| Michele Jackman Enterprises and Adventures |
I must be honest, my first reaction to this site reminded me of the tattooed numbers on women who were neighborhood Mother surrogates for me after my Mother died when I was a toddler. This is the ultimate way numbers really can dehumanize. When I was asked to publish on this website, I had all sort of ideas related to the theme, “just a number”, but no clarity about who was reading this, or engaged in blogging that could really use my wisdom.
Whoever is reading this, I now know what I want to share with you my perspective at usowls.com, a free site trying to stop stereotypes of the older mature workforce who cannot afford to, nor should retire. Over 91 % of us “over 65” (number) use technology, and many could work from home.
We are a workforce retiring or forced to retire at a rate of 10,000 a day, but we are simply retooling our many skills and talents, and seeking more application of our five prime talents, according to a Gallup instrument you can take online. According to AT&T 95% of us still own a phone/camera and use it for memory enhancement and research on topics of interest.
Yes, we are NUMBERS with several skills, hundreds of experiences good and bad, leaders in thousands of situations, leaders of many successful tasks and projects, working hard 100% of the time, often unnoticed, understaffed, and overwhelmed with work in our critical roles as key players. If we were training or managing others, we have had several contacts that enlightened us, that networked us with hundreds of others sharing knowledge and ideas.
In fact, it is our numbers both in terms of internal measures but using outside metrics that demonstrate how we influence the number of points one can get on the “probability of success” audits in any job role that I use in assessing progress. There are three variables—capability, motivation, and probability of success (Ps)— on a scale of 10 each this is not additive but a product of these three—so if Ps is low or Zero, guess what that is zero. As Einstein joked, a million zeros added or multiplied together are still Zero.
Yes, we are also many qualified resource people for both volunteer and corporate positions, with several ways we can assist others to solve several ©problems they have had over TIME, which is also a number. We CAN reduce the number of hours or minutes it takes to get something done, done right, to get along with others, and do measure other’s contributions.
As a designer and consultant with lots of tools to measure capability, motives and probability of success, the most important number is that we see ourselves as a vital a key player, the title of a book I wrote in 1991 Star Teams, Key Players, —a numero Uno expert, up to date in the latest technology and with a brain trust of useful skills who can counter dangerous and poor numbers like bottom lines, loss of productivity, and poor quality metrics, lost litigation over bad moves.
Finally, as number #1 Expert in some field or endeavor. I bet you can always think of three ways to
- improve a situation, 2) solve a problem, and 3) test solutions for risks and consequences.
In this case be a number—and get those three things done!
© Michele Jackman 2018 approved for publication and credit
