Strategic Serendipity

As I dropped my toddler off at daycare today one classmate was already crying, another was literally on the verge, and two more (including mine) started before I left.  I left with a guilty relief thinking "I am so glad I don't have their job today" and "those gift cards do not even cut it for what they put up with."  You've seen it, one child is crying because he fell and the others cry not necessarily because they are hurt but seemingly out of a type of empathy. It goes the other way, too!  Watch any group of people (male or female) of any age get started laughing and once it gets going it is almost impossible to stop.  There isn't one leader, it is just a ripple of feeling that touches everyone in it's path. It may be a funny story when it happens in a pre-school room, but it happens in the office, too.  Whether you are the CEO or a front-line contributor, your attitude directly impacts every person with whom you come into contact.  And each p...

Typical Scene: Supervisor asks employee to take on X project with a deadline approximately six weeks from now. This is such a typical scene that it really doesn't seem that there is much variation in how the story can go from there, right?  Wrong.  Remember those children's books where you make a choice and then the story progresses from there?  Well let's examine just a couple of ways this typical scenario could go. Scenario 1 :  Sometime in the next 72 hours the supervisor stops by the office and asks the employee for a status update on the project.  Either... (a)...the employee has neatly drafted an project plan and happily shares this with the supervisor, or (b)...the employee says something vague to the effect of "it is on target" and wonders why the supervisor is micromanaging the project.   What is going on in these two very different reactions to the same exact question about the same project?   From a Myers-Briggs Type I...

What two critical elements are necessary?  If you are an organizational leader, you probably think your senior leaders need to be able to work as a team, communicate effectively, and think critically.  You probably think, with respect to your own personal development, you just need more support and time from your organization. While these elements are all important, there are two critical elements, that if not present, will prevent effective leadership development.  (In other words, the return on investment for the individual and organization are negligible.) Leadership development is about learning a leadership tool and then engaging in a circular process of testing it, reflecting on the results, refining your technique, and repeating until that tool has become second nature in both determination of appropriate use and execution.  Then you learn another tool and start all over again.  Every class you take, every book you read, every mentor you spe...

You can take away my paycheck but you can't stop me from working!  (Legal Disclaimer #1: I am not working on anything related to any of my government duties.) Let me paint the picture of my morning for you...I slept in, showered leisurely, dropped my son off at daycare just as Miss Rosa brought his second breakfast in at 9:00 AM, wandered across the park to the Starbucks, ordered my Trenta Unsweetened Iced Green Tea and Raspberry Swirl pound cake, had an amazing call about a volunteer position I am so excited about (more later), talked to my mom on the phone, sent out an e-mail to start booking some additional work on my other furlough days that aren't the Friday before a long weekend, started a new fundraising campaign on my Scentsy Family sites ( Scentsy and Velata ), and am sitting here writing this post and it is not even noon yet!  My afternoon will be filled with working on that volunteer project and a Franklin Covey virtual certification.  The Starbuck's has wi-...

When it comes time for mid-term or annual reviews there are obviously things a MANAGER needs to tell an employee.  But if you are a good LEADER you have consistently given in-the-moment feedback on the things that the employee does well and the things the employee does not do well.  And so the annual review becomes a practice in "busy" work for both. So how does a LEADER effectively use the reflective time called the "annual review" if both the employee and the leader know all the nuances of that piece of paper?  Admit it is just a formality, shake the employee's hand, sign the necessary paperwork, and send the employee off with a new assignment?  Possibly.  Or the leader can use that time in a way that will serve the employee, the leader, and the organization for the next six to twelve months. Here is a proposed agenda for leaders who want to maximize the annual review time with high-performing employees: 1.  Welcome the employee to the office. 2...

