And just like that, I was excited again

I spent this past Friday night in a town of great importance, having a few beverages of choice with an old friend, and expecting to meet even older ones. I wasn't too happy about the turnout that I wittnessed. Just when I was feeling like I was low on inspiration juice for my current employer, my old friend decided to lay out her poker hand...it was a hand full of aces. And just like that, I as excited again!!! All it took was her passion and dedication to this organization
to re-inspire me.

I have to say, a lot of things have been on my mind as of late...they are: (in no particular order)
1. The age issue
First off, I think that if you want to really offer leadership positions, you have to be dedicated,
not only as an organization, but also as a person, to developing leaders. If this means moving
on after your time is up (or even if you don't think it is) then you damn well should. Here's my
reasoning: if you have leaders that are staying in their positions for more than a set amount of
time, all you get is stagnation. They become less accessable simply because they have been
removed from the others. Sometimes they develop a superiority complex...and then they
become completely unreachable. When they are unreachable, this creates problems with
transparency...which brings me to my next thought:
2. The transparency issue
In this kind of business, in an organization as large as this, you really need to have
transparency. Its key to making the flow of even every-day work happen. For many reasons, like age or pride or intelligence (supposidly) or numbers, block us from being transparent.
The thing that people don't understand is that there is credibility in being transparent. There
is sustainablity in being transparent. There is ownership in being transparent. There is trust
in being transparent. If we can't have that, then we really won't succeed as an organization.
3. The leadership issue
Yes, I think that we do have a leadership issue. I've seen a lot of workers as of late. Maybe I
am one of them. I have not seen a lot of leaders. In fact, I can only name a few off the top of
my head. That's a huge problem for me being a part of an organization that supposidly churn
out leaders. Irony? I find it ironic that taking away leadership opportunities is supposed to
help us as an organization create leaders...that a new process, dedicated to taking this
organization to the next level is failing to develop the next round of leaders it will need to
survive


Overall, things are foggy for me. How will this all turn out? I'm not sure. But after thinking about these issues, and getting some excitement and inspiration from a great friend, I think that things will turn out for the better. It's not up to you, its up to each person in this organization to say to him or herself: It's up to me!!!

So my challenge to you: put some pressure on yourself, dare yourself to try, kick yourself in the ass, take on some real responsibility, instead of asking to be inspired, be the inspiration!

I know I will....