The Element of Awareness and Its Hope for Understanding It Is Half The Battle

Recently on my assignment, we had a problem.  One of our commission analysts was locking the payroll period in Varicent that day.  Locking the payroll requires her to go through a number of steps several times until she is able to tie out the numbers to the different payrolls.  To do that, she has to repeatedly run a calculation in Varicent until everything ties out.  Typically, on locking day, the other Varicent admins (including me) are supposed to stay out of Varicent, not entering or changing anything in the tool.  If we enter or change anything, Varicent will run a complete calculation, which will take between 12 to15 hours.

On the day of which I am speaking, everything was going fine until after lunch. When the analyst kicked off a calculation after lunch, instead of the calculation getting done in 10 minutes, an hour passed and it was still running.

 “I don’t know what’s going on,” she declared. “I started a calc at 1:00.  It’s 2:30 p.m. already and it is still running. Did any of you make any changes in Varicent?”

I hadn’t done anything in Varicent and I said so.  The Sr. Commissions Manager had also not done anything in Varicent.  We had stayed out of Varicent like she had told us to. 

The analyst called Varicent Support and they said they would look into it. 

While we were waiting for Support to get back, we decided to look at the Varicent audit log.

This would tell us if anyone had done anything which might have triggered a complete calculation.

That’s when we spotted it…

Scheduler is the name of the virtual admin that handles automatic tasks in Varicent.

Scheduler is set to automatically carry out different tasks on a twice daily, daily, or weekly basis.

On that day, Scheduler had done a noon import of sales transactions into the Varicent Transaction Table at noon.

These 3000 brand new transactions which had been loaded into the Varicent Transaction table by Scheduler had triggered off a complete calculation of MTD, QTD and YTD credits and payouts.

A complete calculation requiring 12-15 hours, there was nothing to do but to wait until this complete calculation got done, which would be at midnight, pushing our payroll-locking out a day.

As soon as we became aware of this, the Sr. Commissions Manager, the locking analyst and myself sighed collectively and went “Drat!”

We had lost a day for nothing.

But awareness is half the battle.

Now that we were aware of the problem – we knew what steps to take to avoid a repeat the next day.

We turned off the Scheduler Noon Import, so that it wouldn’t run at noon the next day. The locking analyst would be able to lock payroll the next day without any hiccups.

Every day can present us with problems.

The solution may be simple, often we just need to be made aware of the problem.

Awareness is half the battle.

I think about another recent Varicent-related incident.

In early March, we discovered the March 2015 period was not displaying in the web compensation summaries. 

Why would that be?

I asked the commission analyst whether part of her payroll locking process involved changing something to make them visible.  She said no.

So I decided to poke around in Varicent and look at some of the “time” tables.  I opened the table called Current System Date and saw that the current system date was set to 2.16.2015.  Today was March 9.  That had to be the problem, I thought.  We needed to update it. But the question on my mind was - if there was no process in place to update it, how come the web reports were showing correctly in prior periods - without doing anything in the system.

I shot off an e-mail to the developer, and his reply was quick: “It is supposed to automatically update every day.  It is one of the scheduled tasks” he informed me.

That Scheduler!

It was the culprit again!

When I went to the scheduled tasks, indeed I saw that there was a scheduled task to change the Current System Date every day, but now I was puzzled.

The task had the next day’s date, as if the task had been completed for that day. Mystified, I sent a screenshot to the developer and asked, “What do you make of this?”. 

He explained….“Remember we changed the scheduled time of the overnight calculation back on Feb 16 to run at 6:30 p.m. instead of 10 p.m.? We should have changed the time of this task too.  The Current System Date update task has not run since Feb 16 because the overnight calc was still running each time the task was scheduled to run.”

“Ah, that explains it”, I thought, feeling as pleased as Columbo might have felt when he figured out a piece of a puzzle.

“All you need to do is to change the scheduled time of the Current System Date update task and that will fix it” added the developer. “For now, just update the Current System Date manually.” 

Phew! What a relief.

Suddenly a big mysterious problem had been reduced to something quite small and manageable.  The before and after situation could be summed up in just three words: Lack of Awareness.

This is a very common experience when you are new to a job.

When I start an assignment, typically, a Commissions Analyst has just termed, someone who “knew it all ”.

Unless steps are taken to get all of the information needed to run the commission processes from that “someone who knew it all ”, the new incumbent will be faced with knowledge gaps.

These knowledge gaps soon surface and need to be sorted out.

Not only are these knowledge gaps to be expected, but they are not all bad.

Challenges make life interesting, and since knowledge gaps are challenging, they always make life interesting, even if they raise the blood pressure a tad.

When we are presented with a knowledge gap, our curiosity and urge to problem-solve is aroused.

When you become aware of a problem, aren’t you curious to discover the cause of the problem?

Say you develop a rash.

Don’t you boot up your computer, or pull up a browser on your cell phone so you can look up WebMD and find the cause?

Then when you are aware of the cause, aren’t you curious to find the solution to the problem?

Then when you find a solution to your problem, and it works, don’t you experience a sense of satisfaction and relief?

It all starts with becoming aware there is a problem.

(So thank you to the sales rep who first brought it to our attention he could not see his March deals.)

(And thank you to the developer who told us that Current System Date was a scheduled task and figured out for us, why the scheduled task was not running).

Awareness is half the battle.

We can think of many different scenarios where this is the case.

Just say you come up with a fantastic product or idea, or you create something…. a painting, a book, a sculpture.

If no one is aware of your creation, how can it fly?

Only when people are aware of what you can do, or what you have created, can momentum be gained.

