Lessons in Management and Life from Star Trek
[You don't have to know Star Trek to appreciate the Lessons]

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131. Finding common ground (Picard)
132. Separation of personal and professional issues (Picard, Worf)
133. Cloaked in rank and title (Picard, Q)
134. Helping the underperformer (Picard, LaForge)
135. Dangers of nicknames (LaForge, Data, Wesley)
136. Personal culpability unrecognized (Data)
137. How to meet/pick up someone (LaForge, Guinan)
138. Bridging the gap between client and designer (LaForge)
139. Announcing your limtiations (Picard, Data, Crusher)
140. Filtering methodologies (Data, LaForge)

Lesson No. 131: Finding common ground (Picard)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
Two different races of human off-springs from two different planets have the capability to help each other survive by forming a symbiotic relationship. However, while on board the Enterprise negotiating the idea of working together, one party considers the other primitive, hostile, disruptive and requiring a great deal of effort just to educate them, while the other party resents these remarks and asserts that his people have no intentions of begging the other side for their help. Capt. Picard immediately intervenes by stating that he will not allow posturing and bigotry to destroy the meeting. Seeing their respective fear of each other is based on the stark differences between them, Picard finds common ground with both parties by saying that it is the differences amongst humans that has made the human race stronger.

Lesson:
When faced with adversarial parties in a meeting, it is always advisable for the moderator or meeting chairman to seek out and highlight first, the common grounds of benefit, or possible harm, to all involved in the event the meeting should fail.

While it is the obvious goals of each party to try to get their point across, or their issues addressed, or their demands met, regardless of the consequences on the other party, the moderator must try to highlight the wins and losses for each side in each scenario objectively. Citing vivid living or historical examples of similar situations is always an excellent venue for the lines of discussion.

Above all, it is unwise to avoid any glaring issues, such as the intrinsic and perhaps even cultural differences between the parties involved. By embracing the differences and acknowledging their influences on the agenda at hand, both parties can at least perhaps begin to try to understand the other side and benefit mutually from the ensuing discussions.

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Lesson No. 132: Separation of personal and professional issues (Picard, Worf)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
An old girl friend of Lt. Worf’s shows up on the enterprise as an emissary from the Klingon Empire. Worf is not happy to see her due to the old relationship of theirs, which did not end well. When Capt. Picard assigns Worf to assist the emissary on her mission while on board the Enterprise, Worf asks Picard that someone else be assigned to her. Picard asks Worf if there is any personal reason for the request. Worf answers - yes. Picard then asks if there are any professional reasons for the request. Worf says - no. Picard then pauses and just stares at Worf. Realizing the full gravity of the situation Worf quickly withdraws his request and accepts the assignment.

Lesson:
One of the more difficult items for most people to handle is the separation of personal issues from the professional environment. As humans we are all creatures of emotional habits. We react very quickly to situations, people and things based on our likes and dislikes. However, this can be detrimental in any work environment.

Overwhelming majority of people work in jobs where there is a multitude of different people from different backgrounds, beliefs and cultures. Add to that the natural human differences in attitudes, emotional disposition and personal prejudices, and we have the makings of a very volatile and disjointed work place. This is where management must step in, to constantly remind everyone that the main reason for everyone being at their job, is for the sole purpose of performing their respective functions to the best of their ability for the successful growth of the organization, and thereby, reaping the rewards personally for their efforts, financially and otherwise.

There should be no hesitation by management in advising all, that any reluctance to work with others and get along with others in the work environment due to “personal” reasons will not be tolerated and dismissal of staff is well within management’s purview as the final resolution in all such situations.

Hopefully, most personnel are as quick as Worf to recognize management’s displeasure in the staff allowing their personal matters to cloud their professional performance and judgment.

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Lesson No. 133: Cloaked in rank and title (Picard, Q)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
As the omnipotent alien Q loses all of his powers and becomes totally human, full of frailty and weaknesses, he ponders what it takes to be human. He confesses to Picard that he does not have what it takes to be a human. Without his superior powers he finds that he is frightened of everything, and declares that he is a coward and that he is miserable.

Lesson:
This scene ought to be seen by every arrogant person in a power position, management or otherwise, who acts impertinently towards others, driven solely by their own over-inflated egos due to their position.

It also provides great insight for those who fall victim to these dreadful tyrants.

