Sunday, September 28, 2008
Courtesy of Simi L.:
- You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.
- The Blue Book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas is in it.
- You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws.
- You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night.
- You wonder how service stations keep their rest-rooms so clean.
- Someone in your family died right after saying, 'Hey, guys, watch this.'
- You think Dom Perignon is a Mafia leader.
- Your wife's hairdo was once ruined by a ceiling fan.
- Your junior prom offered day care.
- You think the last words of the Star-Spangled Banner are 'Gentlemen, start your engines. '
- You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels.
- The Halloween pumpkin on your porch has more teeth than your spouse.
- You have to go outside to get something from the fridge.
- One of your kids was born on a pool table.
- You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos.
- You can't get married to your sweetheart because there's a law against it.
- You think loading the dishwasher means getting your wife drunk.
Thanks for the belly-laughs, Simi!
Nearly ever person I've met who has some executive experience would agree with this comment: that people without executive experience generally don't have the faintest idea what an executive does, or what skills are needed to be an effective executive. That would include executives, before they became executives.
Like most people with executive experience, I've got my own collection of “executive wisdom” and rules-of-thumb. For instance, I've often commented that one of the key skills for any executive is the simple willingness to make decisions in the face of insufficient or conflicting information. Most people are very uncomfortable making important decisions until they've had a chance to do all the research, to think about the pros and cons, consult with trusted advisors, and generally to have enough time to get comfortable with their decision. Executives often are forced to make decisions without any of these luxuries.
Another of my executive rules-of-thumb is “embrace chaos”, by which I mean that an executive should learn to relish the never-ending stream of surprises that the messy real world throws at you. Too often executives see these events as a stream of problems and annoyances, rather than as a stream of opportunities being presented (even if the only opportunity is to suffer less damage than your competitors!).
TigerHawk dissects another such executive skill, a better articulated version of my executive rule-of-thumb “Do something, even if it's wrong!”
Yesterday Debbie and I tackled a long-overdue chore: cleaning up our totally out-of-control patio. We worked hard, all day long, and then treated ourselves to a delicious dinner at the always-wonderful Descanso Junction Restaurant. When we came home, we tumbled into bed, exhausted and sleepy. Aches and pains abounded for me, and the ever-solicitous Debbie brought me a Vicodin from her hoard of left-over tablets to make the pains disappear.
And disappear they did, which was great. But the not-so-great part: I never went to sleep at all last night. I tossed and turned until 2 am, at which point I just gave up, and got up.
Sigh.
