Be the Best in Business: Managing Change: Does Urgency Create Resistance?

Did you ever wonder why some companies manage to change what needs to be changed within their organizations without alienating their employees, while others fail miserably, losing the respect and trust of their employees in the process? This recent post from the blog--Be the Best in Business: Managing Change: Does Urgency Create Resistance?--provides some really good insights about how change can be managed successfully in a business. The author says that a company that views change as an urgent issue will create stressed and resistant employees and is not the way to get those most affected by change--'employees in the trenches'--on board or on your side. As the post says 'Guiding change may be the ultimate test of a leader, since no business survives over the long term if it can’t reinvent itself. But human nature being what it is, fundamental change is often resisted mightily by the people it most affects: those in the trenches of the business. Thus, leading change is both absolutely essential and incredibly difficult'. 

Finally, an article that tells it like it really is, that considers change from the perspective of employees but that also discusses how a company can get its employees to understand that change is healthy and a part of business development. Well-done. I wish I had read this a few years ago, when urgent and immediate change (for the sake of change) was the predominant operative in my workplace. The sense of 'crisis and urgency' was palpable on a daily basis and did not lead to either productivity or job satisfaction. It merely created employee dissatisfaction that has persisted to this day. There were definitely better ways to approach the idea of change, but leadership at that time failed to find them. 

A new favorite song--Safe and Sound by Capital Cities

Just what we need sometimes--to let go, dance and be happy..............




Safe and Sound

Songwriters: Ryan Merchant and Sebu Simonian

I could lift you up
I could show you what you want to see
And take you where you want to be
You could be my luck
Even if the sky is falling down
I know that we'll be safe and sound
We're safe and sound

I could fill your cup
You know my river won't evaporate
This world we still appreciate
You could be my luck
Even in a hurricane of frowns
I know that we'll be safe and sound

(Safe and sound)
We're safe and sound
(Safe and sound)
We're safe and sound
(Hold your ground)
We're safe and sound
(Safe and sound)

I could show you love
In a tidal wave of mystery
You'll still be standing next to me
You could be my luck
Even if we're six feet underground
I know that we'll be safe and sound
We're safe and sound

Safe and sound
Safe and sound
Hold your ground
Safe and sound

I could lift you up
I could show you what you want to see
And take you where you want to be
You could be my luck
Even if the sky is falling down
I know that we'll be safe and sound

I could lift you up
I could show you what you want to see
And take you where you want to be
You could be my luck
Even if the sky is falling down
I know that we'll be safe and sound

We're safe and sound
We're safe and sound
We're safe and sound
We're safe and sound

(Safe and sound)
We're safe and sound

(Safe and sound)
We're safe and sound
(Hold your ground)
We're safe and sound
(Safe and sound)
We're safe and sound
-------------------------

10 Risks Happy People Take Every Day

Just another really good blog that I have recently begun to follow. I am learning something (or relearning something) every day. Usually the things I've relearned are the things I forgot were important. Like being happy about who I am and not trying to please everyone else. Why haven't I learned this by now? Because the reality is that there is no pleasing everyone. The answer is--just because we are adults doesn't mean we've reached the summit of learning and understanding. We're still climbing, still reaching for knowledge and insight, all of us. Here are some good tips on living each day as it comes, taking risks, and being happy.

10 Risks Happy People Take Every Day

Be the Best in Business: Just How Confusing Can We Make Leadership?

I follow this blog--Be the Best in Business--here on Blogger, and this particular post spoke to me, since I am very interested in the behavior of workplace leaders. It highlights much of what is wrong with the modern workplace in terms of its leadership, and does so in a clear and straightforward manner. Absolutely worth reading.

Be the Best in Business: Just How Confusing Can We Make Leadership?: Daniel Goleman asked the question that many people have; "what do effective leaders do?" and you'll hear a host of answers...

San Francisco and the year of living wonderfully

San Francisco was our home for one year in 1993. It’s hard to believe that twenty years have passed since we lived there. We have not been back since, although a return visit is on my bucket list. I wrote a long post in March 2012 about our time spent in this beautiful city (http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2012/03/my-heart-and-san-francisco.html), and how privileged we were to have had the experience of working and living there. I did not include any photos in that post. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the year we spent there, I am including some photos of us and the different places we experienced, as well as of the guests who visited us in our apartment that we rented in the Victorian-style house on Carl Street. It was the first apartment that we looked at, and it was the one we wanted, despite having seen larger ones. We got it, even though we had to wait a month for renovations to be finished so that we could move in. Looking back on the year we spent there, I’d have to say it’s one of the most special and memorable years of our married life. We did so much together in SF—forever memories. It was a city of unknowns for us, unexplored territory that we explored and tackled together—a joint adventure—a good thing for a marriage. 

Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in fog

261-B Carl Street--the tall grayish building in the center of the photo--our apartment was on the top floor to the left

driving through Mt. Tamalpais state park

'The skylined beauty' is how my husband's uncle Åke described me in this photo that he took

my husband standing next to our rented Thunderbird

my stepdaughter and a friend

Trond's aunt Gunvor and her husband Åke, visiting us in San Francisco, a wonderful memory and nice photo of them

friends visiting--Gisele and Celia

rollerbladers dancing in Golden Gate Park

October 1993--a pumpkin patch in time for Halloween

the wine country in the Napa Valley--truly heaven on earth in my opinion--just beautiful

autumn comes to the wine country 

Autumn comes to the Oslo fjord

Autumn has been exceptionally lovely this year. The colors of the leaves--the reds, oranges and yellows--bold and pretty. The blue skies, warm temperatures; yesterday the temperature at midday was about sixty degrees Fahrenheit. Pretty good for Oslo. In previous years, it has been cold and gray already by mid-October. So in addition to a warm and sunny summer, I am grateful for this autumn, for the gradual transition from warm to cold. We were out on the boat yesterday for a few hours, and I took some photos of the trees and the foliage. My husband and boat captain Trond drove the boat around to the places I've photographed, before the boat decided that it had had enough for the day (motor problems). Enjoy!

Frognerkilen harbor

Oscarshall castle on the Bygdøy peninsula, Oslo, Norway

restaurant on the island of Gressholmen

Gressholmen

sailboat off the island of Hovedøya

Hovedøya foliage

Autumn skies

Some good quotes about leadership

• “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
• “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” ~ Jack Welch
• “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” ~ John Quincy Adams
• “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
• “I was never the smartest guy in the room. From the first person I hired, I was never the smartest guy in the room. And that’s a big deal. And if you’re going to be a leader – if you’re a leader and you’re the smartest guy in the world – in the room, you’ve got real problems.” ~ Jack Welch
•  “Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.” ~ Warren  Bennis
• “Leadership is an action, not a position.” ~ Donald McGannon
•  “The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly” ~ Jime Rohn
• “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” ~ Brian Tracy
• “Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity” ~ Reed Markham
• “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” ~ Colin Powell
• “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
• “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
• “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” ~ Tony Blair
•  “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.” ~ Brian Tracy

Updates on my writing

Those of you who follow this blog know that I am constantly trying to find time to write, whilst employed full-time as a scientist, and after that, busy with running a home. Like most people, I try to find free time in the midst of all the other things that just have to get done. There’s always been something more important than my writing through the years, especially when I was younger, so that I often ended up pushing it aside in order to do something else that seemed more important at the time. During the past four years I’ve written blog posts about prioritizing your soul’s dreams, visions, inner goals, secret goals. I had to carve out time in the evenings, several times a week, to write. Time for my blog, or to create a poem or short story. I’m happy to say that finally, after several years of working and writing in this way, I’ve put together a new collection of poems, called Remnants of the Spirit World, that I sent off today to my colleague and friend Paloma who will work on formatting the book and designing the cover. When her creative work is done, I will be sending it off for publication. I am nearly finished with my collection of short stories, called Survivable Losses; these stories have been tough for me to write, because I’ve had to face up to some of the pain involved in writing them. They are not autobiographical, but some of the themes are, in the sense that I’ve experienced, like many others, betrayal and loss of love, as well as resignation to the things that just happen in life that we are unable to change. Writing about them rips the scabs off the wounds again; but I am glad for the experience of being able to feel pain in order to write about it. And finally, I am nearly finished with my novella, called In the Halls of the Kings, a mini-thriller about a female academic scientist who teams up with another female academic to expose the dealings of a ruthless and potentially fraudulent scientist. This too will hopefully find its way to publication before the end of the year.

I’ve been an avid observer for most of my life, starting when I was about ten years old, when I began to pay attention to what went on in my home and in the homes of relatives and family friends. I became keenly aware of all that was not said, of body language, of what people’s eyes said, and of superficial conversations that masked what was really going on inside. I observed the nice and not-so-nice characters that peopled my life and the life of my family. Recently, I read a quote that appealed to me ‘Be nice to those around you; they may write about you’. Strangely enough, there’s a lot of truth in this one. I don’t write directly about specific people in my life; my works are fiction, but my characters can be modeled on the traits or characteristics of some people I’ve met. I have fewer qualms about using the traits and personalities of the not-so-nice people I know, because their motives and desires are often so crystal clear—power, domination of others, prestige, and greed—often all in one unsavory package.

