Last week I sat in my 1st mine-wide weekly production meeting. Much like any other new venture I partake in, I left the meeting with a million questions and thoughts pertaining to a variety of subjects. It wasn’t long after the meeting started when I realized that I would have a lot of things to ask my supervisor; As such, I did what I usually do and wrote them all down as the meeting progressed. In true Haley fashion, by the end of the meeting I was left quite overwhelmed and exhausted by the whole ordeal.
During the meeting, there was a discussion wherein it was brought to everyone’s attention that a potentially high-reward task had not been completed successfully. It goes without saying that this result is disappointing to everyone; although, it was also made clear that there was a known, pre-meditated risk associated with the successful completion of this task. Furthermore, it was mentioned that we had implemented all the available controls to mitigate this risk, but it wasn’t possible to eliminate the risk altogether. As such, my simple (and perhaps naive) understanding of the facts is as follows: a high-reward task that was understood to be high-risk was not completed successfully despite all the available controls in place. My interpretation of these facts (as I understand them) is that this failure is then justified and forgivable – but perhaps we should make note of any lessons learned so that we can adjust our approach for a similar task in the future. However, I suppose my interpretation wasn’t sufficiently reasoned through because this failure was classified as unacceptable by others in the meeting, as we had planned for this task to be completed successfully.
Now that I’ve painted that picture, here were some immediate thoughts I had: People are unhappy with the failure of this task, which is reasonable; However, this result was deemed unacceptable. This bothers me because I don’t understand why this would be unacceptable if there was known risk. Perhaps those who’ve called it “unacceptable” don’t actually mean to use that word. Or, perhaps I do not understand what it means for it to be unacceptable. What does “unacceptable” mean in this context? Why is this unacceptable to us? We implemented all available controls to mitigate the risk. Maybe my perspective on this is uninformed, and what’s really happening is that others do not believe that all the available controls were actually implemented. How do we evaluate risk? How do we implement controls? What controls were implemented and how much did they mitigate the risk? Was the amount risk significant, or small? Do I understand the situation well enough? Wouldn’t the best course of action be to “accept” this failure and learn from it for the next time we attempt? Perhaps we could research better controls now that we know the ones we have do not suffice. Perhaps this is what everybody means by “unacceptable” – they mean that it would be unacceptable for us to not research better ways to implement controls. However, if we had known that there was risk associated with this task, then we need to be more diligent in planning said risk into our targets and expectations as a company. At the very least, why didn’t we form one plan considering the failure of this task, and another considering the success of it? If others think this is unacceptable, is this reaction a larger issue? This doesn’t seem fair, nor does it seem logical for anybody to be disciplined for this issue when we had all previously accepted there was risk. Is this the manner by which we deal with all issues? Could this behaviour be a symptom of a much more fundamentally flawed mindset that leads to more issues that we deal with as a company? Do I understand this issue well enough to be this bothered by it? Am I even allowed to be bothered by it? Everybody else knows more than I do, so I need to be careful. Though, If I indeed have all of the facts and there is nothing being kept secret, then it seems obvious to me that this is not the right way to handle the issue. So it must be the case that I do not understand. What things am I wrong about? I feel overwhelmed. I need to understand this. It’s important. I need to talk to my supervisor.
This discussion took place approximately ~5 minutes into the meeting, and the meeting lasted 2 hours. As you may imagine, this was one of many conversations/topics that were covered, and this only addressed small percentage of questions I asked myself during the meeting. In the example above, all of this was prompted by the use of the word “unacceptable”. Even if that’s not the word that others meant to use, it obviously had a great effect on me – and it had nothing to do with me. Regardless of what everybody else intended or meant, this reaction influences the company’s culture and expectations. Ultimately, I think that this is why this is so important to me. Now, the real purpose of this blog post is not to deliberate company expectations and culture, or what should/shouldn’t be categorized as “unacceptable”. What I actually want to dissect is my all-too-familiar reaction to this event and the fact that I was genuinely overwhelmed by it – it’s time to talk about soup.
When I’m exposed to something like this (whether it be a conversation, a technical concept, or any sort of action) my brain reacts by brewing “soup”. My supervisor and I like to refer to this as “brain soup” because to me, that’s the best descriptor for how it feels in my head. Actually, this reaction extends to more than just new concepts or experiences – brain soup applies to any and all situations wherein I’m overwhelmed by my thoughts on virtually any topic. I know all of my thoughts, as they are in my head after all – but during soup, they don’t have any structure (they lack connections amongst themselves) or substance (reasonings as to why I am thinking them), like soup. A brain-soup-mindset is physically exhausting and always feels like a huge exercise/burden when it happens. Because of this, I become overwhelmed by the soup and feel the strong need to discuss it with somebody who is outside of the soup and who can help me work through it. Otherwise, I’m left to stew in a billion thoughts all at once and I can’t ever press pause. However, because I’m already overwhelmed and anxious about “getting it all out”, I get really frustrated and end up failing to articulate my thoughts and feelings clearly. My supervisor and I call this part “word soup”, wherein I tend to just iterate through a bunch of incoherent, unstructured thought-sentences in no helpful order – just like it is in my head. Although, sometimes word soup is not a result of brain soup – there are times when I understand exactly what I’m thinking and why, but I get so antsy and nervous to “get it out” that it just ends up coming out gracelessly. This is something I struggled with a lot in university – understanding a physics/math concept but not being able to explain it to my peers effectively.
