Posted in 21st Century, 5Careers Design, Apathy is a favorite tool of fools., Human or Cog?, Maturity is not a skill, Michael Mason Norman, The World Needs Your Talents, tagged Great Life on July 8, 2010|
“Lesson one, The world owes you nothing!”
“Lesson two, The country owes you nothing!”
“Lesson three, What do you owe yourself? A Great Life!”
The little girl looked up at her grandparents. Into their eyes she searched for more, but their eyes kept repeating the same messages, over and over. (more…)
Posted in 21st Century Organizations, 21st Century Workplace, Chief Humility Officer, Michael Mason Norman, Thinking on June 21, 2010|
Handwritten note to Bill, December 24, 2010
Bill it was great working with you and we truly appreciated all the fantastic work you did for the organization.
Best of luck in your new endeavors that you are pursuing. Thanks, CEO and Chair
Company wide newsletter
January 2, 2011
Back page, bottom of column three
We wish to inform everyone that Bill_____ has decided to pursue new adventures with another
organization. Given our recent reorganizations after Christmas, the Executive Team has decided to discontinue
the position titled Chief Humility Officer and spread its responsibilities among the following departments:
Legal, Marketing, HR and Risk Management. If you have any questions, please contact the CEO’s secretary, Jonathan
________.
The theme of our next newsletter will be: Hiring Etiquette Practices
Posted in Michael Mason Norman, Thinking on June 18, 2010|
December, 2010
I feel awful. No one wants to meet with me and no one is returning my phone calls. Perhaps Nancy’s message had been shared with others and talking with me may place them in harms way? Just thinking too myself; it is an old and invaluable habit. Boy I could use some Key Lime Pie right about now.
A lot of questions are running through my head about next steps. There are too many to think about as my head is pounding and my stomach is feeling like it wants to cramp up, like the kinds of cramps you get with a colonoscopy. I think I better see a doctor.
At the doctor’s office the diagnosis: Nothing! But I am obviously feeling a little “stressed out” about something. “Yep!” was my response. I went home. I called in sick for four straight days. I was depressed beyond anything I had ever felt before. My wife was truly concerned but I couldn’t tell her what was going on, even when I didn’t fully know what was going on. Christmas was coming soon and I had to do some shopping, finish some reports at work and buy a tree for the living room. Getting back to normal was my first and last objective for the week.
Posted in 21st Century Leadership, 21st Century Workplace, Michael Mason Norman, On Whose Watch?, Thinking on June 15, 2010|
November, 2010
I closed the door behind me as I left the CEO’s office. I felt great as I was told that my work was exceptional and it was important that the publicity office write an article about me for the newsletter and the local newspaper. No other companies in town had a CHO and it was important for the company to herald its guy at the head of his class. (more…)
Posted in 21st Century Leadership, 21st Century Organizations, Chief Humility Officer, Dr. Michael Mason Norman, Thinking on June 9, 2010|
A letter between a business executive (Bill) and an old friend of his from high school days (Jerry.) Bill is opening a chapter of his life, unfamiliar to his friend Jerry.
August, 2010
Jerry, It has been too long since we last connected and had a chance to share a few personal thoughts about life. Before I forget, many thanks to you and your wife for the kind note you sent after we lost our son Tad. It was hard to say good bye to a little guy who was less than a day old, but we still have the other three children to comfort us. It was very painful, yet Jennie is doing well and has recovered from the shock.
I also want to thank you for the congrats! message, after I was promoted to CHO at our company headquarters. Wow! Now I am on C level alley in the back of the building, where all the important stuff takes place. I must admit I miss the gang I hung out with for years, but you know the game, now I have to hang out with those who breathe air in the stratosphere. You know you actually have to wear oxygen masks up there as it gets a little thin. Something pushes the oxygen out of the rooms for some reason. Yet, you do feel you are on top of the world, like being on the top of Everest.
I am also writing this note to vent a little frustration I am having with my title and the work I have to perform on daily basis. It seems that as the CHO I am expected to make sure people do the up and up things correctly; then I am signaled to ignore a few less than up and up decisions made daily. And I do mean daily!
