Been gobsmacked¹ recently? You are in a team meeting and make a proposal you believe is well thought out. You feel your work is solid. A coworker viciously attacks your proposal. Or, a friend, who also is your boss’s, boss’s boss, unexpectedly calls you early one morning to strongly admonish you for a comment you had made to a student employee at a demonstration about a university action the previous evening. (Just, how did he know?) Or, a staff member asks to meet with you, her manager, and when she arrives tells you that you are arrogant and difficult to work with.

In previous Tuesday Readings we have focused on the importance of planning,¹ on being intentional about how we use our time,² and on the importance of regularly moving items from our one To Do list to our calendar.³ Returning to this topic as the school year begins, seems particularly important. Each year our pace seems to be more hurried and our time more precious. It becomes increasingly easy to rationalize that you can “just wing it,” that you don’t need to plan. Nothing could be further from the truth. You do need to plan.

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a response by Dr. Nick Dedeke, Executive Professor of Supply Chain and Information Management at Northeastern University in Boston, MA to the recent Tuesday Readings on “luck.” [Nick may be reached at a.dedeke@neu.edu.]

… and Why It Matters

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Julian Koh, Associate Director of Telecommunications and Network Services at Northwestern University. Julian is an alumnus of the MOR Leaders Program. [He may be reached at  <kohster@northwestern.edu>.]