The Score: Obama vs. McCain

I have finally begun tallying each candidate’s position on a number of stances important to me.  I do expect to flesh this out over time and update my own thoughts as I collect information on each position.

Look for updates soon on their respective positions on critical issues like taxes, welfare, Iraq, and also their voting records, at least if I can get enough info from Congressional Quarterly and other reliable sources.

Kudos to McCain

I am really excited about the race to the White House.  I think John McCain showed tremendous courage and savvy when he chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.  The presidential race just got 1,000 times more historic and interesting, as we now guarantee either the White House’s first African-American president, or first female vice president.

I will have more to say after reading up on McCain’s Veep choice.  Right now, I am giving him extremely high marks for being a renegade!

Reaction to Obama’s acceptance speech

WARNING: This is a political statement, not a business post.  I am an independent, and free-thinker.  I don’t associate with any political party, but tonight, I felt the crescendo that could serve as a pivotal call to action in America’s centuries-old battle to live up to its ideals and its potential.

For the first time in my nearly-38 years as an American, I feel freshness in the air.  Even beyond what past Democratic presidents have promised, attempted to deliver, or insisted on changing, Obama brought the most qualified background ever, in terms of representing the broadest swath of America’s diversity, and promised to address our internal challenges and international woes in ways that embrace the expansive and unique makeup of the United States.  Coupled with his civil rights speech, he has made the most important statements in my lifetime about the potential for a unified and well-served American citizenry.

IF DEMS CAN DELIVER . . . WOW

I feel fresh air cresting over the molten rhetoric that has mired our nation in civic mistrust since the middle of Bill Clinton’s first term.  I feel powerful, but unseen waves gathering beneath my feet, with the potential to carry this nation toward a phenomenal breakthrough.

After listening to Barack Obama’s Democratic nomination acceptance speech, I feel a vote for the Democratic party in November will be a vote for something larger than political positioning.  For the first since I have gained voting rights, I feel I am voting to make the dream of a united America POSSIBLE, rather than simply voting to put another man in the White House to enjoy the challenges and privileges of being the most powerful leader on Earth.

I say none of this to discredit others’ perspectives.  My more-conservative — and more-liberal — friends are welcome to disagree.  I may even alter my position after hearing whether McCain has fresh new ideas to unite these American states and regain global respect.

But for now, for the first time in my life, I listened to a political speech and walked away feeling like all my dreams and aspirations — even some I never thought possible — are indeed attainable.  I have more hope than ever, without exaggerating or being naive about the costs of attaining it, that racial strife can be dismantled, people of color — on Obama’s record of being a fair president — can finally attain that universal status as equal citizens rather than only enjoying that “privilege” where enlightened minds exist, or where we are “fine as long as there aren’t too many of us,” or “as long as we fit a comfortable mold the majority can understand well.”

I see the opportunity for people to truly be judged by the content of their character.  We are not there yet, but I finally see King’s dream as a possibility.  A real possibility.  If we can embrace the change and the challenge and hard work of realizing the enormous potential of a truly united America.

I like this fresh air, and hope to enjoy it for years to come.  I love this possibility.  I love this America.  I hope to live there one day.

Fall: A season of renewal for educators

Spring is the so-called season of renewal and rebirth.  But for those of us in the education profession, Fall is when the crisp air carries the scent of freshness and possibility.  A new crop of students brings a clean slate, and all their dreams are possible.

Freshly-purchased clothes, new school supplies unblemished by the battles they are about to endure: stoic binders serving as impromptu canopies on rainy mornings at the bus stop, frustrated notebooks tossed into lockers after exams, tattered bookbags straining at the seams with too much homework, and nubs of pencils sharpened to painful points then rubbed across pages until they erode to silver bumps raced too quickly through yellow painted tubes of wood.

These scars and wounds await inevitably, but on this, the first day of school, students and teachers alike think only of the greatness they can achieve.  Here’s to, for once, accomplishing all your goals, enjoying success, and creating opportunities for yourself.  Here’s to rebirth of intellectual pursuits.

