My Wish for You in 2010

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!

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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