MY SQUARE BIRTHDAY
This month marks what my mathematical mind makes meaningful – a squared number birthday! On August 10, I turned 64, which is eight squared, a cucumber cool phenomenon that won't repeat itself until I'm 81! Thus the SELF-MASTERY section shares some reflections and my gift of very squared questions you can ask on your own milestone markers.
STRATEGIC PLANNING ACADEMY NOW LIVE!
I'm excited to announce the launch of StrategicPlanningAcademy.com, which will be the first online learning academy designed to teach the Strategic Planning body of knowledge. So please visit us at...
StrategicPlanningAcademyI've worked long hours for many weeks to develop the most useful, stimulating and convenient program to help people master this skill set. This program will offer best practices and minimum fluff, blending my own 35 years experience and that of other experts into a practical program for anyone involved in planning.
To show that I use the tools I preach, our PROJECT OF THE MONTH shares the LogFrame project plan used to launch StrategicPlanningAcademy.com
ARE YOU CERTIFIABLE?
A Bain consulting survey of CEO's concluded that Strategic Planning the #1 most important career competency anyone can have these days. But until recently, ingredients of that competency were never clearly defined.
For the last three years, I've served on an Associate Strategic for Planning (ASP) task force of planning experts, to identify those skills and develop a path leading to certification as a Strategic Planning Professional.
Strategic Planning is too important to be left to top management. I believe that every engineer, manager, generalist, subject matter expert, consultant, IT geek, and miscellaneous knowledge worker – could benefit by learning this critical skill set. Please consider adding this respected professional certification to your core profession to distinguish your personal brand. Check out full details at the video listed below.
Watch NowFREE LESSONS LEARNED VIDEOS
Check out the first 4 in a series of 10 free videos series on COMMON STRATEGIC PLANNING MISTAKES. Each brief tackles a frequent mistake, and provides tips to avoid and correct them. Here are the first four.
Mistake: #2. Core Team Roles not Filled
Mistake: #3. Starting with a SWOT Analysis
Mistake: #4. Event Instead of Process
You can get the whole series by sending a note to me at Terry@StrategicPlanningAcademy.com
NEW PRODUCTS AVAILABLE
Please check out our new Strategic Management product line. For the first time ever, Power Points and training materials from my workshops are now available for sale, along with home study programs. Go to...
www.managementpro.com/products/BOOK OF THE MONTH reviews Jeff Madrick's, The Age of Greed. Jeff is a Harvard Business School classmate who's to blame for our economic mess.
GUEST ARTICLE My friend and always popular guest columnist, Dr. Hendrie Weisinger, shares how to end a friendship.
In LAUGH OUT LOUD, you'll learn about "butt dust" and other mangled wisdom from the mouths of kids.
Friendships: When and How to End Them!
Dr. Hendrie Weisinger
Friendships -- they're something we all crave and it's no wonder; they provide us with support, comfort and security. They add joy to our lives, help us cope with adversity, stimulate our interest and make us feel connected -- as though we belong.
Friendships -- they often define who we are, where we go and how other people perceive us. They can motivate us, inspire us and develop us. There is considerable research on friendships indicating that those who have them enjoy social prestige, better mental health, better physical health and are more successful in life. For these reasons, we often value friendships as if they are gold.
Nobody throws out gold, especially these days; if anything, we invest in gold like we invest time and energy into our friendships. Most of us in fact, assume friendships are to be highly valued. Once you have one, you do your best to nurture it, to keep it. Naturally, this assumes that the friendship holds value.
Yet, for many people this is not true. For many, therapists will tell you, friendships are a source of pain, anxiety and turmoil. For these people, friendships might be gold, but in reality they are fool's gold.
Because friendships are so valuable, we assume we should hold on to them no matter what. We rationalize their value by remembering, "all the good things they've done," or excuse their actions with "she/he didn't really mean it." We keep the friendship, but a few months later, or maybe sooner, the gold has turned back to "----." The assumption that we should hold on to friendships no matter what is far from valid.
