Chris Gratigny

This week there's been a common theme that has come up that has intrigued me. It's the difference between communicating "done" and "draft". When work is sent to me on a project that I'm responsible for, I have completely different feedback if I think you're "done" vs it's a "draft" you're showing me.

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I've noticed that often people will say something like "I'd like to meet with you about X". Unfortunately, if will often not happen. When you are requesting a meeting, or responding to a meeting request, there are a few things to be sure to do to make sure it happens.

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You are asked to get information from someone, where do you start? If you know the person and have worked with them, then it is easy - you know how to communicate with them. If you don't know the person, you have to figure out what forms of communication they use to be able to get an answer to the question you are needing to ask. How do you go about doing that?

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I was looking at statistics for websites tonight, and found something that was rather surprising to me. It appears that, out of the sites that I maintain, the most popular time of the day on these sites appears to be between 11AM and 1PM. I was intrigued, my mind wandered, and , I wonder what time of the day would be the most effective time to send an email.

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Thanks." says Bob. He takes a quick look at it and says, "Good work, this is just what I asked for." He looks at it a little more and says, "I have some updates I'd like you to make to this, I received new information thought of these updates since I last talked to you.  They are _______. Can you work on these new things and get it back to me tomorrow by 10AM?

Adapting to others is a very important aspect of life. Without being able to adapt to others, you'll only be friends with people like you. While I'm sure that you think you're amazing, everyone is just not the same as you. If they were the same as you, life would be boring. You don't want clones running around! A variety of people is good. I know that I have to have different people around me to keep me balanced. Sure, I get along easily with people that are like me, but easy doesn't do much for me.

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From time to time, I work with people who rub me the wrong way just a little. I'm sure that I rub people the wrong way. This is a reality, not everyone will be a pleasure to work with. If you are able to work with people that you really enjoy working with and naturally get along great with, that's awesome! I've found that, like my marriage, work relationships are rewarding and take time. The longer you work with people, the greater the chance of finding something that you don't see eye to eye on.

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A very common question asked at work is the question - "Is it possible?"  This question is flawed by nature, because so many things are possible.  Is it possible that I drive down the road 100 miles an hour on my motorcycle without a helmet?  Cringingly I would have to answer honestly and say, "Yes".  I do have the capability to not wear a helmet when on the bike, and the bike does go 100 miles an hour very easily.  It's definitely possible.

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If you have ever told me anything exciting, you may have not received the best response. I probably questioned what you said, wasn't excited for you. I would assume I listened to what you said, then thought of a reason that it's not exciting. I suck at this... but I'm improving.

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