Monday, February 27, 2012

It's not about me

My neighbors were talking about a poker game that they had played in the night before. Poker game? I hadn't heard a whisper about a poker game. My first impulse was to wonder what I had done that made my neighbors not want me at their game. Then I took a mental step back. Have I ever expressed interest in playing poker? Is it possible that they just weren't thinking about me when the poker game came up? Other explanations for my exclusion that did not require active social rejection were relatively easy to identify when I stopped looking at the situation as a commentary on me.

I'm getting ready to take a trip for work. My relationship with my wife usually gets a little strained before I leave on these trips. I recently recognized that I usually take her (entirely justified) frustration with the lead up to these trips as frustration with me. She not frustrated with me, at least not initially. She's frustrated with the situation. My response to her frustration, which is usually overly defensive as I interpret her displeasure with the challenges of my being gone for several days as displeasure with me, makes a difficult situation even more stressful. I'm approaching this trip differently. I'm not taking her frustration personally.

I once wondered why I didn't feel that my status was threatened at work but felt constant threats to my status in my personal life. I don't feel threatened at work because I don't take things personally. It's easy to discern the complicated web of agendas and pressures that prompt unpleasant behavior at work. My manager may appear aggravated at a meeting. That behavior was probably prompted by something that I had nothing to do with. There is no need to get defensive. My immediate response anytime somebody is short with me in my personal life is defensive. A defensive reaction implies that the the situation is all about you.

Making a situation all about you blinds you to the myriad of other concerns that swirl around every social interaction. You cut yourself off from the rich web of social interactions and relationships when your reactions to a situation have an overt personal bias. As a teenager, I was so obsessed with protecting myself from the pains of rejection that I never stopped to consider what other people might be feeling. How many relationships did I lose as a result. How much did I stunt my own development? Disregard for my wife's feelings has damaged our relationship. That disregard, which is usually rooted in an overwhelming focus on what I'm experiencing at any given point in time, pollutes our relationship. How much better would our relationship be if I had acted differently?

It's not always all about you. It's rarely all about you. It's almost always about something that has nothing to do with you.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Edge is everywhere


Pursuing The Edge defies the safe, comfortable, and routine. There are few things that are more uncomfortable and less routine than actively defying the expectations of others in the pursuit of a deeply personal goal. The social value, how that goal will be judged by others, is of little to no consequence to somebody chasing The Edge. Challenging acts are often maligned by the comfortable mass. Why waste your time on that frivolous thing that drives you to the extremes of your ability when you can be doing this frivolous thing that everybody else thinks is important even though it demands slightly more effort than merely showing up? You have to believe in the value of your pursuit if you are to persevere through the depths of the struggle. The call to turn back, do what you've always done, do what everybody expects, do what everybody else does, will become more seductive the longer you toil. The comfortable mass entices. The Edge challenges, taunts, and intimidates.

The process of pushing for something more is the essence of The Edge. The actual activity is not important. The activity's relationship to what you want to accomplish, what you want to become, is vital. Writing product reviews requires me to get closer to The Edge than taking online MBA classes. Most people would probably say that MBA classes have more value to me than product reviews, but I gain more from writing those reviews than taking a multiple choice quiz. I strive to say something unique and meaningful in those reviews. The effort to create something novel requires me to give my best effort. The act of striving for something beyond what I've done before changes me just a touch. It gets me that much closer to The Edge. MBA classes just require me to put in the time to understand some concepts of questionable validity long enough to answer some questions on an exam. I learned how to do that a long time ago. I may learn something. I may become more competent, but there is nothing to discover in that process.




Friday, February 17, 2012

Creativity, curiosity, and charting a career

I read a fascinating paper this week that used the correspondence of reclusive writers to establish a relationship between the density of a social network and creative productivity. "Structural Holes" was a recurring term throughout the paper. Sure, Wikipedia would have been the more direct way to find out what a structural hole might be, but that's so pedestrian. I followed the references to a second paper that dealt with this concept in a very detailed manner.. Unknowingly exploiting structural holes has been the secret of whatever success I have had in my career. They also provide a possible gap for me to drive more creativity into the organization.

A structural hole is nothing more than a gap that exists between two groups that are part of a larger network. If you had friends in two different cliques in high school, you were the bridge over a structural hole. As like usually hangs out with like, having a foot in different groups broadens your access to information and widens your perspective. Reading about the advantages of being in a position to transfer knowledge from one group to another got me thinking about the origins of the successes that I like to list on my resume and annual reviews. One of them came about because I spent a couple of hours a week hanging out in a friend's lab in grad school. She told me enough about her research that I could see a way to use her techniques to make part of my job easier. Another one of my successes came from not being satisfied with an answer I got from a formulator. Digging into that issue resulted in the development of an excellent working relationship on a project with high visibility. One of my current projects has me working in an entirely different group with responsibilities far removed from my job description.

I've gotten to where I am in my job (whatever that's worth) by sticking myself in the gaps between different groups. This was not done by design. I just can't dutifully deliver my part of the project without understanding how the data I generate will be used to advance the program. I can't leave a question alone when I know a way to find the answer. It's this curiosity that pushes me into these structural holes. Following my inclination managed to get me into a position to have some events that cast a positive light on my activities. People also seem to like the seminars that I give that summarize my work. Seeing that various departments are represented in these sessions, word of what I've been working on scatters to various parts of the organization.

