Day in the Life

Be the Difference

2011-11-21T19:25:00.000-08:00

Tom Ziglar recounts a story that his father, Zig Ziglar, would tell about a young boy and his grandfather walking down the beach. A big storm had come in the day before and there were hundreds and hundreds of sand-dollars washed up and starting to die in the sun. As they walked, the grandfather would stop from time to time, reach down, pick up a sand dollar and throw it into the ocean. Finally, the little boy asked, “Grandfather, why are you throwing them back in?” and his grandfather replied, “So that they will live.” The little boy thought for a minute and said, “But grandfather, there are so many of them! What possible difference can it make?” And the grandfather, reaching down and tossing another one back into the ocean, said, “To that one, it will make all of the difference in the world.”

No matter how many times I have heard the tale, each time it touches my heart and reminds me that each day we wake on this planet and are given a new slate. We can choose to be the difference.

Ghandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see.” But, how do we be the change we wish to see in the world, when the world seems so messed up right now? By not trying to boil the ocean, but in starting small and remembering along the way the most simple gesture of good will can have an amazing ripple effect.

For as long as I can remember each day, as I see my boys off for the day, I say “do something today that changes the world.” What a reward later in the day to hear them recount the great things they did. My favorite? My then 8-year-old who told his teacher she looked beautiful in her purple dress. In return for “making her day” she allowed him to be first in both the recess and lunch line. Talk about learning a life lesson about the ripple effect first hand!

Recently, my 15-year-old caught me off guard. When I dropped him off and before I was able to say the words he turned to me and said, “Off to change the world, Mom.” Yes, this is the same son who brought a tear to my eye months ago when he turned to me at drop off and said, "Make good decisions today Mom." Absolutely, no doubt that he will change the world, but instead of sand-dollars it will be one person at a time.

The Art of Refocusing

2011-08-19T00:28:00.000-07:00

"If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

“Today every inch of my character was tested…just hoping it wasn’t a dress rehearsal for tomorrow.” – Facebook Post 8/18/11 3:13am

"I try to take just one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked me at once.” – Anonymous

The last two weeks have been tough. Real tough.

I have found myself, throughout the days, needing to simply stop and reset. Now, I can clearly see the goodness in the stop and reset approach and I do my very best to refrain from participating in the defeating behavior of “spinning” which I recognize equates to paralysis. In essence, I’m calling "five for fighting" and taking the adult version of a time out (unfortunately without the accompanying nap). The other goodness that comes from this approach is, it gets me out of feelings of disappointment, discouragement, being questioned and challenged and in to those feelings of hope and progression towards a noble goal.

In the midst of a particularly rough issue, I started to sketch out this concept of stop, reset and progress:

Now, this concept is new to me and I haven’t fully mastered it. Sometimes I linger a little too long in “reset” mode before I can move fully, authentically, into progress. And, if I am being 100% honest, there is at least one time that I slipped back to full blown stop.

In both examples, something simple snapped me out of it (a Teddy Roosevelt quote above my desk or an unexpected note from a former team member) and motivated me towards progression.

During two tumultuous weeks, this self-reflection exercise felt like I had found the Holy Grail when in fact, it was actually some reinventing of the wheel.

I suppose that at the end of the day, it isn't about how many times the message is given, it’s not even about how many times the message is received, it’s about the message actually being applied. Me? I apparently needed to hear the message at least three times before it applied itself.

Curious though, as we all have our ways of resetting our focus to progressing…..what do you do to go from stop to reset to progress? What works for you? Comments welcome below.

Developing Strategic Relationships

2011-02-03T05:27:00.000-08:00

Extraordinary Leader by authors John Zenger and Joseph Folkman was adopted as the leadership model to assist our company’s leaders develop their full leadership potential. Within the book, the authors discuss the behaviors of leadership breaking down each into tangible and relatable items affording leaders to assess their maturity within each behavior.

In late 2010 as I pondered about my career path, I pulled out the book and reflected on the behaviors and jotted down a few that would be essential components in the next position.

Surprised I was at first, to find the behavior that fell at the top of the list was “develops strategic relationships.” Upon reflection, this should not have been a surprise as I have openly shared my StrengthsFinder results, with the number one strength being “relator”.

In the role we play as Technology Architects, developing strategic relationships is critical. Relationship are essential to the strategic process because they are the enabler to get a spot at the table where ideation is occurring. At that juncture, the role is amplified and we become trusted partners within the process and we are able to do what we do best: translate vision to capability.

Zenger and Folkman provide the following behaviors to demonstrate the activities necessary to develop strategic relationships:

Know how work relates to the organization’s business strategy (line-of-sight connection).
Balance the short-term and long-term needs of the organization.
Demonstrate forward thinking about tomorrow’s issues.
Clarify vision, mission, values, and long-term goals for others.
Explain to others how changes in one part of the organization affect other organizational systems.
Continually communicate the highest-priority strategic initiatives to keep the leadership team focused on the right things.
Ensure that all systems in the organization are aligned toward achieving the overall strategic goals.
Lead organizational efforts that exploit the most highly leveraged business opportunities.

Extraordinary Leader © 2010 Zenger Folkman. All rights reserved.

Assisting our businesses take their vision and translate it into technological capability through a technology roadmap and related architecture is critical to sustain business, but even more important to maintain our competitive advantage. And, at the end of the day is an expectation of our customers to be anywhere they are at the time they want us. Thus, building strategic relationships is fundamental to our success.

Below are ideas captured from various leaders on how to improve effectiveness in the building relationships while demonstrating the core competencies of Develops Strategic Relationships.

Develop an elevator speech.
Develop and communicate strategic goals and report on a regular basis in every meeting with your peers.
Ask, listen and understand where people are before communicating to them.
Leverage the Wells Fargo Vision and Values.
Have the written strategy defining all critical communications to reinforce the vision/ strategy.
Communicate clear messages and do it over and over and over again.
Ensure messages are not so “in the clouds” that they are not relatable.
Take a Strategic Communications course.
Ask for feedback from all audience levels.

As you make developing strategic relationships a focus, share your successes with management or offer up at team members for shared learning.

Thank you for letting me share!
~Stacy

What do you do best? Do you do it everyday?

2011-01-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

"Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?"

- Benjamin Franklin

The StrengthsFinder website (http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx) begins by asking a simple question: Do you do what you do best every day? It then continues with a sad reality, “chances are, you don’t.”

From cradle to cubicle, most people spend more time focusing on what they can’t do right, versus what they do right. And, often times, what comes naturally to people (whether it be designing great architectures or giving great speeches or motivating the masses) is what people like to do.

I don’t know about you, but StrengthsFinder resonates with me. Personally, I am tired of living in a world that revolves around fixing weaknesses versus harnessing strengths.

Ask Yourself: Do You Do What You Do Best Every Day?

Gallup says, “Society’s relentless focus on people’s shortcomings had turned into a global obsession. What’s more, we have discovered that people have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies.”

Peter Drucker, business guru extraordinaire, knew the secret of focusing on strengths. He said, "Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong...And yet, a person can perform only from strength."

Tying StrengthsFinder to our own team member engagement surveys, is critical. Over the past decade, Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement (and how positive and productive people are at work), and only one third “strongly agree” with the statement of “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday.”

Talent x Investment = Strength (StrengthsFinder, pg. 20)

And for those team members that do not get to focus on what they do best – their strengths – the costs are staggering. In a recent poll of more than 1,000 people, among those who “strongly disagree” or “disagreed” with this “what I do best” statement, not a single person was emotionally engaged on the job.” (StrengthsFinder 2.0, pg 1-2)

They go on to say having someone at work who regularly focuses on strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged and more than three times as likely to report having a excellent quality of life in general. Interesting enough, they also report that having a manager ignore you is even more detrimental than one who focuses on your weaknesses.

Who is focusing on your strengths? Are You?

Now, to my team, some of you, reading this, are reading to jump in and take the assessment. Others are rolling their eyes and saying, “why, oh why?” Please, humor me. Take a leap of faith. Take the StrengthsFinder assessment and, upon completion, send me a copy of your five theme report so we can harness those Strengths. I think our collective themes will be a very interesting story to celebrate.

The rest reading, buy the book either hardcopy or kindle/reader and take the survey and take a chance on doing what you do do best everyday.

Thanks for letting me share,

~Stacy

StrengthsFinder. 2.0. Gallup Press 2007. Rath, Tom. Cllifton, Donald.

What We Can Learn From The Porcupine. A Fable.

2010-12-25T04:22:00.000-08:00

My Mom sent me an email the other day which included a story about the porcupine. I read it, then deleted it and went on my day. Later, it kept surfacing in my thoughts. It went something like this:

It was the harshest winter ever known to man. Many of the forest animals died because of the extreme cold and lashing winds.

The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together so that they would be covered and protected from the extreme temperatures. But upon huddle, the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.

One by one, they began to focus on the quills and soon forgot the heat they were sharing. Finally, one porcupine said, “I would rather be cold than be pricked!” And she moved away from the group. Others nodded fervently and they too decided to distance themselves one from the other.

The first porcupine who left the group, relieved that she no longer was being poked, started to grow very cold and fell into a deep sleep and then died alone and frozen.   Others seeing this, panicked as they watched their friends who had separated die one-by-one. They realized they had a choice, either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely, they decided to go back to being together.

Through this they learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companion while enjoying the heat that came from the others. And, they survived.

Now, my mom gave me a moral to the story that I can’t repeat to this kind audience. Instead, I would argue the true moral is that the best relationship is not the one that brings  together ‘perfect’ people, but the best is when each individual can admire the other person's good qualities and live with the imperfections. After all, we are all just human and even the best of us prone to mistakes.

In the spirit of true thankfulness, I would encourage anyone who is holding a grudge to let it go. Forgive and move forward. If you have wronged someone, be accountable for your actions, say you are sorry and move on. Release the weight of the luggage you carry, keeping only the lesson as a memory, so that your head and heart will be lighter on your journey.
Thank you for letting me share,
~stacy

Rebound with Enthusiasm

2010-12-20T10:31:00.000-08:00

“Action is the foundational key to all success.” - Pablo Picasso
In last weeks thought grenade, I shared how fear of failure is the root cause of so many failed ideas. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage,” Dale Carnegie had said. Imagine the deer in the headlights effect, fear drives people of action to freeze dead in their tracks. Only the deer that is quick on its feet and has its wits, will break out of the paralysis and bounce out of the car’s headlights and out of harms way.

“Do, or do not. There is no try.” - Jedi Master Yoda
If you are a Star Wars fan, Yoda’s words to Luke when he wasn’t trusting the power of the force are a good reminder of our choice for action or inaction. If Luke hadn’t embraced Yoda’s thinking, Luke would be stuck in the swamp and the movie would not have created the Lucas Star Wars dynasty that exists today. While my husband says the last paragraph was a bit dramatic, I would add this...what would Star Wars be if Luke did not fulfill his dynasty? He would have squandered his talent away. (and, wouldn’t Leia still be trapped on the death star?)

“Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure” - George Edward Woodberry
Taking it another step further, if you believe that failure is part of living. And, if you live your life to the fullest, there is no question about it, you will make mistakes. You will enter into ventures that don’t succeed. You will throw out your best ideas only to have them fall flat. You will be unprepared at a critical moment. You will overreact and you might even offend.

Richard Carlson, Author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff writes, “I've yet to meet a person who is exempt from these oh-so-human facts of life. So, perhaps the most important question isn’t so much whether or not you will mess up, but rather how quickly you can recover when you do.”

If we aren’t exempt from our own humanness, it is inevitable that we will make mistakes. We will have setbacks. We might even make those problems into much larger problems because of our lack of ownership or accountability or maybe our sense of rightness. I think some of my bigger faux pauxs have occurred because I ignored the problem or avoided addressing the misunderstanding. In one case specifically, I trivialized the act making someone feel very insignificant and found out later it was huge disappointment to them.
But, there is hope. Because It is how you deal with these things which determines what happens next. I say recover quickly and rebound with enthusiasm.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill
Recovering quickly involves the recognition that something is wrong coupled with the insight that what is wrong might be your fault and if so admitting it, apologizing for your involvement in it and moving on. If it isn’t your fault, recall the old adage which says “To err is human, to forgive is divine,” then forgive, let go and move on.
Rebounding with enthusiasm isn’t forgetting the event happened, but using it as a foundation in learning. Malcolm Forbes agrees with this. After all, he is quoted as saying, “failure is success if you learn from it.”

Despair.com has a wall calendar that includes a picture of a ship sinking. The tag is Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. After I laughed and realized how very wrong it was, I had another thought. As student on this planet called Earth, we all learn a thing or two from our failures and what a very human gift to allow others to learn from our mistakes.

Thank you for letting me share,
~stacy

Incite Ideas

2010-12-14T16:34:00.001-08:00

Have you had one of those days when you wake up and ideas come at you so fast you struggle to capture them all? Or how about when you are stuck in traffic and a great idea hits you? When that happens to you, what do you do?

If you are like many people, you do nothing or maybe you tell yourself that when you get home you will write that idea down, but then home comes and you have now forgotten the main premise of the idea or lost it entirely. Or, are you the type of person when those insightful nuggets start coming, you pull the car over to grab a pen, or get your voice recorder out and let the words flow or you simply grab a pad of paper and start scribbling ideas, thoughts, doodles while still in your pajamas.

Facing facts, it is a sad reality that only a small percentage of ideas ever take flight. they don’t get traction due to fear, or because of need for perfection or the idea person doesn’t know how to package, market and sell the idea. In the simplest of terms...fear, confinement or lack of passion will ground ideas. And worse case scenario, your really good idea ends up someone else’s really good idea and you watch in slow motion as it is presented on the shopping channel or as the award transfers hands.

FEAR > COURAGE

“As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”- Marianne Williamson
Amazing to believe that fear is the root cause of so many failed dreams. People allow fear to drive their decisions for many reasons. Whether it is fear of failure or reputation or loss of money, fear eats away at what we are so tightly trying to hold on to and protect. Fear drives people of action to freeze dead in their tracks. Dale Carnegie said, “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” Marianne Williamson has another thought about fear. She says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” Imagine being all that you are and allowing others to do the same while you have the courage to push an idea forward.

