ADELHEIM I | 2006-11-01
Adelheim sent me a PM on SF that led me to put the last entry in here.
What he is doing is translating the Mantra. That I will deal with last, because, if you read the peices below, you will realize this is deadly serious WORK. Our message IS our work.
We must formulate it and TRY it. You cannot imagine how great it is for me not to be doing this alone.
In response to his PM I asked Adelheim to put the comment HERE rahter than in a private PM so I wouldn't have to go back and forth and check ut what I could quote here. This is SEMINAR business.
Adelheim did more than that. He put the comment here and then wrote me a PM telling me WHERE it was.
He then ended by quoting my words, "Adelheim, the Torch is Passing to YOU!"
He is taking that torch cery well. You see, Adelheim has been reading my ravings here and he knows one problem I have that escapes the notice of others. I clear comments and then I can't FIND them. They all come together and by the time I want to get to them I have to guess which article it was a comment on. So Adelheim let me know.
As it happens, I had just done the exact same thing he was anticipating. I had cleared his comment and couldn't FIND it.
There is a more general point here. One of the main things a Big Chief staffer for a busy man must do is look at the world from HIS point of view. You don't sit around worrying whether his last comment to you was a hint that your mother is ugly. You don't sit around worrying what he may ask you.
YOU work for HIM. If he asks you something, you just answer honestly. The answer is often, "I didn't do that. I'm sorry. I will."
He doesn't care WHY.
Write while he is talking or as soon as you leave his office. What HE told you is the ONLY important thing going on. I only went back to him when I HAD to or when the job was done and he may want to give me more instructions.
In mid-project, fi I HAD to get back to him, I would usually write a short paragraph reminding him what he asked me to do. He is is lliterally dealing with ahundred other things and no matter how senior a staffer I am, that particular subject will not jump to his mind.
If wht I have to say does not leap to mind the moment he sees me or my note, I am not supposd to get under my bed and suck my thumb because it doesn't and he doesn't appreciate me.
Some do.
HE or SHE, the person I am working for, needs a quick reminder of what the subject is, what I was supposed to do, then what I found out so far and a QUICK summary of what I need HIM to decide.
Then comes the most important piece of punctuation there is in dealing with a busy, important person:
PERIOD.
He is not fascinated by how hard I looked for something. He MAY need to be told whether it CAN be found or not. That's what he's paying YOU for.
He is not interested in side subjects, no matter how fascinating. If they get that interesting, I'll send him another note or see him about THAT subject. Otherwise you must assume he has subjects of his own to deal with.
He takes two minutes, checks one of the options I put there, and can then drop it in his Out box. I am flattered to say that all of them usually called in his Office Manager and said, "Get this to Bob." I considered his time, he considered mine.
REAGAN did that once, and the whole office was jealous.
Management and doing a good job consists largely at looking at things from the other person's point of view. The people who talk about that seldom practice it.