Martin-Pierre Frenette

• The responsibility gap

  28.07.2011,Leadership,Martin-Pierre Frenette,

  Sometimes, a problem falls between two specialities

  Two years ago, we moved into a new house with central air conditioning via a heat pump, located in the garage.

  We quickly realized that the condensation from the coils leaked on the garage floor, dragging rust from the central ventilator casing.

  We called the A/C specialist and their diagnostic, costing 200$, was clear and simple: "We checked the internal of the ventilation: the water gets properly to the pipe but sadly it, there is a defect: the pipe simply goes to the water table under the garage floor and it obviously overflows, causing the water to escapes from the wrong places. There is nothing we can do."

  We resigned to the fact and accepted our fate. The garage floor would leak forever.

  Last summer, our water heater thermostat broke and was replaced. The plumber (who had initially drilled the hole for the A/C unit) saw the leak and I consulted with him on finding a solution to the A/C leak which was back in full action.

  "It's ridiculous. The problem is most likely inside the A/C unit itself but I cannot check inside of it. The A/C guy did a misdiagnostic but I don't know how to fix it. My guess is that the coupling between the internal of the tube and the tube exiting the A/C unit is leaking and as such, the water falls inside of the A/C unit instead of outside of it".

  I called the A/C and he laughed it off, saying it was impossible. He said the plumber simply didn't want to admit that he had made a mistake when he didn't install a proper exhaut pipe under the garage floor during the construction and as such, blamed it on the A/C guy.

  We resigned to the facts and once again accepted our fate. The garage floor would leak forever.

  This summer however, we do a lot more bicycling and it means that we park on bicycle in the rusty brown water leaking from the A/C.

  I called the plumber back and he mentionned he could install a pipe to divert the water directly to the garage drain in the middle of the garage.

  I sensed more bullshit, so I decided to simply remove the tube. Within seconds, the garage almost flooded from the water exiting from the A/C unit, but shortly after, a slow flow of condensed water fell directly into the hole below it, showing that the water could exit the A/C, proving the plumber wrong, and that the water could drain via the hole, proving the A/C expert wrong.

  So, what was the problem ? The pipe between the A/C unit and the hole was clogged.

  I cleaned it, put it back in place, and for the first time in 3 summers, I have a dry garage floor.

  For the A/C guy, that pipe is under the care of a plumber, because it is plumbing. For the plumber, that pipe is part of the A/C and thus, under the care of the A/C guy.

  As a result, no one saw that it was clogged.

  In your line of work, how many cases can you spot where a problem wasn't solved in time because everyone thought it was another person's problem?

  To be a leader, you need to find these problematic spots. You need to isolate the areas of non-responsability to ensure that the project doesn't fail.

• We each have a role in life. What is yours ?

  04.03.2011,Leadership,Martin-Pierre Frenette,

  Some of us are teachers, either in trade or in a hobby. Some of us are examples to others, either good ones or bad ones. Many of us are parents, in charge of preparing the next generation.

  In all cases, we have roles to play in society. No one can decide what our role is, it's through your actions that you fulfill yours.

  When you give a quarter to a homeless person, you fulfill a role. When you refuse to do so, you also fulfill a role. Neither is necessarily negative or positive in itself. Giving the quarter might enable the homeless person to survive on its own for another day but not doing so might force him to seek help and get out of the homeless vicious circle.

  We can only hope for the best when we fulfill a role. All actions have consequences and we cannot foresee all of them.

  But following your principles and trying to encourage others to do the same with their own principles is a true sign of leadership. 

  Helping them free their minds from their cluttered routine so that they can see which roles can they fulfill instead of walking through life like a zombie is a true sign of leadership.

  An old lady who helps a busy neighbor by bringing the clothes on the clothesline indoors when it starts to rain is fulfilling a role and possibly enabling the neighbor to have enough time to fulfill one of his own.

  It doesn't take much, but it takes the capacity to open your heart.

  My role ?

