What turns a raving lunatic into a leader!
The real face of leadership
Friday 20 August 2010
Thursday 19 August 2010
Tuesday 17 August 2010
Maybe we should begin by understanding how amazing things are right now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOzNrO54xsY&feature=related
This is a funny but very thought provoking conversation.
This is a funny but very thought provoking conversation.
Monday 16 August 2010
Give It Forty Five Minutes At least!
As a Manager for a large restaurant chain I once attended a Management Training Seminar. One of the topics we discussed was our mission statement. We broke into groups and worked on a statement that the whole group would be able to rally around. The idea of the exercise was so that we could go back to our own restaurant and work with our team to come up with a mission statement of our own, that would serve as the core value of what the restaurant stood for. That way that we could focus on it to drive us forward. The group that I was in worked well together and pretty soon came up with a working mission statement. We all read it out loud so that we could experience the feeling of it and when the overall seminar leader called for the group leaders to say if they were ready, our group came to a grinding halt. One of the members of our group had an issue with the placement of a comma. It then took us forty five minutes to come to an agreement about the grammatical phrasing and structure of the mission statement. While we became frustrated with him we relised that it was important to him and the whole group to be able to negotiate and feel as though we all had ownership in the outcome.
We are now in one of the most difficult and challenging times in our history, I certainly do not in my 55 years remember a time this stressful, yet we expect two new Governments to step in and sort out the dilemmas that both have inherited in what would appear to be a completely unrealistic period of time. If six people in a group could get held up by a comma for forty five minutes on a simple mission statement which, was simply an exercise, then surely we must give those who are running Great Britain and America a little more than a year to sort out this horrendous mess which has taken eight years to get into. However we voted and however angry we are with the situation, allowing that anger to run over into pressuring change instead of negotiating change and working towards change will surely give us more of what we have.
I am not advocating one political party over another, but surely, given the quandary we are in it would benefit us to take the forty five minutes and do the job right.
Be Passionate, ask why!
We are now in one of the most difficult and challenging times in our history, I certainly do not in my 55 years remember a time this stressful, yet we expect two new Governments to step in and sort out the dilemmas that both have inherited in what would appear to be a completely unrealistic period of time. If six people in a group could get held up by a comma for forty five minutes on a simple mission statement which, was simply an exercise, then surely we must give those who are running Great Britain and America a little more than a year to sort out this horrendous mess which has taken eight years to get into. However we voted and however angry we are with the situation, allowing that anger to run over into pressuring change instead of negotiating change and working towards change will surely give us more of what we have.
I am not advocating one political party over another, but surely, given the quandary we are in it would benefit us to take the forty five minutes and do the job right.
Be Passionate, ask why!
You can be right, or would you rather be successful?
You Can Be Right
Or
You Can Be Successful
(And sometimes both, but rarely)
So now what? Well, we have two choices as I see it. We can either be right or successful. Now being right does not always mean being successful, but being successful does sometimes mean that you have to let it go of being right. Let go of what ever has got you. This is not some kind of Zen trickery, don’t worry I’m not going to creep up on you by using stealth ‘warm and fuzzy.' So what am I babbling on about?
The fact is you have the right to be right. You are right if you say that the people we trusted just brought the country to it’s knees. You are right if you say that the bankers and politicians have squandered our trust and stolen from us. You are right if you believe that we are paying more and more tax for less and less return and you are most certainly right if you believe that we will be paying for this recession long into the lives of our children and possibly grandchildren.
So what’s wrong with being right!? Well...nothing unless the consequences outweigh the returns. I am going to say that the need to be right in these circumstances will quickly turn to anger and anger has a very definite way of wearing you down. Anger produces a negative way of thinking which in turn creates more anger until you become a victim. Once you are a victim you have lost the game. You get to be right but at a price. And yes, you are right when you say “That’s not fare!” But that will be discussed in another blog.
So what do you do? Well, here’s a suggestion: give yourself a short amount of time to be right and maybe a little angry, you deserve it. But then you must move on to the being successful part. And in order to be successful you must take control because believe me there is no one waiting to give you all the things you want in life. Remember the clerk who you went to see about your dream job? Well they just became unemployed and they are looking for their dream job.
