Hams seem to predominantly have either Linear-Productivity or Non-linear Productivity.
Linear is where they start a ham project and like going around a board game, they have to do each step in sequence, often with minimal parallel projects.
You run into “he’s a CW guy” or ” Satellites are their game.” These are the “Linear Ham” whose single-mindedness is easily observed by other hams.
Non-Linear is the ham who does things out of order and often with several parallel projects underway.
When you meet a “Caractacus Potts” character in Ham Radio, you have found the Non-Linear ham. Lots of parallel, active & paused, practical & impractical, adventuresome projects.
A few of us are a mixture of Linear and Non-Linear. “Shambolic” is often the label for the mixture, but that is not exactly right as what is appearing to be happening is sequential steps might look to be sequential but obscured by the layers of activity or reordering of steps. Or it is because available resource limitations force a temporary Linear burst in an otherwise fully shambolic process.
For the mixed or fully non-linear thinker, explaining how they get to a solution is elusive both for them and for an observer.
These mixed or fully non-linear thinkers can also beat expectations, though usually inconsistently. Especially if they suddenly get bored, their solutions will not shine – rather they will merely “check the box.”
In assembling teams of hams to accomplish a project, understanding how each person “ticks” is important.
In a project scenario, Linear hams will be more comfortable if task-threads are properly sequenced. In a few cases Linear thinkers rule themselves out for participation if they are so unwilling to improvise that safety in a crisis becomes an issue.
In that same project scenario Non-Linear hams can drive the rest of the team to distraction and/or despair. Because the rest of the team can’t figure them out, nor properly assess where/what they are doing, they often get presumed as if they were doing nothing.
Personally I fall into the mixed Linear/Non-Linear camp. “Mr Shambolic” channeling both Caractacus Potts and some Hercule Poirot step-by-step intertwined.
I found out young that the less imaginative and more Linear thinkers really struggled with my being on a project team. At graduate school I ended up writing my own minority project reports on my own, after Linear thinkers had enough of my ways. That I usually outscored them was like rubbing salt in the wounds I expect.
Yet in investigative services in the military I found that bosses who simply needed results were at lot more accommodating to shambolic processes provided nothing mandatory was skipped, no significant rules violated (usually they categorized rule violations that wouldn’t be career damaging for themselves as “de-minimis” and tended to ignore them), and that results were gotten.
Where do you fit on the Linear/Non-Linear scale? And how can you make it work well for others and yourself? These are questions a ham should reflect upon.
73
Steve
K9ZW
With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings 