0000

I think you’ve discovered the key for building a culture: you get everyone to teach another about some aspect of that culture. That’s why Intel has managers teaching classes in meetings and ethics and such. But building a culture takes a long time, so one needs to be prepared to track slow change over a long period.

Short term change is still probably best accomplished through strategy, rules, etc., just like you’ve mentioned. But, just like a habit that is hard to break, people will return to their pre-existing methods once the program is complete. A short term change is not a cultural change.

Also, with cultural change you’ll have people drop out and leave because they do not fit the culture, which is good for developing a consistent culture, but it loses the invigorating slap of comparison and innovation forced by working with differences.

I think one needs to have a goal; a strategy is probably good to have, but it may be unnecessary; the habits of the individuals leading the culture will identify the skills.

By: kenekaplan

kenekaplan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:19:04 +0000

All sounds very familiar. Strategy is great but has a dark side: it becomes an excuse/process for not doing things.

Your post also reminds me of something our pal Aaron said while driving to Portland Monday. We can get paid to learn or we can get paid to teach. Usually the latter pays better. I believe is we really like what we do we are doing both — learning and teaching.

What would be interesting is to see companies actually put more value on employees who are sharing their skills and toolkits with others. That would drive everyone to keep learning to feed the cycle. Where do we learn? At work — in good meetings! — at home and especially at events where we share stories beyond “what’s up” and into “how are your feeling and how’s life comin’ at you?”

I’m looking forward to your next mindspring on this topic. Thanks, Josh! Bet you’re having a blast at Ignite.

By: Greg Smith

Greg Smith — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:33:43 +0000

Intel is a engineering company. They engineer microchips, blogging, safety… whatever.

By: Peat

Peat — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:33:49 +0000

I think Ze Frank had the key to finding things to blog about: figuring out how to “bust that cycle.” The video (http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/09/092006.html) is priceless. My weak summary is that finding that “kick ass!” thing to blog just means trying odd things to break out of your day-to-day habits. Stay up all night. Go somewhere different for lunch. Build a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with your face (no, really, watch the video).

A new perspective can be illuminating and exciting, and that’s what makes blogs worth reading.

Figuring out how to bust your own cycle is a skill, for sure. Way better than setting up a system to bait or provoke your coworkers into blogging …