By George S. Smith and Steve Burnett
3 Know thyself
Who are you? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Are you happy doing it, and, if not, why are you doing it?
Okay, so you work for a business or association and you have a five-word title, or aspire to having one – manager/senior manager/director/vice president and general manager of something and something. The company has you lined up to be on an MBO plan and, sometime in the future you may be eligible for a car allowance, stock options … and more.
You have arrived. Or plan to do so quickly.
Before you get too cocky, check your image in the mirror. Do you see an aura of success (regal purple with gold piping, perhaps) encapsulating your body? A competent manager with a reassuring smile that bespeaks volumes of positive accolades from co-workers and high-level management? Confidence you can sell by the pound?
Let’s take it for granted: You are a confident manager or well on your way of becoming one. Your walk, talk, and mannerisms portray success for all to see.
Look at me! Please! Now! I am the picture of success! If not yet, soon!
But, confidence aside, you have weaknesses. If this is a revelation, you are already in trouble. Everyone has weaknesses.
If asked to name your Top 5 weaknesses, personality or professional traits that could prohibit you from climbing the tenuous business ladder more than a few additional rungs, what would you say? Have you given any thought to your weaknesses and, if so, are you confident enough to voice them aloud? (In a room with a closed door doesn’t count.)
If your idea is a good one … will you let it be known?
More importantly, do others – co-workers, supervisor, top management – know your weaknesses? Are they waiting/hoping that you have what it takes to minimize weaknesses or turn them into strengths? Or, do they simply not care one way or the other?
Far too many managers don’t take the time, nor have the inclination, to focus on the personal traits that have helped carve the personal career path that led to their present position. And, those same managers are usually not interested in a self-analysis to determine if those basic traits will allow them to reach future personal and professional goals.
To be a success, a self-analysis is not only a fundamental right of passage, but also a necessity. There is nothing tougher than for a person to go through a personal self-analysis. The mere suggestion may be a scary as thinking about sliding down a giant razorblade naked.
Some psychologists claim an objective self-analysis is impossible. It is in their best interest to think that and promote that premise. The psychologists are right in one respect: There are people who can’t see their own weaknesses; therefore they believe they don’t exist. They are wrong, but these are the same people who won’t admit to ever making a mistake.
While an extremely uncomfortable undertaking, looking at one’s self with an objective eye in the psyche mirror is possible. It takes a strong heart, a stronger will, a solid mind, a strong sense of self-worth, and the understanding how stripping away personal veneer can be a cathartic experience, not an embarrassing one.
Take a chance, strip away your emotional veneer and see what lies underneath.
Spend the time and emotional commitment to analyze yourself before someone with a bigger title does it for you.
Next: You’re terrified? Good!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Circumference of Me -- Part 2 in a multi-part series
By George S. Smith and Steve Burnett
Positives from negatives
There are times in everyone’s life when things don’t make sense. Familiar sights and sounds seem out of focus and muffled; systems which only yesterday were business, non-profit association, education, and corporate comforters miraculously resemble a patchwork quilt with the Drunkard’s Path design; policies which once seemingly protected you are suddenly – like the cat of homespun legend – stealing your breath away and smothering your creativity.
Sometimes when something is broken, the pieces are better than the whole.
When your personal world – your professional portrait, familiar processes at home and work, predictable market trends – breaks apart, when conflicts diminish reason, take comfort in the fact that there are pieces always left. Don’t discard those pieces, don’t throw away relationships that might prove helpful to your and your business; they are a part of you. Take the pieces and play with them. Put them back together to create a new picture that will benefit the changed you. Take the pieces and make a you collage.
Take a giant step in the direction of change: Put your brain in neutral. Of course, it’s hard to do. Your brain does not normally recognize commands to go into neutral mode because that makes no sense. The brain is a pattern-loving organ, and with your brain in neutral, there are no thought-patterns being created. Your thinking self yearns to make sense of events, people, and opportunities; it wants to reason its way out of an economic ditch, catastrophic relationship, or a job that simply sucks.
Putting your brain in neutral does not mean “not thinking.” It means selective thinking about things that, when viewed from your personal or professional lives, are “neutral.”
