Rockie wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:46 am
Definitely don’t be a -1.
At least be a zero so you’re not actively impeding progress.
But I’ll ask the simple non-contentious question again that caused all the internet outrage. Why aim for zero, why not a +1? The effort alone puts you above zero.
My understanding is that actively bringing all your assets to the forefront without regards for what is expected of you ie aiming for +1 will land you in -1 land. That is exactly the kind of advice being given to anyone posting here looking for a pilot job. Potential employers don't care about your CPL multi-IFR (your +1 ness) if what they need is a ramp guy. Make yourself a valuable member of the team by doing what is asked of you WELL! (be a zero) and only then will you be viewed as a +1.
Then again, I may have misunderstood completely, but this attitude has served me in the past.
photofly wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 2:58 am
I sold Chris Hadfield a a copy of the CFS and a Toronto VTA a couple of years ago. I wonder what that makes me.
Did his rocket fly through Canadian airspace?
Yes. Even though he wasn’t navigating below 12,500 feet MSL in the Toronto VTA area for more than a second and a half, he takes his responsibilities to have on board “all relevant information” VERY seriously.
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DId you hear the one about the jurisprudence fetishist? He got off on a technicality.
a) Get in the way and make it worse
b) Sit back and wait for someone else to solve it, or
c) Be proactive and get the ball rolling to solve it yourself.
Forget how you appear, what are you going to do.
You get in the way - you do nothing - you contribute.
Simple. I don't understand where the trouble is or where the outrage came from.
BTW most people I've been fortunate enough to work with are option "c", there have been a few "b", and thankfully no "a" that I can recall.
Rockie wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:39 am
Think of it this way:
There is a problem and your choice is to:
a) Get in the way and make it worse
b) Sit back and wait for someone else to solve it, or
c) Be proactive and get the ball rolling to solve it yourself.
Forget how you appear, what are you going to do.
You get in the way - you do nothing - you contribute.
Simple. I don't understand where the trouble is or where the outrage came from.
BTW most people I've been fortunate enough to work with are option "c", there have been a few "b", and thankfully no "a" that I can recall.
Well if you interpret aiming to be a zero as doing nothing, then your confusion over people's reaction to your comments make sense. But as you said, you read and understood the book, so what do I know...
Don’t confuse aiming to be zero with goals and ambitions. Col Hadfield definitely aims to be a +1 when it comes to achieving the goals he has set for himself... fighter pilot, astronaut. He knew what he wanted to do in life and he mapped out his path and applied all the +1 that he was capable of to achieve it. What he didn’t do was let his personal drive become his identity. If your identity is +1, that’s when you will lose people.
Col Hadfield is a very smart and talented person who is/was working with a lot of people who had similar abilities. He knew early on that the best way to achieve success was to engage everyone as opposed to overpowering them with his plus oneness. The best leaders I worked for in the military never told me how great they were... you just knew, their reputation preceded them.
Rockie, your question of why someone should strive to be a 0 rather than striving to be a +1 was answered, by Chris Hadfield. In his book, which you said you read. But for those who haven't read it, I'll attempt to paraphrase his answer.
To start, being a 0 does not being doing nothing, or not contributing to the team effort. That would be a -1. A 0 is the guy who comes in, does his job as he's expected to do, and everyone is generally happy with his results. Nobody had to pick up slack from him, fix anything he damaged or messed up, etc. On the other hand he didn't revolutionize the way things were done, he didn't go way above and beyond what was expected of him, he just did his job well. A +1 is the guy who came in to do a job, and not only did it well but found ways that the team could do things even better than they had been, or found efficiencies that nobody else saw and exploited them, etc. When the +1 leaves, the team or organization is functioning even better than when he came in. The problem with always striving to be a +1 is that it can't be forced, it has to come naturally as a progression of being a good 0. The guys who come in immediately trying to fix things and make things better, without first taking the time to become good at what they were supposed to be doing and pulling their weight, usually end up making things worse. The people who actually end up making things better are able to do so because they strove to become good at doing their jobs first and foremost, helping out when needed, and staying out of the way when not.
