Archive for the ‘Archive’ Category

I went to Madame Tussauds in Washington which displayed all of the Presidents. Here are some …

I went to another car show with an amazing selection. Here are some …

This was my ride to the carshow  –  a1933 Packard

Another Packard – this time a 1932.

1926 Rolls Royce

1931 Cadillac

1924 Sayers and Scovill

And a modern one to finish – a 2011 Ferrari Italia 458

I was very fortunate to get a tour inside this address. Unfortunately, photos inside were not allowed.

The Jefferson Memorial

President Kennedy’s grave at Arlington Cemetery

Feel like some of these myself at times . . .

Some photos from the Air and Space Museum.

The Blackbird Stealth Bomber

The Space Shuttle Enterprise.

I’m in Florida at the moment for a conference. This is the view from my hotel room, and I had anticipated going for a swim in the afternoon. Unfortunately, about an hour after this there was a tornado warning with an amazing thunder and lightening storm. That’ll teach me for being smug about an afternoon swim.

We were very fortunate to have our Grandmaster from Australia visit. It always amazes me to watch someone gifted in taking people from where they are to a skill level beyond what they think they could achieve in only a few hours – pure leadership.

 

Here are some pics from Havana. Cuba is certainly a surreal place!

Old cars!

A Havana Square.

The Capital Building.

The Capital Building at night not lit up as there is not sufficient electricity to light it up!

The stupidity at times, amazes even me.

I stay in a particular hotel in Auckland (which I won’t name as a client books it for me) about one week a month, so approximately 50-60 days a year. Now, that is a pretty good occupancy for them.

I leave my toothbrush charger in the bathroom. Imagine if the next day I received it in the post from the hotel with a note. Imagine how pleased I would have been, and how much I would have appreciated their service and thoughtfulness. Simple stuff, but of course, that is not what happened.

Four days later my toothbrush needs charging and, upon looking for the charger, I realise that I left it in the hotel. I email them and, here is the good part, they respond within 24 hours saying, that indeed, they have it. Now, my immediate reaction is, why on earth did no one contact me given that they had my contact details and must have known it was mine? Why was it up to me to email them and, if I hadn’t realised that is where I left it, would have spent about $200 buying another one? Absolutely bewildering. It gets worse – they are charging me to post it back! Fifty to sixty nights a year and they are going to charge me $10 (I hope no more) to post it back. It gets even worse. They won’t post it unless I send authorisation to debit my credit card (clearly high bureaucracy and zero trust for a regular guest). So, now I have to fill in a form, scan it and email it back, a whole 10 minutes of activity to rub salt into the wound.

Here is a hotel with posters about their service and values plastered all over the lifts, not telling me I have left something behind and waiting for me to phone them (presumably throwing it out if I don’t), charging me $10 to post it back, and making me fill in a form. Would you recommend this hotel to anyone? I certainly won’t be. Textbook dumb arse management!

Back in May, Andy Haden made some egregious comments. Earlier this week, he made more egregious comments. This time he went, and voluntarily at that. This was 2 months too late. Where was the leadership to swiftly act on this? Serious values digressions are rarely one-offs and are usually indicative of a pattern of responding (we only heard two public comments – goodness knows what was said elsewhere). If you don’t deal with values digressions swiftly, they’ll end up being just propaganda on the office walls – and we all know places where this occurs. Values are not just about winning the game, they are about how you win the game. How are you winning yours?