John Baldoni, Harvard Business Review; Tips for Making Small Talk With Bigwigs:
"One of the things that can befuddle managers, even experienced ones, is how to make small talk with the big boss.
When you are talking about someone who has authority over you, be it your boss's boss or the CEO, the word "small" becomes relative. Anything involving a boss can have a big impact. Conversation with a superior can be fraught with peril but it can also be a great opportunity. Peril comes from the fear of saying the wrong thing; opportunity arises because you can reveal a new dimension of yourself to other.
You can increase the odds of success if you prepare. Yes, actually plan out what you will say to the senior manager. This works well if you know that the CEO is coming to visit your department or if you have the opportunity chat with him at an all-employee gathering. So here's what you can do.
Do your homework. Learn the issues the senior team is focused on. Ideally everyone in the company should know the strategic priorities. Bone up on these so you know them, too. Think in advance what you will say to a senior person if you meet her in person. Work out a key message about your projects, your career and yourself. This is good practice whether you meet a senior person or not. Finally, if it's a more social meeting, you might try to learn of a boss's personal interests — hobbies, sports he or she likes, or their volunteer activities.
Be yourself. When you are introduced to the senior leader, make eye contact as you shake hands. Smile and act relaxed. Feel free to ask questions about what's going on in the company. If appropriate, talk about what you are working on. This is your opportunity to use your messages. Strive to be brief and to the point.
Read the situation. Keep speaking if the boss is interested; if not, thank the person for his time and move on, even when you didn't get the opportunity to use your key messages. In some ways your sense of decorum is more important than what you say. Rattling on when no one is interested marks you as lacking in self-awareness; knowing when to end the conversation says much about your ability to read the situation.
Such preparation is good when you know in advance you may meet a senior executive or a member of the board, but what about accidental encounters, say at the airport, a social gathering, or even a sporting event? The good news is that what works for prepared encounters works for impromptu ones. Just assume that someday soon you will run into a senior person and prepare for it as you would for a more predictable encounter. And that preparation will pay off in other contexts too, such as during team meetings or conversations with clients.
That's why you should practice your key messages from time to time, say on your drive to work. You can even practice by recording them on your mobile phone, just to see how you sound. The exercise will give you confidence that you have what it takes to have a clear and coherent conversation with people in power.
One of my favorite stories about Winston Churchill, taken from Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, is an encounter he had with a young New Zealand airman during the Second World War. The airman had crawled out of the cockpit of a bomber with an engine on fire and extinguished the flames. When Churchill met the young man he noted the lad's nervousness. "You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," Churchill said. When the man said he was, Churchill replied, "Then you can imagine how awkward and humble I feel in yours."
Never forget that senior leaders are people first; executives second. Never forget your own personal abilities. And never forget that making small talk can have a big impact on your career."
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/tips_for_making_small_talk_wit.html
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Debra L. Lee, chairwoman and chief executive of BET Networks; New York Times, 3/28/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Debra L. Lee, chairwoman and chief executive of BET Networks: Sometimes, You Have to Say ‘My,’ Not ‘Our’:
"Q. What were some key leadership lessons for you?
A. One occurred when I was appointed chief operating officer at BET. Before that, I was general counsel, and over time I had taken on more and more business projects.
When I was promoted to the new role it was assumed that I was picked as the successor to Bob Johnson, our founder. It was a good training ground.
But when Bob left and I became C.E.O., I had to learn different skills, and I had to become the leader of the company. I had to decide what my vision was, what I’m passionate about, and how I motivate my executive team to help me carry out my vision and my goals. For me, it was tough for a while to even say “my.”
Q. Why?
A. I’m a consensus builder and I like having my executives on the same page and I like motivating them in that way — let’s talk about it, let’s all agree on it.
But I found very quickly that as C.E.O. I couldn’t do that anymore. I really had to be the individual who took charge and was clear about what my vision was, was clear about what my passions were, so that I could believe in what we were doing. Then I could pass that on to the executives, but still be open to their needs and desires and what they wanted to accomplish. But as the leader of the company, it had to be about where I wanted to take this company, and it took me a few years to get used to that...
Q. Looking back, it sounds like it was a big leap to go from general counsel to C.O.O.
A. As general counsel, you’re taught research, research, find out every case, find out every opinion, think about it. It’s almost like you’re a judge.
So when I went from being general counsel to C.O.O., that’s the way I first approached it. I’d go into senior staff meetings and I’d listen to advertising and sales folks, I’d listen to the programmers, I’d listen to everyone. And then my job was to go away, think about it and make a decision. Well, that doesn’t work. By that time, they’re all going off in five different directions.
I had to learn to make decisions quicker on the spot and follow my gut. You’re not going to have all the information. You’re not going to be able to run the numbers and come up with the perfect answers.
Q. You went from being part of a team of executives to managing that team.
A. Yes, these are your friends, and all of a sudden they’re reporting to you. Early on, I was not decisive enough and I was not clear in my instructions. People saw that as a sign of weakness and an ability to keep doing what they wanted to do — “You didn’t tell me I couldn’t do that; this is the way I’ve always done it.”
So I found over time I had to be more precise and give more directions. It was no longer, “Hey, we’re friends and we’re all in this together.” It’s, “I’m the one making the decisions about your salary and your promotion and your future and whether you’re going to a make it here.” And that’s a much different relationship than when you’re someone’s peer.
There was also an expectation that I didn’t know enough about their departments in order to manage them. They knew I had a learning curve, so they could withhold that information and still be able to do what they wanted to do until I got up to speed and understood where I needed to change things. So there’s a little gamesmanship that went on for a while — “She doesn’t know anything about this.”
Q. So how did you deal with that?
A. I got more and more involved in what they did. That was painful at first for me and for them, and I studied the industry as a whole. I became friendly with other people in the industry, and found out how they did things. I’m on several corporate boards, so that was a great learning experience for me. I think that’s one of the things I enjoy most about being on other boards. You can see how things are done differently, and you can bring management techniques and other kinds of methods to your company.
I didn’t get an M.B.A. I got a master’s in public policy, which taught a little bit of management. But I think it’s more about experience. You have to really see how companies are run.
