On Readership, Relationships and Educational Paradigm shifts

wrapping words and finding phrases
somewhere inside my room

I never thought I'd reach the 1,001 reader mark in just about 3 months.  I was telling myself that I should not even look at this counter because it is not a measure of progress but of course, I can't help it.  Anything that measure any kind of progress should be affirming right?  

I'm not sure about those who flip through my pages but I hope those who drop by here find a little bit of breathing space in one way or another.  

So thank you dear readers, for visiting me and making this journey worthwhile.  I find it encouraging that anybody out there would even want to read these words.  It tells me that all is not lost.  That there is a purpose.  That life moves on.  That heaven watches and grace is enough.

I'm sitting at my desk and just finished a report for a 3 hour meeting tomorrow.  I want to be able to write about some of my discoveries at work as of late.  Perhaps, I'll run by them a little bit right now.  I like repeating these moments to myself because it makes me grasp them completely and in the end be thankful.

celebrating work and relationships
team dinner christmas 2010

Relationships, human emotions and heart-felt tears

This week I was caught up in a series of relationship issues at work.  I found myself wearing my counselor's hat because apparently there were a lot of people in my team who felt a little bit vulnerable in this area of their life.  Recovering from heartache.  Struggling with a new love.  Wanting to end a relationship.  Wanting to start a new one.  This world of relationships weave around that daily activity we call workload and it can affect our feelings about our own productivity.  

This is the human side of work that seldom gets attended to because of all the rush and hurried deliverables.  I have made countless efforts in trying to communicate the importance of these sensitive interactions and how the organization needs to be more attentive to the concerns of people.  But it will currently fall into those topics of tension that will only be discussed when all "operational concerns" have been attended to.

It is sad and I am almost feeling a little bit helpless here but I find myself always inspired when I see people who keep trying to stand up even in the midst of their difficulties.  So I applaud the people in my team who I know are carrying burdens well beyond their own weight.  I walk with them and hopefully together, we will find breakthroughs in the journey.

one of the breakthroughs of human thought by a creativity advocate
i got this for christmas from a kindred spirit

On changing educational paradigms and paying attention to how people learn

One of the things that I felt really good about yesterday was having a talk with the President on how I wanted to challenge the current way we are implementing training programs.  It needs to be done, I stressed.  When you have a majority of a human capital profile that have not achieved completion of academic education and yet they served you with utmost loyalty for the entire length of their tenure, there's got to be some wealth in their experience.  

Being the youngest senior executive in the company puts a challenge on my idealogies.  I commonly face criticisms pointing out people who have not finished academic schooling.  Hearing those out has sort of given me some creative push to show them that even without academic schooling, human nature when guided properly, will find a way to overcome.  Ken Robinson's book talks about it in great length and that's why I love it because it does not confine intelligence only to academic achievement.  This is one great big opportunity that I am looking forward to discovering.  

This means a lot more research.  This means a lot more discussions and dialogues with people who are gifted but are not inclined to learn through formal means.  This means patiently drafting plans that will work given our current situations.  This means reading a lot faster so that available resources can be maximized.

I find it exciting and scary at the same time and in the middle of it all I gaze up at the sky and look to the heaven's where wisdom for these kinds of things can be found.  God knows, I can't do this alone.  

St. Angela Merici, pray for us
saint for the day, i should get to know them a bit more