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Succeeding by design

April 26, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Today, a few quotes about succeeding “because of,” not “in spite of.”

What’s that?

Planning and taking action, with intent, rather than seeing what happens and trying to dig out. (The latter, by the way, is like finding oneself in a hole and trying to turn it into a hill. And yes, that can be an important skill in life, too).

Now, the quotes:

The future depends on what we do in the present.
- Mahatma Gandhi

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.
- Michael Altshuler

We wanted Nike to be the world’s best sports and fitness company.
Once you say that, you have a focus. You don’t end up making wing
tips or sponsoring the next Rolling Stones world tour.
- Philip Knight

People with clear, written goals accomplish far more in a shorter
period of time than people without them could ever imagine.
- Brian Tracy

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same
number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur,
Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson,
and Albert Einstein.
- H. Jackson Brown

Filed Under: Measurement, People at Work, Process Management, Strategic Planning

Progress?

April 26, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Wanting a quick news update before heading to a client site, I checked the first few minutes of a major morning news show on Tuesday. I hoped to learn more about the sudden death the day before of an important American journalist and historian, David Halberstam.

It didn’t make the headlines…nor did the passing of another important figure in world history, Boris Yeltsin.

Instead, filling the screen…Sanjaya, the ex-American Idol contestant who’s more famous for his hair than for his singing. He’s dancing rapidly through his fifteen minutes of fame, making all the headway he can in these minutes of fading glory. We, the viewers, were promised more – much more – if we’d stay in our seats a little bit longer.

That was enough for me.

Halberstam’s work and the mark he left on America, are quite another story. If you like recent American history or sports, he’s someone whose books you probably know well.

His shoes will be very hard to fill, indeed, if they can be. And his message? It will surely be around for much longer than the next quarter hour.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Leadership, Quotes

Try easier. Go slow.

April 23, 2007 By Leave a Comment

It’s a Monday, and so…thinking I might get a jump on the week, I doubled up and raced through a few “to do’s” on my list.

Somehow a postage stamp (you remember – the old-fashioned mode of message transportation and bill payment) got stuck to my favorite pen.

Now the residual goo, which I tried mightily to rub off, is going to be a reminder of the “Midvale School for the Gifted” moves I sometimes do to myself.

(Remember the Far Side cartoon? The student at the “Midvale School for the Gifted” pushes with his full body weight…on the door marked “pull”? A client and I were laughing last week at times we unwittingly do these types of things to ourselves. It certainly could be worse.)

So at least for a while this stamp goo will remind me that "turbo" sometimes brings you across the finish line last. With "turbo" you sometimes have to call the clean up crew. And sometimes, like it or not, the slow lanes of the road are the fastest (check it out).

Today, I will remind myself to try easier. Sometimes…go slow.

Filed Under: People at Work

We need more moon landings

April 19, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Enough of the sad or unsettling events filling the news these days (Virginia Tech, Iraq, global warming…and there’s more).

We need more moon landings.

We need those galvanizing moments, the shared experiences of historic proportions that bond us in good ways. We need them in life. We need them at work. We need them at play.

I remember being at the National Air and Space Museum a few years ago, a chaperone for my daughter’s 8th grade class trip. A frequent visitor to Washington, DC, I’d long ago seen the normal tourist destinations. The Air and Space Museum? I expected it to be “somewhat” interesting, if only because it was one of the few things new to me.

I NEVER expected the feelings of magic, mystery and inspiration I still get when I think of the place.

It brought me face to face with courage in a mesmerizing way. As kids and families bustled excitedly around, I was riveted in one spot, staring at the tiny space capsule suspended in the air. This small yet sturdy carriage had safely shuttled astronauts thousands of dangerous miles, and brought them home again.

I kept asking myself as I stared, “Where did these men find the courage to suit up, climb in, be strapped (perhaps finally) into place? To volunteer to be some of the first to learn if man could travel safely into space?”

How inspiring it still is, having seen that historic capsule, to realize the courage it took, the courage they had, the courage they showed. And how very many people had to work together to make it happen.

With the historic events that swirl around us now, so many of them tragic, some building to who knows what, we need a moon-landing-scale experience to bring people together in a positive and inspiring way.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Leadership