Welcome
Welcome to the Foresight Newsletter, a free monthly publication of Prevoyance Group Inc. This newsletter shares tips for high performance IT organizations and observations that we hope will prove informative and enjoyable.
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Contents
CONTENTS
Foresight is published by the Prevoyance Group, and this month contains four sections:
Work
Life
Heard in the Hallways
Travels with Patrick
Work
We have all heard the tired old bromide that “time is money” and acknowledged some level of truth therein, yet many of us could manage to behave a bit more like a skinflint when it comes to managing the former. Time is one of the few things so often referred to as a commodity, that is perhaps the most polar opposite. Each of us has a limited amount of time each and every day, and each of us has an overall limit that we will never know.
You can always check your account balance, and carefully budget spending, yet your “time balance” is the supreme unknown. Despite this fact, most of us would scoff at the idea of giving any halfwit access to our bank accounts yet readily give up access to our time. From spending hours fighting a three dollar overcharge on a bill, to wiling away hours in a useless meeting, simply because it is recurring or someone else deemed it important does not mean it is a worthy investment of our time. We carelessly pass the buck on our time, allowing some consultant or HR rep spouting drivel about “work life balance” access to this most important asset, and hope that they will manage it in our best interests.
Guard your calendar as jealously as you guard your wallet, and bring the same elements of financial planning. Just as a good investor keeps a “slush fund,” keep part of your time each day open for yourself, family, friend or a good book. They certainly are not making more, so spend your time wisely.
Life
I hate spending money on insurance. Insurance seems like an expenditure that offers no return, financial or otherwise, and it is probably one of the few universally detested industries. From hearing people openly admitting to defrauding their insurer, to laments about the rising cost of premiums, insurance seems to be a most unappreciated expenditure.
Despite this, I was recently reminded how important insurance can be. My wife was recently hit by a drunk driver, who then fled the scene. The police were able to catch him, however we quickly discovered he had no insurance. While I hate the expenditure, I tend not to skimp and we opted for uninsured motorist coverage, which paid for the ruined car and my wife’s medical expenses. Within a couple of weeks the vehicle was replaced and life is slowly returning to normal.
While no one likes dealing with insurance, and even worse, the agents that sell it, take a moment to evaluate your coverage and needs. I was amazed at how quickly even minor medical costs stacked up, in addition to the obvious property damage, an incident like this could have added mountains of financial worry to the already immensely stressful task of dealing injuries to a loved one. Hopefully you will never need it, but it pays to have adequate coverage from a quality company when you do.
Heard in the Hallways
I’m not enough of an anthropologist to know why silence became such an uncomfortable component of interpersonal interactions, but it seems that most people find it extremely difficult to leave a pause in conversation unfilled. This can however, be used to your advantage. When you are looking for more information and asking questions, simply letting the silence after a question linger can lead to more information. Unwilling to let a pause linger, additional or unexpected information can be gleaned simply by letting the other person fill the silence first.
Travels with Patrick
Despite recent attempts to correct my condition, most of my close associates know that I am terminally helpless when it comes to fashion. Guilty of cardinal sins ranging from combining opposing stripes, to attempting to sneak under the watchful (and far more stylish) eye of my wife wearing opposing shades, I will never make the pages of Vogue. It was with great surprise yesterday that I fielded a call from the Fashion and Style editor of the New York Times. She had called to verify some information for an article I was being quoted in, and I responded while desperately searching my memory for any fashionable conversations I’d had in the past few weeks, and hoping the title was not “Worst Dressed Consultants of 2008.”
With great trepidation I paged through the Times this morning and with great relief discovered that I was quoted on the decidedly unfashionable concept of the “working breakfast.” You can read the article here, and I plan on pinning the section to the wall of my office, since it will likely be the first and last time I am featured among the likes of Calvin Klein and Dolce and Gabbana.