On Knowing Useful and Useless Things

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Trivia night is becoming a part of my new norm. We are an eclectic group that varies a bit week to week from old friends and offspring and new friends and neighbors. The blended group with different areas of  pop cultural knowledge is helpful. Last week, my friend J thought he was going to be clever and went ahead to the Trivia web site and thought he had figured out a few categories, then researched them. I think perhaps his research paid off on at most, two answers, though several of us already knew the answer, Flying Fox, as really a type of bat, before he could look at his handwritten notes. No fun, J! We need to rely on our own bank of useful and mostly useless knowledge. We did not finish well last week. 

I take a lot of notes in meetings, either on a notepad or on the lap top. I don't often refer to them, but just the task of writing things down helps my memory a lot. If I know I will need to draw upon something specifically, I will put the info on calendars, or craft into an e-mail to myself or memo with a pertinent subject line. Then, I save in a folder to draw from later, but they are much briefer than what I would have taken note of during the meeting itself. I'm now trying to transfer useful knowledge to the new team member that started on Monday, and not bog her down in  the information that for now, is useless. 

It's been challenging. Things you don't learn about people in interviews is how they absorb information. I'm trying to transfer in short and meaningful ways, so she has the big picture, then will add in the layers as the week, and next week goes on. She has a tendency of interrupting me, and wanting to dive in deeper, ad have a dialogue that quickly goes off tangent. Multiple times I've already had to say, let's get back to the core, and the details will make better sense. I haven't see her take any notes in our meetings, nor make notes in the program policy manual to later cross reference when she has access tot he program files.  I can see what she is doing is drawing on her own bank of  knowledge, things that were really useful in her old job, but at this stage of her new job, while not useless, it is not yet relevant. 

I've been involved in another project which has a huge focus on complete and total active listening, hearing what the other person says, and not responding until they are well and done-not even nods, and  sounds. It is difficult, but as I practice it more and more, I am learning how much I would jump in before the other person was done talking, and I didn't really hear them in full, as I most likely was thinking about my own response. I'm starting to be more aware of it being done on the other side of the conversation, and my new staff fits this to a tee. She has in her head the things she thinks she needs to know, and wants to jump to that point. Another colleague told me she had that issue with one of her staff when they started. She finally had to  say, "Stop guessing what I'm going to say next and let me finish my thoughts."

Trivia is tonight again. We won't be relaying on J's research as just got a note via our FB group that he's is down with a nasty cold. We might try the technique we learned at another table where they use post it notes or note cards to communicate amongst the team to come to consensus. Maybe writing down our first guesses at the meaningless  things will help us get back on the leader board.