Back from the Confab
As today's catch-up posts illustrate, I have returned to the MoltenThought fold after a grueling couple of days.
Monday, it was an all-day meeting followed by a team dinner. The occasion was strategy planning for a new executive. Folks not familiar with how corporate America really works might be shocked to hear that the majority of the 8-hour strategy session consisted of a discussion of values---moral values. In big, complex institutions where folks come together from many different backgrounds and where no one has time to watch everything someone else is doing, values are supremely important. Lacking them severely limits your career aspirations.
On a break, the executive shared with me that he is struggling with how to deal with another key executive who is considered to be a liar by most of his peers. I suspect the problem will soon take care of itself---it usually does. Executives ask each other all the time how they're doing, and when enough of your peers tell your boss you're a liar, you're done. You'll never see that in the organization announcement, though---usually something about "pursuing other interests" or "spending more time with family."
Tuesday I was facilitating a marathon session requested by another executive around a key element of employee satisfaction---how we rate and reward job performance. We had around 30 people of varying levels in the hierarchy working on proposals to improve this for 11 hours. I spent the whole of that time on my feet, then facilitated the report-out to the executive leadership team.
Most of the 30 folks stayed for the entire executive review, and just about all spoke very frankly with the leadership team, challenging them at key points. There was no rancor, no politics. The meeting went 90 minutes late, taking us to 8:30 pm on a day which started at 7 am. Afterward, a good proportion of the attendees came up to me to volunteer for the implementation of the approved proposals.
Whenever somebody bad-mouths corporate America, I'll be able to reflect back on moments like these in my career which make crystal clear that the naysayers have no clue.
Monday, it was an all-day meeting followed by a team dinner. The occasion was strategy planning for a new executive. Folks not familiar with how corporate America really works might be shocked to hear that the majority of the 8-hour strategy session consisted of a discussion of values---moral values. In big, complex institutions where folks come together from many different backgrounds and where no one has time to watch everything someone else is doing, values are supremely important. Lacking them severely limits your career aspirations.
On a break, the executive shared with me that he is struggling with how to deal with another key executive who is considered to be a liar by most of his peers. I suspect the problem will soon take care of itself---it usually does. Executives ask each other all the time how they're doing, and when enough of your peers tell your boss you're a liar, you're done. You'll never see that in the organization announcement, though---usually something about "pursuing other interests" or "spending more time with family."
Tuesday I was facilitating a marathon session requested by another executive around a key element of employee satisfaction---how we rate and reward job performance. We had around 30 people of varying levels in the hierarchy working on proposals to improve this for 11 hours. I spent the whole of that time on my feet, then facilitated the report-out to the executive leadership team.
Most of the 30 folks stayed for the entire executive review, and just about all spoke very frankly with the leadership team, challenging them at key points. There was no rancor, no politics. The meeting went 90 minutes late, taking us to 8:30 pm on a day which started at 7 am. Afterward, a good proportion of the attendees came up to me to volunteer for the implementation of the approved proposals.
Whenever somebody bad-mouths corporate America, I'll be able to reflect back on moments like these in my career which make crystal clear that the naysayers have no clue.
posted by Teflon at 7:01 PM
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