Here are some quotes to help you when you get stuck on the path of reaching your own goals. Maybe being stuck takes the form of a creative mental block, or procrastination, or lack of self confidence/belief in oneself. I know these quotes have helped me. They’re hanging as magnets on my refrigerator—a gift from Sonja, the niece of one of my closest friends, who visited us in Oslo five years ago. I met Sonja for the first time then, and was immediately taken with her spirit, energy and exuberant personality. She is a go-getter, an adventurer, a life-tackler, and has already achieved much in her thirty odd years here on this earth. In short, she is an inspiration.

• ‘Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing’. –Georgia O’Keefe
• ‘Go on working, freely and furiously, you will make progress’. –Paul Gauguin
• ‘The artist goes through states of fullness and emptiness, and that is all there is to the mystery of art’. –Pablo Picasso

Getting into autumn

Autumn has arrived, according to the calendar. It’s shaping up to be a very nice season here in Oslo, just as summer was. I realized the other day that it’s the transition from summer to fall that can sometimes get me down, those two or so weeks around the end of September where suddenly we’re wearing jackets, when just last week we didn’t need them. My body protests against the sudden chill in the air. But once we’re firmly planted in the next season, I adjust. It’s been easier this year because the weather has gradually moved from warm to chilly. So that means warm blue-sky sunny days (still) and chilly evenings (nice for walking). Quite ok with me. The weather reports don’t really do the weather justice at all. Yesterday for example, was a gorgeous blue-sky warm day in Oslo (some clouds), whereas the weather report said ‘partly cloudy’ and that was that. We took our bikes and cycled through the city, ending up biking along Enebakkveien down to where the footpath along the Alna River more or less starts, and then we made our way up along the river, a roller coast ride if ever there was one—up one hill and down and then up again, until we got to Bryn. Good training for those who like their hills. At Bryn, we checked out the old railway station from 1854—one of those great old buildings that are no longer in fashion architecturally--before we turned around and cycled back to Grunerlokka to the Farmer’s Market. About nine miles of biking round-trip. There were a lot of people milling about the Farmer's Market, eating elk burgers and chatting with the sellers. We bought nine liters of freshly-pressed apple juice; one of my husband’s friends and his wife have a lot of land that they have converted to apple orchards, so this is the season for harvesting and pressing to make juice. It’s so good. And the other day I took a nice walk from Aker Hospital down to Sinsenkrysset, then walked along Ring 3 to Storo, and then home, a distance of about three miles. A cloudy autumn day with a slight breeze, perfect for walking. Love being outdoors. I can see myself doing so much more of it when I am no longer working full-time. Something to look forward to…….

Reflections on communication

Much is written these days about the importance of communication and of being able to communicate regularly, properly and well. We live in a society that prioritizes communication in all its forms: regular mail, emails, text messages, telephone calls, instant messaging, multi-media sharing, TV, radio, newspapers, books, movies, internet, etc. There are so many ways to communicate as well as a huge emphasis on doing so. One need only walk down a city street or order a coffee in a local café to register that we as a society are connected to others on a nearly-constant basis. One is constantly bombarded with individuals talking into mouthpieces that one cannot see; I have wrongly assumed several times that I am being followed by a crazy person talking to himself or herself, until I realize that no, he or she is talking to another person on an otherwise hidden phone with an invisible headset. We have a plethora of ways to communicate and a plethora of devices with which to communicate, and yet, relationships between people on personal as well as global levels have not noticeably improved, evolved, or reached perfection during the past decade. The latter is an impossible goal anyway, although advertising would have you believe that as long as you are connected to everyone around you at any given time, you can achieve communication nirvana. I cannot understand that there is so much to say to anyone that one must be connected at all times to another person, be that person a spouse, a child, a friend, a colleague, or a parent.

