Right now it is Friday, June 17th 2022 at 2:30am. Amazing how much you need to say to mark the date and time. And why do we have the social convention of saying the day in front of the date? I like the numeric version better, 6/17/22 0230. Short and sweet. Math was never a strength of mine, but I still like numbers. Do you remember "please excuse my dear aunt sally"? It is the process to solve an equation: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiply, Divide, Add and Subtract. That has stuck with me for over 30 years and I still use it today. All this to say numbers are nothing without a process to read them.
I was a shitty student in high school, no focus, no motivation, ditched all the time to go skiing or do nothing at all. None of my teachers could connect with me, to get me interested enough to try. And I did not make it easy. I graduated in 1994, and was like what now? My parents "suggested" the military. It was more like get a job, go to college or go to the Navy. I started with the job. Kmart as a cart retrieval, checker, and stock boy. Kmart was in the mall, right next to...the Navy recruitment office. You can guess what happened next.
The Navy was good at motivating me, because it removed the choice not to do something. They’re called orders. The UCMJ is well written. The Uniform Code of Military Justice has various "articles" which enumerate the various legal infractions it covers. For example Article 92 is "Failure to Obey an Order or Regulation" while Article 129 is about "Burglary." To cover all crimes not listed, there is Article 134, the "General Article" which lists as a punishable offense "all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces."
While in the Navy I found purpose, and learned the value of providing value to others. How to work hard and well. I also connected to processes. Everything in the military is a process, everything has structure and purpose. I learned through repetition, practice, training and drills. In the civilian corporate world, when was the last time you did any of these? Really? Anyway, the Navy helped me to build a foundation and see the value of process.
In 1999 I started at a technical college. Remember Y2K? The biggest non-event of the new millennium. The clocks rolled over with the new four digit year and all was good. While at Coleman College I read what we called the TCP/IP bible. Over 600 pages of protocols, processes and data flow. I still remember what makes up a data packet and how it knows how to get where it goes. I remember the OSI, Open Systems Interconnection. It's a visualization of how data flows...a process. How I remember it to this day: "All People Seem To Need Data Processing"...or...Application, Physical, Session, Transmission, Network, Data, and Presentation.
I do not play in this stuff much anymore and there are far more qualified people that can talk circles around me on these topics. But I do use these processes and tools to serve as a reminder. No matter how complicated the data is, how big, how fast, how crazy. Everything can be broken down into 1s and 0s. Everything you see in technology today starts with a simple binary magnetic charge of on or off, a 1 or a 0. That's it. You hear about big data all the time right, terabytes (TB) of data...
1 TB equals 1,000 gigabytes (GB) or 1,000,000 megabytes (MB)
1 MB is 1000 bytes, a byte is 8 bits, and bit is either a 1 or a 0
Boom, mind blown right.
Why am I telling you all this? Because process and structure is everything. How many times do you ask these questions in your day: Who owns this process? What is the process? What is the next step? What else is needed to get this done? What are the requirements? What is the scope/budget/timeline? Where is that posted? Can you email that to me?
Today I am a Six Sigma Black Belt, Champion and LEAN professional. I am the guy that can find the needle in the haystack. That is my value. I fix broken processes and collaborate with people to fix and define theirs. In this world of more, better, faster, cheaper, layered with politics. I am the guy that says let's slow down, figure it out and get it right the first time. I do not let the perceived urgent crowd out the important. I say: Proceed with process where you can, and have a foundation for the ad hoc stuff. Foundation = tool box.
Live by this: A3Q - Attitude, Aptitude, Adaptation and Quality
As I have grown in my career the issues and processes have gotten more complicated and important to resolve. I always remember the 1s and 0s. Most things can be broken down and figured out, but in the real world sometimes you just gotta get it done and create the process for what you did later. Just don't forget to write down what you did. If you are gonna do it, do it right and document it, so the next guy has an easier time and can improve upon what you did. Don't get offended when someone does it better than you did. That's what is supposed to happen. That is why it's called process "improvement".
Cheers
An essay by TREVOR DALE.More writing →