Here’s one last thought on being right and having rights.
If two people are born at the same time and one has the right to a job, an education, health care and all of those things which make a life worth living, then which one of the two is born with the responsibility to give it to the other?
Be Passionate, ask why!
Or
You Can Be Successful
(And sometimes both, but rarely)
So now what? Well, we have two choices as I see it. We can either be right or successful. Now being right does not always mean being successful, but being successful does sometimes mean that you have to let it go of being right. Let go of what ever has got you. This is not some kind of Zen trickery, don’t worry I’m not going to creep up on you by using stealth ‘warm and fuzzy.' So what am I babbling on about?
The fact is you have the right to be right. You are right if you say that the people we trusted just brought the country to it’s knees. You are right if you say that the bankers and politicians have squandered our trust and stolen from us. You are right if you believe that we are paying more and more tax for less and less return and you are most certainly right if you believe that we will be paying for this recession long into the lives of our children and possibly grandchildren.
So what’s wrong with being right!? Well...nothing unless the consequences outweigh the returns. I am going to say that the need to be right in these circumstances will quickly turn to anger and anger has a very definite way of wearing you down. Anger produces a negative way of thinking which in turn creates more anger until you become a victim. Once you are a victim you have lost the game. You get to be right but at a price. And yes, you are right when you say “That’s not fare!” But that will be discussed in another blog.
So what do you do? Well, here’s a suggestion: give yourself a short amount of time to be right and maybe a little angry, you deserve it. But then you must move on to the being successful part. And in order to be successful you must take control because believe me there is no one waiting to give you all the things you want in life. Remember the clerk who you went to see about your dream job? Well they just became unemployed and they are looking for their dream job.
Here’s one last thought on being right and having rights.
If two people are born at the same time and one has the right to a job, an education, health care and all of those things which make a life worth living, then which one of the two is born with the responsibility to give it to the other?
Be Passionate, ask why!
The Ugly Truth
Ugly truth. No one really cares about you! Well, okay, your kids care and your spouse and maybe your mum and dad and a few close friends. But, at the end of the day they all have their own basket of problems and their own worries and concerns and for the most part they do not go home and start thinking how they can make your life better. What they do is go home and start working on how they can make their life better. The problem is that we as individuals have been brought up in a country (and a fine country may I add) but non the less one where it is frowned upon to think too highly of ones self. The problem is now that we are deep into a recession and if we don’t start thinking for ourselves and about ourselves then who will?
What used to be a quaint and likable thing about the British ‘The slightly self deprecating manor’ that we had has now become out ‘Achilles Heel’ our downfall in a time when we need to be forward thinking.
Let me give you a better example.
☞My Assertion. It is my assertion that there is no Government!
Wait! Don’t leave yet!
When we think that someone else will take care of our troubles and we say "It’s the Governments job!" This is what happens:
Let’s take as an example the Unemployment Office (at least that is what is was called when I was a young boy). For a start if they were thinking positive they would call it the Employment office. So the responsibility of the 'Unemployment Office' is to find us work. The recession has hit hard, you have been made redundant and off you go to the Unemployment Office. The first thing that happens is that you begin to feel as though you did something wrong and you see yourself standing there with many others in the same situation as you, but also with a lot of regulars who you have been propping up with your taxes for the last, how ever many recessions.
So you suck it up and give all of your details to a complete stranger some quite personal and you are asked why you do not have a job? You explain about the recession and cut backs etc and that you are willing to do anything, in order to work. The clerk says they will see what they can do.
The thing that we must accept is; when the bell goes at the end of that persons working day, they do not take your file home and keep working on it on your behalf. No, they take themselves home, sometimes to a worse situation than the one that you have and they worry about their life and the new job they want. You have now become a number in a computer program which will spit out jobs that may or may not suite you, but the thing is it’s a computer and it does not care. The clerk who you saw today will be inundated by a new group of people in the same situation as you tomorrow and you will be a distant memory.
