reflection

What if what’s in their best interest……doesn’t interest them?

May 1, 2012 By David M. Kasprzak Leave a Comment

A very good post appeared on the FastCompany site yesterday, in which author Ginny Whitelaw declared, “Empathy is the most powerful leadership tool.”

There’s not a lot to disagree with in the article. It is, essentially, about Covey’s “seek first to understand” and represents both a practical, and I would say moralistic, way to approach your interactions with others. Seeing things from their point of view is a good thing, of course. It helps you to understand the other person better, so that you can align your message with their concerns. It’s a practical exercise for influencing others in any walks of life where negotiation, compromise, and change are necessary. It also indicates that you have a measure of respect for the other person’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs and opinions.

Unfortunately, there are times when people simply don’t act in a way that is consistent with what is in their best interests. Especially not in the long term. It’s as simple as David Meister’s Fat Smoker principle – you have to go through something difficult to get to something good, so change is hard and rarely happens. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Continuous Improvement, Random observations Tagged With: attitudes, BeFlexible, Change Management, Planning, reflection

Broken glass, broke and hungry, Broken hearts and broken bones

April 23, 2012 By David M. Kasprzak 2 Comments

Last Saturday, my older son fell off the swing in the backyard and broke both his wrists.

I spent each day at home with him, logging in to work on my laptop just a few times when I could, in between administering doses of medicine, running him to the doctors, feeding him, dressing him, helping him go to the bathroom or even simply shift positions in his chair.

The most important lesson over the past week has been this: We should all lose ourselves in something completely and totally selfless from time to time. Parenting, as depicted above, can be one of those things. There’s great value in doing something that has little or no rationality behind it. No personal benefit, no altruistic higher purpose for which we believe we can gain good Karma points, just plain old long, dreary, difficult work for the benefit of someone else, even if they never thank us or show any outward signs of appreciation. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Family, movies, music, tv, entertainment Tagged With: attitudes, Family, learning, motivation, reflection

The inexcusable “I just don’t have time” excuse.

April 11, 2012 By David M. Kasprzak 2 Comments

Managers who aren’t able to address a problem due to time constraints need to think again about what they consider important. Clearly, you have the time to deal with things – you have simply chosen to ignore one set of problems in favor of another. Are you sitting in boring, mindless, disorganized meetings instead of getting ahead of a problem? Well – that means you value the meeting more than being proactive. I know, I know – you believe you are as proactive as possible and you certainly want to be even more proactive – but the truth is, you wanted to be in that meeting more than anything else. How do I know? Because that’s where you were and actions speak louder than words or wishes. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Random observations Tagged With: attitudes, BeFlexible, motivation, reflection

Choosing between the Business Sucks or the Work sucks (and you can’t say “it depends”)

February 23, 2012 By David M. Kasprzak Leave a Comment

Last week on Linked In, I posed this question in the Q&A forums:

Which would you prefer – A workplace with a progressive culture and employee-centric focus to its operations that struggles due to suboptimal business performance, or a difficult command-and-control environment, but with a record of high performance? What I found interesting about this, and many of the answers, was how much they discussed the issues they supposed were behind the question, or the question’s merits, without ever really providing an answer. [Read more]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Business Management, Family, Random observations, Team Building & Human Capital Tagged With: Corporate Culture, Family, Leadership, Management, motivation, reflection

Last week’s tweets

February 6, 2012 By David M. Kasprzak Leave a Comment

In case you missed it, here are some tweet & re-tweets of articles & other things that caught my eye last week: From Others: From @tedcoine: YES!! RT @shawmu: Actually give a S### about the development of individuals.ow.ly/8SkuB via @kris_dunn From @ShingoPrize: Robert Miller said Shingo Prize focuses on more than just culture, it focuses on how [...]

Filed Under: Business Management, Funny things, Operational Excellence, Other stuff, Project Management, Random observations, Useful Tools Tagged With: Corporate Culture, Lean, operational excellence, project management, reflection, twitter

Getting Results: Starting with Why

January 2, 2012 By David M. Kasprzak Leave a Comment

After a long Holiday break – I’m back! I hadn’t planned on letting the blog go for the Holidays, but a lot of good time spent around the house, catching up on unfinished projects and just spending time with the kids, was worth it. On to 2012….. If people are just tools, then any seemingly [...]

Filed Under: Behavior & Culture, Family Tagged With: attitudes, BeFlexible, Corporate Culture, Creative Problem Solving, Leadership, reflection, ROWE

Lean for Life – Defining Value (Personal Life)

October 10, 2011 By Geoffrey Lennon 3 Comments

As individuals, we’re in the unique position of being both the ‘customer’ and the ‘producer’ in our lives. We (as ‘customers’) directly experience the results of the actions we take and the decisions we make as ‘producers’ (for good or bad). We ‘reap what we sow.’

From a Lean perspective, this is an absolutely tremendous position to be in!

After all, if you, as the ‘customer,’ are responsible for defining the value you seek in your life, who better to create and deliver that value that you yourself! [Read more]

Filed Under: Random observations, Useful Tools Tagged With: attitudes, BeFlexible, Lean, reflection, value, waste

Remember to have a little fun, and Rockabilly

October 3, 2011 By David M. Kasprzak Leave a Comment

So, you’ve noticed some changes around here…..a new layout, and a lot of guest posts. All great things, right? The guest posts have been AWESOME! Thanks so much to all the contributors. I am excited to see the response, as well as the varying perspectives. To date, most of the guest posts have focused on [...]

Filed Under: movies, music, tv, entertainment, Random observations Tagged With: reflection

Stacking firewood, and learning about learning

September 28, 2011 By David M. Kasprzak 3 Comments

It’s late September, and that means it’s time to order up some firewood and begin stacking it for when the cold weather hits. This weekend, I had my wood delivered, and my father happened to be in town as well. He pitched in and helped me stack up my wood into a corral I had built last year, and we got the job done fairly quickly. It was interesting to watch his approach, as he was reluctant to begin since he had never stacked wood before. [Read more]

Filed Under: Education, Family, Operational Excellence, Planning & Measurement Tagged With: Family, learning, reflection

Irises and Sweet Bubby Bushes

September 16, 2011 By Cindi Rigsbee Leave a Comment

In so many ways, we are who came before us. In many other ways, we are the antithesis of our ancestors, fighting to do better, have more, and be more than our parents and grandparents.

Today I sifted through artifacts (trinkets, my daughter called them) of my grandparents’ life. [Read more]

Filed Under: Education, Family Tagged With: Family, reflection, teaching