More Vorlon Management

During our week of leadership training I was introduced to the idea of finding one's True North and in my reading of Bill George's wonderful book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership I have started a "deep dive" into the topics we skimmed in class. One of the techniques to find your True North is that of using a life time-line to tell your story, to view the events that shaped you and motivate you. We did a shortened version of this in class but I have been working on a longer one and have hit upon something that I recognize as a source of my desire to lead (part of my answer to the Vorlon question of "Who am I?"). My vision of leadership is to provide an environment where people are free to work, to remove obstacles to their ability to work as they best can. Using the technique I saw some things that showed me where at least in part this passion comes from and why for me leadership is a moral issue and not simply a matter for business.

When I was growing up my parents ran several very small businesses in an extremely poor part of the country (hence we were poor too, just a little different level of poor). They constantly had to battle the government with its nit-picky rules just to survive, often feeling frustrated over having to invest what was for us large amounts of our meager funds just to stay up to code even on things that really were not important to our businesses. When they would turn to their elected government officials for help they were far more often than not turned away. I can recall many times when just trying to comply kept us on the edge of going under financially and my folks would take outsides jobs from time-to-time just to stay afloat because it seemed no one was on their side who had any authority to help. Yet, through all of that, I also saw my parents go far out of their way to help those even less fortunate. My mother spent many hours filling out state and federal papers for our customers who were functionally illiterate just so they could get the assistance that was due them according to the existing laws and statutes (interesting for a bunch of Republicans, eh?). My dad would help pitch in when local millers and farmers had problems. When other people came on hard times their past-due notes to us suddenly became not so past due. These events helped shape my view of leadership, the view that people who lead are also servants, ready to help those around then.

This is part of my life story, part of my attempt to answer the Vorlon question and hopefully become a stronger leader.

Randy Pausch - Rest In Peach

Obit

"We don't beat the reaper by living longer, we beat the reaper by living well and living fully,"
- Randy Pausch

Truth (Again) From Steve Breen

Vorlon Leadership

I was honored by being selected as one of a small number employees identified as having the potential to become a true leader within my company and last week was sent to a leadership intensive held at company HQ. One of the early focal points was the concept of authentic leadership whose central idea is that of self-awareness. After a brief introduction to the concept I raised my hand and said "So you're siding with the Vorlons?" Dead silence in the room. I then explained that the main arc from a sci-fi series named Babylon 5 was a war of philosophy between (essentially) the Vorlons and the Shadows. Glossing over a lot of detail, the Vorlons believed the prime question a being should answer is "Who are you?" while the Shadows focused on that of "What do you want?" Authentic leadership has at its core (like the Vorlons) the idea that to be a leader you have to first understand yourself, your own principles, your motivations, your values, before you can become a credible leader. I happen to agree. This is not to negate the Shadow question, but without answering the Vorlon question first trying to answer the Shadow question leads to disharmony and discordant requests that will only confuse those who answer to you. In short, I spent last week learning I am a Vorlon... now if I can just glow in the dark and fly :-)

Oh Those Jibjab Boys...

Two-Way Biological Metacrisis (Dr. Who Spoilers)

*** SPOILER ALERT ***






OK, I have to say, for all the holes in them the last two episodes of Doctor Who Series 4 (The Stolen Earth and Journey's End) were great to watch... action filled, good special effects (for the BBC), nice writing, conclusion of a large story arc, and very bittersweet. I will miss Catherine Tate as companion Donna Noble. So far of all of the new companions Donna truly represented the "everyman" (or "everyperson") literary character. Donna began as a vacuous, loud, somewhat lazy, somewhat obnoxious person (why, almost American) who becomes the tether to The Doctor's high-flying antics. Donna is the companion who speaks for the viewer, who in the face of The Doctor's "we can't meddle about with time" tells The Doctor that they must do something, that just because they can't save everyone they can at least save someone (see for example the episode The Fires of Pompeii). Like many of us, Donna doesn't see herself as special, doesn't think she has anything of value to contribute, scream out at the universe because she thinks no one will listen to her. And yet, the "best temp in Chiswick", grounded in everyday human experience, shows her worth. Donna like many of us fall prey to what the existentialists warned against... defining yourself by what you do. People think of themselves as important based on what they do, their job, their standing in a community, how other perceive them. In truth that is not what makes you special. You are special because, simply, you are. You should not define yourself simply as the things you do, yet when you meet someone new isn't the first question (certainly one of the first three) "What do you do?" A better question might be to ask "Who are you?" If you are a sci-fi fan as I am you will see this as a twist on the Shadow question ("What do you want?") as opposed to the Vorlon question ("Who are you?") from Babylon 5 (there are actually four questions eventually asked. I'll save the other two for a future post).

