Business

There are moments in one’s career where you are truly ‘on-stage’ and your long arduous journey begins to take shape for its next shape.

Today at 8:00am this morning is when the gameface goes on and we see how the chips fall. More than eighteen months of work gets rolled out this morning with implementation in about eighteen days.

Fingers crossed.

I wish I could say more, but can’t…. but you’ll be able to see the public presentation in 2005 🙂

The following post is not about my boss – whom I love and respect dearly.

I hate bosses who lack the backbone and courage to deal with the real issue in front of them — you know – the big fucking white elephant in the middle of the room that no one wants to talk about – and instead goes out and makes an issue out of something that isn’t an issue and hurts someone who is just doing their job.

Punk ass bitches – you can rot in hell.

I feel much better now.

My team won several awards tonight.

Yes, they were presented to me – as their leader.

But they won them.

I lead a team of outstanding individuals from all walks of life – different backgrounds, different upbringings, different countries, different thoughts.. different styles…

All that I do is nudge them along from time to time – they do the heavy lifting, the deep thinking, the tough decisions, and handle the difficult situations.

Without them I am nothing. The awards I won tonight were a direct reflection of their efforts and commitment to excellence.

I am so proud to be a part of their team.

Long airplane flights offer me much opportunity to catch up on past reading. For this flight, I brought along about eight magazines that have been cluttering up my office at home.

One of the more interesting was an older issue (two months gone by I suspect) of Fast Company that discussed Where Are the Women? The focus of the article was about the progress, or lack thereof, that women had made moving into the top levels of corporate America.

The more interesting parts of the article were about the women who had reached the upper levels of corporation management only to walk away because the price wasn’t worth it. This is something that I’ve thought about a lot lately.

I have a good friend back in Cleveland who was on the fast-track to a senior leadership position at my employer. She also had two small children at home. Out of the blue, she took a leave of absence – which led to a resignation – in order to spend more time at home. As of the last time we spoke, she still wasn’t working.

And I’m not sure that I blame her.

As things exist today, I am up at 5am, at a work location by 6:30a or 7:00am (it’s a 90 minute drive most days each way, sometimes longer) – I spent 8-9 hours at that location, and then drive home. I get around 20 phone calls daily – with 2-3 of them being after normal business hours (my work location has 24 hour operations and things do happen after hours) – and then 2-3 calls per day on the weekend. Add another 500 or so emails each week and an out of town travel strip every 2-3 weeks, and things add up quickly.

I don’t have children, so this workload is doable – but sometimes I wonder to what purpose?

The promotion that I have been striving for will come at some point – and then I’ll be on the road overnight 3-4 days a week in most cases. While I would enjoy the professional challenge, I wonder if the sacrifice for the additional money and prestige is worth it.

No, I’m not leaving, and no, I’m not removing myself from the rat race. This article just threw some deep thoughts my way that I’m chewing through, as usual.

My team at the real job is made up of more than sixty-eight managers and hourly employees throughout the greater Boston area.

They are among the greatest group of people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

The picture above shows five of them enjoying a moment of downtime at the Boys and Girls Club of Middlesex County, Massachusetts – we’re in the midst of a heated basketball game with a bunch of kids.

The diversity of my team – and of Boston – is reflected in that picture.

These five – along with the fifteen or so othes that were there that night – gave up their own Wednesday night to spend time with those much less fortunate than us. We’ve continued to keep the faith with the promise that we made to these kids back in November. We’ll be there.

My team takes the time – not only because our company is strongly commited to this mission – but because of the people that they are.

I’m privileged to be a part of their team.

My employer for the past ten years has a serious commitment to the community – one that is measured in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in donations – and measured in the thousands of hours that our employees donate of themselves each year to their local communities.

A few months ago I issued the challenge to one of the managers that works for me to find a local organization that we could donate significant time and financial resources to assisting. As we’re all in the criminal justice field, we were looking for a program for at-risk youth near the Greater Boston area — the closer to the city, the better.

We found it at the Boys and Girls Club in Somerville, Massachusetts today.

After three hours of basketball, poll, video games, and “Cooties”, my team has chosen to commit at least half a day of their time each month to this special group of youngsters. It’s the beginning of a relationship that I can only see improving in the months to come.

It’s amazing what good you can do with your time…

The American economy expanded during the third quarter at the fastest rate since 1984, the government reported today, offering hope that the long economic malaise has finally ended.

Economists welcomed the report as a sign of strength not seen since 2000, but they cautioned that economic growth was almost certain to slow in the months ahead, as the effects of the recent tax cut and a surge in mortgage refinancing wear off. Indeed, the stock market ended trading with little change today, reflecting questions about the sustainability of this rate of growth. [New York Times]