Never allow anyone in an office of power to intimidate you with their rank. The true measure of a person is not based on their rank or the office they hold, but the manner in which they treat others. Power, due to rank or authority, demands from the person of position, empathy and humility. All arrogant abusers of power, who wield their rank as weapons of intimidation over others, are not to be feared, but rather pitied. They are nothing more than this same frightened, coward of an alien being, who is a whimpering nobody, afraid and alone, once their power is removed.

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Lesson No. 134: Helping the underperformer (Picard, LaForge)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
Low performing and under achieving Lt. Reginald Barclay in engineering on board the Enterprise is receiving a lot of bad reports about his performance. Barclay’s manager, Lt. Jeordi LaForge tells Capt. Picard that he has tried his best to help Barclay and despite all of his efforts, Barclay is just not improving in his performance. LaForge admits that it may be the best for all concerned if Barclay were to be transferred to another ship. Picard says it’s always far too easy to transfer a problem to someone else. He tells LaForge to try harder at salvaging a member of his team who needs help and find someway for Barclay to make a positive contribution. Picard goes so far as to tell LaForge to make Barclay his best friend and to get to know Barclay better. As LaForge explains that he can barely tolerate Barclay, let alone befriend him, Picard interrupts LaForge and gives him a direct order to put his personal discomfort aside and help Barclay to improve.

Lesson:
This is one of the foundational tenets of great leadership and management.

A driving principal of great management and leadership is to recognize that everyone deserves proper guidance to produce their peak performance, and that everyone has something to contribute to the task and the organization.

In order to recognize if an individual is right for a position, it is fundamentally important to find the optimal performance level of the individual. Part of the management duty is to provide mentoring to help individuals to rise above their current limitations to meet their objectives. The final goal of leadership and management is to find the right fit for the right individuals within the organization.

It is important to exercise caution when evaluating the appropriate fitness of individuals based on their performance. Much like the categorization of apples and oranges, evaluations must be carried out with varying degrees of measurement.

An employee working strictly an 8-hour day and never expending any extra effort, even in the face of fire-drill situations, may not necessarily be an under performer or under achiever. If the quality of their work during their regular 8-hour work-days is exemplary, then allocate their responsibilities accordingly, never requiring any more from them. However, be sure to parallel the individual’s recognitions and rewards accordingly, with a plateau in promotions and any future salary increases, for such benefits belong to only those who perform above and beyond expectations.

In the case of true under performers and under achievers, too often do they get overlooked and passed by, by those in charge of their future.

This is one of the calamities of today’s education system. Too many kids end up graduating High School with out learning to even read or write, just because their teachers were incompetent and too lazy, and passed them off to the next class without ever trying to help the child to improve.

In the movie, A Few Good Men, it was clearly noted in several scenes that it was the duty of fellow Marines, and especially officers, to help underachieving recruits in improving their level of performance. Simply transferring the underachiever to another division was not acceptable. Although the “Code Red” disaster took center spotlight in the movie, the underlying notion of not bypassing failing individuals still prevailed, right up to the final scene.

Passing the buck in the responsibility to properly mentor says more about the inability and ineffectiveness of the manager to manage, or teacher to teach, than the individual staff member or student to perform properly.

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Lesson No. 135: Dangers of nicknames (LaForge, Data, Wesley)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
While on a break with Lt. Cmdr. Data and Lt. Jeordi LaForge, Ensign Wesley Crusher refers to fellow worker Lt. Barclay (who is not present) as “Broccoli”. When Data asks why Barclay is being referred to clandestinely as a vegetable, Wesley laughs and says it is a nickname used as a joke. Data says nicknames are defined as generally denoting fondness and something shared between friends; however, that it does not appear to be so in this instance. Recognizing Data’s clear explanation of the insulting nature and impact of the nickname, LaForge immediately orders everyone to stop using that nickname ever again.

Lesson:
Admittedly, at one point or another, in each of our lives, we have either witnessed, or been the architect of, or a collaborator of, or been the victim of such comments. While this may be a matter easily laughed off and dismissed by many, for others, the end results can be very scarring and sometimes quite tragic.

It is the responsibility of everyone to come to the support of those maligned by such remarks. Managers and teachers, in particular, must take quick and determined measures to stop all ridicule or belittling comments against other staff, management, students and teachers, respectively.

While at first such name calling may produce an air of levity, it may quickly spread through out the locality through gossip and rumors. If the negative comments ridicule a religion, political party, foreign culture, ethnic group, or such, then, the problem is group-targeted and may cause wide-spread dissension, but, it reflects more on the bigotry of the one making the comments than anything else.

