Two good pieces of advice for any circumstance from above the moving sidewalks at the Denver Airport:
Bring your confidence.
And a smile.
Listening skills: Could your listening skills use a tune-up?
March 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment
High quality listening is always important.
It’s even more important when people are stressed, as so many people
are in the current economy. People are distracted, and getting more so.
Listening skills are tested, sometimes to the breaking point.
In a recent brief exchange on Twitter (where I am @MrsRoadshow), one writer lamented the loss of good listening skills. Here was his quick comment:
"(Large coffee purveyor to remain unnamed here), why oh why do you
always insist on putting whipped cream on my drinks, even though I
explicitly say no whipped cream?”
I laughed to myself, and had to respond, based on my own experience. I quickly replied:
“Like so many things, gets down to whether they’re doing real or
artificial listening.”
Then I added in the 140-character limitations of
Twitter-speak:
“There’s nothing like deeply artificial listening to set
off entire chain of events that leads nowhere grand. For co. or cust.”
He wrote back:
“I’ve never heard of ‘artificial listening,’ but I like the phrase, and it’s exactly what they were doing.”
I closed with the thought that I’d love to improve the circumstance
if I could. He wrapped with:
“me too. Until then, I guess I’ll get
whipped cream on all my coffees. 
”
You know those experiences as a customer when you have that flustered, frustrated feeling, “Why can’t they just listen – really listen to me?”
And so, some – well, maybe all of us – could use a tune-up for our basic listening skills.
If that’s true for you (don’t rely on your own judgment on this one.
Ask a friend or family member or two who will be honest with you), here
are a few resources you can use:
Active Listening
Empathic Approach, Listening First Aid
What resources would you recommend to help people improve their listening skills?
There’s a lot riding on it.
We’re running as fast as we can
March 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Running to catch up?
Running to get ahead?
Running because you want to?
Running because you can?
Whatever your goal, whatever drives you, focused energy will get you there best.
Creative inspiration
March 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment
We’re still on the uphill climb of change, and will be for a while.
In the midst of the long journey, it can be refreshing to pause and listen to masters of change and creativity. Here are a few of those thoughts from famous artists, inventors, business people, scientists, and more:
When I finished a song that I thought was good, I thought, “I don’t know where that came from, so I have no idea if I can do that again.” I’m talking like, a hundred and fifty songs down the line. I still feel that.
Trevor Rabin
If we did all the things we’re capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
Thomas Alva Edison
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and putting one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
We progress when we think more and better.
Plato
We have enough people who tell it like it is. Now we could use a few people who tell it like it can be.
Robert Orben
The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
Julia Cameron
If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.
Charlie Parker
Man must go back to nature for information.
Thomas Paine
It would be impossible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.
Albert Einstein
Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.
Dale Carnegie
I dream for a living.
Steven Spielburg
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in the laboratory is not only a technician; he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.
Marie Curie
Coconut Cake
March 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment
We love this cake for two of the four birthdays in our family. It’s from Favorite Recipes From Quilters
Our daughter made one for my last birthday and when she was done, said, “I didn’t realize how labor intensive this cake is!”
And while it IS labor intensive, the loving effort invested in making it is, in itself, a birthday gift.
Makes 12 servings
Cake:
16 tbsp. butter
2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1-1/4 c. coconut milk (I use light coconut milk)
3 c. cake flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
1 c. finely grated coconut
4 egg whites, stiffly beaten
Frosting:
1-1/2 c. sugar
2 egg whites
5 tbsp. water
3 tsp. white corn syrup
Pinch salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Prepare three 8-in round layer pans: grease lightly and sprinkle with flour or trace, cut out and place a circle of wax paper on the bottom of each cake pan (I always do this. I had to rebake the cake for our daughter’s birthday one time when I didn’t take the extra minute for this step, and two layers broke apart getting them out of the pans).
3. Cream together butter and sugar until very fluffy. Set aside.
4. Combine vanilla and coconut milk. Set aside.
5. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, alternating with coconut milk mixture. Begin and end with flour and beat well after each addition.
6. Add grated coconut and beat well.
7. Gently fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.
8. Pour batter into 3 prepared 8-in. round layer pans.
9. Bake at 325 degree oven for 35-40 min.
10. Remove finished cake layers from oven and let cool for a few minutes in pans. Remove cake layers from pans and let cool completely on wire racks.
11. Prepare frosting: combine all frosting ingredients except vanilla in double boiler. Heat, beating at high speed until fluffy, about 5-7 min. Stir in vanilla and remove from heat.
12. Spread frosting evenly between layers and over outside of cooled cake.
13. Generously sprinkle outside of cake with extra coconut.
14. Enjoy! This cake won’t last long…every crumb will soon be gone.
Resiliency always pays
March 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment
There are those days.
Resilency pays.
In someone's case, the dilemma this day…well, it involved eggs,
A dozen.
Hitting the floor with splashes and sound effects.
I swear it wasn't me.
What is a courageous move for you?
