How Do You Maintain Important Relationships for Which You Have Little Affinity?

July 3, 2023

Good morning! It’s Bee Balm season! It’s a whole bunch of different days this week; you decide which one(s) you want to recognize. In the U.S. of A., July 4 is still recognized annually on July 4, year after year — whereas most other United States government holy days are on various Mondays. But wait, there are other number-sensitive holy days besides July 4… do you know which ones? And, if you have an affinity for Spain and for its wonderful tradition of tapas, there is still time to make the trip to Pamplona for the July 7th __________________.

• If you’ve ever been inside one of them, you know his genius.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built 120 private homes during his lifetime.
  • Here is an interesting tidbit:  Of the 120 Wright homes, only one original owner still occupies what was built for him/her/them.  (Bernstein, 2023)
• On the way to work to and from Fargo last week it appeared the drought was less severe to the north and west than right here in our own backyard; good.
• Here’s one for the grammar enthusiasts:
  • Shouldn’t those signs out on the highway, Drive Sober, be more correctly stated as Drive Soberly?
  • Can you have two verbs in a row?  Doesn’t one have to be an adverb and thus modify the predecessor verb?
  • Please check in with the answers on this topic.
• How do you sustain important relationships for which you have little affinity?
• And now we have the Northern Snakehead to worry about, a monster-like creature, supposedly a fish, but it can live out of water for several days.
  • If you find one slithering along the pathway on your hike, freeze it (they say), but then also chop it up… and then step back out of its way and beware.
  • Who hikes with a freezer?!
• Looking for a good book from north of the border?
  • Louise Penny (A World of Curiosities) brings the flavour of rural Quebec to her stories and this one is particularly good; it’s highly recommended for pure summer pleasure.
    • The best passage:   “The best sound ever, Armand decided, was the slamming of a screen door.  It meant the children were awake and racing out to play.
      • It meant all was right with the world.  It meant that all was well.”
• Are you keeping up with the times?  What times, you might ask?
  • Start with the times right at the epicenter of your organization.
  • What assumptions are on automatic pilot?  How often do you challenge the assumptions you use to make decisions?  Have you looked at data?
  • Do you nurture a culture that permits — indeed, encourages — challenges to long-term, near-reverential assumptions?
  • When was the last time you took a 360 look around from the highest hilltop available to you?
  • If you can’t remember when, it might be time.
• And while you’re at it, keep an eye on your pet animal door… alligators, bears, raccoons, and others will use it, too.  (Iberia, LA)
• Looking to fly somewhere this summer (besides Pamplona)?
  • London is the #1 destination on Delta, Cancun (in summer?!?) second, and Paris third (in summer?!?).
  • Seventy-five percent (75%) of Delta seats are already sold for between now and Labour Day. (TheStreet, 2023)
• From among these attributes, how do you rank-order them for importance when recruiting and hiring new talent?
  • Attitude
  • Skill Sets
  • Reliability
  • Education (Degree)
  • Coachability
  • Character
  • Teachability
  • Experience
  • Perceived Potential
  • Good fit with the existing culture
• BTW, according to a number of (reliable?) sources, the tight labour market is beginning to soften just a bit.
• “Only five percent (5%) of people interviewed thought negatively about fungi, … among the most loved organisms on the planet after Pandas.”  (Crisp)
• “Colleagues should take care of each other, have fun, celebrate success, learn by failure, look for reasons to praise not to criticize…
  • …communicate freely, and respect each other.”  (Branson)