When is it time to end a friendship? We all have our answers. For some, it's a lack of reciprocity -- they don't give back. Others say "they never listen." Some say, "we've grown apart -- we have nothing in common." These reasons often end relationships, but I have found for most people, including myself, the major cause of ending a friendship is when there is a violation or betrayal of basic values, namely trust.
Trust, psychologists and their research will tell you, is the cornerstone of friendship. You might have common interests galore and lunch with your friend weekly, but it is trust that makes the friendship golden. It is trust that allows you to confide your thoughts and feelings and a lack of it that keeps the friendship superficial. In times of need, when you need your good friends, I bet your selection is based on those you can trust. In fact, most people have friendships where the frequency of meeting is rare or separated by thousands of miles, but the friendship is still strong because of trust.
Take a look at the friendships that nag you to no end and most likely you will see that, from your perspective, trust is the missing ingredient. If you are unsure, do a quick trust assessment of your friendships. Ask yourself these simple questions:
- Do you feel comfortable sharing information that you do not want others to know?
- Do you feel comfortable leaving the person alone with personal papers in the room or do you think they would snoop?
- Have they broken confidences in the past?
These questions might seem trivial but are often the ones researchers use to assess friendship trust. If your answers suggest a lack of trust, your welfare in the long term might be better off if you become the terminator. Yet, this is where most people get stuck -- ending the friendship. For whatever reason, the majority of people hold on to these friendships with the consequence of inevitably being hurt and disappointed, followed by the cliché "I thought I could trust you." If you want to take another course of action and end the friendship, you can use one of the following strategies:
1. The Put Off: When the ex-friend to be calls to get together, say you are busy. Create many excuses in advance to avoid redundancy. Keep conversations short without being rude. Designed for those who like to avoid confrontation and do not want to hurt the ex-friends feelings.
2. No Reply: Do not return phone calls no matter how many you get. It requires that you "harden up," and use the self statement: Nothing to feel guilty about. This is also good for people who want to avoid confrontation and do not want to waste any more energy.
3.The Truth: Simply tell the person why you no longer want to be friends. Often the most difficult to practice, but it is usually the best as it provides the opportunity for your ex-friend to increase his or her self-awareness as to what he or she contributed to your decision. A major advantage of using the truth is that it allows you to experience closure, and it gives a boost to your self-esteem. For those of you who use the truth, you might find mentally rehearsing the conversation helpful, and remember to stay calm during the encounter.
4. Forgive, but do not Forget: This is for those who still want the friendship even though they have been betrayed. You forgive your friend, but never forget that they are truly not trustworthy. This will allow you to still enjoy his or her company.
We all need friendships, but you will be better off to keep the ones that are real gold, not fool's gold.
For those of you who have ended friendships, I would like to hear why and how you did it.
Email: hweisinger@msn.com
Launch of StrategicPlanningAcademy.com
If you have attended my workshops or applied the concepts from my book STRATEGIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT MADE SIMPLE to real projects, you know the organizing power of the Logical Framework approach. It's been my great career pleasure to introduce thousands of people to this method, and I'm proud of the growing number of "Log Framers" in virtually every industry and job function who benefit from these tools.
Yes, I use it too! The LogFrame is my go-to tool of choice to think, plan, and act in a way that gets every venture on the success path. So it's no surprise I developed a LogFrame to guide my Strategic Planning Academy. I share this example both because I'm passionate about the topic, and also to show you a generic thinking process easily applied to any topic on your plate.
The Goal of the Strategic Planning Academy is...
To help people and their organizations to master and apply the critical strategic knowledge needed to thrive in complex times.
To achieve this, we must achieve the purpose of
Strategic Planning Academy (SPA) successfully launched and operating.
