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Short Hiatus
Owing to a death in the family I will be on blogging hiatus for a couple weeks.
I look forward to reconnecting with you in October.
Burning Bridges
You know, sometimes despite your best intentions, a professional relationship will not flourish. Have you had that experience? Have you ever found that a relationship keeps stumbling until someone burns a bridge to say “I’m done with you”?
I recently made a political mistake within a client company. The result of the gaff was being told by a man he would never refer me again to anyone in any company anywhere. What did I do? I didn’t keep him in the loop as to how a dialogue with a potential client was going.
I wish I had done it differently. I didn’t mean to cause a problem for anyone. I wish I had not made the error in judgment, and I said so. Yet, as I explained what I was trying…
Running Red Lights
I ran two red lights in the past twenty-four hours. One was an hour ago. The other was on my way home from dinner with a client and his girlfriend.
In both instances, I had a passenger in the car. So, when I ran a red light for the second time on the way to the airport to drop her off, she kind of asked in a marvelously relaxed voice, “Face, what are you doing? The light is red.”
What happened?
On the way to the airport I was paying attention to the wrong things. The same was true last night. My friend told me I stopped at the light and then proceeded through it, as if it were a stop sign.
In both cases, alcohol was NOT involved. But, who needed booze?…
Perception Isn’t Everything (but is sure is a lot)
Nothing quite bugs me like hearing platitudes like “perception is everything.” While I appreciate a pithy one-liner as much as the next guy, I bristle when they over-simplify things to a level that makes progress harder, not easier.
Perception is not everything. It is one part of the picture. What we perceive in, say, an interpersonal conflict is real to be sure. But, it is not the entire picture of reality. Your perception of me is not all of me. My perception of some attribute or quality of yours is not the whole picture of you. Nor is it the whole picture of you and me.
Recently, I was on a project team formed to produce a few short-term and quick-hitting results. During the process, another member accused me of making…
F,F,MO,DLB
Have you ever been in a situation when someone, undoubtedly to assuage some need of their own for less pain, less anxiety, a sense of control or a desperation to reach out however ineffective the means used, tries to pull you back into a situation you long since put behind you and have forgotten?
That just happened to me. A situation two years old was dredged up by someone I actually have a great affection for, in spite of the reality that the past situation and the decisions we made after it have made it implausible for us to be in touch with one another.
What were my reactions? I was surprised to get the email. I was eager to read it - until I did. Then I was this close…
Targeted Behavior Change
Over the past year I have shifted the focus of my executive coaching work to targeted behavior change - helping successful executives be more effective, and even more successful.
It sounds simple. I mean, what can be challenging about helping people who have already established themselves as successes in their fields, companies and careers to be even more successful? The simple answer: What gets a man to a place does not necessarily keep him there. Put another way: The way I did it yesterday may not be what is needed today. I may need to learn, grow and act differently.
The choice for these up-and-coming-senior executives is between behavior that is comfortable and behavior that is effective.
Notice I’m not making any statement about the ends someone is trying to achieve. While…
Better for Having Been Here
As my work becomes more focused on helping individuals grow into the fullness of their leadership potential, including eliminating problematic behaviors (something I have direct experience with - and will be writing about a lot in this blog in the coming months), the more my attention gravitates to the words and deeds of men and women commonly accepted as successful in their fields.
I am no patsie when it comes to equating success (which usually means financial success) and leadership; many a financially successful man has been found out to be a lousy leader. Most of the men and women my middle management friends work for would fit this category. And, we all know at least one man or woman in our personal, if not professional, lives who would not…
What Needs to Happen First?
For a couple months I’ve been working with a young man in financial services. He’s married with one child. He’s tired and doesn’t smile as much as he’d like. He also drinks more than he knows is healthy and doesn’t get enough exercise. Know anyone like that? It’s easy to see that he has a big heart, even if it seems a bit weighed down by “practical concerns.” He’s tired of the ups and downs of commission-based work and hired me to help him “make more money.” He recently had two very rich months and wanted to avoid returning to his “average” monthly income.
Usually I don’t work with clients who approach me with making money as their main goal. But, our paths crossed in such a way I decided to…
Seeing It All
If Spring explodes
Into colors,
And aromas,
And warm sunlight
One day;
If the crocuses,
And daffodils seem to
Pop up suddenly,
And the robin’s breast
Arrests our attention,
It’s because
We’ve trained our eyes
On the threshold
Where drama lives.
But, this Spring didn’t spring.
It inched up to radiance,
Through long silence,
And blackness,
And cold.
Copyright © David C Facer Jr. All rights reserved.
Hey Man, Where You Been?
I remember when I was a kid and the phone rang, I was excited to answer it. In the days before Caller ID, it was, for the most part, an exciting and, more often than not, welcome interruption in my home routine.
Of course there were stretches of time when I and a friend were in a spat or had permanently fallen out or I had broken up with someone who kept calling and calling and calling. Those calls were not happily anticipated or answered. But, for the most part, I answered the phone eagerly.
I used to get the mail with the same eagerness. Not that much came for me; I saw my friends every day so no postcards arrived from exotic locales around the world. Birthdays were about the…
