Archive | September, 2007

Are You A Tourist To Your Own Career?

by on September 26, 2007 in Career

I just published my first post over at Career Hub where I’ll be writing a few times a month. Here’s the beginning excerpt.

Sometimes I get overcharged,
that’s when you see sparks.
They ask me where the hell I’m going?
At a 1000 feet per second,
hey man, slow down, slow down,
idiot, slow down, slow down.
Radiohead – The Tourist

I fondly remember spending a college semester abroad in Oxford, England. It was a wonderful opportunity to surround myself in a different culture and experience the world from a different perspective. It was also a chance to visit all the places I had read about in books and seen on television. Along with my fiancée (now wife), we discovered ruined remains of long abandoned castles, quaint villages with thatch-covered homes, and charming roadside pubs.

We also made a point to visit London. London is a magnificent city with no lack for things to see and do. If visiting unprepared, it can be overwhelming. So being the kind of guy who wants to be prepared for anything, I made a very detailed schedule for our first visit. When I say ‘detailed’, I mean down to the minute. How else can you see the Tower of London, British Museum, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the National Gallery all in one day? That’s a lot to do and only a detailed plan can make sure it all happens.

The first thing you realize when trying to stick to a very full schedule is that other people may not want to cooperate. Sure, my fiancée was playing along, but the Londoners operating the Underground (their version of our subways), serving tea, and guiding the site tours just wouldn’t keep to my strategically created schedule. I even suspected my fiancée was an accomplice to their desire to subvert my plans. However, despite their best effort, they couldn’t break my resolve and by the end of the day we accomplished my mission of visiting each place on the list. We could leave the city saying that we had been to all the places you associate with London.

You may be thinking, “Sure, you accomplished your objective, but did you really enjoy the experience?” The answer would have to be ‘no.’ And worse, those around me didn’t enjoy it either. Sadly, I hardly remember any of those places on that trip. I was driven by the importance of being able to say I had visited those places.

My mad tourist dash seems silly, yet how many times have we done the same thing in our careers. So many of us race from task to task, project to project, and job to job. Perhaps we do this so we can check them off our strategically created career plans. Or maybe we become seduced by the thought that the next thing ahead is better than what we have right now. Ultimately, we find ourselves trapped by the notion that the destination becomes far more important than the journey itself and we lose ourselves in the process.

So, what can we do?

Find out by visiting Career Hub…

Holy Crap, Facebook Is Addictive

by on September 25, 2007 in Media

Or it could just be that I’m easily enamored by the latest new cool thing. I’m not sure whether this infatuation with Facebook will go the long haul, but it’s already giving me some clues that I might just be liking it for a while to come. Why?

Reason #1: Because I’ve actually found some old high school friends who I haven’t seen or talked to in ages. It’s a treat to find out how they’re doing and share their life’s journey. There’s practically no way I would have been able to find them and catch up without FB, particularly since I’m 1500 miles from my former hometown.

Reason #2: A lot of my other social networking apps work with it…namely, Shelfari, Twitter, and Delicious. It’s neat to get all of my online hangouts merged into one place where my buds can see them, too. Heck, there are even some new ones like Where I’ve Been and iLike.

Reason #3: It beats the pants off of LinkedIn as a way to build professional contacts. As so many others have noted, LinkedIn is static and boring in the way a one-trick pony is. With Facebook, I have a much greater opportunity to build both personal and professional relationships that have actual meaning. I can related to what my contacts actually like, what they’re reading and watching, what places they’ve visited, and so on.

If you’re interested in connecting through Facebook, visit my profile page and add me to your friends.

Connecting To Work That Matters

by on September 24, 2007 in Work

As I wrap up for this Monday evening, I keep coming back to an idea that is fairly simple, yet ever so easy for managers to forget. It’s the idea of matter. No, not dark matter hanging out in the cosmos or grey matter hanging out between our ears.

It’s the idea that employees want work that matters.

It’s the idea that employees want to matter.

We all want to feel that who we are and what we do is significant. In the crazy busy world of business, these feelings can get lost in the shuffle of meeting deadlines, making client calls, and other everyday activities. Yet, without being in touch with what matters, we tend to just go through the motions.

Leader managers have a unique role to fill by helping their folks connect with these deep and significant qualities. As a manager…if you don’t already know these things…take some time today to dialogue with your staff and find out what really matters to them.

And take some time to answer: What really matters to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Arrr, It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day Ye Scurvy Bilge Rat

by on September 19, 2007 in Life

Fer all ye aspiring pirates out there (and ye know who ye are), today is yer day. It’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day. It’s a day to put aside all yer worries, grab ye sword, tell a merry yarn to your best mates, and make some landlubbers walk the plank (I think ye call them managers). Now, maybe ye ain’t sure if ye have what it takes to be a pirate. Arrr…it’s easy.

First, ye start by singing a right jaunty tune. Me mate Cap’n Tom Smith has written a ditty to celebrate our day called Talk Like A Pirate Day. ‘Ere’s a start to help ye along:

Yo, Ho, Yo, Ho,
It’s “Talk Like A Pirate” Day!
When laptops are benches God gave us fer wenches,
And a sail ain’t a low price ta pay!
When timbers are shivered and lillies are livered
And every last buckle is swashed,
We’ll abandon our cars for a shipfull of ARRRs
And pound back the grog till we’re sloshed! Yo ho….

Ye can sing the whole tune.

Remember…any pirate needs a good pirate name. If ye need some help (or your crew insists on calling ye Ole Blackbutt or Cap’n Chumbucket), then thar be help fer ye. Fer instance, it helped me take the fine pirate name of Dirty Harry Rackham. It even told me what this fine name means:

You’re the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean — not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

So, get off yer duff, swash yer buckle, and plunder yonder villages. Take pride in being a pirate today. Or you’ll be sent down to Davy Jones’ Locker.

Sit Back And Appreciate The Show

by on September 14, 2007 in Work

Tammy Lenski’s writing a series on dialogue jump-starts as guest blogger at Notes on Design. Jump-start #3 is called Go to the Movies. In this post, she offers a fantastic analogy for stepping back and understanding (or at least trying to understand) another person’s perspective.

She presents some clear ideas for getting into someone’s movie:

Listening carefully, just like at the movies. You don’t repeatedly talk out loud there, right?

Getting into their movie isn’t about agreeing with them or suspending your disagreement for good. It’s about creating genuine space for the other’s perspective to reach you and be considered by you before you react, respond, reply.

Getting into someone’s movie is an act of appreciation. It’s appreciating that our own ideas are not universal truths, that our own perceptions are limited, and that our own potential to deeply connect with others is bounded only by our willingness to be open.