August 16th
There was a very interesting study that I came across recently about school names: It’s increasingly rare, apparently, for public schools to be named after presidents—or people in general—and increasingly common for them to take the names of various natural features. During the last two decades, a newly built public school in Arizona was almost fifty times more likely to be named after some thing like a mesa or a cactus than after a president.
“This shift from naming schools after people worthy of emulation to naming schools after hills, trees, or animals raises questions about the civic mission of public education and the role that school names may play in that civic mission,” wrote the study’s authors (who speculated that the trend was due less to our culture’s “increased skepticism of inherited wisdom [and] revisionist history” and more to the increased reluctance of school boards and local officials to enter into potentially messy political conflicts).
It’s a curious point, isn’t it? Though I can’t help agreeing with the New York Times’s Claude Haberman: “One can understand why some cities find comfort in a natural object like a mesa. Unlike many politicians and other public figures, mesas are mostly on the level.”
August 14th
… at least, according to a recent article by Slate’s David Plotz. My birthday is in August, so I’ve always been disposed to view the month a bit more kindly, but I’ll admit that Plotz has a point: it’s hot, it’s muggy, and there are no real holidays. “August is when the garden starts to wither, and when the long summer days cruelly vanish.” Shantih shantih shantih, indeed.
August 13th
Patrick Lencioni is a best-selling business author, acclaimed public speaker, and the founder and president of The Table Group, Inc., a management consulting firm that focuses on organizational health. His books include Silos, Politics and Turf Wars, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, The Five Temptations of a CEO, Death by Meeting, and Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. His latest book is The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.
The success of his modern fables reminds me of John Guaspari’s fable about quality, I Know It When I See It. Originally released in 1985 and still going, it remains one of the most popular books ever published by American Management Association. Quick to read and easy to stick management lessons is a formula that works.
An unlikely management guru (Lencioni never went to business school and shuns management tomes), he avoids jargon and complicated strategic models. Though he specializes in teams and organizational vitality, Lenicioni has something to say about time wasters. One of the biggest in any organization large, medium or small are meetings.
“The four different kinds of meetings I recommend are the daily check-in, the weekly tactical, the monthly strategic, and the quarterly offsite review.”
“The daily check-in (5-10 minutes) is just that, a quick huddle to find out what everybody is doing. There’s no agenda and no problem solving, just a basic social check-in so people know what their team members are doing.”
“The second kind is a weekly tactical meeting (45-90 minutes), which is where people talk about how the team is doing against near term goals.”
“This is the place they can discuss the problems they need to resolve to accomplish those goals. It’s not about strategy or brainstorming–it’s about solving problems holding the team back.”
“The third kind is the monthly strategic or topical meeting (2-4 hours). You take one big topic that will have an impact on your future and spend two hours or more wresling it to the ground.”
“These meetings are fun because they’re focused on solving a big problem. People brainstorm, push each other, and really draw on their unique perspectives and various levels of experience.”
“The last kind of meeting is a quarterly off-site review (1-2 days). This sort of meeting has often become of boondoggle - with exotic locations and too many social activities. These meetings are costly and rarely provide a lasting benefit.”
“For me, the quarterly offsite allows people to step back from the business, take a breath, and re-assess where they stand. The topic can be anything - competitors, the market, what your best employees are doing - anything. The function is to help people regain perspective and view the business in a more holistic, long-term manner. It’s about slowing down to go fast.”
August 9th
To follow up on Leah’s post of yesterday, a good number of writers use Clairefontaine notebooks. One of them is Christina Baldwin, the author of One to One: Self-Understanding through Journal Writing; Life’s Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest; The Seven Whispers, Listening to the Voice of the Spirit; and Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives Through the Power and Practice of Story. Christina recommends Clairefontaine to all her students and makes sure “it is stocked on my island when I hold a retreat.”
For 30 years Christina has explored ways writing can organize your life, reveal the deeper meaning in life experiences, and map uncharted territories within you. She co-founded PeerSpirit, Inc. an educational company, with author and naturalist Ann Linnea.
