J. Timothy King’s Blog

Why Leaders Never Assign Blame

Monday, the school nurse called about my daughter. If you’re a parent, I don’t know whether you’ve ever felt what that’s like, the thoughts that race through your mind, the tightness in your chest, the conscious effort to breathe normally.

Both of my daughters needed to come home from school. One of them had an infestation of head lice. Her scalp was red and extremely itchy, even bleeding. And she had numerous nits, the eggs of the vermin, in her hair. Our school has a no-nit policy. Searching on the web, I learned that some schools avoid no-nit policies. Because parents would be embarrassed to learn that their kids have lice. And I became thankful that our school does have a no-nit policy. But that’s just the way I am.

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Ten Favorite Books

These are not necessarily my all-time favorites in all categories. I don’t even know whether I could narrow the list down that far. But these are ten really good books from my library, all of which I heartily recommend.

In fact, I continue to be amazed at how many people have not read even the most significant of these books. How many businessmen have never read Peter Drucker. Every executive, every manager, every entrepreneur must read Peter Drucker. Or how many software engineers have never read Frederick Brooks or Demarco and Lister. Or how many software managers don’t even know who Brooks or Demarco or Lister is.

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Quick and Dirty May Be Dirty, But Is It Quick?

I’ve been meaning for some time to write about how slow “quick and dirty” is, how misnamed the term is, how misguided are the hoards of managers (many of them former and current software developers) who embrace “quick and dirty” as a fast solution to pressing problems, as though it could ever deliver an actual solution.

I’ve been meaning for some time to write this. It took Lidor Wyssocky’s latest blog post to push me into it. And just in case someone out there couldn’t tell you were joking… (You were joking, right?) The sad truth is that “quick and dirty” may be dirty, but it’s never quick, at least not if you actually want to deliver a usable product.

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Five Ways to Improve Your Focus

Many people, especially we creative types, have trouble focusing. I myself have had trouble focusing from time to time. I’m continually learning new things, which is good. But at some point, you have to take action. If I’m always learning, I’ll never put that knowledge into practice. Instead, I’ll go from idea to idea, never seeing any idea through to completion.

That’s not to say it’s bad to have multiple balls in the air at once. But even a juggler coordinating the movement of 3, 4, 5, or more objects, he does one thing at a time. Throw the ball A from the right hand to the left. Throw ball B from left to right. Catch ball A. Throw ball C from right to left. Catch ball B. Throw ball A to right. Catch ball C. And so forth. He can never be manipulating two balls at once.

That’s the way it is if you want to get stuff done. You have to focus on one task at a time and see it through to completion. So if we have trouble with focus, we’ll have trouble getting stuff done.

If you’re a creative type, like me, here are 5 things you can try to improve your focus:

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