New century provides fresh start for everyone

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New beginnings are priceless. How often is the eraser placed in our hands or the slate wiped clean? Think of the ecstasy of new snow, a new baby, a new year it is the chance to start again.|ret||ret||tab|

The clock has provided us with the century clean sweep. This is the "big one." The adjectives, analogies and aphorisms somehow do not fill up the gapping immensity of this moment. For all of us, except the smallest infant, this is the only time in our lives we will ever stand on the precipice of a new century.|ret||ret||tab|

So what will you and I do with this moment of grace? What will you write on the clean board of your life? How can you and I take advantage of the ultimate carte blanche (white sheet of paper) to renew our businesses and ourselves?|ret||ret||tab|

I have some suggestions.|ret||ret||tab|

First, buy a "whoopee cushion" and keep it in your desk. If you are not familiar with this device, it resembles a hot water bottle that makes a disgusting biological sound when sat upon. Pull this puppy out when people are taking themselves too seriously at work. The directions, I think, are self-explanatory.|ret||ret||tab|

You would think some of our organizations are boot camps for depression. Here's the depression cycle: the company grows; workloads increase; workers complain; stress levels become stratospheric; territorialism is rampant; trust is never seen again; and the company declines under the weltering attacks of new competitors (who are still having a good time on the job). Work is not a joke, but, you know what, you may need one.|ret||ret||tab|

Try this. When you are 85, teetering on a walker with tennis balls on the ends of the aluminum legs what was it all about? Was it worth a lifetime of regret, recriminations and resentment? Pull out the whoopee cushion and split a gut. That malady is preferable to stroke or myocardial infarction.|ret||ret||tab|

Second, make reading a book each month a requirement to keeping one's job. Has anyone noticed the poverty of thought out there? It is scary to think that the next century may be populated with inhabitants who have been intellectually suckled on reruns of "Head of the Class," "90210" and "So You Want To Be A Millionaire." |ret||ret||tab|

I am thoroughly convinced symptoms like "road rage" and "going postal" are responses to a culture out of new ideas. We have surrendered thinking to feeling; spirituality to religiosity; achievement to success; and ethics to the bottom line.|ret||ret||tab|

If it works, makes money and doesn't run into happy hour it must be smart. Organizational leadership must insist that people bring their brains to work and not just their glands. Nothing is as dangerous in this new century as a society, which has only one idea.|ret||ret||tab|

Third, eat more pizza. I'm not advocating death by clotting your arteries with hot, oozing rivers of mozzarella cheese. I am suggesting both management and labor just having lunch with each other when no business is discussed should mark the new century. What better menu than pizza to provide the visual reminder that systems do not produce quality; people do.|ret||ret||tab|

As the grease is running down your forearm and a piece of pepperoni is creating a suspension bridge between your lips and that slice, we lose our need to impress. |ret||ret||tab|

When was the last time you invited your boss to lunch with no intent to win points or kiss up? Bosses, when was the last time you invited employees to an impromptu lunch without a written agenda beside your plate?|ret||ret||tab|

Whether it is pizza, pitas, pasta or portabella mushrooms, have lunch in the new century with people, not employees.|ret||ret||tab|

Finally, forgive. Can you imagine what your workplace would be like in a few days if the millennium erased the organizational payback system? |ret||ret||tab|

What if you could look at a coworker and not be able to recall the insulting remarks at a staff meeting, hear the hushed whispers which ended when you walked up to coffee break or see the obscene gesture directed to you?|ret||ret||tab|

Forgiveness, if I understand the process, is my willingness to give up my right to vengeance. I just let go of the need to make you pay to equalize what you did to me.|ret||ret||tab|

Think about the implications! Conversations would be truthful and without verbal positioning. Conflict would be accepted, open and resolved quickly. And profits the numbers would exceed your wildest expectations because the staff would actually have time to get the job done instead of the hours strategizing full, frontal assaults on each other.|ret||ret||tab|

You and I will never again in our lifetime stand at this point in history. The calendar has given us a chance to erase the board. New beginnings are priceless. Happy New Life!|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|(Dr. Cal LeMon solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. His company, The Executive Edge, can be contacted via the Business Journal at sbj@sbj.net.)|ret||ret||tab|

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