The problem is that when we think that the Government will take care of (it) we fall foul to an unrealistic expectation of a group of people who work in buildings belonging to the Government. (Well actually, when you think about it the buildings belong to us). The only responsibility that the clerk has at the Unemployment Office is to clock in on time, follow the guidelines set down for them in the employee hand book and then do the best they can to get you a job in the time in which they are on the clock. Truth is, it is not their job to get us a job at all, it is their job to find opportunities for us to explore and the rest is up to us!
The Government that we have come to know and love is, in fact nothing more than a lot of office buildings with people in them doing jobs, just like you and I and at five-o-clock they all go home and Government as we would like it to exist, no longer does until they all clock in again the following morning.
Lee
What used to be a quaint and likable thing about the British ‘The slightly self deprecating manor’ that we had has now become out ‘Achilles Heel’ our downfall in a time when we need to be forward thinking.
Let me give you a better example.
☞My Assertion. It is my assertion that there is no Government!
Wait! Don’t leave yet!
When we think that someone else will take care of our troubles and we say "It’s the Governments job!" This is what happens:
Let’s take as an example the Unemployment Office (at least that is what is was called when I was a young boy). For a start if they were thinking positive they would call it the Employment office. So the responsibility of the 'Unemployment Office' is to find us work. The recession has hit hard, you have been made redundant and off you go to the Unemployment Office. The first thing that happens is that you begin to feel as though you did something wrong and you see yourself standing there with many others in the same situation as you, but also with a lot of regulars who you have been propping up with your taxes for the last, how ever many recessions.
So you suck it up and give all of your details to a complete stranger some quite personal and you are asked why you do not have a job? You explain about the recession and cut backs etc and that you are willing to do anything, in order to work. The clerk says they will see what they can do.
The thing that we must accept is; when the bell goes at the end of that persons working day, they do not take your file home and keep working on it on your behalf. No, they take themselves home, sometimes to a worse situation than the one that you have and they worry about their life and the new job they want. You have now become a number in a computer program which will spit out jobs that may or may not suite you, but the thing is it’s a computer and it does not care. The clerk who you saw today will be inundated by a new group of people in the same situation as you tomorrow and you will be a distant memory.
The problem is that when we think that the Government will take care of (it) we fall foul to an unrealistic expectation of a group of people who work in buildings belonging to the Government. (Well actually, when you think about it the buildings belong to us). The only responsibility that the clerk has at the Unemployment Office is to clock in on time, follow the guidelines set down for them in the employee hand book and then do the best they can to get you a job in the time in which they are on the clock. Truth is, it is not their job to get us a job at all, it is their job to find opportunities for us to explore and the rest is up to us!
The Government that we have come to know and love is, in fact nothing more than a lot of office buildings with people in them doing jobs, just like you and I and at five-o-clock they all go home and Government as we would like it to exist, no longer does until they all clock in again the following morning.
Lee
A shift in thinking
I have been thinking lately that the fundamental beliefs, which are true to us all, have basically fallen apart. This is one of the, most unsure periods in history since the war
(and by that I mean World War ll). All of the rules have changed and the goalposts have been moved. For some the game has completely changed or does not exist anymore. It is indeed a very scary time.
During the Great Depression there were more people who became Millionaires than ever before. There was a shift in the way of thinking. There will be many Millionaires as a direct result of this recession as well and there will once again be a shift in the way of thinking.
This time however going into this period in history the world was connected in a way that as such is unprecedented. We have the ability and the technology to connect immediately to each other via facebook and twitter, by websites and blogs and the news is now reported as it unfolds. Because of these technologies exposing us to the successes and sufferings of others all over the world and now because so many have lost so much as a direct result of so few, I believe there has been a shift in the collective conscience. Now more than ever people are asking why they are doing what they do? Why do we get up in the morning and go to a job, spend eight hours there and then return home? Live the life we live. Have the friends we have? What price are we paying for those things? And is it worth it?
For many years generations have gone along with the flow doing what our parents did before and never really questioning why. It is a shame that we had to get to this point before we truly asked and then listed to the answers….
Because my parents did it. Because I got a degree in it. To pay the mortgage. That’s what I thought you did.
