Unavailing Logic

  If you attend church, you may recognize the title of this post as lyrics from a Hillsong Christian worship song. Don't worry, I'm not turning this into a religious blog, but my faith is a part of who I am and has contributed to my belief structure and attitude. What you may not know is that I am a bassist and I volunteer regularly on my church's worship team, so I've played this song dozens of times.  Recently, someone asked me the old question, "What do you do for a living?". I answered his question. I told him I worked as an IT Solutions Architect and was in a pre-sales role selling datacenter and security solutions to our clients. His response, "oh, you're in sales". No. Technically I'm "pre-sales". Then he says, "so you work on computers?". No, I create solutions for clients. As the conversation continued, I got this knot deep in the pit of my stomach because none of those things are what I really am. It's what I...

Tom Petty sang a song called, "The Waiting". In today's instant gratification society, waiting has become unacceptable. Everyone wants it now. No one wants to pay the price to get it. And many are jealous of the ones who have attained success.  [Chorus] The waiting is the hardest part Every day you get one more yard You take it on faith, you take it to the heart The waiting is the hardest part F rom the age of 10, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I loved computers and technology. My dad owned a business, and when I was 15, I began working for him. I installed the company’s first-ever computer. Eventually, I built networks, taught myself desktop publishing, and learned the printing business so I could produce all of the company’s marketing materials. I also learned what it was like to run a business. During the summers when I wasn’t in school, I’d travel with my dad on sales calls. I was giving presentations to hundreds of people at 15 years old—dressed in a coat a...

  My Dad was a salesman. He could sell anything to anyone. But sales is a rough game. When times are good they are really good. But when times are bad, they are really bad. Dad constantly listened to motivational tapes (remember tapes?). One of his favorite motivational speakers was Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. Dr. Peale had a gravely voice and an excellent understanding of how to use his powerful voice to convey a message. One of the things Dr. Peale preached was "Positive Mental Attitude" or what he abbreviated as "PMA". My Dad adopted this mindset, and constantly reminded me that my attitude dictated my altitude. That whatever I thought, that's what I would become.  Recently I was informed that my job was being eliminated and as I type this, I am jobless. It's scary. Sure, I have some money set back, but it won't last long and starting all over again is a tough pill to swallow. I have a kid in college. I have a wife. A house. Cars. You get the picture. B...

Several years ago I was called to my bosses office and given an ultimatum. Fire one of my direct reports, or be accountable for their actions. If you've been in a leadership role before, you may have encountered a situation where it's "them or me" and you had to make a tough decision. But as a servant leader, part of your job is to lay yourself on the line for your team, and that's exactly what I did. In this particular case, it wasn't a matter of the individual not doing their job, it was the manner in which they were treating those they interacted with. Ultimately the fix was easy. A simple heart to heart chat to make the individual aware of their actions and discover the source. That individual continued to work for the organization and is still there long after I moved on. Who determines if an employee is underperforming? The customer? Leadership? Peers? The answer is clear, it should be the team leader. If goals, objectives, roles, and responsibilities ar...

Robert K. Greenleaf is credited as the father of Servant Leadership. While Greenleaf certainly brought the concept of servant leadership to the forefront with his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader , he did not create the concept of servant leadership. There have been several historically significant servant leaders over the years. Two that come to mind are Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. To understand what made them servant leaders, let's take a look at the traits of a servant leader: Listening Empathy Healing Awareness Persuasion Conceptualization Foresight Stewardship Commitment to the growth of people Building community If you have even a modest knowledge of history, you can see how the two men were servant leaders. While this blog does not have a religious focus, my Christian faith is built on servant leadership. Jesus was the epitome of a servant leader. So concerned with the well being of others that he allowed himself to be crucified for them. I suspect some of yo...

It's a new year, a new decade, and I'm sure many people are making those annual resolutions to better themselves in one way or another. Why people wait until a new year to make these changes has always been a bit of a mystery to me. We all have shortcomings. We all fail from time to time. We all experience seasons in our lives where things aren't going the way we would like them to go. Why wait to change these things? One of the things I adopted years ago was a continuous improvement strategy. I'm always looking for ways to better myself. Improvement comes in may forms. It may be in the form of education, health, wealth, career advancement, or helping others (which is HIGHLY beneficial both people). So what drives my desire to be a better person? What makes me want to be successful in all that I do? That's easy....fear. Now...it's not the sort of fear you're thinking of. It's not like a fear of heights, or a fear of the dark, or a fear of being hurt. N...

If you have read my other blog posts, you know that I'm a huge proponent of servant leadership. The days of top down authoritative leadership are quickly becoming bygone. We live in the information age, where knowledge of anything is a few clicks away. I remember back in 1987 when I started my IT career there was two ways of learning new technology. You either read a book about 3" thick and memorized as much of it as you could (keeping it on a shelf for reference), or you installed the hardware or software and figured things out through trial and error. This was in the days before everything was GUI driven. You got a blinking prompt, and you had to know what to type. The beauty thing is, nearly every operating system performed similarly, so you simply had to look up the equivalent command from an OS you were familiar with. Logic skills were paramount. Tenacity, patience, and a strong desire to succeed were mandatory traits. There were many times I worked on something for...

I've worked as an IT professional since 1987. I was 15 years old when I received my first paycheck for technology work. My goal was always to continue running the family business my father had started. My brother worked in the company as well. It was what was expected, but not what I wanted. Technology was my passion. I'd had a computer in my bedroom since 1982. I learned to build peripherals from schematics as a 12yo. After I graduated college, I went into the family business to do what was expected of me. Through a very unfortunate turn of events, my father passed away in 1995 and the company fell on hardship. My brother was running things, and he had a conversation with me that I never thought I'd hear. "We can't afford to pay you bud". I'll never forget those words. The career I'd prepared for since I started to walk and talk, the family business, my Dad's company...was letting me go. How does this happen? Where would I work? What would I...