Real “circle of life” shit that the classmate I did the Grand March with during our high school graduation (not my prom date – this was when we marched in alphabetically by name which is why there are two guys – Hammond & Hanley – with one girl – Kalk – since guys outnumbered girls in our grade) and now her mom and my mom are both in the same nursing home thirty-five (!) years later.
I think Lori’s in Alberta (or maybe BC) but I chatted with her younger brother very briefly when we both there visiting our respective moms at the same time.
And could be worse – my good friend, John Hanley, lost his own mother quite a few years ago after she was living with blindness for much of the last part of her life. 🙁
Blogging has been sparse for the past month in between holidays, a CUPE conference, various volunteer commitments, hanging with my parents, car hunting (long story) and more, blogging has dropped to the bottom of the priority list.
Not sure when I’ll get back to my daily posting habit but that’s my intention.
1. I am of the firm belief that it is now impossible to get H5N1 out of the ecosystem of North America. Bluntly put, there is now simply too much virus present in wild birds and mammals to be able to contain it. There are also likely many more human cases than reported.
It’s been a quiet couple weeks with us on holidays and then me busy with a conference for most of last week but time to get back to blogging. And I’ve got a perfect video for Music Monday falling on St. Patrick’s Day – a montage of pics I made against two Celtic-Canadian songs from my time at FIMS at Western University…
“My Old South London Home” – Uisce Beatha, “On That Day” – MacKeel
But it is still a lot more rustic and low key compared to most tourist destinations in Mexico with tons of unique restaurants, minimal cars on the island (most people walk or rent a golf cart or scooter if they want to range further) and a calm, quiet vibe in general.
So this year, we finally pulled the trigger – instead of booking an all-inclusive (even on the island which has a few), we have booked a central hotel right on Playa Norte (regularly rated as one of the Top Ten beaches on earth!) and are going to have a pretty low key week of being on the beach, reading, eating and swimming.
A couple recent conversations got me thinking about the idea that “Work is 80% Relationships” and the vital importance of soft skills.
* A long time ago, the best manager we ever had at RPL talked to me about how the fact that her and another manager were really good friends outside of work and that made it much easier for them to disagree and even argue fiercely at work because they had a level of trust with each other which allowed them to understand that work was not personal.
I found a clip of them going to work one day:
* Another colleague told me about how they wrote a pre-screen question that is overtly about a person’s technical skills (“An elderly patron needs help with a computer problem.”) but the covert purpose is to assess the potential employee’s soft skills – how do they say they would interact with the non-tech savvy person? How would they “translate” their knowledge in a way the person could understand? How could they help the person learn some basics so they feel empowered?
* I guess I’ve also been thinking about how I literally spent the first week in my Organization Development role in HR at RPL in change management sessions that involved all staff as we moved towards a major reorganization and also towards a province-wide library system.
I don’t have it now but one slide the consultant showed in her presentation stayed with me to this day:
? Employees will embrace change where their input is included.
? Employees will support change where their input is considered.
? Employees will resist change that is imposed.
This seems like common sense but I’ve seen dozens of examples over the years where managers or directors impose change simply because they think they know best or they have their own agenda (and no trust to be honest about the real reasons for making changes.)
What gets missed is the damage that imposed decisions make to organizations in terms of trust, morale and loyalty.
I knew the first two bands a little bit (mostly through Sasha) but didn’t really know the opener.
All were great in their own way but Winnetka Bowling League (terrible name for a band though!) ended up being my favourite of the night…catchy clever pop songs and always nice when you go into something with no or low expectations (“opener for the opener? Yawn.”) and get pleasantly surprised.