One manager confided that her personal neutral mode consisted of closing her eyes in a quiet moment and concentrating on a single thought: A turtle walking at the edge of a tranquil pond. In a personal form of meditation or bio-feedback, the woman simply takes a minute or less and “walks” the turtle in her mind – silently saying “Turtle. Turtle. Turtle.” with each step. This form of non-sense calms and relaxes this particular manager, enabling her to put her creative brain in neutral and resulting in a refreshing pause.
It’s the paradox of non-sense that, through this neutral process, it’s possible to direct your brain to find to new patterns and conclusions. The exercise can generate new thoughts that inspire mental-inventions and creates a personal need to succeed despite all obstacles.
Now is as good a time as any to explode yourself with mental dynamite and reinvent you. It’s the perfect time for reinvestment of creative energy, setting new goals, dreaming new dreams, strengthening your personal will, and reorganizing your organizational structure to find a positive use for the tired, old, broken and scattered pieces of the truisms of your yesterday.
When things break – in your personal life, in your job, in the market – huge amounts of negative and positive energy are released. The energy has to go somewhere. You have choices on where to direct the energy, but doesn’t it make sense to direct it to enhance the positive side of life?
That’s the premise and reason for the Circumference of Me, directing stray thoughts into a living, breathing, growing example of how you can change your life through the appreciation and development of a very special personal tool: Personal thought leadership.
Take charge of your thoughts. Take charge of your life.
Next: Know thyself
Positives from negatives
There are times in everyone’s life when things don’t make sense. Familiar sights and sounds seem out of focus and muffled; systems which only yesterday were business, non-profit association, education, and corporate comforters miraculously resemble a patchwork quilt with the Drunkard’s Path design; policies which once seemingly protected you are suddenly – like the cat of homespun legend – stealing your breath away and smothering your creativity.
Sometimes when something is broken, the pieces are better than the whole.
When your personal world – your professional portrait, familiar processes at home and work, predictable market trends – breaks apart, when conflicts diminish reason, take comfort in the fact that there are pieces always left. Don’t discard those pieces, don’t throw away relationships that might prove helpful to your and your business; they are a part of you. Take the pieces and play with them. Put them back together to create a new picture that will benefit the changed you. Take the pieces and make a you collage.
Take a giant step in the direction of change: Put your brain in neutral. Of course, it’s hard to do. Your brain does not normally recognize commands to go into neutral mode because that makes no sense. The brain is a pattern-loving organ, and with your brain in neutral, there are no thought-patterns being created. Your thinking self yearns to make sense of events, people, and opportunities; it wants to reason its way out of an economic ditch, catastrophic relationship, or a job that simply sucks.
Putting your brain in neutral does not mean “not thinking.” It means selective thinking about things that, when viewed from your personal or professional lives, are “neutral.”
One manager confided that her personal neutral mode consisted of closing her eyes in a quiet moment and concentrating on a single thought: A turtle walking at the edge of a tranquil pond. In a personal form of meditation or bio-feedback, the woman simply takes a minute or less and “walks” the turtle in her mind – silently saying “Turtle. Turtle. Turtle.” with each step. This form of non-sense calms and relaxes this particular manager, enabling her to put her creative brain in neutral and resulting in a refreshing pause.
It’s the paradox of non-sense that, through this neutral process, it’s possible to direct your brain to find to new patterns and conclusions. The exercise can generate new thoughts that inspire mental-inventions and creates a personal need to succeed despite all obstacles.
Now is as good a time as any to explode yourself with mental dynamite and reinvent you. It’s the perfect time for reinvestment of creative energy, setting new goals, dreaming new dreams, strengthening your personal will, and reorganizing your organizational structure to find a positive use for the tired, old, broken and scattered pieces of the truisms of your yesterday.
When things break – in your personal life, in your job, in the market – huge amounts of negative and positive energy are released. The energy has to go somewhere. You have choices on where to direct the energy, but doesn’t it make sense to direct it to enhance the positive side of life?