I don’t know when silence and reflection became de-prioritized in our society. I only know that I prioritize them more than ever before, in a society that cannot be quiet. It does not even attempt to be silent at times, except during very rare moments of global silence in response to a death or a historical event. I go to work and am told I must network and communicate more with my colleagues. I thought that is what I have been doing, when necessary, all these years. I don’t need to be told to do more of it. I don’t wish to burden my co-workers with every single thought that emanates from my brain. Because what happens is that words become devoid of meaning, messages become empty, and people become weary of the ennui associated with ‘communication’. Besides self-promotion, I detect a note of desperation in the constant cry for attention on the part of administrators and other well-meaning souls who simply cannot accept that not everything they say is worth listening to in a work context. I don’t need to be told repeatedly, in the form of well-meaning emails, seminars, leadership courses, lectures and whatnot, how to do my job or how to communicate with my colleagues. I try to apply the golden rule in my dealings with others: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think that’s a good rule, and I wish it was practiced more. Respect for others, for their thoughts and words and for what they value, is at a premium in my workplace. The tough cookies who run the show run roughshod over the poor souls who sit in the meetings where they are expected to participate, yet when they do, they are told that what they say is not relevant or important; or when they talk, they are constantly interrupted by those who wish to take over the show. If this is communication, spare me.

There are ways of communicating with others that work, and ways of communicating that guarantee a failure to connect with those one wishes to communicate with. The ‘emperor’s new clothes’ philosophy does not work for me. I don’t want ‘same shit, new wrapping’ foisted upon me in a communication context. I want to choose how, when and where I wish to communicate. I am not available 24/7 to anyone, not even to my spouse, and certainly not to my job. My home life is valuable to my development as a kind and good human being. My home is my haven, my port in a storm, a place where I find peace and quiet. I don’t want it invaded by constant chatter in any form—empty gossip, superficial conversation, TV blabbing, mindless radio chatter, and all the rest that passes for communication. Because now we come to the crux of the matter, at least for me. What is communication? Wikipedia defines it thusly: communication ‘(from Latin commūnicāre, meaning "to share" ) is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior. It is the meaningful exchange of information between two or a group of living creatures’. For me, the emphasis is on meaningful. There is far too much meaningless communication in our world. And if we fill our heads with too much of it, there is no room for reflection, peace, quiet, or creativity. And if those disappear, real communication dies. 

For a good friend

Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd

by Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, 
Whispering I love you, before long I die, 
I have travel'd a long way merely to look on you to touch you, 
For I could not die till I once look'd on you, 
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you. 

Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe, 
Return in peace to the ocean my love, 
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much separated, 
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! 
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us, 
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever; 
Be not impatient--a little space--know you I salute the air, the 
ocean and the land, 
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love. 

My mother and her generation of women

Today, September 22nd, is my mother’s birthday. Had she still been alive, she would have been 93 years old today. I wish she had made it to that age. Sadly, she passed away in March 2001. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and miss her. She lived her life her way and did things her way (like Frank Sinatra whom she liked a lot) and while that could be amazingly frustrating at times, I think it’s what kept her going through the hard times in her life. And there were a number of them, as in the lives of most people. She was not an aggressive or self-seeking person, nor a particularly talkative one. You had to pull personal information out of her about her formative years, her childhood, and even young adulthood. What I did learn from her is that her mother (my grandmother) went blind, probably in her late sixties/early seventies. My best guess is that her mother had glaucoma that was either too far gone when it was discovered, or that there were not very good treatments for glaucoma at that time (1940s). I actually searched online for an answer to the latter and found it here: http://www.brightfocus.org/questions-answers/what-was-the-primary.html. I never had the chance to meet my grandmother since she died before I was born. My mother put her own life on hold for a number of years to take care of her mother, including postponing her ambition to go to college. She had to work and she did so, probably supporting the two of them on her salary as an assistant librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. It was there that she met my father in the early 1950s, and they were married in 1955, a year after her mother died. Whenever my mother talked about her own mother, it was always in a kind way. I never heard my mother utter one unkind word about her mother or about having to take care of her. She did express regret at not being able to finish college; she started but then had to quit. Once married, she had three children and raising them became her life. And when my father became ill with cardiovascular disease, she took care of him too, without complaining about her lot in life. She just did it.

Her birthday today reminds me of all of the older women in my mother’s generation whom I’ve had the privilege and honor of knowing, and they are not few. Most of them are dead now (had they lived, most of them would be over 85 years old): the women in my childhood neighborhood; the mothers of my close friends; my aunts; some really wonderful teachers in grade school and high school; the women I got to know in the different jobs I’ve had through the years. They inspired me with their values, sense of responsibility, commitment, loyalty, and charitable behavior. They were women of faith, many of them. They credited their faith with getting them through the hard times. They also believed in the value of family. They had their imperfections and faults, but they tried to live up to their ideals. That’s all I could really ask of role models when I needed them. I only hope that I can be half as good as they were when it’s my turn to be a role model for young women starting out. I certainly don’t feel as though I’ve got it all together. But I do look to my faith to help me through the hard times. And I remember the supportive natures of most of the older women I’ve known. If I can hang onto my faith and be supportive of others when they need my support, I guess I’ll be alright. Plus I know I’ve got my mother in my corner, rooting for me.  