March 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment
What, for you, is the very next positive change-making, dream-affirming move you can take, today?
We're not talking about tomorrow, mind you. I'm talking about courage and change TODAY.
Even in the smallest, least threatening way.
The reason I ask? At an especially lively meeting of a especially lively book club yesterday, we wrestled with the subject of change.
And how difficult it is to make.
It doesn't really matter which book we were discussing, though it is one that precipitated some major changes in America more than a century ago. It has me curious about reading other books that precipitated major, positive change (I can see a theme building…if I can talk the book club into it. And if not, well, it's a theme on which I'll read much more myself).
We talked in our lively meeting about how the past can choke and chain us, collectively and individually, to stories and histories from which we cannot seem to break.
For example, some groups bound by history seem to say, "What are, who are we, and what binds us if we do not have the shared struggle to define us?"
Sometimes the only way to change is in extreme, dramatic or elaborate ways. Sometimes the better way to change is in small, non-threatening ways – progress, one bit or bite (byte?) at a time.
Does your company or your group (or perhaps another group, even your family) have an identity that clearly defines you?
- How is that identity positive, enlivening, energizing?
- How is that identity restrictive or confining?
- What would be a better, more positive identity if your company, group, and ultimately the individuals in it can successfully change?
- What are some small and positive steps you can take to help that identity improve and move, in non-threatening ways?
Again I ask:
What is your next courageous move?
Something you can do today?
Yin and yang
March 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Strength and softness.
Light and dark.
Positive and negative.
What are yours?
Any whole, any person is made up of many parts.
Leadership moments count
March 21, 2009 By 2 Comments
"It's just a joke. Give him a break!"
Ask my cerebral palsied older sister if President Obama's Special Olympics comment to Jay Leno was funny.
Barb has been trying to catch up with everyone around her since birth. The umbilical cord, wrapped around her neck five times when she was born – her pre-birth lifeline – almost killed her. It left her with brain damage and all that goes with its never-the-same-again aftermath.
I've always been protective of Barb's feelings – fiercely so. No one meant for Barb's handicap to happen. Not my mother, who carried guilt about her circumstances to the end of her days. Not the doctors or nurses on duty that day. Her birth accident probably would not happen now, with all the careful pre-birth monitoring and technology that surrounds so many births.
But it did happen then, and it's just the way it is. Barb and those of us who love and work with her in various ways try to do more than just cope.
I'm sure Barb knows of Obama's comment. She's pretty current-events-aware. (By the way, she voted for Obama, and as a natural and enthusiastic promoter of the people and things she believes in, she probably got others to vote for him, too).
I'm sure some of Barb's peers felt the sting of Obama's joke, too. And other peers? Well, no. Their
limitations prevent them from understanding that someone would find
limitations, in general, funny, and the raw material for a joke.
The real message, though? Those little leadership moments DO matter.
Symbols count. Words count. What someone finds funny counts, too.
In a positive way, Michelle Obama shows that she knows the power of simple, influential moments. Lately, she's been on the national news almost daily as she promotes reading, taking personal responsibility, and now, gardening.
And among those who lately showed that they didn't "get" the power of a symbol are the long line of auto executives who asked for taxpayer handouts yet admitted before Congress that they had each flown a private jet to the handout proceedings. Also missing the point about the great power of leadership actions, decisions, words are the executives of taxpayer-propped-up banks who did not understand the taxpayer anger that large bonuses would invoke.
Leadership moments count…the words, the symbols, the jokes.
If you want the leadership spotlight, you get both: the power and the pressure.
The president is in a high-attention job. It's a cage, even. It's gilded, certainly, but it's a cage, nonetheless.
And among the things that go with the job he has, or any leadership job, for that matter, are an expectation that he won't perpetuate stereotypes, whatever they are, and an expectation that he will lead by positive example. In planned statements and actions, and the "mindless" moments, too.
The mentally and physically challenged have feelings, the same as anyone else does. They're trying to maintain their dignity in a world that quickly reaches for the "R" word ("retard") to put people down. Every time I hear it, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard, as are Special Olympics "jokes."
Leadership means knowing the power and value of the spontaneous actions, reactions and words one uses.
It may take education, exposure to the real lives of the people someone makes fun of in an oh so simple "joke."
In this particular case, maybe President Obama should spend a day as a Special Olympics coach. Or work for a day with the handicapped in a sheltered workshop. Or volunteer for a day in one of the homes for the profoundly retarded that any state has to care for those who, by accident of birth, or illness, or by accident, itself, would never have asked for the circumstances they have, will never live lives completely on their own.
We all have moments we regret, a simple comment we didn't really mean. And yet…
If we are in leadership positions, we must remember, those simple moments count. And they are so very powerful.
Interconnection
March 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Many things are interconnected.
Here, it's the interweaving of earth and trees and sky.
In other places, close linkages tie together causes and effects, even if initially, those connections were almost imperceptible.
Relationships can be closely tied, as shown in Six Degrees of Separation experiments (How far are you from Kevin Bacon?).
It's a small and closely linked world we live in, by and by.
