Leadership: Further Forward

Complacency is the good son of apathy. With that said, I am compelled to ask myself, “What type of leader am I?” Am I apathetic: surely not. The enrichment of my team brings me tremendous pride; their successes, great joy. Am I complacent: again, surely not. I refuse to be satisfied that because we’ve always done something a certain way that the risk change represents is not worth the potential reward. In searching for my answer, the 2008 Leadership Experience motivated me to apply it’s edicts to enhance the dynamic of my team.

When talking about customer retention, I think about the lives we touch every day and how what we do affects each individual. This year’s Leadership Experience encouraged me to reinforce the basics with my team. (1) “Do it right!” In the insured’s time of need, the last thing our customer wants is to worry about while they are recuperating is whether their submission was reviewed correctly. (2) “Do it quickly!” Our turnaround time is outstanding. The faster we can fulfill our promise, the sooner the insured can restore a sense of normalcy to their lives. And by doing so, we instill greater confidence in Aflac. (3) “Do it with respect.” Treat every claim as if it was yours. Be courteous, personal and private. These things not only allow us to keep Aflac’s promise, but also present an opportunity to retain the customer and maintain a high standard of performance.

As leaders, we cannot allow our expectations to exceed our abilities. I was taught that goals must be attainable and that I must be committed to assisting my reports in their efforts to meet or exceed their expectations. Listening to my team members’ ideas on how they can reach their desired goals, providing the necessary resources to help in making that possible and offering encouragement along the way shows that I believe in what they have set out to accomplish. Honest, constructive performance feedback has helped my team to assume greater personal accountability, address areas of opportunity for continued growth, and improve upon their current skill sets, eliciting greater effectiveness and the feeling of a job well done.

My father once told me that the reward for a job well done is the opportunity to do more. Success is sometimes predicated on empowerment; however, prior successes should not make “empowered team members” an exclusive club. Trusting all of my reports, valuing their contributions and recognizing their efforts to venture outside of their comfort zone is crucial in growing meaningful relationships with the people who look to me for guidance. I now realize that with all of those elements in place, those you lead will not only follow you both willingly and enthusiastically, but seek you out for more!

So, if complacency is truly the good son of apathy, my 2008 Leadership Experience has shown me that involvement is the good son of leadership. In answer to my question, what type of leader am I? – In a word: involved.

Poetry is Tough (Review of “Keepers of the Shrine” by Andrew Marshall, Jr.)

I’ve been meaning to do this for a LONG while.  Barnes and Noble.com will let you write a review of anything that they sell, but they have to approve what you write.  Well, they have approved my review of Andrew Marshall, Jr.’s, Keepers of the Shrine and initially I was ecstatic.  Now, I don’t know if it sounds contrived or what.   

If you have a moment, you should click on the hyperlink and read my review.  If you have the money, you should buy the book and read it: especially if you enjoy poetry.  If you know me and are nearby, you can borrow the book and read it and return it to me and let me know what you think of both the book and the review.  I haven’t done anything productive in a long time (I can’t say creative because I didn’t pen a single poem in the book) and I was proud of myself, but how productive is a critique of someone else’s hard work, especially if you’re not getting paid?  And again, how creative, how is writing a review?  Lucrative maybe, under the right cirumstances, but creative?  I don’t know…

(I really have to read and learn how to better manipulate this Roland X6, Lexicon Omega and Cakewalk Home Studio together with this Compaq, or I’m going to go crazy… I can’t keep having these songs just sit otherwise I won’t be able to ask Kayla to create a website and produce and direct a video so I can put it on You Tube.  )     <– Kayla:  Blue Voda!

This is Hard…but clearly not for this guy.

When does this come back? 

…but No Cigar

The nursery’s almost done, done; my wife, Sabrina’s feet are swelling to almost elephant size(a proposition she does not envy anyone); Ian, my son, is fidgeting around in the space the size of a basketball a great deal and quite frequently to boot; the cluster headaches have all but taken over the free spaces of my life (an the spaces occupied with other obligations as well); my Lead, Tanisha, has shown herself a terrific friend and has displayed exemplary supervisory skills during my intermittent absences and my once difficult boss has shown herself to be one of the kindest most understanding women on the face of the planet.  “It was the best of times…”  Well, you know the rest. 

What, pray tell, does all this mean?  It means the time is nigh!  Soon there will be another blog to accompany this one.  A shared work called, “Americans Ablog.”  Americans Ablog will  be the blog site for people to talk about the music (and snippets of music) that will be released slowly by my new band Americans Abroad.  Though unsure of the web-site’s domain name yet as there will be several bands working together to complete the makeshift label that I have been sworn to keep secret, I have been okayed to announce my own work.  I have been writing in private for a few months now and even though I have had less success than I did with the band Lollipop in the late 90s and even less success than I did with the Athens band The Republic in the late 80s and early 90s (…trust me, Frozen Taco has grown significantly and will not call and ask to cover this stuff…), I have to say that what’s been created thus far really sounds great and I know it will find an audience. 

Special thanks to Kayla for the push, Gartman who got me started up again and Jeremy who showed me that it can still be done! (Hope you had a great show on Tuesday!  I missed it because of my headaches.) 

Keep your day super!  I need to go rest a while now…

The Waiting Game

They burst through the doors trying to get in the same way you or I would do trying to get out if the building was on fire.  Everyone that comes in and no one that you know.  At first, there’s always a sense of urgency.  Everything is an emergency.  That’s why it’s called the Emergency Room.  Triage.  But, then there’s the waiting.  The waiting room’s the worst.

The yellowing prepasted wallpaper, the four inch high, cocoa-colored baseboard and the vinyl flooring that once dreamed of what it would have been like to be real hardwood revives memories of the den in your great-aunt’s house back in the sixties — if you could remember the last time you were there. 

The laminet TV stand and 19 inch perpetually playing the Lifetime “Will & Grace” marathon seems no less out of place than the three foot, sliding glass window slapped smack in the middle of the wall nearest the door, nor does the bilingual ‘Notice/Noticiero” reminding you that nothing in life is free, no matter how urgent.   “Payment is required at the time of sevice.  Cash, credit, cash, money, more money, are all gladly accepted and all I can manage to think about as they wheel my wife in the back after two and a half hours is, ‘I wonder how much the chair with the table attached to it costs?’

No matter, they’ll take cash.  “Gracias por su cooperacion.” 

Yeah, the wating room’s the worst.