Sunday, September 25, 2005

Stewardship and Team

Great meetings in Calgary. Met with many suppliers and customers. Dinner Friday night with customers. Breakfast Saturday after a short run in Avenue Diner which was excellent. It is owned by the wife of one of our customers.

Then, long flight home and short visit with friends last night.

Today I have spent in the office so far just catching up. I do plan to work out though and go home around 4 or 5. We have a company golf tournament today that I was going to stop in for the dinner but I think I best take tonight off to prepare for the week.

On the flight back from Calgary, I read Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs. It was recommended to me by one of my environmentalist brother, Glen, as a follow on to Collapse that I commented on Sept 10th. Dark Ages is a fast, simple and thought provoking read. Sometimes a bit political. This is not my usual business reading, it is more social and environmental commentary. I study environmental issues so it was interesting to me.

I also read ">Stewardship by Peter Block. This is an excellent business book. The thesis of the book is empower people to make decisions. It also speaks about serving as a method of leadership. It talks about team interests as opposed to self interest (the belief being that a strong team is the best for self interest) I agree with much of the thesis of the book although it is somewhat counter culture to our current culture at SYNNEX (and perhaps more close to the EMJ culture). A large part of my role at SYNNEX is to help mould culture. Good culture can make a company succeed or fail. We are not quite where we want to be yet but are moving in the right direction. I know there are frustrations with where we are but I think if people really look at where we are relative to where we came from, they will appreciate that we are moving to where we need to go.

Based on the relatively aggressive recent schedule, I thought I would share my time tip for the day:

“Set a pace you can maintain forever, but sense of urgency pays.”

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