Recognizing Hardworking Employees.

Hardworking employees are often modest. It's the responsibility of management to identify, recognize and reward them.

Some companies are so myopic in their corporate focus that while in the process of restructuring their organizations, it's their very best employees they lay off unwittingly. And, most times, it's because hard-working employees usually don't brag. Rather, they go about their works quietly. And so, for some companies, it's after the terrible deed has been done that they realize their errors.  

To those who remember, in the film Office Space, the guy who did 15 minutes of work every week was allowed to stay while his two hard-working colleagues got the ax.

Hard-workers tend to be modest ones. Hard work comes with soft talk. Sadly ironical though, they often get thrown out in most corporate restructurings. It's the lazy noisemakers that survive most corporate purges.

It's no wonder therefore that a Scottish proverb says - "The empty barrel makes the most noise." 

It takes a savvy manager and, especially one with great leadership skill to recognize such hard-working employees, and then reward them.

It is actually not that difficult though, because hard-work comes in a package with other great qualities such as the following: 

Self-motivation.

Self-direction.

Positive attitude.

Modesty and, of course,

Results. 

"95% of my results have been simply hard-work." Thomas Edison (America's greatest inventor).

Preparing kids for the Future.

“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children. But we can, at least, prepare our children for the future.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In Life, only Change is Constant.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Darwin.

That's it! Change is the only thing that is constant in life. No one can be more frustrated or miserable than a person that opposes changes in his or her life, career and other circumstances. Therefore, whether planned or imposed, endeavor to embrace every change that comes your way. Even when imposed---you never know---it may turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to you, at the end of the day.

Amazing Grace in a Hopeless Situation.

Last Wednesday, some convicted drug dealers were executed by the Indonesian government. As the guys were led to the stakes, they broke into a song:

“Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
was blind, but now I see…”

 

 

This is a highly spiritual song that gives comfort and solace to those in distress. Who would have expected the condemned men to rely on the same song for succor in such a most hopeless situation? And so, as the volley of hot bullets tore into their bodies, one could only wonder what was going on with their individual souls.

Now, if condemned men could deem it fit to express hope while in the process of a painful transition from the physical to the astral realm, how morally wretched can we claim to be (in the land of the living) to allow mere mundane issues to render us hopeless?

Pictured above are the men executed by the Indonesian government.

 

The Issue of Forgiveness.

The Hunger to Become Somebody.

Many, including some fans of Aerosmith, don’t know the history and the motivation behind the song, “Dream On”. It was written in 1969 by Steve Tyler, long before the formation of Aerosmith. Always dreaming of the day he would make it big in the music industry, Tyler wrote the song as a personal affirmation that success was a matter of time for him.

As he and the Aerosmith’s band mates continued to tour and toil in the early 1970s, Tyler never lost his sheer determination to succeed and (in his own words) “the hunger to become somebody…” The “hunger” ultimately drove the songwriter/lead singer to suggest to his band mates, the re-release of the song, “Dream On” in 1976.  The song rose instantly to number 6 and became the band’s first major single and the biggest hit so far. Steve Tyler has since become “somebody” in the music industry and the rest is now history.

[embed]http://youtu.be/54BCLYNkFKg[/embed]

I Refuse to Complain.

The first snowfall of 2015 in Delaware and the temperature is 21°. But, this time, I'm not complaining as I used to do...because the situation could be worse. Chicago's temperature is below zero right now...