That’s the premise and reason for the Circumference of Me, directing stray thoughts into a living, breathing, growing example of how you can change your life through the appreciation and development of a very special personal tool: Personal thought leadership.
Take charge of your thoughts. Take charge of your life.
Next: Know thyself
Circumference of Me -- Part 1 of a Multi-part Series
George S. Smith Steve Burnett
Author bios
Steve Burnett, president of the Burnett Group, a management, brand, and communications consulting company in New York City, is a professor of communications design at the Pratt Institute. His company’s clients are a Who’s Who of global brand names. He’s also an accomplished artist, and is creator of the “whimsy” style of art.
George S. Smith, director of communications services for Topcon Positioning Systems, is a former newspaper editor and publisher, community development consultant, and national motivational speaker. He has taught management courses at the college level and has been a certified online instructor in strategic management and critical thinking.
Burnett and Smith are co-founders of Whimsy Creations, LLC, a firm that develops unique fund-raising products that involves mixing “whimsy” drawings and poetry for small, non-profit organizations.
They say …
Joe Ford
Former Chairman and CEO, Alltel Corporation
Partner, Westrock Capital Partners
Just when you thought you had seen the latest and greatest message about what steps people need to take to become great managers, along comes the Circumference of Me.
If you have read other books on management theory or practice, fine, but you need to read this one. It has been my pleasure to work with both of the authors on projects ranging from global communications to brand awareness to internal and external communications practices. They do not just talk a good game; they know their business.
Consider yourself warned: This is not your typical management book. The Circumference of Me is about … you.
It does not present the safe-at-all-costs practical side of corporations, management practices, and expected behaviors for employees. There is no do-this-or-else business theory included, nor is there the predictable management truisms speckled with visual word-posters designed to build Spirit, Enthusiasm, Motivation, Optimism, or Team Building.
Circumference of Me will give you a view of the various steps necessary to rise to the challenges of being a manager -- or a better manager – and create the environment for you to realize your potential through its unique presentation and content.
Kevin Dial
Director of Operations
CBIZ Medical Management Professionals
The Circumference of Me is a classic example of pull/push marketing. Most of us know – or think we do – what we want and who we are; it is the stopping to look and the prompting and pulling out of us that is usually needed more than the simple act of pushing an idea into us.
There is a fine line between teaching and shaping someone’s understanding and motivating their will to act. I believe an effective teacher has to do both and there is a nice balance in the lessons of this book.
There are two words to describe this book: Fresh and creative. The illustrations are directly connected to the writing and help the reader create a mental image.
Circumference has many mini-lessons about life and about business, to not only think about, but to remember and use.
This book creates a pathway to dream about things that really stir us up and make us better at what we do and not just create traditional goals. Encouraging that in people is very important and Circumference of Me shouts that message loud and clear.
John Trotti
Editor
Grading & Excavation magazine
At first, Circumference of Me seems to be an awful lot to chew, particularly for one who has "been there and done that" with varying degrees of success and satisfaction.
It was hard for me to want to let go of one thought and move on to the next. This is validation of the idea that "It's not a goal...it's a mission, so it's the journey that counts."
Smith and Burnett have found a way to draw the reader into their concept of management philosophy without a bunch of guideposts. Instead, the reader enters as a wanderer and quickly finds himself engaged.
Circumference reminds me of Rome, a city where you can walk the same streets day after day, a hundred times, and never become jaded...never feel that it's lost some of its freshness.
While it reminds me of areas where I've missed the mark, it also lets me check off the things I've done correctly; both are good exercises for the mind and spirit.
John Wallace
Retired director - Verizon Communications
Welcome to the world of George Smith and Steve Burnett-- where whimsy consistently opens the door to profound and practical insights.
Burnett crafts illustrations that are simple yet stunning, capturing the essence of chapters in minimal brush strokes. Smith paints word pictures like few others can, exploring life circumstances from a unique and insightful perspective.
The chapter-ending takeaways offer common sense that is, unfortunately, far too uncommon in business and government today.
Just read it. Put it into practice. You will be glad you did.
