This month, I … (am not sure what the right verb is … Celebrate? Acknowledge? Note?) that I have completed 9 full years with cancer.
The tumor is wrapped around the Aorta so it can never come out. So after almost two years of wishing and hoping, we had to adjust our mindset to “managing it”.
It has NOT been easy – on me, my family, my business partners, and even my clients. People have been very understanding and supportive for which I’m very grateful.
Last month I posted about Organizational Excellence, provided some examples of who has achieved it, and challenged my readers to define how they can personally support the “journey”.
OK, so that makes me think about Personal Excellence. Wow. That’s a loaded concept. It’s embedded in many things – your view of life, of work, of yourself, and of your WHY.
To a degree, I feel someone needs to define (even loosely) who they are as a person and what they stand for. All “measurements” require some form of baseline to compare against.
But … we are complex beings. We can have excellence in some areas and be woefully short in others. Is there an overall “score” for that? Adding more complexity, we may place different weight or emphasis on some areas over others.
We spend about 1/3 of our time during our working years … at work. The organizations we work in run the gamut from Outstanding to Horrific. If it’s close to the latter, you may dread Sunday night and Monday morning. But … who are/have been the great ones? There are examples in every niche of life. Here are a few of them:
“I’ll hang on till I get my bonus”
December marks the time for holiday parties and usually the handing out of bonuses. The size of the bonus can have several factors – culture of the organization, organizational performance that year, and judgements about the individual’s performance.
That takes us back to virtual vs. in-person. How are we measuring the performance of those who do most of their work virtually? Do we really measure by results?
Thanksgiving is next week. Most people will use the holiday (and the season) to reflect more deeply on what they are thankful for.
I’ve spoken about this in numerous posts over the last two years. In short, I am:
How about you?
We don’t get through life alone.
We have parents, teachers, bosses, (for me) the military, and others that play a more formal role.
But we also have those that “take us under their wing”.
Sometimes we seek it; other times they find us.
I’m not going to debate the terms mentor (longer-term, less outcome-based) vs. coach here.
It used to be that we could point to one person as our mentor.
Over the past 20 – 30 years it’s become common to have multiple mentors that help us in different ways. The concept of reverse mentoring is now pretty commonplace.
Halloween is coming soon. Kids love to dress up in costumes for the trick or treat event. The question is usually: “What do you want to be for Halloween”? Parents often buy or make those costumes to help make them happy. The variety is super wide, but it frequently mirrors things in the current pop culture.
My last posting was about “Who am I inspired to serve?” This article is my personal answer.
I have been a member of the Federal Government workforce (20 year Coast Guard career) and a consultant to them (first-ever Executive Capstone Program for the Department of Homeland Security; FY 2024-28 Strategic Plan for the US Marshals Service) for many years.
My heart, though, is with local governments. With exceptions, their work is more often the direct delivery of services rather than policy creation and implementation. A City or County Manager is responsible for everything in that jurisdiction (Public Safety; Economic Development; Parks and Recreation; Public Works; Family Services; Courts; Permitting; and more). Interestingly, I feel that they are more easily accountable as you may run into them at the grocery store.
This “issue” has intrigued me for a long time. I’ll bet that we’ve all had at least one … or maybe more than our share.
I’ve seen them across all sectors of the workplace – Federal government, local government, commercial/private sector, not-for-profits, and academia.
We know what they look like. We know what it feels like to work for them. We know the damage that they cause/inflict – on individuals, teams, and organizations.
So, why are they that way? Several reasons:
