Work-Related

Tonight I drove to Wisconsin after work to meet a bunch of folks from our Regional Leadership Forum (RLF) group for a reconnect.  We have decided as a group to meet 4 times a year (once each quarter) to discuss a book, have dinner together, have a guest speaker where possible, and to renew our friendships.  It’s a great opportunity to keep building wonderful relationships that we built over the past year.

I got up there a little early, so I did some shopping at the Jelly Belly factory store (which just happened to be off the same exit where we were metting), did a little shopping at the outlet mall next to where we were meeting and then joined everyone for dinner and great discussions!  There were about 15 of us there and we had a great time!  During dinner we did our book discussion on a great book by Marshall  Goldsmith:  “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.”  We discussed 20 habits that need to be broken to help you get your life and career to the next level.  They are:

1. Winning too much
2. Adding too much value
3. Passing judgement
4. Making destructive comments
5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”
6. Telling the world how smart you are
7. Speaking when angry
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”
9. Withholding information
10. Failing to give proper recognition
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve
12. Making excuses
13. Clinging to the past
14. Playing favorites
15. Refusing to express regret
16. Not listening
17. Failing to express gratitude
18. Punishing the messenger
19. Passing the buck
20. An excessive need to be “me”

Angela and I also had a great discussion about which ones we felt we needed to work on and had some ah ha moments and some laughs.  🙂

We then had a great guest speaker, Phil Zweig, who just retired as a VP of Northwestern Mutual.  He told us his life’s story and gave us some of his favorite tips and quotes.  One that I really liked was from George Carlin.  He said:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths  you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.

We talked and caught each other up on everything that was going on in our lives.  What a great experience!  I’m looking forward to the next one we have in June!  🙂

Day 3 of SIMposium was great too!  We had some more great workshops and learned much.  The best part of the day was in the evening when a bunch of us got together and hung out.  We started by going to a local recommended wine bar where everyone tasted of the local wine (I was the designated walker and filled up on soda :-)) and we played Apples to Apples there in the place.  It was very quaint and had a great atmosphere for relaxing.

After spending a couple hours there, we went to the famous Pike’s Place Pub and Brewery and had dinner.  The food was great and we had a blast chatting, laughing, and having a great time!  It was kind of sad to think that this would be our last night together as a group.  All of us would be going home the next day and our leadership program would be over.

One thing we decided to do is to get together once a quarter as a group, pick a book to read, find a speaker to come and speak to us, and discuss leadership topics.  Most of our meetings will alternate between Chicago and Milwaukee since most of us are in these two areas.  We will try to meet once a year in Cleveland since we have a group there as well.  Hopefully we can keep in touch!

We had a great second day of SIMposium in Seattle!  It was full of great keynote presentations, breakout sessions, and good food!  I learned a lot of great things not only about Information Technology but about leadership in general.   There were a lot of CIOs from around the country that we were able to talk to and participate in sessions with.

After the sessions were over, they had a networking event at the Seattle “Experience Music Project” and Science Fiction Museum.  Experience Music Project (EMP) is dedicated to the exploration of creativity and innovation in popular music. By blending interpretative, interactive exhibitions with cutting-edge technology, EMP captures and reflects the essence of rock ‘n’ roll, its roots in jazz, soul, gospel, country and the blues, as well as rock’s influence on hip-hop, punk and other recent genres.  When we arrived, they had a cocktail hour to loosen every one up.  🙂  Then they had a great buffet of food to eat.  After eating (and more drinking for some), we went into the museum and looked around for the rest of the time.  We saw all kinds of things from Michael Jackson’s jacket and silver glove, to Jimmi Hendrix’s guitars and memorabilia, to Eddie Van Halen’s red and white striped guitar, and much more.  In the atrium, they had a “guitar tree that spanned all the way up to the roof (shown to the right).

Upstairs, they had an array of instruments you could play, and some sound rooms that you could “jam out” and practice in.  There are a lot of members of our RLF group who are pretty musically talented and I sat and watched three of them jam out on drums, base, and lead guitars.  It was pretty cool.