However, the problems are more insidious and harmful, when the negative name calling is directed at any one individual. In this instance, only one person is targeted with the insults and, unable to confront the masses alone, the victim will feel insecure and begin to withdraw from the group and perhaps even from society as a whole. We have all either seen or experienced this situation personally in our school lives.

Yes, name calling is definitely a form of bullying.

We are all too aware of the consequences of such actions. The victim will either resign themselves to accepting the demeaning attitudes of others, forming inferiority complexes and sinking into some form of depression, resulting maybe even in suicide; or as we have seen far too often on the news, the victim will retaliate in full force upon his peers and any innocent victims in their line of sight with gunfire.

All managers and teachers must follow the LaForge line of action and immediately confront, and eliminate, all such name calling and bullying situations at the first sign.

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Lesson No. 136: Personal culpability unrecognized (Data)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
Lt. Cmdr. Data, an android, creates a brand new android life-form, based on his own architecture. As the creator, Data considers the new android life-form his child, fashions it as a female and names her Lal. Upon hearing of Lal, an Admiral arrives from Star Fleet to take Lal away from Data for studying back at Star Fleet. Data declines to support the request as he does not wish to relinquish his child. When the Admiral makes the request an order, Lal experiences emotions for the first time, and in a fit of terror of being ripped away from her father Data, Lal suffers internal cascade failure causing a permanent shut down. After Lal expires, all that the Admiral can say of Lal and the incident is “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

Lesson:
Swine! Swine! Swine! This horrendous individual, the Admiral, is totally devoid of any conscience for his own culpability. This Admiral proceeds in complete arrogance, exercising his self-proclaimed supremacy and unfaltering lack of any guilt for having been the sole cause of the death of Lal by trying to forcibly remove the child from its parent.

Unfortunately, these most disgusting, despicable and not even pity worthy examples of humans are usually found in high ranking positions, always unleashing harm upon the masses without any hesitation or reluctance, for they all suffer from a lack of conscience.

There are heads of companies and nations alike through out history that have wrecked financial and economic havoc, and war, respectively, and never felt it necessary to hold themselves accountable for the devastation and loss of lives they caused.

Be forewarned when you see these people. Recognize them for their truly evil nature and shun them for the pariahs that they are.

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Lesson No. 137: How to meet/pick up someone (LaForge, Guinan)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
While sitting in the ship’s lounge, Lt. Cmdr. Jeordi LaForge is lamenting his dating woes with his friend, the female bartender Guinan. LaForge, wanting to understand the reason for his failures with women, asks Guinan for the female point of view. LaForge explains that he can field strip a reactor, but just can’t seem to make anything work with a girl. He just doesn’t know what to do or what to say. He just can’t seem to talk with women, no matter how hard he tries. Guinan tells LaForge that he is doing just fine talking with her. LaForge says this is a different situation, in that he is not trying with her. Guinan smiles and answers “Exactly my point.”

Lesson:
Why do we always manage to make something so simple, so very difficult?

When approaching a stranger, if we just act naturally and be ourselves, then we have nothing to hide, nothing to justify, and nothing to fake. This way we eliminate not only the time wasted in playing coy and manipulative games, but we also reduce the emotional stress factor down to almost nothing.

If we find ourselves attracted to someone new, then we should introduce ourselves personally; of course, the preferred method is to always be introduced by someone else. After the introduction, we should let them know, gradually and gently through our words and actions that we are attracted to them. If the feelings are not reciprocated, then, after expending a reasonable amount of effort, we should always back-off.

Breaking through the ice of the initial introduction is the real life fear of most people, which is usually intensified by the presumption of rejection. Unfortunately, the fear is always self-imposed and never really necessary. Where there is free-will, there will always be the chance of rejection. As surely as we each reject the advances of others whom we do not particularly like, should we not expect others to reject us accordingly?

We should never let the fear of rejection dissuade us from approaching others to whom we are attracted. Only by inquiring do we find out if the attraction is mutual. By just being ourselves and not pretending to be that which we are not and especially, not trying so hard, do we understand Guinan’s advice and stand any chance of success In our quest.

The answer is really so simple - don’t try, just be!

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Lesson No. 138: Bridging the gap between client and designer (LaForge
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
Lt. Cmdr. Jeordi LaForge, the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise expresses in a discussion with a hologram image of one of the designers of the warp engine that he wishes Chief Engineers could be present when a ship was being designed. The designer in turn expresses the problem with designers is that they never get out into space.

Lesson:
This is a perfect example of many real life work situations. The gap between the expectations of the client/user and the understanding of the designer/builder is often quite vast.