Theories help, but I think it’s really just seeing it in action — whether it’s your own company or whether it’s observing someone else’s company. It’s kind of an on-the-job learning experience. I don’t think you can get an M.B.A. and then be perfectly positioned to run a company. I think you have to grow up in that company. I think you have to learn all aspects of it.
You have to understand that management is a skill. It took me a while to understand that that’s really what I do from day to day, that management is really my job. You say you’re a C.E.O., but what do you do?
When I was general counsel, I could say I keep the company out of legal trouble. I knew exactly what my job was, but as C.O.O. and C.E.O., you’re really a manager and a leader, and those are things that you have to learn over time. You have to learn how you do it and how it works for you and what kind of people relate well to how you do it.
I talk about this a lot, and I talk to women’s groups about it. I think men and women manage differently, and I think women have to learn to be comfortable that their management style may be different from a man’s, and that’s O.K."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/business/28corners.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse
"Q. What were some key leadership lessons for you?
A. One occurred when I was appointed chief operating officer at BET. Before that, I was general counsel, and over time I had taken on more and more business projects.
When I was promoted to the new role it was assumed that I was picked as the successor to Bob Johnson, our founder. It was a good training ground.
But when Bob left and I became C.E.O., I had to learn different skills, and I had to become the leader of the company. I had to decide what my vision was, what I’m passionate about, and how I motivate my executive team to help me carry out my vision and my goals. For me, it was tough for a while to even say “my.”
Q. Why?
A. I’m a consensus builder and I like having my executives on the same page and I like motivating them in that way — let’s talk about it, let’s all agree on it.
But I found very quickly that as C.E.O. I couldn’t do that anymore. I really had to be the individual who took charge and was clear about what my vision was, was clear about what my passions were, so that I could believe in what we were doing. Then I could pass that on to the executives, but still be open to their needs and desires and what they wanted to accomplish. But as the leader of the company, it had to be about where I wanted to take this company, and it took me a few years to get used to that...
Q. Looking back, it sounds like it was a big leap to go from general counsel to C.O.O.
A. As general counsel, you’re taught research, research, find out every case, find out every opinion, think about it. It’s almost like you’re a judge.
So when I went from being general counsel to C.O.O., that’s the way I first approached it. I’d go into senior staff meetings and I’d listen to advertising and sales folks, I’d listen to the programmers, I’d listen to everyone. And then my job was to go away, think about it and make a decision. Well, that doesn’t work. By that time, they’re all going off in five different directions.
I had to learn to make decisions quicker on the spot and follow my gut. You’re not going to have all the information. You’re not going to be able to run the numbers and come up with the perfect answers.
Q. You went from being part of a team of executives to managing that team.
A. Yes, these are your friends, and all of a sudden they’re reporting to you. Early on, I was not decisive enough and I was not clear in my instructions. People saw that as a sign of weakness and an ability to keep doing what they wanted to do — “You didn’t tell me I couldn’t do that; this is the way I’ve always done it.”
So I found over time I had to be more precise and give more directions. It was no longer, “Hey, we’re friends and we’re all in this together.” It’s, “I’m the one making the decisions about your salary and your promotion and your future and whether you’re going to a make it here.” And that’s a much different relationship than when you’re someone’s peer.
There was also an expectation that I didn’t know enough about their departments in order to manage them. They knew I had a learning curve, so they could withhold that information and still be able to do what they wanted to do until I got up to speed and understood where I needed to change things. So there’s a little gamesmanship that went on for a while — “She doesn’t know anything about this.”
Q. So how did you deal with that?
A. I got more and more involved in what they did. That was painful at first for me and for them, and I studied the industry as a whole. I became friendly with other people in the industry, and found out how they did things. I’m on several corporate boards, so that was a great learning experience for me. I think that’s one of the things I enjoy most about being on other boards. You can see how things are done differently, and you can bring management techniques and other kinds of methods to your company.
I didn’t get an M.B.A. I got a master’s in public policy, which taught a little bit of management. But I think it’s more about experience. You have to really see how companies are run.
Theories help, but I think it’s really just seeing it in action — whether it’s your own company or whether it’s observing someone else’s company. It’s kind of an on-the-job learning experience. I don’t think you can get an M.B.A. and then be perfectly positioned to run a company. I think you have to grow up in that company. I think you have to learn all aspects of it.
You have to understand that management is a skill. It took me a while to understand that that’s really what I do from day to day, that management is really my job. You say you’re a C.E.O., but what do you do?
When I was general counsel, I could say I keep the company out of legal trouble. I knew exactly what my job was, but as C.O.O. and C.E.O., you’re really a manager and a leader, and those are things that you have to learn over time. You have to learn how you do it and how it works for you and what kind of people relate well to how you do it.
I talk about this a lot, and I talk to women’s groups about it. I think men and women manage differently, and I think women have to learn to be comfortable that their management style may be different from a man’s, and that’s O.K."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/business/28corners.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse
A Library That Most Can Only Dream Of; New York Times, 3/28/10
Audrey Kaminer, New York Times; A Library That Most Can Only Dream Of:
"You, over there, mouthing off about the death of print. Keep it down; this is a library. Not just any library: This is Battery Park City’s public library branch, the city’s newest, greenest one yet, and it’s quite a sight to behold.
To the left as you enter is an ecologically correct circulation desk made — though you’d never know it — from recycled cardboard, and topped with a bouquet of fresh tulips. Should you find a crowd, try the sleek self-service stations a couple of steps away. Some of the library’s 36 Internet-connected computers lie just around the bend. Overhead, a jigsaw puzzle of scalene triangles zigs and zags along the ceiling.
Follow it back past the entrance to the children’s zone, a playful arrangement of orange beanbag chairs, orange screen savers and an orange mat that curves up under the terrazzo staircase (made of recycled glass chips, of course) to create a lounging nook that feels like the inside of a conch shell.
Instead of the comforting mustiness of older libraries, the whole space is filled with oxygen and light, streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows and bouncing off the blond wood floors (made from lumber salvaged during the manufacturing of window frames, thank you). “They wanted as much as possible for this branch to be a showcase for how pleasant and how interesting a branch can be,” said Tim Furzer, who oversaw the project for the firm 1100 Architect. It worked.
