INTRODUCTION:
PLEASE RESPOND (VIA EMAIL) WHEN YOU SEE THE (NEW) ENTERPRISE
I’ll send the first edition to you (twice), so you don’t miss it, and have a chance to respond.
I appreciate any feedback, especially if you find THE (NEW) ENTERPRISE interesting, informative and useful.
AFTER THE POLITICAL TURMOIL HAS SETTLED, I’M BACKING OFF POLITICAL ISSUES.
In fact, I intend to avoid the "political turmoil" as much as possible and take THE ENTERPRISE in a whole new direction..
WHAT IS THE NEW DIRECTION? I’M CALLING IT “THE LIFE OF BUSINESS AND THE BUSINESS OF LIFE."
Many people don’t know I did a one-hour radio show on the North American Broadcasting Network, (Two powerful stations Phoenix AZ and Providence RI). My show was titled The Life of Business and the Business of Life. Before that I had been writing bi-weekly columns for IndustryWeek, Forbes.com, FortuneSmallBusiness.com, the American Management Association, Management Centre Europe, Executive Excellence and more… In fact, when I went back to find all of the ones I wrote, between 1995 and 2015, I found over 300 columns, articles, blog posts, and several (as yet unpublished) books and mini-books.
In 1995, John Brandt, the Editor in Chief of IndustryWeek gave me the first break, when he invited me to submit a few “ Management” Columns for IndustryWeek. I did and he decided to use them. I’m going to share several of those—and many others—with you over the next few weeks/months, here in THE (NEW) ENTERPRISE.
PS: FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT
Please tell me if you like them, find them useful, entertaining or informative—OR NOT! YES (LIKE THEM) or NO (DON’T)?
Also please tell me if I should continue sending them to you.—YES or NO?
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It’s Christmas Day 2020, following a year of unprecedented turmoil, suffering and death, and yet, humanity continues on living, struggling, succeeding (sometimes) and failing (sometimes) only to try again and again.
I hope these two columns will be a Christmas Gift to all of you.
The pandemic simply emphasized how much life and work might be different. This 20 year old Column speaks to the “ burning” question we all have: What do I want to do, now that I’m grown up—and will I be able to do that?
Have you seen your “burning bush?”
©2001 John Mariotti
It seems a lot of people are searching for “what they want to do when they grow up”. This is especially true when the aging baby boomers reach that age where retirement is premature, but the life of “corporate slavery” is no longer an attractive one.
What are they to do? What should they do? Where, how, why? These questions, which once plagued only the youth who were embarking on a career are being posed by 50 and 60-year olds. The 50-60 year old people have already worked 30 years or more, and may have amassed enough wealth to retire—at least until the stock market plummeted.
But, many people who are 50-60 are still too vital, too healthy and too mentally active to “retire” in the old-fashioned sense. Retirement (with a pension) is a product of the industrial age, when people were used hard and tired out. After 30+ years of old-style factory work, the human body (and maybe spirit, too) is tired, and more years of physically demanding work is not attractive.
The new baby boomer group is not so worn out. They may be turned off, as a result of repeated re-engineering, downsizing, transfers, layoffs, and corporate mistreatment. They are neither ready nor able to retire comfortably. Even if they have the money, so much of their self-worth and identity is tied to what they were in their careers, that leaving it is traumatic.
These people, and an increasing number in their 30’s and 40’s need to find their “burning bush”. The burning bush metaphor is a biblical one, in which God conveyed His mission intended for Moses—to lead his people to the Promised Land. When people in all walks off life consider what they really want to do, they are figuratively hoping to see their burning bush.
Try this. Sit down in a quiet place with no interruptions and think about what you are (or were) really good at—and what you really enjoyed doing most in your entire work life. Write down a few things and then reflect on them—asking why you were so good at those things. What talent did you have? What passion did you have? What made you so successful at the things you were good at?
How did I jump to the conclusion that you were successful at these things? Because it is almost always true. Nearly everyone is best at doing the things they love most. Now think about how and where you start doing that again, preferably for pay—but even if not for pay, just for the fulfillment.
