Shipulski On Design

Don’t tell me what I can do; tell me what I cannot do, so everything else is available to me.

It’s faster if you give me smart, hardworking people with little experience.  I won’t have to re-teach them, and we can get started right away.

Tell me what you want done, but not how to do it.  Choose someone else because I won’t listen.

Don’t ask me to do something that’s been done before. That work is for someone else, and I will teach them how to do it.

I won’t have an answer to your question if it’s not yet time to know the answer.  I know you’ll likely be uncomfortable with that.

With administrative requests, I’ll be minimally compliant.  I want to conserve my energy for work that everyone else is afraid to try.

Tell me what cannot change so I can constrain that out of the approach.  There’s nothing worse than trying to change the unchangeable.

Don’t give me a destination or an idealized future state.  I’ll define our location, and we’ll discuss several directions of travel we can investigate in parallel.

Give me an unreasonable time constraint.  I’ll have no other choice but to be immensely productive right now.

If at the time of your question, there’s no way I can know the answer, I will tell you.  I’m sure you’ll be displeased with me.

Don’t judge me on efficiency because I’m all about effectiveness.  Solving the wrong problem efficiently is highly ineffective, and I don’t like that.

When I say no to your request, I always have a reason. But I’m not always aware of the reason.

When I see things differently, I’ll tell you.  I’m not being disagreeable. My cynicism is a sign that I care.

When you’re doing new work, it’s okay to be misunderstood.  More strongly – if you’re not misunderstood, you’re not trying hard enough.

May you find work that demands you’re misunderstood.

Image credit — Marian Kloon