Atop those sculptural stairs, in an area carpeted with a material made from repurposed truck tires, visitors can peruse magazines and newspapers, use the restroom (at my neighborhood library, it’s off limits to adults) or just relax as the sound of young laughter floats up from below. Gaze out at the landscaped terrace and, beyond, the Hudson River.
The existence of this beautiful 10,000-square-foot library, which opened on March 18, prompts so many questions: How could such state-of-the-art technologies be marshaled in service of the old-fashioned act of book reading? How could such fancy design be affordable in an era of wrenching budget crises? And in choosing where to build the coolest, greenest new branch around, why pick Battery Park City, a neighborhood already so blessed with amenities?
Conversations about this branch date back at least a decade, when local residents started contacting elected officials and library representatives, noting how the area’s population had grown. Good community organizing, a well-connected population and responsive officials were, however, only part of the equation.
The library’s journey from wish to reality involved an additional element — the mere mention of which makes a certain kind of conspiracy theorist tingle, like a villain emerging from a cloud of white smoke and twirling his moustache: Goldman Sachs.
That’s right, Goldman Sachs, the investment bank variously regarded as the true genius of the financial world and “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money,” as Matt Taibbi wrote last year in Rolling Stone. When Goldman announced its move to Battery Park City in 1995, it donated $1 million to a community center and $3.5 million to the library branch. Welcome to the neighborhood.
The location, at 175 North End Avenue, was donated by the Battery Park City Authority. City and state kicked in the rest of what eventually grew to a $6.7 million construction budget.
“You couldn’t ask for anything better,” said Billy Parrott, the library manager. “It’s just perfect. Everything’s easy to get to, easy to use.” Within days of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, children — such a presence in Battery Park City that they make Park Slope, Brooklyn, look like a retirement village — have already made the place their own."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28critic.html?scp=1&sq=battery%20park%20library&st=cse
"You, over there, mouthing off about the death of print. Keep it down; this is a library. Not just any library: This is Battery Park City’s public library branch, the city’s newest, greenest one yet, and it’s quite a sight to behold.
To the left as you enter is an ecologically correct circulation desk made — though you’d never know it — from recycled cardboard, and topped with a bouquet of fresh tulips. Should you find a crowd, try the sleek self-service stations a couple of steps away. Some of the library’s 36 Internet-connected computers lie just around the bend. Overhead, a jigsaw puzzle of scalene triangles zigs and zags along the ceiling.
Follow it back past the entrance to the children’s zone, a playful arrangement of orange beanbag chairs, orange screen savers and an orange mat that curves up under the terrazzo staircase (made of recycled glass chips, of course) to create a lounging nook that feels like the inside of a conch shell.
Instead of the comforting mustiness of older libraries, the whole space is filled with oxygen and light, streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows and bouncing off the blond wood floors (made from lumber salvaged during the manufacturing of window frames, thank you). “They wanted as much as possible for this branch to be a showcase for how pleasant and how interesting a branch can be,” said Tim Furzer, who oversaw the project for the firm 1100 Architect. It worked.
Atop those sculptural stairs, in an area carpeted with a material made from repurposed truck tires, visitors can peruse magazines and newspapers, use the restroom (at my neighborhood library, it’s off limits to adults) or just relax as the sound of young laughter floats up from below. Gaze out at the landscaped terrace and, beyond, the Hudson River.
The existence of this beautiful 10,000-square-foot library, which opened on March 18, prompts so many questions: How could such state-of-the-art technologies be marshaled in service of the old-fashioned act of book reading? How could such fancy design be affordable in an era of wrenching budget crises? And in choosing where to build the coolest, greenest new branch around, why pick Battery Park City, a neighborhood already so blessed with amenities?
Conversations about this branch date back at least a decade, when local residents started contacting elected officials and library representatives, noting how the area’s population had grown. Good community organizing, a well-connected population and responsive officials were, however, only part of the equation.
The library’s journey from wish to reality involved an additional element — the mere mention of which makes a certain kind of conspiracy theorist tingle, like a villain emerging from a cloud of white smoke and twirling his moustache: Goldman Sachs.
That’s right, Goldman Sachs, the investment bank variously regarded as the true genius of the financial world and “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money,” as Matt Taibbi wrote last year in Rolling Stone. When Goldman announced its move to Battery Park City in 1995, it donated $1 million to a community center and $3.5 million to the library branch. Welcome to the neighborhood.
The location, at 175 North End Avenue, was donated by the Battery Park City Authority. City and state kicked in the rest of what eventually grew to a $6.7 million construction budget.
“You couldn’t ask for anything better,” said Billy Parrott, the library manager. “It’s just perfect. Everything’s easy to get to, easy to use.” Within days of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, children — such a presence in Battery Park City that they make Park Slope, Brooklyn, look like a retirement village — have already made the place their own."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/nyregion/28critic.html?scp=1&sq=battery%20park%20library&st=cse
Friday, March 26, 2010
Male Professors Face Their Own Challenges in Balancing Work and Home; Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/21/10
Peter Schmidt, Chronicle of Higher Education; Male Professors Face Their Own Challenges in Balancing Work and Home:
"A fair amount has been written about efforts by women on college faculties to balance the demands of academe and home, but little scholarly attention has been paid to how male faculty members deal with such concerns.
Maike Ingrid Philipsen, a professor of education at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the 2008 book Challenges of the Faculty Career for Women (Jossey-Bass), recently teamed up with Timothy P. Bostic, a research scientist at Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education, to try to close this gender gap. In doing the research for Helping Faculty Find Work-Life Balance: The Path Toward Life-Friendly Institutions, to be published by Jossey-Bass in the fall, they interviewed 41 male professors, who were at various stages of their careers. The professors came from a community college, a flagship university, a historically black college, a comprehensive public university, and a small, private university focused on the liberal arts.
Mr. Bostic and Ms. Philipsen shared what they had learned with The Chronicle in an e-mail interview:..."
http://chronicle.com/article/Male-Professors-Face-Their-Own/64763/
"A fair amount has been written about efforts by women on college faculties to balance the demands of academe and home, but little scholarly attention has been paid to how male faculty members deal with such concerns.
