2:30 a.m. No time to sleep.
Some achievements bring only suffering.
Are you empowered? Ask first,
Whose is the power that is now loaned to you?
In spring, money seems everything.
In winter, a warm coat is better.
Haiku and all other thoughts and comments welcomed.
Technorati Tags: haiku, work/life balance, living well, setting priorities, personal values
While the expression “it takes a village” is often attributed to Hillary Clinton’s book about her vision for children in America, in fact it was the title of a children’s book a couple of years prior to Hillary’s writing. Some people also claim that it originated as an African proverb. Regardless of its derivation, to me this expression connotes something different — it is about how one’s career often progresses based upon the impacts of others.
At an award ceremony, the CEO of a company being honored thanked the committee issuing the award and said, “While I am the one chosen to receive this award, I am a mere representative of a much larger team that has truly earned this award.” Leaders, no matter how good they may be, are always representatives of a larger group.
I have always been a believer that in team-based environments, if each person focuses on what they are best at and allows the other team members to do the same, the outcome will be optimized. Imagine for a moment a baseball or a basketball team. If each player focuses on doing the best they can in their respective positions, the team operates very effectively. In fact, while a coach and a captain are important figures, in general a team will only win when each member adds value to the contributions of the other team members. Read the full story
Sometimes following the easy way isn’t what is needed
Since coming onto the scene in 1982 (yes, 1982!), Madonna Louise Ciccone (a.k.a. Madonna) has achieved accomplishments unrivaled by any other artists in the music industry — ever. She has sold over 200 million albums, conducted the highest grossing concert tour by a female artist, become the top earning female singer in the world (with a net worth in the hundreds of millions), currently holds the record for top 10 hits, and been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And these are only some her industry-leading achievements.
All of this success hasn’t been achieved by taking the easy way either. Madonna has stirred controversy after controversy with her use of sexuality, religion and fashion. She has reinvented herself time and again to remain relevant to the current global music audience. As a result, for over 25 years Madonna has captured the attention, adoration and wallets of fans across the globe.
There is a great deal that leaders can learn from Madonna and her incredible ways, including:
If, like many people, you focus mostly on what you haven’t got, what you haven’t done, and how your life doesn’t match your hopes and dreams, those negatives can easily come to dominate your thinking. Not only will this depress you, it will block your way towards all the things you do want to achieve.
Some people believe you ‘program’ your unconscious mind to concentrate on ways to bring you more of whatever you’re focusing on most. I’m very unsure about this as an actual mechanism, but it certainly reflects the way things can seem. More likely, amidst the mass of more or less random events that come along, your mind is trained to pick out the ones that match the areas where you habitually pay most attention. If you’ve developed a deficit-based outlook (what you don’t have or do), that’s what you’ll notice first. Then, to the extent that your words and actions produce consequences, these will be negative as well. Read the full story
Statue of Boudicca on London’s Embankment
She was the British Queen who fought the Romans
I read an interesting quote today that highlights just how much progress we have made in our collective thinking about women in leadership positions. The quote, from a rather interesting source was in regard to the consideration of the appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court of the United States. The respondent, our 37th U.S. president, Richard M. Nixon, said the following: ”To play an awful long shot, is there a woman yet? That would be a hell of a thing if we could do it.”
Although it appeared as though Nixon well understood the political advantages of such a move, he also said: ”I’m not for women in any job. I don’t want any of them around. Thank God we don’t have any in the cabinet.” To top off these comments, he added: “’I don’t think a woman should be in any government job whatever. I mean, I really don’t. The reason why I do is mainly because they are erratic. And emotional. Men are erratic and emotional, too, but the point is a woman is more likely to be.” These comments were captured on audiotapes in 1971, 37 years ago, and later made public through a Freedom of Information Act request. Read the full story
Photo: qmnonic via Flickr
The past few months of work, health and renovation struggles have been ones I’ll be more than eager to wave goodbye when the ‘Better Be Great 2008′ year rolls to an end. One thing I have learned this year throughout all of the trials and tribulations, is that I veer more wildly than Britney Spears on the road to Starbucks when it comes to being brave.
When forced to deal with relatively minor things, I’ve got less backbone than a rubber chicken. For instance, a local arts journalists invited me to come over and meet her in person when visiting her workplace to pick up some CDs for reviewing. And yet, when I got there, the reception area was unattended and the distant sounds of a busy bunch of people working behind the partition was clearly evident. The desk had that standard little bell thingy to summon up the receptionist, but I have never, ever dinged a reception bell. I’m always afraid that when the person arrives and realises that it is merely me, their annoyance and disappointment in my assumption that I thought I was important enough to ding a bell for service would be too crushing to bear.
