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Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

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Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#41

Post by phkahler »

debt wrote: post #10
yamrzou wrote: post #4

« Many people aspire to “silent success” at work - to do work that “speaks for itself”. Unfortunately this is the wrong move in the theatre of work. Instead we should aspire to the opposite - for knowledge work, the performance of the work is the work. » Not sure what the author means by “knowledge work”, but I find this very true, for any type of work.

Furthermore, work doesn’t speak so you’ll have to speak for it. And defend it. And sell it.

While writing embedded code I realized a major problem with code relative to the rest of the product. You can't see it, can't touch it, and it doesnt appear on the bill of material. To most people it doesnt even exist. This would be somewhat different if your product IS software, but the same still applies to the actual code - the author is the only one who will ever see what they wrote.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#42

Post by erikerikson »

Yes, once some workers start using social tools to advantage themselves and their work, it does become mandatory to use them too. The incentive is then to escalate and invest more in social machinations.

And be endlessly positive about everyone and their ideas so that only positive feelings are associated with you. Choose your favorites by directing attention and investment. Ignore the unkept promises or implications since they will be to the less popular people and projects which are inherently less powerful.

May all bullets be directed to backs and all knifes sheathed likewise.

There is some importance to keeping a pleasant and encouraging workplace but some of us value honesty and straightforwardness as well as the efficiencies that go with these practices. These require real work however.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#43

Post by ailideex »

erikerikson wrote: post #42

Yes, once some workers start using social tools to advantage themselves and their work, it does become mandatory to use them too. The incentive is then to escalate and invest more in social machinations. And be endlessly positive about everyone and their ideas so that only positive feelings are associated with you. Choose your favorites by directing attention and investment. Ignore the unkept promises or implications…

Hard pass but have at it.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#44

Post by detaro »

phkahler wrote: post #41
debt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, work doesn’t speak so you’ll have to speak for it. And defend it. And sell it.

While writing embedded code I realized a major problem with code relative to the rest of the product. You can't see it, can't touch it, and it doesnt appear on the bill of material. To most people it doesnt even exist. This would be somewhat different if your product IS software, but the same still applies to the actual code - the author is the only one who will ever see what they wrote.

> it doesnt appear on the bill of material

I've actually seen a few customers listing it as such (based on some sales estimate), but it doesn't seem common. Which is a bit weird, especially in cases where you can trade software cost for hardware cost.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#45

Post by tuesdayrain »

amelius wrote: post #24
bigred100 wrote: post #22

In my opinion just look around and see what the successful people are doing. Putting your head down and working is what I’d do for developing my own technical or something else skills. I.e. studying. Nobody I’ve met who gets high success in an office job does that. I wonder if there’s not something to read into this a bit beyond my current abilities. Many people work on things that they consider somewhat boring, or a…

Imho, if you're successful without working hard, you have "hacked" the system, and like any form of hacking this should be punishable, in this case e.g. by degradation. If only we had a system where (special) judges were able to determine who works hard and who doesn't and from there decide who gets what amount of pay, and who deserves a promotion. We could actually have a fair society.

So a highly skilled person who finds their job easy should be paid less than a low skilled person who struggles to do basic tasks? I don't think that would turn out well.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#46

Post by pavel_lishin »

xrd wrote: post #40

Lots of comments here come off as very resistant to accepting the ideas presented here: that success at work is as much about the quality of your work as the effort made to connect with the humans in an organization evaluating the work. Improv is a perfect frame for this: entertaining but doing deep preparation for that entertainment. What I'm really fascinated by is how this can be translated to remote working. I do…

> I don't think water-cooler talk is possible in Slack.

Probably not quite to the same level as in-person conversation, but nearly every place I've worked had a variety of off-topic channels (both for specific topics, and totally random discussion), and plenty of my 1:1 slack conversations end up evolving into personal discussions (e.g., "Hey, btw, I saw a cool-looking book on your shelf when you dialed into the meeting - what is that?")

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#48

Post by analog31 »

phkahler wrote: post #41
debt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, work doesn’t speak so you’ll have to speak for it. And defend it. And sell it.

While writing embedded code I realized a major problem with code relative to the rest of the product. You can't see it, can't touch it, and it doesnt appear on the bill of material. To most people it doesnt even exist. This would be somewhat different if your product IS software, but the same still applies to the actual code - the author is the only one who will ever see what they wrote.

Count your blessings. My job involves typically big pieces that are visible to anybody who looks under the hood. And they are often expensive custom pieces, so it's painful to add or modify one.

When stuff is visible and tactile, folks assume that they should intuitively understand it. So my work is subjected to endless critique and brainstorming from everybody, including managers.

Sometimes I envy the embedded systems people because nobody ever looks at the innards of their designs.

Re: Yes, And – How to be effective in the theatre of work

#50

Post by salamanderman »

As someone who has studied improv for three years, and read both of Keith Johnstone's books numerous times, I highly recommend reading Johnstone's books specifically, rather than this. It's true that improv is immensely useful in the workplace. However, this article has very little that references Johnstone; it seems to be taking the high level, general understanding of improv as a jumping off point for their own advice. Their chapters to follow do reflect some of the topics Johnstone covers, but again, I highly recommend just reading Impro and/or taking a couple improv classes at your local school if you can. Getting it straight from the source will be incredibly helpful in your work and personal life.
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