2 weeks rolled into one

It just occured to me that I never posted last week so we'll have to cover the last two weeks.

Two weeks ago our assignments and conversations centered around communication and top down companies versus bottom up companies.

Did you all know that some of the most successful companies are the ones that listen to the "people"? This did not come to me as a surprise at all. Unfortunately, not enough CEO's and presidents subscribe to this belief.

Then last night, the topic centered around types of leaders, and what can be done to motivate others.

Andy asked what we do on a daily basis to motivate others in our family and in the workplace. It really hit home with me, because I don't feel I do enough of that. It is one of my immediate goals (along with getting out of the cellar in Biggest Loser, Kallies edition) to improve on that.

Here's to hopin'

Also, I am now a class rep. for our "cycle". What does this mean? It means I get to meet with people from the school and people from local businesses to discuss the program. I am very excited about this, as I think it's a great networking opportunity to meet all these different people. You never know what tomorrow will bring. I sure am thankful to God that he has blessed me with these opportunities.

One more thing, I'd like to post a poem that was in our textbook that I thought was really cool. It's called "The Cold Within" by Alexander Pope. It was on the chapter about working with a diverse workforce. Here it goes:

Six human beings were trapped one day
In black and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story's told.

With dying fire in need of logs,
The first one held hers back;
For of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next one looking across the way
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes;
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should he give wood to use
To warm the idle rich?

The richest man sat back and thought
Of the gold he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight;
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

And the last man of the forlorn group
Did naught except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

The logs held tight in death's still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn't die from the cold without;
They died from the cold within.

As Andy would say, "Scary, isn't it?"