Posts tagged ‘trust’
The Intern Diaries: Lessons Learned
The final four gave their presentations this week, talking about what they did, what they learned, how they changed.
Learning is changing. I think they expected to learn but I a not so sure they expected to change. The biggest change, for all of them, is how much more they now want to change. To grow, to experience, to learn – all is to change.
I learned and changed too.
I had to laugh when one of the interns remarked that she learned she liked working with older people. The funny thing is, I learned to like working with younger people – those who are coherent, strong in their Role, and like working on teams.
I learned, most of all, that the basic principles of building and supporting a Coherent Human Infrastructure are not dependent on age, experience, or ‘rank’. Value is value, quality is quality, synergy is synergy. And trust, respect, and faith in the Vision are still the alpha and the omega.
Get Out of My Facebook!
If this blog had a subtitle, it would be The Intern Diaries: Day 1. They arrived today, our new flock of team members – one each for technology, operations, marketing, client services, and communications. Such a wealth of new energy!
In between getting the drill on who’s who and what’s what around The Gabriel Institute and the obligatory pizza lunch, I tried to get their take on networking technology. The biggest divide I could think of was LinkedIn vs Facebook, so I was curious where they stood. They’re onto the economy and there’s no false hope here. Despite the fact they have an average of another year or so to go, they have no illusions about the job market they’ll emerge into. But as I expected, they haven’t tuned into LinkedIn for professional networking yet. Now they all will, and they will be able to put us down as their first business experience – and we’ll be able to tell the world how they did.
We also gave them the HR warnings about being careful what’s on their Facebook page. The stories flew, and a new dilemma was brought to my hopelessly out of date consciousness: What do you do when your mother wants to friend you on Facebook and you just don’t want her as your friend?
So this is for our new interns’ moms – and dads too. We tried that ‘be a friend to your kid’ stuff in the 70′s and it didn’t work all that well. You’ve done a great job, so relax. We know – we gave your college son or daughter a Role-Based Assessment and that’s why we brought them on board. They are coherent – the best measure of maturity and potential ever devised – and they have solid Role preferences which we’re going to respect and develop.
So get out of their friendship places and instead, get them to share their Role-Based Assessment reports with you. You’ll be very proud.
And, by the way, thanks for trusting us with them. We know they’re precious to you.
When Visions Meet
Do you remember those sped-up photos of cells dividing and multiplying until they reach the point where they change direction and something new and different emerges?
It’s like that with visions. When two visions come very close, when they are mergeable in some way, if they are fed the energy of both sources they too become something new – a living, breathing organism of some sort. Whether that is one being or an enterprise involving thousands of individual organisms acting together is less important than the mechanism: two original, pure visions, each dedicated to bettering the world in some way. coming together in an ecosystem that supports the human spirit, producing revolutionary progress that benefits the far off future.
I think sometimes when it is about to happen, one or both visions are overcome with the fear that they will be engulfed or destroyed by the other and the natural drive to merge them fails. The trick is not to erect walls to keep fears out but to make them visible for what they are: the hobgoblins we keep alive with our distracted energy.
I’ve just started working on one – I think of it as a VisionMeld – and will keep you posted on my progress.
The World is Textured
Kevin, our SVP Sales, and Loida, our bilingual trainer, are on their way back from Sao Paolo, Brazil having worked very hard with our friends at Kienbaum, our reseller there. At the same time, Madhu, our technology guru, is on the way to New Delhi and Noida, India, hopefully to return with new business relationships. As I send up prayers for their safe travel, I recall Thomas Friedman’s assertion that The World is Flat and think, no, it’s textured.
The nuances of our relationships across cultures give our lives texture. Nothing is taken for granted, no two places are exactly the same, and yet all are part of the same network. That is what gives it texture.
I hope that is what our new logo says to you: Our arms reach out to each other, texturing our lives with trust, respect and faith.
The end is coming
Of the year, that is, not the world.
I usually don’t think about my New Year’s resolutions until at least the 29th of December, but I was interviewed by ExecuNet on “A New Career for the New Year?” for their CareerSmart Advisor and the article came out a week or so ago, so I’ve started early. It’s easier to give advice than take it, of course, but I’m going to try to give myself some advice on my big resolution for 2008. I’m finally going to write the magnum opus on the theory that underlies all the products and services of The Gabriel Institute. So, here forth, my advice to myself, which I hope you might find applicable to whatever it is that you are going to resolve to do this year.
- It doesn’t have to all be done at once. There is a writing standard I followed a long time ago (when I wrote my other books) of doing five new pages a day. What I learned was that doesn’t add up to 35 pages a week or even 25 so you may as well be realistic and double your overly optimistic time schedule. This particularly applies to losing weight.
- It will be better if you don’t try to control it. A book, like many other projects, needs to develop a personality of its own. It has your voice, but it’s an individual. Actually, this need it will have to “breathe” is going to be responsible for some of that time you’ll need in the last point. If your resolutions involve other people, like a child, a spouse, a friend, this definitely applies to you.
- The more people involved, as long as they are truly invested in the outcome, the better the results. This will, of course, be a team effort. My earlier books were too, but the team was formed to get the book out, not before. Investment takes time – and trust, respect and faith. If you have that, whatever your resolution, it will be more likely to succeed.
Okay, I’m ready for the end – and the beginning!
Looking for a Few Good Cult Members
The cover article of the current issue of Talent Management magazine decries the “cult of productivity” so I flipped to that article first, hoping to find out what’s wrong with me. I always thought of extremely productive people as part of my club, the ones who either work with me or we’d like to have playing with us. (It’s true – sometimes it’s hard for me to distinguish between working and playing with this crew!) But no, nothing like that.
Productive people, according to the author, run the risk of burnout, resentment, chronic fatigue, etc. The only problem I could see was that there wasn’t one word on how working with the right other people in a team leads to productivity with joy. The basic, simple, Contextual Management™ rules are:
- Use Role-Based Assessment™ to construct the team so you get synergy
- Fulfill every person’s every motivator – money is important but it is in no way the only one (hint: their Role will tell you a lot about how to do this
- If you’re the leader, remember that your team comes first – make sure you’re feeding a culture of trust, respect and faith that the job will get done
So if you’ve always wanted to join a cult where you could work beyond your capacity, synergize with other productive people and change the world for the better, apply at The Gabriel Institute.
We’re always looking for a few good cult members.
