Even though I despise waking up before the clock hits 7am (ok, lets be honest... I actually struggle with anything before 10am) once a month I coordinate the Center for Community Leadership's Wake up Wednesday leadership forum from 7:30-9:00am and I actually don't hate it. There are really two times a month I don't mind waking up early - 1) Wake up Wednesdays and 2) Marketing Committee Meetings. Can you tell I'm a young professional since I actually enjoy committee meetings? Am I drinking the kool-aid? Did I just say 'drinking the kool-aid'??? Don't even get me started on the top 10 phrases I hear constantly that I had never spoken before I started working in downtown Grand Rapids and now they flow out of my mouth like the sweet lyrics of a Jay-Z song while I'm cruising on 196. They sound so badass in my head, but when I actually take a moment to evaluate what I've just said, it's a cruel reality that these words don't belong in my mouth. Um, where was I? (Sorry, my brain is just starting to get used to these things called '12-hour work days'.)
Time for a new paragraph. I just re-read what I wrote up there (^) and it is no wonder I have been advised to work on my professional writing skills. No filters. No order. No point.
Time for another new paragraph. (FOCUS LIZZIE, FOCUS.) So this morning at our Wake up Wednesday Roxanne Buhl from Davenport University's Institute for Professional Excellence spoke about managing change within your organization. One interesting thing that caught my attention, but wasn't all together supposed to be that important, was when she mentioned that employees only spend 60% of their work day performing tasks that are assigned to them. Meaning, obviously that depending on that employee and their motivation levels there is a) opportunity to go above and beyond or b) a lot of free time to cruise around on facebook (easily interchangable with: amazon.com, twitter.com, youtube.com, gmail.com, espn.com, etc. depending on your personal poison.) Kevin, if you're reading this, don't worry, I spend at least 99% of my time working on CCL. Except for when I'm at Schools of Hope, or Lunch, or stretching, or when I accidentally get lost in Twitterland, but on average...99%.
All in all, I thought that was an interesting factoid. I will have to keep that in mind when I have a bunch of little minions under me. Make sure they are happy so I get at least 90% of their time. I will probably have to limit my use the word minions in order to make that happen. Ah, it's a give-and-take world baby.