Wipe the sand from your toes, smooth the sun-raisined skin with lotion, and assemble the tools of your trade.  And do great things.  Attitude is everything.

Whether you think you can succeed or not, you are right.

Barack Obama Photo Journal: Lynchburg VA 2008

Obama listens to Webb introduction

Obama appeals to so many

Obama greets crowd in LYH

Obama makes 1,000 person room feel intimate

Obama

You must vote if you want your enthusiasm to make a difference in November.

Spellbound melting pot audience

Supporter of Bush Econics (sic)

Crowd stayed on their feet.

Obama waves after entering gym.

A favorite of mine: intelligence personified

Thank the locals.

Listening to Senator Jim Webb.

Virginia Senator Jim Webb

People of all stripes enjoy Obama

A brief case study in social networking

REVOLUTION NOT BEING TELEVISED: BARACK OBAMA IS COMING TO LYNCHBURG

This evening as I wrapped up a meeting about a significant database issue, I received a phone call that, at some point in the next hour, tickets for a heretofore-known-only-to-party-hoi-polloi visit by presidential candidate and Illinois senator, Barack Obama, would be handed out at the local Democratic headquarters.

In this region, news is normally traded over morning coffee at the Weenie Stand (no, seriously, that’s what it’s called) or at Barbara’s Dream Hut at the farmer’s market on Saturdays.  Rare is this bucolic place the epicenter of national news, and rarer still is there a need to react very quickly to information you receive through the grapevine.  But today, if you waited to hear about this on television, you totally missed out.  This revolutionary’s visit was not advertised publicly.

So on this evening, with newly-produced adrenaline coursing through my veins, I picked up a client with whom I was to meet, forced her to race out of her home without her keys and moved with deliberate speed downtown to see if we could get passes to our town’s historic evening with Barack Obama. . . in LYNCHBURG.  Are you serious?

I immediately texted my wife, then called her to see if she can drag the kids out of the pool, dry them off, end their swim date, then hustle downtown to get more tickets.  Unfortunately, even though she was in the first wave of recipients of the message, and managed to alert a couple family members, her schedule kept her from arriving at Obama HQ in time, but let me not get ahead of myself.

TWO HOURS, 1,000-plus PEOPLE

While I thought we were privy to truly insider knowledge, received at 5:10 p.m., I was shocked to arrive at 5:35, and find myself standing in a reasonable, but growing queue, of a couple hundred people.  Already, within 30 minutes of the first insiders letting their circles of influence know, their closest concentric circle of influence had assembled.

5:38: I receive a blast text message from a buddy telling me to head downtown for free Obama tix, limit two.  Thank goodness I was already in line.  But it occurred to me that someone who hadn’t even arrived to get his own tickets was telling his entire network about the opportunity.  This suddenly became about social networking.

At 5:40, we were inching toward the ticket table, but had already started to hear rumors that the tickets were beginning to run out.  This was a lie.  First responders simply enjoyed taking a poke at those of us who waited with anxiety.

5:42: A recipient of the same text message I had received text-messaged me to ask if I knew what was up with tickets.  Unfortunately, as I received his message, I was invited to take a brochure from a campaign volunteer.  I made a mental note to write him after securing my tickets.  Knowing I needed to help my Karmic cause as much as possible, I accepted the innocuous propaganda, and prayed silently that it would somehow increase my chances of getting tickets.

Or better yet, getting the last two tickets.  Yes, I am that guy.  Its not enough to get tickets.  I also wanted the distinction of being LUCKY!  Since I couldn’t be FIRST in line, I figured the second best option would be to be last.  Alas, plenty of tickets were left.  Its 5:45 p.m.

5:46: I step up to the table, sign my name promising to show up at the appointed time or to give my tix to someone who would, and finally, I can think about responding to the last text message.