Maike Ingrid Philipsen, a professor of education at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the 2008 book Challenges of the Faculty Career for Women (Jossey-Bass), recently teamed up with Timothy P. Bostic, a research scientist at Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education, to try to close this gender gap. In doing the research for Helping Faculty Find Work-Life Balance: The Path Toward Life-Friendly Institutions, to be published by Jossey-Bass in the fall, they interviewed 41 male professors, who were at various stages of their careers. The professors came from a community college, a flagship university, a historically black college, a comprehensive public university, and a small, private university focused on the liberal arts.
Mr. Bostic and Ms. Philipsen shared what they had learned with The Chronicle in an e-mail interview:..."
http://chronicle.com/article/Male-Professors-Face-Their-Own/64763/
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Guy Kawasaki, a co-founder of Alltop, a news aggregation site; New York Times, 3/21/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Guy Kawasaki, a co-founder of Alltop, a news aggregation site, and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures: Just Give Him 5 Sentences, Not ‘War and Peace’:
"Q. So how did the transition into management go?
A. When I was getting my education, I fell in love with the writings of Peter Drucker. He was my hero. I had a naïve belief that when I became a manager, it was going to be like Peter Drucker’s books. That is, I was going to be the effective executive. I was going to talk to people about their goals. I was going to help them actualize.
My thinking was: I’m a natural leader, so I’m going to study what’s hard and mathematical like finance and operations research, not the touchy-feely stuff that would be easy.
When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people. The warm, fuzzy stuff is hard. The quantitative stuff is easy — you either don’t do much of this as a manager or you have people working for you to do it.
Maybe it was just my education, but much of education is backwards. You study all the hard stuff, and then you find out in the real world that you don’t use it. As long as you can use an HP 12 calculator or a spreadsheet, you have the finance knowledge that you need for most management positions. I should have taken organizational behavior and social psychology — and maybe abnormal psychology, come to think of it.
Q. So how did you learn to do it?
A. First, over time, you develop some knowledge and expertise in managing and leading — in many cases because you’re forced to.
Second, you learn to put in a cushion between you and the front line. You should hire people who are better at doing things than you are. So, in my case, I was not the warm-and-fuzzy manager, so I tried to hire people who reported to me who were warm-and-fuzzy types to provide a buffer. If you can’t do it, you should find somebody who can...
Q. So how do you create a sense of mission in a company?
A. The foundation is the desire to make meaning in the world — to make the world a better place. We believed in the Mac division that we were making the world a better place by making people more creative and productive. Google, at its core, probably believes it’s making the world a better place by democratizing information. So it starts from this core of how you make meaning, which translates into some kind of physical product or service that actually delivers...
Q. Other thoughts on hiring?
A. A major issue is with how interviews are conducted. There’s a body of research that says you should conduct first- and second-round interviews by phone, not in person.
This is because when you interview in person, many variables come into play that have nothing to do with competence. So is the person good-looking or not? Is the person dressed appropriately or not? Lots of factors can sidetrack you. There should also be a checklist of questions that you ask every candidate on the phone instead.
Another issue is that most people believe they are good interviewers, and that they are good judges of character. They’re wrong. That’s why you see clones of the boss in some companies: everybody is white, tall and from an East Coast private school."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/business/21corner.html?sq=kawasaki%20corner%20office&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1269194581-EdksMHmKIqAm9fh+DyIBuQ
"Q. So how did the transition into management go?
A. When I was getting my education, I fell in love with the writings of Peter Drucker. He was my hero. I had a naïve belief that when I became a manager, it was going to be like Peter Drucker’s books. That is, I was going to be the effective executive. I was going to talk to people about their goals. I was going to help them actualize.
My thinking was: I’m a natural leader, so I’m going to study what’s hard and mathematical like finance and operations research, not the touchy-feely stuff that would be easy.
When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people. The warm, fuzzy stuff is hard. The quantitative stuff is easy — you either don’t do much of this as a manager or you have people working for you to do it.
Maybe it was just my education, but much of education is backwards. You study all the hard stuff, and then you find out in the real world that you don’t use it. As long as you can use an HP 12 calculator or a spreadsheet, you have the finance knowledge that you need for most management positions. I should have taken organizational behavior and social psychology — and maybe abnormal psychology, come to think of it.
Q. So how did you learn to do it?
A. First, over time, you develop some knowledge and expertise in managing and leading — in many cases because you’re forced to.
Second, you learn to put in a cushion between you and the front line. You should hire people who are better at doing things than you are. So, in my case, I was not the warm-and-fuzzy manager, so I tried to hire people who reported to me who were warm-and-fuzzy types to provide a buffer. If you can’t do it, you should find somebody who can...
Q. So how do you create a sense of mission in a company?
A. The foundation is the desire to make meaning in the world — to make the world a better place. We believed in the Mac division that we were making the world a better place by making people more creative and productive. Google, at its core, probably believes it’s making the world a better place by democratizing information. So it starts from this core of how you make meaning, which translates into some kind of physical product or service that actually delivers...
Q. Other thoughts on hiring?
A. A major issue is with how interviews are conducted. There’s a body of research that says you should conduct first- and second-round interviews by phone, not in person.
This is because when you interview in person, many variables come into play that have nothing to do with competence. So is the person good-looking or not? Is the person dressed appropriately or not? Lots of factors can sidetrack you. There should also be a checklist of questions that you ask every candidate on the phone instead.
Another issue is that most people believe they are good interviewers, and that they are good judges of character. They’re wrong. That’s why you see clones of the boss in some companies: everybody is white, tall and from an East Coast private school."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/business/21corner.html?sq=kawasaki%20corner%20office&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1269194581-EdksMHmKIqAm9fh+DyIBuQ
Thursday, March 18, 2010
[Book Review] How Librarians Can Save The World; NPR, 3/5/10
NPR; [Book Review] How Librarians Can Save The World:
"Say the word "librarian," and most people conjure up a frumpy, bespectacled woman shushing people — Marion the Librarian. The image is outdated, Marilyn Johnson argues in her impassioned celebration of librarians and archivists, cleverly titled This Book Is Overdue. Johnson is a former magazine editor and the author of The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries — another wittily titled appreciation of another underappreciated art. She is no stranger to research — and just how helpful a good librarian can be in navigating the overwhelming, "madly multiplying beast of exploding information."