A good place to observe this is on military courses. In a big group you usually end up with a few -1s who complain, don't pull their weight, and so on. Most of the bunch are 0s, who are just striving to meet the course standard and learn the material. They help each other out when needed, but don't stuff their noses into places where they don't belong. The ones that are putting the most effort into being 0s are the ones that end up being top candidate, since they were actually leaning towards +1 simply by virtue of trying to do a good job. But there is often a handful of people who really *want* to be the top candidate - they want the instructors to see how great they are and will go out of their way to show it. They are the people who will say "I know they told us to do it like this, but I think that is a better way to do it so let's do it like that!" They are the ones striving to be +1s, and often failing at it because they don't acknowledge that the instructors generally know what they are doing, and don't realize that they are being told to do something a certain way for a reason. They just assume they know better.
Anyway, I hope everyone reads Mr. Hadfield's book as he does a much better job of explaining it than I could.
I think we should all just agree that both Rockie AND B208 are awesome. I mean, not quite as awesome as Chris Hadfield or PilotDAR maybe, but still pretty awesome...
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"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." -George Bernard Shaw
Come on people, it’s a very simple question that no one has yet adequately answered. Sure, do your job, but if you have an opportunity to improve things by going a little above and beyond none of you would take it?
I don’t believe it. Personally I think many of you go above and beyond routinely, deliberately, which means you’re trying to be a +1. Good on you.
I don’t see what the argument is beyond just disagreeing with everything I say out of habit.
I would say personally that to be a +1, is a result of being a zero who, as you say rises when the opportunity arises. You have to be a zero of course to take advantage of said opportunity. Ultimately the question here is a difference of opinion on definitions.
As an analogy, consider a line of players on the ice at any given time during a hockey game. At any given time, every player is striving to be zero - that is to say not getting scored against is equally as important as scoring. They all have to be playing their roles. If one has played any team sport, you know the guy who is striving to be the singular +1. You know, doesn’t pass the puck, tries to one man the entire opposition, and frequently doesn’t contribute defensively usually known as a cherry picker. His striving to be +1 is going to make the collective effort a -1. Rather a +1 result is going to collectively emerge from a group striving to be zeroes, who can take advantage of an opportunity.
There is an old saying that runs along the lines of “those who want to lead shouldn’t” . Leadership, as a quality is often emergent rather than forced or claimed. If a display of leadership may result in one’s plus-oneness, then obviously you can’t have everyone simultaneously striving for that position, or it ends up being counter productive. The too many chiefs, not enough Indians problem. A +1 will emerge from a group of collectively striving to be zeroes, than will a group collectively trying to be the plus one. If we go back to the hockey analogy, while technically only one guy on the line is going to get the glory as doing the plus one deed, he gets there from a group of guys striving to do their job well and being zeroes. You can’t have five guys hanging out in center ice hoping to increase their chances of being plus ones.
In this instance being a zero is not a negative connotation.
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I'm not sure what's more depressing: That everyone has a price, or how low the price always is.
+1 has nothing to do with seeking or achieving leadership. Nothing to do with recognition. It is, do you go out of your way to make things better for the sake of making things better? It doesn’t have to be all the time and it doesn’t have to be spectacular. It just has to be more than expected.
wrote:A friend of mine was once in a crowded elevator in Building Four South at JSC in Houston when a senior astronaut got on and just stood there, visibly impatient, waiting for someone to divine that he needed to go to the sixth floor, and push the button. "I didn't spend all those years in university to wind up pushing buttons in an elevator," he snapped. Incredibly enough, someone did it for him. This incident made such a big impression on my friend that I heard about it, and probably a lot of other people did, too. For me, it was a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of ever thinking of yourself as An Astronaut (or A Doctor, or A Whatever). To everyone else, you're just an arrogant guy on the elevator, craving significance.