As I exalted in my victory, and repeated the new ritual of ribbing those still waiting in line, I felt the  adrenaline rush out of my body, much like that sensation moments after a big hit in a football game, or the few minutes after a wrestling match (freestyle, not WWE).  Knowing well those in line would get tickets, I felt justified in helping create a sense of tension they would enjoy after getting their tickets.  Tag, you’re it.  Pass it on.

6:00: A slight buzz is going through the waiting crowd of what must now be 400 people, wrapping out of the building, around the corner, up one city block, and around a second corner.  People who must be in the second concentric circle — or two degrees of separation from the insiders — have arrived, skipping dinners, dragging reluctant kids, toting briefcases and whatever they could carry as they raced from their cubicles to lap up whatever tickets their second-degree contacts would allow.

But I need to get back to my client meeting, because we have much to do and loads to lift.

7:00: As my client and I begin charting her path to increased contracts and greater brand recognition in the consulting community, I got a text message from my wife letting me know that they were about 30 people behind the last ticket recipients.

Two hours after the first ticket recipients arrived, in an absolute hush, the last ticket to an unpublicized event was gone.

EVEN FRESH NEWS STORIES ARE HISTORICAL FACT BY THE TIME THEY AIR

The citizens of Lynchburg returned to their coffee and breakfast sandwiches, knowing that if they weren’t within two degrees of separation of the insiders, they may as well have been on another planet.  Now, primed for one of the most significant news events in the area’s recent history, the real story is all but over.

If you’re not using today’s technology du jour, you will miss many opportunities.  Its pretty simple.  Nearly 1,000 tickets to a quickly-organized, ZERO promotion event were gone.  If you want to truly be connected to the most up-to-the-minute action in your community, keep your cell phone on, learn to text, or, of course, work for years to become an insider.  Otherwise, enjoy the news coverage.  Or as its also known, HISTORY.

Leadership: Its about what you leave behind

Tonight, near the very end of a great vacation, I dined on fresh green beans and the star of the show, stuffed shells in meat sauce.  It was sublime.  And it was prepared completely by a nine and eight year old.  My daughters reminded me, perhaps even taught me, about the power of a legacy.  They demonstrated the impact a powerful leader can have on the world, in microcosm.

How do I make the leap from stuffed shells to leadership?  In a word, my wife.  As I prepared my plate, I expected a plate of maudlin food that I would nonetheless rave about.  Instead, what I tasted was honest, delicious stuffed shells, flavored with delicate spices, perfectly mixed cheeses and rich sauce.  If I had tasted this blind in a restaurant, I would gladly pay money to enjoy the rest of the plateful.

MOTHER AS LEADER

But the journey to this point is the real story here.  Their mother, my wife, has not only lavished these girls — and me — with love, but she has taught them skills that will prepare them for self-sufficiency later in life.  If you had to boil down a leader’s job to one sentence, is that not it?  To teach those you work with to perform competently and flourish even in your absence?

In short, she has demonstrated, in our home, leadership skills that have helped her in several demanding corporate management positions.  Every day, she quietly imparts upon them wisdom she has gleaned from her mentors — parents, grandmothers, teachers, pastors — and from her own journey.  Today, I realized that she has done it all in a way that has motivated, even excited, our daughters to do it for themselves.

So, it quickly became clear to me.  My wife, while holding down a full-time job, serving as the family CFO and COO, and balancing my ridiculous schedule with our other priorities, has also done an astounding job of motivating, educating, creating inspired vision, and building a commitment to high quality.  And she did it with two pre-adolescent girls who have not even figured out what they want to do in the morning, much less with their lives.

A LOVING TEACHER MAKES A GREAT LEADER

I wish I could bottle the constant, gentle pressure she has applied every day for the past nine years.  That is the level of commitment it took for both of us to enjoy a gourmet meal this evening.  It would be rather inaccurate to say she didn’t help prepare it.  Instead, I submit that she has been preparing tonight’s meal since 1998, when our oldest was born.  The preparation has included daily lessons on life, personal values, faith, and a thousand other things we want them to know when they finally depart this house and stand on their own two feet.