Time was you went to the library to borrow a book or research a term paper. Now, people visit libraries to use the Internet, search job openings, attend readings. They are as likely to borrow DVDs as books. Librarians today continue to organize and manage mountains of information — both its storage and the public's access to it. But they do so, increasingly, with degrees in "information science" (as opposed to library science), incorporating new technology and proving that there's "room in libraries for both books and bytes."
To profile "a profession in the midst of an occasionally mind-blowing transition," Johnson favors quirky stories about cyber-missionaries or tattooed librarians over the day-to-day operations of community libraries and issues of budget constraints. She finds that a group defined by discretion and helpfulness in person is often "clamorous" online, where hip librarians in the burgeoning "biblioblogosphere" blog under handles that include Info Babe, Miss Information and Swiss Army Library. They complain, among other things, about "signs we never thought we'd need to make," including rules prohibiting taking the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue into restrooms.
Johnson also gets pulled into the odd, virtual world of Second Life — too deeply, for our taste — where librarians create avatars and invent scores of virtual libraries, which she suggests isn't just an amusing diversion, but may be a sort of "research-and-development department for the profession."
A more stirring chapter tells of the Connecticut Four, librarians who courageously defended "our right to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures" by standing up to the FBI and the Patriot Act, with the help of the ACLU. Libraries, they tell her, are "where people can make up their minds about controversial issues. It has to be private."
If librarians are finders, archivists are keepers. Johnson addresses questions of what's worth saving — she seems to feel that everything is — and, as crucial, how to avoid "the looming nightmare of lost digital data." Do we really need librarians when we can just do a Google search ourselves? Oh yes, Johnson writes, citing multiple examples of librarians who "could wring things out of Google" that ordinary mortals can't begin to find. Her book offers a compelling case that even — or especially — in these tough times, librarians are "invaluable and indispensable" and "a terrible thing to waste." An overdue tribute, indeed."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124316231
"Say the word "librarian," and most people conjure up a frumpy, bespectacled woman shushing people — Marion the Librarian. The image is outdated, Marilyn Johnson argues in her impassioned celebration of librarians and archivists, cleverly titled This Book Is Overdue. Johnson is a former magazine editor and the author of The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries — another wittily titled appreciation of another underappreciated art. She is no stranger to research — and just how helpful a good librarian can be in navigating the overwhelming, "madly multiplying beast of exploding information."
Time was you went to the library to borrow a book or research a term paper. Now, people visit libraries to use the Internet, search job openings, attend readings. They are as likely to borrow DVDs as books. Librarians today continue to organize and manage mountains of information — both its storage and the public's access to it. But they do so, increasingly, with degrees in "information science" (as opposed to library science), incorporating new technology and proving that there's "room in libraries for both books and bytes."
To profile "a profession in the midst of an occasionally mind-blowing transition," Johnson favors quirky stories about cyber-missionaries or tattooed librarians over the day-to-day operations of community libraries and issues of budget constraints. She finds that a group defined by discretion and helpfulness in person is often "clamorous" online, where hip librarians in the burgeoning "biblioblogosphere" blog under handles that include Info Babe, Miss Information and Swiss Army Library. They complain, among other things, about "signs we never thought we'd need to make," including rules prohibiting taking the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue into restrooms.
Johnson also gets pulled into the odd, virtual world of Second Life — too deeply, for our taste — where librarians create avatars and invent scores of virtual libraries, which she suggests isn't just an amusing diversion, but may be a sort of "research-and-development department for the profession."
A more stirring chapter tells of the Connecticut Four, librarians who courageously defended "our right to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures" by standing up to the FBI and the Patriot Act, with the help of the ACLU. Libraries, they tell her, are "where people can make up their minds about controversial issues. It has to be private."
If librarians are finders, archivists are keepers. Johnson addresses questions of what's worth saving — she seems to feel that everything is — and, as crucial, how to avoid "the looming nightmare of lost digital data." Do we really need librarians when we can just do a Google search ourselves? Oh yes, Johnson writes, citing multiple examples of librarians who "could wring things out of Google" that ordinary mortals can't begin to find. Her book offers a compelling case that even — or especially — in these tough times, librarians are "invaluable and indispensable" and "a terrible thing to waste." An overdue tribute, indeed."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124316231
Last-minute cut in current year's budget; branches will be named tomorrow; Library Journal, 3/17/10
Lynn Blumenstein, Library Journal; Last-minute cut in current year's budget; branches will be named tomorrow:
"Faced with cutting $2 million from its budget within the last three months of the current fiscal year, the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC), NC, will lay off at least 140 employees, resulting in the closure of at least 12 out of 24 library locations, pending final library board approval.
While many libraries announce closures as an apparent act of brinksmanship, PLCMC, also known as Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, said that the timing of the cut means "it is no longer possible for the Library to defer lay-offs and location closings."It could get worse. For FY10-11, PLCMC was told to prepare for a huge "target reduction" of $17 million out of a $31 million budget, PLCMC spokesperson Cordelia Anderson told LJ, though she noted that such preliminary numbers are negotiable.
The library gets about 92% of its funding from Mecklenburg County. It was the 1995 Gale/LJ Library of the Year.
Meeting tomorrow
The library board will announce the specific branch closures after a March 18 meeting. They are to be determined by four factors, said Anderson—cost, usage, proximity to other branches, and size. [3/18 Update: the branches to close are Beatties Ford, Belmont, Carmel, CheckIt Outlet, Cornelius, Hickory Grove, Independence Regional, Mint Hill, Morrison Regional, Myers Park, Scaleybark, and Sugar Creek.]
The award-winning ImaginOn library, devoted to children and teen services, isn’t exempt, said Anderson. It is located one block away from the main library. There are 22 branches.
Layoffs, closures in April
Branches will close and staff will be laid off as of April 3, at 6 p.m. Leased facilities will shutter, as per individual lease agreement.
PLCMC will determine layoffs by its Reduction in Force policy. The criteria include job classification, job performance, and seniority. Decisions won’t be location-specific.
