Why I Oughta...

That's the view from my office this week as the NFL has arrived and Chicago has rolled out the red carpet for them in the form of the second year of Draft Town.   Here's my post showing the setup from last year in 2015 .   They seem to have shifted the bulk of the activities towards the lake with the biggest tent area right along Lake Shore Drive and a few other tents and what look like broadcast booths scattered around Buckingham Fountain.  They also (if you look closely!) added a Ferris Wheel.  Which is weird, right?   Last year, all the action was confined east of Columbus with the biggest tent right on Michigan Avenue.  That's where the team representatives sat and talked on the phones.  They then 'walked' the picks across the street to the Auditorium Theatre .  Not sure if that's part of the schtick this year?   I think it is great to have this event here in town.  I'm sure that we - the taxpayers - are footing the bill, but I think that

As part of my work with a new client, I - as well as my entire team - took a survey to help everyone understand each others themes of talent.  As you can see above, my #1 strength is positivity.   Yes....seriously...positivity.    Thought that was really interesting and something that Nat will tell you she doesn't agree with most of the time. This was a useful exercise and something I'm going to have to share with the team this week as I meet more and more people.  Placing it here so I can reference it and find it if I forget the order/importance when people ask me about it during my interactions with the client team over the coming weeks and months. Along with the delivery of my themes, I also received little snippets on each one.  There are tons of themes and while I only inspected the five that were selected for me, I think they reflect accurately how I fit into an organization and how I can best leverage my talents in building a team and delivering strong outcomes.

Man-o-man.  The train was packed this morning and the office was full of people when I arrived at 815 am today.  Either people had cabin fever and wanted to get back to their regular schedule or people are like me and fired up to get started.  Let's sell some HR software, amirite?!?! Here's the view from my office back in late November on the first snow .  Looks pretty similar. Aside from the lack of glisten in the eye of all the little people buzzing around getting ready for Christmas.  Now, the people in the photo above are just mindlessly milling around trying to get to their first cup of coffee to get the year started right.

Spotted this in the hallway of the Edelman Chicago Office.  I've worked at a few very special places in my career and one of the things that tie those places together is that in each case, the powers--that-be have done far  *more* than simply paid lip service to cultivating a strong, unique culture.  They lived it. While the business results and the 'setting' (like what the office looks like) are important, the concept of a culture is far more important in recruiting and retaining the brightest minds in the world.  I'm excited everyday about the people and the challenges my team is tackling.  Onward.

At the office, I bought a few boxes of Girl Scout Cookies from one of my coworkers and instead of bringing them home for me to devour by the sleeve, I did what I thought was the honorable thing and put them in the common area for my team to enjoy. But...I'm not an idiot.  I absconded with one of my boxes and brought it home.  Samoas are not my favorite (more into the frozen Thin Mint, fyi), but they're a favorite of somebody special in my house.  You know what they say:  Happy....