HELLO ME IT’S ME SOA and stuff

What is it that you want to hear?

Will that make you pay attention?

Do you need short bullet style sentences? Or do you need just one liners?
Do you need to feel close the subject at hand? Or do you need to feel inspired?

What is it that will make you “get it” even if you don’t agree with “it”?

We need to clearly ask questions.  We need to be open and honest and without fear when asking.   We need to be able to discuss and even argue in the spirit of understanding and solving problems. 

Leaders at the top of the organizational hierarchy know without a doubt that most of the issues we have reside in communications, trust and our ability to understand or relate how it is that you are connected to me.  How is something connected to me? What is this something? Why does it matter? How will it affect me?  Will it have any impact at all? 

We focus on things that are physical and logical but we should pay more attention to the space between these things and the connectivity and the meaning.  We should pay more attention to the relationships of the people dealing with these things. 

If you are still reading this, you may wonder what I am talking about specifically.  I didn’t apply context and that was the point.  

SOA applied:

                      I was in a meeting today where we discussed Service Orientation, one of the points of discussion was that a high-ranking service member said that he was going to “Buy himself a SOA” which is absolutely frustrating.   The real issue is that this person is not informed.  He is not informed because he either had no time to be informed or he didn’t care to know.  He just leaned over to his number one guy and asked for some SOA. His number one guy may be the same way.  This is critically important because as I stated before the people at the top of an organization understand what they want or need in concept.  They have to pass trust down through the organization to middle level management in order to execute the “idea” or “concept” and make things happen. 

The middle level management is swollen by pressures from the top and the bottom and they have difficulty in taking the time to learn.  They then try to pass the trust token down to lower level management or action officers who in turn try to execute but they don’t know the vision.  So they make up their own idea of it. 

It boils down to understanding people, process, methods and leading.  It means time, and sometimes we think we have no time.  If we have no time we rush, we don’t ask questions and we wind up doing everything over and over and over.  I needed the three overs.   If you are still reading, I am most probably telling you something that you already know.  I am simply pointing out something as real as air and as clear as mud.   My next question is….

What are you doing about it?  If nothing, why not?

I suggest taking some time to think about the problems in your organization.  I suggest that you lead change or even inspire change through you current role.  If you are at the bottom, learn what the people at the top want to accomplish.  Create clarity where there is none.  Outline what you can do to help. When someone pushes back on you, respectfully and professionally assert your right to help. 

I had a friend recently tell me “Be the island of rationality in the sea of chaos.”  Be the island with a sat link up to other islands.   Finally remember if you chose to do nothing to help, you have chosen to do something which may contribute to an undesirable result.  

It has been proven time and time again that we fundamentally want the same things and these things are basic.  Keeping this in mind will help when we work to connect with each other no matter if it is technical or not.