In addition to fewer locations, hours, and staff, patrons will be dealing with other budget impacts, including less frequent building maintenance, more limited technology resources, and longer wait times for books and other materials.
Speaking out
PLCMC has publicized ways for customers to voice their opinions and offer support, said Anderson. County commissioner contacts, a link on its home page to the ongoing budget process, and information on how to financially support PCMC are all part of its communication efforts.
Said Director Charles Brown, "The decision to cut library staff and close library locations was extremely difficult. We value the contributions of our exceptional library employees…. I’m heartbroken for what they face and for what we face as a community with the closure of almost 50% of our libraries…. These are difficult times. Charlotte Mecklenburg libraries haven’t seen such large-scale reductions since the Great Depression when it had to close its doors completely""
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6723200.html
"Faced with cutting $2 million from its budget within the last three months of the current fiscal year, the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC), NC, will lay off at least 140 employees, resulting in the closure of at least 12 out of 24 library locations, pending final library board approval.
While many libraries announce closures as an apparent act of brinksmanship, PLCMC, also known as Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, said that the timing of the cut means "it is no longer possible for the Library to defer lay-offs and location closings."It could get worse. For FY10-11, PLCMC was told to prepare for a huge "target reduction" of $17 million out of a $31 million budget, PLCMC spokesperson Cordelia Anderson told LJ, though she noted that such preliminary numbers are negotiable.
The library gets about 92% of its funding from Mecklenburg County. It was the 1995 Gale/LJ Library of the Year.
Meeting tomorrow
The library board will announce the specific branch closures after a March 18 meeting. They are to be determined by four factors, said Anderson—cost, usage, proximity to other branches, and size. [3/18 Update: the branches to close are Beatties Ford, Belmont, Carmel, CheckIt Outlet, Cornelius, Hickory Grove, Independence Regional, Mint Hill, Morrison Regional, Myers Park, Scaleybark, and Sugar Creek.]
The award-winning ImaginOn library, devoted to children and teen services, isn’t exempt, said Anderson. It is located one block away from the main library. There are 22 branches.
Layoffs, closures in April
Branches will close and staff will be laid off as of April 3, at 6 p.m. Leased facilities will shutter, as per individual lease agreement.
PLCMC will determine layoffs by its Reduction in Force policy. The criteria include job classification, job performance, and seniority. Decisions won’t be location-specific.
In addition to fewer locations, hours, and staff, patrons will be dealing with other budget impacts, including less frequent building maintenance, more limited technology resources, and longer wait times for books and other materials.
Speaking out
PLCMC has publicized ways for customers to voice their opinions and offer support, said Anderson. County commissioner contacts, a link on its home page to the ongoing budget process, and information on how to financially support PCMC are all part of its communication efforts.
Said Director Charles Brown, "The decision to cut library staff and close library locations was extremely difficult. We value the contributions of our exceptional library employees…. I’m heartbroken for what they face and for what we face as a community with the closure of almost 50% of our libraries…. These are difficult times. Charlotte Mecklenburg libraries haven’t seen such large-scale reductions since the Great Depression when it had to close its doors completely""
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6723200.html
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Help us shape the future of the Association!; American Library Association, 3/9/10
American Library Association; Help us shape the future of the Association! [The information below was sent as an email message.]:
Dear Colleague:
We would like to invite you to help shape the future of our Association.
ALA is currently in the process of developing a new strategic plan that will guide us for the next five years. At this point, we need your help to ensure that the plan represents the best thinking of all our members.
The planning process began over a year ago with a member survey. Since then, we have conducted an environmental scan, held meetings with elected leaders to develop draft goals and objectives, and solicited comments and suggestions from hundreds of ALA groups. Now, it is time to come back to you.
We are very much interested in your thoughts and comments, and will incorporate them in the plan as it goes to the ALA Executive Board and then to ALA Council for adoption this summer. Five years ago, over 2,500 groups and individual members submitted comments and helped shape the Ahead to 2010 plan. Now, we are asking you to help shape our 2015 plan.
To review the plan and comment, please visit http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/39dfg43753 and complete a brief questionnaire on the plan. Comments may be submitted through Friday, March 19th.
For more information on the 2015 and 2010 plans, including the environmental scan and member survey results, see http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/missionhistory/plan/2015/index.cfm
Thank you for your help as we plan for the future,
Camila Alire
President
Keith Michael Fiels
Executive Director
Dear Colleague:
We would like to invite you to help shape the future of our Association.
ALA is currently in the process of developing a new strategic plan that will guide us for the next five years. At this point, we need your help to ensure that the plan represents the best thinking of all our members.
The planning process began over a year ago with a member survey. Since then, we have conducted an environmental scan, held meetings with elected leaders to develop draft goals and objectives, and solicited comments and suggestions from hundreds of ALA groups. Now, it is time to come back to you.
We are very much interested in your thoughts and comments, and will incorporate them in the plan as it goes to the ALA Executive Board and then to ALA Council for adoption this summer. Five years ago, over 2,500 groups and individual members submitted comments and helped shape the Ahead to 2010 plan. Now, we are asking you to help shape our 2015 plan.
To review the plan and comment, please visit http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/39dfg43753 and complete a brief questionnaire on the plan. Comments may be submitted through Friday, March 19th.
For more information on the 2015 and 2010 plans, including the environmental scan and member survey results, see http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/missionhistory/plan/2015/index.cfm
Thank you for your help as we plan for the future,
Camila Alire
President
Keith Michael Fiels
Executive Director
The Container Store, What We Stand For, Our Foundation Principles (TM)
The Container Store, What We Stand For, Our Foundation Principles (TM):
"Not only was The Container Store built on great products, but it was structured around some very basic and fundamental values and business philosophies about treating employees, customers and vendors with respect and dignity - we call them our Foundation PrinciplesTM.
They were formalized in 1988, when we opened our Houston store (our first outside of Dallas). That store made us take a look at our business a little harder. From the day we opened the doors, we did three times more business than we had ever experienced at any of our other stores, which became quite overwhelming to our employees. We already had a 10-year-old company with strong values and culture; however, communicating this to an entire store of new employees, most who never had been exposed to our stores or our way of doing business, was quite a challenge.