On the other hand, I can fight like a taunted Tasmanian devil if my job/career path/ability to pay a share of the mortgage/reputation is unfairly threatened. To be able to confidently yell down a phone, “I don’t give a FAT RAT’S CLACKER what your boss is going to think about the inconvenience of setting things right!” immediately transcends any fear I might have had when warily picking up the receiver with a squeaked-out “hellooooo?” Read the full story
‘Boss-ology,’ is the process of giving your boss what he or she wants and needs in a way that suits you best and makes you look as good as well. Much of the skill involved comes from using communication effectively: choosing your time, choosing the context, choosing the approach and choosing the words. It’s also very much about listening. You don’t need to be eloquent or cunning or a good salesperson. You need to listen to the boss, so you can adjust your approach to make it register as important and useful.
It’s a truism of communication generally, not just communication upwards, that you must start by listening. Many people with good ideas fail to get their boss to listen to them because they don’t listen themselves. They jump in with the details of what they want to say — only it’s the wrong time, the wrong context, the wrong approach and the wrong words. The boss either ignores them, sends them away, or even gets angry at being interrupted with what seems to him or her to be some irrelevant chatter from an over-eager subordinate.
There isn’t some magic approach that is going to work every time — bosses are too varied for that — but there are some principles that can make a big difference to getting all the elements of communication right more often than not. Like all useful principles, they come as questions. It’s up to you to think about them and find the answers in your own situation, Read the full story
The conventional wisdom is that we all need clear and challenging goals for our lives; that life without goals is leads to failure and dissatisfaction. I wonder if this is correct? After all, many people give up on the goals they have set themselves. From New Year’s resolutions to ‘new me’ decisions, it’s goal setting that seems to lead to failure more often than to success.
Why should this be? Why should people find that giving themselves something to aim at leads to being in a worse position than when they started? Setting goals seems to be such a simple process. You take a look at yourself, decide what you want to change most, think about how to get started, then do it. What is it that goes wrong?
Here are some thoughts about potential pitfalls. They don’t happen to everyone, but they are definitely common enough to be worth avoiding. Read the full story
‘Boss-ology,’ you’ll recall, is the process of giving your boss what he or she wants and needs in the way that suits you best and makes your actions look as good as possible. And a ‘boss-whisperer’ is like a horse-whisperer for bosses: someone who can get the boss to do what he or she wants without any fuss, dishonesty or dirty tricks.
Why bother? Why take the time and effort to manage your boss? He or she is paid more than you are and is supposed to be leading you, right? Let the boss make the decisions and face the consequences if they’re wrong. You were just following orders.
This is a short-sighted view. “I was only following orders” is a defense that rarely works and always makes you look like an incompetent idiot. Assuming that the boss knows best — and will unfailing choose the right course for you both — is naïve to the point of foolishness. The boss needs your help and you need help in return if you are both to make successful careers. You’re a team, like it or not. You know things the boss doesn’t and vice versa. Only by pooling that knowledge can you find the right way forward. Read the full story
Roger Federer at Wimbledon (Photo: Wikimedia)
In our household, the end of June means the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. My wife watches progress on the television. My interest is, at best, lukewarm. But I am always struck by an area of correspondence between tennis and organizational life: the extent to which the outcome of the competition is decided by the number of unforced errors.
It is not always the best player who wins the match or the tournament. Sometimes a relative unknown seems inspired, while the established champion appears lack-luster and awkward. When someone is playing well, he or she makes few unforced errors. When they have a bad day, the number increases rapidly. Even during a match, some small lapse of concentration often leads to a series of unforced errors that can lose that player valuable points.
In tennis, an unforced error is a mistake or bad shot made by a player without any reason other than his or her lack of skill or composure. Serving a double fault is an example. The point is lost, though the opponent never touched the ball. The player who does this too often will lose the match, even if their opponent plays no better than competently. When a champion loses to a weaker opponent, it is often because the champion has made enough unforced errors to lose, not because their opponent has played well enough to win.
Forced errors occur only for one reason: your opponent is playing better than you are. Their superior skill, speed or tactical sense puts pressure on you that causes mistakes. To translate this to the business world, forced errors occur when the competition has a better business model, better product, better service or better strategy. They outplay you. As you struggle to keep up, you make even more mistakes because of the extra pressure.
Unforced errors are the ones you make regardless of the actions or skill of your competition. They’re the ones that result from taking too many risks, trying to do things too quickly, cutting costs to the point where you harm your own prospects, focusing on short-term wins and ignoring the consequences, and sticking to old habits when external circumstances have already changed enough to make them useless. Read the full story
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