I’m not sure if you read this article from yesterday’s New York Times. Very enlightening. It speaks of parents who take their kids to college and then stick around, sometimes for days. As someone who has been through this process – twice – I can tell you that it’s awful. Leaving the person you’ve protected since birth hundreds of miles away with strangers is a frightening, difficult event. I still refer to the first time as one of the worst days of my life and the second time was a little easier only because the school is only 90 minutes away (and I can do it in 60 if I don’t mind a couple of tickets). So why should you care? Because it affects you if you hire any young people. Continue reading
Tag Archives: parenting
Mom Talks Business
Mothers provide many interesting business lessons, don’t they? I’ll preface this by saying it was a little different 45 years or so ago when I was growing up in that mothers tended to do front-line discipline while fathers were court and, frequently, executioner of last resort. Mothers dispensed pearls of wisdom in between the tears; fathers did the same in between removing their belts (that’s all tongue in cheek, mostly). Continue reading
Filed under Growing up, Helpful Hints
All My Children
We dropped our youngest off at college today and are now officially “empty nesters.” The president of the college made a brief speech to the parents of the Class of ’12, reminding us that while we had delivered these young adults to the world, they (and we) are now at the point where they’re ready to take on lives separate and apart from us.
Which, of course, got me thinking about managing projects (OK, actually it was during the car ride home). As an executive, very often one initiates something that is fleshed out and executed by others. Like children, while these projects may start off being very dependent upon the person who brought them into the world, at some point they involve many other people who have a big influence on what they ultimately become. Even later, one often finds that the project has taken on a life very much of its own and it may or may not be what the initiator had in mind. That doesn’t make it bad, just different. The key, as an executive, and a parent, is to have the courage to let these ideas develop on their own. Make sure they don’t get off track, keep them out of financial trouble as best you can, but if the idea’s foundation is sound and you’ve entrusted it to good people (in business, your staff; in the real world, teachers) part of the fun is seeing how it develops.
I can’t wait to see how our little idea turns out after the next four year developmental cycle (and aren’t you glad people don’t speak management in the real world!). So far, so good!
Filed under Thinking Aloud, What's Going On
Consult Keith 