Random collection from facebook

Waiting at sfo airport
Delta misplaced my booking.
Do I have to be at court?
Come over I'll be cooking.

When at gym, give me a holler
Got a Google Wave to spare?
Everything in general-
Nothing left to repair.

Been through a lot lately
Are these real or fake?
I'm not feeling guilty
Decide now what to take.

It's all over now -
A lovely evening in Paris
Just found a pink cow.
Another gloomy day in Memphis

Wanderlust

From an enchanted land 
to the roof of the world, 
From land of the rising sun
to the dark of a deep cavern. 

How badly I love to travel 

And at God's creation marvel.
From point to point as I go 

So many things I'd love to do. 

From taking a polar dip 

to jumping off a cliff - 

From floating on a lily pad 

to sleeping on desert sand.
Travel I must to a new place

Explore the bounty of God's grace 

Catch a star or the northern light 

Read the news on a solstice night 

Enjoy nature's touch in pretty flowers 

Or drench fully in Amazonian showers
I like to meet people, make new friends 

Learn from them, pick up new trends 

More we differ, 

more alike we are 

in heritage and harmony, 

in love and fear. 

On roads less travelled, 

paved or gravel 

So many more places I got to travel.

Brown nose to avoid the pinkslip?

During this trying times one may wonder if brown nosing can help one avoid the pink slip. Well if you think this article is about how to avoid being fired, no this is not the place. But I got your attention. Didn't I?

This is a listing about how common place is color associated in the corporate lingo. Here are few examples:
Blueprint
White wash
White knight
Pink slip
Brown nose
Brown bag
Red flag
Red herring
Green signal
Go green
Black mail
Black and white thinking
Gray thinking
Silver bullet
Golden parachute
Purple blood

Does 2x2 work?

If you subscribe to the skill-will matrix, it will say that your role as a manager is to move your employees to the NE corner of the matrix where the employee is highly able and willing to do the job and, once you got an employee there, to stay out of his/her way.

But does the skill-will matrix work? I think not. I think there is an important element missing in the approach. Consider this. Have you ever had an employee who is highly motivated (Willing)and skilled (Able) but is suddenly not performing as expected? What happened here? The difference is Engagement. I think it is not only important to have Able and Willing employees but it is necessary to keep them Engaged. We miss the best of performance of so many qualified people because we fail to engage them in the right way.

This is what I call the power of AWE - able, willing and engaged. So next time you think you have moved the employee up the ability-willingness continuum, ask yourself if you are doing enough to keep them engaged. Believe it the result will be much better than just staying out of the way of the able-willing employee as this famous 2x2 matrix suggests.