Announcing "Fierce Partners"

The moment has arrived. I sit, I think, I write. Composing my first official blog post could feel like a solitary act acted out in my basement office. But I'm not alone in this. People too numerous to mention - teachers, friends, work colleagues, coaches, clients, people across the world like Felix the Honolulu tour bus driver, etc etc have all played some part in this creation. This post, and this blog in general, is all about the fierce partnership that characterizes much of the best of what we are up to; that goes hand in hand with who we are, working together.



Working together has fascinated me from my very first job in high school working in my father's private label paper plate factory. They say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes one to make a paper plate! We had Carl, the plant superintendent; Lidia and a good dozen other Spanish-speaking machine operators; Heinz the mechanic; Ramon the warehouse foreman; Luis and Juan the fork-shift drivers; Mickey, among others, in the warehouse; and various and sundry other characterss, all participating to make those plates for the ShopRites, Pathmarks, and Star Markets, of the world. This was sweaty, gritty, mind-numbing work. The fruits of our labors came together to produce something tangible. Working there, you learned what it took to thread 2000 lb. spools of kraft paper through lines of paper presses so they could stamp out stacks of white and pastel-colored plates which got packaged, boxed up and shipped out in trailers or rail cars for placement on a supermarket shelf near you.



I am not glorifying what we did back there in the day, especially when you consider the vast number of trees that were cut down or the mega-tons of toxins the paper mills spewed into the air and rivers to make the paper we used, and how those plates were part of a throw-away lifestyle that clogged our landfills.



Thankfully, we know better now and are much more mindful of our impact on the environment. Thankfully, too, it's highly unlikely that we go to work in an environment which values us for our hands and little else. On the other hand, we may wish that we, too, in concert with others, produced something tangible, that we could see and touch at the end of our day, and feel pride in.



What we do and how we do what we do consumes much of our lives. To what end do you devote this huge chunk of your self? What's the experience like for you working with others? How is that turning out, as in, how satisfying is it? What, that's crucial to what you care about, depends on how well you and others work together? It's to these questions, among others, that I dedicate this blog.



Help me get this rolling. I welcome you to share what you have to say to the above questions, or anything else that got stirred up here so far.








Thank you for being here and welcome aboard!