In her book The Seven Whispers she devotes a chapter to each of the “Seven Whispers of spiritual commonsense”:
1) Maintain peace of mind (”the cornerstone of spiritual life”)
2) Move at the pace of guidance (”rehumanize our speed of life”)
3) Practice certainty of purpose (”a commitment to figuring out why we are here and what we are going to do about it”)
4) Surrender to surprise (this helps us “practice the resilience we need to respond to whatever life offers”)
5) Ask for what you need and offer what you can (”become spiritual traders of life’s energy, time and abundance”)
6) Love the folks in front of you (”look for the good in people even if we don’t think it’s there”)
7) Return to the world (remove yourself from the simulated world and “return to the world of the body, the sense, the world of Nature”).
August 8th
Just wanted to follow up on last week’s post about Clairefontaine paper and talk a bit about the company’s commitment to the environment… As I mentioned back in April, the Clairefontaine factory is at the forefront of environmental technology, recapturing the energy that’s given off during the manufacturing process to generate fully 80% of its own electricity. Wastewater is sent through special treatment stations in order to purify it and eliminate toxins; it’s then returned to the nearby River Meurthe. And as Christine Nusse, president of Clairefontaine’s parent company, Exaclair, told me a couple of weeks ago, even the sludge from that wastewater is made into a fertilizer.
Last week, I mentioned that both the wood and the pre-made pulp that are used in Clairefontaine paper come from from ecologically certified forests—forests whose managers preserve ecological diversity and plant as many trees as they cut down. One of the more interesting things I just learned is that you don’t even necessarily have to cut down trees to make paper; instead, the fibers often come from byproducts of the foresting industry (recovered from scraps of wood that aren’t suitable for making furniture).
The Clairefontaine paper mill has been around since 1858, though a nearby monastery was apparently known for making vellum well before that.
August 6th
The Canadian branch of Quo Vadis has just redesigned its website. Available in both French and English, the new site features new pages about the environment, the Quo Vadis warranty, and the many ways in which you can customize your agendas and notebooks. It also lets you explore agenda formats and colors/materials.
August 3rd
One of our readers wrote in recently to describe how she uses her Textagenda for a Prayer/Bible study journal:
In the top area where the times are I write any ‘God Wink’ (check out the book by Squire Rushnell) that has happened that day in the time slot of the day when it happened. This works as a reminder of the moment, how God worked in my life or a friend or family member’s life. It’s also a spot where I see many prayers answered—while looking back in the agenda.
In the center ‘priority area’ I write the Bible verse or a quote of the day. Often I use it for memorization of a ‘verse of the week.’
In the bottom note area I write my prayers.
What else do you use your Quo Vadis for? Let us know in the comments or drop us a line!
August 2nd
Gold Edge Book
Hammer
For those of who you use gold edge date books and refills, I thought you might be interested in seeing the tools and just-finished books. The gold edge is applied at the Quo Vadis plant in Hamburg, NY.
Rolls of gold foil
August 1st
This month’s issue of the Online Organizing newsletter is dedicated to dealing with paper, a problem I suspect most of us have in spite of the digital revolution. There are a bunch of useful articles and tips, but the one I liked best of all had to do with conquering “Reading Overload“—in particular, how to deal with work-related reading:
Many people carry loads of reading materials home at night to work on—and it’s reading that is related to or is an integral part of their PROFESSIONAL responsibilities. It’s as if people feel guilty about reading at work. If you’re reading the latest “bodice ripper” at work, then you probably aren’t doing your job—but if you are reading professional materials, reports, articles, memos, or whatever else that you are expected to read to be able to do your job, then read it at WORK. It is your work. Block in an appropriate amount of time each day (or week) to do this work, just like you block in time to meet, write, account, etc.
I definitely feel guilty if I step away from my computer to read during working hours, and since I’d rather read a novel at night, it’s hard for me to stay on top of the many articles and books that are related to my profession. But it’s eminently sensible advice to block out some work time to do so… I think I’ll see if I can’t give it a try one of these days.
