There are long-distance endurance events in many pursuits: running, triathlon, motorcycle and motorsport, hiking, dogsledding. All of these require exertion, as well as a finish line.

Those who know me would know that I often partake in long-distance running and triathlon events.

The concept of endurance is usually associated with athletic or otherwise “exertion” efforts.

A person’s career is not often thought of this way: but it could be an endurance event of another kind.

Endurance invokes visions of resilience, fortitude, and stamina. Also associated with endurance is the ability to plan, withstand, and recover.

That describes a career, too.

I’d never heard of nominalisation until recently taking an interest in strategic business writing.

Nominalisation is turning a verb into a noun.

Grammar reminder: the verb is the action word; the noun is a thing or person.

Example, with “consider” as the nominalised verb:

• The committee considered all the information, or

• The committee took all the information into consideration.

Nominalisation has added in another verb, “took”.

So, while not wrong, it inadvertently adds complexity to the sentence, making it longer and more convoluted.

Some consider it less personal and more authoritative, which is probably valid in business and technical writing.

Time-blocking is a proactive way to manage time. That’s pre-assigning blocks to a set of tasks to be done.

And I know: just thinking about such a structured day makes some people queasy. But time-blocking works, especially if you’re in a role that requires deep thinking, reading, or writing.

Anyway, one simple and effective hack I found is to change my calendar view (Outlook) to 15mins instead of the default 30min blocks.

Besides feeling like I have ‘more time’, it also conditions me to only spend 15mins on some tasks (i.e., admin) and then move on to something more important.

It’s one of those words with two different meanings, depending on syllable emphasis.

“Con-TENT” is a state of being. It’s being in want of little and just humming along productively. That’s my definition, anyway. Spending time being content is a good goal, and pretty satisfying too.

“CON-tent” is a thing, or rather, many things. I didn’t know there were actual “content factories” for social media. Certainly, these days there is a huge focus on strategies for putting out content for visibility.

Well, I can confidently say that I am content. And, I have many days of content for #100wordsaday ahead.

Developing leadership skills is important as we navigate through our long careers.

Some end up leading large teams even without trying, and others never quite get there.

Part of good leadership is solid self-leadership, combined with professional excellence. Even those who aren’t interested in leading others, or those who don’t get the chance to lead others, can benefit from strong self-leadership.

I think self-leadership is a sound combination of:

- Self-awareness,

- Efficient productivity hacks, and

- Clarity of knowledge.

While I ponder those attributes, I’ll be taking a break from #100wordsaday for the month of August. Back in September!

For the last three weeks of July, I’ve been on call for jury duty. Back in May with the first notification, I purposefully decided not to opt out. I wanted to give back, participate in the legal system, and maybe learn a bit about human behaviour. It would be a chance to see judgement and decision-making in real time.

What I’ve learned is being called for jury duty doesn’t at all mean you’ll actually get to be on a jury. My number only came up once and, in the end, there was no jury needed that day.

Maybe next time.

Writing “TERTly” is a framework I’ve developed recently.

It helps organise the content of my reports and thought-bubble longer articles.

First, establish the “T”. A Thesis, Theory or Thought is presented simply and succinctly.

Then, the “E” section provides Examples or Evidence of that thought. This helps establish credibility that the thought is worth writing about.

Next, the writing needs an “R”. A Realisation, Result, or Recognition. In many cases, this section establishes change or a conclusion of sorts.

Finally, wrap up with a Take-away, Teaching, or Try-this advice. After all, in the end, it’s all about the take-away advice.

Apparently, there are only four types of problems:

1. Troubleshooting, needing a rapid fix,

2. Gap from standard, the fix which prevents recurrence,

3. Target condition, the fix which improves output, and

4. Open-ended, needing creativity and innovation to solve.

These were named by Art Smalley, known for his work in lean manufacturing.

The first two are ‘caused problems’ and would have reactive responses to solve. The last two are ‘created’, solved with a proactive approach.

Each has a different cadence and focal point.

When faced with a problem, it might be useful to think about which type it is.

Sometimes things happen and the only response can be “that was like it was magic”. Or things look so simple, or they work so fast, we think “it must be magic”. Take our smartphones and how little we have to know about them, and they mostly just work. Like magic. Or search engines, which twenty years ago were not as speedy or specific like they are now. Or 3D modelling for building or process plant designs – like magic.

Of course, there is no magic. There’s an enormous amount of work and clever coding and thinking and problem-solving that’s gone before.

After writing reports, or even emails, we should also make time to edit the writing. After writing the ‘bad first draft’, go over it again to simplify the writing, avoid repetition or extraneous words, and, mostly, to reduce the usage of the passive voice.

