I miss strawberries. Despite the fact that my acquaintance with them began quite by accident, I still miss them. It all started when, as a child, I was foraging in the woods behind my house and stumbled onto a patch of wild strawberries. I had already gobbled down berries of all sorts that morning and …
It was a Saturday morning in the summer of 1980, the front doorbell chimed, and my seven-year-old daughter Rebecca ran to see who was there. It turned out to be her best friend, Candy, who smiled and asked, “Can you come out and play?” Rebecca took a quick look at her pal, curled her lip, …
Somewhere in deepest rural America, a man driving along a dark, lonely stretch of country road blew his right front tire. After pulling over and scrambling out of his BMW, he walked to the trunk, opened it, and noted with disgust that his jack was missing. After ten minutes of nothing but frog and cricket noises, …
I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Preston Coventry, one of the more popular kids in the ninth grade, had invited me to the grand opening of his neighborhood association’s swimming pool. When the appointed day arrived, I hiked across town to the posh facility where I was greeted by a tall fence and a stern guard. After I waited a couple of minutes, Preston approached the gate, gave a quick nod, the guard pushed a button, and I was granted entrance.
“Call on me!” I quietly implored as I used my left arm to hold my right arm high above my desk. Miss McCloud, my first-grade teacher (and the most wonderful woman to ever walk the earth) had just asked the class to identify the color of the flower in her hand. I waved my arm wildly because I was confident in my answer. To be honest, I saw myself as a bit of a color savant. Plus, I really wanted Miss McCloud to admire me for knowing the correct answer so I could bask in the glow of her approving smile. Did I mention she was the most wonderful woman to ever walk the earth?
On a generosity scale from one to ten—one meaning “painfully cheap” and ten meaning “delightfully generous”—my kids think I’m a one. For years I thought all the “You’re Number One” cards, trophies, and plaques my children gave me on Father’s Day celebrated my best-ness. It turns out it was code. They were mocking my cheapness. In fact, they think my entire generation is cheap.
In January 1965, after living their entire lives in soggy Western Washington, my mom and dad packed up their belongings and moved to sunny Arizona. After enjoying the dry climate for several months, Mom wrote a letter to her father inviting him to close up the “mom and pop” store that he operated thirteen-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week and come live with them in Tempe.
I am struggling with the culture in my current organization. The goals set by management are ambiguous and seemingly meaningless. Performance feedback and “constructive criticism” are at first rare, then harsh and punitive. Morale is horrible. I dread going to work every morning! Everyone does. What can my colleagues and I do to make a positive impact on the culture of our organization?
It didn’t take long for a heated argument to break out. Dozens of us had just arrived in Yorktown, Virginia to undergo officer training for the Coast Guard—each of us armed with his own story of the ghastly treatment that was rumored to lay ahead. According to scuttlebutt, we were soon to be marched until we dropped, cursed at, threatened, and mentally taxed to the point where many of us would wash out.
Thirty years ago, after landing my first consulting job, I could hardly wait to get started. For years, I had studied how to change the world and now it was my turn to roll up my sleeves and actually do something. The goal of this particular project was to take an adversarial, punitive, and authoritarian corporate culture and turn it into a productive, team-oriented place. At least, that’s what the plant manager requested.
