Month: November 2010

What I’d like to know about my chorus

Here are some things I’d like to know about every man in my chorus, active or not:

  • skills
  • interests
  • vacation plans
  • retired?
  • things he wishes the chorus did differently / more of / less of
  • interested in competing?
  • primary interests as a Barbershopper
  • previous chorus memberships?  quartet memberships?
  • previous Board of Director roles, in our chorus or others?
  • any other suggestions or comments
For inactive members, I’d add these, too:
  • what would (or might) make them come back?
  • where do they live?
I have a dream of talking to all the guys in the chorus between now and end of 2011 and finding out all this stuff by the time I have to be President.
What do you wish you knew about every guy in your chorus?

Leaders build other leaders

My company recommends Maxwell’s Developing the Leader Within You, along with several other Maxwell titles.  I’ve started it, and I try to think about how it relates to both my workplace and my chorus.

One of the things it says is that, as a leader, you should always be developing, encouraging, and growing the leaders around and especially “under” you in the organization.  Of course, a chorus is different from a business; there really isn’t an “under”, there’s just “around”.
My sister recently described how her company handles their yearly United Way campaign.  They have a very set and practical way of a) getting people to manage the UW campaign, and b) training them to do so.  They have three phases the committee Chair goes through: Training, Chair, Large Donations.  Their first year, they learn the ropes from the current Chair.  The second year, they’re the Chair and they run the program and train the next Chair.  Their last year, they’re in charge of managing the large donations people (typically upper management).
This scheme has several advantages, it seems to me, and ties in to Maxwell.  It’s three years, so it’s a set commitment, not “OMG Forever!”  You get training from the person that just last year had your job.  The next year you train the next person to do the job you’re doing right now.  The last year, the person you just trained is the Chair, and they can ask for help training the next person, and you’ve had two years to get to know all the current and up-and-coming bigwigs and get them to give you the United Way lots of money.
How are you developing the leader within you?  How are you developing the leaders around you?  How are you developing the next guy to fill your position?  Sound off in the comments.

And now a word from Manager-Tools.com: Read!

Think managing a chorus (or better yet leading a chorus) is entirely different from managing a business?  Well, maybe it is, but some of the principles are the same.  One of them is: Read!

Read Or Die

How can people complain to me they’re not getting ahead and then also tell me they’re not reading very much?

If you’re not reading regularly, significantly, virtually every day for at least an hour, your development is lagging. Professionals interested in their own self-development read voraciously.

Start or re-start now.

One of my best friends in my entire life is Michael Swenson. At our conferences, Michael often shares one of his favorite quotes: to know and not to do is not to know. It always reminds me of, the man who can read but doesn’t is no better off than the man who can’t.

I know – you’re too busy. But get this: in 2008, the President of the United States read 40 books. He’s busier than you are!

Business professionals have to keep up with more than television headlines. To say nothing of the fact that television is the arch-enemy of readers, anyway.

A refresher:

Daily newspaper: you’ve got to read a newspaper – or an online equivalent – every day. Your local (Major cities) paper is fine, in most cases. You’re lucky if you live in New York or London or Berlin or Hong Kong. If you can get WSJ or FT, that can MORE than suffice. We love the Journal, but we also crave more when we’re in Europe.

Business Press: You don’t necessarily need a supplement if you read the Journal or FT. But if you don’t get those, read Fortune. Don’t bother with Forbes or Business Week, for different reasons. I have started getting Bloomberg Markets, but doubt I can recommend it for wide appeal.

Professional Books: You need to always be reading at least one professional development book. It could be Drucker, it could be the latest fad, it could be a biography if you like. (For some reason, biographies just don’t teach … but if you learn that way, by all means do.) Here’s an idea: our book list.

Fiction: Has someone ever joked about some guy named Godot while you were waiting for someone, and you didn’t get it? Do you know who Sherman McCoy was? If you know who Gordon Gekko is/was, but not McCoy, you’re a step behind. And seriously, Harry Potter is literature, though he’s not as colorful as Travis McGee.

READ.

(Full newsletter here.)

Okay, so that’s more of a business perspective.  Here’s a musical perspective: Read The Harmonizer.  Read backissues as PDFs from eBiz.  Read barbershopHQ.com.  Read your chapter newsletter.  Read your district newsletter.  Read books about music, and maybe even (gasp) books about leadership and management.  I’m reading Maxwell’s Developing The Leader Within You.

[ Edit 11/23/10: Added direct link to full newsletter ]

Continue reading And now a word from Manager-Tools.com: Read!

Keeping track of it all

Sure, I write an article like “Full power on takeoff” and then go on vacation for a week.  ðŸ™‚

Here are some tools I use to keep track of everything, both as Secretary and Wannabe President:
  • Remember The Milk, http://www.rememberthemilk.com.  Web-based todo lists.  Works on smartphones too.  Faster than many desktop apps.
  • Evernote, http://www.evernote.com.  Notes, web clipping, saving documents — there’s a very good chance that if you can store it on a computer, you can clip it to Evernote and take it with you wherever you go.  Windows, Mac, smartphone, web clients.  Windows client works acceptably on Linux under Wine.  (Evernote version 3.1, I think; haven’t tried 3.5 or 4.0.  Just discovered 4.0 for Windows today, in fact, and haven’t had a chance to put it onto my Linux box.)
  • Groupanizer.  The Society recommends it, too.  My chapter is just getting started with it, so I can’t cite too many specifics.
  • Google Mail, Google Calendar.  Get your mail and etc from anywhere.
All these tools have good documentation and active and helpful forums.