Okay: brain soup, word soup. Lots of soup. What is most annoying about all of this soup is that most people (including myself) relate good articulation with intelligence. Some people may even believe that being articulate is necessary for someone to be deemed as intelligent. My immediate opinion is that this connection is not justified, but I’d have to do more thinking on that. Being articulate is a good indicator of one’s “brain-power”, but I don’t think it’s wise to suppose that articulate people are the only ones capable of thinking. What I am certain of is that every day I feel frustrated at the hands of the soup. It seems foolish and unproductive to have a brain that’s so pre-occupied by someone using the word “unacceptable” – it’s been literal days since it’s happened and I’ve thought about it quite a lot. I truly wish that I did not care at all. In the case of word soup, it’s frustrating for me to have thoughts on something but not be able to say them in a way that I feel is complete. So often at work do I feel dumb, misunderstood, or just not considered because I’m not doing my part in communicating effectively. In a world where I always had 10 extra minutes with a pencil and paper, I’d likely feel a lot more understood.
My supervisor holds a PhD in deciphering soup (brain, word, or otherwise). I am really thankful that he possesses that skill. There have been many times where we’ve been in a meeting with others and I can feel myself word-souping, getting nervous/overwhelmed, and seeing others become confused. Fortunately, all it takes is a simple glance at my supervisor and he knows he has to relay to them what I’m trying to say. Despite the frustration I feel, I would never presume that anybody would know how to decipher word soup – it is unfair for me to place that expectation onto anybody. However, it is only frustrating because I feel like it’s important that other people understand me. Why is it important? Well, how am I supposed to know if I’m thinking the right things if nobody understands what I’m thinking? How is anyone meant to trust my decisions if I can’t articulate why I made them? How am I supposed to be a genuine person if I can’t… well… articulate genuinely? I hate the soup. I would hope that deciphering it is a skill that’s learned – because I’m really bad at it. And it’s important to me that I get better.
What I’ve learned by talking with my supervisor is that soup is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a good thing to be able to compose all of these questions and thoughts. I’ve understood his strategy (which has proven to be effective) as something quite simple – force the connections and investigate the purpose (reveal the structure and substance) by asking “why?”, over and over and over. Then, once you feel like you’ve gotten to the bottom of it, do it all over again. More generally, I shouldn’t be afraid to take extra time to assess the thoughts I’m having or concepts I’m trying to articulate. Write it all down like a script if I need to. My university friend once gave me this exact advice in a really stressful situation, and it all seems quite obvious but it’s not something that I’d ever allowed myself to do. Take the extra 10 seconds to think of a response when asked a question, and take the extra minute (even if it’s mid conversation) to re-think about the concept I’m trying to explain when discussing with my peers. Take the extra hour after a meeting to debrief and write down all of my thoughts about it – and go over all of them. Thoughts happen really quickly – quicker than we’re able to digest them. We form & react to our thoughts before we’ve had time to ask if they are the right ones to be having and where they are coming from. I happen to be somebody who is acutely aware of my ability to be wrong – so it is really important to me that once I’ve thought my “thoughts”, that I ask myself if they make sense or not. Some people may think this is unnecessary or that they do not have the time to consider their thoughts to this degree. I am not overly sympathetic to this response, because if you haven’t reasoned through your thoughts… Then what use is it to think at all? Thoughts are all that you are. There is no responsibility more important than your responsibility for your own thoughts.
My brain has largely been soup since January. I’m not really sure what’s changed – I suppose I’m just taking on a lot more responsibility and I’m being exposed to more soup-inducing occurrences. I think the reason as to why I began this blog was because it was a tool I could use to turn my brain soup on any topic into something with more structure and substance. As with anyone, writing things down allows for development of structure and substance; however, what has been most useful is being able to work through the right parsing and sentences on a lot of topics – and as a result I can articulate myself better to those around me. This is likely because these blogs somewhat act as scripts I can refer to, and I don’t have to allocate brain-power towards properly articulating myself while I’m already overwhelmed. Calling this attribute “soup” is probably an overly silly name for it, but the utter fact that I’ve identified this phenomenon at all has been quite impactful. Perhaps one day I will also have a PhD in deciphering soup.
(May 25th, 2021)
astronomine 