  Sometimes, I feel that my role is to help eradicate cognitive dissonance, one lie at a time.

  If today, you can realize that your role isn't your job and that every little thing can make the world a better place, perhaps I fulfilled this role.

  If today, you googled "cognitive dissonance" and realized just how your own mind was screwing your life, then I will know that today, I woke up for a good reason: to act as a leader and inspire someone.

  Because in the end, it's not how much money you've made. It's not how many friends you have. It's how many lives you managed to touch enough so that they are a little better off having known you.

  [In case you are asking, it is from me and me alone. It's not a repost, it's a rip off. It's a genuine contribution]

• Prejudice and decision making

  30.11.2010,Post-Conformism, Leadership, Development,Martin-Pierre Frenette,

  Prejudice occurs when you have a pre-made mindset about something. Anything. Racism and sexism are two kinds of well known prejudices.

  A racist employer might hire an under-qualified white candidate over a better qualified black candidate and cause his company to suffer because he was unwilling to let his racism aside and simply hire the best employee.

  Most people officially fight prejudice and even go so far as to try to combat stereotypes. Yet, time after time, prejudice prevails in non-obvious ways.

  How many times have you spent more money to get a superior product only to discover that the only difference with its competitor was a higher price ?

  Prejudice in Software Development

  When I used to build windows applications I was posed with a serious WIN32 development problems.

  In Windows, to draw graphic on the screen, you need a DC object (a Device Context object).

  Device Context allow you to draw on a screen or even for a printer anything you want. Lines, text, images, etc...

  But when you are programming for the screen, you need one DC object per window. If you have 3 windows in your application, you need 3 DC objects.

  The problem is that when you build an application using the MFC API every button, every menu, every image on the screen is a separate window.

  We were trying to display several line graphics on the screen and as such, created multiple classes to display those graphics, the lines, the grid, etc...

  Each of these classes was officially a window and needed it's own DC object. Switching from one DC to another took time and seriously restrained our ability to accelerate the graphic.

  We would display the grid, overlay the comparison line, the moving average line and the live line needing 4 separate DC object each requiring several milliseconds to activate.

  To achieve 30 frames per seconds, we had to spend less than 33 milliseconds per frame, but simply switching from one DC to another took more than 50 milliseconds back then.

  We could have generated one function to generate all of the display but we loved that each of the 3 lines were managed by the same object.

  Our solution

  Instead, our graphic lines stopped being windows and became piggy-backing on our grid using the same DC saving us enough time to run our display in real time while taking a lot less CPU power.

  Eventually we created a lot of these "windowless controls" which enabled us to display anything on the screen in the same manner as a normal control (and with the same functions) but without needing a separate DC object.

  We were then able to convert any windows-based classes to a more efficient windowless control by just changing a few lines of initialization.

  Better yet, we even used macros to enable switching from one mode to another.

  Had we kept the preconception that every control under Win32 needs to be an Win32 window, we wouldn't have been able to create lightning fast displays without using advance libraries like DirectX which was still experimental back then.

  We saved a lot of money in development time and blew away our competition in raw speed, power and efficiency.

  That is, until they started using specialized libraries. I didn't stay long enough after we created Windowless controls but this is the kind of breakthrough which can only be achieved by putting aside all prejudices.

  Whether it's against certain type of people, certain type of processes or certain decisions we are afraid to make.

   

• Opinions, Facts, Ideas and Evolution

  21.05.2008,Evolution, Leadership,Martin-Pierre Frenette,

  In future articles, I will possibly classify thoughts into 3 main categories without necessarily taking the time to explain these since they appear to be intuitive to me.
  
  In my opinion, thoughts can be divided into 3 sub-categories: Ideas, Facts and Opinions.
  
  Opinions are beliefs or judgements which are not objective or based on facts. I like the summer better than the winter is an opinion. 
  
  Facts are simply a piece of information which is objectively true and which can be verified. The summer season is generally warmer than the winter season in Canada is a fact.
  
