Value Set vs. Skill Set
Do your auditions and interviews give too much weight to skill sets and not enough to value sets?
Leadership
Lie To Yourself
The best meetings I’ve led have been the ones when I’ve lied to myself. Let me be honest: I am always, always, always prepping for a meeting right before it happens. That time earlier to prep? I was in another meeting, or doing other work on a deadline, or prioritizing […]
Helping Students Balance Commitments
Learning to manage time and balance commitments can be difficult for high school and college students. It’s something I focus a fair bit of energy on, both with individual counseling and group conversations. Once in a while, the challenge is to empower students to manage their commitments when someone else […]
Time Horizon
I find it helpful to envision a time horizon when I take on a project. Especially for gig- and project-based work, it’s valuable to know how long it’s going to take. An arranging project for a client? Depending on the time of year, I can anticipate first contact to finished […]
Dinner In 162 Days
Why do we try to make decisions way before they need to be made? Put it another way: what will you be having for dinner 162 days from right now?* I don’t know, and I’ll bet you don’t either. Unless it’s a special event, there’s no earthly reason to know […]
Forward or Backward?
What kind of organization do you want to be a part of? Some organizations seek to lead us into a better future. Other organizations work hard to retain the best of the past. Forward-looking and backward-looking. The is room – there is need – for both. Just as there is […]
Zen and Warmups
A Zen proverb goes, “If you don’t think you have time to meditate for an hour today, you should meditate for two hours.” This runs through my head every single time I want to skip past vocal warmups in my Aces rehearsals. Sometimes the motivation is so strong to get […]
Skip The Celebration/Always Celebrate
We aren’t much for big relationship celebration days: Valentine’s Day, for certain, but even an anniversary. It might be a good day for a nice dinner, or fancy homemade chocolate dessert, but we aren’t likely to make a huge deal about it. We celebrate our partnership every day, which means […]
In The Past, Students Have Done X
One of the best parts about longevity in a position is being able to say, “In the past, students facing this situation have done X.” It comes with the important caveat that today’s students aren’t yesterday’s students; thus yesterday’s solutions might not be today’s. But it has helped a lot […]
Forgo Ownership
If you own the work, they can’t. As an adult – parent, teacher, or leader: you pick – one of the hardest things to do is to forgo ownership. By that, I mean relinquishing control of a project. Witness the massive number of school projects that are partially or completely […]