Do You need to Forgive ?

I was moved today watching an interview with Desmond Tutu. He was a guest on Craig Ferguson's show last year, and I didn't see it, or hear about it then. But it was announced this week, that this particular episode won a Peabody Award. Peabody's are the coveted prize in electronic media, recognizing outstanding achievement. It's open to public broadcasts, and private entries too. So winning one of these things whose sole criteria is excellence, is worth it apparently, and I took note. Spool up YouTube and some of the loyal fan-base Craig has, and low and behold - there's all 19 mins of it in 3 parts.

The two discuss a range of topics and the interview is funny, touching, insightful, thought-provoking and meaningful. Rather than focus (again) on how this is even possible on late night US TV, I think the bigger more important message has to do with what the Archbishop offers as guidance to others in the form of anecdotes and stories. He puts forth that people are intrinsically good, and even in the toughest, most difficult situations such as Darfur or South Africa's past 20 years, people still are able to find cause to laugh, smile and forgive. Even those who have been wronged find cause to forgive, understanding that some things are in some small way things they contributed to. The message I started to ask myself when watching this, was - "who do I need to forgive?", and my list started to get long pretty fast. He puts forth that forgiveness is a form of catharsis - Craig's take on it is that "hate and resentment are a poison we swallow, that we expect to have an effect on the other person". It was humbling to watch this man who has been able to hold his faith for such a long time, through such pain, talk about truths he holds close to his own heart.

Another point he made which is really quite beautiful is that we aren't human without one another. I'm not sure I can do justice to it, but in effect we rely upon one other to be taught to speak, walk, and act. Our social customs are the result of the time we spend together, rather than inwardly focused. With that in mind, we need one other to be successful as beings ourselves, and when we dehumanize others, it dehumanizes us just a little. Remember this the next time you want to offer a hand gesture to the driver that has just cut you off, or when we elect not to turn the other cheek against some injustice big or small.

Craig and his guest speak about Nelson Mandela, and the Archbishop's views on the state of the US as well. It's a fascinating 20 minute investment of your time. I highly recommend it.

Now I need to get back to my forgiveness list, and no, that won't be published. It'll be acted upon though as I've been inspired.

The Missing CEO Perspective

I feel sorry for the CEO. It's hard enough to run a business, but I don't think they get the benefit of the perspective that they need.

While there are many extrapolated views of specific areas within their greater purview, there's not one that unifies them all and is equally deep. They have the ability to look at good local 'maps' of their business, but there isn't a "Google Earth" equivalent that brings it all together. They can't zoom in and zoom out as the tool-set isn't there. They need to know how to dive in to each area as subject matter experts to properly run a business. And few CEO's are renaissance men of business - most rise through ranks with a specialty. That leaves them handicapped.

Take Marketing for example. The concept of a marketing funnel is where you can categorize a potential interested party in terms so their interest level in whatever it is a company sells. At the top is anyone on planet earth, and at the bottom is the person interested in your stuff and interesting to the Sales folks. A good marketer should have some metrics they can point to for % and conversions and so on to move people from top to bottom. The metrics enable a cost/benefit analysis to be done..If we spend $x in marketing campaigns, we can be sure it'll drive $Y sales to the bottom line. Straightforward, though complex to determine and track accurately. A smart post by the CTO At Eloqua outlines what's involved here.

Now let's move to Sales. The end results of the primary marketing task are the starting point for the Sales team to be involved. They also have a funnel. That's the sales process which aligns to the customer buying process (Actually both the marketing and sales funnels should reflect the customer buying process to be a little pedantic about it). Few explain the value and benefit of a well thought-out sales process better than the folks at TTG (Disclosure here - I'm a minor owner in this company, and a former staff member). When done correctly, a sales person can successfully proceed with their client down the stages of the sales funnel and close/win their deal.

So the two funnels taken together move someone or some company from stranger on planet earth to a closed sale situation. Nifty yes ? Absolutely. But here's the catch, if your hat says CEO on it, you have to be astute in both these processes as they don't come in one view. In the best of all possible worlds, you've got a great CMO and a great CSO, they get along and share metrics and then the CEO has somewhat of an aligned view. Is this common..? What do you think ? I'll let you answer that question for yourself.

Now take this complex enough situation and compound it with Operations, Account Teams, Production in the form of manufacturing or research or IP development. The poor CEO.. they have to be a master weaver of disparate information to make sure the whole enterprise keeps chugging along. Because the nature of business is that when it all works well...it all works well. But when one aspect starts to fade and fall behind, it impacts other groups. Customer Service is having problems with customers on the last release/enhancement and that means the next delivery is slowed, which impact's Marketing's timetable of events, which slows the lead generation into Sales and then there's a crack down on costs due to lower revenues..etc etc. All because there isn't a central monitor perspective that the CEO can enjoy. The devil may be in the details, but the core issue of the lack of visibility to the connections between functional areas is the culprit here.