When I left school in 1971, I joined the Army as a boy soldier. The reason I joined was because when I went to see the guidance counselor and said I wanted to be a PE Teacher, she did that stupid English thing and screwed up her face as though she had something smelly underneath her nose and…well if your English you will know the rest. So I joined the Army because I did not want to work in a factory and because I believed that you left school and got a job. Admirable but not what I truly wanted to do and the WHY was the wrong WHY.
So now more than ever people are realizing that they will spend their whole life working at something, who said it cannot be with a passion? Who said we were not allowed to make a difference? Be a Teacher? Fireman? Artist, Actor or Writer?
While tragic to many I believe we had this coming. We have allowed others to run our lives for too long and given ‘carte blanch’ to those who were in charge. For some the price has been total loss and for most of us we are finding it tough. But for many we have looked at the situation and said if this is the price I pay for following the rules then the hell with it. If I am going to be in charge of my own destiny then I get to chose how my life turns out and that means how I spend my time.
If you are wondering what the next move is and who is going to give it to you, I have the answer. The next move is what ever you want it to be and you are the one who is going to give it to you. The question we must start asking ourselves is WHY we do the things we do. I assert that to make money (While not a bad thing) is also not an inspiring enough reason anymore. If that is the only reason then we are prone to take the best paying job we can get, which we may not really be that passionate about work hard for years at it while paying a high price for it’s monetary rewards and then find ourselves out of a job when there is a change in the economy. My suggestion is to find the thing we love and are passionate about, make that our life’s work and truth that we can create an income from it. Check out these links I hope they inspire you as much as they have me.
(and by that I mean World War ll). All of the rules have changed and the goalposts have been moved. For some the game has completely changed or does not exist anymore. It is indeed a very scary time.
During the Great Depression there were more people who became Millionaires than ever before. There was a shift in the way of thinking. There will be many Millionaires as a direct result of this recession as well and there will once again be a shift in the way of thinking.
This time however going into this period in history the world was connected in a way that as such is unprecedented. We have the ability and the technology to connect immediately to each other via facebook and twitter, by websites and blogs and the news is now reported as it unfolds. Because of these technologies exposing us to the successes and sufferings of others all over the world and now because so many have lost so much as a direct result of so few, I believe there has been a shift in the collective conscience. Now more than ever people are asking why they are doing what they do? Why do we get up in the morning and go to a job, spend eight hours there and then return home? Live the life we live. Have the friends we have? What price are we paying for those things? And is it worth it?
For many years generations have gone along with the flow doing what our parents did before and never really questioning why. It is a shame that we had to get to this point before we truly asked and then listed to the answers….
Because my parents did it. Because I got a degree in it. To pay the mortgage. That’s what I thought you did.
When I left school in 1971, I joined the Army as a boy soldier. The reason I joined was because when I went to see the guidance counselor and said I wanted to be a PE Teacher, she did that stupid English thing and screwed up her face as though she had something smelly underneath her nose and…well if your English you will know the rest. So I joined the Army because I did not want to work in a factory and because I believed that you left school and got a job. Admirable but not what I truly wanted to do and the WHY was the wrong WHY.
So now more than ever people are realizing that they will spend their whole life working at something, who said it cannot be with a passion? Who said we were not allowed to make a difference? Be a Teacher? Fireman? Artist, Actor or Writer?
While tragic to many I believe we had this coming. We have allowed others to run our lives for too long and given ‘carte blanch’ to those who were in charge. For some the price has been total loss and for most of us we are finding it tough. But for many we have looked at the situation and said if this is the price I pay for following the rules then the hell with it. If I am going to be in charge of my own destiny then I get to chose how my life turns out and that means how I spend my time.
If you are wondering what the next move is and who is going to give it to you, I have the answer. The next move is what ever you want it to be and you are the one who is going to give it to you. The question we must start asking ourselves is WHY we do the things we do. I assert that to make money (While not a bad thing) is also not an inspiring enough reason anymore. If that is the only reason then we are prone to take the best paying job we can get, which we may not really be that passionate about work hard for years at it while paying a high price for it’s monetary rewards and then find ourselves out of a job when there is a change in the economy. My suggestion is to find the thing we love and are passionate about, make that our life’s work and truth that we can create an income from it. Check out these links I hope they inspire you as much as they have me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)