Kip (Chairman & CEO) struggled with how to clearly communicate our culture so that all the employees in the Houston store would act and make decisions using the same set of values and knowledge as the employees in the rest of the company.
So Kip referred back to a file he had started many years ago called his “philosophy epistle file” where he’d put various anecdotes, musings and philosophical phrases that he admired. During his time in school, the things in the file were on a philosophical level and as he started college, they took more of a business slant. He chose many examples to communicate the message that no matter how big the company became, our guiding principles and values would stay the same and over the years these were condensed into our Foundation Principles™.
By understanding and supporting these principles and philosophical guidelines, we can all respond in unison to similar circumstances. In other words, we act as a unit, all working in the same direction toward the same goal. Retail is far, far too situational to attempt to achieve a concerted effort through inflexible rules and policies.
So, instead of using the typical phone-book-sized retail procedural manual to guide our decision making, we use these Foundation Principles™ to keep us on track, focused and fulfilled as employees. With this combination of values-driven business philosophies and a one-of-a-kind product selection, The Container Store’s goal is to become the best retail store in America."
http://standfor.containerstore.com/our-foundation-principles/
"Not only was The Container Store built on great products, but it was structured around some very basic and fundamental values and business philosophies about treating employees, customers and vendors with respect and dignity - we call them our Foundation PrinciplesTM.
They were formalized in 1988, when we opened our Houston store (our first outside of Dallas). That store made us take a look at our business a little harder. From the day we opened the doors, we did three times more business than we had ever experienced at any of our other stores, which became quite overwhelming to our employees. We already had a 10-year-old company with strong values and culture; however, communicating this to an entire store of new employees, most who never had been exposed to our stores or our way of doing business, was quite a challenge.
Kip (Chairman & CEO) struggled with how to clearly communicate our culture so that all the employees in the Houston store would act and make decisions using the same set of values and knowledge as the employees in the rest of the company.
So Kip referred back to a file he had started many years ago called his “philosophy epistle file” where he’d put various anecdotes, musings and philosophical phrases that he admired. During his time in school, the things in the file were on a philosophical level and as he started college, they took more of a business slant. He chose many examples to communicate the message that no matter how big the company became, our guiding principles and values would stay the same and over the years these were condensed into our Foundation Principles™.
By understanding and supporting these principles and philosophical guidelines, we can all respond in unison to similar circumstances. In other words, we act as a unit, all working in the same direction toward the same goal. Retail is far, far too situational to attempt to achieve a concerted effort through inflexible rules and policies.
So, instead of using the typical phone-book-sized retail procedural manual to guide our decision making, we use these Foundation Principles™ to keep us on track, focused and fulfilled as employees. With this combination of values-driven business philosophies and a one-of-a-kind product selection, The Container Store’s goal is to become the best retail store in America."
http://standfor.containerstore.com/our-foundation-principles/
Corner Office, Interview with Kip Tindell, chief executive of the Container Store; New York Times, 3/14/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Kip Tindell, chief executive of the Container Store: Three Good Hires? He’ll Pay More for One Who’s Great:
"Q. How do you hire for a senior position from the outside?
A. I’m going to ask a lot of sort of business philosophy questions. I’m going to try to make sure that you’re capable of understanding that business is not really a zero-sum game, even though a lot of people think it is. I’m going to make sure I like you personally, because I think that’s a good gauge. I’ve spent a lot of time teaching other managers to not be afraid to use that as a criterion.
Q. So what are the specific questions?
A. Well, it’s kind of a discussion more than questions. We’ll go into our heartfelt feeling about the type of business that we are. We believe that we’re trying to build sort of a mutually interdependent group of stakeholders made up of the employees, the customers, the vendors, the community — and all of those people are interdependent and balanced. So we’ll talk about that a lot and just see how they sort of react. Some people will think that sounds nutty or impossible. We’ll also work in a statement that communication and leadership are the same thing and see how they react to that.
Q. Is there anything unusual about the way you run meetings?
A. We’re big on what we call the whole-brain concept, which is simply trying to eliminate silos. So we probably have more people than we need in each meeting, and we don’t believe that’s unproductive. In fact, we think it creates a whole-brain awareness. We get a lot of innovation that way.
There’s a real belief in meetings on our part. They’re passionate. They’re long. They’re frequent. We get tired of being in meetings all the time. I know the whole world feels that way, but I actually think we’re at meetings more than just about any other business I can think of. I think it’s really good for us because of the communicative culture we have.
Also, probably 85 percent of our top leaders are women. I don’t want to get into a generalization here, but guess who tends to communicate the best? So I think there’s a natural tendency for more group communication here than there would be if 85 percent of our top leaders were men."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/business/14corners.html
"Q. How do you hire for a senior position from the outside?
A. I’m going to ask a lot of sort of business philosophy questions. I’m going to try to make sure that you’re capable of understanding that business is not really a zero-sum game, even though a lot of people think it is. I’m going to make sure I like you personally, because I think that’s a good gauge. I’ve spent a lot of time teaching other managers to not be afraid to use that as a criterion.
Q. So what are the specific questions?
A. Well, it’s kind of a discussion more than questions. We’ll go into our heartfelt feeling about the type of business that we are. We believe that we’re trying to build sort of a mutually interdependent group of stakeholders made up of the employees, the customers, the vendors, the community — and all of those people are interdependent and balanced. So we’ll talk about that a lot and just see how they sort of react. Some people will think that sounds nutty or impossible. We’ll also work in a statement that communication and leadership are the same thing and see how they react to that.
Q. Is there anything unusual about the way you run meetings?
A. We’re big on what we call the whole-brain concept, which is simply trying to eliminate silos. So we probably have more people than we need in each meeting, and we don’t believe that’s unproductive. In fact, we think it creates a whole-brain awareness. We get a lot of innovation that way.
There’s a real belief in meetings on our part. They’re passionate. They’re long. They’re frequent. We get tired of being in meetings all the time. I know the whole world feels that way, but I actually think we’re at meetings more than just about any other business I can think of. I think it’s really good for us because of the communicative culture we have.