Prior to applying the nuggets that I gleaned from those two papers to my on the job successes, I would have totally missed the social/network aspect of my accomplishments. I focus so much on what I was thinking about and the process I went through to figure out what was going on with a particular problem, how those activities spread information and insight through the organization went right over my head. This is a critical oversight. I've been missing a very direct application of how my preferred method of working generates positive results. This is something I can exploit to drive creativity deeper into my role and the organization as a whole.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Implicit

A close cousin of the automatic response is implicit knowledge. These are things that we don't quite know how we know (if we're aware of knowing them at all), but we know them anyway. I came across a theory of problem solving that invokes these hidden nuggets of knowledge. While reading the paper, I was struck with a simple question. How much explicit knowledge (the things we can easily discuss and relate to others) is required to develop a robust body of implicit knowledge? At what point does explicit knowledge become implicit knowledge? How long do we have to consciously work to master the explicit knowledge of a domain before we start to develop an active and effective implicit knowledge of that domain?

A key argument of the paper is that both systems of knowledge are necessary to creative problem solving. There is a synergy between thinking modes that enable the development of creative solutions. I take that to mean that a robust body of implicit knowledge enables creativity. Internalizing the rules of chemistry or chess or fashion design or painting builds up a critical mass of internal memes that can start to intermingle and interact. When an individual who has developed this critical mass of knowledge encounters a problem, conscious consideration of the problem initiates a cascade of associations that reach deep into this person's knowledge network. This happens outside of that person's awareness. As more and more effort is applied to solving the problem, a feedback between explicit and implicit knowledge (and the associated processing systems) may eventually yield a solution to the problem.

The development of implicit knowledge feels tantalizing close to why I'm compelled to read books and papers on creativity. If implicit knowledge develops from experience, deliberate practice, reading, thinking, trying to solve problems, successfully solving problems, and focusing on internally derived goals rather than seeking to obtain the approval of others, all of my thinking and reading over the last year could be channeled into something very powerful.

One step closer to being unstuck...

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Trying to get unstuck

Things are working in the lab. My creative energies are going in that direction rather than bleeding off as blog posts or Amazon reviews. It's either that or I'm just too tired to collect the rash of good ideas clamoring for my attention. I blame my mental fecundity on reading too many books and papers about creativity. A big audacious essay on the topic is trying to get out of me, but every time I sit down to write it, nothing comes out. Choosing to start with a blog post is probably not a good idea. There's too much pressure to come up with something formed and developed if I'm going to post something on the blog. I thought reviewing Creativity would be a good place to start, but that's no good either. I need at least an hour to write a good review. I spent too much time checking on the progress of an experiment to give myself enough time tonight.

These ideas may be the core of something that I can build on. I don't want to just drop them haphazardly and lose the coherence of my thinking. I need to take time to develop my thinking. Sort some things out. Figure out what I really want to say.

As practice, here's an idea that I had while walking down the stairs at work. I've noticed a shift in how I consume books, music, or papers (the main ingredients of my cultural diet). In the past, the book or music was always very external. It was something that existed outside of me that could be studied or understood. My emphasis was on understanding how it related to other works more than pulling the ideas and feelings of that work into my experience matrix. Where I used to merely passively observe, I have started to actively ingest what I read or hear. It's like my ability to incorporate experience into my being has been amplified. By reviewing it, I'm taking it deeper. Making it more meaningful.

That's just one idea. There are many others...

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The bureaucracy must die

I made an innocent comment to a coworker on Wednesday. This guy was basically in my position several years ago. He was a senior laboratory scientist who handled various issues with samples and methods. It was a role similar to mine, with one very big difference. I'll get to that difference in a moment. I asked him if he ever misses the lab. I was surprised by the emotion of his response. His heart was in the lab, but he didn't see himself going anywhere if he stayed in a purely technical role. Quality had more vertical potential so that's the direction he's taken his career.

I could never follow his path. My dissatisfaction at work rises in direct proportion to the amount of bureaucracy I have to deal with in a given period. The more I'm forced to work through a problem according to the obsolete rules and regulations of the organization, the greater my dissatisfaction. The quality group is a bureaucratic enforcer. It's their job to make sure that the rules are followed and all actions comply with various operating procedures. I never had the chance to work with this guy when he was in the lab, but I get the impression that he was very much of a quality type of mindset when he was in the lab. Follow the rules, run the procedure, comply, and crank through samples were his ideals for the analytical lab.

That's where we're different. He's very much an adherent to the bureaucracy. His views his job as making sure the procedures are performed as written in the most efficient way possible. Even his description of how he ended up in his current position spoke to his unquestioning faith in the established structure of the organization. He looked at the jobs that were available and picked the path that offered the best opportunity. He sacrificed whatever passion he had for science to the pursuit of greater bureaucratic control.

I seek to exploit gaps in the bureaucracy to give me greater opportunity to do science. My challenge is finding a way to do this that fits into the general scheme and mission of the organization. The needs of the organization must be met, but there are ways to go outside of the rules while adhering to their general guidelines. Rather than finding ways to demonstrate my mastery of the organization's control structure, my attention is focused on demonstrating ways to improve how we achieve organizational objectives. I seek to understand the origin of my lab's rules and regulations so I can plant the seeds of revolution.

What I long assumed were quirks of my organization are actually present in every pharma company. We're risk averse because the small chance that something bad might happen would lead to disastrous consequences. We're hyper-sensitive to project failures because mistakes are far more powerful come evaluation time than successes in an organization that offers little opportunity to exceed expectations. These insights are critical to figuring out how to get people to leave behind their old ways. My coworker sought the best established path. I'm looking to create an entirely new role. This will require more than mere technical knowledge. I need to be an expert in the bureaucracy so I can destroy it.