Sparrows and hens

The sparrows in the community garden enjoy the birdbath; I've watched them having a ball splashing around and bathing before they quickly fly away. Sometimes it's quite funny to watch them and the bees enjoying the bath together. They seem to be peacefully co-existing.

And who would have thought that you would hear hens clucking and cackling in the city of Oslo? The owners of the house across the street installed a hen house in their garden several days ago. The hens are getting used to being there, and it's clear that they like their owner, because whenever he comes into the hen house, they start 'talking' to him. Of course, he has food for them. I enjoy hearing them at different times of the day. There is no rooster (yet), as far as we can determine. If a rooster arrives, we can kiss our alarm clocks goodbye, as they enjoy waking up the neighborhood at the crack of dawn.

I'm posting two videos, one of a sparrow and the birdbath, the other of the hens clucking....Enjoy!

Bees and water

There are two honeybee hives in our community garden. There seem to be many more honeybees this year compared to last year, when the hives were first established. The worker bees are non-aggressive and friendly. And who knew that bees like water? I certainly didn't. After doing some online reading, I now understand that not only do they like water, they need to drink water to survive. They need water just like humans need water. I've watched the bees closely, especially during these May days that are sunny, hot, and dry. The bees line up at the edge of the birdbath, drink water, and then fly away. But every now and then I find a honeybee that has drowned, and I'm not quite sure how or why that happened. I've been filling the birdbath with less water so the bees have more of the ceramic wall edge to hold onto when they drink water. I've also placed a stone with a lot of uneven edges in the center of the birdbath. That seems to have helped. But according to what I read online, some of the dead bees may have died a natural death (they only live five to six weeks during the active season) in the birdbath. But I also wondered if some of them actually drowned. So I went online for more information, and found out that bees cannot swim, and are actually experts at drowning.

I hate to see any living creature die, and if I get the chance to save bees from drowning, I'll do what I can. Today, I found a bee that had flown into my small watering can that was filled with water. When I checked the can, I saw the bee still struggling, so I dumped the water out onto the earth. The bee lay still in the grass, so I found a flat green leaf and maneuvered the bee onto the leaf. I then placed it onto the stone base of my sun umbrella. The bee was moving, but quite slowly. It seemed to need time to recover; from the time I rescued it to the time it flew away, I estimated that the entire recovery period was about twenty minutes. I was so happy when I watched it fly away. I knew it would, since its wings were not damaged. During the recovery time, the bee seemed to be trying to dry itself off. I took a video of it with my cell phone, about five minutes before it flew away; I'm posting it here.  

An excellent article about identifying the next generation of leaders for your company

Leadership is a topic that I've written a lot about during the past decade, in this blog but also in several books that I've published. I've written a lot about the poor leadership I've seen and experienced personally, but also about the good (and even great) leaders for whom I've had the privilege of working. What characterizes the latter is their generosity, expansiveness, visionary abilities, and their emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence involves knowing your employees' strengths and weaknesses and acting on that knowledge when trying to find the right person for the job. In order to know this as a leader, you have to be able to talk to your employees.

It's a pleasure to come across an article that makes a lot of excellent points about how to identify leadership potential. More specifically, this article focuses on identifying the next generation of leaders in your company:
https://www.clicktime.com/blog/identify-your-companys-next-generation-of-leaders/

It also makes the point that extroverts don't necessarily make the best leaders. I couldn't agree more. So many 'introverts' have been ignored or passed over when it came time for promotions to leadership positions. During the past decade, the focus on extroversion has been intense. I have no idea why. I've participated in countless numbers of meetings, many of them dominated by extroverts. There was little exchange of ideas; the outcome was often that the introverts declined to participate in future meetings or found ways to get out of them if they could. Not a win-win situation for a company.

Modern workplaces during the past fifteen years or so have often been dominated by extroverts, by Newspeak, by trendy business philosophies, and by a dilution of responsibility that serves no one. Let's hope that the next generation of leaders gets back to business and to an understanding that "your company is only as good as the employees who work for you, and your employees are only as good as the leaders who lead them".

How to achieve better employee engagement

An article worth reading.......https://www.clicktime.com/blog/5-steps-towards-better-employee-engagement/

Employee engagement is a tricky subject. I agree with the points brought up in the article, but emphasize that good managers and leaders are what lead to engaged employees. Employee satisfaction starts at the top and works its way down. Leaders and managers are employees too, and if they are engaged, motivated and happy, if they believe in what they do and in the goals of the company, those who work for them will be motivated as well. In some few cases, I've experienced the opposite--that engaged and motivated employees re-inspired their bosses who had lost their motivation. If that happens at times, that's good too. But leaders must understand their role in keeping employees motivated. They have a responsibility to do so. That is what leadership is about.

Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man

Another good song......Portugal. The Man--Feel It Still.