Articles for category: Initiative

December 19, 2018

Greg Thomas

Change is a Battle

It’s a monster standing in front of you surrounded by all your fallen allies. It’s waiting with nostrils flaring for you to come up and take a swipe. When you put everything into your first punch and swing and miss, it’s there laughing at you while holding you down. As you get up to try again, it’s kicking sand on you egging you on to try again while it waits for you to return. How it ends is up to you. Whether you get back in there and try again is your choice. But make no mistake, people are afraid

December 12, 2018

Greg Thomas

Don’t Hold Back

The only person you hurt when you hold back on giving your best effort is you. If the team is not up to your level, you bring them up, otherwise you are letting them down. If your intensity and commitment is different than everyone else’s, you share that with the team so they know where you are coming from. If you see problems that they don’t, bring them up to speed, don’t wait for them to figure them out. But don’t Hold Back. Don’t hold back on your own Drive and Delivery just because someone else is.Let loose

December 10, 2018

Greg Thomas

Asking for Validation or Asking for Feedback

We sometimes ask for Feedback, expecting validation in return. “This is perfect” “Great plan” “I like this approach” “No comments” And when we receive feedback we are disgruntled at what we get back. “It’s good but have you tried this?” “What if we incorporated this as well?” “I have some other ideas if you want to hear them?” This is feedback, these are comments that are designed to provide you with mechanism you need to improve on what you are doing and get better.  The former, are platitudes, validation and praise for what you are doing – whether warranted or

December 7, 2018

Greg Thomas

Performance Tuning is an Art

It takes time, it takes patience, it needs a methodical approach to measure what is needed – it cannot be all point and click as fast as you can go and then say – “we’ve tested for performance”. If you’re getting started with implementing a Performance Strategy for the first time there are a few steps you can take before you even start coding that will help set yourself and your team up for success. Plan it Out – What does success look like?  What is a failure?  “It’s running slow is not a failure, it’s a symptom”.  The more

December 3, 2018

Greg Thomas

If You’re Building a Course…

Think about the people you are teaching to. Think about the problems they are trying to solve. Plan for what they want to get out of the course. Understand they will not be at the same level that you are. But don’t do it on the First Day of the course.  There is nothing that kills a course faster than doing all these things 5 minutes before you go into YOUR plan that has nothing to do with what THEY want to get out of it.