Have you ever felt like you were a token creature in a zoo? Here I sit with the nice office, where I can glance out at a very nice view of the country side and it smells like crap all around me. I think you know what I am talking about because we both grew up downwind of that old feedlot on the edge of town. Smell or no smell, my job is to serve as the humility pro.
When I started I wasn’t quite clear on what they wanted me to do. But, looking online, I discovered that all I had to do was make the company appear to be honest, straight-forward and open to its “vulnerableness.” Ok, I have achieved all of that, yet I find myself competing with the publicity and marketing people as well. Even the risk management and legal people get into the act. So, here is my problem. I want to do this job right and do the right job. But, there is a strange feeling sitting in the back of my head, which will not stop!
Am I fooling myself into thinking that I am really a CHO, or is this an act I must offer to the public every day I walk into the office and attend those glad hand events? I struggle with this, I truly do. Often I tell my wife how I wish I had followed your path in life. You are your own boss, granted it isn’t easy thinking about where your next check is going to come from, but you have taken great care of your family and it shows. Your kids are doing well, you can go home at anytime. OK, so you work out of your home. That is still important as I don’t go home until 7 or 8 most nights. That is just the way it is around here these days. But, I do envy your life and lifestyle. The money is fantastic and they want to give me more for doing less. (Off the record, that is a coded way of saying I am now part of the club.) I am tired and need to go home. More on this later on. If you decided to respond please send the message to my home email address or do as I did here, send it USPS, they need the business and I don’t trust our IT admin guys.
I guess you have proven once again that you were and will always be the smarter between the two of us. Again, I lose another bet from the past.
All right, that is enough belly aching. I just had to share those thoughts with someone outside of my corporate circle and who knows me better than anyone else on the planet.
Thanks for listening, Please send all my best to your family. Take care, from your buddy on the fast track, Bill
Posted in 21st Century Workplace, Dr. Michael Mason Norman, The Transition Recession on June 9, 2010|
Our American work ethic has normally been confined to thoughts about the Protestant work ethic. Specifically, it suggests that hard work is the key to success. Yes, work is a key to some forms of success, especially working hard to get what you are after. It is particularly true when you are in control of what you want to go after. Historically, people had a great idea of what they were after, it was a strong pastoral lifestyle of open air and open opportunities formed from living on the land. In today’s post-industrial climate, the setting for work is quite different and at least equal in challenge to the times of the pre-World War Two American farming society.
Many Americans, obviously not all, graduate from college and move into the ranks of normal working stiffs. Everyday, they jump into their cars, scramble aboard buses and trains, even a few ride bikes to work. Once at predetermined workplaces life moves into the scripts of routines. Work is now about doing things which may have consequences for the world, but more than likely the effort goes unnoticed. Farmers grow things, raise animals and hopefully serve as stewards of the land. When you are sitting in an office what are you are you doing that which resembles serving as a steward? Perhaps you are a steward of paper or information!
When I was teaching graduate level business students some years ago, I often asked them who was responsible for their success at work? A few said they were responsible, while others felt it was their supervisors’ responsibility to assure their success. The latter was a very curious response, as it placed the individual’s success in the hands of their supervisors. In so doing the respondents were also setting their own responsibilities for success outside of themselves. Consequently, from their viewpoints, success or failure at work where not their collective responsibility.
I have thought about this paradox for sometime. Unfortunately, I never asked my classes in who was responsible for the successes or failures in the rest of their lives? I now wonder if they would blame their parents, their significant others or even their children? It seems that both domains are now socially acceptable as status markers, they need origination from outside ourselves. Oddly, we seem to place our fates in the hands of those who shadow our lives. Is this simply a practice of each younger generation? Absolutely not! Old and young today harbor senses of dependency on others. Perhaps in a society where you clock in everyday, you sign a tacit agreement where you believe you relinquish your identity to others. Yes, that is what I believe happens when you deed away your success and failures to others. It is an odd work ethic worth exploring carefully and fully.
Let me suggest that if you know someone who is still in his or her twenties, that you sit down and have a heart to heart talk on who controls their lives at work and at home?
Perspectives on Leadership for the 21st Century 