Please Don't Remove Christ from Christmas

As we approach Christmas 2013, I can’t help but be concerned about a trend I see unfolding right before my eyes. There seems to be a war on Christianity including an attempt to remove Christ from Christmas. I’m not certain when it started, but it sure seems to be escalating of late.
 

Last week I received an email solicitation which, quite frankly, bothered me but also helps to illustrate my point.
 

 

The email (pictured above) came from Chet Holmes who attempted to sell me his consulting and training services. Instead, he upset me because his promotional material invited me to take advantage of a special offer as he wished me a “Merry Chetmas”.

 

I thought you might be interested in seeing my response to Chet.
 

Dear Chet,

Please remove me from your mailing list.

I would never consider purchasing anything from someone so arrogant and self-absorbed to remove Christ from the word Christmas in their promotional material and replace it with their own name.

I pray that this message reaches you and more importantly that the true meaning of Christmas would reach your heart one day and that as a result, you would experience a special and joyous holiday season.

Fred
 

Please join me in the fight to keep Christ in Christmas. I hope you and yours experience a joy filled holiday season.
 

Merry Christmas!

Fred Cerrone

Effective Leaders Think on their Feet

 

An important element of leadership is learning to “think on your feet“.  Let me share a football analogy.  As we enter into the Bowl season of college football and continue with a full schedule of pro games, each game takes on added importance.  How does a winning team’s quarterback meet the challenge?

He needs to be able to read the defense of the opposing team and change the play at the line of scrimmage within a few short seconds.  No matter how good the coach’s strategy and game plan, or how well the team executed the plays in practice, on the field and in the heat of the battle it’s a totally different ball game.
 
The same applies to leaders at every level of an organization.  We need to read the needs of our team before we can lead effectively.  Just as a quarterback has to throw the ball away on occasion in order to keep from being “sacked”, we, as leaders, must realize that we don’t need to have all the answers.  We, too, can “throw the ball away” by responding honestly to an associate and saying, “That’s a really good question.  I don’t know the answer, but I’ll check and get back to you.”  

Of course, the key here is making certain that we do, in fact, get back to that person lest we lose credibility. 

The bottom line is this: as leaders we don’t need to have all the answers, but we always do need to take time to listen to our associates, care about them and think on our feet.

Hospitably,
Fred Cerrone

Inspect What You Expect

Recently, a Boeing 747 landed at the wrong airport by mistake. A massive plane flown by two pilots communicated successfully with air traffic controllers, was cleared for landing at the correct airport, and landed at the wrong airport - 8 miles away from the correct airport!

The plane landed on a runway less than half the length of what’s usually required for a plane of this size, and had zero communication with the airport they landed at. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.

 

I’m actually surprised this doesn’t happen more. I’m not an aerodynamics expert, but I have flown over 2 million miles on Delta!  I bet that given the speed of a 747 and the distances traveled by modern aircraft, that going eight miles off course is likely a very tiny mistake. I’d be willing to guess it’s less than a 1% deviation.

The lesson here is we always need to keep our eyes on the small stuff, because before you know it you might find yourself off course and miles away from where you were planning on going. As leaders we must inspect what we expect.

As a CEO, business owner, or executive, you know the importance of setting up systems and processes to ensure that your staff is doing things the right way - all the time. Something as simple as a checklist can make a huge difference! But as all business owners also know, it's not enough to tell your people what you want them to do - you need to make sure they're doing it consistently. Otherwise, you may end up landing off course.