Happy New Year!
January 2, 2008
Wow…what a unique time of the year for those of us that celebrate Christmas and operate on “calendar year thinking”. In our personal lives we’re working in more time for family and friends, shopping for gifts, attending holiday parties and possibly planning vacation time away from work. All of this is occurring while we’re dealing with the daily issues of our work as well as wrapping up year end assignments. Most of us have been involved in heavy business planning and are working toward wrapping that up in preparation for execution in ’08 - and all of these things to get done during a time of year when we’re prone to get run down and pick up a “bug” (as I sit here next to my box of Kleenex…).
I’ll admit that just writing the preceding paragraph caused my stress level to jump a bit – my list of “to do’s” seems never ending and most of the items on the list are actually quite important. So…it must be time for a vacation! I’m spending Christmas in Crested Butte, Colorado with my family and some close friends. We’ll ski, sled, walk around town and then relax in the evenings. It’s a vacation I’ve been taking for over two decades now and it’s become a part the DNA of my family. It’s also become a time to reflect and refresh. Most of the “mechanics” of ’08 business planning are in place and I enjoy the chance to think about the creative end of business as I ski or simply enjoy a long morning over coffee.
The “creative” end of business, for me, usually involves thinking about individual people – the people I work with on a daily basis as well as key suppliers and business associates. At the end of the day, business success happens because individual people do something. Certainly, the forces of group dynamics, organizational design and planning all serve as motivators and frame what an organization is trying to accomplish. Yet, it’s people that ultimately must perform. So, I think about people and what they are trying to get out of life. I think about how to help them achieve, how to support them with the best tools, how to be a great resource for them…
Christmas in Crested Butte isn’t the only time I think about people, but it’s the marker for me to begin the new year with fresh, optimistic thinking and renewed energy around being the kind of person that other people want to interact with.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Tom
I’ll admit that just writing the preceding paragraph caused my stress level to jump a bit – my list of “to do’s” seems never ending and most of the items on the list are actually quite important. So…it must be time for a vacation! I’m spending Christmas in Crested Butte, Colorado with my family and some close friends. We’ll ski, sled, walk around town and then relax in the evenings. It’s a vacation I’ve been taking for over two decades now and it’s become a part the DNA of my family. It’s also become a time to reflect and refresh. Most of the “mechanics” of ’08 business planning are in place and I enjoy the chance to think about the creative end of business as I ski or simply enjoy a long morning over coffee.
The “creative” end of business, for me, usually involves thinking about individual people – the people I work with on a daily basis as well as key suppliers and business associates. At the end of the day, business success happens because individual people do something. Certainly, the forces of group dynamics, organizational design and planning all serve as motivators and frame what an organization is trying to accomplish. Yet, it’s people that ultimately must perform. So, I think about people and what they are trying to get out of life. I think about how to help them achieve, how to support them with the best tools, how to be a great resource for them…
Christmas in Crested Butte isn’t the only time I think about people, but it’s the marker for me to begin the new year with fresh, optimistic thinking and renewed energy around being the kind of person that other people want to interact with.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Tom