For any organization producing a product or service, there is a mandatory requirement to bridge the knowledge and experience gap between the designers/builders and the users/customers. Too often when the customer wants a ‘widget’, the vendor delivers a ‘gadget’.

Somewhere along the lines of communications between the client and the salesman and all the intervening management and departments that are involved, before reaching the final developer hidden somewhere in the basement, left alone in the dark, what was asked for and what was delivered may end up as not being the same thing.

This is why methods of project management like AGILE, SCRUM, etc. espouse involving the customer directly with the developer/designer to eliminate misunderstanding and reduce the loss of clarity in the goals of projects.

Consider the salesman who overheard a conversation on the train that a company was having difficulty getting a client contract because they could not produce a thousand ties a week. Knowing that his company could produce such a number of ties in a week, the salesman hurriedly went into production, produced the thousand ties and approached the unknown client, with ties in hand, ready to sign the deal. To his dismay, the salesman found the client was not interested in his neck ties, but rather railroad ties.

For any business, it is imperative that clients and builders both speak the same language and clearly understand each other.

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Lesson No. 139: Announcing your limtiations (Picard, Data, Crusher)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
Lt. Cmdr. Data, an android, is surprised to find Capt. Picard and Dr. Crusher waiting in attendance for his upcoming violin recital. Taken slightly aback by their unexpected presence, Data suggests to Picard and Crusher that they attend a later performance of the same recital, when someone else will be performing his same violin piece, as his (Data’s) performance may not be as good for it lacks “soul”.

Crusher tells Data that announcing he is going to fail before he attempts something is never wise. When Data responds by asking if honesty is not always the preferred choice, Picard advises that excessive honesty can be disastrous, especially in a commander and that knowing your own limitations is one thing, however, advertising them to the crew can damage credibility as a leader. Data understands how this could lead to the crew losing confidence in the commander. Dr Crusher delivers the most cogent point of all by pointing out that the risk of constantly predicting potential self-failures before they happen, is that one may actually begin to lose confidence in oneself.

Lesson:
Successful leaders and managers must always recognize and admit to themselves their own limitations. To deny one’s own limitations is to invite failure whenever the boundary conditions of the limits are encroached. Only through an understanding of the limitations can one ever hope to surmount them and exceed beyond their current capabilities.

However, publically predicting failure due to one’s own limitations is never advisable. It disillusions and destroys confidence in all concerned. Great leaders through out history may have recognized the inevitability of defeat in their immediate battle due to overwhelming odds and superior fire power, however, from General George Armstrong Custer at Little Bighorn to the allied soldiers in Bataan during World War II, defeat, was never pronounced before the fight.

Although pure in his quest for absolute human honesty, Data is well advised by Picard and Crusher to not let honesty be mistaken for a lack of confidence.

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Lesson No. 140: Filtering methodologies (Data, LaForge)
Movie/TV Series: Star Trek - The Next Generation

Noteworthy Scene: (Skip to the Lesson if you're not a Star Trek fan!)
Lt. Jeordi LaForge and Lt. Cmdr. Data are studying a Federation shuttle craft which appears to have been in a battle with the Federation ally, the Klingons. Presented with the hundreds of multiple possible answers to the question of who was responsible for the attack, as evidenced by the energy pattern found on the shuttle craft, LaForge recommends using a little common sense to narrow down the search, instead of just plowing through all the possible attackers. LaForge recommends focusing in on the solution by posing the argument of who has the most to gain with the alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire falling apart. The answer was obvious - the Romulans - as he validated with a blast pattern match.

Lesson:
This methodical approach (although simple in concept), of addressing situations where there are multiple, even potentially millions of possible candidates as possible solutions to a problem, is still not practiced very well by many organizations. Given the efficiency of computers, many organizations choose to use a brute force method of canvassing all possibilities, rather than approaching issues intelligently and narrowing down the list of possibilities first.

Successful salesmen, in particular, use this approach of narrowing in on targets when marketing their product and services. Random mass mailing is usually futile and the return on investment is extremely low to almost non-existent. However, a well-coordinated, well-researched campaign strategy will result in more successes for less effort and less expenses. Through strategic deployment of marketing resources there is always a better chance of success.

Sometimes, if the list cannot be easily narrowed down based on any best candidate algorithm, then the list can at least be reduced by eliminating the worst or most incompatible candidates.

In addition to the savings in effort and cost, there is also the benefit of savings in time. In particular, as in the case with LaForge, identifying who the real enemy is in battle, before the next attack occurs, does not afford the luxury of time to filter through all possible potential enemies, even with warp speed computers.

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