At the finale of Journey's End Donna learns that she really is unique, that it is her "human-ness" that takes her even beyond what The Doctor is capable of... not because she was a scientist, a political leader, or even because she was "the best temp in Chiswick", but because she was human.

Donna is gone from the show and I will miss her. Let's hope that the next companion can retain some that good "everyman" character that she injected into the show.

Good job Catherine, thanks.

Is this thing on?

What is it with public figures and microphones? They think the things are off, the figures make jackass statements, then get all apologetic when they are caught. Latest case, Jesse Jackson saying just before going on air that he thinks Obama talks down to black people and (apparently) he wants to cut Obama's n*ts off. OK, if those are his honest thoughts (motivated by jealousy perhaps) so be it. What is funny is how once he finds out the remarks were captured he "apologized" (you can listen to the rambling mess here). If you go there listen closely to statements like "If I have offended" and "live mic". First off, sounds a bit like his statements were meant to be taken as they were given and if it bothers you Jesse is sorry and second what he is most sorry about is that he said them into an open microphone. Jesse also loses points in the common sense game for saying them on a Fox set. I mean, how stupid can one get?

It's sad that our so-called leaders apologize when they get caught. Hey boys and girls (I would say "men and women" but that would be elevating them too much), you know how to keep out of trouble like this? DON'T say things in private that you wouldn't say in public.

The Women In My Family...

When I saw this I thought how fortunate I was to have a mother and two grandmothers like this:

New McCain Ad - Awesome

Don't hope for a better life, vote for one. This really struck me. I keep hearing "change" and "hope" from the Obama people but still have no clear idea on what he will do differently than any typical liberal. So far for an economic plan all I hear is "spend money on more programs". Now some prudent spending may be necessary, but there is really very little that I hear that will stimulate the economy to create new jobs. In truth the only "change" I hear is that government must be bigger, must have more control of the lives of the citizens. That isn't they type of change I want.

Blog Splitting

Well, I have finally decided to start another blog on a special topic that I have come to appreciate over the years. I will continue writing on this blog talking about politics, technology, culture, etc. so don't go away. What I have decided to do is write more on wine. Yes, there are hundreds if not thousands of blogs out there talking about wine but this one will be different, it will be mine. This blog will not be written from the view point of a professional wine person or of someone to whom money is no object or to play the part of "wine snob" and try to show off what (little) I know about wine. This will truly be the work of an amateur, someone who does something because they like it.

Catching Up

It seems like it has been a while since I posted on here so this is an attempt to catch up on the personal side. First, Mr. Beau and I took a little trip up to the Santa Barbara area for some wine tasting. This was in part to just get out of town for a couple of days and in part to provide a wide selection of wines for Mr. Beau to taste and help me gauge where his wine preferences lay. Over a three-day weekend we traveled to and tasted wines at the following wonderful wineries:

Brander Winery (excellent all around offerings)

Gainey Winery (very good wines, nice chardonnays this year)

Kalyra Winery (a fun winery with some excellent lighter and dessert wines)

Beckman winery (top-notch Syrahs and and tasty Grenache... and the hottest pourers)

Bridlewood Winery (they seem to have come up a notch in their offerings since the Gallo buy-out)

Firestone winery (Good wines, nice Riesling)

Fess Parker Winery (Davy Crockett knows his wines, but watch the alcohol content on the new Syrahs)

Curtis Winery (wonderful Rhone-style wines)

Zaca Mesa Winery (a new one for me, great offering, don't pass up the Z Cuvée or the Z Three from them)

We dined at the consistently great Hitching Post and discovered another fantastic place to dine at the local casino Willows.

As usual the trip was too short but it was relaxing and wonderful to get away from "the real world" for a couple of days.

For the Fourth we spent a lot of time together taking turns taking care of each other. On the Fourth we went to the San Diego Zoo, saw a movie, took a walk along the beach talking about what the day meant to us (and how we both tend to say "Independence Day" instead of "Fourth of July" when mentioning the holiday), had dinner at a local cantina and sat on the beach while watching one of the best fireworks presentations I can remember. On Saturday we used my San Diego Art Museum membership and took our friend Sarah to "get some culture" and then spent time relaxing at The Prado having appetizers and drinks and enjoying each person's company. I can think of very few ways of passing time than just being with friends and loved ones and I hope that you had the same privilege this weekend.