  Ideas are the objective result of conscious thought which bring value to a situation, but which is not actually factual. For example: to run a tourism based company in Canada it is better to offer activities both in the summer and in the winter. It’s not only an opinion, since its objective and not purely personal, but on the other hand, it’s not factual entirely since many companies find it more profitable to specialize in only winter or summer activities. It depends on the context.

  Debating

  It is useless to debate opinions unless you want to know the opinion of the other. People will hold to their opinions since they are not based on facts. If they were facts or based on facts, they would be ideas or facts. It is equally useless to debate on facts, unless there are contradicting facts.

  If two facts contradict each other, either one of them isn’t a fact, or there is a third fact explaining the discrepancy.

  For example, if I were to say : the colder months are usually December, January and February, and you were to say that the colder months are usually June, July and August, our facts would appear to be contradictory until we realize we are not in the same hemisphere and that our winter occurs during the summer of the other.

  It is useful to discuss ideas. Since they are the result of conscious thoughts and based on facts, we might have a different thought process but since we both rely on facts, the discussion might lead to more discoveries.

  For example, that if you pour level concrete at the bottom of an outdoor Hockey rink instead of only gravel or an irregular surface, it will be possible to use the rink in the winter, but also in the summer for roller Hockey. 

  Negative discussions

  The reason I mention this today, is that not all discussions are positive.

  If you express an opinion which contradicts a fact and nonetheless you decide to hold to your opinion, we didn’t have a mature discussion.

  For example, if you were to tell me that you believe that it’s cold in the winter because Hydro-Québec has built too many dams to produce electricity up north, and I explain to you the science of climate changes, showing you proofs and studies, a mature adult would just reply something like “I stand corrected”.

  But if you simply add “That’s your opinion, but I differ”, you are acting immaturely. You might demand more proofs if those presented aren’t clear or you might want to research it yourself, and that’s fine, but otherwise, I will no longer have discussions with you.

  Evolution Theory

  To leave the discussion of seasons which are intentionally uncharged emotionally and enter the emotionally charged Evolution Theory, I will explain why there is such a debate about so-called Intelligent Design versus the Theory of Evolution.

  The Theory of Evolution is factual. There is over 150 years of scientific study which has been performed to establish it as factual.

  If it wasn’t a fact, it would be called the Hypothesis of Evolution.You see, the reason it is the Theory of Evolution and not the fact or law of Evolution, is because while it is factual, it is not a fact, it is an idea in my sense of the word.

  It is the conscious thought which best explains the facts presented before us. The facts it is based on are not debatable, but the fine details of the Theory of Evolution are.

  In other words, we objectively know that the Theory of Evolution is true, but in a few years a new discovery might rephrase it and make it even more precise, just as DNA has helped explain mutations which were already seen by Charles Darwin, a century before DNA was discovered.

  The creationists on the other hand are stating opinions as if they were facts, citing the Genesis of the Bible as a fact when it is in reality a secondary source at best, meaning that it is not a detailed recollection of the author, but rather what the author learned from someone else.

  Porcupine

  When I told you all yesterday I saw a porcupine, the only proofs you had were my pictures and my word. If you were to tell someone else about the event, you are a secondary source. You might change some of the facts, simply because I didn’t express myself properly, or because of bad recollection.

  But even then, I might have taken pictures from the Internet and posted them with a false story. As a result, you cannot base a fact on a secondary source, if you do, it could only be an opinion: a thought not based on facts.

  When a creationist refuses to believe the theory of evolution, he refuses to accept a fact, believing instead in an opinion. That is immaturity, regardless of the fact and the opinion.

  God's will

  I do not have a problem however, with someone agreeing with the theory of evolution and expressing the opinion that the theory of evolution is God’s will.

  After all, it’s their opinion, and they have the right to have it, as long as it doesn’t contradict facts, and when it comes to religion, it’s not a matter of facts, but a matter of faith and thus, opinions.