Culture Shock
“ In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. ”
“ Like many successful, self-made people, Mr. Bloomberg can be single-minded in his pursuits and supremely confident in his views. Comparing himself with other entrepreneurs in the autobiography, he wrote, ”I too think I can do everything better than anyone else.” He added: ”Still, my ego does allow for the remote possibility that someone might be as good at one or two little things. I’ve admitted there’s a slim chance that ideas coming from others could be valuable as well. ”
Interesting life moments
I hadn’t eaten anything all day yesterday, and sure as I’m born, I return to my apartment at roughly 1:00AM and a papa john’s pizza man had a pizza he needed to sell because of a cancelled order for $5. Food. The moment felt like more than a coincidince…
This inspired me to think back on the night before my PE interview last quarter for the firm I’m working at now. I freaked out because I knew very little about Private Equity, mezzanine financing (the type of PE they do) and the company itself because the website was down! I had just recently borrowed a dvd from my other job that had a alumni conference on it. I decided to ease my worries about the interview and just learn some things about the basics. And low and behold the Senior Managing Director and the Vice President of the firm were speakers at the conference! I learned a ton about the company and took exhaustive notes on what they had said. Although it did not help me much in the interview, it gave me a much-needed confidence boost going into game-day.
These are just two of hundreds of instances (could be more but from what I have noticed) of times that have made me think, is somebody or something looking out for me?
“ First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is. ”
Chaos
The Message
- Personal strengths and weaknesses
- Experience
- Competence
- Independence
- Integrity
- Compassion
- Stability
- Preparation
- Ideological and Partisan Differences
- Liberal vs. Conservative
- Moderate vs. Extreme
- Inconsistent vs. Consistent
- Pragmatic vs. Purist
- Situational Context
- Change vs. Status Quo
- Right vs. Wrong
- Reform vs. The Old Way
The Message will be a combination of all of the above.
People try all sorts of things to forge group camaraderie nowadays…praise and reward-which leads to spoiling and selfishness, punishments and discipline-which leads to resent and defensiveness, speeches and social events-they’re often like energy drinks, they get you all excited at first but oftentimes you end up crashing after a while. All of these tools can be wonderfully utilized if they are done pro actively not reactively. When they are implemented later they have a stronger possibility of being shunned or overlooked. The key is to make people feel like they are a part of something greater than themselves, this distracts them from their selfish interests, and it links their success with the success of the organization. Once that is established, when people’s selfish behavior surface it is looked down upon, a group “conscience” develops.
This starts with the leader, morale must be strong from the beginning, from day one, in order for it to be effective.
Beauty