CONFINEMENT > HOPE
“Success represents the one per cent of your work which results from the 99 per cent that is called failure." -Soichiro Honda
Idea People who are unwilling to fail or who are consumed with perfection will find it hard to let ideas take flight. Much like an airplane, wings and an engine allow it to fly. An idea is the same. If confined, the idea will stay grounded. But given wings and a push, it has the ability to catch wind and achieve flight. I say ability, because wings and a push doesn’t guarantee success. However, wings, a push, hope and willingness to fail are the primary ingredients for success. Failure ROCKS not just because it makes success sweeter, but because failure means you are trying. And, who knows better than the most creative of thinkers? Henry Ford said "Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." And, IBM's own Thomas Watson said, "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate."

INCITE > PASSION
(v) To stir, encourage, or urge on; stimulate or prompt to action: to incite a crowd to riot.
Type incite into google and you will get a host of responses from the definition to joining groups to [you name it]. Everyone of them is urging the reader to take some form of action. Things happen quickly and, with ideas, speed is a virtuous circle. Per Steven Baylay, Hewlett-Packard makes the majority of its earnings from products that didn't exist last year. Once the simple ability to manufacture guaranteed competitive advantage. That's no longer so. Anything can be made anywhere; the world is flat. Instead, the ability to generate ideas has replaced manufacturing as the engine of the economy.” Add onto that speed, the ability to influence and drive something towards adoption. I read somewhere that idea generators were unpredictable, quixotic and completely unsuited for the business environment. While that might have been true about Bob Dylan (“I follow no one”) or Miles Davis (“I’ll play it first and tell you what it’s about later”), there are many individuals in the workplace with unconventional wisdom who are sparking ideas on a variety of levels and scale each and every day.

Wrapping up, My wish for each of you is to not let fear, naysayers, need for perfection, inability to let go or inability to incite others make you stop. live life as it is meant to be… fearless, full of gusto, with determination and desire. Let your ideas flood the workplace. Incite others through your passion. And, on the days where life attacks you “several days all at once” and you are discouraged or challenged, think of what Teddy Roosevelt said a long, long time ago:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Living life in the arena,
~stacy

Listen to Your Inclination

2010-12-05T21:41:00.000-08:00

Inclination [In-kluh-ney-shuh n] - noun : A disposition or bent, esp. of the mind or will; a liking or preference

In the 20 Century Fox movie Knight and Day (2010), the two main characters are on a plane having a friendly conversation. The character played by Cameron Diaz starts talking about the things she will do “someday”. The character played by Tom Cruise responds “Someday. That’s a dangerous word. It’s really just a code for ‘never’.

It is a sobering belief, to believe that all of the items on your bucket list are merely there in fantasy and will never take form.

Turning “someday” from disbelief to hope, Rob Thomas uses another form of expression to convey the power of choice in the song “Someday”. He sings, “’cause maybe someday we’ll figure all this out. We’ll put an end to all our doubt. Try to find a way to just feel better now . And maybe someday we’ll live our lives out loud. We’ll be better off somehow. Someday.”

So, how does one make ‘someday’ thinking become ‘today’ thinking? It seems like such an easy thing to do. Maybe too simple, in fact. One manner is to allow yourself to let your inclinations drive your actions.

Now, you probably noticed I used the word inclination versus instinct or dreams or… I like the word inclination as it paints a picture for me of bent, lean, bias, tendency, propensity, and predilection. It makes me feel that if there were no limitations, natural gravity would push us there.

Seth Godin, the author of the book, Linchpin, believes there is a new type of team member appearing around the world. They aren’t managers, they aren’t labor, they are indispensible and they guide their actions with their gut.

Driving based on their inclinations, these individuals Godin calls the “linchpins”. He says linchpins “invent, lead (regardless of title), connect, make things happen, and create order out of chaos.” He goes on to say they are indispensible because they truly enjoy what they do, “pour their best selves into it” and turn each day into a unique experience for their customers, management and peers.

“Every day, I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map,” says Godin.

Listening to your inclination …
· allows you to follow your morale compass in decisioning.
· affords you to drive forward without a rule book.
· Helps you find shortcuts that others can’t see.
· Lights paths in relationship building because people see you as authentic.
· Gives you the tools to draw your own map.
· rids you of the resistance that holds others back.

You have brilliance in you. The work you do is essential. What you bring to work every day is precious. It is uniquely yours, only you can do what you do, and per Godin (and me!) you must.

Thank you for letting me share,
~Stacy

Knight and Day @20 Century fox 2010
“Someday” written by Rob Thomas, Shy Carter, Matt Serletic @2009
Linchpin written by Seth Godin @Do You Zoom, Inc., 2010

We tried that before, it will never work.

2010-10-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

In assisting a Twitter connection get beyond a work obstacle where a colleague continues to say “we tried that before, it will never work.” Interestingly, in reading them and sending them off, I realized that the dialogue might be valuable to a broader audience as well.

I share with you a slightly abridged copy of the email I sent him:

Goodness, I have both been a victim of the line….but also embarrassed to admit that I probably have used the line once or twice. I have been very aware this past year of not saying “no, can’t be done”, but in asking “why?” to understand and then trying to come back with “how would we do it?” for win/win.

But back to your question of what do I do when someone says, “we tried that before, it will never work.” Simply, I am driven to prove that it will work. Not to prove the other wrong, but heck a challenge is a challenge. How do I do prove something will work? I begin to ask questions to learn why the naysayer believes it can’t work. I then try to use the stool (people – process – technology) and the inevitable truth in CHANGE to build the case of why it might work now and what it will take to change the “might” to “will”. A few times, I have found out through this approach that it really won’t work. Ackward? No. And I do thank the naysayer for helping me draw this conclusion.

Now, some of the naysayers are “all knowing” and I believe their egos won’t allow even logic to break down their resolve. This isn’t a bad thing, I have learned a great deal from people who dig their heels in deep and am appreciative. But, in those cases, I take conversations off line and slowing begin to chip away at the wall of “it will never work” by painting a picture of why it should work and how we (not I) will help the company (not me) if we worked together to make “it” a reality. If you paint the shared value proposition, it is hard for the naysayer to shoot it down (note: I didn’t say impossible, because I have seen all types. But believe that everyone is inherently good inside and wants to do the right thing for themselves and for the company).

Today, with my kids coughing, sneezing and covered with phlegm, I was able to do some reading and did search the web for articles for how to deal with naysayers and obstructionists. In my search, I came across these two Harvard Business Review article. Extremely timely as one was published last Thursday and the other in September.

Rule #1: You must never get sucked into the black hole of "what happened 5 years ago." Read how not to here: http://blogs.hbr.org/kotter/2010/10/getting-past-the-but-we-alread.html
My Margin Note: Are there items that you have put on the table and received a no because we have tried it before? If you are convicted, try – try again. Send them back to the naysayer for reconsideration and ask for counsel from your manager.

Rule #2: Understand the unfair attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy to derail you. Read about inviting them here: http://blogs.hbr.org/kotter/2010/09/need-buy-in-invite-the-lions-i.html
My Margin Note: Are you struggling with naysayers? When in doubt, escalate. You don’t need to struggle alone and certainly hitting the brick wall over and over again will only frustrate you (as well as leave you bloodied). When struggling with naysayers – don’t go sideways to peers, but up to your management for another perspective. While peers can offer great feedback and new plans of attack, it might also lead to venting and triangulation which will kill your credibility and potentially lead you down another rabbit hole. Go instead UP, but be ready to clearly present your struggle without finger pointing and with a focus on resolve for execution. Is your management not a good fit? Then go to an internal mentor to bounce concept off of. As long as the person is UP and able to assist in pushing idea forward or clearly communicating why the idea might not work.

Hope this helps you navigate through what feels like are some shark infested political waters. If you would like to chat IM me and we can schedule some time during soccer this weekend.

Innovation

2010-09-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my calendar pop-up alerted me of an important date in history … the creation of the first ATM. Specifically, the first ATM (albeit not on the network) was introduced to the world via a patent (GB1329964) filed September 1969 (and granted in 1973) by the Burroughs Corporation. Within a few minutes of the pop up, I had a conversation with an architect on the topic of Green IT and was inspired by this individual’s enthusiasm on the topic, his out of the box thinking, and by his motivation to show others WHAT is possible if each one of us alters a few of our behaviors. The two in concert made me think about innovation as related to our core competencies and Extraordinary Leader.

I started to look up the Guiding Principles and found one encouraging team members to “embrace empowerment and improvement”. Smells like innovation, don’t you think?

Next, I started to think about innovation and StrengthsFinders? Three themes are notorious innovators:

Activators can make things happen by turning thoughts into action.
Futuristic are inspired by the future and what could be. They inspire others with their visions of the future.
Ideation people are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

Innovation and our inner animal? Who can forget that “the sky is the limit” is a key theme for the owls among us. Innovation is also core to the beaver and fox specifically as it relates to “anything is possible, as long as we can execute on it”.

From the book, Extraordinary Leader, some of the behaviors demonstrated for innovation include:

Consistently generate creative, resourceful solutions to problems.
Constructively challenge the usual approach to doing things, and find new and better ways to do the job.
Champion ingenuity at all levels.
Generate creative solutions by bringing together the most talented people.
Work to improve new ideas rather than discourage them.
Come up with creative, resourceful solutions to problems.
Create a culture of innovation and learning that drives individual development.
Provide support and encouragement to others when they attempt to innovate – even when they fail.
Integrate ideas and inputs from different sources to find innovative solutions.
Build on other people’s suggestions and ideas. (Doing so often leads to new approaches and improvements.)

Here are some ideas that other leaders identified on how to improve effectiveness in the Innovates competency.

Every week ask each one of your colleagues to give you an idea on how to look at things differently.
Conduct brainstorming lunches with teams using market trends.
Understand the current state of the activity/task and document current and future benchmarks.
Provide brainstorming and whiteboard sessions to identify options (pros/cons) to meet an objective or reinvent a process.
Connect with leaders and other resources (websites, journals, etc.) to see current activity and future trends.
Conduct periodic meetings with partners to challenge what we know.
Find a team or meeting that’s focused on taking risks; get an invitation to participate.
As you make innovation a focus, share your successes with your management or offer up at team members for shared learning.

Thank you for letting me share!

~Stacy

Building Relationships

2010-08-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

A couple years back, I sent out the book Extraordinary Leader by authors John Zenger and Joseph Folkman to my team with a message about leaving their imprint on the workplace (see post Leaving Your Legacy 11/8/2008). I also explained that the company we work for had adopted the book and associated curriculum in the new leadership model which would assist leaders from around the company develop their full leadership potential.

Within the book, Zenger and Folkman discuss the behaviors of building and maintaining solid relationships. I thought this especially fitting considering the importance of connecting inside and outside the workplace.

From the book, some example of the behaviors demonstrated for builds relationships include:

Be approachable and friendly.
Establish rapport easily.
Be trusted by work group members.
Handle difficult situations cnstructively and tactfully
Deal effectively with people in order to get work accomplished
Balance concern for productivity and results with sensitivity for employees' needs or problems
Maintain and utilize relationships outside the company through which resources or information can be generated

Below are ideas captured from various leaders on how to improve effectiveness in the building relationships while demonstrating the core competencies of Collaborates and Relationship Savvy.

Take advantage of informal times to share with key business partners about you and the work our team does.
Get to know and understand the needs of your business partners well.
Remember how we all fit together for the common purpose.
Share the same vision of collaboration with each other and their clients.
Build trust and establish an effective feedback process.
Don’t react to feedback defensively. Take a moment to reflect on the words spoken.
Positive Optimism: Find the positive in someone prior to a meeting/interaction and focus on it.
Make an effort to learn about your peers and teams.
Give a personal thank you to peers and partners; Meet to discuss your appreciation.
Ask partners what support is needed and deliver on their expectations.
Translate a technical problem and solution into English that everyone can understand.
Chart out 15-30 minute discussions with customers on your schedule.
Make networking part of our culture and prioritize it by blocking time for this function.
Seek a specific project opportunity to partner with a colleague you don’t know well.

As you make building relationships a focus, I would love to hear about your successes with. Email them to me at stacy@ouncecattery.com or stacyth@yahoo.com.

Thank you for letting me share!
~Stacy

Impact of Brief Interactions

2010-06-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

First a confession, I tweet. Not a crazy Twitter addict, but certainly I have been known to tweet (i.e. post) random thoughts and quotes into Twitterland.

It all started when a good friend (a professed Twitter addict) mentioned learning through select tweets. I signed up and began following thought leaders on topics such as Lean, Six Sigma, ITIL and various leadership attributes. He was right, Twitter was and is a method of obtaining cutting edge, quick thoughts on a variety of topics.

What I realized quickly was the potential impact of these 140 character tweets. And while my first two months was absorbing the tweets and determine who to following, I did eventually take the leap and start tweeting.

What followed was eye opening. As I started posting random positive thoughts into Twitterland my followers grew. I started with 4 followers and jumped to 46 after week one. Three weeks after, I had surpassed 100 followers with a few being respected poets, authors and thought leaders.

Then, one Saturday, I posted a tweet that maybe, probably, could have been considered a rant. (Okay, fine...if it quacks like a rant, walks like a rant, it is a rant.) What happened next surprised me, one of my followers sent me a direct message that read “stacyrea—not your usual self today?” Talk about being caught in the act and indirectly told to recast myself pronto by means of cyberspace! More than that, these connected events (positive posts = followers compared to negative posts = msg of concern/lost followers) clearly showed me the power of brief interactions to influence and potentially course correct.

It is the next series of events that added additional clarity to my thinking on this topic, because that very night, it was time to start my next book. And the next book on my reading list was How Full is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton.

How Full is Your Bucket? reveals how even the briefest interactions affect your relationships, productivity, and health. The book is organized around a simple metaphor of a dipper and a bucket. It shows you how to increase the positive in your work and your life, while reducing the negative.

The primary author, Tom Rath surfaces the topic of making every moment matter. He says, “Usually, we don’t stop to consider the impact of brief interactions. But we experience literally hundreds of potential turning points in a given day.” Rath continues by pointing out building a culture based on positive impacts (what is right) versus negative impacts (what is wrong). But from my rant example, this is easier to call out and talk about versus making a cultural change. Because an occasional rant happens...right?