Bobbie Jean McCarty
Elementary Principal
Commerce (Texas) Independent School District
As schools have sought to meet the public demand for more accountability, educators have searched for ways to merge the principles of management in the business world with that of the educational realm. During 40 plus years as an educator and administrator I have read numerous “management” books and had yet to find one that could be so applicable to the educational community.
Circumference of Me is an exception to this. Build upon the principle of self-development and the dynamics of relationships, the authors have managed to connect the principles of business while reflecting the central component of effective educational institutions: First you teach the child. Without knowing and being comfortable with oneself, an educator cannot reach the heart of a student. The ability to have effective interpersonal skills impacts and extends beyond the classroom to the staff, parents, and community.
The whimsical drawings are wonderful for those who need more than the written word to grasp the total meaning of the thought. As any good piece of children’s literature, the illustrations should reflect the words of the author. The drawings by Steve Burnett are more than illustrations; they are intuitive and thought provoking in and of themselves.
Circumference of Me is an easy-to-read book, perfect for those who feel rushed, with great and lasting application to those in the field of education.
SECTIONS
Foreword
Circumference of Me
Unconditional Wisdom
Unconventional Wisdom
Processed Advice
Afterword
Foreword
Each chapter of The Circumference of Me was designed with someone just like you in mind, someone who wants to explore the realistic depths of his or her abilities, to think not only about realities but also about perceptions and how they influence our lives.
Circumference is designed to provide guideposts to enable you to improve your business self, enhance the understanding and expansion of your leadership abilities, develop a sense of the importance of the synergies that are possible if your business and personal lives are in sync, and to be as successful and personally fulfilled in whatever business you choose.
It is, in a single phrase, a take-away tool kit of ideas. Regardless of whether you own your own business, or where you now sit in a professional organizational chart, or if you are just starting a professional career, you will take something positive away from the Circumference of Me.
There are fifty-five chapters in this book and some of them – guaranteed! – will speak directly to you. As you peruse the Content Page, or check out the individual chapter headlines, you will quickly be able to identify the chapters that interest you at this point in your career.
When you start reading the book from the front, or when you start selecting chapters to read at random, you will begin to ask yourself questions:
Why did this chapter heading interest me?
What is the intent of the chapter and how can I use it?
Will this chapter give me advice to advance my career? Make me a better employee?
Better manager?
What was the take-away lesson?
Would that work in my organization?
What would people think if I tried that at work?
This book is not a cure-all for the Business Blahs. It is only one small piece in the multiple building blocks that make up your life. The individual chapters are tools to put into your business or association tool belt and pull out when needed. It is designed not to change the way you view your professional world, but to create a need to think about your business world and explore different options that might lead to success.
With its mixture of unique visuals and around-the-corner word images, Circumference of Me encourages you to take the different shapes and parts that appeal to you so you can think about you in a different way. You can take familiar patterns in your life and, using the ideas in this book, discover the possibilities that exist when you change integral parts and shapes. Like Lego building blocks, by using the ideas, thoughts, real-life examples, and advice in these pages you can take diverse pieces and design options for various pathways you choose for your life.
The chapters are designed to stimulate thoughts about how each individual looks at themselves and provides images – in drawings and words – to enable them to start to contemplate their personal shape and how they can start corralling the errant pieces of their professional lives and rounding off the corners to create a symmetrical Circumference of Me.
There are pieces of all sizes and shapes in this kit from which to choose. You can read them all or mix-and-match to suit your mood. You decide which parts are crucial to defining your personal Circumference of Me. Or you can use the individual chapters to create new boundaries on which to build your career … and life.
The challenge is to open your mind, to think, and learn; the challenge is accepting; the challenge is in your personal ability to view yourself from an analytical point of view and, where necessary, to change that which you decide needs changing.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Speaking of the truth ….
A truism is something that is true. It does not become true simply because one says, thinks or believes it is untrue.
A truism is truth, unvarnished and naked in its simplicity.
Everyone has a few supposed truisms hidden in their mental and verbal arsenal. Some are true, some aren’t. Over the past several decades, a list of truisms, started during a pique of skepticism and nurtured in negativism, has grown appreciably.