The passive voice is not wrong; the active voice is just stronger and communicates in a less wishy-washy manner.

“I wrote these 100 words” reads better than “these 100 words were written by me”. They both convey the same information, but the passive tense – the second example – is cluttered and longer than it needs to be.

I read a lot, and then if it’s thought-provoking, I re-write it in my own words. Quite a bit of that ends up here, and by the time it’s part of this 100 words-a-day caper, it’s a mish-mash of my and others’ thoughts, and so I don’t specifically attribute the inspiration for the topic or thought.

I like the idea that we can stand on the shoulders of giants, by building on others’ thinking.

I do attribute the pictures I use, though. Almost all of them are from Unsplash, and I always credit the photo in the “alternative text” metadata.

There’s a need for the executive summary for long reports, for the ‘dot points’ presented in a slide deck, and even the current phenomenon of book summaries.

There’s a need for those summaries, and the getting to the point. I’m all for it.

But we can’t all work in summaries. We can’t start with, and then only stick with, the dot points and think we understand it deeply.

Someone has to write the book, write the report, or prepare the input data for the slide deck.

Working in summary should always recognise the effort that came before the dot points.

That title is wordplay. It’s actually “prose” and “cons” I’m thinking about today. And that’s not a typo – because it’s prose and conversations which are on my mind at the moment.

“Prose” is written or spoken language in its simplest state. It is our language without flourishes like the structured stanzas of poetry, and so it is what we use every day for communicating. We rarely have conversations in poetry: we speak in prose.

I remember a while ago, though, after enjoying a Shakespeare festival event, I did find myself thinking in iambic pentameters for the rest of the evening.

In the business sense, feedback is recognised as an important ingredient for performance management. It is a key management responsibility to give feedback. There is an expected skill, also, to be able to receive feedback.

It is possible, though, in some workplaces, to go for many months or even years without receiving constructive opinions on your work. This can happen if there isn’t a culture of discussion, or if there is a reticence to openly give or receive pointers.

But it’s also pretty obvious that the best way to improve skills, or confirm knowledge, is to seek input from others.

Until I read a whole (long) article dedicated to the word “the” itself, it never would have occurred to me how important it is. The example given of its important was comparing “she scored a goal” to “she scored the goal”.

Words in the English language have one of two purposes: either having a meaning, or being a functional word like ‘the’, or ‘for’. Functional words are descriptive, without being an adjective.

I’m not a grammar specialist, but understanding basic rules certainly helps with business writing. But I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d find an article about “the” so interesting.

Reliable workflows are a good goal to have. The certainty of a known workflow reduces stress in the workplace.

With known task assignment, known expectations of timing for each task, and the understanding of what happens next, things go smoothly. When a workflow process is well established, or often repeated, there is usually no uncertainty about who does what next, and how long it will take.

Bringing in innovation, or a new system, puts all of that structure and reliability into turmoil. Workflow assignment and expectations are not what they used to be.

The previous workflow probably doesn’t work anymore.

I have willingly named myself a clock-watcher.

A generation ago, and maybe even more recently, this would be a very negative declaration. A person who repeatedly looks to see what time it is, is probably not doing it to be positive. It implies lack of interest and maybe “a desire to stop work as soon as the clock strikes a designated time”.

But I say we need more clock-watchers. With the plethora of onscreen meetings, I think others may actually appreciate it.

Because when meetings or seminars or training sessions run beyond the designated finish time, that’s not positive either.

With Brisbane not in lockdown (sorry, Melbourne), we can socialise at establishments, but they are required to collect contact details.

I’ve experienced four different methods: a separate slip of paper; a sign-in book (with everybody else’s details visible), a Q-code to enter details; and, the greeter tapping into the computer.

The requirement to gather data was outcome-based, not prescriptive: gather the data, without any rules as to how.

For all these methods, I don’t know what happens to my details after I’ve left.

For all the good it’s doing, the old adage is true: the devil is in the details.

The other day I had the opportunity to play chess with a couple of school children, aged 10 and 7. I was so impressed with their understanding of the game. It was even possible to lose to them. Never mind that last year when we played, I did.

To win, the ability to think strategically is, of course, a key skill in chess.

It’s crucial to have deep ability to think ahead, assess consequences, and be sensitive to what another person is thinking and planning to do.

Sounds like key skills any manager or leader should be very good at.

Reviewing documents or designs is an integral part of the job for many professionals.

I remember in my early days, being shown how to review a design drawing. I was basically told to ‘just look for stuff that doesn’t look right’. And then I had to get on with it. And so, I did.

Review of reports is similar, with even less guidance given on what to look for. And yet, the reviewer has a certain level of responsibility.

There is an interesting responsibility trap with reviews; and the performance of the actual task is rarely clearly taught to us.