StrengthsFinder reminds us that we have been raised into a culture where we focus on what people do wrong versus what people do right. Rath supports by saying, “While this negativity-based approach might have evolved unintentionally, it nevertheless permeates our society at all levels.”

But recognizing that attitude is a personal choice and if we prefer an environment based on positive emotions (which impacts our life span!), then how do we tackle the 20,000 individual moments each day while holding on to the positive elements and allowing the negative to roll off and not stay in our minds? Rath says through frequent, small, positive acts. In fact, he says the magic ratio is 5 positive interactions to every 1 negative interaction.

Enter the Theory of the Dipper and the Bucket (see next post) and increasing positive emotions in your life and others’ lives. The idea is simple: fill others' bucket, you fill your own bucket. But, like all things, just wanting isn’t enough. You must have a plan that is specific and actionable. I plan to pay more attention to “bucket management” as well as the significance of each and every interaction whether it be virtual, using social mediums (Twitter, Blip.fm, Facebook, Linkedin) or just good ‘ole face to face.

Thanks for letting me share.

~stacy

REFERENCES
How Full is Your Bucket. Gallup Press 2009. Rath, Tom. Cllifton, Donald.
StrengthsFinder. 2.0. Gallup Press 2007. Rath, Tom. Cllifton, Donald.

Positive Impact Test (How Full is Your Bucket?)

2010-06-03T13:48:00.001-07:00

The Positive Impact Test is from the book, entitled How Full is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton.

1. I have helped someone in the last 24 hours
2. I am an exceptionally courteous person.
3. I like being around positive people.
4. I have praised someone in the last 24 hours.
5. I have developed a knack for making other people feel good.
6. I am more productive when I am around positive people.
7. In the last 24 hours, I have told someone that I cared about her/him.
8. I make it a point to become acquainted with people wherever I go.
9. When I receive recognition, it makes me want to give recognition to someone else.
10. In the last week, I have listened to someone talk through his/her goals or ambitions.
11. I make unhappy people laugh.
12. I make it a point to call each of my associates by the name she/he likes to be called.
13. I notice what my colleagues do at a level of excellence.
14. I always smile at the people I meet.
15. I feel good about giving praise whenever I see good behavior.

The Theory of the Dipper and the Bucket (How Full is Your Bucket?)

2010-06-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Theory of the Dipper and the Bucket is from the book, entitled How Full is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton.

"Each of us has an invisible bucket. It is constantly emptied or filled, depending on what others say or do to us. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When it’s empty, we feel awful.

Each of us also has an invisible dipper. When we use that dipper to fill other people’s buckets—by saying or doing things to increase their positive emotions—we also fill our own bucket. But when we use that dipper to dip from others’ buckets—by saying or doing things that decrease their positive emotions—we diminish ourselves.

Like the cup that runneth over, a full bucket gives us a positive outlook and renewed energy. Every drop in that bucket makes us stronger and more optimistic.
But an empty bucket poisons our outlook, saps our energy, and undermines our will. That’s why every time someone dips from our bucket, it hurts us.

So we face a choice every moment of every day: We can fill one another’s buckets, or we can dip from them. It’s an important choice—one that profoundly influences our relationships, productivity, health and happiness."

Empty Nest

2010-05-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

She was born on February 13, 2010, Valentine's Eve, at 11:13 pm, just a few minutes after her sibling. She was so small compared to the first born - in fact, inches smaller - but the other difference was she was alive.

Bruce had tried to revive the first born to no avail. From the beginning there was no appearance that he could, but we had to try. At 11:15 pm we pronounced it dead.

As our attention turned to the living kitten, we watched as it struggled to get to mom. She was actually crawling (if you could call the movement that) away from mom. We couldn't take it any longer and lifted her up and placed her on mom's stomach. Her head began to bob, searching for a nipple, not finding anything but fur.

Bruce and I watched and finally couldn't handle it any longer. Argh!!! We moved fur and placed her directly on the nipple. She latched on after a couple attempts. Victory!

The next two days, Bruce and I didn't sleep much. We watched and like any new parents were concerned by her smallness and inability to find the nipple that she had previously. But by three days she began to thrive. By four days, she was growing and was becoming mobile (again, if you could call it that). It became a "she" and she was named Valentine as she was born on Valentine Eve. But, alas, the name didn't stick as you will hear about in a moment.

At the start of week two, she was lifting her head (ok, not gracefully, kind of like a bobble head). In the middle of week and I was spending quality time with her and her mom (Tabitha), she bobbed her head up and opened her eye. Note that I said eye - singular.

It was the oddest thing ever, having your kitten resemble a cyclops, but it wouldn't be until the next day that both eyes were open. But the minute that eye met mine it was love at first sight.

She was renamed to Little Wonder after the song "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas. The song seemed to fit as Rob Thomas tells listeners that our "lives are made in these small hours. These little wonders. These twists and turns of fate. Time folds away but these small hours, these small hours still remain" basically rejoice in little wonders in life because in the end our lives really just consist of hours sewn together and within are those little wonders.

By end of week two, she was doing all things that kittens do at 16 day new.

Next big milestones came at six weeks, when we began to let our three boys (14, 12, 8) interact with her. Although we had strict rules for handling and taking her away from her mom, I will admit we (her mom and I) would find her with a child on some grand adventure. The best adventure was when I found her curled up in his baseball hat with my eight year old telling me they were playing baseball. Horrified I asked him how was he playing with a six week old kitten. He then demonstrated by rolling the baseball to which she would jump out of the hat and chase the ball and then jump back into his hat. The only response I could think of as I smiled was, "It is time to let Tabitha have her back." :)

Tabitha was an excellent mom, allowing her to nurse until 10 weeks and guiding and directing her every move. Every morning, Tabitha would call out to Little Wonder and we would hear thump, thump, thump, thuuuummmmpppp... until Little Wonder and Tabitha would be together roaming the house. Sometimes, Little Wonder would not want to go to Tabitha making Tabitha find Little Wonder and scold her. It was interesting to watch their relationship evolve and the balance between independence and security that even cats encounter.

Last night, at 12 weeks, Little Wonder found her forever home in the arms of a lovely Elk Grove couple. I knew it was the right pair as the couple spent three hours at our house walking through questions about everything from Bengals to specifics about her. They put down a deposit and then came back from PetSmart with a pink carrier, a scratching post, the kitty litter/food I recommended and a pink feathered toy. I almost cried it was so cute.

I had to explain to my boys - yet again - that this was the role of a breeder. That we had the best job of all as we were able to shepard these small lives and then find contentment in finding them forever homes where they will live out their lives full of love. It is a hard message to sell to three boys who fall in love. Even a harder message for their mom, who too falls in love.

Today as I walk around the house, I am acutely aware of her absence. I have to wonder is this what empty nesters feel like?

First I woke up without a cat in my hair.
Grabbing my coffee down stairs was not followed by my small friend asking me for a small snack. I didn't have to worry about removing her from the frigerator today (or shutting her in it!).
On my teleconferences, I missed the bundle of fur with that happy purr by my feet, my back or smack dab across my keyboard. :)
But most of all, I miss the ability to pick her up and kiss her smack dab on her nose and have her look at me with those eyes that say, "If you must!"

Around noon today, I heard Tabitha downstairs calling the familiar call, "Little Wonder, where are you?" To say that a tear wasn't dropped from my eye would be a lie. I called for Tabitha and she came up promptly. The next thing she did shocked me. She actually sat on my lap and purred for a couple hours as I took my calls and proceeded with business. If I got up, she got up and she would follow me everywhere I went. At around 2 pm she moved to the back of my chair and there she still sits. No longer purring, but certainly looking content.

She and I are back to the normal operating procedures, but the joy remains in memories and prospect of Little Wonders life with her new family.

Tabitha reminds me as she plays now with my headset trying to bite the microphone that empty nest does not equal empty heart.

Thanks for letting me share,
Stacy

To hear the song and read the lyrics of Little Wonders by Rob Thomas, click here: http://www.lyrics.com/little-wonders-lyrics-rob-thomas.html

My Legacy

2010-05-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

I want to live my life so that my children can say I had a set of core values and daily demonstrated them publically and privately.

What a Way to Welcome Spring!

2010-04-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

When I heard someone yell Stump was sighted, I rushed downstairs so very excited to look for her in the pond.

What I found however, was my husband looking over our pool and pointing at the deepest end. "She's down there," he said.

Walking to the diving board, I immediately saw the shadow on the bottom of the pool. Definitely frog shaped. Definitely Stump. Definitely Deep. Definitely Cold, Cold Water.

"Brandon!!!" I called.

My 14 year old had stayed home from school sick, but that didn't release him from having to dive into the ice cold water and retrieve my beloved Stump.

As he came up, both hands tightly around Stump I reflected back on summer’s past where retrieving Stump from the pool was a weekly ritual.

Now, four years later - boys older, Stump bigger - I celebrate that Spring is here and Stump has returned (with her very familiar ways). What a beautiful way to welcome Spring!

May your Spring bring you many, many unexpected gifts.

To see pictures of Stump and her return from hibernation, click the link below: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28831&id=1565754697&l=641f4757a5

If you don't know who Stump is, click the link below: http://dayinalifeofstacy.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-i-have-learned-from-my-bullfrog.html

Reflections on Bennis' On Becoming a Leader

2010-04-22T03:34:00.000-07:00

Over the break, I had picked up and was rereading On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis for what felt like first time all over again in preparation for an upcoming Leadership Challenge seminar. Specifically, I was looking for the section where Bennis expands on the differences between leaders and managers.

Unique to this review of the book, I immediately felt a little taken aback by some of the words used to describe the two roles as well as the important relationship that exists between the two roles.

Much like the appreciation we felt when we went through identification of the animal characteristics, I began to evaluate the essential components in both roles and how they compliment—not compete– with each other.

I then went on a Google search to find someone who had read and potentially had a like epiphany. As I searched, I hoped I was not unique in my thinking and—guess what--I was not. In fact, several had the same revelation years before me.

One opinion stuck out in my reading. It was an article entitled “Lead:ology - Leaders Versus Managers: A False Dichotomy” by Michael McKinney and published on June 22, 2009 (see http://dayinalifeofstacy.blogspot.com/2010/04/leadology-leaders-versus-managers-false.html).

McKinney says, “The distinctions made by Bennis are important as they expose two very different and equally valuable mindsets. As each works best in the presence of the other, it is to our advantage that we possess and practice both.”

So, my question to you all is this...How do you see Leaders and Managers? Do you agree with the differences as pointed out by Bennis? Is one better than the other? Why or why not? Which role do you associate yourself to?
Would love to hear your thoughts regarding! Shoot me your thoughts via email or use the comments option on this post.

Thanks for letting me share,
~Stacy

Lead:ology - Leaders Versus Managers: A False Dichotomy

2010-04-22T02:45:00.000-07:00

From Lead:ology - Leaders Versus Managers: A False Dichotomy
By Michael McKinney (June 22, 2009)

The 1989 leadership classic On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis contains what has become one of the most discussed and frequently misunderstood concepts in leadership literature. I'm referring to, of course, insightful list of twelve differences between leaders and managers:

The manager administers; the leader innovates.
The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.
The manager maintains; the leader develops.
The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
The manager has an eye always on the bottom line; the leader has an eye on the horizon.
The manager imitates; the leader originates.
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his own person.
The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

The distinctions made by Bennis are important as they expose two very different and equally valuable mindsets. As each works best in the presence of the other, it is to our advantage that we possess and practice both. It is through a developed sense of awareness and experience that we are able to determine which mindset we need to employ, relative to what and when.

are you one of the two?

2010-04-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

The world will be saved by one or two people at a time. ~ Andre Gide [are you one of the two?] :)

The Checklist Manifesto

2010-04-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

READING - The Checklist Manifesto - How to Get Things Right Am reminded that often we overcomplicate things because we are human.

Human Foods Which Are Poisonous to Cats

2010-03-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.cat-world.com.au/human-foods-which-are-poisonous-to-cats

StressBuster List

2010-02-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

1 Make a list of non-work activities that you love to do and insist on doing at least one thing from the list every weekend.
2 Accept the reality that there will be stress and don’t let it derail you.
3 Take “real” PTO – stay off your BlackBerry during your official time off.
4 Listen to what your body is telling you and take care of your health first and foremost.
5 Take a clean break after you get home even if you re-engage later. Give yourself a “no-work zone” for at least part of the evening.
6 Don’t let yourself stay at “worst-case scenario.” Recast it so you have realistic options to deal with it.
7 Take pride in being part of a historical event. This size merger may never happen again.
8 Don’t work past a prescribed bedtime.
9 Work from home when possible.
10 Give yourself permission to just “let go” without guilt.
11 Make a list of what you worry about so it gets out of your head (and then throw away the list!)
12 Really let yourself laugh out loud as much as possible.
13 When feeling overwhelmed, break-up the future into smaller, manageable pieces.
14 Reach out to others and recast together – talk it through.
15 Schedule quiet time for creative thinking and problem solving.
16 Accept your own limitations and don’t beat yourself up.
17 When there’s a problem, communicate with those that need to know as quickly as possible and then jointly discuss. Don’t let it fester.
18 When there’s a gap, create a process, follow the process, and then measure success.
19 Exercise – get up and walk during the day.
20 Define your success in small increments.
21 Drop everything and take action on the most stressful issue right away.
22 Have a buddy.
23 Adopt the “24 hour rule” – don’t take any action until the next day.
24 Hit the problem head-on rather than letting it eat you up.
25 To relieve calendar pressures/conflicts, schedule team meetings within your group all at the same time or create drop-in sessions with subject matter experts so they’re not constantly interrupted.
26 Take time to celebrate a success.
27 Volunteer your talents to a worthy cause – it helps give perspective.
28 At the end of a bad day, reach out and express appreciation to someone.
29 When things aren’t going well, look for someone who could benefit from your help and then give to them. This creates a supportive community.
30 Don’t transfer your stress to others, but re-channel the energy.
31 Find perspective by taking a walk around the block or by using some other technique for removing yourself temporarily from the stress or issue.
32 Delegate whenever possible. Make sure you’re not doing someone else’s job.
33 Understand what’s causing the stress. Identify what’s the real feeling (anger, fear, sadness, or even excitement) under the stress so you can deal with the real stuff.
34 Use the energy of the stress to solve the cause of the stress.
35 Don’t let “perfect” get in the way of “good.”
36 Ask for help. It’s encouraged in this team.
37 Find creative ways to get through issues. Open up new options when you feel stuck or it feels hopeless.
38 Do some non-work things with work friends.
39 Find ways to reduce stress and the time spend on chores at home – such as hiring someone to mow the lawn.
40 Hug your children, pets, and loved ones a lot.
41 Create a daily intention for how you want to be that day, how you want to react, and what you want to focus on. You get what you focus on.
42 Think about your legacy or “personal brand.” Ask yourself, “How do I want to be seen by others and therefore how do I want to treat others and respond to their requests?”

