Posts

Posted on

When life gives you lemmons …..or when my L turned into F

When life gives you lemons …

…as I have found out you have several options.

You can go ahead and make lemonade, meaning you can do the best out of the existing situation.

What if you got from life also a big load of lemons and also a big lemonade ?

What now ?

…or lemonade ….

Well , you can either throw them right back , meaning that you somehow deny what has happened or try to keep up the optimistic point of view regardless of what has happened because life has to go on no matter what …..

Actually you do not have to many choices, you have to get you things together and keep on with life.

It might be hard to accept and it might be impossible to understand what has happened…but in my view you have to keep going.

You might also get very mad about life and “demand to see life’s manager”… but hey what can you do …..it might suck but you gotta love it.

….or both ….

All is getting even more complicated when you get at the same time also a BIIIG lemonade ….somehow everything got much more easier to cope with.

Well it is not that easy to cope with both at the same time, lately I have got exactly this two from my life ….I have got a big , big pile of lemonades but on the same time I have got also an unexpected big and sweet lemonade.

I got pretty messed up coping with this two at the same time but in the end I had to adjust and get on with my life and try to make the best of it.

So to wrap it up …..when life gives you lemons AND lemonade you are in an situation that either your L… (from Luck )  turned into F…. or the other way around.
It is up to you to get a grip with your life and make the best of it .

Posted on

Change ….how much ?

Change …how much ? How far should you go ?

Recently I have posted some thoughts about change in the case of senior management / executives.

Fact is that the posting ended with the dilemma “To change or not to change ?”

This dilemma is valid for the individual and also for the organization .

Change …how much ?

It is a known fact that when you enter a new organization you have to go through a “accommodation” with each other. In this important period is all about positioning and getting to know everybody and everything.
Now certain “surprises” start to show up from both sides , you and the organization,  Certain things start to show up not as presented.
In this case the first compromises starting to take shape….what should you do ?
Up to a certain degree it is expected to adapt to the new environment and to cope with it.
Now coming back with the senior management / executive aspect, the guy was hired because of the fact that some change was needed.
Important to mention that the guy was hired by stakeholders that are part of the existing organization and that have the means to evaluate and judge the newcomer….
The newcomer has, according to my understanding,  two options:
Change / adjust and give up part of who you are
Fight  and do not get assimilated ( remember Star Trek Borg 🙂 ) try to make a change , try to make a difference.
None of the mentioned options are good or bad, it is matter of what you should choose best.
If you are choosing the first option , change / adjust and try to make out of the trenches some small changes and get set with small but many victories.
Fact though if you try to change / adjust you will be scrutinized by the ones that choose you as a senior manager / executive for their organization .
During this change / adjustment hope that you not loose on the way the skills, aspects that made you appreciated by the organization.
If you decide that you are here to fight and trying to make a change , it is perfectly OK , but fight until when ?
You might get labeled during the fight as not able to integrate into the organization.
What is actually the proper / better way ?  Change / adjust and give up on yourself or fight it through but taking the risk of being labeled as unfit by the stakeholders ?

Change ? How much is enough not to give up on yourself and still to get your recognition as a senior manager / executive in the specific role / organization ?

Posted on

Change or not to change ?

When companies change their executives / senior management the ideal profile is depicted in the “famous” job profile.  In this document the HR responsible usually with help of the stakeholders ( Shareholders, Board of Directors, CEO, Consultants, etc.) do their best to describe the ideal profile for the vacant job.

Funny thing though , the described profile is something that the specific organization would like to have, or let me say it differently , it is something that is nice to have …..

Let’s assume that the recruiting , through own resources or through external help (recruiting companies), runs smoothly and you get almost a perfect match to the described and documented ideal profile.

From here on the adventure starts and a very big question is starting to be more and more visible.

Is the organization ready to receive the almost perfect match ? 
Are they ready to adjust to the new person coming in ?
Are they ready for the change ? 



If you talk to each and every stakeholder they will say that yes they want the new guy…but are they ready for the change and what this change will imply ?

People are different from each other therefore it is more than obvious that the new guy coming in will have his/ her own view on the organization and thus the change.

Usually this topic is solved through induction days/ programs that should help to adjust to the new organisation easy and quickly. Here usually HR is the main contact.

Coming back to the change ….What do you do in case of executives / senior management ?

For executives / senior managers change management is or at least should be part of their leadership ability. Leadership can be traced back to results and results are most of the time benchmarked against targets.

A successful organization should have clear vision , mission , values statements that again are part of the strategic management of any organization.

So coming back to  executives / senior managers and change …..it is only fair to say that executives / senior managers must be strategic management savvy.

Well seasoned managers with experience in several areas are needed to have an successful organization. This kind of managers have a strong personality and character and are not very easy to handle.

Therefore the organization must adjust in order to be successful or can choose not to adjust and take the risk that the new hired executive / senior manager will not fit in and eventually leave the organization.

What is more costly ? To change or not to change ?



Posted on

My first post

I know it sounds very cheesy… “my first blog” ….but it actually is my first blog attempt.

I thought what can go wrong….I’ll try an go all social …with all kind of social networks and stuff.

So I think I will most probably do all kind of mistakes regarding blogging but …I’ll do my best.

So here I am staring at the blank screen and …
Yep, it is not easy to write just like that ….more what you write must make sense and be logical for an outsider that has no clue of what you where thinking.

I have just turned 40 and can to the conclusion that …I have something to say ….
I do not know from where I got this sudden “something to say”.. maybe it has something to do with my age 🙂

Anyhow, I got pretty much involved in all this social media….and am trying to understand what and how this things can help me out. I have found out that there are really a LOT of social media websites and web services. I’ll take this one at the time and hope that I’ll improve over time.

I am going to try to do my best to understand all this social media , how it works , what is the targeted audience , what are the best features, etc . Maybe my future posts will be of some interest to someone….if not… I got my something to say cleared out of the way.