Read Less and Do More
I received a monthly book offer for summaries of 32 business books. Each year they promise overviews of 24 of the latest titles plus eight classics. That’s 32 book summaries for the year. They encourage me to listen to them all before deciding what book to buy.
There is some wisdom in their offer. They want me to be an educated book buyer. But the thing is, I already have enough to read. I have unread management classics on my shelf right now. Why do I need the latest and greatest?
One answer might be that the lastest is fashionable and to be relevant in current conversations I have to know what it says. Maybe. To be relevant I need to contribute something that helps the company execute better. That doesn’t have…
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Happy Thanksgiving Rituals
The Thanksgiving holiday is steeped in ritual and meaning. We gather family and friends in a single location to remember we are part of a nurturing community. We tell each other stories about what is happening in our lives. Stories are a uniquely human way to communicate. Long before to-do lists there were stories that instructed us where to find food, guided us about community norms and values and warned us of dangers to avoid.
The Thanksgiving dinner is highly ritualistic. Beyond the settlers and Indians story, sharing food is a way of spreading abundance among the people in our inner circles. Feeding each other at the start of the darkest season harkens back to needing nourishment to face certain struggle during the cold and fruitless winter.
We watch games…
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God Bless Us Everyone?
Now is the time of year we “give thanks” for all our blessings, right? Even in the office we tell each other stories about how we celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and family. We talk of our favorite foods, favorite football teams, favorite ways to spend an afternoon, our favorite relatives. How pretty it all is.
We feel good about ourselves when we feel thankful for the abundance in our lives. We feel strong when we take time to share that abundance with others. We feel closer to God when we act God-like and warmly embrace the people in our lives we enjoy most and who enrich us. What do we do with the people we dislike and who dislike us?
What has me thinking is how we will express our thanks to…
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Falling Behind the Listening Curve
Yesterday our defense secretary was fired because of the election results. Our president said he had heard what people had said by voting out a significant number of republicans and in a significant number of democrats for local, state and federal offices. And since the exit poll research said the primary issue for voters was their dissatisfaction with how the Iraq war was being handled, our president decided to fire the man (almost) at the helm of the program, Donald Rumsfeld.
Then President Bush went on to say he would work to establish good bipartisan relations with the people in the majority party who had supplanted the folks from the now minority party.
Now, this brief analysis is not about politics; it is about listening. It seems to me that what…
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Rushing to Judgment
Limbaugh v. Fox
In the past week or so Rush Limbaugh caused a stir by scoffing at Michael J. Fox. Limbaugh said Fox exaggerated his Parkinson’s disease symptoms in the advertisement Fox shot urging support for stem cell research.
Fox went to the news programs to further explain his position. On the program I watched, Limbaugh was invited to be a guest, too. He refused the invitation.
Okay, so these two guys are public figures and we shouldn’t pay too much attention to what they do. And yet, there is something very interesting in how Limbaugh responded to Fox’s advertisement; Limbaugh judged before learning more.
Limbaugh stated his opinions and judged Fox’s behavior before he asked any questions. Do you know anyone in your department who does that, too? Makes statements about what…
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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.
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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…
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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?…
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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…
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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…
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