When the whole affair goes south, and fails, who is accountable...you know it. The poor CEO with the missing perspective.

March break

Kids are off school, teachers are home too. Airports are crowded and vacations are really expensive, and those who stay behind feel smug and clever. Home improvement projects are all the rage, helped along by warmer weather which means we can all venture outside again. Rake the lawn, paint the fence, wash the car, finish the basement .. the list never ends.

Besides the work though, March break has a taste to it - a definite feel. After this the balance of the school year is all down-hill, and the first tinglings of an approaching summer starts to rustle in your belly. It's time to really take the Christmas lights down - it's become a little obscene to leave them up longer. It's an insult to the tulips about to pop from the ground. And the smell - it smells again - the defrosted, wet smell of the land, baking in the 12 degree noon-day sun. Smell is good - winter doesn't smell, it just makes your nose hair constrict if you breathe deeply. But March break smells of life awakening all around.

March break is good. On many levels. Even without a tan to show off after wards.

So you've won the lottery

Young people are often hounded by the question about what they'll do when they grow up, in the same manner I'm sure that young women are peppered with the "married yet?" question. I smile when I hear either question as the recipient has no doubt put some real efforts into trying to resolve the question, and the asking of it can't be anything less than infuriating. "Ahh, I hadn't considered this before, but now that you've mentioned it, I can now begin to focus on my answer...thanks!"

My own approach to this has evolved in recent years, and I like to offer the 'lottery win alternative' to this type of question. This is where people are challenged to think of what they'd do with their time when/if they were to win the lottery. If money was no object, and your time was your own, what would you spend your time doing? Think beyond the mansion and fancy cars and paying off the college debt thoughts, and focus instead on what you want to spend your time doing. This in itself is often enough to cause anxiety in the person asked, as they might not have considered this before. After all, how much time can you spend on a beach, or playing golf or generally lazing around before you'd want to do something to get your brain & body a little active again. I've read about the feeling of intellectual decay that new mothers go through, where their only contact is their newly born little one, and how they say that their brains revert to the same mush that the baby eats.

The lottery win question is another way of asking what you want to do of course, but it frees you up to focus on the 'want' part of the question, and less on the need part that goes verbally unsaid. The point of the question is to have people vocalize their passions and then try to do something about that. If I was thrilled with the promise of discovery that paleontologists get, should I quit my day job and go get myself a scraping brush, ancient rocks and a couple courses on how to find fossils...maybe. Because I know I'll never experience that thrill of discovery that might be my passion if I sit behind a desk, or continue to do what I need to do to eat/live.

My point is this - the choices we face are often simple and we don't look at them that way. Would you rather follow your heart and perhaps struggle in economic ways, but be fulfilled from trying to be a dancer/artist/rock digger...or would you rather have a feeling of comfort economically, and be dulled and unfilled. Power to you if you get both - that's a great result. But if you had to choose, not knowing the outcome, what would you select ?

The Sunshine Effect - on Society

Everyone I've run into is up today. Cheerfulness abounds. The change is vibrantly clear, and very noticeable.

Unlike a bear wrestling with an empty stomach, dazed and confused from winter's long slumber, people have awoken in the last 2 days where I am - refreshed, alive, and embracing the first smells of spring. Grass is starting to appear now, where the ground is normally dry and hard in summer. There's still snow - lots of it - but it's secondary now and seems to acknowledge this, lying lower and crystalline and shameful on the ground.

It's the people though from the old out walking on ice-free paths, to the young who've abandoned their coats and mittens. They smile and embrace the little heat that peaks at midday. It's coming, and everyone knows it. We survived another one. Happy days indeed.

It's a great day for Canada everybody

We'd like to thank you all for coming over to our house to play. We hope we didn't hog the toys too much, and shared nicely. We really do hope you enjoyed the food, scenery and spirit that we have. It was nice to have you all over, we had lots of fun. Let's do it again in four years..though maybe we could go to your place next time.

I know we're due to hang out again in two years during the summer, but we kinda prefer the winter play-dates.

By the way, if there was a single example I might point to that typifies the character of us, it was the beginning of the closing ceremonies, when we took the mickey on ourselves with the glitchy flaming cauldron leg and re-popped out our flame igniter from 17 days ago. I'm sure it's on YouTube already. The ability to laugh at one's self and the smirking at the folly of taking yourself too seriously...that's pretty Canadian.

C'mon back soon - we'd love to see you again.