Random Thoughts - Sent to me from Nicole

2010-01-30T23:56:00.000-08:00

Random Thoughts for Today

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer's history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to the ten-page paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this -- ever.

15. I hate it when I miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?) but when I immediately call back it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day " Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How do I respond to that?

19. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

20. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

Bring Out the Popcorn!

2010-01-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

Much like fireworks on the fourth, or cakes with candles for birthdays - Popcorn has always been symbolic of “celebration” for the Rea family. Good grades, sport wins, graduations, holidays... would garner a freshly popped bowl.

Even today, as an adult, when a celebration presents itself you can be
certain that my mom will say, "sounds like a good excuse for popcorn!”

Reflecting on last years accomplishments while building out my MBOs and then
working through each of your individual PPRs, I was filled with great sense of
collective accomplishment and pride for the team.

Join me for a moment of reflection on 2009 and then give yourself a
standing ovation while you celebrate the victories from last year.

Let’s break out the popcorn!

What is the What - Dave Eggers

2010-01-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

FINISHED READING: What is the What - Dave Eggers

What is the What is written as an autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, but authored by the American writer, Dave Eggers.

I picked it up and added it to my book list based on Rob Thomas' recommendation and the song Fire on the Mountain (by Rob Thomas). My thoughts at the time were if a book inspires someone to act (write a song, help a charity, etc...) it should be read.

Summary
Combining fictional and non fictional, Dave Eggers recounts the story of Valentino's journey from Southern Sudan to Atlanta, Georgia. The journey that Valentino takes is mental, physical and grueling. Through it he overcomes all odds but during it faces, death, starvation, disease, cruelty as Sudan faces war all around him. And, just when he gets to refugee camps both in Ethiopia and Kenya and believes some comfort might exist, he quickly realizes comfort doesn't exist in war. It also doesn't truly exist in the states, as he learns when Valentino he answers the door to a woman needing to use the phone and finds himself in the middle of a brutal robbery.

Greetings from the Thomas Family - 2009

2009-12-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had years go by so fast that you need to look through the photo albums to remember all that occurred? 2009 was one of those years for the Thomas family.

Change was the reoccurring theme this year and the more we tried to resist, the more it brought itself to us. It wasn’t until we acknowledged it that we were able to embrace it. Here are some highlights from 2009:

January – Wells Fargo and Wachovia merger official.
February – Bruce reserves his place for the annual lobster dive!
March - Celebrated Devon’s 11th Birthday and St. Patrick’s Day with the Rea’s over for a traditional St. Patrick’s Feast.
April – Brandon turns 13 and along with Stacy learns to shoot a shotgun with Uncle Randy.
May – We joined 200 family and friends to help Brooke and Billie celebrate 50 years of wedded bliss.
June – We had may friend BBQ’s, but Father’s Day topped it off as one great party.July - Billie took Stacy, Brandon, Devon and Justin to Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare Festival.
July – The whole family spent 4th of July in Reno, NV at the Red, White and Blue Cat Show. Our male, Lucian Chat, championed after one night.
August – we choose to go to the California State Fair on the hottest day of the year.
September – Justin, a budding Marine Biologist, swam with the dolphins for his eighth birthday at Marine World Africa USA.
October - Brandon, Devon and Stacy embarked upon Reno, NV with VIP tickets for the Rob Thomas Cradlesong Tour.
November – Jenner with the Raunam Family at the Crows Nest was just what the doctor ordered. Kayaking, Crabbing and Beach combing was just what the doctor ordered.
December – Christmas Tree hunting at North Star Christmas Tree Farm in the snow and Cookie Baking with the Baileys!!

Of all the things we are thankful for, overwhelmingly family, friends and health were on each of our lists. If you haven’t already done so, please connect with us over Facebook and/or Twitter. At minimum, we would love to hear from you. Email us at: reatho@yahoo.com or stacy@ouncecattery.com.

Wishing you a year full of love, laughter, and good health surrounded and supported by family and friends.

Sincerely, Bruce, Stacy, Brandon, Devon and Justin

My Wish for You in 2010

2009-12-27T09:29:00.000-08:00

Thank you Peggy for this wonderful wish. Back at you!
________________________

My Wish for You in 2010

May peace break into your home and may thieves come to steal your debts.
May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.
May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!
May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.
May the problems you had, forget your home address!

In simple words, may 2010 be the best year of your life!!!

Goodbye 2009, Welcome 2010. The best is yet to come!

2009-12-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

I absolutely love Winter with its holiday traditions, cuddling with kids by a warm fire, snow ball fights and because it affords me the opportunity to reflect inward and direct giving outward.

Winter affords for reflection on accomplishments and personal growth during the year as well as planning with anticipation for the opportunities that lie ahead.

With Winter upon us, my wish for each and everyone of you is the gift of reflection. I hope you and your families have a warm and wonderful holiday and Happy New Year.

Goodbye 2009, Welcome 2010. The best is yet to come!

2010 Reading List

2009-12-25T10:51:00.000-08:00

I am so very excited to have received a Kindle to assist me in meeting my reading goals this year.

The boys and I have an extensive list (see below) and I am so excited to embark on 2010 and a literary journey...check back monthly as I plan to blog on each read!

2010 Book List
What is the What - Dave Eggers
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

I Wish You Enough - Anon

2009-12-04T00:19:00.000-08:00

Thank you Marnie for sending me this story about a father and daughter in their last moments together.

They had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and he said, "I love you. I wish you enough."

She in turn said, "Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy."

They kissed and she left. He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?"

"Yes, I have," I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me.
So I knew what this man experiencing. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever goodbye?" I asked. "I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, the next trip back would be for my funeral," he said.

"When you were saying goodbye I heard you say, "I wish you enough." May I ask what that means?"

He began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.

"When we said 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them," he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if hewere reciting it from memory.

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Goodbye."

The Importance of Making the Connection

2009-12-03T12:37:00.000-08:00

“The world as we see it is only the world as we see it. Others may see it differently.”
– Albert Einstein

Does anyone remember the “Reach Out and Touch Someone” advertising campaign? I do, so vividly, and for some reason couldn’t shake it from my thoughts when asked to introduce the guiding principle on connecting with others.

Guiding Principle: We: Connect with others outside our immediate workgroup to share relevant information and leverage different viewpoints.

N.W. Ayers was hired to help AT&T soften its image in during a time when AT&T was being criticized for its perceived monopoly on the telecommunications industry. Tony Galli came up with the idea and built out the concept focused on communications as the beginning of understanding. For many of us, the campaign is ingrained in our memories as is the reality that connecting with others is an essential element in American life.

Understanding the essentials of connecting, but admittedly being one who often gets swept away in the fast paced nature of my own life, I started to outline why connecting with others is important which led me to a Zig Ziglar story about the importance of connections.

The story goes that the Ziglar goes out to dinner after one of his motivational conferences and has a good experience with the waiter. The waiter provides excellent service, and at the end of the evening, in addition to leaving a tip, Ziglar and some associates leave a nice note of thanks and praise with the tip. The story goes the waiter chased out onto the street after the party, near tears, to tell them that no one had ever done anything so kind for him. The connection that Ziglar and his associates made was so small, but made a significant impact.

Tying the story to our highly competitive and ever changing professional world, connecting with individuals outside of our immediate workgroup is absolutely essential for sharing information. Ensuring information is shared with the right people at the right time in order to make the right decisions is critical to a department's success as well as the holding companies collective success. Information sharing to recognize and reward team members is equally important as one way to demonstrate People as our Competitive Advantage.

In planning, connecting with others to leverage a broader point of view on topics both small and large just makes plain business sense while promoting diversity of thought. We don’t want team members that don’t question one another, and who don’t look at each opportunity/challenge uniquely. Instead, we want to motivate a work environment that thrives because of everyone’s contributions.

Finally, connecting in order to network and build enduring, mutually beneficial, relationships is fundamental to personal success as well as building trust throughout the greater company.

We can all work to support this guiding principle by:

Remembering the significance of small gestures as a mean to connect with others.
Ensuring project teams have the appropriate mix of team members with role based assignments to leverage diversity of thought.
Reaching across the organization to someone not at your location or not in your workgroup to find out what they are working on and, if the opportunity presents itself, how your role might assist.
Proactively having a communication plan for key initiatives that addresses who needs the information and what vehicle it will be delivered in.
And yes..... even stopping, turning, and listening to a neighbor or when they ask “how are you?” authentically responding versus saying “fine”.

Let’s use our understanding of the indispensible need for humans to communicate with others as a method of understanding so that at every interaction we are consciously thinking about “reaching out” and making a connection.

Thanks for letting me share,
~Stacy

Living Your Life On Purpose

2009-11-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

After many years of digging, I finally found a written version of a story my dad used to tell about an elderly man in the final days of his life. The man is lying in bed alone when he awakens to see a large group of people clustered around his bed. Their faces are loving, but sad. Confused, the old man smiles weakly and whispers, “you must be my childhood friends come to say goodbye. I am so grateful.” moving closer, the tallest figure gently grasps the old man’s hand and replies, “yes, we are your best and oldest friends, but long ago you abandoned us. For we are the unfulfilled promises of your youth. We are the unrealized hopes, dreams and plans that you once felt deeply in your heart, but never pursued. We are the unique talents that you never refined, the special gifts that you never discovered. Old friend, we have not come to comfort you, but to die with you.”

The story, which I finally found in a book entitled 5 by Dan Zadra, has been in repeat mode in my mind. Started when a team member called a several weeks ago and mentioned her father’s health had deteriorated and her family was coming together to make arrangements for extended care. Another team member has been going through the same and had just finished with finding a home for her aging father and is in the process of selling his home in order to secure his final days. Then, a few weeks ago my dad fell off a ladder with a chainsaw in one hand and an oak branch in the other. He was lucky to have fractured his leg and dislocated his ankle versus cutting off an entire limb. With advanced diabetes, the healing process has been extremely rough for him. These things - so close—have extreme impact and have consumed my thinking. Lately, it has been about my husband’s favorite theory on living with no regrets, which goes hand in hand with living life as if on purpose.

Take a moment to reflect on your life. Do you, will you, wish you had done anything different? Will there be any opportunities you really wanted to go after, but watched pass by? Innovative ideas you let drift away? Childhood dreams you let go unfulfilled? If so, now is the time to live each day as if it were on purpose. In the words of Caterina Rando, it is never too late to “live and work without regrets” and to meet each day engaged, alert, alive, enthusiastic and in action. In the words of George Elliot" It is never too late to be what you might have been".

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

In 2000, Someone forwarded an e-mail to me about a time management expert talking to business students about the bandwidth present in their lives. The story, The Jar (which I posted on 11/6), came at the perfect time as we were entering into the California Conversion and team members were working long and hard to ensure success. I shared the email with our CTO at the time and we created a recognition campaign around it specific to the conversion milestone dates. Amazing how a story about a mason jar, water, rocks, pebbles and sand can illustrate the need to reflect and give priority to the most important "things" in our lives, both professional and personal.

Taking that one step beyond the “things”, the book 5 encourages one to question what values you are being guided by? Family, Friends, Health, Wealth, Faith, Art, Adventure, Love are all examples of lifetime values that should guide your decisions in life. Consider yourself a great adventurer following the north star (values) with only a compass (life mission) in hand. Chart your course. Make a plan. After all, without knowing where you are going how will you know at the end that you got there?

Think about your life. Think about your values. Where are you and where do you need a nudge to get you started on your personal adventure?

Wishing you a life with purpose....and an ending with no regrets. :)
~Stacy

References
Zadra, Dan. Five. Compendium, Incorporated. 2009

Rando, Caterina. “Living without regrets”

The Jar

2009-11-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

One day, an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, "Okay, time for a quiz," and he pulled out a one-gallon, Mason jar and set it on the table in front of him. He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?"Everyone in the class yelled, "Yes." The time management expert replied, "Really?"

He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He then asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?"

By this time the class was on to him. "Probably not," one of them answered.

"Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?" "No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good."

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration? One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!" "No," the speaker replied, "that's not the point.

The truth this illustration teaches us is, "If you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in the jar."

What are the big rocks in your life?

~ Anonymous

Caught Laughing on the Job

2009-11-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

In 2002, two of my friends recommended that I sign up for a class from Charthouse Learning called the Fish Philosophy. They had been working at southwest airlines for many years and had noticed a significant change in company culture due to encouraged on the job fun.

What is on the job fun? Tag? Hide and seek? Kick the Can? According to the Charthouse Learning website, maybe all of the above! Charthouse Learning introduced Fish Philosophy as a way to encourage speaking to “the kid we all still have inside of us” and bringing it into the workplace appropriately.

According to the Charthouse Learning Website, “People who find ways to incorporate “play” into their daily lives approach their work, responsibilities and challenges with energy and enthusiasm. In fact, some of the best innovations in the world are a result of playing with ideas. And some of the most serious environments can also benefit from a sense of playfulness.”

I took the Fish Philosophy! class with a colleague and realized immediately that Charthouse Learning gets it. Southwest Airlines gets it. What did they get? They both understand that incorporating play into our daily lives offers an environment that is energized, enthusiastic and promotes innovation. But more importantly it makes team members WANT to come to work because it promotes an environment of fun where laughter is the norm.

When was the last time you laughed at work?

Laughter is universal. It is a worldwide language that unites people. In fact, it is highly contagious. Have you noticed how a laugh very often creates a shared laugh?

"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!" Emerson

Laughter has amazing effects on the body. It is GOOD for you! laughter in essence is the “magic bullet“ or “uber medicine” — and you don’t need to see a m.d. to get a prescription or pay for it. We all have our own endless supply internal to us—to be used when, how and where we want.