Retirement is supposed to be about recreation and happiness. What makes a person happier than doing something they love? The word recreation is really two words: re—creation. Being created all over again.
The only way you will find your burning bush is to think about it and look for it. When you have, work will be fun, and fun will be what you do for both money and happiness—not either-or. Find your burning bush and learn what God’s path, and your own is intended to be.
Start today and don’t quit until you find it. Just like in the bible—it will keep burning until you do.
Once you’ve considered what you want to be and do, it’s incredibly important to make sure it’s something you will find meaningful and rewarding—both financially and psychologically. Life is too short for work to NOT be enjoyable and satisfying. Find the answer to the question: do you work to live or live to work. (Clue: Both!)
Management's Search for Meaning
©John Mariotti 2000.
In 1946, Victor Frankl wrote his moving book, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he reflected on life in a concentration camp. The most memorable part of the book is his commentary on what "kept people going." Each torturous day--in unbearable conditions, facing unspeakable cruelty and the specter of death as a near certainty--these people clung to life, sanity, and hope.
This may seem a strange beginning to a column on management; but it suggests a parallel in the daily struggle for meaning that afflicts many middle managers, more than a few executives, and their families. Each morning they rise and go through the ritual of getting ready for work, then juggle the pressures of family, household duties, and their jobs.
Electronic communications has now made it possible for our workdays to extend--or perhaps I should say, “intrude”--into our home lives. Pagers, cell phones, email, the internet, voice mail, and even answering machines--which keep us more in touch and more productive than ever--also form a cruel coalition to steal precious moments from the time in which we struggle to be husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, neighbors, part of the community or church, and last, but certainly not least, individuals.
We can hardly ignore or block out their insistent chirp, vibration, and simple omnipresence. What if the next message is an important one? How can you know unless you check? “It'll only take a minute,” you tell yourself. But that minute becomes five or ten; and after taking time to send answers, suddenly an hour has slipped away.
The children are ready for bed, the trash needs to be taken out, the laundry hamper is overflowing, and dirty dishes adorn the kitchen counter in testimony to a hastily eaten and thrice-interrupted dinner. Today’s pile of reading material lies untouched and spilling over those from yesterday and the day before. Each day it grows like a relentless organism, casting a pall of guilt if not dutifully shuffled through. Throwing some out is the only sensible thing to do--but which ones? The material you discard unread will certainly contain the information the boss refers to at the next staff meeting, where peers will nod knowingly and comment while you struggle mutely to look knowledgeable.
Is this what life in management has become? Somehow the parties at the country club, golf on Saturdays, the camaraderie of the occasional fishing trip, and family picnics on sunny Sundays after church never seem to happen. All of our energy is consumed by things that "have to be done,” from the 7 a.m. commute to the 7 p.m. return (on the good days) to the six hours spent at the office on what used to be short Saturday morning drop-ins. In addition, there is the email check each evening for messages from the West Coast or Asian offices, and an occasional pager call in an emergency. Work alone now occupies over 80 hours a week for most managers. Fatigue is a near-chronic condition. Laughter around the house is rare.
Life has to have meaning, but it is hard to discern when things are like this. At work, we talk about priorities, but what about at home? What about family? What about you? When do you get a little time of your own? What keeps you going? For Victor Frankl and his fellow concentration camp inmates, it was the hope of survival and life after the suffering. What sustains you?
Work is meant to be the means to earn sustenance, so life can be more pleasant. Work is meant to be a rewarding experience in which we gain fulfillment, a sense of achievement, and some recognition. But children grow up only once. Miss it and there is no recovery--no "undo" button.
Finding the meaning in life requires balancing the conflicting demands on our time, attention, and the emotional energy that makes us each special. I have struggled with this balance in my own life for over half a century--and I still do each day.
If this column does no more than cause you to interrupt the mindless drill momentarily to reflect and rebalance your life for a short while, to search for and find meaning again, it will have served its purpose.
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I hope you enjoyed these first two messages of “timeless truths” from the past.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year—Stay well, and God bless you and yours.
John
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