Dorrier Underwood

As I took the trash out this morning in the dawn mist, I noticed it starting to rain. My first thought, “Great, it’s raining, well isn’t this the perfect way to start the Trump era.” But then I thought, “Hmm, isn't that interesting how I have an automatic view of a rainy day just like I have an automatic view of a Trump presidency.” First that rainy days are bad, even though without them my grass dies and there is no food to eat. And my first thoughts about a Trump presidency are not that optimistic either. He wasn't my choice. And yet, the role of a leader, if I want to be a leader, is not to go with whatever my automatic view is, just grousing and complaining about how things “are”, like a critic talking about a movie that he did not like. Rather, the role of a leader is to be the director of what happens, to start to think about how I can direct the conversations I have with others to have something emerge in the conversations. Something to which I am com...

On Tuesday Doug and I led the half day follow-up for one of the Transforming Leadership Intensives we have led this year to an operations team in the health sector. Many of the participants are hourly workers whose positions have them experience themselves as somewhat “less than.” This group was lively, engaged and very much in the conversation to impact their own leadership and to contribute to the company. For example, one man in the group has definite opinions that he willingly expresses about their supervisor and he saw, in the two day, that there were different possible interpretations he could have, even in the face of a lot of agreement for their point of view. On Tuesday he shared that he has been different with the supervisor, and he has seen a difference in how the supervisor is being with him. At one point during the afternoon he caught himself slipping back into his   old way –   he has an expressive face with includes a well-developed eye-roll – and...

It may seem like a small thing to many people, but it’s a miracle that I’ve finally discovered how to get Arial to be my default font, which saves me at least three key strokes (and a heavy groan) on every new Word document. There are things that I cannot change, such as my birthday odometer clicking over another number once a year, and there are things I can--like getting someone to repair the hole in my kitchen ceiling (done) or getting rid of that bloody Cambria font (done). I am just waking up to the number of things I put up with--either because it is “so unfair” that I have to fix it (someone side-swiped my car while it was parked at BWI so the left mirror is hanging there like a broken wrist) or because it’s so much trouble in my mind to fix it or pay to have someone else fix it. I have been carrying 10 old paint cans in my trunk for almost a year because I don’t want to take the time to go to the junkyard.  Every time I go over a speed bump I hear them make a ha...