The fact the following list mainly deals with politics and personalities and should surprise no one. If it does, you need psychological help.
Truisms – No dispute accepted nor tolerated
1) If Congress were to be on the same retirement system as non-elected folk, there would be no problem with Social Security.
2) If the Green Party would nominate candidates that looked and acted quasi-normal, the party might elect a few politicians.
3) A Republican who follows his/her party line 80 percent of the time ain’t worth a cup of dog drool.
4) Democrats, ditto.
5) Anyone who blames Obama for every ill this country is facing is dead-dog wrong.
6) Anyone who blames George W. Bush for 100 percent of the mess Obama inherited is dead-dog wrong.
7) There is no logical reason why IRS filings should not be limited to what information can fit on a postcard.
8) A majority of politicians in Washington are bought and paid for by lobbyists.
9) A majority of lobbyists in Washington have the brains of an earthworm, the ethics of a New Orleans pimp and the conscience of a born-again terrorist.
10) Anyone who votes a straight party ticket has as much common sense
as a demented mole. No party is right 100 percent of the time.
11) Term limits for Senators and members of the House are essential to
reforming politics.
12) There are more people driving cars in the United States with
handicapped stickers than there are handicapped people in the world.
13) Sarah Palin’s main attribute is that she has a memorable accent and is
as perky as all get-out.
14) Dick Cheney is not the devil. The jury is still out on Karl Rove.
15) Obama is a citizen of the United States, is not a Muslim and can not
help what his parents named him.
16) Henry Waxman has the ugliest nose in Washington. Strike that. Make
it “the world.”
17) Nancy Pelosi is the worst Speaker of the House of Representatives
since the last one.
18) More people vote “against” a certain candidate for any office than
vote “for” any candidate.
19) The concept of “justice for all” in this country is a myth. If you’re
rich, you can take advantage of the system; if you are poor, you get
to meet Big Wanda or Big Bubba in the prison shower up close and
personal.
And, one for the road:
20) The “value” of a human life is decreasing constantly and criminals are allowed to literally get away with murder, literally and figuratively. Lawyers are allowed to manipulate the judicial system to benefit them and their clients and judges think lenient sentences for heinous crimes are somehow “justice.”
A truism is truth, unvarnished and naked in its simplicity.
Everyone has a few supposed truisms hidden in their mental and verbal arsenal. Some are true, some aren’t. Over the past several decades, a list of truisms, started during a pique of skepticism and nurtured in negativism, has grown appreciably.
The fact the following list mainly deals with politics and personalities and should surprise no one. If it does, you need psychological help.
Truisms – No dispute accepted nor tolerated
1) If Congress were to be on the same retirement system as non-elected folk, there would be no problem with Social Security.
2) If the Green Party would nominate candidates that looked and acted quasi-normal, the party might elect a few politicians.
3) A Republican who follows his/her party line 80 percent of the time ain’t worth a cup of dog drool.
4) Democrats, ditto.
5) Anyone who blames Obama for every ill this country is facing is dead-dog wrong.
6) Anyone who blames George W. Bush for 100 percent of the mess Obama inherited is dead-dog wrong.
7) There is no logical reason why IRS filings should not be limited to what information can fit on a postcard.
8) A majority of politicians in Washington are bought and paid for by lobbyists.
9) A majority of lobbyists in Washington have the brains of an earthworm, the ethics of a New Orleans pimp and the conscience of a born-again terrorist.
10) Anyone who votes a straight party ticket has as much common sense
as a demented mole. No party is right 100 percent of the time.
11) Term limits for Senators and members of the House are essential to
reforming politics.
12) There are more people driving cars in the United States with
handicapped stickers than there are handicapped people in the world.
13) Sarah Palin’s main attribute is that she has a memorable accent and is
as perky as all get-out.
14) Dick Cheney is not the devil. The jury is still out on Karl Rove.
15) Obama is a citizen of the United States, is not a Muslim and can not
help what his parents named him.
16) Henry Waxman has the ugliest nose in Washington. Strike that. Make
it “the world.”
