Greg Anderson is the author of today’s Tuesday Reading. He is Senior Consultant and Leadership Coach at MOR Associates, a role he has had since 2009. Earlier he served in senior IT leadership positions at the University of Chicago and at MIT. His essay first appeared as note to participants in a MOR leadership program where Greg was a coach. [Greg may be reached at ganderson@moassociates.com.]
I’m sure that it is as hard for you, as it is for me, to realize that summer vacations are over, Labor Day is upon us, and children of all ages are going back to school. My middle three grandchildren are either at college or will soon to be there, a freshman, a sophomore, and a junior.
“All the world’s a stage … And, one man [or woman] in his [or her] time plays many parts.” William Shakespeare (1623)
If, indeed, all the world’s a stage, as Shakespeare asserts, then each person, including ourselves and especially those we see as leaders, are certainly visible both at expected, and unexpected, times by expected, and unexpected others as they are on their particular stage.
mis•take noun an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.
“The only man [or woman] who never makes a mistake is the man [or woman] who never does anything.”
– Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
It’s hard to believe, but after 18 years of formal study, from first grade in a small East Texas school through doctoral study at MIT, I cannot remember ever having a class or having a teacher talk about learning how to learn. Perhaps that’s why Coursera’s MOOC “Learning How to Learn” has been taken by more than 1.8 million students from some 200 countries.1, 2 It’s appears clear that my experience is not unique.
Today, most organizations, including a university’s IT organization, structure their work through a set of teams. Other examples include professional sports teams with their structure, their practice day-after-day of plays they may execute in the game, and a surgical team that performs the same procedure, for example, hip replacement, under tightly controlled conditions, perhaps multiple times, day after day.
Compliments are a good thing, right? Everyone likes to be recognized for a job well done. Especially from someone whose work you admire. They are a special form of positive feedback. However, many of us find accepting a compliment with grace to be a major challenge. Too often, our first instinct is to dismiss the compliment. For example, the recipient:
Yesterday was Memorial Day, our holiday for remembering all those – some 1.4 million from the American Revolution until now – who gave their lives in conflicts while serving in our nation’s armed forces.
