My newsletter—Take It From Terry™ —regularly provides relevant topics about opportunities, resources, and tools in Strategic Management. I often receive feedback from my reading audience, but thought to take this opportunity to Take It From You! In other words, I am inviting your genuine feedback on what you find most interesting, most useful, least interesting, least useful from the newsletter—and anything else you would like to share. My desire is to be strategic about what I include and why so that it is most helpful for my readership. I value your input so that the newsletter output is most beneficial. Simply send me a quick e-mail at Terry@ManagementPro.com with "Take It From You" in the Subject Line.
Highlights of this Issue
Guest Article – Need to distinguish yourself in your career? This article describes how you can get certified in Strategic Planning and do just that! As a Qualified REP for The Association for Strategic Planning, ManagementPro can help. Read more to see how...
Project of the Month – Sometimes the project is the project—and sometimes the workshop to teach about how to do project planning is the project. This month’s project focuses on how the Workshop about LogFrame planning tools, concepts, and strategies is itself a project (particularly when you are the instructor!).
Self-Mastery –Ever been overwhelmed and frustrated? Get a third-"person" perspective about your life and what changes you may need make to get it on the track you envision. The planning tools we teach work in all areas of work and life—so read more to see how they can help you master your life!
Book of the Month – This month’s feature book is one that I raced through reading. It reminded me of how important it is to stop and read great fiction in addition to all the non-fiction many of us read for business. This book makes you reflect on all aspects of your life for the better.
Laugh Out Loud –Keep the chuckles and guffaws going with these final words of wisdom from these Sixth Grade History Test responses.
If your work involves Strategic Planning in any fashion, you should know about the newly-launched, first-ever universal Strategic Planning National Standards and Certification Program founded by The Association for Strategic Planning (ASP). The program offers ASP Certifications as a Strategic Management Professional (SMP); Strategic Planning Professional (SPP); or Strategic Planning Associate (SPA). Each of these designations demonstrate best practice knowledge appropriate to the recipient’s level of planning experience, which distinguishes them in the field.
Terry Schmidt, Harvard MBA, SMP became Pioneer #004 to earn the distinguished Strategic Management Professional (SMP) designation. This Certification has been given to only a select handful of senior-most strategic planners in North America.
The endeavor was lead by Stephen Haines, CEO of The Haines Centre, where Terry is a Global Partner and Head of the Centre’s Seattle Office. Terry served two years on the Core Team of the Task Force to lend his knowledge and expertise to developing this first-ever universal Strategic Planning Certification in the Field. This collaborative effort of Strategic Planning colleagues across North America is designed to be a rigorous, yet achievable certification program, based on provides best practices in Strategic Thinking, Planning, and Implementation to equip planning professionals for the complexities of 21st century planning.
Terry is one of five Qualified Charter Registered Educational Provider’s whose interactive prep course is proven to provide these best practice knowledge and planning tools. See if you can join one of his 2010 interactive prep courses, the next one is Aug. 9-10 in Seattle.
To learn more about how you can get certified as an SMP or SPP, contact Terry at Terry@ManagementPro.com or ASP at www.strategyplus.org.
LogFrame Frames Workshop as a "Project" Itself
Can a strategy workshop be considered to be a project? Absolutely! Workshops include all the elements of any project, including specific Objectives, defined timeframe, limited resources, a new cast of players, risk, etc.
The Logical Framework (which follows) captures the essence of my strategic project management workshops, including specific learning objectives (Outcomes); reason for doing the workshop (Purpose); and the operational benefit expected (Goal). After these three levels of Objectives are in place, attention can be placed on the Input activities of teaching and learning.
Note that the Measures clearly describe the Objectives; and the Assumptions describe risk factors at each level in the hierarchy. The LogFrame is a versatile tool that organizes project Objectives in a way they can be managed and measured. Whether it be the content part, process part, or structure part of a project—(or all three parts,), the LogFrame provides powerful tools to get things done!
Have you ever been overwhelmed and frustrated? If you’re like most human beings, chances are you have. In today’s world, the pace of life we keep just to keep up is enough to overwhelm and frustrate anybody.
It’s important to take time out, however, and reflect about who you are and what you want out of life—and if you need to make any changes. The Book of the Month The Art of Racing in The Rain by Garth Stein reminds us of that. Sometimes we’re so caught up in our own inner world and how we can meet the demands of the outside world that we lose ourselves in the process—and it can take an objective third person view to help you get perspective. In the book, that "person" is a dog named Enzo.
I encourage you to take some time this week to reflect using your own "objective" Enzo Perspective to see what areas of your life are going the way you want them to go and which areas you want to change. By getting back in touch with who you are and what matters most to you, you can create a future vision of what you want for your life. When you determine that vision, you assess where you are currently; and then design the right strategies and their supporting tasks to get you there. By mastering how to approach taking this "objective" way of looking at how to use these tools to get perspective and get a plan for creating the life you will empower you to move beyond overwhelm and frustration because your life will be congruent with what matters most—and find that, although life will never be perfect, that you are racing at your pace in the directions that empower you!
The Art of Racing in the Rain
By Garth Stein
Every one in a while I discover a book these moves me emotionally to a better place. This delightful and bittersweet book one of them. The Art of Racing in the Rain is told from the point of view of Enzo the dog, who lives with Denny Swift, an aspiring race-car driver. Enzo is one smart dog who has done a lot of learning from watching Discovery Channel all day on T.V. Ever since Enzo learned that in Mongolia, dogs are reincarnated as men, he has studied how to be human because he believes with all his heart that when he dies, he will be reincarnated as a man.
Enzo chronicles the joy and grief of Denny and daughter Zoe all with amazing insights. This book will make you laugh and may make you cry (I did), but it is a happy kind of sad, and a sad kind of happy.
You don’t have to love dogs or racing to fall in love with this book. In essence this book is about a man's frustrations with his career, his dreams and his wife told through the eyes of his ever faithful dog. It chronicles the struggles of a man who learns lessons from being a race car driver. He encounters immense pain, but gives up and it pays off royally in the end.
This book will tear at you in so many ways and on so many levels—but in a good way. After a heartwarming story, you’ll never look at my dog the same way again.
This simple, profound story about two simple, yet profound beings—a dog and a man—is a wonderful read. Enzo is a dog any person would be proud to have; Denny is a person we can all admire. Great story; and Poignant lessons learned. The car goes where the eyes go. Bring the tissues. See you next life.
Do yourself a favor and read this book as soon you as possibly can!
Actual Answers to Sixth Grade History Tests:
- Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen". As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah".
- The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heriocouplet.
- Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
- It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
- During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.
- Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
- One of the causes for the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer pay for taxis.
- Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
- Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
- Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was JohnWilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
- Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when apples are falling off the trees.
- Johan Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.
- Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
- The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.
- The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practice virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
- The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.