I read somewhere that Laughing has been compared to an ‘internal jogging' because your body gets a complete workout from a good laugh. One site said that, “Laughing is aerobic exercise for your intercostals, diaphragm, abdominal, facial and respiratory muscles because increases muscle flexion and relieves muscular tension.”

Having a sense of humor helps us interpret events that happen in our lives. Humor can lighten up even the tensest of situations. No longer negative, you are able to deal with the obstacle/challenge in front of you.

How do we bring play into the workplace? One of the simplest ways is to be authentic. Another is to simply get to know your team mates and what makes them smile.

Looking forward to catching you all ... Laughing! Thanks for letting me share.
~Stacy

Listen & Connect to The World Around You

2009-11-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

Last year I shared with you the story of Matt, the video programmer who quit his job to travel around the world with his funky dance. Matt now travels the world for Stride Gum connecting people through dance. This year, I share with you Juan. Juan had been living in London when his world turned upside down and he had to go home to Sydney. In his words, going home “now meant no one to welcome me back, no place to call home. I was a tourist in my hometown.”

As he stood in airport, he watched the other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, he wanted someone out there to be waiting for him. He wanted someone to “be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me.” He did what many of us would not have. He got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. He then found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign. It read "Free Hugs" on both sides.

For 15 minutes, people just stared right through him. The first person who stopped, tapped him on the shoulder and told him how her dog had just died that morning. How that morning had been the one year anniversary of her only daughter dying in a car accident. How what she needed now, when she felt most alone in the world, was a hug. Juan got down on one knee, put his arms around her and the sad, depressed woman left smiling.

To my knowledge, the only thing that Matt and Juan have in common is the choice they made to take a bad situation and make it better by making others feel good. Matt’s goal was to make people smile with his dance. Juan’s was personal connection and his instrument was two arms and caring heart.

Choice is a powerful thing. Choice is a catalyst for change. Choice can lead people to greatness or it can lead individuals to wallow in despair. Think about all the choices you make each and every day. Now, think about if they are getting you closer to your dreams or pushing you farther from them. A little deeper, who is making your choices? Are you or have you given the power of choice to others to make on your behalf?

The goodness about choice is that we all have it and are accountable to ourselves on how we use it. I am not encouraging anyone to quit their jobs (no matter how good you dance) or give away free hugs. But....what if this week, you made the choice to listen and connect?

· Stop, turn, and really listen to a neighbor or when they ask “how are you?” authentically respond versus saying “fine”.
· Reach across the organization to someone not at your location and find out what they are working on.
· Deflect credit to the individuals who actually did the work instead of choosing to take personal credit for it.
· Roll up your sleeves and pitch in when the going gets tough instead of choosing to get frustrated and complain.
· And yes..... even choosing to have a great day when you would rather wallow in self pity.

Listen to the world. Listen to yourself. After today, how will you use the power of choice to make a difference in your life? In our workplace? In our world?

Thanks for letting me share.

~Stacy

References
Story and Photo of Juan Mann owned by © 2009 Free Hugs Campaign. Information about Free Hugs Campaign accessible at: http://freehugscampaign.org/

The Lesson of the 38 Candy Bars

2009-09-17T23:05:00.000-07:00

During a pretty hard day last week, a colleague forwarded a tweet with the attached article. The name of the article lured me in - The Lesson of the 38 Candy Bars — and through reading, I was immediately reminded of the book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff...and it’s all Small Stuff. Both the article and the book share such a simple message...

The book reminds me to appreciate the “small things”: a laugh on a concall, a “good job” when one isn’t expected, the joy in the words “thank you” and any outreach that is sincere and thoughtful. I believe it is the “little wonders” that piece together my hours, my days, my weeks...and create the collage of my life.

The article reminds me to stay strong, resilient, accountable, and authentic. It reminds me that I control my attitude and choose the person I bring to work day after day. I choose whether to roll with the punches or allow bad days to knock me out. I choose to look for possibilities or see only obstacles. In the end the joy is knowing I am in control.

Thanks for letting me share,

~Stacy

A Story About Process & the Eiffel Tower ~ Building Things That Last

2009-08-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

My mother, an adult student at the University of Utah (go Utes!), was required to learn a foreign language for her Art History major. Due to her love of Impressionism the language she choose was.....French. It soon became a nightly ritual for her to ask me to identify the paintings by name, artist and date in.... French.

Dès 1869, Claude Monet a commencé à peindre à La Grenouillere avec son ami Impressionniste proche, Pierre Auguste Renoir.”

I formally began studying French in the seventh grade. Now, my French pronunciation is and always will be truly horrific. In my eyes, French was contagious and, when spoken appropriately, it was just plain pretty. By the time I entered college, it went from love of the language to love all things French culture.

I was introduced to the Eiffel Tower in my very first French Culture class. Mme. Shapiro was a strong French woman, with an even stronger presence. She asked the class to state something we loved about France. When my turn came around, I responded to the question with la tour d'eiffel.” The room fell silent and with Mms. Shapiro's gaze on me, I quickly realized the Eiffel Tower was the wrong answer and, apparently, I was the only one in class who hadn't received the memo. I quickly responded, "Aussi j'aime manger des croissant de chocolat?" Her piercing gaze broke as she called, votre virage and moved onto the next student.

She was not a fan of the Eiffel Tower, but through the semester I was successful in at least having her admit that she couldn’t imagine the Parisian skyline without it. She said the tower reminded her of the need to be constantly reinventing oneself to stay in favor. To this day, I don’t know if she thought that was a good thing or bad.

Last weekend while shopping at my local Pier One, I came across a framed picture of the Eiffel Tower construction site with pictures of the tower going up for the International Exhibition. After I got over it's glory, I recalled learning that the tower was met with tremendous opposition before it was built, even more hostility after it was built, thus a condition made to tear it down after the World's Fair. As I have been in deep thought about the value of process of late, that picture of the Eiffel Tower caused an epiphany the history of the Eiffel Tower and the process discipline at Wells Fargo have a lot in common. I came home and immediately googled the Eiffel Tower.

Wikipedia.org describes the Eiffel Tower as an iron tower built during 1887-1889 on the Champ de Mars beside the Seine River in Paris.”It continues the Eiffel Tower has become a global icon of France and is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. All good until you get to the middle of the definition when you find out that the Eiffel Tower really wasn't wanted or welcomed. As I attempted to untangle the correlations between the Eiffel Tower and Process Engineering in my mind, my journey led me down several revelations.

The Eiffel Tower wasn't born one of the world's greatest wonders. It didn't pop out of the ground in a day with a World's Greatest Wonder sign at its base. In fact, people didn't like the tower at first. Of course, we can relate as process isn't born out of thin air and many people stop, drop and roll away (far, far away) upon hearing the word. :)

Newspapers of the day were filled with angry letters from the arts community of Paris. One is quoted extensively in William Watson’s US Government Printing Office publication of 1892
Paris Universal Exposition: Civil Engineering, Public Works and Architecture. “And during twenty years we shall see, stretching over the entire city, still thrilling with the genius of so many centuries, we shall see stretching out like a black blot the odious shadow of odious column built up of riveted iron plates.”

Not an attractive description. Public opinion was dead set against the Eiffel Tower, but attitudes slowly began to shift as the beauty of the tower began to grow on people. Attitudes shifted even more when the practical significance (as a communication tower) saved it from being torn down. How do we get process to grow on people? Not show how pretty the diagrams are, but to show the value it adds to the IT organization. What efficiencies are gained. What measurements are now achieved. How process makes their jobs easier.
They say time can change all things and after 120 years, one can say it truly is one of the World’s Greatest Wonders. I believe that with the right value message, we can bring process back to mainstream.

Change will and should occur (and the more seamless to the customer's eye, the better!)
Looking at the evolution photos of the Eiffel Tower, there are two pictures that look a lot alike (figure 3 and 4). Four months actually passed between the two figures, but from the picture you can’t tell that it was one of the largest developments during the build. During this time, the critical infrastructure was being added that created stability and strength for the remaining upward build. Did you know there are over 2.5 million rivets holding it together? In process engineering, it is often the planning, surveying, watching, and documenting that provide for the most impactful change. Likewise, we say that during Kaizen events that the event itself is the least important part. It is the prework that isn’t seen by the masses , but that has the most impact on both the event and the event's outcome.

Building something to last takes one plus For over two years, the Eiffel Tower had more than 300 people involved in its construction. Think about that for a second. What a tremendous amount of human investment working towards one person’s vision. The same is true of process. Great process takes the right people designing the process with time to watch, experiment and document. It takes management to buy in to its importance. It takes team members to be trained to use the process and become proficient with the appropriate tools. Bottom line: It isn’t a one person job, but rather takes one plus to build something that will stand the test of time.

Be a beacon (aka don't let dissenters tear down your tower) The visionaries behind the Eiffel Tower believed in something bigger than themselves. They held true to their architecture vision. Same is true in process engineering! Don't let dissenters distract from the importance of process. Surround yourself with other process lovers and advocates in order to build something tres magnifique!

It is odd to imagine Paris without this amazing piece of architecture. As Mme. Shapiro could not imagine a Paris without the Eiffel Tower, let's establish a process culture at Wells Fargo that Wells Fargo team members can't live without.

Thank you for letting me share
~ Stacy

THE TIPPING POINT OF A GREAT LEADER by Anne Warfield

2009-07-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.impressionmanagement.com/articles/The_Tipping_Point_of_a_Great_Leader_art_0025.shtml

The Tipping Point of a Great Leader What does the movie Coach Carter, the book The Tipping Point, and great leadership have in common?

Every Executive I work with wants to be a good, positive, and strong leader. When I ask them what they would like to change in order to make their life easier they often say things like, “it would be great if my team could think more independently to make the best decisions possible WITHOUT me involved!”

But how do you do that? In order to answer that all we need to do is look at the above question because the answer is right there.

One of the most fundamental and pivotal points of a great leader is one most people hate to take on. It is the one ingredient that makes a huge difference between great parents and just okay parents. It is what makes a team stick or fall apart. That one ingredient is consequences. It means that as a leader you have to have standards that you will NOT compromise no matter who is asking. It means that you have to follow up to make sure the standards are held up by all people. This can be very painful to do!

What I rarely see Executives do well is have direct consequences for poor behavior. In the movie Coach Carter each player had to sign a contract. The contract required them to have an average GPA of 2.3 while the state only required a 2.0, wear ties on game day, to participate in all classes and to sit in the front row.

The players thought these demands were not fair and the parents even stood up and said these are ridiculous standards, yet Coach Carter stayed firm. Even his boss, the school principal, thought he was being too “harsh.” They all thought his standards were too high because they weren’t the “average.” Coach Carter replied that “these are student players. The first word in there is student and that's what I expect them to be.”

Coach Carter took a job at Richman High School where only 50% of all students graduated and only six students out of every one hundred went on to college. That was a standard when he arrived. Parents, teachers and the school principal all told him that he was there to coach basketball and nothing more.

As an Executive you will often face people feeling you are unfair because your “standards” are too high. They will push you to lower them. And often, like in the case of Coach Carter, it could be your boss that tries to get you to lower those standards. When you have pressure like that it becomes even easier to let of your consequences for not following the standards. That is the first step to mediocrity.

In the book “The Tipping Point” Malcolm Gladwell proves over and over how ONE little thing can be the tipping point that sends a neighborhood to crime and violence. If one house has a window boarded up it is only a matter of time before crime creeps in to the neighborhood. Stopping the fare jumpers instead of going after the big criminals helped turn the subways around and reduced crime. So check your own scoreboard. What are your standards?

What are you willing to do to support those standards? What consequences will you FAIRLY and JUSTLY enforce to make sure ALL PLAYERS know the standards and follow them?

For this next month, challenge yourself to focus on ONE standard you would like to see followed in your company and set about implementing it in your company. Then just sit back and watch the positive ripple effect.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
As the leading Outcome Strategist, Anne Warfield shows people how to present their ideas, products and services so people WANT to listen to you. Her communication formula is easy to apply and produces proven results. Fortune 500 companies around the world have utilized her expertise and her work is published around the world. She has been published in Business Week, Good Housekeeping, Forbes publications and has been featured on ABC, NBC and CBS. Anne speaks around the world about Outcome Focus™ Communication. To book Anne, contact her at 888-imp-9421 or check out her web site at www.ImpressionManagement.com. Check out her website to take the communication quiz for yourself! Books can be purchased from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. You can also email us at contact@impressionmanagement.com.

The Great Sticky Escape

2009-07-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

Anne Warfield, knowing my love for reading, sent me a recommendation to read the latest Jim Collins book.

Admittedly, the pile of books on my dresser has grown over the past months and I haven’t been going through them as fast as I would like. So I merely wrote the name of the book down on a sticky and placed it on top of the stack.

One weekend while cleaning, I found the sticky. It had migrated from the top of the stack to the right side of the dresser. I moved it back to the top of the stack. Two weekends ago, as my youngest son walked out of my bedroom, I noticed something attached to his backside…It was my sticky note!

I took it as a sign. Bought the book, read the book and have spent the past two weeks thinking about the book.

I am not going to ruin it for you, but will share some of my margin notes:
· Leadership is not a position. It is not a title. It is not a club or committee. You don’t sign up for it. And contrary to popular belief, you can’t take a class on it. You live it. You believe it. You model it.
· Leaders are focused on “we” versus “I”. Leadership is about enabling others to achieve the noble goal. It truly is about shared responsibility and group wins.
· The big difference between leadership and management is the ability to promote a vision and bring a group together to believe in it in order to effectively execute it.
· Leaders are as comfortable following as they are leading. The best leaders I have known have sometimes pushed me forward or stepped back in order to move me forward.
· Leaders are not perfect. They have trying days and lose EQ like the rest of us. I am reminded that leadership isn’t about being perfect at all times. It is about how they act/react during the trying times.

Now, I’m going to do something a little different. Instead of sending you the book, I am including a sticky note on the page with the book’s name and author on it. If this book piques your interest, I would encourage you to purchase it. If your pile is too high, then add this sticky to your list/pile. Just be aware that it might try to pull of the Great Sticky Escape!

