Pandemic Blessings

Can there be blessings because of this pandemic?  The answer is “yes” and here is an example.  The need for self-care may serve to motivate people who are overweight to lose excess weight and maintain a healthy body.  Or those with high blood pressure may become committed to exercise routines and related activities that can lower blood pressure without medication.

Social distancing may cause people to have experiences that help them become more accepting of diversity with those unlike themselves.  While no one would seek to experience this deadly virus, nevertheless it can be a source of intrinsic good.

Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, find Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York, and Using Your Inner Power to Find Meaningful Work by Norman and Madeleine York. Now in production, “Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life by Norman York.

The critical role of people development

Leaders understand that the development of people is an investment, not an expense. The investment pays off in employee satisfaction, which increases productivity, which increases profitability.  The problem that emerges is the short-term profit mentality that impedes management’s ability to understand the true value of people..

In his book, The Breakthrough Company, Keith McFarland found that companies that started small and became good, if not great, always developed their people with the same level of commitment and consistency that would be the case in routinely maintaining their equipment.

Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York and Using Your Inner Power to find Meaningful Work by Norman and Madeleine York.  Now in production, Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life, by Norman York.

Are Your Profit Goals Reasonable?

The profit objective of most every public corporation is to maximize shareholder value, typically known as profit maximization.  However, in a profit maximization strategy the primary winner is the owner to the detriment of employees, who get less and customers who have to pay more in order to satisfy a single constituency. A better, fairer goal is profit optimization in which owners, employees, customers and other stakeholders benefit in some reasonable proportion.

Goals that serve to maximize the benefit to a single stakeholder are reflective of the greed that motivates the worst in corporate behavior and that tarnishes the reputation of capitalization and alienates a population that elects conversely contrary governments who oppose, or who say they oppose the status quo. Maximized capitalism, while bad, is no worse than socialism that diminishes individual responsibility, since there is nothing worse than giving a person something he knows he hasn’t earned.

Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York and Using Your Inner Power to find Meaningful Work by Norman and Madeleine York.  Now in production, Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life, by Norman York.

The Healing Power of Gratitude

 It behooves us to consciously consider the extraordinary benefit we derive when we practice our ability to be grateful for life’s many blessings.  As is the case with maintaining a positive mental attitude, gratitude activates the immune system and promotes the healing process.  This reinforces the understanding that, to a great extent, good health is a choice.

 As in the words to an old song, “Count your many blessings, name them one by one.” Setting aside regular periods of time to visualize the good things that life has provided is a powerful way to experience this blessing.  We should always remember that joyful people are more likely to be healthy people, even during this pandemic.

 Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York and Using Your Inner Power to find Meaningful Work by Norman and Madeleine York.  Now in production, Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life, by Norman

A time to try our souls

This pandemic certainly fits that definition because fear of anything is trying to our very existence.  The sage Ben Johnson once said, “Tell a man that he will hang in a fortnight and it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Sadly, this virus has a similar effect because our minds are concentrated greatly on fear.  And focusing on fear can attract unhappy consequences.  Threfore, we should redirect our thinking to some idealized good so that we may attract a blessing instead.

Joy in challenging times

With the world impacted by a virus that causes death and our nation suspended by so many undesirable rules and regulations, finding joy in the midst of this can seem like an impossibility.

However, as spiritual beings going through a human experience finding joy is a choice, we have the power to make.  The more we make this choice the more we bring joy into the lives of others, as well as to ourselves.

Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, find Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York and Using Your Inner Power to Find Meaningful Work by Norman and Madeleine York. Now in production, “Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life by Norman York

The victory of failure

You may have heard it said that “you can learn from anything that doesn’t kill you.”  Which is probably true because within every challenging experience, lies the seed of a blessing.  Therefore, when we are focused on the problem, we rarely see the blessing that frequently appears retrospectively.

Unfortunately, we tend to personalize failure and see ourselves as failures rather than attributing failure only to the experience itself.  The fact that we had the courage to take action and learned from the experience is a victory in itself.

Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, find Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York and Using Your Inner Power to Find Meaningful Work by Norman and Madeleine York. Now in production, “Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life

Why be positive?

If you’re old enough, you may have heard of or read The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who sought to develop a spiritual conscience for the public.  Because of its extraordinary message, many chose to view it as some kind of hoax or at least as something of an unrealistic in nature.

However, the doubters were totally mistaken because we have come to realize that even unfortunate events have within them the seed of a blessing.  Our tendency is to focus on the problem and miss the seed.

A recent study at Boston University found that people with positive expectations were 50 to 70%, more likely to live to age 85 and beyond.

Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York and Using Your Inner Power to find Meaning Work by Norman and Madeleine York, Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life, by Norman York.

Are you in the people business?

Whether you have one employee or hundreds, whether you like it or not, you are in the people business.  Your business, whether banking, healthcare or engineering will be no better than the people you hire, train and develop to do their best to become motivated to do their best for themselves, for their co-workers and for the business itself.  Given this truth, why don’t more managers become more responsive to their people’s needs?

A critical factor has to do with the fact that most organizations, business or otherwise, are divided into two domains, operations and organization.  In many cases, the organization domain is managed by people from the operations domain, who may not understand or care little about both the science and art of developing praiseworthy people who are committed to their own success, the success of their co-workers and the success of the business itself.

Another factor has to do with leadership or the lack thereof.  Many managers hold leadership positions, who are not leaders at all.  What’s the difference between a manager and a leader?  Both are interested in outcome.  However, pure managers care about the outcome, whereas leaders care about the journey as well. That causes them to be different.

One factor is control.  Another is trust.  Command and control managers can’t trust their charges because they don’t trust themselves.  They are comfortable only when they can monitor and measure each person’s performance in small incremental periods of time, lest the plan get off track and spoil the outcome.

Leaders, conversely, can and do trust others because they trust themselves to give control and latitude to their teams.  Because of the freedom and associated trust, such people become highly motivated to perform out of the consideration and respect they have attained.  This an example of servant leadership, because the leader is the servant to those he or she leads.

Now in print or as an eBook from Amazon, Thriving in the Changing Workplace and The Successful Entrepreneur, Second Edition by Norman York and Using Your Inner Power to find Meaning Work by Norman and Madeleine York, Recareering™ for the Second Half of Life, by Norman York.

Are you in the people business?

Whether you have one employee or hundreds, whether you like it or not, you are in the people business.  Your business, whether banking, healthcare or engineering will be no better than the people you hire, train and develop to do their best to become motivated to do their best for themselves, for their co-workers and for the business itself.  Given this truth, why don’t more managers become more responsive to their people’s needs?

A critical factor has to do with the fact that most organizations, business or otherwise, are divided into two domains, operations and organization.  In many cases, the organization domain is managed by people from the operations domain, who may not understand or care little about both the science and art of developing praiseworthy people who are committed to their own success, the success of their co-workers and the success of the business itself.

Another factor has to do with leadership or the lack thereof.  Many managers hold leadership positions, who are not leaders at all.  What’s the difference between a manager and a leader?  Both are interested in outcome.  However, pure managers care about the outcome, whereas leaders care about the journey as well. That causes them to be different.

One factor is control.  Another is trust.  Command and control managers can’t trust their charges because they can’t trust themselves.  They are comfortable only when they can monitor and measure each person’s performance in small incremental periods of time, lest the plan get off track and spoil the outcome.

Leaders, conversely, can and do trust others because they trust themselves to give control and latitude to their teams.  Because of the freedom and associated trust, such people become highly motivated to perform out of the consideration and respect they have attained.  This an example of servant leadership, because the leader is the servant to those he or she leads.