Author Archive
A Poem for a Sister: Read Me A Story
From my earliest memories I recall loving to be read a good story. This poem is a tribute to my sister Mary. Had she not loved reading and books she may not have seen fit to read to a pesky little brother. I'm not going to elaborate on pesky...but she might in a reply to this post! The gift my youngest sister gave me by reading me story after story was huge. Many were from the "My Book House" 12 volumes pictured below. As you read the poem, imagine a 12-14 year old girl taking the time to read to a hyperactive 5-7 year old farm boy. Now, especially imagine her reading to a young 6 year old boy who had just lost his fingers in a farm accident. Her reading was a healing balm. Mary went on to eventually get her masters in Learning Disabilities. Guess what she focused on? Yep, ...
A Poem for a Farmer: Sunlight Captured
Just a little set up to how I write poems and how this particular poem came about. I'm not sure exactly where my poems come from really. Its almost like the poem has me and not the other way around. They are born out of moments of deeply felt "muse" that hits me when it is ready. The amazing part is that they take very little time to write. I do go back and tweak them, but only with minimal refinement or typo work. This poem came to me one day in 2006. Many years after an experience of being a farm boy and farmer. I grew up watching my father plant corn, soybeans, oats, and alfalfa. He loved farming. One day we were filling the planter box with corn seed and he picked one up and said..."everything it needs to know to grow is contained within this seed". This poem ...
Advancing Change in Systems: The Four Key Elements and Milestones for Lasting Change
Building your communication skills will impact the success of leading change more than anything else you can do. Changes require greater and new understanding that takes place through our speaking. This all has to be communicated in a way that every party involved clearly understands "why" its important. Especially why the desired outcome (that the change will bring) will be more satisfying and of benefit. The second and more tangible aspect is to have a framework or "road map" that identifies milestones and actions that will bring change and transformation to a reality. Not just initiate the change, but see it through to completion and outcome needed or wanted. Below I will discuss a simple 4 element approach to implementing change as a leader of a system. Its not complicated, but its lack of complexity makes the pathway no less robust or rigorous. I developed this process when implementing an online learning platform to a segment ...
What I Learned At Recess: Leadership Skills Experienced and Acquired
This post is a summary of the previous writings on my "recess learning". It was interesting to reflect on this experience some 50 years or so later. It still impacts me today. We tend often to only focus on the negative experiences in life. You should look at your own life experiences to see how they have impacted you positively. Influence skills are deeply shaped as kids and at recess these became finely honed. Your ability to influence (or be influenced by) others plays out pretty quickly after the bell sounds for recess...and we are off to gym or playground. Good leaders are building a coalition at restroom breaks, during projects in the class room, and at the lunch table. Indeed a great leader is always aware of opportunities to share their dreams and plans. Influence on others is really fundamental to the success of all leadership efforts. Whether its ...
What I Learned at Recess: Communication Skills for Life and Business
I've established that recess brought to us compressed time to get after whatever was most important. Well that same aspect helped us learn how to communicate for outcomes quickly...and build some tactics. It doesn't take long to find out if your declaration got things going your way at recess. For example, you might have tried the "fine I will just go play by myself then". Somehow this statement would severely punish the little buggers for treating you so poorly. Only to find out they went on without you and really didn't care. Yep, you usually got the opposite of what you wanted. It seemed to me manipulation rarely worked well with our crowd. If it did the results never could be sustained over time...rarely past two recess periods. There were times you wanted to put your idea out there. Sometimes on a rare occasion you even got an..."okay let's do it!" When that happened ...
What I Learned at Recess: Problem Solving
Always disliked the overused and unwitting phrase..."Don't go there!". Really? Well, "I'm going there!". When I was a kid... We didn't have an "app" for this or that on Google Play or Apple. Pin ball was pretty high technology. Heck, we thought it was just crazy talk to even think Dick Tracy's watch with camera and 2 way communication would be a reality some day. Men on the moon just messed with your whole sense of reality about what was possible. Also, you had to look through several grades to find a "fat kid". I mean truly obese children didn't exist in our school. We did chores at home and played like maniacs at recess and ate like pigs. I only mention this so you gain perspective on how far we have come in a relatively short period of time as citizens of this society...or maybe a ...
What I Learned at Recess: Building Respect and Trust
As I look back on the brief moments of play and controlled freedom we called recess... I recall the really good "recess teachers" tried to influence how we played together. They didn't tell us "what" to play. It was the "how" we played together that mattered to them. The idea that we included each other fairly mattered greatly for the best guardians of free time. Left to our own common denominator maneuvers; we quickly became a little community of self centered and narcissistic little brats. With out someone setting the standard of expectations the meek are trampled and the selfish may be destined for the boys or girls home or politics. Building mutual respect and trust is an experience. A learned behavior, that once you grasped the power in it, it created new space for transformation and amazing things to take place. For example, this transformation and amazement happened during square dancing ...
What I learned at Recess: The speed of trust
Disclaimer: My experiences at recess do not represent the experiences of others and are from the window of the soul of a very rambunctious, free spirited, imaginative, fourth child born to parents in their 40"s. I reserve all rights to have moments of lapsing back into these same behaviors as grandfather, husband, and business coach. My fondest AND worse memories about grade school could be contained in those short 20 minute bursts of chaos known as "recess". Recess was often the only thing you had to look forward to while "doing time" in solitary confinement in your neat little desk rows. Getting out of your desk , if only for a short period, was akin to Christmas morning some days for me. The only thing that beat that feeling was the last day of school. Most of us country kids barely tolerated this constriction of the human spirit that ...
Heading Back Home and Into Life
Isaiah 43:2 - When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you... For the next year I would catch myself back in the water and almost in a trance as I relived the moments. These moments would happen usually after a shower. When I snapped out of it I would find myself grasping a towel to my chest and just standing there off in that lake again. It might be the post traumatic experience that many folks get. I had no nightmares, it was just so surreal whenever I went there like that. Over time it became less frequent and less prolonged. When I got up the next morning after our icy adventure, it was cold and clear. I decided the drying of the wool socks and other items could be done in the sun ...
Getting Back On the Island
The reef is the goal and with each stroke I can see now that Andy is at the reef with the canoe...keep stroking. My brain is telling my limbs to move, but I can't really feel them. And some how in a moment I am there with my son at the "rock pile". We both use all our energy to gain footing on the small outcrop of rock and tip the canoe up and drain the water. I don't know how long it takes, but we do it! I pin it against the exposed rock and Andy's in...okay how do I get in. I am still chest to midwaist deep in water. Andy grabs the rock and holds canoe against it and slowly I balance myself on top of the canoe. There is no moving into a sitting position without tipping it again. I am spread eagle on top using both hands as ...
