Do you remember the sock puppet commercial from the early 2000’s? I think it was for pets.com or some other internet start-up. A sock puppet with scraggly hair and button eyes would respond with the phrase, “the horror,” to many missives tossed at it. It was silly and cavalier and – most of the time – just perfect.
The sock puppet’s “horror” voice was in my ear in Continue reading…
A rare evening of downtime last week inspired this week’s book choice. I hardly ever put on the tv but in doing so I happened upon the 2009 documentary “The Last Train Home” directed by Lixin Fan. This documentary follows a Chinese couple from Sichuan province as they travel almost 1,000 miles home to their native village for the 4 day New Year’s celebration; a trek made by almost 130 million migrant Chinese workers. The couple have made the journey for more than a decade to see their two children who are in the care of an aging grandmother. Aside from letters this will be their only contact with the children for the year.
At one point the mother’s total anguish is overwhelming Continue reading…
What a week! It started with a minor hand injury that has left me with a few splinted fingers. At the funeral of a dear family friend – also this week — I had to duck a few crushing hand shakes given that the blow was to my right hand. My visiting mother-in-law queried me about how we plan to raise our children given that my husband and I hail from different faiths. Caught a bee sting today while watching our two little stars at a ‘mock’ swim meet. Did I mention that this was a family vacation week?
Amidst this swirl I read, Continue reading…
Celebrating Women’s Transitions!? What are “women’s transitions” anyway? Before getting into today’s post…please look for our RSS Feed link on our site. I keep tweaking…all feedback is welcome!
I have to tell you a story before getting underway — it guides how I approach today’s challenge. It starts with a guy, whose name I’ll change to Stewart. Stewart is an executive at Iron Mountain, an S&P 500 corporation. For the past four years I had the great pleasure of serving as Iron Mountain’s head of Human Resources and Administration. Stewart was a super, über “corporate guy.” I was usually entertained by his calculated moves. He was a corporate chess player “extraordinaire” – Ever met anyone like this?
Anyway Stewart got me one day. I didn’t even see it coming. He agreed with me in a private very-critical “pre-meeting” on a topic. Then he set me up in front of the CEO in a more public meeting by changing his position 180 degrees. I should have seen it coming — I was just too exhausted to see it that day.
In spite of this craziness Stewart used a positioning on occasion which I thought was masterful. It went simply…”let’s start with where we agree.”
So, on transitions, let’s start with where we agree: Continue reading…