Leadership and management are about making a Difference. Ask anyone who attempts it, and the motivation is to make things better, faster, more efficient, easier. Some definition of Different is embedded in both the role and the calling. Those who are not that role will often look up at them and wonder first why would anyone want that job, and then second, exactly what the heck are they talking about? Clearly, it is some other language, as what they are saying makes little or no sense to them…
Leadership topic - Rock
engaging Differences
Turning to engage this week, we lost an hour… but that means we gain more evening on Wednesday … to celebrate the gift that Irish have been to the world, particularly to America. As a mutt myself, I have a special affinity for “… your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”. And it gives me the excuse I need to write about one of the true giants of music, and hopefully tell some stories that are Different – which is what the musical soundtrack and this week’s theme start with. Differences – which has received a lot of attention but…
Celebrating renewal
After the encouragement of my roommate, and after trying other ways of renewal that were less fulfilling, I found the group at our local church to be the major hub for activities and renewal. We would gather for meals occasionally during each week, and particularly on Sunday, with literally 12 guitar players, leading singing for maybe another 20-ish. Friday nights were often go-kart racing or other fun activities, including one Halloween party that we are all glad there were no cell phone cameras for – no real bad activities, but some that, seen 45 years later, might be judged differently…
Celebration execution
Politics, or trying to not write about it, had a hand in starting these columns years ago. After being active in High School, begrudgingly, I tried to stay out of it in college, but to no avail. I was spotted by a junior in my sophomore year, and he wanted to groom a successor. There was a Student Senate, and the Engineering School needed someone to be on it, and he suggested I ran – which I did and served for 3 of my 4 years. He also wanted me to take over the Student Engineers Joint Council (SEJC), the student leadership group for the School, which I also did. This was one reason I was standing in the middle of the road on a Friday night, missing a shoe, waiting for my girlfriend to pick me up… and likely be executed…
wonder how to Celebrate?
Parental Advisory – Explicit Content. ;-)… so I have wanted to write this post since I started writing these – literally. It is one of the greatest musicians, with the greatest names, and bundled into one of the best live bands ever… and there will be a lot of double and triple entendres and allusions that you will get, and some will probably miss… but whatever. Here we go, and I am indebted to my friend for suggesting we talk about J Geils – as I now have an excuse… as with newspapers, those of you reading this on LinkedIn and FaceBook will have to wonder what happens under the fold…
Celebrate or observe?
Explaining my empower framework to people, they will often ask me ‘Which one is the most critical?’ And like picking your favorite child, it is a fool’s errand as it mostly depends on the situation you are in. Pressed hard, it is a toss-up between today’s observe and tomorrow’s wonder. The interesting paradox to Celebrate this week is that the songs were literally released on the same single in 1971 – this is the A-side, and tomorrow’s is the B-side. Both were huge hits, but this was their first top 40 hit – cracking it at 39. And both were on the album titled, The Morning After… which makes the story today even more poignant…
partners to Celebrate
Yes, that picture is Faye Dunaway, and no that is not Frank Zappa. I always enjoy finding odd things to Celebrate about the artists, and try to tease just enough that if you really want to know more, you can. And with today’s theme being “partner”, this seemed like a perfect place to slot in a story about one of the other major players in the band, and also a short story about partners that I still Celebrate from those days at SMU in the ’70s…
managing Celebrating
Realizing that no one was actually listening made me question why I was giving my nights and weekends to being a college radio DJ. So after a few weeks, I stepped down, but what to do with my time? A few guys on the floor were starting to play guitar in the evenings, and I managed to bring mine back after a weekend at home. Politely, one of them that I was tutoring through Physics pulled me aside and suggested that I might want to switch over to Bass …. as I was actually never going to be good on guitar… honest feedback that many years later I still Celebrate…
Celebrating by engaging
As I headed west from Tyler, my destination was Dallas where I engaged in the fall of 1976 on my path to become an Electrical Engineer. One thing about engineering was once you picked which type (EE, ME, IE, etc), your class schedule was mostly set. To get through it all in 4 years, you had to take 18 hours a semester, and the classes were sequenced so your “planning” was mostly just filling in a few “electives” that were like ‘free spaces’ on the Bingo card. And being a good student, I ripped into the classes, including an 8 am MWF Statics class – a tough ME class required for all engineering majors…
A renewing Outcome
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execution Outcomes
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Outcomes to make you wonder
Wandering through my High School years I played a bit in the political space. It was an...
observing Outcomes
By my Junior year in High School, I had found at least the beginnings of who I was becoming. Now...
Seeing partners Outcomes..
Texas is not friendly to mass transportation. A mix of the frontier mentality, setting out to...