Haven’t we seen… how an appearance on Oprah changes everything for someone?

Their product or book or service takes off.

This is the power of awareness in action.

Since I started commissions consulting, I have seen the power of awareness in action.

Having worked on 12 different assignments, I can count people at 12 different companies who are aware of what I do.

From Sales Operations Managers to Finance Managers to Payroll Managers to Sales People to Controllers and Finance Directors, to Implementers and Support people in 12 different companies, there are people who are aware of my commission administration and commissions logic testing skills and can directly comment on my ability and work.

All these people who, when asked if they know someone who is available to do commissions administration or commissions logic testing on a short term basis, have the potential to recommend me.

I do get a lot of calls and e-mails thanks to them, and I am very grateful.

Making people aware of who we are and what we can do is essential to our ability to move forward.

So if you have a talent or skill, or you have created something which people should be made aware of, you should get to work on thinking about how you can do that.

Awareness is crucial to our happiness and our success.

Unless we are aware of what we want and how to go about it the right away, it is hard to move forward.

We can have awareness moments and awareness events.

Both are valuable.

Let me tell you about one of my awareness moments.

It’s connected with my credit score.

Credit scores are a big deal in America.

You need a good credit score to get a good rate of interest on a car loan or house loan.

I used to be obsessed with my credit score.

If a new credit card came out, and one of the benefits was free credit scores for a year, I would immediately apply for it.

When free annual credit scores were made available from the 3 credit scoring agencies - Experian, Transunion and Equifax, I would be one of the first to download my credit score report from the 3 agencies.

I followed all the advice for maintaining a good credit score, advice such as keep all your credit cards open, try to use different credit cards for different purchases, try to keep your percentage of used credit to credit available low, and try to minimize the number of inquiries.

And then one day, it dawned on me.

I was spinning my wheels for nothing.

I didn’t have to worry about my credit score.

I paid my credit cards in full each month.

I owned a used car which I had bought from my sister in cash.

I was not in the market for a house, and did not plan to be.

Suddenly a priority became a total non-priority.

It was an awareness moment.

What are the things in your life you have falsely made a priority?

Are these robbing you of your time, energy and peace of mind?

It is time to de-prioritize them.

If we don’t watch out, we can saddle ourselves with a bunch of new priorities, which were nowhere on our radar a few months ago, and should never have become priorities.

Take for example, an unnecessary purchase or investment.

An unnecessary purchase or investment can suddenly become a priority.

You can buy something, or invest in something, which turns out to be something you don’t need or you don’t want, or has no value for you, and then you spin your wheels trying to exchange it, sell it, get a refund on it, or get rid of it.

If you increased your debt to make that unnecessary purchase, it becomes all the more of a priority.

Like I said, there are awareness moments and awareness events.

Awareness events are when you are made to realize something.

Awareness moments are when you realize something yourself.

Like me, I am sure you have experienced both.

Sometimes we’d rather not be aware of something.

We’d rather not be aware that our marriage is collapsing, or our finances are out of shape, or our habits are destroying us, or our health needs attention.

We’d rather be in denial.

If people sense that we’d rather be in denial, they are not going to rock the boat.

So we will just carry on down a path that will do us no good.

We all need “awareness” angels.

Awareness angels - who are sometimes disguised as tough love teachers, tell us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear.

We may hate them for it, but they may be our salvation.

What was that line – we should never shoot the messenger.

Is there an elephant in the room and are you pretending it is not there?

Become aware of it and see it for what it is.

Awareness is half the battle.

Recently, I was in an animated conversation about a thorny crediting issue with my manager and one of the senior managers.

The senior manager noticed that, in trying to emphasize my point to my direct manager, I was wagging my finger at her.

The senior manager laughed and imitated me.

It was a wake-up call.

I never knew I was doing that.

I said, “I am so glad you pointed that out to me.  I hadn’t realized I was doing that.” 

I apologized to my direct manager, and told both of them to let me know whenever they saw me do that, so I could stop doing it.

Honestly, this was the first time anyone had told me about wagging my finger.

Clearly, I had a mannerism problem I was unaware of.

Later that day, my mind flashed back to an incident that happened at my last full time employment.

It was during a meeting at which my manager and my manager’s manager were present.

We were discussing the various tasks for the week ahead, and who would take ownership for what task.

My direct manager volunteered to take ownership for some of the new tasks that had come up.

I left the meeting early since I had to pick up Tanita from school, but before heading out the door, I waved my hand at my manager and said “So you will take care of the recon and the mdf?”

My manager’s manager noted my hand gesture which appeared disrespectful to him.

As soon as I left the room, he turned to my direct manager and said, “Why do you let her talk to you that way.  You saw how she made that gesture to you with her hand?”

My manager told me about it later.

I now realize that I have been going through life using these disrespectful gestures and not being aware of it.

See how lack of awareness can make you come across as a jerk and get you into trouble!

We have so much to learn about ourselves.

As we go through life, we will become more aware.

Indeed, we should become more aware.

Because just as trees and all living things are meant for growth, we too are meant for growth, but in our case, we are not just meant for physical and mental growth, but for intellectual and emotional and spiritual growth as well.

So start today to become more aware of more things in your life.

And start appreciating the value of the awareness angels in your life.

For truly I say to you, awareness is half the battle.

As always thanks for reading and have a great day and week….M….a PearlSeeker like you. Thanks to Ajay and David for their comments on my post The Element of Understanding That Life is a Learning Adventure and Its Hope for Never Being Afraid To Go Back to School, and thanks to all of you who read and added to the tributes for my precious Uncle Al.  Happy Easter to all of you.