You Don’t Have to Know Who Derek Jeter Is to Get This

Accountability Growth mindset Well-being

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In case you don’t know, Derek Jeter is the 37 year old shortstop and captain of the fabled baseball team, the New York Yankees. He’s been a super star with the Yankees since joining them as a 21 year old in 1996. However he’s getting older and his physical skills are not what they once were. Soon, due to injuries or diminished performance, he will be sidelined. He is in fabulous shape by any standard for a 37 year old. In the professional world of baseball, he is currently outshined by most other shortstops, when one objectively looks at the statistics. Unfortunately for Jeter, age just wins out in the long run. Whatever he does, drugs aside, will not compensate for what happens naturally. You and I however and unfortunately, based on the fact that he’s building a 30,000 square foot house in Florida, are not Derek Jeter. But we need to be cognizant of the “aging” principles creeping in prematurely when it comes to our work. Thank goodness most of us are in knowledge jobs. This means we need to keep our minds and skill base sharp. Investing in sharpening our mental capabilities will last most of us towards the latest part of our careers, hopefully when we are fully prepared for the consequences. But if we get stale, trouble and being out shined by others is inevitable.

It disturbs me when I hear people at any time in their career state a facsimile of the following:

  • I haven’t got time to take training/development classes.
  • I don’t need to learn that.
  • That’s what the kids are about (e.g. social media).
  • I pretty much know everything about this job? Company? Industry? Etc.
  • I’ve done so much for this company.
  • I’m so well connected here.
  • I’ve seen that before.
  • We don’t do it that way.
  • What do you know anyway …wait ‘till you’ve got a few years under your belt.

 

Character Move:

  1. If you are saying or thinking one of the above it is only a matter of time before you will get “retired” …trust me because someone like me will be making that decision. And someone with better skills will make loyalty to what you did in the past diminished.
  2. Have a very clear personal development plan in place. Commit to improving yourself daily. Learn what it means to be the best at what you do. Be a continuous “all star.”
  3. Stay current. Stay fresh. Become a master. Never stop. Do not get lazy.

When baseball players get older they often try and compensate when batting by guessing where the pitcher is going to throw the ball. In baseball parlance they call it “cheating.” Do not cheat at work. You will get thrown out! (to apply the baseball metaphor)

Staying current and sharp in the Triangle,

Lorne

An Open Mic and a Shamefully Closed Mind… Fly Away!

Management Respect

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A Southwest Airlines pilot is back in the skies after accidentally broadcasting a profane tirade directed at the Chicago-based flight crews he worked beside. With his headset microphone stuck on “broadcast,” his hate filled spew went out to air traffic control and all the other aircraft in the area. The incident happened in March and was reported by KPRC-TV in Houston. The following is a partial transcript of what he said to his cockpit crew. Apparently he was unaware of his public broadcast. That however makes me wonder if this is pervasive amongst entitled and self-impressed pilots elsewhere.

“Well, I had Tucson to Indy all four weeks, and Chicago crews. Eleven out of twelve, there’s twelve flight attendants, individual, never the same flight attendant twice, eleven f***ing over-the-top, f***ing a**-f***ing homosexuals and a granny. Eleven. I mean, think of the odds of that. I thought I was in Chicago, which was party-land.

After that, it was just a continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes… Well I don’t give a f***. I hate 100 percent of their a**es.

So, six months, I went to the bar three times. In six months, three times. Once with the granny and the f*g, and I wish I hadn’t gone.

At the very end with two girls, one of them that was part do-able, but we ended up going to the bar and then to the crew at St. Louis, and all these two women wanted to do was, one wanted to berate her sister and the other wanted to bitch about her husband.

Literally, for three hours, me and the F.O. (First officer). When that was done, got back to my room, I’m like why the f*** did I stay up?”

The rest of the transcript I heard deteriorated from there. Frankly if I was the CEO of Southwest, I would have fired this guy! I would have gladly taken on any lawsuit to make my point. Apparently he’s attended diversity training since that recording. But my experience is that people like this, who are so blatantly disrespectful and hate filled, will likely think of themselves as victims of misfortune (open mic) or liberalism (the politically correct). But let’s exchange his discrimination of choice to blacks, latinos, disabled; you name the group. It is all wrong. No excuses.