Sound Project Design is a matter of getting the right set of outcomes in place to achieve a purpose. The key outcomes for this project are
1. Credible new, well designed website fully is functional.
2. Best Strategic Planning and Management concepts are turned into compelling and convenient learning programs.
3. Marketing program developed and effective in reaching ideal clients.
4. Program content delivery technology is in place and operating properly.
5. Strategic Project Management system (using LogFrame) developed and used to deliver the above Outcomes and achieve purpose.
In the LogFrame matrix, Note how each Objective (Goal, Purpose, and Outcomes) is pinned down with clear measures of quantity, quality, and time. This discipline helps all stakeholders agree on what the Objectives really mean and how they'll be measures and verified. Assumptions at each level identify risk factors to be managed. The Inputs list several tasks required to produce each Outcome.
A well-constructed LogFrame depicts a strategy in a way that is easily communicated. If you are new to LogFrame logic, here's a brief article that explains the basics, along with 13 popular applications.
Click Here for Link to Turn Strategy Into Action article.
QUESTIONABLE FOR REFLECTIONS ON A SQUARE BIRTHDAY
On August 10th, I celebrated a birthday made special because I turned 64, a square of the single digit eight, as well as two to the fifth power. On my last squared birthday, I turned 49. I savored this square milestone because the next one won't come till I'm 81!
On my birthday, while sipping a fine Chardonnay or two, I reflected on the big questions we should all ask ourselves from time to time. I have come to appreciate more than ever how life has seasons and transitions each with it's own joys and sorrows. While I'm healthy now, it's time to fine-tune my life game plan for the fourth quarter of life.
I've learned to appreciate nature and the small things I was too busy for before. The gorgeous cloud pattern of forming on a lingering Seattle evening. The gracefulness of an old willow tree swaying in the breeze. The unbounded joy of a puppy playing with a ball. Time to open my eyes to see new things, or view old things through a fresh lens.
MY BIRTHDAY GIFT TO YOU: QUESTIONABLE FOR REFLECTIONS
I'm a big believer in anything that provokes reflection and insights. So no my birthday, I generated a list of 21 topics as my gift to myself, and to you. Each day, pick a topic, and then list as many responses as you can. Here are 21 top topic choices to get you started, followed by my answers to the first three. Have fun!
1. Things that bring me joy
2. People who inspired and shaped my life
3. Some great moments in my life
4. Values I hold dear
5. Smartest things I ever did
6. People I've helped along the way
7. Things to do before I die
8. People to forgive, deserved or not
9. Obsolete goals to let go of now
10. Points of wisdom I've gained
11. Stupidest things I ever did
12. Things I regret not doing
13. How can I help my country/ community now
14. Best decisions I ever made
15. Funniest moments of my life
16. Do-overs I wish I had
17. My most spiritual moments
18. Nice things I will do for others
19. Ways I can treat myself better
20. Bad habits to shed
21. Movie heroes I identify with
And my answers:
1. Things that bring me joy
- Dogs and their unconditional love and simple goodness
- Fine music – in many genres
- Playing chess
- Travel
- Special foods (e.g., lobster, hot-fudge sundaes)
- Deep spiritual moments
- True friends – more meaningful the older we get
- Women – my favorite divine gender
- Love – grand in all its forms
- Sex – yes!
- Warm sandy beaches
(Combining the above 3 into one wins the Trifecta!)
2. People who inspired me and shaped my life
- Mrs. Smith – my 6th grade teacher
- The Lone Ranger and the Cisco Kid
- Captain Jones – high school chemistry teacher
- Professor Decher – my aerodynamics professor
- George von Petterfy – HBS business policy
- Dr.Wernher Von Braun – father of the moon program and my mentor
- Leon Rosenberg – inventor of the Logical Framework
- Henry David Thoreau – my favorite philosopher
- Tony Robbins – amazing teacher
- Frodo the Hobbit
3. Some Great Moments in my Life.
- Getting married wearing Omani gowns and escaping on a motorcycle
- Getting into (and out of!) Harvard Business School
- Watching Apollo 11 lift off from the press box at Cape Kennedy and land men on the moon
- Starting a business in Thailand
- Getting my books published
- A spiritual moment on the Arabian sea
- Launching the Draft Lee Iacocca for President Committee
- Seeing my daughter get married
- Being with both parents in their final hours.