17) Nancy Pelosi is the worst Speaker of the House of Representatives
since the last one.
18) More people vote “against” a certain candidate for any office than
vote “for” any candidate.
19) The concept of “justice for all” in this country is a myth. If you’re
rich, you can take advantage of the system; if you are poor, you get
to meet Big Wanda or Big Bubba in the prison shower up close and
personal.
And, one for the road:
20) The “value” of a human life is decreasing constantly and criminals are allowed to literally get away with murder, literally and figuratively. Lawyers are allowed to manipulate the judicial system to benefit them and their clients and judges think lenient sentences for heinous crimes are somehow “justice.”
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Want a good rant? Fine! Here!
Land of the free. Home of the brave.
Yeah! Right! (Proving once and for all that two positive can make a negative.)
America today is more like the home of the freebie, home of the greedy.
Look around you. What in name of Jezebel’s housecat has happened to our country?
One word: Politics.
It’s bad enough we are limited to two lame parties with screeching leaders with less common sense than a herd of demented rhesus monkeys, but we have a mindless population that follow those leaders like blindfolded kindergarten rejects.
We elect leaders who claim to have our best interests in mind, when, in actuality, their personal interests and those of their monied minders are paramount. We elect those leaders expecting them to make changes and all they do is raise taxes and spend time figuring out how to emerge from politics richer than when they went in.
We elect the yahoos and yahooettes to make our country a better place in which to live and all they do is spend tax dollars like they print the durn things at projects on which any competent businessperson would take a pass.
We vote for Bert and Beulah Bureaucrat. We smile as they sally forth to do battle with the Budget Dragon … and then add to the burden with pet projects of dubious nature so they can get re-elected for bringing home tax dollar-sponsored projects.
We make fun of members of the opposite party from our beliefs or raisin’s while lauding the attributes of favorite politicians without ever realizing that they are the same mutant critters with different political labels.
There is absolutely no difference in a Democrat who pushes a welfare program for which there is no need, or a Republican who wants a tax break for big business. It’s all politics and the shifty voting moves are to get the respective officials re-elected.
It’s politics and it’s shameful.
Rant over. Now go on back out and re-elect those good politicians that are doing right by you and this country.
Yeah! Right! (Proving once and for all that two positive can make a negative.)
America today is more like the home of the freebie, home of the greedy.
Look around you. What in name of Jezebel’s housecat has happened to our country?
One word: Politics.
It’s bad enough we are limited to two lame parties with screeching leaders with less common sense than a herd of demented rhesus monkeys, but we have a mindless population that follow those leaders like blindfolded kindergarten rejects.
We elect leaders who claim to have our best interests in mind, when, in actuality, their personal interests and those of their monied minders are paramount. We elect those leaders expecting them to make changes and all they do is raise taxes and spend time figuring out how to emerge from politics richer than when they went in.
We elect the yahoos and yahooettes to make our country a better place in which to live and all they do is spend tax dollars like they print the durn things at projects on which any competent businessperson would take a pass.
We vote for Bert and Beulah Bureaucrat. We smile as they sally forth to do battle with the Budget Dragon … and then add to the burden with pet projects of dubious nature so they can get re-elected for bringing home tax dollar-sponsored projects.
We make fun of members of the opposite party from our beliefs or raisin’s while lauding the attributes of favorite politicians without ever realizing that they are the same mutant critters with different political labels.
There is absolutely no difference in a Democrat who pushes a welfare program for which there is no need, or a Republican who wants a tax break for big business. It’s all politics and the shifty voting moves are to get the respective officials re-elected.
It’s politics and it’s shameful.
Rant over. Now go on back out and re-elect those good politicians that are doing right by you and this country.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Salmon River Trip - 2010
Colin and Kay Kelly of Canada. Two of the most memorable people one could ever hope to meet. Thanks for the laughter, fun, education and friendship!
George and Brandie
Salmon River Trip - 2010
Teagan Jean,
Homecoming Queen,
Thinks she's nice,
but she's so mean!!!!
Go! Team!!!
Teagan, thanks for all the help in camp!!!
Thursday, July 8, 2010
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