And even their preparation has been preceded by many years that her mother and grandmothers poured into her.  And generations past flavored this meal by virtue of the legacies they passed on to their successors: our forefathers.

So you can understand that as I helped myself to seconds, I tasted family reunions past, vacations of years gone by, the love of mothers teaching their children in front of ancient stoves.  Pinches of love, pounds of compassion, mounds of caring, and an undying commitment to preserving the pride of generations succeeding on the shoulders of our predecessors.  That is what I tasted.

LEADERSHIP IS AN EVERY-DAY, ALL-DAY PURSUIT

So as leaders, we must take my wife’s example.  We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of expedience and convenience.  We cannot be insistent on quality today, while allowing mediocrity to persist tomorrow.  We must believe with confidence that what we are teaching, and insisting on from ourselves and our peers and colleagues is based on righteous values.  It’s our job to tirelessly coax maximum accountability out of others, while remembering that what we are really doing is two-fold.  First, we are honoring the legacy that we inherited by giving our complete selves over to passing it on.  And second, we are living and teaching with the passion, values, motivations and commitment to quality needed to maintain and grow that legacy.

That is our job, and my wife taught an enormous life lesson to my kids, but she taught an even bigger one to me about leadership.

And so I close, ready to return to work from vacation, rested, sun-dried, and ready to recommit myself to growing the legacy I inherited both professionally and personally.  And that didn’t come from the beach or golf course, but from the woman who stands with me every day.  I am indeed blessed to have such a strong leader in my life.

Myrtle Beach: Home to sun, surf and sorry service

We’re at the beach right now, and have been since Sunday.  Its been a fantastic trip.  Golf, resort pools, semi-private beaches, great food, sun, sand, and mirth.  Ah, the mirth.

Oh, but the service!  Sweet baby Jesus (yes, the one with the halo, Will Ferrell fans).  Once you step off the resort grounds, the service drops off precipitously at the other attractions.  I don’t quite feel like they’re herding us like cattle, but they’re definitely not that interested in each individual’s experience.

I guess I should never read a book about hospitality before heading out to a southern-fried, mass-produced vacation haven.  But whether its the humidity, heat or six-hour golf round yesterday at Grande Dunes, I find myself infuriated, in a detached sort of way that doesn’t upset me much, at the apparent universal lack of attention to service.

THE BIRTH OF A CURMUDGEON?  OR A DISCERNING CUSTOMER?

From the golf course where the attendant whom I had just tipped couldn’t bring himself to help me find a lost cap. . . okay, it’s just a cap, but it was an important cap to me.  Why didn’t he give a rip?  You know, for the kind of money I spent, and the kind of service I had gotten in the pro shop and grill room, I expected more.  He wrote a crappy last chapter after his colleagues had all done a great job.

Yes, I am getting much more comfortable holding people accountable when they treat me like “just another customer.”  I am not saying I am always right, I am just saying I am most often a reasonable person asking for help.  In fact, I only really asked if I could borrow a cart to look for myself, but that would, evidently, have thrown the entire course into an uproar that he didn’t feel like sorting out.  So off I went without my cap.  Now here I am with the last word.  Sir, you should have taken a Mulligan!

And then there’s the waiter at dinner tonight.  The place, whose name rhymes with Chesapeake Grouse had that local flavor we wanted, great food, and several other great waiters across the room, but our guy?  Way too busy with his other guests to tend to our needs.

After he brought us drinks, we watched him seat a party of eight next to us, serve them and get them out of the restaurant before we even had our takeaway boxes on our table.  Not to mention, my tea glass stayed empty for at least half the meal.   Anyone who has dined with me knows it takes only a couple sips for me to empty a 16-ounce glass.  It takes most waiters or waitresses only minutes to realize I empty my glass really fast.  Most servers recognize this, even at Applebee’s, and I am most amused when they just bring me the pitcher.  Those are the folks who get the bonus tip: 25 percent.  But not this stevedore tonight.  He practically begged us to under-tip him, since he neither promised nor delivered prompt service.

