Jacks MBA Journey Blog

This was interesting for our Power and Politics section, my former neighbor in Tujunga, Eric Mahoney, has declared his candidacy for Governor in 2006. He and his wife are really great people and I have really enjoyed reading his position on what he would do as Governor. Although he has a tough fight in front of him, I would give him my vote. An interesting thing about politics is how it creates affiliations and groups. Many people have the desire to vote for the winning team and not with their hearts or minds. They tend to pick the candidate that is part of their group, their affiliation, their party. They use indirect matters of trust for their affiliation. I really appreciate Eric's drive and conviction and have been watching his blog about his run for Governor. www.MahoneyForCalifornia.com.

I have also been a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt since finding a family link between him and myself. My great great great (give or take a great) uncle, Frank Frantz, was a captain in the Rough Riders on Theodore's charge on San Juan Hill/ I have read both Edmund Morris books and can hardly wait for the "Rise of Theodore Rooosevelt" movie to come out directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Leonardo Di Capprio in a few years. (I had envisioned this pair doing this movine a few months before it was announced (SPOOKY!)). I have always appreciatted his independence and passion and I keep this quote over my desk at work:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevel“Citizenship in a Republic,”Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Anyway, I left my encouragement and quote on his blog site and got a wonderful note from Eric tonight:

That is a fantastic lift to my spirit and the quote from Roosevelt will be a part of this campaign from here on out. Thanks for the support.

It was a great lift for me as well.

It has been a great 12 weeks so far, the classmates in both my classes have been very close. The team that went through the OB weekend has been particularly tight. But now we are starting to prepare for our second term. I have decided not to follow the main group and focus on marketing as some of my personal career decisions have made it evident that this is going to be a priority for over the next few months. A few people have noted their regret that I wont be following the group, but one of the great aspects of this program is the ability to move between campuses and workload. I know the next 2 terms will be tight and I will probably throttle back my efforts to finish in 2 years to 3 years. My goals are working faster than I planned, now I need to strengthen some of my core bisiness areas. I also want to network a bit more. Although my group is great, very few have the same background that I do or in the industries I work in. so I think mixing it up will help. I also want to try out the West LA campus, just their track didnt include marketing this term. It's going to be hard as the final weeks come up, but I made some great friends and I hope to keep in touch with them all during our adventures through Pepperdine.

Power and plitics is one of my weak points. I have not really been interested in politics and I have not really had the opportunity to weild power until recently. I think I have spent limited time working for any one company. Although I have been working professionally for almost 20 years now, I have never heald a job more than 5 years. I also have been working the last 7 years in positions that were in consulting. In these poistions you don't get a lot of power in the organizations you are insterted too. Lsao I think politics are kept to a minimum, granted they are not completely missing, but they are much less a part of the daily interaction because in my position, I am not expected to stay on. I think it is in areas that a person is trying to build a position and organization in a career move where politics are much more apparent. With my new position, I am hoping to get into more Legitimate power from my position of formal authority and reward with compensation plans. When running an organization, I hope to give some sort of ownership back to my people. I think that getting their buy in is crucual, I also would want to set evaluation as a 360 that includes customer feedback so that service is respected and the consultantrs do not get a prima donna attitiude. I think we would have to be focused on the needs of our initial customers, but that over time, we could branch out to produce productized solutions.

Haha, I couldnt resist the movie title. Th interview a couple of weeks ago went well. I had just finished a big personal decision that I got ome assistance with earlier and so I didnt get so much of a strectch challenge as other people have received. I still think I need to work on my ocnfidence level and my poker face. The professor was recommending that I work on displaying my confidence better. or "Fake it until you Make it" and how to deal with other personality types since I usyually try to be so helpful. I have r3ead some confidence building sites, but they seemed for the acutely shy. I don't think I am that bad, I just want to go in feeling like an expert, keeping my ears focused and not getting off track when I spreak. When I know the tpoic inside and out, I am pretty good, but when I do not have a full grasp or interest, I tend not to do so well. I also want to try to prepare for alternatives as well as possible, or think on my toes a little better. But again, I think that comes from confidence, wether real or synthesized that would help in this area. THe personal moves I have made in the last few weeks should help there since I will have a much stronger support systems.

Balancing work and personal life has been pretty challenging lately. Depending on how how you throw school into the mix, it could be seen as additional work or personal time. I have been tryint to treat it as a separate entitity or as a third aspect of my life. I think it helps me both personally and career wise and is sort of the diametrically opposed aspect of a nicomacean ethic as I could have. I try to distribute my time across all three, I just dont think I can get a quality job across all three as I should. It seems like I need more hours in the day, or as I should probalby think about it, put it more into perspective of the Steven Covey principles, concetrate on the imp0rtantr, non-urgent stuff I think once my financial situation changes, I would like to get a housekeeper to get the house in a little better condition. I also want to start getting the house fixed up some. This term was pretty tough with both of us going to school 4 nights a week. Next term should be easier in that Sylvia nad I are only taking one class and I hope to alternate bewtween one and two classes a term. although I will probably be working my butt off at my current employer come next term, but we'll see. I should probably set monthly goals, weekly seem too small and annual goals just dont seem to be taken care of. But I should make sure I am maintaining some structure. Another thing I need to lookout for is changes to the routine, it seems like I can maintain some structure if it is regular, but through in something like a family emergency, change to weekend or work schedule, and I have a difficult time adjusting. I need to remember to find a solution for that. I am also trying to get a copy of Tony Robbins personal power II. A few friends have recommended it as one of his strongest series, so I am trying to snipe it on eBay and have something to follow up on over the christmas break.

Also I think its a little bizarre trying to find work life balance during this point in our lives. Since we are going to school, it is a time of sacrifics to our personal lives, we just need to try to minimize the impact. But I cant see with the schedule we had that we could truly take thanksgiving off or pursue general hobbies. I just try to give my daughter some time each day and show my wife that I lve her and try to keep things going.

This is the chapter I did my topic presentation on. This was an interesting topic as I also saw this area as a personal weakness area that I wanted to improve upon. THe inforamtion was also very timely in my life.I found the negotiation topic interesting because between the books information and outside research I did, I found many topics points relevant for a personal negotiation I was going through, I learned to stay calm and not get pulled into the emaotion of the subject. When I didnt flinch, it seemed like the other person folded. The conflict section was also helpful, to know the different states. I found that I either tried to avoid or compete. Now I try to collaborate as much as possible. Preparing for the presentation was also pretty interesting I tried to keep the topics interesting so peopleo wouldnt fall asleep. I also put together a class activity to try to keep the topic interesting. I went ahead and put together a negotiation game to see how people worked with negotiation. All went pretty well except I brought the wrong answer worksheet for the high and low scores. It was interesting hw people worked around the rules to. I put a hard constraint on negotiation for education reimbursement, but no other hard requirement. People worked all around that rule. One team negotiatited so they got a purse from the HR manager! funny stuff. I was people asked for copies of the presentation afterword, and peoples slide shows are getting a lot more animated. haha. Although I need to concetrate on a different subject next term, people said they are ogoing to miss my power point skills.

In all it was a good exercise.