Articles

My first grandchild was born just before the holidays.  With her birth, came a new role for me – that of grandmother.  I had looked forward to this new role for months – and when it actually happened, I also had to work through all of the implications of that new role.  This included everything from embracing that I now have a beautiful granddaughter – and, the realization that I am actually a grandmother (am I really old enough to

Typically I have about 20 things going on in my brain all at the same time. While the science says there is no such thing as multi-tasking, just fast switching back and forth – it can feel like I am trying to do those 20 things simultaneously. Most of the time I can surf with all of this brain activity. But there are also times where it is overwhelming. In those times it seems like I am not able to

Once, as a young girl, I was cooking with my grandmother.  She was preparing a ham for baking and towards the end of her preparation, she cut the ends off of the ham before placing it in the baking dish.  I remember asking why she cut off the ends of the ham.  She replied that she didn’t know why, just that it was what her mother had taught her, and she had always done it that way.  It wasn’t until

Last month, my mother sold the ranch land that my grandfather had purchased in 1941.  It was the end of an era.  I have always known ‘the ranch’ – as we all called it.  For much of my lifetime, it was a traditional ranch, with cattle and horses, and the place we went to every fall for elk hunting.  Needless to say, loads of memories were created on that property for four generations.  However, the time had come to sell and get my mother into a lower elevation and

“The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave, is not training them and having them stay.”  Henry Ford Many companies have a goal of retaining their employees.  They can be expensive to replace – especially for those key performers who you really don’t want to lose – the regrettable losses.  Turnover can hobble the execution of any plan or project with key performer turnover being devastating.  But a retention strategy, without training and development, can drag

I just spent 3 days with my mom practicing ‘letting go’.  She is in the phase of life where she is evaluating her possessions – deciding what should be thrown out, what should be kept, and what should be given away immediately or later on.  While this wasn’t the first time that we have talked about, or worked on, this, it was the first time we had physically been together with all of the possessions.  Several things surprised me.  First

When I was a kid, my father would come home from work and describe the training he had participated in that day.  His comments were rarely positive.  Training related to human relations was called ‘charm school’.  And all of the training, regardless of the type, he called ‘sheep dip’ – meaning that trainers came in, ‘dipped’ people in the training, and then left.  It was one-size fits all and my Dad hated it.  Today’s lingo would probably call that same

As a young department line manufacturing manager, I had many reviews of the results in my department.  I remember one review in particular with my plant manager.  He acknowledged where we were doing well and asked several questions about what had not been done during that quarter.  He then proceeded to tell me that he had a couple of additional items that needed to be improved during the next quarter.  I then asked, ‘What are the priorities?’  It was clear

I remember sitting down with my boss after 14 months in my professional career. Since I had just begun reporting to him, I asked if I was ‘doing OK’. He responded with a question, ‘What do you think?’. I had to pause – because, in that moment, I didn’t know. He looked me in the eye and said ‘You have to become your own evaluator and your own cheerleader. You will have good bosses and bad bosses – sometimes they

Frederick Douglas said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”  I don’t think that he meant that everything in life needs to be difficult.  But I do believe he meant that sometimes to make progress, a struggle is part of the process.  That sometimes it takes work and persistence and time and struggle to reach the goals you have set for yourself.  It may even feel like the proverbial two steps forward and one step back.  But if