Very early in my blogging adventure I proclaimed my allegiance to the Green Bay Packers. I’ve been bleeding green and gold for over 40 years. While the team isn’t very good these days and I’ve stayed rather mum about them in this space, today I’m making an exception because they are on my local TV this afternoon (playing the Patriots), and also because they are teasing me with their 4-5 record and renewed playoff talk.
So “Go Pack Go”, and here are the “pre-football” Sunday Papers (all NY Times:
Lisa Belkin writes about “speed coaching” in this installment of her “Life’s Work” column. Participants sign up to be business coached by a professional in 5 minutes (actually timed with a stopwatch). Can anything of value be passed along in 5 minutes? In this “short attention span” day and age, I suppose if a point can’t be made in that amount of time, it probably won’t be absorbed anyway.
I’d like to put this to all my coaching and consulting friends out there – could you “speed coach” effectively?
Next, there are many mantras out there for all of us “Half-fullers” to stay positive and keep pushing forward without fear, but this one caught my attention this morning – “God hates a coward“. This has been used successfully by Philip Kent, now CEO of Turner Broadcasting (and described in this “The Boss” column).
Now I’m not sure this is necessarily true, but like any effective mantra if it pops up at the right time and allows you to take the right turn on those forks in the road, have at it. In Kent’s case he was able to have the courage to even take sabbaticals with the confidence that something good was around the corner.
This made me think – do I have a mantra like this? Should I have one? It might make sense to condense all of my accumulated quotes, sayings and teachings into one “pithy” statement, but so far it hasn’t been necessary. How about you?
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Thanks for stopping by, R2K!
Re God hating cowards. No, I don’t think she hates them. Rather, cowards use her to make them feel good about their hate. As Ann LaMott (a born-again liberal self-admitted “Jesus freak”) observes, “You know you’ve made God in your image when he hates all the same people you do.”
As for the 5 minute consulting – Yes, I think one can derive value, but it depends on three things: 1. The amount of experience and knowledge of the person asking; 2. The amount of experience and knowledge of the person answering; 3. The type of question. I do something similar with my “Ask Mary” email packages. And, invariably one question does lead to another and then another…and so on.
The danger in “speed consulting”is that somebody could totally misinterpret the advice given in a quickie conversation with a stranger (we don’t, as you know, all process information the same way.)
Mary, thanks for your comment (I should have waited a week to post one of yours on my Saturday Rewind – this one’s a winner!).
I don’t think God hates cowards either, and the LaMott observation is spot-on.
That misinterpretation is indeed a big potential flaw in “speed consulting”. If I was to extend the time for more effectiveness, it would be to give 5 more minutes to the “asker”, so the “answerer”. could get the best picture as possible.
All the best Mary, and Happy Thanksgiving!