Thanks for letting me share,

~stacy

A Story About Stump: Cohabitating with a Bullfrog

2009-06-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

I have a bullfrog. Well, actually, I have seven bullfrogs. But this isn't a story about Jeremiah, Grenouille, Treeco, PollyFrog, PollyWog or Pisquat. It is a story about Stump.

Three years ago Uncle Randy took Marmot (aka Justin) and Turtle Boy (aka Devon) up to a foothills pond to "catch frogs". No “frogs” were caught on this particular day, instead the team of three came back to the house with a bucket full of tadpoles and two crawdads. Apparently the bunch thought it would be fun to set them free in our backyard pond.

Now, clearly the crawdads weren't allowed in the pond (and their story will surface in another story in the future), but the bullfrog tadpoles all 20+ of them were slowly lifted from the bucket and moved into the pond.

As the tadpoles were set free, I joked with Uncle Randy about the “Herd O’ Ugly BullFrogs” I would now have. His response? None of the tadpoles would reach adulthood. He believed that they would all be eaten by the koi - who were now swarming near the boys like customers at a sushi bar who had been told their next order was free. I was utterly horrified.

Now, with my first line of this message, you in fact know that Uncle Randy was wrong. In fact, 7x wrong...because one day while telecommuting, I had just exited a terrible call. I walked out of the house to catch a breath . Looking at the pond, I was surprised to find two eyes staring at me. A young bullfrog was on one of the lily pads (exhibit #1). I immediately ran into the house and called my colleague who had been on the call with me moments ago and blurted "I have a bullfrog in my pond!" Not surprising, my colleague simply laughed at me.

The other bullfrogs popped up like daisies over the next couple of months, but that first bullfrog (even though he was the smallest) was always present. He wouldn't run away and hide like the other bullfrogs, but would stay planted—sunning himself on top of the lily pads. When we walked up to the pond or sat by the edge, he would turn his head towards us and watch us intently (exhibit #2).

And then it happened. The boys and I watched a Discovery channel show about bullfrogs, only to find out that bullfrogs eat everything they can catch. Flying insects, birds, lizards, and even each other. AHHHH! That is when the mass feeding began.

Our thought was if we fatten Stump up - he wouldn't be a product of cannibalization. We started to catch bugs. We fed him every night. And to no surprise, by month three, he was waiting for us at night by the edge of the pond for his dinner (exhibits #3, #4, #7 and #8).

Last fall, I was scared because he hadn’t gone into hibernation. When he finally went into hibernation, I was scared that he wouldn’t come out. My husband teased me endlessly, “If you are this way with a frog, what it going to happen when the kids leave for college?” Kids leave? Huh? The warm weather brought Stump out of hibernation and to our excitement he had not abandoned his beggin' ways. He also has picked up a couple other bad habits: he loves swimming in the pool (exhibits #5 and #6) which require “pool rescue units” (ok, the boys) to be called in and he often mistakes fingers and toes for food.

In all seriousness and as silly as it feels to admit, Stump has been an absolute joy for my family and I. Watching him develop, I have reflected a lot on a variety of topics. Now, grab your bag of “bugs” as I share with you a couple. I like to call them “Stumpisms”:

1. Gauge someone’s character on how they are (not who/what they are)
2. Don’t discount first impressions, but don’t define someone by them
3. Don’t discount the small things—they can turn into the greatest of things
4. Live in the present—let go! Enjoy the moment
5. Just because you never have, doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t
6. Be patient. Good things come
7. Be trustworthy. Trust makes all the difference in a relationship
8. Think big!
9. There are no guarantees in this life — we will be here for the amount of time allotted—no longer, no less
10. Of course, there is also one about not chewing with your mouth open....especially when your diet consists of slugs and snails.

Thanks for letting me share
~ stacy

Walk in the Rain

2008-11-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

I received an email from Rachel Snyder after I sent her an email regarding campaign and political posts on her blog. She was nothing but positive and respectful in return. It confirmed to me that for true leaders, even if we disagree we can do so with grace, compassion and respect.

I encourage all to read through Rachel's blog and certainly to post.
~stacy

Less About Rain and More About Attitude

2008-11-19T17:44:00.000-08:00

"some people walk in the rain...
others just get wet..."
-Roger Miller

Appreciate by Rachel Snyder

2008-11-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

Every day of the year (not just as Thanksgiving!), appreciate everything you've been given-especially the chance to be a mother. consider yourself lucky, even during those times when baby is cranky and none of your clothes seem to fit.

Slow down for a second and appreciate a moment of silence. Be grateful for the stillness. Appreciate just how blessed you truly are--that you have friends and family you can count on, that your home is warm and your child is loved.

Appreciate the people who make your life a bit easier: your baby's day care provider, your pediatrician, kind strangers who hold open doors for you while you struggle to maneuver your little one's stroller. Find a way to show your thanks, even if it's as simple as a word.

Rachel Snyder lives in boulder, Colorado, and is the author of 365 Words of Well-Being for Women (Contemporary Books, 1997).

This was found in American Baby - November 98 edition.

Appreciate.

2008-11-08T04:14:00.000-08:00

“Every day of the year (not just at thanksgiving) appreciate everything you have been given,” says Rachel snyder. She goes on, “slow down for a second and appreciate a moment of silence. Be grateful for the stillness. Appreciate just how blessed you truly are.”
Come on Rachel, aren’t there times when the complexity of life overwhelms your basic sense of appreciation?
just the other day my son approached me with the kitchen magnet in hand and asked if “it was THIS kind of day”. Note: the magnet reads “I try to take one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked me at once.” I appreciated the interruption, the laugh we shared and the big hug and kiss before he left.
But, that is not always how this Gemini reacts. My sister sent me an email about a videogame programmer named Matt. When I first received the email, I resented the interruption. “Another thing to do,“ said my overburdened mind. But, I watched it. I watched it to understand why she had sent it. Matt didn’t like his job, so he quit and decided to travel. A travel buddy encouraged him to videotape himself doing this funky dance during their journeys. The video was placed on a website to keep family informed of his travel. Somehow Stride Gum found him and the rest is history. Matt now travels the world introducing the world to his dance. My lesson? Appreciate the sentiments sent my way. Appreciate the unique dance I bring to the world.
When I think “appreciate”, two children books come to mind: the velveteen rabbit and Alexander and the Wind Up Mouse. In the first example, the rabbit didn’t know that being worn = loved = real and in the second example the mouse didn’t know true friendship until he thought he had lost one. The common theme in both is loss. Loss = a realization of what was before them all along and regret for not appreciating it when they had it.
I do not want to be a could have, should have, would have kind of person. I want character building opportunities. The ones that others see as obstacles or challenges. I want the people I meet and choose to call friend to always know the authentic me. I want to live a life with my family that isn’t dependent on words, because my actions say it all. My struggle is getting the “I want” into the actionable “I will.”
But back to the Rachel Snyder question. Does she have days? I bet so, I bet many, but I also bet her attitude and approach get her by. My wish for you is this: that you enter today appreciating you are a better person then yesterday, appreciating the treasures that surround you and celebrating the unique dance you bring to the world.
-Stacy

Velveteen Rabbit can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_m054tLKvs

Leave a Legacy

2008-11-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Developing outstanding leaders is fundamental to any company's success. Strong leaders have a positive, profound, and measurable influence on retention, but more important inspiring commitment through demonstration of leadership in action.
From Leadership Challenge we are reminded that there are five practices of exemplary leadership™:
1. Model the Way
Do you set an example through your actions? Do you attempt to unravel bureaucracy or create it? Do you create opportunities for victory not just for yourself, but the team that you lead?
2. Inspire a Shared Vision—
Do you passionately believe you can make a difference?
3. Challenge the Process—
Do you search for opportunities to change the status quo?
Enable Others to Act
Do you foster collaboration even with dissenters and build spirited teams? Do you create an environment of mutual respect where trust, authenticity and dignity are the most important tenets?
5. Encourage the Heart
Accomplishing the extraordinary is hard. Do you keep determination alive by rewarding team members for their efforts? Do you celebrate accomplishments even the small ones?
Some of you may remember the story that my mom would tell me of the mighty oak tree. It is a story about leaving a leadership legacy, not about mass acorn production. It is about the added steps in helping others take root, find their path, to enable discovery of their own unique power. Helping those who choose to work with you find something that matters, something to care about at work or a place where they can excel, that is the leadership challenge. Whether or not you leave a legacy depends on if you have succeeded at becoming an extraordinary leader.
To help leaders develop their full potential and leave a leadership legacy, my compnay is committed to using Extraordinary Leader (Zenger Folkman) as their leadership model.
I share this book with each of you as the next step of your leadership journey. If you were measured by your actions today, what leadership legacy would you leave?
- Stacy

Ignite A Fire

2008-10-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

Candles have been used for more than 5,000 years, yet little is known about their origin.
I read that the first candles were developed by the Egyptians, who used rushlights made by soaking the pithy core of reeds in melted animal fat. However, the rushlights had no wick like a true candle.
The ancient Romans are generally credited with developing the wicked candle by dipping rolled papyrus repeatedly in melted tallow. The resulting candles were used to light their homes, to aid travelers at night, and in religious ceremonies.
Historians have found evidence that many other early civilizations developed wicked candles using waxes made from available plants and insects. Early Chinese candles are said to have been molded in paper tubes, using rolled rice paper for the wick. In Japan, candles were made of wax extracted from tree nuts, while in India, candle wax was made by boiling the fruit of the cinnamon tree.
Today, lighting candles signals celebration, marks romance, defines ceremony, and accents décor. Candles certainly mark milestones in my own life. Playing cribbage under candlelight with Bruce in our first home (which we weren’t suppose to occupy until the next day) or years later, three young boys in tow, candles lit a Jenner vacation house during a terrible rainstorm that knocked the power out.
But what about unlit candles? Do they signal the same? My response is no. An unlit candle takes space – it gathers dust - and is not serving the purpose that it was created to serve.
Don’t be an unlit candle. Ignite. Fill whatever room you are present in with light. Whether it is for celebration, romance, ceremony or merely décor. Glow for all to enjoy.
-Stacy

Intrigued by the history of candles? Read more here at the National Candle Association: http://www.candles.org/about_history.html

Live with Intention

2008-10-20T05:22:00.000-07:00

Walking through the streets of Cannon Beach as an adult was much different than as a child. With my adult eyes, I now was aware of shops and restaurants that were never my concern before.
After my grandmother’s death, a trip to Cannon Beach proved significant for many reasons. One that I will share is the discovery of a little shop near the bakery which contained the poetry of a local artist. I wasn’t committed to walking into the shop, even though it was raining. So from the window I peeked in and the first thing I saw was “Live with Intention.” It was enough to get me out of the rain and into the store.
Months later, I came across the card I had purchased from the shop with the poem on it. I read it over and over. I even looked up the word intention in the dictionary and found that it means “a determination to act in a certain way”
Mary Anne Radmacher made living with intention sound so simple. And the more I thought about it, the more I resolved that it is simple. Living with intention is a personal choice.
The shop no longer sits across from the bakery, but Mary Anne Radmacher’s writings continue to have a powerful effect on me. When I find one that is significantly important, I put it in my journal or the story line (as Anne Warfield calls it).
I read somewhere that Mary Anne credits her inspiration from hearing a leader named Ray Stedman say that people have three different kinds of effects on others: some provoke no impact at all; some make others bitter and some make others better.
Commitment allows us to truly live with intention. Intention allows us to “begin each day as if it were on purpose.” Purpose allows for reach, collaboration and celebration.
Which effect will you have on others? None, bitter or better?
-Stacy

Live with Intention by Mary Anne Radmacher

2008-10-20T01:36:00.000-07:00

live with intention.
walk to the edge.
listen hard.
practice wellness.
play with abandon.
laugh.
choose with no regret.
continue to learn.
appreciate your friends.
do what you love.
live as if this is all there is.

Darksly and Hell's Demon by Devon

2008-10-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful night.
I looked out at the night sky and saw some stars. It was nine o’clock and it was warm. I felt a perfect breeze of air blew on my face and I put my head down and quickly went to sleep.
“Is it him? Is he the one?” Said a voice.
“It has to be. He has the birthmark just like the Lightsly did!” Another voice said.
“Wake him.” The first voice said, “He needs to know who he really is.”
I woke up. I tried to open my eyes, but it was so bright and overwhelming. I opened my eyes just a little to see what was happening. Then I noticed that I was not in my bed, but I was in the sky. As I was looking around there were bubbles in the sky and I was being carried on top of one. They took me to a city in the sky. I could tell because the clouds were forming houses, gates and trees.
Suddenly there was a small smoke screen and a man came out of it. I looked at him for a second or two and then I realized that before me stood Michael – the angel who bound the devil down in Hell!
I backed away in fear but the floating bubble stopped me.
“Stay Darksly,” Michael said, “you need to know what has happened.”
“Darksly?” I said, “My name is not Darksly, it is Kekoro!”
“Darksly! Calm down,” said Michael. “We need to tell you something.”
“Okay, Okay!” I said.
“The devil has created a monster so deadly that if it breathes any where near you – you die instantly.” Said Michael.
Then he took me to a house and when he opened the door there was a table inside. On the table there was a little bottle full of blue stuff.
“This is a Nonfoger Elixir,” said Michael picking up the small bottle. “If you drink this you will be able to survive his breath without dying but it will only last for 24 hours.”
Suddenly a door appeared in front of where they were standing.
“Go Darksly, you must slay Hell’s Demon!”
I walked to the door and Michael gave me a glowing yellow sword.
“Slay the beast with this.” Michael said. “Cut its throat and it will die immediately.”
“Why can’t you fight with me?” I said.
“My job is to bind the devil back down in Hell.” Michael explained. “I’m not supposed to slay his demons.”
I opened the bottle and drank it. Then I entered the door it was a foul place with spiders crawling all over. I looked through a window on a door to my right. It was the devil himself drowning souls in a pot of boiling water. I snuck past and went through another door.
“Gggrrrrrr!” growled a beast.
I kept walking until there was a room full of darkness. A beast jumped out of the darkness and attacked! Luckily, I dodged it and took a look at it. It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. It had jagged and sharp teeth. It also had four eyes and legs like a centipede. The beast attacked again and this time I stepped aside before it hit me. Its head hit the ground so hard that it got buried into the dirt. While its head was stuck, I drew my sword and sliced its head off.
I knew my job was done. I left and opened the door that lead me back to heaven. Then there was a light brighter than any of the lights I had seen before.
God appeared and sent me back down to earth and dropped me back at my house. He raised his finger and awarded me with health and money. Then I knew who I really was. I was Darksly, the slayer of Hell’s Demon.