Reaping what you sow

When we were children, we were taught that we could not expect much justice or reward in this life if we counted ourselves among the good people who followed the rules and behaved well, rather that we would find praise and reward for being good in the next world, after we were dead. This was provided you believed in an afterlife, which was a given on the part of the religious instructors we had as children in Catholic grammar school. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve wondered about a lot of things, and this is one of them. I’ve never really liked the philosophy that good people have to suffer at the hands of bad people, or that they have to accept that suffering without standing up for themselves or fighting back. And I loathe the idea that bad people get to do what they want at the expense of good people, without ever having to account for their behavior or without getting caught or stopped. What do I mean by bad people? Psychopaths, sociopaths, true narcissists, the holier-than-thous, those who believe the rules don’t apply to them because they are too smart, too good-looking, or too rich. Those who mess with others’ heads to achieve their own egotistical aims, those who miss no opportunity to badmouth those around them, those who aggressively cross others’ personal boundaries over which they have no business going, those who actively seek to destroy their co-workers in the quest to get to the top. How do you do the latter? By doing the first three things.  Why do I bring this up today? Because I have been witness to a few comeuppances recently, and I must say that I am glad I didn’t have to wait until I was dead to experience them. And because I have experienced a small amount of joy in watching these people get their just deserts, my conscience has bothered me. But these people have reaped trouble--lost top leadership positions, experienced being badmouthed and attacked themselves, got told to back off or get out of people’s lives--because they sowed trouble.  They deserved what they got, and the reason I felt glad about any of it was because it happened in this life and not the next. The people around them are now spared their nasty slimy behavior.  

I believe that good people should stand up for themselves and should fight back, insofar as that is humanly possible. I’m not sure what Christ really meant by turning the other cheek, but I don’t think he meant that good people should let themselves be attacked and/or killed, or that they shouldn’t try to dissuade bad people from behaving badly. I think he meant that they should set an example—good behavior—not that they should let the nasty people ride roughshod over them. Good people have the right to defend themselves if they are physically, verbally or psychologically attacked. I include spiritually as well, because some people cross all sorts of boundaries in their dealings with you, and expect you to simply accept their transgressions because that is who they are. But if good people are exposed to enough bad, unethical, nasty, slimy, evil behavior, they risk being contaminated themselves, if they never fight back. They risk being inundated by so much crap that they slip under the surface of slime. They risk becoming like those who are not worth emulating. Sometimes, they even end up ‘casting their pearls before swine’, a very favorite expression of mine. They throw away their values in order to live among the bad people. It can happen gradually, one pearl at a time, and suddenly, they’ve given their souls away, to be trampled upon. It’s worth thinking about. 

The song Alive, by Empire of the Sun

A more recent effort from earlier this year, from Empire of the Sun, that I like very much. Watching them in the video inspires me to fight my fears of being different and of standing apart from the crowd. They are different and they embrace their identities and destinies as artists. I think that is why art is so important and why we can never just embrace the rational sides of ourselves. We would become rather cold automatons. Art in all its forms reminds us to be ourselves, to be human, to throw off the masks of propriety and conformity. It gives us permission and the means to be 'alive', to be emotional, to cry, to open our hearts, minds and souls to something new. It opens us and teaches us at all points in our lives. It exists within us but also apart from us, and that is the curious thing about it. We are all artists in one form or another. It's just that the excessive emphasis on conformity in our society, especially when we are adults, prevents us from fully expressing ourselves a lot of the time. It is no wonder that many people feel like prisoners in their own lives. 


Alive

Days go by my window,

World slows down as it goes,

Goodbye to last night,

Lost my eyesight,

Can't you help me see?

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive

Waking in the snow,

Tracing steps of you,

Swimming through the smoke,

Wrapped in velvet gold,

Can't you help me see?

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive

Can you describe to me

All the world that you see?

Oh, I need you so much,

I'll just wait

Freedom is within you,

Giving makes us feel good,

Hello to my people,

Say hello to the future,

Freedom is within you,

Giving makes us feel good,

Hello to my people,

Say hello to the future

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Loving every minute 'cause you make me feel so alive, alive

Alive, alive