- Teaching 10,000 people worldwide in workshops
- Cruise to Alaska with my family
Jeff Madrick Age of Greed
Reviewed by Terry Schmidt
If your reaction to the economic daze we are finding ourselves in is to blame Obama, go right ahead. Or the Tea Party – be my guest. If you want to blame Bush, that's too. But the origins of our present financial pain trace way back to the 1970s. In his latest book Age of Greed. Jeff Madrik tells the story of the long string of rascals who got us here.
First, full disclosure. Jeff and I were classmates at the Harvard Business School MBA Class of 1971, a class that ironically included one of the dirty rotten scoundrels mentioned in his book (I won't mention his name, but he was the corrupt pretty boy indicted for insider training and taking 750 grand in cash in a brief case from Ivan Boesky).
Jeff and I both wrote for the HarBus News, the on-campus newspaper. Jeff went on to become a scholar, financial journalist, and a distinguished writer for Business Week and the New York Times, while I am write for THIS equally outstanding but less illustrious publication you are reading now.
Jeff recently visited Seattle on a book tour, and I surprised him at The Town Hall venue. He went on to surprise and shock the full-house audience by chronicling of the crap that people got away with that lead to our awful predicament.
Jeff makes clear that the single-minded pursuit of high personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s, led by a few individuals whose aggressive self-interest hurt our society.
Abstracting from the book jacket...
"These politicians, economists, and financiers declared a moral battle for freedom but instead gave rise to an age of greed, Madrick names who caused our nation's most pressing economic problems. He begins with Walter Wriston, head of what would become Citicorp, who led the battle against government regulation. He examines the ideas of economist Milton Friedman, who created the plan for an anti-Rooseveltian America; the politically expedient decisions of Richard Nixon that fueled inflation; the philosophy of Alan Greenspan, on whose Liberian ideology a house of cards was built on Wall Street; and the actions of Sandy Weil, who constructed the largest financial institution in the world, which would have gone bankrupt in 2008 without a federal bailout of $45 billion. Significant figures including Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Jack Welch, and Ronald Reagan play key roles as well."
I'm not normally a fan of 400+ page books detailed with facts, but the way Jeff organized chapters around key individuals, means you can grab any chapter and get that perspective. No need to read front to end to understand how the loosening of regulations allowed terrible things to happen.
In a time when its so easy to feel overwhelmed by big problems and be furious at Congress, Jeff tells the back story with style, clarity, and an unerring command of his subject. He has no doubt pissed off a lot of famous people, but the job needed doing, and Jeff does it well.
Read this book, please.
What is Butt Dust???
(From an anonymous forward on e-mail. Thanks to whoever originated this.)
What, you ask, is 'Butt dust?' Read on and you'll discover the joy in it! These have to be original and genuine. No adult is this creative!!
JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister. After a while he asked: 'Mom, why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for cold milk?'
MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, 'If you don't remember you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six.'
STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom good night. 'I love you so much that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window.'
BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a pain killer. She tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained it was a childproof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked: 'How does it know it's me?'
SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. 'Please don't give me this juice again,' she said, 'It makes my teeth cough.'
DJ (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: 'How much do I cost?'
MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: 'Why is he whispering in her mouth?'
CLINTON (age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his Mom asked what was troubling him, he replied, 'I don't know what'll happen with this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in it?'
JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: 'The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt.' Concerned, James asked: 'What happened to the flea?'
TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a while and then asked, 'Why doesn't your skin fit your face?'
The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget.... this particular Sunday sermon...'Dear Lord,' the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. 'Without you, we are but dust...' He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter who was listening leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little four-year-old girl voice, 'Mom, what is butt dust?'