Practice This

This is my first test drive post I announced in  Practicing Colin Powell’s Rules.

I was about to check the following rules:

• Colin’s “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.”  one of  Colin’s Powell’s rules to make things done
• Leo’s “Write a poem.” – as one of the 50 ways to be romantic on the cheap.

I started with “Pissing people off”. I decided to get some responsibility for creating some interactive and insightful conversation within my team of peers. I admit that we are buried with daily routine and do not have a chance to share our insights. I decided to create this chance - I sent out pretty controversial email to my peers about some professional subject. People started to comment. Some to the point some less, some neither – stayed silent but observing.

I killed the thread by telling the team that it was my experiment and that it gained some very positive results – professional areas to improve and niche players that actually can fill these areas and coach other team members. One of the feedbacks I got in person was “thanks for starting the thread, it showed we are alive and kicking”.

The poem part did not go exactly as described in the guide - I was time constrained so I decided to improvise. My emphasis was on the pronounce rather the content. The content was all over with “you” , “love”, “beautiful” and even more “love”. My eyes were rolling and hands are waving - I looked really stupid and unusual. The response was “you forgot to take your pills again?” while laughing out loud. I think it worked.

Practicing is fun.

Coming up next:

• Jason’s “Know your values, be consistent”
• Leo’s Cook a romantic dinner.

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” – Albert Einstein