its all about perspective....... this morning my five year old daughter was upset with her twin brother for doing something she did the day before.... I looked her in the eye and said, see what I told you, two wrongs don't make a right. Her brother ran to her side and said yea, but three lefts will make a right.

I think we should do the math.....
if we are paying more for education than ever before....
if our teachers are being paid less and less.....
just maybe we have way to many high paid administrators.
Who is managing the managers of our education systems?

Here is the road-map to a renew the American economy, government and education! http://ping.fm/xDWIB

After more than 50 years, "Systems Thinking" is driving change. Don't miss this - Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer will speak about "The Gardens Of Democracy" this Wednesday evening at 7:30 at Town Hall in Seattle.

I just started a petition on the White House petitions site, We the People!
Will you consider the idea and sign it? http://wh.gov/T6g

Steven Paul Jobs, you have been my hero for many years. There can be no doubt, the world is a better place because you made a difference.

As many know, over the years I have volunteered for programs that are focused building the capability of women helping women. There are so many great causes, but serving those in need and trying to raise money at the same time is difficult at best. Inspired by Sarah McLachlan and the pioneers of Lilith Fair, I have been working on a new idea for a non-profit.

Right now it is called – The WOW MOM! Project – and it stands for Wisdom of Women, Music of Mothers. Like Lilith Fair, it’s about women working together to make a difference. WOW MOM! Is focused on helping the givers get as much out as the receivers – a real win-win. To learn more, or help develop this idea, drop me a line – Michael.ervick@ervick.com

A business, even a family business, driven by loyalty alone will not hold together. A business dominated by loyalty becomes extremely political and rips itself apart. The same is true for a family driven by competency, it will not hold together. A family dominated by competency becomes extremely competitive and again, rips itself apart. Yet, a business without loyalty, like a family without competency, will suffer the ills of a closed system. In other words, for the survival of the business unit or the family unit, balance between loyalty and competency is needed. The key is knowing how much of each.

Organizations are comprised of individuals; therefore they are social entities first. A family and a business are both organizations. The purpose of a family unit is socialization, which is a term used by to refer to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. In order to fulfill the purpose of family, the unit must develop a core behavioral glue – loyalty. The purpose of a business unit is to provision service in exchange for value. In order to fulfill the purpose of business, the unit also develops a core behavioral glue – competency.

If growth is an inrease in size, and development is an increase in capability, should we balance the relationship? What happens when we sacrifice development for growth. What happens when short cuts of "how" are more important than than the theory of "why".

Our companies, our government, our communities all share the same systemic failures. Have we become a culture that would rather learn-by-doing, than learn-by-thinking? Is our culture driving our competence?

A very Happy New Year to all!

Ever make a promise? How strong are your commitments?

http://ping.fm/FZcjj

"Profit is a metric, not a mission!"

"For whatever happens, all the conditions were present."

'Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.'

I have the Yule Log graphics in Windows Media Player and North Pole Radio. I can die a happy man.

I just discovered North Pole Radio..... Xmas music 365 days a year. Kim is going to kill me.

Educating the Recruiters

To aid recruiters in finding the best fit between opportunities and skill sets for project managers, allow me to share some helpful pointers.

First, it is important to understand that most employers tend to use the term project manager to mean many different things. It is very common in mature industries such as construction, manufacturing, utilities, telecommunications and aviation to identify project managers as real full-blown managers with the authority to hire and control a budget. It is very common in high tech industries such as software to identify project managers as supervisors and even administrative staff.

There is of course is a difference between managers, supervisors and administrative staff. In the most basic terms, administrative staff performs tasks on behalf of managers and have no decision-making authority; managers on the other hand control assets and supervisors control resources.

Another way to say this is that managers are agents of the company, which means the have decision-making authority over some form of company asset. Assets include the cash that is used in hiring workers, as well as the cash that is used to purchase materials and other assets such as equipment.

Supervisors have decision-making authority over the application of resources such as knowledge, skills or experience that workers use. The key here is to understand that workers are neither assets, nor resources. Workers are people who apply resources of knowledge, skills or experience.

Administrative staff may maintain reports and communication documents, but have no power to author commitments or promises.

When looking for a management type, look for the PMP. PMP stands for Project Management Professional, the certified management type. PMP’s must learn to negotiate contracts, select and hire team members, build teams and control budgets among other things. PMP’s are certified in their mastery of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK). The PMP certification is owned and operated by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

To the best of my knowledge, there is no certification for a Project Supervisor, Project Lead, Project Administrator or Project Specialist.

It has been a couple of weeks since John Krafcik was name CEO of Hyundai Motor America. Not exactly a household name.

While little has been shared in the popular press about John, he is famous for the term LEAN Manufacturing, which is used in association with the American interpretation of the Toyota Production Systsem (TPS).

While many like James P. Womack get the press for writing about LEAN Manufacturing, John has been the person actually doing LEAN Manufacturing and his promotions seem to honor his accomplishments.

John went from earning an engineering degree at Stanford to NUMMI where he learned about the TPS. Then on to MIT where he was a graduate student and worked with Womack. He then went to Ford where he spent 14 years practicing and then on to Hyundai.

Way to go John!