I’m not a big sports fan. My 7-year-old son has taught me more about sports and team devotion in the past year than I’ve learned in my entire life. Last week, before our beloved Boston Celtics lost to the Miami Heat in game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, we were listening to an interview with one of the Celtic’s big three, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. The player responded to a journalist’s question about their approach to upcoming practices and games by saying, ‘we’ll probably watch the tapes.’ Continue reading…
The universal barriers of transition…
“I wish for my son the exact same thing that I wish for my daughter,” I said in response to a question posed by an audience member at a WITI event that I spoke at last spring. The woman asked me ‘what I hoped for’ for my daughter. “I want them to have the confidence to follow their heart, early.” From the get go. No deferrals. Continue reading…
Transition and Steve Jobs…shared learnings?
Merriam Webster’s Online defines prolific as, “marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity <a prolific composer>.” I turned to this query after completing Walter Isaacson’s, Steve Jobs (Thorndike Press, 2011). Prolific, although not a descriptive used by Isaacson, came to mind as I finally closed the book. Yes, I admit I read a physical version of the book despite the tech infused visionary at its core. Prolific. How else can you describe someone who served as the catalyst for a list that includes…the Macintosh, Pixar blockbusters like Toy Story, Apple Stores, iTunes, the iPod, the App Store, the iPad? Prolific? Continue reading…
Transition and jobs: three routes
In early May I happened to catch a few minutes of wbur’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook. His topic, Death At A Young Age, featured the 1987 death of five sorority sisters who were killed in an automobile accident when returning from a charity walk-a-thon. While it might sound morbid, the conversation was anything but. Continue reading…
Those elusive 21st century female role models
Is anyone else entertained? Can you recall any male executive who was held accountable amidst all of the hoopla surrounding the global financial crisis in 2008? We had a crisis that resulted in the collapse or near collapse of large financial institutions, like Lehman Brothers or AIG; the federal bailout of financial services and large industrial companies, recall TARP and GM; downturns in the global stock market and the housing market; and widespread unemployment that reached and still remains at historic highs. Now answer this: is there anyone in America who can’t tell you who Ina Drew is? Continue reading…
Transition through a techie lens
What’s your take on social media? Earlier today I experienced social media deja vu for the first time. Who knew? A friend tagged a Forbes.com post on LinkedIn entitled,“The Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness)” by blogger Jessica Hagy. The caption included a few little drawings.
The Six Enemies of Greatness ( and Happiness) by Jessica Hagy, Forbes.com 2/28/12
The drawings looked and felt like the illustrations that I’d been seeing all week in “The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter Senge.” What can I say, the drawings spoke to me…. Continue reading…
Transition: How do you start?
“This is an evolution not an event,” I added sincerely as I sat with a colleague on the eve of his first major downsizing. He was the CIO of a major insurance company. It was the early 90’s. None of us were fatigued yet by downsizing. He was visibly worried as he sat thinking through the likely impact of a meeting scheduled for the next morning. I was on my soapbox of ‘enlightenment through defining a problem correctly.’ I urged him to think about a broader set of actions: the message to the employees who would stay, the required behaviors of his management team in the days and months that followed, his willingness to help those who would be on the receiving end of a sobering message. Continue reading…
Transition: Learnings and laughs one year in…
I was in tears and, at the same moment, utterly surprised at my reaction. Crying? I was watching Iron Lady, Meryl Streep‘s Academy Award victory lap in which she portrays Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979-1990. The movie caught me off guard. The twist for me came in the movie’s lens into Mrs. Thatcher’s life; the view is of her nearing dementia with life ‘highlights‘ told in retrospect. A wave to young children who were pleading with her not to go as she sped off to the Conservative Party‘s leadership. An aging person alone washing out her tea cup in the sink of a lovely, closeted London home. Adult children operating on the periphery. Why did it hit me so? Continue reading…
Transition’s detractor: ourselves?
“You kept saying that you ‘didn’t want to go’ but you kept walking backwards so I didn’t stop you,” said an affable guide during a debrief session about my performance. The event in question was rappelling down a sheer rock face during a 10-day Mountaineering Course with Colorado Outward Bound. Did I mention that I had never camped before? Continue reading…
Knowing when to act…
“What if you did nothing for twenty-four hours?” said my friend Marla as I related to her an incident that had me close to coming undone. Her calm advice couldn’t have been more foreign to me at that moment. I was in a leadership role that I believed compelled me to act. To address. To solve. To direct. What was this ‘stand down’ approach? Could it possibly work? Continue reading…