Bloom where you’re planted
Originally uploaded by jcgr.
Make the best of where you land, the best of where you stand.
Then, if you want, or you must, move on.
And bloom again.
Bloom where you’re planted
April 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Maximizing…or minimizing…the way to success?
April 29, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Sometimes the path to success depends on maximizing one’s greatest strengths. That applies to an individual, a leader, a team.
Sometimes, though, the path to success is dependent on preventing or minimizing the damage caused by weaknesses. That, too, applies to individuals and groups.
Take the US presidential election, just as a case in point.
The best possible outcome would be if we can select the person best-suited – whomever he or she is – to successfully guide this nation through the guaranteed-to-be-tough next four years. And we need a person who really WANTS TO DO THE JOB of leading us through the changes ahead…not just someone who’s desperate not to lose.
To get the right person for this leader-hungry nation, we’ll hopefully select a president based on who has the most, and the best strengths for the road we face now.
However.
As the process goes on, it looks it’s the race to minimize liabilities that is leading the way. Here are just a few things now in play in that game:
McCain: Does he have the chops to handle the economic challenges ahead? Can he control his legendary temper? Does he know, himself, where he stands?
Obama: Is Reverend Wright turning out to be Reverend Wrong? What does this say about this candidate’s ability to select and surround himself with good advisors, people with a broad and wise perspective and the skills of positive and sustainable change-making to match?
Clinton: Bill, Bill, Bill. Can she minimize the impact of an ex-president who seems unable to get – and stay – offstage? Can she control his seemingly endless hunger for the spotlight and microphone? Can he let it be her race? (Reverend Wrong appears to have this problem, as well. So Hillary and Barack have more in common than they thought?).
The magnificent opportunity of leadership – and its burden of responsibility – will fall to one, as leadership always does.
Will the next leader be chosen because of maximum strengths, or minimum liabilities for the job?
Or will it be the best of both?
Golden moments
April 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Golden
Originally uploaded by jcgr.
Racing through Monday, trying to get the week off to a flying start?
Even so…even as you fly through the calendar…look for the golden moments.
They’re the brief, easy-to-miss, sometimes almost imperceptible chances you have (everyone does) to:
- Give someone the gift of a sincere smile
- Share a laugh
- Ask (sincerely) how someone is…and then wait for the answer
- Lift someone’s spirits by noticing a great beginning, middle or end of a project or challenge
- Congratulate someone on a problem solved
- Say "thank you" with eye contact and sincerity
There are so many very quick ways to notice and grow golden moments. What ideas would you add?
Whatever they are, Monday – even and especially Monday – is a great time for golden moments to start.
Full brain syndrome (FBS)*
April 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment
I went to a full-day authors’ conference today (yes, I’m writing a book. I’ve written first drafts of books and it’s time to cross the “published author” line late this year, or early next).
The conference was deliciously jam-packed with learning, and the opportunity to meet and work with fellow travelers on the same path. Those who’ve successfully traveled the publishing road freely shared with those farther behind. The learners were an eager audience. Many were almost leaning out of their chairs, trying to learn as fast as they can, to move as quickly as they can to catch up with those who’ve gone before.
As I drove the two hours home, and sorted out all I’d learned, at some point I had to let my mind rest.
If you, too, have recently experienced that sense of being so full – delightfully full, even – but SO FULL of new information that you can’t take in any more, here are a few quotes that you may appreciate, as well:
The human brain is capable of only one strong emotion at a time, and if it be filled with curiosity or enthusiasm, there is no room for fear.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories. Stories are easy to write because they flow out of our brains naturally; sentences are extremely hard.
- James Patterson
It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them – the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I like nonsense – it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope… and that enables you to laugh at all of life’s realities.
- Dr. Suess
*When client teams are filled to brimming near the end of a very full day of training or team work together, I tease them about having “FBS.” There is a point when you need to let your mind take all it has learned, just step away, relax, and turn it into information you can readily, easily use. And that takes some integration time (which is why cramming right before a final is less than the optimal way to learn, for most of us). It reminds me of our son’s comment about learning biology, “It’s like I have a bag of facts…”
Elegant data
April 24, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Elegant data
Originally uploaded by jcgr.
