Posted by
Tim Eckstrom on Saturday, November 01, 2008 at 12:34 PM
Categories:
Leadership Development,
Executive Coaching,
Miscellaneous
A few years ago I ran across the following story. I hope that you enjoy it.
The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time.
Let me tell you about it. I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whoever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles".
I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. "Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital." He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."
"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years." "Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part." "It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays."
"I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy." "So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away." "I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."
"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."
"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 75 year Old Man, this is K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.
Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."
As you may have guessed, I also bought marbles. For almost 4 years I have been taking them out one at a time. I keep them in my pocket throughout the week as a reminder of the many blessings that I have in my life. I hope that this Thanksgiving season has a great impact on your life.
Posted by
Ron Price on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 8:05 AM
Categories:
Strategic Planning,
Leadership Development
It is hard to find good news about the economy or business these days. I think it is part of human nature to be drawn to bad news. As human beings, the members of the media seem to get energized by telling us how bad things are. But is this reality?
Of course, there are sectors of the economy that are going through very difficult times. However, there are other sectors going stronger than ever. One of my friends helps banks manage properties that have been repossessed—how do you think he is doing? Another friend is involved in recycling and scrap. Another is involved in high tech engineering. All of these folks are as busy as ever and, if they didn’t watch the nightly news or read a news browser, they wouldn’t have a clue about “how bad things are”. What is the difference? They have strategies for their business that transcend or take advantage of the economic conditions.
Yes, it seems we are headed for a very different economic climate in the immediate future. But we don’t have to surrender and become a victim to something beyond our control. There are opportunities to adjust, to recreate, and to innovate—the same qualities of character that help us succeed in good times can help us adjust and succeed in difficult times. This is something I have been thinking about quite a bit lately and I’m referring to it as “strategic intelligence”. It is the ability to understand our internal strengths and limitations, then how to apply these to the external realities and opportunities that exist in the world around us. Instead of doom and gloom, I’m excited about the opportunities that exist during this time of change. Another perspective to consider…
Posted by
Ron Price on Monday, June 30, 2008 at 6:53 AM
Categories:
Leadership Development,
Executive Coaching,
Performance
One of my favorite weekend activities is reading. When I allow inquisitiveness to overrule my childish desire to finish one book before starting another, I like to read from several related books simultaneously. This weekend was one of those times. I moved back and forth from several different books exploring something I refer to as “quantum” leadership. It is based on synthesizing and applying much of what has been learned over the past two decades about quantum physics, quantum mechanics, and systems thinking. One of the most important aspects of quantum theory is that the relationship between the parts is more important than the parts. Here is one of the excerpts from my reading that is most stimulating to me in my own exploration of leadership:
“We tried for many years to avoid the messiness and complexity of being human, and now that denial is coming back to haunt us. We keep failing to create the outcomes and changes we need in organizations because we continue to deny that ‘the human element’ is anything but a ‘soft’ and not-to-be-taken-seriously minor distraction. We barely manage to survive the seemingly endless procession of organizational change fads and new ideas, each of which promises to make organizations more effective. CEOs acknowledge that about three-fourths of these efforts have failed. This terrible record of failure is, in my estimation, due to approaches that are predominantly technical and mechanistic. New technology is purchased; new organization charts are drawn; new training classes are offered. But most human dynamics are completely ignored: our need to trust one another, our need for meaningful work, our desire to contribute and be thanked for that contribution, our need to participate in changes that affect us.”
“Beyond the fads that have swept through large organizations, think of all the contemporary leadership problems that are variations on the theme that we don’t know how to work together. We struggle to help teams form quickly and work effectively. We struggle to learn how to work with the uniqueness that we call diversity. We are terrified of the emotions aroused by conflict, loss, love. In all of these struggles, it is being human that creates the problem. We have not yet learned how to be together. I believe we have been kept apart by three primary Western cultural beliefs: individualism, competition, and a mechanistic world view. Western culture, even as it continues to influence people everywhere, has not prepared us to work together in this new world of relationships. And we don’t even know that we lack these skills. In a simple example of the difficulties created by this ignorance, many MBA graduates who’ve been in the field a few years report that they wish they had focused more on organizational behavior and people skills while in school.”
“Leadership and the New Science – Discovering Order in a Chaotic World”, Margaret J. Wheatley
This hits close to the core of why Price Associates exists. We are explorers, along side our clients, to help discover new opportunities in a changing world.
Posted by
Ron Price on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 1:56 PM
Categories:
Leadership Development,
Executive Coaching,
Performance
I met with a great company this morning that is growing by leaps and bounds (who says there is a recession going on?) This company was started close to 10 years ago and they will generate revenue in excess of $100 million this year. The key to their success is also the greatest challenge they now face.
In the beginning stages, most companies succeed or fail based on the vision, passion and will-power of an entrepreneur. If they succeed the early years and grow, this same energy that was the key to survival can easily become the greatest limitation to continued growth. The problem: dynamic entrepreneurs can only carry the company so far and eventually the weight of their success begins to wear them out, or build a prison of their own making. The business depends on their decisions, their active involvement, and their motivation to continue its success. The problem is that growth creates more work and demand for decision making, energy and discipline than one person can provide. Initially, entrepreneurs work to solve this by adding “administrative assistants,” even when they give them titles like Vice President or Operations Manager. The title might sound like a decision maker, but the reality is that important decisions are still made by a solo practitioner at the top.
Smart entrepreneurs recognize this challenge and begin re-thinking their leadership role. They nurture others to take responsibility for performance, they learn to identify and develop leadership talent and they begin shifting their focus toward creating future success through wisdom and talents of others. They empower professional managers to build infrastructure, create systems and develop plans, all while avoiding a new set of organizational dangers; complacency, entitlement and bureaucracy.
It is a challenging journey, but many have successfully navigated this transition to a more professional, stable management style while not losing the energy, passion and uniqueness that brought their early success. The company I visited today is struggling with these realities and carefully laying the foundation for the next generation of success.
Posted by
Lynn McConnell on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 2:34 PM
Categories:
Talent Management,
Training & Team Building,
Leadership Development,
Performance
Emotional Intelligence, or EI, seems to be the topic de jour for organizational development these days. Broadly defined, EI can be defined as HOW people use the smarts they have. Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, professors from Yale University and the University of New Hampshire, defined emotional intelligence as “the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions.”
EI comprises four main areas:
- Self-awareness, or the ability to understand emotions and recognize how they affect oneself and other people.
- Self-management, or the ability to control one's emotions and impulses. Other attributes of self-management include trustworthiness, conscientiousness and adaptability.
- Social awareness, or the ability to be aware of others' feelings, needs and concerns. Key attributes of social awareness are empathy, service orientation and organizational awareness.
- Relationship management builds on the first three areas: communication, conflict management and the ability to influence others through inspirational leadership.
Why is this important?
Leaders set the emotional tone of an organization. Studies show that teams and individuals tend to be more creative problems solvers who adapt a win-win attitude toward conflict resolution.
We’ve all heard the phrase: “Employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers”.
In general, managers with a high emotional intelligence quotient tend to be empathetic, trustworthy, and have a knack for building relationships with others; while a manager with a low emotional intelligence quotient might be seen as critical and micro-managing.
Luckily, unlike intelligence quotients, emotional intelligence can be developed with training, feedback and coaching.
Does your organization measure and coach for emotional intelligence? If you don’t, you may be missing the boat when it comes to creating job satisfaction and developing those creative problem solvers who will become the leaders who will help your organization continue to thrive and grow!