March 2006

Point of View - From Another View Point

I found more information on view points. These are referred to in NLP as Perceptual Positions.

Self

The normal and healthy position of seeing, hearing, and feeling from out of self. This position is needed in order to speak with authenticity, to present yourself, your thoughts, feelings and responses congruently, to disclose, listen, inquire and be present with another.

When Stuck here: Selfish, sociopath perspective.

Other

To understand, feel with, experience empathy for and see things from another's view point. Here you'll feel in accord with the other and have a strong sense of his or her perceptive.

When stuck here: co-dependent.

Meta

To step back, gain a sense of distance, observe, witness, feel neutral, and appreciated both positions fully.

When stuck here: cold, over-rational, "computer" mode.

System

To understand the contexts (cultural, linguistic, business, family, etc.) that influence all of the larger systems and contexts of our world.

When stuck here: "Company Man"

Universality

This speaks to viewing from the individual's position of highest power. For the religious minded, it is to be present with God viewing the situation from His position.

When stuck here: "So heavenly minded you are no earthly good."

Truth in Blogging

These definitions are from the Meta-NLP training manual, page 80. I appreciate Bobby Bodenhamer and Mike Davis for sharing this information with me.

Context Switching - The "hardware view"

I met George Dinwiddie so long ago, CompuServe ruled the online world. We participated in the Software Development Forum. He recently added to the context switching discussion. You can read George's thoughts here. In it he states "This [hardware interrupt handling] is a very efficient and deterministic process. People, unfortunately, can have a little more trouble making such a context switch and then switching back."

And Why is That?

People are incredible state machines. Our physiology and emotions create our states. We awaken in the morning and (eventually) go to bed, switching states all day long. Some states gradually morph into others. Some states grow stronger and allow us to get into flow situations where we enjoy the productivity of our thoughts and actions coming together creating high output levels. Some state changes happen abruptly when something jars us.

Restating George's thought, it's not the context switch out that's difficult. It's the context switch back. Unlike the wonderfully linear microprocessor, we humans tend to be incredibly nonlinear, tightly-coupled, loosely cohesioned (if you know what I mean) creations. This applies even to those of us who believe we are linear and straightforward.

The context switch destroys our current state. If the opportunity presents itself, we may have time to check point our thoughts and where we are in the process. But our thinking up to that point, our physiology, and emotions at that point get lost in the winds of change.

The return trip back then becomes a game of trying to find where we were, why we were there, and what we were doing.

I'm Disinclined to Agree

George stated this problem of people "switching and then switch back" is "unfortunate". From a management standpoint, he may be correct. But managers would like to believe that knowledge workers are fungible, and that output equals the number of hours worked multiplied by some magic constant. That allows them to complete projects quicker by assigning more people, and having those people work more hours.

It just ain't so. If you haven't read Slack by Tom Demarco, do so. Order enough books so you get free shipping and give the extra copies to your manager, and his manager.

Context Switching for Fun and Profit

I recently read Johanna Rothman's article on Context Switching. I need to let you, it just ain't so.

Context Switching is Fun!

I usually have 3 or more things going on at any time. Right now I'm doing exploratory work for one client (lots of try this, try that, well, how about trying something else?), upgrading a system for another client (I've already done three of their systems), and preparing for a class.

Context switching allows me to mentally shift gears. When I need time to think about what's happening with the exploration, I can spin my chair, slap in another CD, and nudge the upgrade another step closer to completion.

Context Switching is Profitable!

Being able to swap between contexts allows me to supply better value to my clients. I can wonder about what to do next while I'm shuffling CDs. I can do exploration while I'm waiting for the CDs to finish loading. Everyone's a winner!

Truth in Blogging

If you've read Johanna's article, you'll realize differences exist between our examples.

• One switches between similar tasks, the other doesn't.
• I'm not under deadline pressure. (Should anyone be?)
• I get to choose when to switch contexts.

So the real problem is not context switching. The problem remains management that doesn't understand what they manage, and how to make it fun and profitable.

Context Switching ... good or bad? Share your experiences: don@donaldegray.com