As I read Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, I was struck by his comment regarding the “give a man a fish” saying. Yes, when we teach a man to fish, it gives that person food for a lifetime, and yet, sometimes, it’s important, and perhaps even necessary, to also give that person a fishing pole/rod.…
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Books @ Work: Originals by Adam Grant
Books @ Work: While reading Originals by Adam Grant, I was delighted to see that the research shows that procrastination actually yields a better product! I’ve always known that about the deck we converted into a porch many years ago. As we delayed, the ideas for improvement to our original design gave us a significantly…
Birthday Celebrations and Scavenger Hunts
My birthday is on Christmas Day, so it is sometimes difficult to celebrate it separately during the hectic holiday season. We often go out to dinner after the holidays instead of trying to cram it into other festivities. This year a friend asked me, “What would you like to do to celebrate your birthday?”…
Conflict with (not within) Your Organization?
Are you in conflict with the organization you work for? Do the values of your organization conflict with your personal values? A consultant I once knew refused a lucrative assignment with a meat packing company because he was a vegetarian. Maybe it’s more that the organization’s espoused values aren’t what actually takes place on a daily basis?…
Conflict? What Kind This Time?
Are you experiencing conflict @ work at the moment? What kind? How well are you aligned with your organization? Do you support the organization’s initiatives? Its values? Its mission and the specific things it does in the world? How about your job? Do the tasks you do on a daily basis align with your skills,…
Managing Expectations
Our daughter recently had a partially fallen tree removed from her yard. The remainder threatened to hit the house if it, too, fell unexpectedly. Before beginning, one of the arborists asked, “How attached are you to that big bush next to the tree we are removing? I’ve had some jobs where I’ve been so careful…
How Do Your Customers Find You?
On a recent trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, we used several methods to find restaurants and coffee shops. The hotel had a city map with advertisments as the border of the map, and we found several good places to eat that way. There was also a pamphlet-sized tourist guide and a magazine-sized regional guide for…