Lead a vivid life that does good

Tag: Quotes

Business is the elongated shadow of one man

It’s funny how shadows can be good and bad. A person standing in the right spot to shield the sun from our eyes, is a good shadow. Yet the clouds maneuvering themselves in front of the sun on a bitter winters day, creates cold and dark shadows.

As a leader I know I cast good and bad shadows.

As a leader, I have made some dreadful decisions that have caused the company and people significant hardship. In these times the shadow I cast has been lousy.

As a leader, there are even times I manage to cast a good, positive, warm shadow. By learning to care more. Or execute better. Or empower my team. When I do this I see the culture ripple down throughout the organisation in a beautiful way. I think Robert’s phrase says it all and I’m reminded again this week about the shadow I cast.

Still a long elongated way to go … but a work in progress.

As a leader what shadow are you casting?

Being the best.

Trae - "My Mum is the best"I was honoured to hear a friend give a talk about being the best in everything she does. She spoke of what it means to be the best in her music, as a mum, for her boys and at agoge.

Her words reminded me how striving to be the best is difficult and I was challenged about how often I settle for less. What follows are a blend of her words and mine as I contemplated what it means to be the best.
Being the best means failure, as you struggle to live up to your own expectations

Being the best means embarrassment, as you publicly stumble along the way

Being the best means getting it wrong, as you learning new ways

Being the best takes risk

Being the best takes courage

Being the best takes sacrifice

Being the best takes faith

Being the best takes diligence

And the best of the best do all that … with humility and love.

Be the best!

151 | 365 – Ubuntu

Day151.jpg  “Ubuntu is a concept that we have in our Bantu languages at home. Ubuntu is the essence of being a person. It means that we are people through other people. We cannot be fully human alone. We are made for interdependence, we are made for family. When you have ubuntu, you embrace others. You are generous, compassionate. If the world had more ubuntu, we would not have war. We would not have this huge gap between the rich and the poor. You are rich so that you can make up what is lacking for others. You are powerful so that you can help the weak, just as a mother or father helps their children. This is God's dream.” - Desmond Tutu

This is a photo of Cheree at CBC. Her and hubby own the VW van. We were talking about how I felt I owned a bit of their van. He talked about community, and I took this pic and it reminded me of Ubuntu.

A Vision of wrong

"With out a clear vision of what wrong looks like, you and your workforce have to deal with the pain of doing something hard and often painful without knowing why"

Change to Strange- Pg 173

Strategy is externally focused

Because strategic direction defines the nature of the desired relationship between a business and its customers, objectives are only strategic when they lead to outcomes that are recognised by customers. Strategy objectives, therefore, are always externally focused. Internal objectives – creating better employee involvement, or becoming one of the best work places in America – do not qualify as strategic objectives unless they create changes that are recognised by customers. Businesses should not neglect internal improvements, but, in order to be strategic, internal improvements should be directed at improving performance in ways that are noticeable to customers.

Real Time Strategy pg 67

US marines debrief questions

– What was our intent?
– What actually happened?
– Why did that happen?
– What can we learn from those events?
– What actions should we take now in prepartion for the future, similar events?

Extraordinary leader pg 218