The Crux

At work we often share articles that we think are insightful, and are relevant to challenges that we’re taking on. I saw this article No Managers, and thought it was interesting. My co-worker opinion was that it was rather trite, and pointed me to more apropos article (now behind a paywall) at WSJ. After reading the article and thinking about how they related, I started to really appreciate that view point. The first article wasn’t all a wash though. One of the things that really caught my attention was the SCARF approach to understanding motivation. As a manager I certainly could improve how I am reaching out towards the people I work with. I also thought that I might be able to pull on some of my fellow managers experience, so I fired off an email, and started up some conversations.

A few days later, someone mentioned that they had read the book, Your Brain at Work, mentioned in the article where the SCARF idea originated. Alas, I couldn’t have a decent conversation, since I had not read it yet. I have a long commute, and my reading queue was empty, so off to Audible I went. The book is about how the brain works, and how you can use that knowledge to maximize your mental resources. One of the key tenets is that your brain has limited resources for your more advanced thinking, and you should conserve it. And here is my crux of the matter: If I should be conserving my brain, I should probably let it do something less strenuous like listing to music on my drive home. Since my life is pretty full otherwise, how shall I ever finish the book?

So while I ponder this conundrum, I leave you with this gem found in our QA channel Tester Channel:

Why can’t two doctors be in the same room at a time?

Because they would be a pair ‘o docs.