The Sunday before last, there was a one-hour tribute on 60 Minutes to the recently deceased Don Hewitt. Don created and was the inspiration behind TV’s longest running show: 60 Minutes. While I don’t usually watch shows that pat themselves on the back, this one caught my eye. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the whole show.
It would seem to me in this electronic age, the traditional committee and/or staff meeting is becoming outmoded. The evening of November 1, I attended a small gathering of individuals to listen to a lecture on Mormonism and the environment. After the BYU prof made his PowerPoint presentaion, there was a lengthy Q&A session. This latter activity was dominate by one very loud, overbearing, and foul-mouthed individual. While I didn’t disagree with most of her points, but why did she think her opinions were more cogent than those of others in the audience? By her dominating the conversation, we will never know what others attending were thinking. We will never know what the silent individuals could have brought to the discussion.
The book “The Moral Underground” was recently given a short review in Time Magazine (Dec. 14, p. 23). In her book, Lisa Dodson (BC sociology prof.) paints a rather dismal image of corporate America, who she feels is building wealth by abusing low-income workers. “Helping the less fortunate in this context becomes as a form of civil and corporate disobedience.” Time lists three of her examples: (1) supervisors who alter time cards so that employees can take better care for their families; (2) the school nurse who keeps cots in her office so those with bad home situations can get a few hours of sleep; and (3) the doctor who thumbs his nose at insurance regulations in order to provide medicine for an entire household. ”All see their behavior as necessary and moral acts of conscience.”
In a recent edition of SIVault, L. Jon Wertheim writes about the decision-making of the football coach for the Pulaski Academy Bruins (a high school located on the west side of Little Rock AR). For me the article, brought to my attention by my son, is more about life than sports.
Time Magazine (Sept 28, 2009) has an interesting short article on Wikepedia:
“. . . early in 2007, something strange happened: Wikipedia’s growth line flattened. People suddenly became reluctant to create new articles or fix errors or add their kernels of wisdom to existing pages.”
The following article appeared as a side bar in Government Executive (July 2009). It illustrates some of the collaboration potential of the new electronic media options:
“When the U.S. Coast Guard’s Boutwell made a recent port call in Djibouti, Commandant Adm. Thad Allen boarded the high-endurance cutter for an all-hands meeting with the crew. The Boutwell is circling the globe, so Allen figured it would be nice to shoot some video “shout outs” with the crew and post them on the Web, so families could see and hear their loved ones during the deployment. It was a typical gesture for Allen. Rarely does a day pass when he or his aides aren’t posting photos, video or a blog item for anyone who wants to know what he’s up to.
At one of the 2009 SLC Sunstone workshops, a Weber State Professor — Michael J. Stevens — taught a short course in management. He described 4 types of managers ranging from disrespectful to respectful, and dominant to submissive:
Q1: Imposer — makes authoritarian decisions
Q2: Ignorer — avoids or postpones decisions
Q3: Ingratiator — wants everyone to be “one happy family”
Q4: Integrator — promotes self-direction in others
With the ideal being Q4.
I just gave my employer 40 hours (5 working days) that I can never get back. My sentence: Manditory supervisory training. The upside: It gave me a lot of time to contemplate my “philosophy” of management . . . and occasionally discuss it with the class.
Several years ago, I was required to attend a 3-day Stephen R. Covey workshop (taught by one of his minions). It was a followup to his highly successful 7-Habits workshop. At the time, Stephen had just been named by Time as one of the world’s 50 most influential people and was a local celebrity. The training was boring; it consisted of an occasional 2-and-1/2 minute talk on videotape by the master, followed by sessions which were about as deep as my grandkids’ wading pool. One thing that did catch my eye was an illustration. It consisted of an arrow with a large body. Inside the large arrow were several small arrows. They were all pointing in the same exact direction (to the right). This illustrated how a well-oiled organization should operate.