Character Move: If people talk like this in your organization, they need to be stopped. This doesn’t mean staying silent. This means confronting people and telling them that any personal attack is wrong. This takes courage because often the ignorant are bullies too. You could incur their wrath. It won’t be fun. We have the responsibility to treat others and ourselves with the utmost respect. Shame on this pilot for his behavior.

Respect in the Triangle,

Lorne

Should We Invest In Gold?

Abundance Personal leadership

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Maybe we need a kick in the decency pants instead? Do we have the guts to read this and do something about it?

“Here’s a tiny suggestion. The “best” investment you can make isn’t gold. It’s the people you love, the dreams you have, and living a life that matters.

Now, some among you will probably roll your eyes and snicker: “Hey, bro, want fries with that naivety …”

If we all invest in gold, the price of gold skyrockets. If we all invest in stocks, managers tend to get rewarded (whether or not they’ve performed). But if you were to have the impertinence to invest in what (really) moved you — let’s say you wanted to be a musician, an artist, or a chef — and you kept investing in those ambitions, towards the lofty goal of being the best in the world at your dream, and if a few other people also invested in their dreams, and then several more followed their lead — well, eventually the economy’s gears might begin to move with a different rhythm. And multiplied, your pattern of investments in your dreams — acting classes, music lessons, lectures, books, seminars, travel, and so on — would begin to set incentives for people doing useful stuff, who were able to help you meaningfully accomplish those dreams. And we’d probably begin to devalue the micro-bubbles in socially useless stuff (like gold) and dilute oversized managerial rewards.

The same is doubly true for investing in the people you love: spending your resources to spark their talents or to create meaningful life experiences with them — instead of just buying stuff for them. And the same is triply true for living a life that matters: if you were to invest in, for example, social businesses, instead of the equity of orthodox corporations, or to choose where to work not just based on the immediate paycheck, … you’d be rebuilding the engine.

Here’s what I’m not suggesting: that you impoverish yourself financially to enrich yourself spiritually, intellectually, relationally, and emotionally. Authentic prosperity is probably more about achieving a balance.

What’s this never-ending crisis really about? Both Tyler Cowen and I have called it a Great Stagnation — so what’s stagnating? I’d say: human potential itself. Hence, a megacrisis that never ends: at root, it’s a crisis of underinvesting in human potential, and overinvesting in lowest-common-denominator junk; a crisis of too many plastic widgets chasing too little imagination, wisdom, connection, and purpose. Perhaps the safest investments of all are the human, social, and emotional ones. They’re what give human life texture, depth, resonance, and meaning.

Authentic prosperity isn’t about stockpiling chits and bits that you can — if you’re lucky — sell to the next guy before the house of cards collapses in on itself. It’s watching the people you love grow and flourish, making the dreams you’ve dared to nurture and safeguard come roaring to life, and, above all, living a life that matters long after you’re gone. That’s the stuff not merely of shareholder “value” — but of authentic, enduring, human worth. Hence, I’d gently suggest: the economic sparkplug missing from our so-called prosperity won’t be invented in Silicon Valley, manufactured in Shenzhen, hawked by Madison Avenue or Wall Street, or ordained by Washington. It will be found in the pursuit of wisdom, grace, humility, courage, and great achievement. It’s the hard work of investing in the people you love, the dreams you have, and living a life that matters.”

The above is a excerpt of a powerful blog by Harvard’s Umair Haque. I was reading Gretchen Morgenson in last Sunday’s business section of the New York Times as she outlined the greed and immoral behavior demonstrated by Morgan Keegan, the Memphis investment firm and how they deceived investors in the toxic mortgage crises we have all been impacted by. It made me want to puke. In fact the great recession is ground hog day reading about the thirst for others’ money regardless of the people hurt in the process. Much analysis by researchers demonstrates that it was mostly intentional and without the moral compass we owe each other. Over the last 40 years, from my perspective as a CEO, too much talent has been committed to creating the wrong wealth. We can do something about this. We control the money, time, and talents we have.

Character Move:

  1. Take an honest assessment of what you’re investing in.
  2. Build a mutual fund around the people you love, dreams you have, and living a life that matters.

We’re Gold in the Character Triangle,

Lorne