ANOTHER BAD MOVIE REFERENCE

I admit, his situation was worsened because the hostess seated us in the corner, and everyone knows (help me out Dirty Dancing fans), no one puts Baby in the corner.  It is for you to decide which of this gang of four is Baby.  But suffice it to say, we were deprived of the prime view of the muddiest pond of stenchy water in the state.  I think I saw gators running out of the water looking for better digs.  What you really need to know about this is that it practically ruined dinner, until Baby realized . . . well, he or she was being a baby.

So it is, then, that I send this snarky post from the hinterlands.  I am off to soothe my wounded spirit with a visit to our playground, the beaches of the great Atlantic Ocean.  Actually, I am just going to the rocking chairs on the observation deck overlooking the zero-horizon pool, full of Marriott’s evidently-famous crystal clear special water.  But at least I know that pool is surrounded by people who understand that good service matters, and that their customers are not just looking for a meal, or a room, or a dunk in the pool, but for an experience that compels them to come back.

We didn’t buy a timeshare, but we did figure out that companies like Marriott have caused us to desire, expect, and seek out a certain level of service.  And its ever-more glaring when its absent.

I think I am entering my curmudgeon years.  Stay tuned, it could be fun.  Now where’s that sweet tea I ordered?

Writing great last chapters

Danny Meyer really gets it.  This is the last chapter in this week-long series on my new favorite business text, Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table.  See my July 28 post for details on the book.

Do you ever let “perfect” get in the way of very good?  Have you ever had a client or customer walk away from an experience with a bad taste in his or her mouth?  Or more likely, have you ever been on the short end of a customer transaction in which you were slighted?

Meyer and his teams practice what he brilliantly calls “writing great last chapters.”  The beauty of this idea is that it does not avoid, but embraces mistakes.  It is not foolishly naive.  It does not promote committing mistakes so you can look like a hero when you clean them up.

Instead, Meyer masterfully uses mistakes as opportunities to leave customers with a lasting last impression that is most likely to bring them back and make them loyal customers.

“Are you in it for keeps?  It’s almost always worth bearing a higher short-term cost if you want to win in the long run. . .  Generosity of spirit and a gracious approach to problem-solving are, with few exceptions, the most effective way I know to earn lasting goodwill for your business.”

So sayeth Danny Meyer, so sayeth the flock.

When you or your business comes up short — and you have to become much more critical of your performance to be sensitized to customer’s subtle body language or to be able to handle their outright criticism — use it as an opportunity to go to great lengths to let your true spirit shine through.

Meyer says to train your staff to be agents of your client, rather than gatekeepers for your business.  Look for solutions, not excuses.   Find ways to say yes, instead of apologetically saying no.

If you’ve already reached that point I wrote about last time out, where you decide to commit to your business, this should be straightforward.  In fact, it’s something of a gut check.

I don’t agree with, or fully get all of Meyer’s points.  For instance, it seems parsing your desired employee profile along a 51/49 fissure, skewed two percent toward empathy and emotional intelligence over skills, is difficult to quantify.  It almost seems gimmicky.  I agree that more empathy is important and that skills are easier to teach than interpersonal skills, but his ideas like trailing as part of his hiring process, is probably more effective than seeking 51 percent empathy scores.

However, for all the business books I have read, and all the service seminars I have attended, his philosophy perfectly suits my sensibilities and those needed for my work.

I appreciate that his ideals are steeped in good old-fashioned intuition and honed to a fine point by real-world experience and just-right mentoring along the way.

At the end of the day, you need to read the book for yourself and draw your own conclusions.  I hope this has been a worthy last chapter, even though its not borne of a mistake or customer service guffaw, but as I prepare to train a new employee in the coming months, you better believe I am going to teach them the importance of writing great last chapters.