Pause and Reflect

2008-10-06T03:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend the bookshelf spoke to me. I had finished The Alchemist: A Fable about Following Your Dream and was not wanting to start Born on a Blue Day. Walking by the bookshelf, Onyx’s tail knocked over the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff trilogy and the work version poked out from the sleeve. Whether you believe it was a coincidence or omen doesn’t matter, however the book reminded me of the need to stop, reflect and celebrate.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff at Work discusses this in chapter 36. Richard Carlson, the author, says “At times, it’s important to stop what you are doing and pat yourself on the back. Take a few moments to reflect on what you’ve been doing and on the nature of your intentions and actions. Mentally review your accomplishments. Think about how hard you work and how much you are contributing to your goals, and to the people you are working with.”
With midyear premiere performance reviews complete, I wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect and celebrate the 1Q, 2Q and 3Q of this wonderful year.
-Stacy

My Haunted House by Devon

2008-09-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

It was dark and stormy. The wind was blowing seventy miles per hour. It was raining hard too.
I peeked out the window. There was a tornado coming towards the house. It was huge! I went down to the cellar of the house. I set up my bed and turned on my alarm to go off at eight o’clock in the morning.
“Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,” only two hours had past and my alarm went off.
“Huh?” I moaned.
“This is your worse nightmare,” said a mysterious voice. “Welcome to the midnight realm.”
The wallpaper started disintegrating. I went into the other room even though it was pitch black.
I felt something grab my leg. I found the light switch on the wall and turned on the light. On the floor was a man grabbing my leg.
“Get off!” I yelled.
“Shhh!” he whispered pointing to the darkness of the other room.
Suddenly a humungous hand came out of the room he was pointing to. It grabbed him and pulled him into the room.
I was terrified. I ran for the door, but the door turned into a mouth. I ran and grabbed a chair and stabbed the mouth. As I expected, the mouth yelled in pain. As the mouth was open, I ran through it and out of the house.
I got into my car and drove as fast as I could away.

What Science Means to Me by Brandon

2008-09-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

Science is the ultimate attempt at discovery. From discovering what makes soda explode, to discovering how to plant hundreds of thousands of trees in a day. From discovering how to create stable environments for experimentation, to discovering what make the body work. This is what science is to me.

Discovering what is true by making a hypothesis and then testing the hypothesis through repeatable and verifiable experiments. For example, last year my friend and I saw a You Tube video on Mentos and Diet Coke explosions. We didn’t believe that simply putting Mentos in Diet Coke could create the soda to explode. We decided we wanted to do it, so we asked our parents if we could test it and we did. But coming to the conclusion that it would work wasn’t good enough...we wanted to find out why it happens and would it work on other sodas.

Discovering and increasing knowledge based on facts about how the world works. Science is watching Discovery channel on topics like global warming and effects of Hurricane Katrina on the coastal shores of Louisiana. Did you know that there is an island 30 miles out at sea that lost all of its mangroves due to the hurricane? Did you know that it takes two men and two full days to plan 20 mangroves? However, a regular person came up with a creative idea - let go of mangrove seeds from a helicopter in order to plant 150,000 mangroves over the whole coastal shelf in one day.

Discovering how to conduct experiments including creating stable environments where you can do your discovery and document your findings. I love the network show Dexter. While I know it is only a TV show, it also tells the importance of having the right environment to completing experiments. Things like temperature, humidity, moods can alter the results of an experiment. Science is creating an environment where you can feel confident in the results of your experiment.

Discovering how to research and collect data in order to learn how different things work. While I have never dissected any living thing, I do enjoy learning through hands on application. For example, taking apart a computer or learning to play golf and improving my swing by better understanding how my body moves.

Discovering what is true, discovering and increasing knowledge, discovering how to conduct experiments, and discovering how to research, are the biggest parts of science to me. To me knowledge is gained through discovery and you have to do something first hand to really understand it.

It's Official - Ounce Cattery

2008-08-03T00:28:00.000-07:00

Come visit us at: http://www.ouncecattery.com/

We are a small family Bengal breeder based in Roseville, California.

Bengals are absolutely fascinating cats. I have heard them referred as little leopards as they have extremely exotic looks accompanied by wild personalities, but are fully domesticated animals. The wild looks come from their origination from a hybrid of the Asian Leopard Cat (ALC) and a domestic cat through a breeding program started by Jean Mill of Millwood Bengals.

My extreme love for cats led my to open Ounce Cattery in 2008. I breed for temperament (kid friendly and personality rich) as well as genetic strength (no tail kinks, no lockets, color faults, cataracts). Caring for the cats under my care includes keeping the cats under veterinarian care and the cleanliness of their environment. However, the cats are not just supervised, but part of the family around kids, dogs and friends 100% of the time.

If you have questions about our breeding program or our cats, please don't hesitate to email me at: stacy@ouncecattery.com or sales@ouncecattery.com

The Rope Rocket by Brandon

2008-03-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

Awesome and scary too, I was the third one to jump. Actually it wasn’t really a jump, a fall maybe, but it didn’t really matter. What I’m talking about is a ride at the Alliance Redwoods Science Camp, called the Rope Rocket. It’s so hard to describe, but I’ll do my best.

As soon as I saw it I wanted to go, but I wasn’t fast enough. It was excruciating watching the others going and having so much fun, and then it was my turn. When I went up into the tree I was nervous and excited. There was a lady waiting for me at the top of the tree. She put the harness and cords on, and told me to sit on the edge of the tree. Then I panicked.

I started telling her I wanted to get off and standing up, but she just reassured me and told me to sit down every time I did so. “These cables can hold up a bus, now I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure you don’t weigh as much as a bus,” She said. “And I was scared the first time I went too, but in the end it’s all worth it.” So I calmed myself down and told her if I hit the 30lb cables she had strapped onto me, 3 times, she could let go.

1.....2........3! I started falling down faster, the air was escaping me. I couldn’t breathe. Then I went up, hitting a few trees in the process. Back and forth, again and again as if I were on a giant swing it felt so good, the wind rushing against my face. I had lost myself, falling and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. That’s what it’s like to go on the Rope Rocket; awesome, and scary too.

Greetings from the Thomas Family - 2007

2007-11-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

I have to admit I have been dragging my feet in getting the Christmas letter out this year. My inspiration came when Brandon said if I got the pictures together, he would add the words. Enjoy the year in review through the eyes of Brandon, with help on captions from his 6 year old brother.

Cookie Baking with the Bailey Family
We had our annual Cookie Baking Session with the Baileys. Chocolate Chip, Russian Snowballs, Chocolate Sugar Cookies, Fudge, Snicker doodles were baked, packaged and delivered to our Goldstone neighbors by all the kids complete with Santa Caps (except Devon).

Lake Tahoe with the Tabatabai Family
The year was started with a bang! The first week of January was spent at Lake Tahoe with Sean, Jeanne, Roxanna and Samantha Tabatabai. Midweek Uncle Jack, Uncle Randy, James, Jenny, Elizabeth and Julianne joined us for New Years Eve. Sledding, snowball fights, long walks to Starbucks….even Roxanna eating the snowman’s chocolate buttons made for a great start of the New Year.

Hawaii with Wells Fargo
Bittersweet is the word my Mom uses to describe working at Wells Fargo this year. In February, her CIO left the company to be CEO of another. On his departure he called Mom to inform her she had won one of two Management Excellence awards and was to be sent to the company’s Sales and Service Conference. From pampering, to excursions, to guest speakers, to the hotel itself (Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort and Spa) - the company goes all out for their team members for this event. We spent the week snorkeling, swimming, exploring Waikiki’s Zoo and eating way too much at the endless buffets.

South Africa
Dad and Randy made an amazing trek to South Africa for a Safari. Kudu, Warthog, Giraffe, Elephant, Lion and many more animals were seen (we don’t want to know what was eaten!). Photo captions created by Brandon and Justin in between fits of laughter…..animal lovers beware!

Hakuna Matata = Don’t Worry
This is Randy and Dad with Pumba. Dad said the reason Pumba isn’t breathing is he swallowed Tumon and choked. Dad tried the Heimlich and Randy tried mouth to snout, but couldn’t resuscitate. Hakuna Matata doesn’t appear to be Pumba’s motto anymore……

Don’t they use guns in Africa?
Doesn’t it appear that Randy has brought down this beast by using the stick in his hand? For the animal lovers out there, Randy assured us that no animals were hurt in the taking this photo. He says the animal is a “stunt beast”. We are starting to sense that we can’t trust Randy’s stories…..

Cannon Beach, Oregon
The Rea Family journeyed up to our favorite beach spot, Cannon Beach – Oregon for the 4th of July. Two houses side-to-side hosted four families and a total of 17 people and three dogs. Scrabble, long walks to Haystack Rock, clamming in Gearhart, trips into Seaside and fireworks made for a great adventure.

New York, NY
Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Nintendo Center, Ellis Island and 5 million taxis were amazing sights to see. Of course, seeing Grease and Phantom were worth the flight. But, nothing compares to hanging with my mom and Grammie for a week in New York.

New York 2007
Phantom of the Opera was AMAZING! I met several of the cast members including the Phantom of the Opera. In fact, here I am with the Phantom - unmasked. Devilishly handsome, a wonderful actor and an extremely good singer (but enough about me already).
SpamALot
After seeing Grease, I couldn’t resist taking advantage of a SpamALot cut out and being one of the Knights of the Round Table.

“The Holy Grail? We already got one.”
John Lennon Memorial
Grammie wanted to stop and see the memorial. Little did we know to look DOWN. But once we found it, it was a beautiful memorial in the middle of Strawberry Fields.

Channel Islands, CA
After getting his diving certification, Dad took a trip out spiny lobster diving in the Channel Islands. The annual trip is coordinated by one of Dads firefighting buddies, but this year Dad brought his friend Greg which made it more fun, although the sleeping quarters were a tad bit crowded we hear.

My brothers and I had a great year. I turned 11, Devon turned 9 and Justin turned 6. I like swimming, baseball and reptiles. Of course, I love the stage and the vocal/piano lessons are preparing me for musicals. Devon is a sporty guy who likes to rides his wave, skateboard and fusion scooter. He loves to play video games and can get lost for days if left alone with his Nintendo DS. Justin is our local charmer. He comes home with new phone numbers every week. He loves to ride his fusion scooter, play with the dogs and play soccer and baseball.

From our family to yours, wishing you joy, love and health in the New Year.

Bruce, Stacy, Brandon, Devon and Justin
(reatho@yahoo.com)

Wasps MIA in the Winter? by Brandon

2007-10-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

I asked my mom today why you don't see wasps in winter. She replied in a matter-of-fact one, "Well Brandon, in winter it's too cold for wasps to make their nests. So, they hibernate."

Of course, I laughed because the thought of wasps hibernating was too funny. Afterall, bears hibernate. Not wasps.

She then turned and said, "Of course, some people believe that because it is so cold that they pick up their wasp families and homes and migrate to Argentina." She continued quite seriously, "In Argentina, they stay up all night dancing the salsa and drinking pitchers of Margeritas. After a few Margeritas, they land in the tourists salsa. Wasps don't make for a good ingredient for salsa, but it keeps them warm. Many a wasp has lost his/her life drowing in a good Argentinian salsa. That is why many Argentinian salsa producers have gone out of business. Yes, even many Mexican restaurants have been sued from serving wasp butts to their customers."

She cleared her throat and continued, "So, Brandon, there are two stories about wasps not being around in winter. Which do you believe is true?"

I looked at my mom speechless, because all I could think of was why would Mexican restaurants be serving Argentitian salsa? Next time, I go to Taco Bell, I would surely ask for the Argentinian salsa for my Nachos Bell Grande to look for wasp parts.....

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The Skeleton Key by Brandon

2007-09-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

The day we moved into our new house little did I know that day would change my life forever.
That key had more power than I could ever imagine.
Maybe if I had dropped it right then, all of it never would have happened but its to late now, much to late.
“Hey Mom, Dad, I’m going to explore the house. Ok?”
“Ok.” My mom shouted back as I ran up the stairs breezing past her to explore my new house.
So many rooms to choose from. As I got to the top of the stairs, I counted the doors. Twelve to be precise! I looked into each one. Long rooms, square rooms, rooms with windows, rooms without. Rooms with closets so big that they could be rooms. Finally I had exhausted my search of rooms and decided on the one in the corner. So many rooms in our new house, my brothers would not have trouble finding ones they wanted.
As I was running back down the stairs I slipped on something. I looked down at the ground. There lying on the stair was a key, but not just an ordinary key, an old fashioned key with a skeleton on the top of it. I had found a skeleton key.
“Why had I not seen it before?” I thought to myself. “I know! It belongs to one of the rooms.”
As I spun around, hoping it was the door key of the room I had chosen, a new door caught my eye. It was not a room that I had explored already.
Counting the doors, I found that now this floor had thirteen rooms.
“How strange,” I thought to myself, “that I could miss such a funky looking door!”
I walked over to the door. It was all black except with a white streak through the middle.
I stuck the key in. It turned. The door opened ever so slightly.
“Hello?” I whispered as I slowly entered the room.
I had just decided to go back and grab a flashlight, when the door slammed behind me, and all the light seemed to disappear from sight.
I stood still. A million eyes felt like they were watching me. I was not alone.
I turned to walk back to the door, but the door I could not find. In fact, I couldn’t even find a wall.
Panicked, I spoke out in a whisper.
“Hello?” There was no answer.
Irritated and scared, I yelled out into the darkness.
“This is not funny!”
“Help!” A scream came from the darkness followed by an agonizing cry of pain.
The cry of pain echoed in my mind.
I walked forward and soon I saw light.
It became clear that it was a bulb hanging from the ceiling.
I looked around and saw two undeads coming towards me. I froze. They advanced coming closer and closer to me.
By the time I unfroze, they were so close I could spell their rotting skin and see bugs crawling in and out of their open flesh.
I ran away from them. I didn’t stop running until I realized I was in another room. Finding a door, I quickly shut it cutting off four fingers of the undeads in the process. As I looked down and saw the fingers hopping on the floor, I realized I could not see the floor. What I saw instead were dead bodies and they were covering the entire floor. But there was not blood, no punctures, only a horrifying look on each of their faces.
“How?” I wondered.
Then it came to me. They had been scared to death! They had died of heart attacks. But what had scared them to death?
It would have to wait. I knew I needed to get out of this room and get out now.
I saw a small door on the right side of the room. Walking over bodies, so many bodies, I waded towards the door.
Coming to it, I noticed it required a key. I pulled the key out of my pocket and stuck the key into the lock on the door.
As I pulled open the door, relief overwhelmed me as I began to walk into the corner room. The room I had chosen for my bedroom. I began to enter the room as a huge blue monster came from behind me. Lunging at me, trying to grab my sweatshirt, I quickly ran into room and shut the door.
“That’s what killed them,” I thought to myself.
“Mom, Dad.” I screamed, “Where are you?”
My mom’s voice muffled came to me. I could not understand what she was saying.
“Mom?” I turned around to look in the direction of her voice. It was coming from behind the door.
“Get out of the house Chuck!” Her voice now sharp and full of fear shoot out from behind the door.
I turned to run, but was caught by a large blue hand coming from the door.
As it pulled me into the room, my mind was full of regret.
“Why did I have to pick up the key?”

