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Going with the flow (was: How to fend off a tech writer)
Subject:Going with the flow (was: How to fend off a tech writer) From:SteveFJong -at- aol -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Sat, 11 May 2002 13:07:53 EDT
I think every knowledge worker needs to get into "the flow." I recently had
to visit the financial-aid officer at a hospital, and I observed her
carefully trying to match documents with line items on a bank statement. If
the phone had rung, she would have had to start over again from the
beginning. (It's a long story, but it will probably end happily...)
As many meetings as I went to as a principal writer, I could still arrange my
schedule to have uninterrupted work days. Not so as a manager, because you
are interrupt-driven. Having an open-door policy means that people won't
hesitate to come to you with their problems, concerns, requests, etc. You
can't shut them out--responding to them *is* your job. Management and writing
(management and any individual contribution) are thus incompatible activities
because of this "flow" effect. You can forget about the flow 8^(
The more people you manage, the more severe this problem is. I started to
notice it when I had four writers; when I got to eight, I pretty much
couldn't do any writing projects. Anecdotal evidence is that there aren't
many "working" writing managers with more than four direct reports.
I have observed this as a general rule with managers of every sort in every
field. So I refuse to accept this as a personal failing 8^) But I think it's
particularly pertinent to technical writing because it is an offshoot of
writing in general, and we all know how hard it is for writers to get into
the flow. (The greats tended to use alcohol...)
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