After listening to them, there were a bunch of the group who got together and decided to go into the mock concert stage (sound room) and make a recording together.  In honor of the bead necklace concept and nuts (long story, I won’t elaborate here), the group named itself “Rusty Nutt” and performed.  Here is a link to the video:  Click Here.  Important note:  This does NOT show the talent of anyone in the group (except the drummer and possibly 1 guitar player).  🙂

I came home and crashed (although I didn’t sleep too well) while others stayed out and didn’t get back in until about 1 in the morning!  🙂

Today I finished up my last session of the Midwest Regional Leadership Forum (RLF)!  We had a wonderful session and had great speakers and book discussions.  I can’t believe I read 35 books like that in 9 months!  I won’t miss that much reading, but the friends I have made and the experiences I had are invaluable and something I will never forget.  I always know that I have 39 other people that I can reach out to when I have leadership questions, problems I am trying to overcome at work, or anything like that.  It’s amazing how close-knit you become.

At the end of the session, we all had a group hug, a group picture, and said our good-byes until November when we will all meet together again in Seattle for SIMposium (the Society for Information Management’s annual conference) where we will officially “graduate” and have our last official meeting together.  We have a “giveback” presentation we are working on for the conference and it should be GREAT!  I am in charge of compiling a slide video with music highlighting lessons learned, quotes, and outstanding thoughts we collected over the last 9 months.  It’s turning out quite well.

Many of us that live in the immediate area (Chicagoland and Southern Wisconsin) are going to get back together every other month or so to discuss a book, have an activity or something like that.  This will keep us together and communicating.  We also have our LinkedIn and Facebook groups as well.  I would recommend this leadership program to ANYONE!  It’s one of the best work- and life-related experiences I have ever had!

During the past two days,  I participated in session #5 of the Regional Leadership Forum (RLF) I have been attending all this year.  As usual, the agenda and activites were phenominal.  It was a little lighter for me because this time, I didn’t have to present on any books like the last session we had.  Even though this set of books was not my favorite, we had wonderful discussions about them.

We also had the guy who helped found SIM (Society for Information Management) and the RLF come and speak to us.  There was so much he gave us it was hard to digest it all.  Fortunately, over the past 5 sessions, I have taken almost 100 pages of notes!  🙂

Last night, we had a group activity on the St. Charles Q Center campus where we all played Frisbee Golf.  It was a LOT of fun.  We followed that up with a nacho bar and open bar for drinks.  The water and Sprite tasted great!  🙂

It’s hard to believe that yet another session is over.  We only have one session left in September before we all meet in Seattle in November for the SIMposium and our graduation.  That will be sad, as I have met some incredible people during this past year that I will never forget.  We have become a very close group and have stayed in touch quite a bit between sessions.

I just finished up session #4 of 6 in my Regional Leadership Forum (RLF) today.  Yesterday and today were, as usual, outstanding as I was able to get back together with my new friends and participate in a wide range of leadership and book discussions.  On Monday, I led the book discussion on “Made to Stick.”  I really loved this book and it is helping me to communicate my ideas better.  I got feedback that so far, it was one of the participant’s favorite and most entertaining discussions!  What a thrill!  I used “sticky” ads from TV and print to make my points, gave them many handouts, and facilitated a group discussion on what makes ideas stick.

As a group on Monday, we traveled to downtown Chicago via train and took an architecture boat tour on the Chicago River.  That was something that I’d always wanted to do.  It was a little stressful at the beginning and at the end, becuase I was the main person in charge of the activity (reservations, train tickets, etc.) and was hoping and praying that everyone would make it downtown and that we wouldn’t leave anyone!

I can’t believe we only have 2 sessions left before our final meeting in Seattle in November where we’ll graduate!  This experience has made me a BUNCH of new and great friends and helped build relationships that I will treasure for many years to come!