Life at Ford?

OK - so the posts from my phone can be a little confusing. Things are great and crazy. Basketball tryouts started again this week - we have a great group of freshman that actually know the game and can play so it'll be fun.

I still don't know when I'll be rotating but it looks like it could be as long as January/February. In the meantime we're doing some good stuff here and really trying to get the salaried team all on the same page with where we'll be going after negotiations. The challenge is getting the senior leadership to really buy-in to the changes in their own behavior that will drive a change in their relationship with the floor management and therefore change the supervisors' perception of their role and expectations. We drive ourselves into a pit sometimes and then wonder how we got there.

I also got to go out to Provo to recruit - it's still strange to go back but I will always be grateful for all the people I know out there. I had some great conversations with Kate Kirkham, Tenneson Woolf and others about where I want to go with a PhD as well as how to consolidate some of the non-profit stuff I want to do with an organization called Berkana. They facilitate and sponsor leadership networks and seminars across the world. The audiences range from farmers to CEOs and they do a lot with the leadership of women in the community. Their community model is organic, meaning they let it evolve on its own in a lot of ways, driven by the needs and interests of the leaders within the communities rather than pushing a structure that meets their own agenda. It originated with a former BYU OB professor whose expertise is really in chaos theories and other natural system theories of organization and change which she applies to small groups, communities and society. There's a lot I like in her work and a lot of it is relevant to families and how we drive growth at different stages of our family.

Anyway, if you're interested you can check out Berkana at http://www.berkana.org/ . It has a list of some Meg Wheatley articles too, which are interesting to relate nature and science to the family and organizations of people (It has a lot of things I had always thought about with quantum physics in relation to people and relationships).

I could go on, but I'll let you check out more if you're interested. Anyway, recruiting at BYU was fun and the HR recruiting packet included a blurb about me and my amazing perspective! Just kidding, but it was a surprise when I opened the informational packet they sent out to the recruiters and saw a picture of me (see picture below). Don't you love the safety vest and glasses?!