Also, probably 85 percent of our top leaders are women. I don’t want to get into a generalization here, but guess who tends to communicate the best? So I think there’s a natural tendency for more group communication here than there would be if 85 percent of our top leaders were men."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/business/14corners.html
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Tachi Yamada, MD, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program; New York Times, 2/28/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Tachi Yamada, MD, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Program, Talk To Me: I'll Turn Off My Phone:
"Q. How did you first learn to become a manager?
A. I think the most difficult transition for anybody from being a worker bee to a manager is this issue of delegation. What do you give up? How can you have the team do what you would do yourself without you doing it? If you’re a true micromanager and you basically stand over everybody and guide their hands to do everything, you don’t have enough hours in the day to do what the whole team needs to do.
Learning how to delegate, learning how to let go and still make sure that everything happened, was a very important lesson in my first role in management. And that’s where I learned a principle that I apply today — I don’t micromanage, but I have microinterest. I do know the details. I do care about the details. I feel like I have intimate knowledge of what’s going on, but I don’t tell people what to do.
Q. How do you have a granular understanding of what somebody’s working on without actually doing the work?
A. Every day, I read about 1,000 pages of documents, whether grants or letters or scientific articles, or whatever. I have learned what the critical things to read are. If there are 10 tasks in an overall project, what is the most critical task among those 10? What is the one thing that everything else hinges on? And what I’ll do is I’ll spend a lot of time understanding that one thing. Then, when the problem occurs, it usually occurs there, and I can be on top of what the problem is.
Q. How do you develop that ability to understand the key thing?
A. It’s just having enough experience to understand when problems do occur and how they occur, why they occur, and being prepared for that particular problem. Problems can occur in the other 10 areas, but they won’t determine the outcome of the overall project. But there may be one or two points where the outcome of the entire project is at stake, and there you’d better be on top of it.
Q. What other leadership lessons have you learned?
A. One very important partner I had in life was my father. He was a senior managing director of Nippon Steel Corporation and was one of the architects of the reconstruction of Japan after the war. He negotiated the first World Bank loan to Japan after the war to the steel industry, and it helped develop heavy industries in Japan. His outlook was always international. Very early, he sent me to the United States. I was 15. He sent me to a boarding school, Andover.
His whole idea was that you can’t possibly be competitive in the world unless you actually go outside your own geography and learn the way other people live and think. That probably was the most important lesson I learned — that what’s out there is more important than what you already know, and that you’d better go out and learn what it is out there that you don’t know.
Q. What else?
A. A second key lesson was from a doctor named Marcel Tuchman. He was the most compassionate person I have ever met in my life — I mean, full of human kindness. And every time he met somebody, you had the sense that he cared more about them than anything else in the world.
So what I learned from him is that when you actually are with somebody, you’ve got to make that person feel like nobody else in the world matters. I think that’s critical.
So, for example, I don’t have a mobile phone turned on because I’m talking to you. I don’t want the outside world to impinge on the conversation we’re having. I don’t carry a BlackBerry. I do my e-mails regularly, but I do it when I have the time on a computer. I don’t want to be sitting here thinking that I’ve got an e-mail message coming here and I’d better look at that while I’m talking to you. Every moment counts, and that moment is lost if you’re not in that moment 100 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/business/28corner.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1267888463-SP+bu0L5swFDQQW1uoBpxg
"Q. How did you first learn to become a manager?
A. I think the most difficult transition for anybody from being a worker bee to a manager is this issue of delegation. What do you give up? How can you have the team do what you would do yourself without you doing it? If you’re a true micromanager and you basically stand over everybody and guide their hands to do everything, you don’t have enough hours in the day to do what the whole team needs to do.
Learning how to delegate, learning how to let go and still make sure that everything happened, was a very important lesson in my first role in management. And that’s where I learned a principle that I apply today — I don’t micromanage, but I have microinterest. I do know the details. I do care about the details. I feel like I have intimate knowledge of what’s going on, but I don’t tell people what to do.
Q. How do you have a granular understanding of what somebody’s working on without actually doing the work?
A. Every day, I read about 1,000 pages of documents, whether grants or letters or scientific articles, or whatever. I have learned what the critical things to read are. If there are 10 tasks in an overall project, what is the most critical task among those 10? What is the one thing that everything else hinges on? And what I’ll do is I’ll spend a lot of time understanding that one thing. Then, when the problem occurs, it usually occurs there, and I can be on top of what the problem is.
Q. How do you develop that ability to understand the key thing?
A. It’s just having enough experience to understand when problems do occur and how they occur, why they occur, and being prepared for that particular problem. Problems can occur in the other 10 areas, but they won’t determine the outcome of the overall project. But there may be one or two points where the outcome of the entire project is at stake, and there you’d better be on top of it.
Q. What other leadership lessons have you learned?
A. One very important partner I had in life was my father. He was a senior managing director of Nippon Steel Corporation and was one of the architects of the reconstruction of Japan after the war. He negotiated the first World Bank loan to Japan after the war to the steel industry, and it helped develop heavy industries in Japan. His outlook was always international. Very early, he sent me to the United States. I was 15. He sent me to a boarding school, Andover.
His whole idea was that you can’t possibly be competitive in the world unless you actually go outside your own geography and learn the way other people live and think. That probably was the most important lesson I learned — that what’s out there is more important than what you already know, and that you’d better go out and learn what it is out there that you don’t know.
Q. What else?
A. A second key lesson was from a doctor named Marcel Tuchman. He was the most compassionate person I have ever met in my life — I mean, full of human kindness. And every time he met somebody, you had the sense that he cared more about them than anything else in the world.
So what I learned from him is that when you actually are with somebody, you’ve got to make that person feel like nobody else in the world matters. I think that’s critical.
So, for example, I don’t have a mobile phone turned on because I’m talking to you. I don’t want the outside world to impinge on the conversation we’re having. I don’t carry a BlackBerry. I do my e-mails regularly, but I do it when I have the time on a computer. I don’t want to be sitting here thinking that I’ve got an e-mail message coming here and I’d better look at that while I’m talking to you. Every moment counts, and that moment is lost if you’re not in that moment 100 percent."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/business/28corner.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1267888463-SP+bu0L5swFDQQW1uoBpxg
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