"Zooming in" on the detail of data to see what the data tell, what patterns they contain. This "zooming in" step always needs to be balanced by "zooming out" to make sure that the conclusions, decisions, recommendations made as a result of the data make sense.
There’s a pretty standard data curve that many companies go through. Often, they start by collecting almost no data. Then they go overboard and collect WAY too much – more than anyone could possibly manage, absorb, or use well. In this stage, employees are often inundated, immobilized.
It finally gets to be too much. The company often pares back, collecting a much more carefully selected data set, and significantly improves the ways they use all the information they collect.
It’s at this point that data and information become elegant, powerful. This is when the information – and the way the company uses it – shows them what’s happening and what they can expect in weeks and months ahead. The company can begin to really choose their actions well, and to move and respond appropriately for both the short- and long-term organizational health.
And since the game continues to change in almost any field you’re in, data need to change, too. An elegant data set and powerful ways of using it is, like many things, an art and a science.
Keeping your knowledge current
April 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Seth Godin’s post today, You’re right!, shares a frustrating story about customer service – and the lack of it – in a service business.
His story also illustrates the criticality of keeping your knowledge current.
The essence of the story? When Seth left his Prius at an expensive mid-town Manhattan parking garage, it was never turned off, the full time it was there. That’s $30 worth of parking time, space and – or so he expected – vehicle care.
How can a parking garage company, and all its customer-facing employees NOT know how to turn a Prius off, by now? The car’s no longer a novelty – sales are climbing something like 38% a year.
And when he complained? The management company said it was…get this…his fault.
Wonder how long they’ll be in business. The Prius is quickly becoming mainstream and, behind it, changes in transportation technology will continue to occur as the earth continues to warm.
It’s time for that parking garage company to get with the program, to seek information, teach information, and reinforce its use with every employee who needs to know it, use it. Or they can post a “NO PRIUSES HERE” sign. That, too, would work…in a short-sighted way.
Keeping your knowledge current – not even cutting-edge – is no luxury.
It’s a price you pay for the privilege of continuing to be in business.
1. Where could your knowledge, or training use a tune-up, as well?
2. Is the information that your employees need in full view, full access, full use?
3. If not, why not? And what can and will you do to change that?
“It’s like I have a bag of facts…”
April 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment
A quick story from my world about “knowledge management,” or learning, synthesizing, and having information ready to use, when needed, as needed – often when the stakes are high.
Our son, Matt, is a high school sophomore. Lots is going on for high school sophomores – some visible, lots not.
Matt has a big biology test today. He’s been studying lots in the last few days – or so it seems.
Last night as he was getting to bed, I light-heartedly suggested, “Imagine that while you’re sleeping, all those facts that you learned and studied are quickly being arranged in your mind so that you can access them fully, at the right time, in the right way. ‘You want an essay on that? I can do it! You want short-answer with those facts? I can do that, too! You want true/false, multiple choice? I can do THAT, too!”
Matt listened and then had his own description of the facts, for him, about access to those facts.
“It’s more like I have a bag of facts and somebody cut a hole in the bottom, and they’re all falling out…and faster than I can pour them in the top!”
I had to laugh, in the moment.
He does have me thinking, though.
Just because
April 20, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Garden party
Originally uploaded by jcgr.
There are days when roses – or any fresh flowers – are appropriate. Other days, it’s more than that – they’re necessary.
Some days the reason for roses is a grand celebration, a major milestone.
Sometimes the reason for roses is, "Just because."
The fork in the road
April 17, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Decision-making advice from those who’ve been down the road:
When you come to the fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra
I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Decisions, particularly important ones, have always made me sleepy, perhaps because I know that I will have to make them by instinct, and thinking things out is only what other people tell me I should do.
Lillian Hellman
The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose.
Thornton Wilder
The roads we take are more important than the goals we announce. Decisions determine destiny.
Frederick Speakman
We have a choice: to plow new ground or let the weeds grow.
Jonathan Westover
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.
Thomas Carlyle
Deeply beautiful blue
April 16, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Deeply beautiful blue
Originally uploaded by jcgr.
Some days a little blue inspiration is a deeply wonderful thing.
