This was a very exhausting week. My points do not reflect how I actually feel about what has occurred. I earned 47 points out of 50. By the numbers, a great week. NOt so in my mind. I did what I needed to do to get the points. It’s Sunday at 1030pm and I been unable to write the assessment or come up with my Sprint Goal. I am allowing some bad habits to form again and prevent me from moving on. Brief story, I could really use some feedback and major advice. Please forward such advice to my personal email kumarq@comcast.net. I must stress the importance this be sent to this email versus my corporate address. 3 weeks ago one of my top teams at ML sent over 3 proposals totaling $95mil in new business for the year. This would make my year and is a relationship we have worked on for a ling time. We went into over drive to get the portfolio managers in place, documents in order, and presentations ready to go. I went on vacation with an understanding we are all set. When I returned on Sunday, big meeting on Tuesday, I was informed our Taft Hartley team would be handling this case. Now they are handling all 3. After repeated calls to my manager for answers, I was told to drop it. These cases would help us end the year in the top 10, lead to hundreds of shares of company stock (price is at $91), and account for a quarter of my year to date income. I was told to drop it!!! This has truly taken me off my game and I have lost several nights of sleep. I apologize to my partner Brandon for being absent the last few days (mentally). I understand there are a lot of politics involved. We are trained to work with “Mega Advisors” and have spent hundreds of hours training to become better. I am exhausted, pissed, confused, skin rash, irritated, did I mention pissed, it feels like High School all over again.
Kumar
October 7th, 2007
Kumar Jagdeo
The points came easily this week as I achieved 58 out of 58, and I made significant strides in my environment organization as I worked through some piles that had developed, and am now left with a very short stack to process. What a powerful feeling I get from being organized.
The return to my former role has been sobering as my team missed their quarterly revenue number significantly. The process of bringing my focus back to the Americas organization has been eye opening, and I realize that it is an opportunity to re-dedicate myself to my purpose, and what I want for this team. When our Game assignment was to identify the one thing that is holding us back from living more on Purpose, mine was Consideration, and as I pulled together the autopsy on the recent quarterly miss, what stood out to me is how the basics I having been teaching the team for 18 months were the reason for our miss—time for a personal gut check. It confirmed two things:
- I have to care enough about the team to push them to achieve their potential, regardless of their image of me, which means trusting my gut, and being honest with people who are not productive regardless of the consequences.
- I need to get through to people in a more powerful way. My reality is I own coaching my leadership team, and they own the field team getting better. My job is not to do theirs, but I need to put my focus back on helping them close their own gaps to make the potential real, and then holding them more specifically accountable for their actions and results.
This week was also the beginning of my “sprint” to the finish, and my commitment to my Game team was that I would transform myself as a husband and father. As a part of that process, I connected with some other game partners to find out about unique things they do in these areas that they are proud of, and I started creating a list. The ideas shared were humbling, and I started to think about how to incorporate these new actions into my life. And then, I received an email from Luciano with his thoughts on falling still on what my family needs as well as telling them they are number one.
As I began to fall still and to carry this idea forward, I realize that the last thing my family needs is a longer list of tasks for me to be carrying out every day. Intellectually, I know that what my family needs most is for me to be present. This week because I spent significant time contemplating presence applied to my family, and came closer to understanding it. I see more clearly that simple concepts I have been learning to apply throughout the Game could also be game changers with family (shared journaling, reciprocity, falling still, attention). I just need to remain conscious of the moment-to-moment opportunities, and make good choices when they present themselves.
It’s going to be another great “sprint” this week, and I love how every week is fresh with insight.
October 7th, 2007
Z Man