Innovator battles attorney defining acceptable risk.
Karl Edwards
Blog
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Intractable Problem? Where To Look First
Problems by definition are messy, complex affairs not lending themselves to simple solutions.Time has gone by. Unhealthy patterns have developed. Perceptions have hardened. Inefficient practices have become policy. Power struggles have morphed into a hierarchical bureaucracy.
The process of problem solving… that is, the unraveling, the sorting out, the rethinking, the insightful critiques, the fresh alternatives, and the bold decisions needed can neither be delayed nor rushed.
One thing, though, is simple. Where to start. While there is no telling where the process will end up, we know right away where to begin. (more…)
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Loving Monday: Celebrating Vacation Season
Summer Monday. It’s vacation season. Extra coordination for you. People taking off for weeks at a time. Others taking a day here and a day there.
Distracted minds on the floor. Dreaming of upcoming excursions. Making plans. Working out the practical details.
Vacation season is to be expected. However complicated or frustrating in its details, it returns every year sure as the sunrise.Some supervisors resist and fight vacation season. They experience vacation requests as rude and annoying interruptions in an otherwise smooth running schedule.
As a result they routinely deny vacation requests. The impose onerous preparation prerequisites for being away to avoid any impact on the rest of the team.
Other supervisors celebrate vacation season. Their staff are about to get some much-needed rest and renewal. The outcome of which will be new energy, reengaged spirits and enhanced motivation.
One group of employees returns refreshed and engaged. The other group returns bitter and self-protective.
As complicated and frustrating as coordinating these summer months of vacation season may be, those leaders who welcome and accommodate the season will get to the other side in much better shape than those who resist and fight it.
Summer Monday. Who’s missing on your team?
Try celebrating their vacation instead of resenting it. You’ll be better off, they’ll be better off, and I promise you the bottom line will be better off too.
On your side,
– Karl Edwards
Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.
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Karl’s Library: Crossing the Unknown Sea by David Whyte
Yes, those are post-it notes you see crowding the edge of my copy of Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte.From the looks of it you might think I marked every single page. You wouldn’t be much mistaken. I devoured this book.
This book is about the process of finding work that adequately, fittingly, and meaningfully integrates with one’s own life development jouney.
From the publisher:
Crossing the Unknown Sea is about reuniting the imagination with our day to day lives. It shows how poetry and practicality, far from being mutually exclusive, reinforce each other to give every aspect of our lives meaning and direction. For anyone who wants to deepen their connection to their life’s work—or find out what their life’s work is—this book can help navigate the way.
As suggested by the title, this book is for the pilgrim… the person on a journey of self-discovery and professional expression. Here’s a sampling of my many marked quotes:
“The soul would rather fail at its own life than succeed at someone else’s.”
“Finding good work… means coming out of hiding.”
“Do one thing every day toward my future life.”
“What stops us from speaking out and claiming the life we want for ourselves?”
“The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”
“…the ability of anything followed unthinkingly, to turn into its exact opposite.”
“The courage to remain unutterably ourselves in the midst of conforming pressures.”
You can probably tell from the quotes that this is not a book of formulas, tests, assessments, or answers.
My list of pull quotes most likely seems to you either attractive and intriguing or off-putting and irrelevant.
This book is for those of you who see yourselves on an inner journey in search of a professional form.
Click here for a link to get a copy.
Karl’s Library is a weekly column highlighting my favorites from my professional development library. “Always learning” is one of the pillars of my personal mission statement. Explore past columns here.
If you’re a Kindle fan like I am, it is available for the Kindle.
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Quote to Consider: Working at Contentment
“True contentment… is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous, and it is rare.”G. K. Chesterton
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Karl Shares Six Words… #72
Inspiration? See policy manual, page 627.
Karl Edwards
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Karl’s Library: Vital Friends by Tom Rath
The myth of the independent, diversely-competent, always-together person must be hunted down wherever it still reigns and destroyed once and for all.It’s destroying more people and all workplace cultures where its lies are still blindly obeyed.
Human beings don’t do life alone.
Human being can’t do life alone.
Fortunately, Tom Rath has taken a look at friendship and work in Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford To Live Without.
Would you believe, “that people who have a ‘best friend’ at work are seven times as likely to be engaged in their job?!”
Take note of the eight vital roles Rath asserts we need surrounding us:
1. Builder
2. Champion
3. Collaborator
4. Companion
5. Connector
6. Energizer
7. Mind Opener
8. NavigatorÂYou don’t have to be a “warm and fuzzy” type to appreciate the value of most of these roles.
This book is an invitation to connect with others in ways you may not yet have considered.
This book may even be a helpful wake-up call to those of us who tend to isolate and go it alone.
Karl’s Library is a weekly column highlighting my favorites from my professional development library. “Always learning” is one of the pillars of my personal mission statement. Explore past columns here.
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Loving Monday: The Future Cannot be Postponed
Aspirations are fuel to the soul.Aspirations reframe our current circumstances into terms that tap into our dreams and hopes for the future.
Aspirations, though, have to touch ground somewhere.
That somewhere is Monday morning.That somewhere is in the choices I make today.
Aspirations may be fulfilled in the future, but they always require engagement in the present.
My point in this post is just this: The future cannot be postponed.
All futures, if they are ever to take form, involve taking action today. Action postponed is future postponed.
When it comes to our aspirations, though, we are dealing with matters of the spirit and heart. We are dealing with deep desires and ambitious hopes.
We are dealing with all that makes us come alive and willing to work day after day and year after year in order to realize.
Hence the urgency to live some portion of that dream today. To choose to take one step—however small or however far away from the goal it may feel—today.
Maybe it’s a telephone call to make. Maybe it’s a essay to write. Maybe it’s a skill to learn. Maybe it’s a character trait to adjust. Maybe it’s a desktop to clear. Maybe it’s a problem to confront. Maybe it’s a mistake to correct. Maybe it’s a helping hand to extend.
Just as long as it happens today. Something, one thing, anything, today.
The future cannot be postponed. It will be here before you know it.
What about your aspirations? Let’s make sure by taking a practical step today.
On your side,
– Karl Edwards
Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.
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Quote to Consider: Success as a Version of Failure
“Success is often nothing more than moving from one failure to another with undiminished enthusiasm.”Winston Churchill
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Karl Shares Six Words… #71
Casual dress code just as rigid.
Karl Edwards
