Archive for January, 2010

Your Perfect Week

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Think about the best work week you have ever had.  Maybe you just started day­dream­ing about that award trip to the Bahamas, or the lead­er­ship con­fer­ence (golf­ing vaca­tion) in Palm Springs….but for the pur­pose of this exer­cise, let’s con­sider some­thing else.

Think about a week that you really brought your “A” game to the office. 

You were on time, fully present and pre­pared for all your meet­ings.  You closed the deals you were work­ing on.  You exe­cuted with excel­lence.  Not only this, but you had time to think, to plan, to exer­cise, and you were home in time for din­ner!  Did I men­tion email?  Yes, you were even caught up on all email cor­re­spon­dence.  Not just your work email, but your Linkedin, Face­book, and per­sonal email accounts.

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In Marriage, You Have No Rights

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Daniel Harkavy Jan­u­ary 21, 2010 Blog Post from Build­ing Cham­pi­ons on Vimeo.

Labeling Our Years

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

I don’t know if you are like me, but often, I find I am at a loss to recall the key lessons learned from past years.  Think about it.  What were the great­est lessons you learned in busi­ness or in life in 2005?  What about 2003? 

Labeling Our YearsOkay, lets make this a bit eas­ier. What did you learn in 2009?

One tac­tic that I have found use­ful is to label my years.  I do this while spend­ing a day dur­ing the Christ­mas break or right after the new year reflect­ing and plan­ning.  I review my Life Plan, Busi­ness Vision and Busi­ness Plan.  I spend time jour­nal­ing through the past year, and work to iden­tify any big lessons learned.  Then, once this is done, I use all this infor­ma­tion to give both the past and upcom­ing year a label. 

Here is what I mean by a label:  I iden­tify what my biggest focus points or new insights were dur­ing the year.  They are not usu­ally all that profound. 

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Playing Like a Kid, Long After Recess

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

photoFor those of you who know me, you know I like to play!  My favorite hob­bies have always included some kind of a board under my feet.  Surf­ing is my great­est pas­sion, but I also enjoy snow­board­ing and carve and long board­ing through the streets of Lake Oswego.  I get all kinds of funny looks and terse com­ments from neigh­bors, who must think I am some kind of teenage trou­ble­maker as I skate by with my kids and their friends.

I’m not alone in this, either.  Many times at the beach, on the moun­tain, or in the streets you will find my col­leagues and their kids right there with me.  Coach Barry Engel­man has recently taken up snow­board­ing with his boys, and he also surfs with me from time to time.  Coach Steve Scan­lon can often be found skat­ing in local park­ing garages at 11pm, or at Mount Hood board­ing with his kids.

Any­how, our imma­ture hob­bies are not the point of this post.

So what is my point?  That I hang out with boys in men’s bod­ies?  Maybe so, but I believe that there is some life-giving magic to be found in play­ing out­doors at any age.

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Asset or Advantage?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Asset or AdvantageLast fall, at the Build­ing Cham­pi­ons Expe­ri­ence, I gave the open­ing pre­sen­ta­tion.  The topic was cen­tered on best prac­tices for suc­cess in chal­leng­ing times. Ear­lier in the year, as I pre­pared for this pre­sen­ta­tion, I inter­viewed sev­eral clients and friends who serve as lead­ers of large orga­ni­za­tions to iden­tify the most com­mon behav­ioral disciplines. 

Dur­ing my inter­view with a client who is the CEO of a UK based petro­leum addi­tives orga­ni­za­tion, the topic of team came up.  He said that he believes we fall short as lead­ers when we see our teams as an “asset.”  He explained that peo­ple do not want to feel owned, or to have their value sum­ma­rized on a cor­po­rate bal­ance sheet. 

His belief is that our team is more than an asset.  They are our com­pet­i­tive advantage.

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