Category: Leadership Qualities

Happy National Ice Cream Day!

National Ice Cream Day 2019! (L to R): Cat, Cody, Brady, Katy, & Evan

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day.

In his proclamation, President Reagan called for all people of the United States to observe these events with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

So, I took Katy along with her boyfriend Evan and Cody along with his girlfriend Cat to celebrate at Baskin-Robbins (pictured above) while Jennifer and Tanner spent an extra day tubing on the Frio River in Concan, Texas with family friends.

Speaking of ice cream, I recently read The Ice Cream Maker: An Inspiring Tale About Making Quality The Key Ingredient in Everything You Do by Subir Chowdhury.  The author is a respected quality strategist and Chairman and CEO of the world leader on Six Sigma and Quality Leadership implementation, consulting, and training. Hailed by the New York Times as a “leading quality expert,” Chowdhury is the author of twelve books, including the international bestseller The Power of Six Sigma, which has been translated into more than twenty languages and has sold more than a million copies worldwide.

Click here for my summary of The Ice Cream Maker

Happy Simplicity Day

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. - Henry David Thoreau

Simplicity Day is celebrated every year on July 12. This unofficial holiday commemorates the life, times and work of American philosopher and proponent of simple living, Henry David Thoreau.

In honor of the day, I’m reminded of Jason Fried’s latest book It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work.  For many, “It’s crazy at work” has become their normal. But why so crazy? There are two primary reasons: (1) The workday is being sliced into tiny, fleeting work moments by an onslaught of physical and virtual distractions. And (2) an unhealthy obsession with growth at any cost sets towering, unrealistic expectations that stress people out.

People are working more but getting less done. It doesn’t add up—until you account for the majority of time being wasted on things that don’t matter.  The answer isn’t more hours, it’s less waste. And far fewer distractions, less always-on anxiety, and avoiding stress.

Stress is passed from organization to employee, from employee to employee, and then from employee to customer. Stress never stops at the border of work, either. It bleeds into life. It infects your relationships with your friends, your family, your kids.

Click here for my summary of Fried’s It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work