Over the years, I've realized that in any new situation, whether it involves an elev tor, or a rocket ship, you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems, Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn't tip the balance one way or the other, Or you'll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-one-ness at the outset almost guarantees you'll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually perform."
I've never read the book. I've never met Chris Hadfield. I'm vaguely aware he was an astronaut, had a killer moustache, and is what passes for celebrity in Canada.
But setting aside the simplistic reduction of people to ones and zeros, the real flaw in his philosophy is that it assumes everyone gives a shit about how others perceive them. (Hint: I do not). But I'm old-school, I still believe that reality is more important than perception, and no, perception is not reality. Hardly ever, in fact.
I mean Gsus, no other animal ponders it's own existence in such inanities as we humans!
But if we're assigning scores, for all of our differences I have to say Rockie adds about a zillion more points of worthwhile contributions to any given discussion than our dear friend pelmet.
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I’m still waiting for my white male privilege membership card. Must have gotten lost in the mail.
I am getting old and cranky and probably to stupid to make meaningful commentary on yer binary code(0’s and 1’s) musings. I do get a real charge when Rockie squares off with Pelmet tis better than a yuk-yuk concert at times. Secretly I believe both of these esteem gents are Air Canada Captains, both are best of friends and have been for a while and I bet their respective spouses hang out with other. They both hate wine and detest flying to the Maritimes, both will be flying at AC beyond 65 because by the time their retirement is due flying beyond 65 will be permitted. Also both are adamant weed should not be legal because they never smoked it. I certainly did and I can tell’em both why not have a go. Stay loose!
Old fella wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 12:34 pm
I am getting old and cranky and probably to stupid to make meaningful commentary on yer binary code(0’s and 1’s) musings. I do get a real charge when Rockie squares off with Pelmet tis better than a yuk-yuk concert at times. Secretly I believe both of these esteem gents are Air Canada Captains, both are best of friends and have been for a while and I bet their respective spouses hang out with other. They both hate wine and detest flying to the Maritimes, both will be flying at AC beyond 65 because by the time their retirement is due flying beyond 65 will be permitted. Also both are adamant weed should not be legal because they never smoked it.
Rockie and I are planning to have a road show after we retire. We will be debating endless issues from how great Donald Trump is to aircraft incident analysis to discount dining. As well, we will each have our own crew of hand-picked AvCanada contributors paying to tag along to give us advice(you can start sending contributions now to my handle's email). Millions will be made by each of us and I expect to overtake my hero, Jordan Peterson, in Youtube popularity. Because of my sense of fairness, I plan to split the profits 50/50 with Rockie because I don't want to unfairly take most if not all based on who wins the debates.
Groupies may end up ditching the major Rock bands to be seen with us and thats OK but please don't mention anymore on this forum any relationship I may have with his spouse. I plan to retire early but will continue to do plenty of other flying and hobbies and am just getting started. Good fortune has followed me so far but it will all come to an end some day. Life is too short and there is still a lot of very cool things to do. Complex will be the one flying past 65 in a faraway land with never enough days off giving up his home country to chase that elusive grand payout. It can be fun for a while, believe me. Big jets, easy flying, lower taxes and if you have good fortune, great layovers. But endless time zone changes and midnight departures will eventually wear on one and it is time to move on after trying out a variety of aircraft types.
So my advice is....do what you can while you can. Life is short.
I think the point is that if you aim to be a zero, you have a good chance of ending up as a +1. If you aim to be a +1, you'll probably end up as a -1, because of all the people you end up elbowing and climbing over trying to get there.
In coding, we have a similar motto: always underpromise and overdeliver.
I suppose I'm a negative one because I like to do and write silly things. Then again sometimes I am a huge plus, just check out my weight and balance sheets!
Rockie certainly demonstrated the over all theory well.
It doesn't matter if you can fly better, if no one wants to let you work with them, you'll lose your ride.
