Leadership, teamwork, democratic workplace
I’ve learned much about myself through experiential education (EE) or adventure learning. Most of my EE take aways are personal and relevant less to a group than to my own ways of leading. The highly personal learning is often the case with team building events. Some people get little more out of it than another…
At my advanced age, Shakespeare would have me a “Lean and Slippered Pantaloon”, his stage 6 of 7. Stage 6 is better than the final one: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” But, I digress. A week ago, my wife and I hosted a small “development” gathering of alums living in Oregon, 3000…
Speaking of cliches, one was on prominent display during the frenzied ending of the USAs college basketball season, namely, stepping up. That overused term applies just as well to the workplace. Stepping up alludes to the notion that if a team or organization is not having a successful year, then they just need to “step…
An A.D.T. (American District Telegraph) Kid carrying a Death Message marked “Rush” stopped in front of a Show Window containing a Picture of James J. Jeffries (a champion boxer) and began to weep bitterly. A kind-hearted Suburbanite happened to be passing along on his Way to the 5:42 Train. He was carrying a Dog Collar,…
The Members of a Legislature, being told that they were the meanest thieves in the world, resolved to commit suicide. So they bought shrouds, and laying them in a convenient place prepared to cut their throats. While they were grinding their razors some Tramps passing that way stole the shrouds. “Let us live, my friends,”…
I have written about a number of literary cliches which I’ve come across in my reading of murder mysteries from the golden age of detective fiction, the 1920s and 1930s. There was the ever nimble fat man, and the sinister “deal table”. Also, I have alluded to the “elephant in the room” cliché/trope. Today…
Teamwork rituals from the basketball team to the work team which are discussed below: Sportsmanship, win or lose. Free throws/penalty shots. Subbing out. Circling up. Helping hands, Communication-Talking and Information hoarding. I understand there are readers whose least favorite class was PE (gym) and who cringe at any linking of sports to the workplace. Bear…
“A HEN who had lost her sight, and was accustomed to scratching up the earth in search of food, although blind, still continued to scratch away most diligently. Of what use was it to the industrious fool? Another sharp-sighted hen who spared her tender feet, never budged from her side, and enjoyed, without scratching, the…
In January 2014 an unprecedented cultural event involving 30,000 people took place in Riga, Latvia. I wrote about it with photos in a 2014 post, “The Spontaneity of Well-Meaning Crowds”*. What was the event?: The “Grāmatu draugu ķēde” (The Chain of Booklovers) which moved some 2000 gift and duplicate books, hand over hand in a…
One day in winter a hungry Grasshopper applied to an Ant for some of the food which they had stored. “Why,” said the Ant, “did you not store up some food for yourself, instead of singing all the time?” “So I did,” said the Grasshopper; “so I did; but you fellows broke in and carried…