The teen years are the years you prepare for the rest of your life. You start driving, and get a part-time job. As a teen, it is important to have fun because you will never have so much un-preoccupied time again. But it is also important to learn and develop skills you will need for life.  One skill is leading. At some point, you going to have to be a leader, whether it be for a study group, a sales project, or a sports team.  Leadership is a very important trait to have. Take every other great character trait you know and put it together. Confidence, responsibility, kindness, fairness, empathy, courage, respectfulness, it is all needed to create a good leader.  As a good leader, you also have to know how to deal with mistakes. Everyone is human, and you have to learn to improvise when things get tough. You just have to strive to be your best, in spite of the hurdles. And to me, that’s what leadership really is. Editor's Note: BV is a teenager so personal informa...

I am constantly carting around a toddler and a stroller full of stuff and possibly a bag or two on my shoulder.  Getting on and off the bus is the worst.  Many times, someone will grab something to "help" and not realize that they are making it harder (that bag you just grabbed is hooked to my stroller and now the stroller is being pulled out of my arms while I am trying to hold the baby and scan my card to pay for the bus ride).  The other day, when I got off the bus stop, there were two military men who  watched me get off the bus, open the stroller with one hand (if you are buying a stroller this is a MUST requirement), and put the baby in.  Afterwards, they laughed and said they were going to help but realized I had it under control.  I actually knew from the minute I saw them stop talking and look up that if I needed help I could ask, but the fact that they waited to see if I needed them or not meant more to me. That is not to say, do not help people...

I recently had the extreme honor of speaking to the Truman State University Academic Honor Award recipients.  These young men and women were honored as the outstanding students in their respective disciplines.  I was asked to tell them what my liberal arts education has meant to me. Now let me be perfectly clear here, this was the first Academic Honor Award ceremony I have ever attended.  Most of the winners had minors and/or double majors.  Some of the winners were honored as the outstanding student in two majors!  If statistics prove right, most of them will go on to earn advanced degrees.  I wondered for weeks what knowledge I had that would ever be of any use to them. And then it hit me, for most of them, the career at which they will excel and be on the leading edge of, probably doesn't even exist yet.  So I gave them advice that would prepare them to spot and to act on the opportunities I can't even comprehend that will take them on their jou...

Would you believe that there are still places in the world that do not have Internet access?  Moreover, places where my iPhone only has text capability, no data?  Well let me tell you about my father's house in Knoxville, IA. Knoxville itself is modern enough, I am utilizing the free wifi at the Public Library and the Coffee Connection to post this. But my dad refuses to get Internet access and the steel siding on his house makes any type of cell connection difficult or impossible. I did convert him from a flip phone to an iPhone in January so I am still holding out hope for wifi, but until then, my vacation is unplugged... Rest assured, I am writing and will resume when I return to DC this weekend.  In the meantime, what would you do if you were sans Internet connection for a week?

It is 2:30 am and I am writing this on a train from somewhere in the middle of Ohio. That is not an apology for any typos (although...), it is sheer awe in how far technology has come.  When I do my presentation on Generations in the Workforce I have a slide that describes what was going on in the world in the year 2000 and that has always been powerful for me. But tonight I am traveling back to my undergraduate university (for another post) and thinking about when I graduated in 1993. I skipped the ceremony and got in a car with a friend and moved to Washington DC with no money and no job but full of promise and ready to change the world.  Crazy, right?   Twenty years later, as I sit on this train next to the most precious little boy ever, I am in sheer awe that I still feel full of promise and ready to change the world. Technology has advanced beyond my wildest dreams and my ideas of how I can contribute to the world have morphed, but that hope, promise, and dream are s...

You know my opinion that when it comes to professional development , you get out of a program what you put into it.  So now you get my opinion on the single most important element of personal/professional development. 
SELF AWARENESS 
 What is it?  Self awareness is knowing your strengths and how to maximize them, knowing your weaknesses and how to buffer them, knowing that you have blind spots and being open to feedback about them, and being willing to do the necessary reflection and work to constantly improve yourself. I have observed so many people in leadership development programs (1 hour to 18 month) listen to an amazing instructor describe an action, reaction, or career derailer and immediately speak up and identify someone else who has that quality.  You would not believe how often, that person has the same quality.  However, they often even follow up with because of my experience working with that person I make a point to not do this.  Awkward....