Life Is Like High School
Years back actress Meryl Streep was giving a commencement address when she said this:
She said, “You have been told that real life is not like college and you have been correctly informed. Real life is more like high school.”
College and graduate school teach us that technical competence is all. None of these institutions reward the human qualities that tests cannot measure. College graduates come out of school with the firm belief that knowing your stuff is what counts.
Remember?
This lesson of college conflicts with the lesson we learned immediately before it. Children and teenagers learn to value well-roundedness and traits that are likable. College seduces us with the notion that real life will be an oasis where sheer talent is what counts.
Early in my career I made the transition back from college thinking to high school. What good does it do to be a socially deficient expert who gets zippo clients?
Same thing applies to software evaluation.
I have met other consultants who have much formal training than me. (I know this because they tell me.) But they are not better than me at what I do…and I know this for several reasons.
One, I have a LOT more clients than they do.
Two, I have been able to sustain my companies for 15 years providing the same software core services to my clients.
Three, I don’t try to put these evaluations through an intellectual meat grinder.
Do I quantify the results of the evaluations? – you bet.
Do I make final recommendations to my clients from these quantified numbers? Nope.
I watch the body language of software sales people…I watch their eyes to see if they are lying or BS’ing me or my client. I read between the lines of their answers to pointed questions I ask in the vendor questionnaire. I listen to what they don’t say…or what they should be saying.
This is all part and parcel of being a good consultant…thinking AND feeling.
None of us were taught that in college…