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Showing posts from March, 2019

Everyone Wants To Get There Fast

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We are working on a project now at work that has taken much longer than we at first estimated. It is a terrible feeling to miss the mark the way we have, but the number one reason we are taking longer is because we are trying to build something beyond a one time fix, something with real lasting power that will work for lots of similar situations down the road. There is always a trade-off, the more people you involve, the more scenarios you try to fix with your solution, the longer it will take. Hopefully those extra meetings and the extra time has a benefit of something far greater created for the long run. You have to know what your goal is, and as a leader be okay with making a sacrifice because you can't have it all. Is your goal to be first in a hundred meter sprint or do you need a relay like the Pony Express to get something over a great distance? Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too, no one ever has.

Meetings Musings - I Waste Too Much Time In Meetings

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Have you ever had those times when you know that God is really trying to get your attention on something? I've had that recently thinking about meetings. It started when I read a quote from Tribe of Mentors   attributed to John Arnold: There are many organizations that fret over small, direct expenses, yet have no misgivings about keeping superfluous staff tied up in a conference room for hours. I then looked at my calendar and the number of meetings I have in a week and I could see why I don't ever get anything done. Just this week if have 36 meetings on my calendar, in just 5 days. It includes meetings that I've scheduled, 1-on-1's with employees, daily Scrum calls that take no more than 15 minutes, project status calls, etc. I won't go to all of them either, as there are 4 that I'm double booked for. But it is easy to see why I'm starting to analyze my meetings and where I'm spending my time. The number one thing I'm working on is trying to

Better Management And More Humanity

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Heard an interesting quote recently by Jim Collins (author of Good to Great  and other titles) attempting to summarize Peter Drucker's life and work, who was probably the greatest management thinker and author of all time. He said that Drucker spent his life trying to answer the question, "How do we make our society both more productive (i.e. better management) and more humane?" As a manager this idea definitely hit me hard because it is something I struggle with, and I see most people in management positions struggle with. We have a very competitive nature in the business world and this need to either be successful or just hold on to our jobs over people that seems to have no morals. Where direction given is sometimes simply, "Just get the job done." I use a lot of sports analogies in my job, and most successful teams have a coach that has been strict, or pushed them to reach higher levels of performance. There is a balance there in so many places in life,

Seize Every Opportunity You Can In Life

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There are opportunities that come along in our life that we have to dare to jump at. There are times that you get a chance to try for something and failure is a possibility. You have a moment to go on stage and perform a solo or give a speech, in front of 100's of people, and yes, it could go horribly wrong. That fear sets in, you don't want to be embarrassed. You wonder what people will think of you if it doesn't go well. It is easy to play it safe and turn down the offer. Take the chance anyway. You don't want to live your life just wishing you had taken the opportunity. Regretting that you didn't take the chance of embarrassment to feel the rush of performing, with all eyes on you. You might not be the greatest ever to do it, but you are one of the few that actually did try. Your first time might not go perfectly, but you can learn from it. Realize that it wasn't as bad as you thought and determine what you need to do the next time to make it better.

So You Had A Bad Day - Now What?

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A recent tweet by @JonAcuff (a very entertaining follow) talked about the most dangerous day for any goal is "The Day After Perfect." It was referring to the times we break an accomplishment streak and we just let the slide take over. How true it is that we let one off day define us. One bad day break us down that we figure since we already missed yesterday what is the point of hitting today. We all have bad days, when things don't go as we want. Don't let the bad day keep you down. Your bad day is in the past, today is the day you can define who you want to be.

A New Appreciation Of The Power In Words

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Words are a funny thing. A word can have multiple meanings, like mine (it's mine vs. dig coal in a mine), organ (instrument or body part) or date (fruit, calendar day or person you are going out with). Words can change meaning over time like how tweet used to just be the sound a bird made. Words can even mean different things to different groups of people, if I say something is lit it will mean something very different to my daughter than it would to my mother. Definitions of words can be a funny thing too. People don't often look up the words they use and yet often we have definitions in our heads that don't match what is in the dictionary. This happened to me recently in a conversation where we were talking about humility. When you look up the word humility in the dictionary it is, "a modest or low view of one's own importance." That is very different then what I always thought of embodied in C.S. Lewis' quote, "A truly humble man will not be thin

You Are The Piece That Completes The Puzzle

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I hate to break it to you, but not everyone likes you, and that is okay. That doesn't mean you are broken or worthless. It just means that you are unique. Just like a puzzle where each unique piece has its spot that completes the picture, you are the unique piece that fits into God's creation to make His picture beautiful. Every piece matter though and don't let anyone tell you differently, especially yourself. Should we try to get along with the people we work with, live next to, go to school with, cross paths with in the store and every area of life? Certainly, be a good human, but not everyone will want to be best friends. Continue to try to be the best person you can be, but accept that you will never be perfect. Once we realize that about ourselves, we also need to realize it about everyone we cross paths with. They also aren't perfect so we shouldn't expect them to be.

People Are Not Issues

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When we make mistakes it is easy to see ourselves as the issue. When people point out our mistakes it is easy to get defensive or beat ourselves up. It is easy to see issues as the people themselves and that is what our society likes to do today, but it isn't about the people, it is about the issue. My kids make mistakes, and when they do sometimes I get mad or disappointed. Often they feel hurt and will tell me that it feels like I don't like them. I tell them that I love them and that what I don't like is the choice they made. I'm not mad at them, I'm mad about their decisions I think most parents think and feel the same way, yet when it comes to the people that we work with or go to school with, we think of them as the issue, when it really shouldn't be any different. We need to start recognizing that people are people and issues are issues and treat each appropriately.