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Monthly Archive for January, 2006

[SiH] On a Personal Note: Rediscovering Music

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sarahurd
on January 15, 2006
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Success in Harmony

January 2006 - Vol. III, Issue 1

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On a Personal Note: Rediscovering Music

Yeah, I’m a musician. Kind of. I’ve been a little disconnected from my music the past few years as I’ve been focusing on work, my kids and husband, my business. But a few things recently have rekindled my passion for listening to, and making, great music.

Today (Saturday the 14th), I had the opportunity to audition. Now, it’s been a while. I think the last audition I experienced was in 1997 for my first handbell choir. And today, I had the chance to audition to be a substitute for The Bells on Temple Square, a bell choir organized last April to support the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Had I known about the bell choir, I might have auditioned last year. Right after the director greeted us, he let us know that he was basically looking for three men from our group of four men and 28 women, but that if a woman were to rise to the top, he was keeping an open mind and may add some women to the substitute roster. I don’t know if I’ll make it, but the audition process was challenging and exhilarating.

Costco carried some piano music “favorites” compilation books this past fall. I decided to buy them for myself for Christmas and have Paul give them to me. He was all-too-happy to get out of the present-picking responsibility. So now we’ve got to get our 1915 hand-me-down piano tuned…

I played my husband’s nephew’s new guitar on Christmas. It’s been a while since I picked mine up, and my fingers are definitely out-of-shape. And I hadn’t hit muscle memory yet with my chords, so those were a little rusty as well. But I was reminded how much fun I had learning to pluck and finger-pick and strum. And our oldest daughter was fascinated. She’s seen and heard me play the guitar before, but it’s been so long that it’s a novelty to her almost-three-year-old mind.

My husband and I bought ourselves a 60GB Photo iPod for our sixth anniversary last year. That was after my Christmas gift of the iPod Mini totally flopped; Paul found out that he ran out of room before he ran out of CDs that he really wanted on there. So we splurged and got one that would fit all of the CDs in the CD collection and still have room for Podcasts and lots more CDs. We’ve hooked the iPod up to the sound system and can either choose an artist, album, or play it on random through the house. So we’ve rediscovered some of the CDs we haven’t listened to for quite some time. And because just turning on the iPod is so easy, we’re listening more.

And, last but not least, my discovery from this past week! I might have put this in the “Recommended Resources” if it weren’t pure indulgence, but I’m so excited about it that I’ve been talking it up everywhere else and wanted to mention it to you music lovers out there. It’s called Pandora, and it defies description a bit… it’s basically a music player that gets to know your musical tastes and plays music that has the same qualities as the music you like. How do they know? They’ve got professional musicians on staff who listen to every track and catalog it based on specific descriptors. You can create up to 100 custom channels, and it’s free to listen if you don’t mind that it’s ad-supported. It recently was profiled in Fast Company magazine, which is where I came across it. It was created by Tim Westergren and his “Music Genome Project.”

My challenge to all of you in the coming year: discover some new music, get back to creating it, do whatever you feel will rekindle your love for something you’ve let fall out of your life a bit. Enjoy!
Quick links:
Pandora: http://www.pandora.com
Fast Company’s Pandora feature: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/101/pandora.html

[SiH] Feature Article: Get the Right People on the Bus!

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sarahurd
on January 15, 2006
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Success in Harmony

January 2006 - Vol. III, Issue 1

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Feature Article: Get the Right People on the Bus!

One of the principles illustrated in the book Good to Great by Jim Collins is that in order to excel in business, it’s critical to get the right people on the bus. In his words, the executives who took their companies from good results to consistently great results over fifteen years or longer told him this: “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great” (41). What Collins and his colleagues found in their research was a bit unexpected. We often expect that a charismatic leader will establish and then communicate a vision and strategy for the future of the company. However, “Great vision without great people is irrelevant” (Collins 42).

When searching for the right people, you really want to be looking for individuals who not only can do the job, but also who will truly excel and blossom where they’re placed. A bunch of individuals who make up an organization, each doing a mediocre to satisfactory job in their respective positions, will not lead that organization to greatness.

Whether or not an individual will excel and create great results in their position is in large part determined by the following:

  • Is the position a good match for their natural talents and skills?
  • Is the position a good fit with their core motives?
  • Does the position align with their personal values?

Natural Talents and Job Performance

As individuals, we are drawn to the things that we enjoy and that we’re good at, and because we practice them, we get better at them. Those things give us satisfaction and fulfill us. According to Marcus Buckingham, co-author of Now, Discover Your Strengths and author of The One Thing You Need to Know: …About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success, these strengths are the areas where we have the greatest potential for growth and improvement. We may never get good at our weaknesses. His description of a strength is something that strengthens us. We get stronger, more committed, more excited, more energized, as we spend time and energy there. A weakness is something that weakens us: it bores, frustrates, and drains us.

According to Buckingham, the best managers focus primarily on finding and utilizing each employee’s highest and best contribution. They spend about 80% of their time and conversations with their people on strengths and how to best develop them and use them, and only 20% on managing their weaknesses. Many companies will say their greatest asset is their people. But in reality, society believes that the secret to success lies in fixing your flaws, and companies tend to follow that thinking by focusing on maintaining employees’ strengths and improving their weaknesses - at about the opposite ratio: 20% focused on strengths, 80% focused on weaknesses. In 2001, Marcus Buckingham and the Gallup International Research & Education Center surveyed companies in the U.S., UK, France, Canada, China and Japan. Just look at these results (the U.S. is only slightly more strengths-focused than the rest of the world, and for simplicity’s sake I’ve focused on those numbers):

[SiH] Recommended Resource: Franklin Covey’s Mastering Information Overload

Published
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sarahurd
on January 15, 2006
in [SiH] Recommended Resource
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Success in Harmony

January 2006 - Vol. III, Issue 1

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Recommended Resource: Franklin Covey’s Mastering Information Overload

Is it time to tweak your planning and information management system? Do you realize that we see about 1000 pieces of new information in one hour, the amount that our predecessors in 1900 saw in six months? Do you sometimes feel like you’re drowning in information but unable to find what you need when you need it? Begin here and click on “Mastering Information Overload.” Franklin Covey has developed this complementary online, interactive learning module to help you understand better the principles of information management and apply them to whatever system you’re currently using.