Shape Up Or Be Shipped Out?

If you are anything like me, if someone asked you how you would describe how you have approached the management of your professional work life, you answer would be something like "well, best case I would put me under the banner of the happenstance method of career planning." In other words I pretty much have found myself in the position of the world happening to me rather than vice versa. Not something I am particularly proud of for sure, but that doesn't change the fact that it's true.

I was reminded of this yet once again when I got my copy of Peter Weddle's newest book Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System.

I have to admit that this got my attention for a couple of reasons. First, about the only thing I do outside of work is to try and get myself into the gym 3-4 days a week. It obviously is both something that has become a priority in my life (I have been doing it for more than 30 years) as well as something that I felt was important to my physical well-being. As I have already indicated, however, trying to bring the same sense of priority and commitment to my professional life is a different story for sure.

That said, when I stopped to think about it, the investment that I have in what I do for a living you would think ought to get at least something that approximates similar importance to my trying to be reasonably physically fit. For sure it is something in which I invest far more time and emotional energy than I do in trying to wear out a treadmill.

I guess this same thought must have crossed Pete Weddle's mind as well, but in Pete's case he actually did something about it not only for himself but for others as well.

Knowing Pete as I have for many years, I guess I should not be surprised, and if you knew his background, especially the part that talks about the fact that he is "... an avid athlete, (who) successfully completed both the Airborne and Ranger programs while on active duty with the U.S. Army. He also led an expedition which scaled the Cervino (Italian) face of the Matterhorn, one of Europe's highest mountains, and a team which represented the United States in international long distance marching competition." a reader would not be surprised either.

The man clearly knows something about fitness in the physical sense and anyone who follows the experts in the career management and recruiting space knows that he clearly understands career fitness as well.

If you can relate to physical fitness you will relate to career fitness as well. Pete says the book won't hit the book stores until May, so if you don't want to wait, you can click here and it is available on his site.

In Search of the Holy Grail of Leadership

If you type in the word leadership into Google (at least today) you get 163,000,000 hits. Refine that to "business leadership" and you can narrow it down to 2,570,000.

I sort of wanted to see if somewhere I could find how many books or articles had been written on the subject but (a) I had no clue as to how to do that and (b) figured anyone reading this post would already know the same thing I do which is that this one word is the single most sought after characteristic in business and there is probably a strong case to be made for saying "on earth."

I write about this topic a lot, and I am not really sure why. Maybe it is because I have now lived long enough to realize just how critical it is on so many levels.

I certainly would not be so presumptuous as to try and define all the elements that come together to give us a leader. First of all I couldn't prove it and secondly I know from my own experience that what inspires me may or may not do the same for someone else.

But this much I feel very strongly, no matter what your political persuasion or biases might be, when you see and hear our new president you know that you are in the presence of a leader. Agree or not with what he plans to do or how he plans to do it, he absolutely projects the courage and commitment to lead.

I think we owe it to him and our country to follow.

Recruiting & Technology In Today's Market

Bill Vick is a name that is known to almost anyone who is involved in the world of recruiting. He has been a pioneer in any number of ways with the creation of XtremeRecuiting.tv being the most recent.

One of his recent interviews was with our Vice President and Executive Editor Lauryn Franzoni. Knowing the degree to which ExecuNet is in the somewhat unique position as a resource to both executive leaders as well as recruiting firms, he wanted to talk with Lauryn about the impact of technology on both.

While I have a bias to be sure, I found it to be a very interesting dialogue. I hope you do too.

Will Rogers, Still the Best

I wish that GL Hoffman the keyboard and voice behind a blog called What Would Dad Say aka WWDS would stop (or at least slow down) posting such thoughtful and/or wonderfully humorous stuff. But what I wish seems to make no difference, he just keeps doing it.

Aside from the "wisdom" he shares, I really think he has missed his calling and should simply start to market himself as the greatest time management expert on the planet. I mean I realize that he is in Minneapolis and therefore is locked indoors from September to June, but still knowing everything else that he is involved in it is beyond my comprehension where he finds the time. But, I digress.

If you want to start the year with some smiles, check out his recent post Will Rogers, Still the Best. I won't spoil your fun other than to say that of all the comments Rogers offered up on getting older, my favorite was:

"Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf."

I am sure you will find one of your own.

Enjoy.