Everyperson's strategy

 There’s a popular phrase, “presentation is everything”. If something is presented in the wrong way, it has a good chance of losing a good deal of appreciation. While most people understand this from a physical perspective - great food that is just piled on your plate is less appreciated than decent food that is carefully presented - this is also true when presenting something written or oral.   When somebody starts off talking by saying, “this probably isn’t going to work, but...” or, “I’m sure there are better ways of doing this…”, expectations drop. Why should they waste their valuable time on something that even the person presenting it doesn’t think is any good. So why do people do this? Nobody likes being wrong. There is a lot of posturing and expressions whose sole purpose is to allow people to save face.  People feel uncomfortable making a statement that they don’t feel confident that they can back up. It is easier to hide behind an excuse than to be proven w...

 In the hi-tech industry, people tend to switch jobs very often. They find a position with slightly better pay or more interesting work and quickly jump from opportunity to opportunity. This isn’t always in the best interest of the employee or the company they are working for. Oftentimes, a conversation with your manager about what you are looking for is enough to get you what you want. A junior engineer came to talk to me about changing career direction and asked me to keep the meeting discreet. He was interested in a different type of position and asked me if I knew of any openings. I asked him if he spoke to his manager about this and he answered that he doesn’t want his manager to know until he finds something. He was afraid that if his manager knew that he was looking for something new it would affect the types of projects he got and possibly his bonus. He didn’t know if he would find something so he wanted to keep all his options open and not burn any bridges. A lot of people...