The Amazing Mr. Nibbles - Tale of the Hairy Houdini Hamster

2006-09-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

Dedication
This seven chapter blog is dedicated to Devon for without his diligence and bloody sacrifice Mr. Nibbles would not have come home with us. Instead, he would be the subject of the next Stephen King book.

Introducing the Characters
Brandon: Eight-year-old responsible pet owner to a pet hamster called Mr. Nibbles. Brandon is smart, cute and funny…but enough about him already.
Mr. Nibbles: Believed to be a vegetarian, Mr Nibbles is a fuzzy black bear hamster with an uncanny ability to escape from any cage, any time, any where.
Devon: Five-year-old brother to Brandon. A potential candidate for the TV series, Fear Factor, where contestant have to overcome their fears by eating weird animal parts and having live tarantulas crawl on their heads. Devon is as brave as can be. He once picked up a King Snake, the size of his forearm, without thinking and then got excited after it bit him on the wrist.
Justin: Not too unlike Devon, three-year-old Justin has two loves: eating fries and squeezing animals. No, really, once caught him with Powers in a death grip no one would have been able to escape from. Lucky Brandon walked in when he did or Powers would have his neck stretched to three inches long.
Powers: A very intelligent gray and white jumbo rat. Brandon’s beloved pet who lived four years in a lizard cage before passing away in his sleep.
Mom: Sometimes more harsh than her kids can handle, but she makes a great cup of hot chocolate.
Harry Houdini: Harry Houdini was the greatest magician of all time. He was world-famed for his escapes from bonds of every sort–locks, handcuffs, straitjackets, and sealed chests underwater.

CHAPTER 1: Where, Oh Where, Is Mr. Nibbles?

Hello, my name is Brandon and, boy, do I have a story to tell you. This morning while I was getting ready for school, Mom screamed at me from downstairs in the kitchen. NOTE to readers: When I say "scream" I mean "scream". You know, that full belly scream that causes the hair on the back of your neck to stand straight up. The last time I heard that scream was when I called 9-1-1 just to see what would happen. How was I to know that the people at 9-1-1 could trace the location of the call and call back? Boy, was Mom surprised when 9-1-1 dispatch called her back. After a few "screams" she said I should know better considering Dad is a Firefighter. Nonetheless, back to the story.
"Brandon, where is Mr. Nibbles?" She yelled.
"In his cage," I yelled back.
"Brandon, are you sure he is in his cage?" She questioned.
Not really knowing why she didn’t believe me the first time, I looked at Mr. Nibbles cage there was nothing out of the ordinary. His bed area was crammed full of the toilet paper I had put in there earlier in the week. Confident he was sleeping in that mess, I replied with sarcasm, "Yes Mom, I am sure he is in his cage."
"Brandon Davies. Look IN his cage. Is he there?" She replied sternly. This time, knowing she knew something that I apparently did not know, I decided to actually look into Mr. Nibbles’ cage. I peered over the top of his yellow exercise ball. You know the ball that normal hamster use to run off excess steam. My hamster, round and hairy, slept in it. I kind of thought he felt like he was sleeping outside or maybe he thought he was burning calories by merely lying in his exercise ball. Mr. Nibbles was NOT in his exercise ball. I looked over the green body of the cage. Pine shavings lined the cage along with his food bowl and some scattered hamster droppings. Mr. Nibbles was NOT in the cage. Finally, in a panic, I looked at the long tube leading from the bottom of the cage to the top of the cage. A small yellow box with a green lid used for hamster travel was attached at the top. Mr. Nibbles was NOT in the travel box, nor was he in the tube.
In fact, Mr. Nibbles was NOT anywhere he was supposed to be. Knowing that my mother was expecting a response, I walked to the top of the staircase and said, "Um…Mom….Mr. Nibbles has escaped again."

CHAPTER 2: The Great Escape…or the Great Escapes

You see, Mr. Nibbles is not an ordinary hamster. He is the Amazing Hairy Houdini Hamster. At least twice a week, we find Mr. Nibbles somewhere else then his cage. Once we found him in the playroom behind a box of blocks. Another time, he was in the downstairs bathroom. Imagine the surprise of having Mr. Nibbles pop out of the bathroom closet while I was sitting on the toilet. Mom once found him in the dining room behind the china cabinet. She was expecting company in the evening and was relieved to find him before Mr. Nibbles found them. And, my five-year-old brother, Devon, once found him in the laundry room hiding out behind the washing machine. It was not unusual for Mr. Nibbles to escape. In fact, we had tried numerous contraptions to discourage Mr. Nibbles from escaping.

CHAPTER 3: The Great Cage Dilemma

Originally, Mr. Nibbles lived in a lizard’s cage. Of course, no lizard could escape the cage, but Mr. Nibbles could. In fact, this cage once housed the brightest of rats. My pet rat, Powers, could not escape the cage despite several attempts at freedom. A bite here, a nip there, a leg-up at the precise place and Mr. Nibbles would have escaped again. We moved him into a normal hamster cage. A cage even Mom had trouble getting into, but he escaped. Finally, we sentenced him to a home, which I lovingly called the plastic jail cell. Of course, it was not. It was a state-of-the-art hamster condominium complete with exercise wheel, travel box and attachable tunnels.

CHAPTER 4: Back to the Story – Part I

As I walked down the staircase, I could tell from the expression on Mom’s face that something was terribly wrong.
"Mr. Nibbles is dead," she said mournfully.
"He is dead?" I questioned. I could not believe it to be true.
I thought for a minute more. Somehow, the thought of Mr. Nibbles being dead didn’t make sense.
"Where is his body?" I asked.
"In the trashcan," Mom replied sadly.
"In the trashcan?" I asked.
"Yes, Brandon," she replied. She then added, "He is too big to flush down the toilet."
Looking at Mom, I realized that it was Mr. Nibbles’ good fortune he was round and hairy. After all, a water funeral did not fit him in the least.
He hated water.
I know because my other brother, Justin, at the age of two had once tried to give him a bath. The water-soaked Mr. Nibbles didn’t quite recover to his normal self for weeks. During that time, there was not one single escape effort.

CHAPTER 5: How Mr. Nibbles Got Named

Now, I just realized that I have neglected to tell you how the name Mr. Nibbles came about.
You see, my beloved rat, Powers had just died when Mom decided to take Devon and I to the pet store for a new rat.
Looking at the rats, I just couldn’t bear it. No rat could replace my Powers.
Just as I decided not to get a new pet, I spotted a black, furry animal peering at me from behind a bed of pine shavings. He had big ears, beady eyes and was burrowing quite aggressively in the plastic cage.
He was making a mess of the pine shavings and he looked up at me he had pine all over his nose and head. Little did I e finally were assisted, the pet store attendant asked if I
wanted to hold him. I did really badly, but Mom said since it was going to be MY pet, I should let Devon hold it first.
Devon put his hand in the cage. He picked up the hamster slowly. As he got the hamster into the palm of his hand, he screamed. Blood gushed from the tip of his finger as he yelled, "It bit me!"
You can imagine my surprise as blood dripped onto the floor of the pet store. This was no ordinary hamster, it was a blood sucking hampire. Mom told the attendant to take the hamster back, but my brother cried and asked if we could keep it. To be honest, I didn’t want it.
Hamsters were soft and fuzzy. They were friendly. They didn’t take off the top of your
finger with one swift nip. Mom told Devon we couldn’t keep the "rabid thing". But, my brother had guts. He cried and told Mom he LOVED that hamster. He made desperate promises to get his way, "I will feed it. Pet it. Clean the cage. I will do anything for the hamster," he whined.
I am not sure what Mom was thinking. Potentially, she was still overwhelmed by the pool of blood on the pet store floor. But, whatever it was, I was not prepared for what happened next.
Mom looked at the attendant, who now donned a pair of gloves (big enough to ward off a Mountain Lion) in an attempt to avoid being bitten like Devon, and asked about the return policy.
"Three days, mam," he responded.
Mom looked at my brother and I and said, "Okay you guys have three days. If that thing bites you again, we are bringing it back. Okay?"
Devon’s head shook up and down vigorously. I, on the other hand, was thinking my brother was not very smart. You know not the brightest crayon in the box, not the fastest rabbit in the forest and definitely, a few fries short of a happy meal. Get my drift?
The attendant boxed up the hamster and suggested we might want to give it some "alone time" when we get home.
Did I mention I consider myself an intelligent boy? This whole time I was trying to determine what Mom was thinking, I was also figuring out how I was going to care for an animal I would never touch. After all, do you think that I was going to attempt to touch that thing? No way. Devon was already white as snow due to excessive blood loss. No body part of mine was going near that hamster.
While I waited in line, Devon suggested we name the hamster that had been determined to be a boy, Pikachu. As a joke, I suggested the name Nibbles. But, it wasn’t taken as a joke. Instead, the hamster’s name became Mr. Nibbles. And, you don’t want to mess with Mr. Nibbles.
Mom put Mr. Nibbles in his cage and told Devon and I not to touch him for 24 hours. Like I needed that direction. As I mentioned above, no hand, no foot, no leg, no head, was venturing near the hamster cage.
Devon, on the other hand, was quite gullible. When I told him Mr. Nibbles looked lonely and needed to be held, he looked into the cage and said, "Yes, he does look sad."
I watched in terror as my fearless brother put his hand into Mr. Nibble’s cage. I expected to hear screams of terror and watch only a bloody stump emerge. Moments later, my younger brother was holding the hamster and talking to it in baby talk.
Apparently by now, you have realized that Mr. Nibbles was not really a blood sucking hampire. He was, in fact, a well-mannered hamster when you got to know him. And, cross my heart – hope to die, I tell you that Mr. Nibbles never bit again.

CHAPTER 6: Frog Shaped Chicken Nuggets?

Now, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, the trashcan.
When Mom told me about throwing Mr. Nibbles in the trashcan, I couldn’t believe it.
First, I couldn’t quite believe Mr. Nibbles was dead and second, because the trashcan didn’t seem fitting for such a wonderful hamster.
"Mom, can I look at him?" I asked.
"No," she said. "He is in the outdoor trashcan."
Now, the outdoor trashcan was parked on the side of the house. It was a very large black garbage can we managed to fill to the brim every week. This being Thursday, the trashcan would be at it’s fullest.
"Mom, please. I need to see him," I begged as tears started to roll from my eyes.
"No, Brandon," she replied. "You don’t need to see him."
Now, Mom was always a realist. She never hid things from me. Although, sometimes, I wish she would have.
For example, one time my brother had stepped on a frog, a cute little tree frog, killing it instantly. Mom picked it up and was about to fling it over the fence when I screamed, "It isn’t dead!" "Yes, it is," she replied matter-of-factly. "See?"
I don’t know about you, but a squished green tree frog with its insides on the outsides is not appealing to even the grossest of kids.
"Dinner time!" She then yelled.
Imagine the joy of eating dinner after this. Especially dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets with ketchup. To me, at least, they looked more like frogs than dinosaurs.

CHAPTER 7: Back to the Story – Part II

Desperate to see Mr. Nibbles, I reached deep inside myself and used a pathetic, whimpering look combined with a whining, sobbing voice and asked, "Then how do I know Mr. Nibbles is really dead?"
"Alright already," Mom said and headed toward the back door.
I followed her. I was fully prepared to see Mr. Nibbles, confirm he was dead and mourn him properly.
Mom lifted up the garbage can lid. She shuffled through some papers lying on top. She then shuffled through some papers on the side. At one point, I heard her say, "I put him right here."
"Brandon, get my gardening gloves for me," She commanded. "They are in the top drawer on my potting table."
I walked towards the potting table slowly. I didn’t know anymore if it was important to actually see Mr. Nibbles body. As I opened the top drawer of Mom’s potting table, I decided it wasn’t important. I didn’t need to see the body. Mr. Nibbles was dead and I had to deal with it.
As I turned to walk back to Mom, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to focus in the area of the movement and saw something rustling in the green of the fern. Just then, to my surprise, Mr. Nibbles popped his head out of the plant. He then stood on his two feet and gave a small squeak.
"Today would be nice Brandon," Mom yelled from the garbage can referring to my slow return with the gloves.
Mr. Nibbles was staring at me intensely. Looking deep into his eyes, it was then that I realized he had succeeded on making the greatest escape ever.
You see, Mr. Nibbles progressed each time he escaped. The first couple of times, he only managed to escape from the cage. The next series of attempts landed him downstairs. His problem was he hadn’t figured out a way to get outside. Until now.
I looked at Mr. Nibbles, smiled and finally understood the true meaning of being free.
"I love you," I said. "Be safe in this big world and come back whenever you want." With that Mr. Nibbles winked, then squeaked and ran off into the brush.
I walked back to Mom. I looked at her red cheeks and soiled business suit and said, "Mom, I don’t need to see the body. Mr. Nibbles is dead."
She kissed me on the head and took me inside where she made me the biggest cup of Hot Chocolate. We talked and laughed about the Amazing Mr. Nibbles – The Hairy Houdini Hamster.