The course itself I've mentioned in the past, is called Humans Being More. That link is to a brief description of what the course is all about. It focuses on improving ourselves and highlighting our Five Pillars for our success. These are having a Healthy Body, Mind, Family, Society and Finances.
When corporations help their people better themselves in all walks of life, it can only benefit the corporation, individual, and society, as a whole. This is one of the primary reasons for this self improvement course. Sadly it is something which corporate America seems to be lacking, in spades, lately.
The instructor we had was from Tallahassee (and a former Navy SEAL), which is in the general area, and he (and his wife) have had the pleasure of doing this for the past 17 years, wow. They gave several handouts and will be covering them in later posts. However, there is one which will benefit everyone!
20 Critical Management Competencies
That Produce 80% of Management's Results:
Super Critical
1. Listening Skills
2. Giving Effective Instructions
3. Accepting Responsibility
4. Identifying Real Problems
Highly Critical
5. Time Management
6. Reinforcing Excellent Performance
7. Communication Decisions
8. Speaking Effectively
9. Establishing Priorities
10. Explaining Work
11. Giving Feedback
Critical
12. Writing Effectively
13. Prepare Action Plans
14. Defining Job Qualifications
15. Adopting Organizational Change
16. Promoting Cost Reduction
17. Operating Within Budget18. Developing Written Goals
19. Justifying New Resources
20. Developing Yourself ContinuouslyGiving Feedback
from a BYU research project, replicated by UCF
Regarding this list, my personal view (a little biased of course), is that I have mastered 3 out of 4 Super Critical Skills. The other one, Giving Effective Instructions, am well over 75%.
Out of the Highly Critical Section I have a solid four of those skills to where I consider them excellent, with the rest in various stages of excellence.
Out of the Critical Section it's looking more sparse, but that is primarily to me not being in Management.
It's my belief that have avoided management due to me being more of a leader than a manager, as identified in this Wall Street Journal article. It is hard for me to do the minute day to day stuff when I would rather be making a difference instead of filling out forms in triplicate.
This is just one small tidbit that got from that weekend.
A surprise!
After driving till about 2 am (time zone change too) from Orlando to Panama City, and having to stop enroute twice for support calls, made it to a Walmart close by and spent the night. After arrived went in groggily and verified was OK to stay. Some places won't let you, primarily due to town/city regulations.
Next morning the alarm goes off nice and early, so start the GPS and head down the road, following it very precisely in a 35+ food land whale (as Paul Wheaton calls them), and GPS guides me someplace but it doesn't look right. I pull down this skinny access road behind a hotel (wrong one turns out) and pull over far as I can to stare and gawk at the GPS, silently, or not so silently, wondering what mess am in now.
Then start creeping forward to get my bearings when I spot this couple walking away from me. Just at the right moment they look back and I look at them, and can tell we needed to talk, for some unknown reason. So at the same time I stop and they start walking towards me. With engine still running, go to side door and see what the feeling was about.
One of the first words out of their mouths was "Do you want a kitten"... Talk about a deer in the headlight look.
I hemmed and hawed as have Mia still, and they gave me a story, which I presume is true, that they can't take this kitten in that they just rescued. If I can't take the kitten, they say it will go to the shelter (as they have a dog), and who knows what happens there. Once they said that knew what had to do.
Stepped out of the RV and took the kitten. Of course, the first thing kitten tries to do is claw it's way out of my arms, onto my shoulder, or any other part of me, to try and escape. Finally got kitten under control, and as was going back into RV, turned around and asked couple a question.
"What do you think I should name kitten?" (couldn't tell at time if male or female) First thing that came to their mind was Scatter, as kitten was hard to catch and would always scatter when they tried. I got the feeling they didn't do this all the time. I thanked them and we parted ways.
One other thing to note is that, according to them, they tried to find the home for kitten, and everyone said it wasn't theirs. After accepting kitten/Scatter, I noticed clearly how underweight and flea ridden kitten is.
Immediately brought her to other cat (Mia) to see how it would go... BOY oh BOY, it wasn't pretty, lots of hissing involved, but no claws! And I had a class to attend.... Interesting times ahead is my thought.
Put kitten down in back and proceeded to find correct hotel (passed it on the way), and then get moving as running out of time. Scatter stayed back as a little unsure of surroundings.
Once parked made sure both of them were somewhat OK before heading inside to HBM. . Scatter, at this point, was still a little skittish, as is expected.
During every break over the two days, would make a beeline to the RV and check how everything was going. Scatter would be resting underneath one of the captains chairs, and Mia would be resting on my passenger's seat. Always in the same spot and every time would come in Scatter would almost immediately pop head out and expect some attention. Could never spend longer than 5 or 10 minutes but would make effort each time to check and make sure there wasn't any blood shed, and there was none!
Prologue: A day and two weeks later Scatter seems to have grown at least 50% (closer to twice as big I think) in size and fleas are mostly gone! Brought scatter outside last night and wasn't entirely happy. It also turns out that am 99% certain that scatter is now a BOY as see dangly bits forming underneath and only one opening at the rear.
And, one picture, the first one, contained in the album:
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